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

was pleasant to stretch one’s legs, and not to be cramped and buffeted and shaken. But she walked down the grass-path rather demurely, for she was very stiff indeed.

And it was there, in a yew arbour, that she came suddenly on the grandest and handsomest gentleman that she had ever seen. He wore a white wig, very full at the sides and covered with powder, and a full-skirted coat of dark-blue silk, and under it a long waistcoat with the loveliest roses and forget-me-nots tied in bunches with gold ribbons, embroidered on silk. He had lace ruffles and a jewelled brooch, and the jolliest blue eyes in the world. He looked at Elfrida very kindly with his jolly eyes.

“A lady of quality, I’ll be bound,” he said, “and travelling with her suite.”

“I’m Miss Arden of Arden,” said Elfrida.

“Your servant, madam,” said he, springing to his feet and waving his hat in a very flourishing sort of bow.

Elfrida’s little curtsey was not at all the right kind of curtsey, but it had to do.

“And what can I do to please Miss Arden of Arden?” he asked. “Would she like a ride on my black mare?”

“Oh, no, thank you,” said Elfrida, so earnestly that he laughed as he said⁠—

“Sure I should not have thought fear lived with those eyes.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Elfrida contemptuously; “only I’ve been riding in a horrible carriage all day, and I feel as though I never wanted to ride on anything any more.”

He laughed again.

“Well, well,” he said, “come and sit by me and tell me all the town news.”

Elfrida smiled to think what news she could tell him, and then frowned in the effort to think of any news that wouldn’t seem nonsense.

She told him all that she knew of Cousin Bet and the journey. He was quite politely interested. She told of Cousin Bet’s purchases⁠—the collar of pearls and the gold pomander studded with corals, the little gold watch, and the family jewels that had been reset.

“And you have all tonight to rest in from that cruel coach?” he said.

“Yes,” said Elfrida, “we don’t go on again till after breakfast tomorrow. It’s very dull⁠—and oh, so slow! Don’t you think you’d like to have a carriage drawn by a fiery iron horse that went sixty miles an hour?”

“You have an ingenious wit,” said the beautiful gentleman, “such as I should admire in my wife. Will you marry me when you shall be grown a great girl?”

“No,” said Elfrida; “you’d be too old⁠—even if you were to be able to stop alive till I was grown up, you’d be much too old.”

“How old do you suppose I shall be when you’re seventeen?”

“I should have to do sums,” said Elfrida, who was rather good at these exercises. She broke a twig from a currant bush and scratched in the dust.

“I don’t know,” she said, raising a flushed face, and trampling out her “sum” with little shoes that had red heels, “but I think you’ll be two hundred and thirty.”

On that he laughed more than ever and vowed she was the lady for him. “Your ciphering would double my income ten times over,” he said.

He was very kind indeed⁠—would have her taste his wine, which she didn’t like, and the little cakes on the red and blue plate, which she did.

“And what’s your name?” she asked.

“My name,” said he, “is a secret. Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes,” said Elfrida.

“So can I,” said he.

And then a flouncing, angry maid came suddenly sweeping down between the box hedges and dragged Elfrida away before she could curtsey properly and say, “Thank you for being so kind.”

“Farewell,” said the beautiful gentleman, “doubt not but we shall meet again. And next time ’tis I shall carry thee off and shut thee in a tower for two hundred years till thou art seventeen and hast learned to cipher.”

Elfrida was slapped by the maid, which nearly choked her with fury, and set down to supper in the big upstairs room. The maid indignantly told where she had found Elfrida “talking with a strange gentleman,” and when Cousin Betty had heard all about it Elfrida told her tale.

“And he was a great dear,” she said.

“A ⸻?”

“A very beautiful gentleman. I wish you’d been there, Cousin Betty. You’d have liked him too.”

Then Cousin Bet also slapped her. And Elfrida wished more than ever that she had some poetry ready for the Mouldiwarp.

The next day’s journey was as bumpety as the first, and Elfrida got very tired of the whole business. “Oh, I wish something would happen!” she said.

It was a very much longer day too, and the dusk had fallen while still they were on the road. The sun had set red behind black trees, and brown twilight was thickening all about, when at a crossroads, a man in a cloak and mask on a big black horse suddenly leaped from a hedge, stooped from his saddle, opened the carriage door, caught Elfrida with one hand by the gathers of her full travelling coat (he must have been frightfully strong, and so must the gathers), set her very neatly and quite comfortably on the saddle before him, and said⁠—

“Hand up your valuables, please⁠—or I shoot the horses. And keep your barkers low, for if you aim at me you shoot the child. And if you shoot my horse, the child and I fall together.”

But even as he spoke through his black mask, he wheeled the horse so that his body was a shield between her and the pistols of the serving-men.

“What do you want?” Cousin Bet’s voice was quite squeaky. “We have no valuables; we are plain country people, travelling home to our farm.”

“I want the collar of pearls,” said he, “and the pomander, and the little gold watch, and the jewels that have been reset.”

Then Elfrida knew who he was.

“Oh,” she cried, “you are mean!”

“Trade’s trade,” said he, but he held her quite gently and kindly. “Now, my fair madam⁠—”

The men were hesitating, fingering their pistols.