The House of Arden, E. Nesbit [best historical fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

which they could see a second hand move⁠—a white second hand formed of daisies wheeling with a precision that would have made the haughtiest general in the land shed tears of pure admiration.

With one accord the two children blundered down the dark, dusty, cobwebby, twisty stairs of the gate tower and rushed across the lawn. In the very centre of the clock-face sat the Mouldiwarp, looking conscious and a little conceited.

“How did you do it?” Elfrida gasped.

“The daisies did it. Poor little things! They can’t invent at all. But they do carry out other people’s ideas quite nicely. All the white things have to obey me, of course,” it added carelessly.

“And this is The Clock?”

The Mouldiwarp giggled. “My child, what presumption! The clock is much too big for you to see ever⁠—all at once. The sun’s the centre of it. This is just a pretending clock. It’ll do for what we want, of course, or I wouldn’t have had it made for you. Sit down on the second hand⁠—oh no, it won’t hurt the daisies. Count a hundred⁠—yes, that’s right.”

They sat down on the close, white line of daisies and began to count earnestly.

“And now,” the Mouldiwarp said, when the hundred was counted, “it’s just the same time as it was when you began! So now you understand.”

They said they did, and I am sure I hope you do.

“But if we sit here,” said Elfrida, “how can we ever be anywhere else?”

“You can’t,” said the Mouldiwarp. “So one of you will have to stay and the other to go.”

“You go, Elfie,” said Edred. “I’ll stay till you come back.”

“That’s very dear of you,” said Elfrida, “but I’d rather we went together. Can’t you manage it?” she asked the mole.

“I could, of course,” it said; “but⁠ ⁠… he’s afraid to go without you,” it said suddenly.

“He isn’t, and he’s two years younger than me, anyway,” Elfrida said hotly.

“Well, go without him,” said the mole. “You understand perfectly, don’t you, that when he has stopped the clock your going is the same as your not going, and your being here is the same as not being, and⁠—What I mean,” it added, hastily returning to Sussex talk, “you needn’t be so turble put out. He won’t know you’ve gone nor yet ’e won’t believe you’ve come back. Be off with ’e, my gell.”

Elfrida hesitated. Then, “Oh, Edred,” she said, “I have had such a time! Did it seem very long? I know it was horrid of me, but it was so interesting I couldn’t come back before.”

“Nonsense,” said Edred. “Well, go if you like; I don’t mind.”

“I’ve been, I tell you,” said Elfrida, dragging him off the second hand of the daisy clock, whose soldiers instantly resumed their wheeling march.

“So now you see,” said the mole. “Tell you what⁠—next time you wanter stop de clock we’ll just wheel de barrer on to it. Now you go along and play. You’ve had enough Arden magic for this ’ere Fursday, so you ’ave, bless yer hearts an’ all.”

And they went.

That was how Edred perceived the adventure of “The Highwayman and the ⸻.” But I will not anticipate. The way the adventure seemed to Elfrida was rather different.

After the mole said “my gell” she hesitated, and then went slowly towards the castle where the red roof of the house showed between the old, ivy-grown grey buttresses. She looked back, to see Edred and the Mouldiwarp close together on the face of the wonderful green and white clock. They were very still. She made her mind up⁠—ran indoors and up the stairs and straight to The Door⁠—she found it at once⁠—shut the door, and opened the second chest to the right.

“You change your clothes and the times change too⁠—
Change, that is what you’ve got to do;
Cooroo, cooroo, cooroo, cooroo,”

said the pigeons or the silence or Elfrida.

“I wonder,” she said, slipping on a quilted green satin petticoat with pink rosebuds embroidered on it, “whether Shakespeare began being a poet like that⁠—just little odd lines coming into his head without him meaning them to.” And her mind as she put on a pink-and-white brocaded dress, was busy with such words as “Our great poet, Miss Elfrida Arden,” or “Miss Arden, the female Milton of nowadays.”

She tied a white, soft little cap with pink ribbons under her chin and ran to open the door. She was not a bit afraid. It was like going into a dream. Nothing would be real there. Yet as she ran through the attic door and the lace of her sleeve caught on a big rusty nail and tore with a harsh hissing noise, she felt very sorry. In a thing that was only a dream that lace felt very real, and was very beautiful.

But she had only half the first half of a thought to give to the lace⁠—for the door opened, not on the quiet corridor with the old prints at Arden Castle, but on a quite strange panelled room, full of a most extraordinary disorder of stuffs⁠—feathers, dresses, cloaks, bonnet-boxes, parcels, rolls, packets, lace, scarves, hats, gloves, and finery of all sorts. There were a good many people there: serving-maids⁠—she knew they were serving-maids⁠—a gentleman in knee-breeches showing some fine china on a lacquered tray, and in the middle a very pretty, languishing-looking young lady with whom Elfrida at once fell deeply in love. All the women wore enormous crinolines⁠—or hoops.

“What! Hid in the closet all the while, cousin?” said the young lady. “Oh, but it’s the slyest chit! Come, see how the new scarf becomes thy Bet. Is it not vastly modish?”

“Yes,” said Elfrida, not knowing in the least what to say.

Everything gave a sort of tremble and twist, like the glass, bits in a kaleidoscope give just before they settle into a pattern. Then, as with the bits of glass, everything was settled, and Elfrida, instead of feeling that she was looking at a picture, felt that she was alive, with live people.

Some extraordinary accident had fixed in Elfrida’s