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

and thrust a plate before her, put a chunk of meat-pie on her plate and another on her own.

“Get your mouth full,” she whispered, filling her own as she spoke⁠—“so full you can’t speak⁠—it’ll give you time to think.”

And then the door opened, and in a moment the room was full of gentlemen in riding dress, with very stern faces. And they all had swords.

Betty, with her mouth quite full, was trying not to look towards the panel.

Elfrida, whose mouth was equally full, looked at the gentleman who seemed to be leading the others, and remarked⁠—

“This is a nice time of night to come knocking people up!”

“All hours are alike to a loyal subject,” said a round, fat, blue-eyed gentleman in a green suit. “Have you any strangers under your roof tonight?”

“Oh!” cried Bet, “all is lost!”

The gentlemen exchanged glances and crowded round her. Elfrida shrugged the shoulders of her mind⁠—if a mind has shoulders⁠—and told herself that it didn’t matter. History knew best, no doubt, and whatever seemed to be happening now was only history.

“You have a stranger here?” they asked; and, “Where is he? You cannot refuse to give him up.”

“My heart told me so,” cried Bet. “I knew it was he you were seeking,” and with that she fainted elegantly into the arms of the nearest gentleman, who was dressed in plum-colour, and seemed to be struggling with some emotion which made him look as if he were laughing.

“Ask the child⁠—children and fools speak the truth,” said the fat, blue-eyed gentleman.

Elfrida found herself suddenly lifted on to the table, from which she could see over the heads of the gentlemen who stood all round her. She could see Bet reclining on the sofa, and the open door with servants crowding in it, all eyes and ears.

“Now,” said a dozen voices, “the truth, little miss.”

“What do you want to know?” she asked; and, in a much lower tone, “I shan’t tell you anything unless you send the servants away.”

The door was closed and the truth was asked for again.

“If you’ll only tell me what you want to know,” she said again.

“Does any stranger lie here tonight?”

“No,” said Elfrida. She knew that the beautiful gentleman in the secret chamber was not lying down, but sitting to his supper.

“But Miss Arden said ‘All is lost,’ and she knew ’twas he whom we sought.”

“Well,” Elfrida carefully explained, “it’s like this. You see, we were robbed by a highwayman today, and I think that upset my cousin. She’s rather easily upset, I’m afraid.”

“Very easily,” several voices agreed, and someone added that it was a harebrained business.

“The shortest way’s the best,” said the plum-coloured gentleman. “Is Sir Edward Talbot here?”

“No, he isn’t,” said Elfrida downrightly, “and I don’t believe you’ve got any business coming into people’s houses and frightening other people into fits, and I shall tell Lord Arden when he comes home. So now you know.”

“Zooks!” someone cried, “the child’s got a spirit; and she’s right, too, strike me if she isn’t.”

“But, snails!” exclaimed another, “we do but protect Lord Arden’s house in his absence.”

“If,” said Elfrida, “you think your Talbot’s playing hide-and-seek here, and if he’s done anything wrong, you can look for him if you like. But I don’t believe Lord Arden will be pleased. That’s all. I should like to get down on to the floor, if you please!”

I don’t know whether Elfrida would have had the courage to say all this if she had not remembered that this was history-times, and not now-times. But the gentlemen seemed delighted with her bravery.

They lifted her gently down, and with many apologies for having discommoded the ladies, they went out of the room and out of the castle. Through the window Elfrida heard the laughing voices and clatter and stamp of their horses’ hoofs as they mounted and rode off. They all seemed to be laughing. And she felt that she moved in the midst of mysteries.

She could not bear to go back into her own time without seeing the end of the adventure. So she went to bed in a large four-poster, with Cousin Bet for company. The fainting fit lasted exactly as long as the strange gentlemen were in the house and no longer, which was very convenient.

Elfrida got up extremely early in the morning and went down into the parlour. She had meant to go and see how the King was, and whether he wanted his shaving-water first thing, as her daddy used to do. But it was so very, very early that she decided that it would be better to wait a little. The King might be sleepy, and sleepy people were not always grateful, she knew, for early shaving-water.

So she went out into the fields where the dew was grey on the grass, and up on to Arden Knoll. And she stood there and heard the skylarks, and looked at the castle and thought how new the mortar looked in the parts about the living house. And presently she saw two figures coming across the fields from where the spire of Arden Church rose out of the tops of trees as round and green as the best double-curled parsley. And one of the gentlemen wore a green coat and the other a purple coat, and she thought to herself how convenient it was to recognise people half a mile away by the colour of their clothes.

Quite plainly they were going to the castle⁠—so she went down, too, and met them at the gate with a civil “Good morning.”

“You are no lie-abed at least,” said the green gentleman. “And so no stranger lay at Arden last night, eh?”

Elfrida found this difficult to answer. No doubt the King had lain⁠—was probably still lying⁠—in the secret chamber. But was he a stranger? No, of course he wasn’t. So⁠—

“No,” she said.

And then through the open window of the parlour came, very unexpectedly and suddenly, a leg in a riding-boot, then another leg, and the whole of the beautiful gentleman stood