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

“So-ho!” he said. “Speak softly, for the servants are not yet about.”

“They are,” said Elfrida, “only they’re at the back. Creep along under the wall; you will get away without their seeing you then.”

“Always a wonderful counsellor,” said the beautiful gentleman, bowing gracefully. “Come with us, little maid. I have no secrets from thee.”

So they all crept along close to the castle wall to that corner from which, between two shoulders of down, you can see the sea. There they stopped.

“And the wager’s mine,” said the beautiful gentleman, “for all you tried to spoil it. That was not in the bond, Fitzgerald, entering Arden at night at nine of the clock, to ferret me out like a pack of hounds after Reynard.”

“There was nothing barred,” said the green gentleman. “We tried waylaying you on the road, but you were an hour early.”

“Ah,” said the beautiful gentleman, “putting back clocks is easy work. And the ostler at the ‘Bull’ loves a handsome wager nigh as well as he loves a guinea.”

“I do wish you’d explain,” said Elfrida, almost stamping with curiosity and impatience.

“And so I will, my pretty,” said he, laughing.

“Aren’t you the King? You said you were.”

“Nay, nay⁠—not so fast. I asked thee what thou wouldst say if I told you I was King James.”

“Then who are you?” she asked.

“Plain Edward Talbot, Baronet, at your ladyship’s service,” he said, with another of his fine bows.

“But I don’t understand,” she said, “do tell me all about it from the beginning.” So he told her, and the other gentlemen stood by, laughing.

“The other night I was dining with Mr. Fitzgerald here, and the talk turned on highway robbery, and on Arden Castle here, with other matters. And these gentlemen, with others of the party, laid me a wager⁠—five hundred guineas it was⁠—that I would not rob a coach. I took the wager. And I wagered beside that I would rob a coach of the Arden jewels, and that I would lie a night at Arden beside, and no one should know my name there. And I have done all three and won my wager. I am but newly come home from foreign parts, so your cousin could not know my face. But zounds, child! had it not been for thee I had lost my wager. I counted on Miss Arden’s help⁠—and a pale-faced, fainting, useless fine lady I should have found her. But thou⁠—thou’rt a girl in a thousand. And I’ll buy thee the finest fairing I can find next time I go to London. We are all friends. Tell pretty miss to hold that tongue of hers, and none shall hear the tale from us.”

“But all these gentlemen coming last night. All the servants know.”

“The gentlemen came, no doubt, to protect Miss Arden, in case the villainous highwayman should have hidden behind the window curtain. Oh, but the wise child it is⁠—has a care for every weak point in our armour!”

Then he told his friends the whole of the adventure, and they laughed very merrily, for all they had lost their wager, and went home to breakfast across the dewy fields.

“It’s nice of him to think me brave and all that,” Elfrida told herself, “but I do wish he’d really been the King.”

When she had told Betty what had happened everything seemed suddenly to be not worth while; she did not feel as though she cared to stay any longer in that part of the past⁠—so she ran upstairs, through the attic and the pigeon noises, back into her own times, and went down and found Edred sitting on the second hand of the daisy-clock; and he did not believe that she had been away at all. For all the time she had been away seemed no time to him, because he had been sitting on that second hand.

So when the Mouldiwarp told them to go along in, they went; and the way they went was not in, but out, and round under the castle wall to the corner from which you could see the sea. And there they lay on the warm grass, and Elfrida told Edred the whole story, and at first he did not believe a word of it.

“But it’s true, I tell you,” said she. “You don’t suppose I should make up a whole tale like that, do you?”

“No,” said Edred. “Of course, you’re not clever enough. But you might have read it in a book.”

“Well, I didn’t,” said Elfrida⁠—“so there!”

“If it was really true, you might have come back for me. You know how I’ve always wanted to meet a highwayman⁠—you know you do.”

“How could I come back? How was I to get off the horse and run home and get in among the chests and the pigeon noises and come out here and take you back? The highwayman⁠—Talbot, I mean⁠—would have been gone long before we got back.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” said Edred obstinately. “You forget I was sitting on the clock and stopping it. There wasn’t any time while you were gone⁠—if you were gone.”

“There was with me,” said Elfrida. “Don’t you see⁠—”

“There wouldn’t have been if you’d come back where I was,” Edred interrupted.

“How can you be so aggravating?” Elfrida found suddenly that she was losing her temper. “You can’t be as stupid as that, really.”

“Oh, can’t I?” said Edred. “I can though, if I like. And stupider⁠—much stupider,” he added darkly. “You wait.”

“Edred,” said his sister slowly and fervently, “sometimes I feel as if I must shake you.”

“You daren’t!” said Edred.

“Do you dare me to?”

“Yes,” said Edred fiercely.

Of course, you are aware that after that, by all family laws, Elfrida was obliged to shake him. She did, and burst into tears. He looked at her for a moment and⁠—but no⁠—tears are unmanly. I would not betray the weakness of my hero. Let us draw a veil, or take a turn round the castle and come back to them presently.

It is just as well that we went away when we did, for