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

we really turned our backs on a most unpleasant scene. And now that we come back to them, though crying is still going on, Elfrida is saying that she is very sorry, and is trying to find her handkerchief to lend to Edred, whose own is unexpectedly mislaid.

“Oh, all right,” he says, “I’m sorry too. There! But us saying we’re sorry won’t make us unquarrel. That’s the worst of it. We shan’t be able to find The Door for three days now. I do wish we hadn’t. It is sickening.”

“Never mind,” said Elfrida; “we didn’t have a real I’ll-never-speak-to-you-again-you-see-if-I-do quarrel, did we?”

“I don’t suppose it matters what sort of quarrel you had,” said the boy in gloom. “Look here⁠—I’ll tell you what⁠—you tell me all about it over again and I’ll try to believe you. I really will, on the honour of an Arden.”

So she told him all over again.

“And where,” said Edred, when she had quite finished⁠—“where did you put the jewels?”

“I⁠—they⁠—he put them in the corner cupboard in the secret room,” said Elfrida.

“If you’d taken me and not been in such a hurry⁠—no, I’m not quarrelling, I’m only reasoning with you like Aunt Edith⁠—if I’d been there I should have buried those jewels somewhere and then come back for me, and we’d have dug them up, and been rich beyond the dreams of⁠—what do they call it?”

“But I never told Betty where they were. Perhaps they’re there now. Let’s go and look.”

“If they are,” said he, “I’ll believe everything you’ve been telling me without trying at all.”

“You’ll have to do that⁠—if there’s a secret room, won’t you?”

“P’r’aps,” said Edred; “let’s go and see. I expect I shall have got a headache presently. You didn’t ought to have shaken me. Mrs. Honeysett says it’s very bad for people to be shaken⁠—it mixes up their brains inside their heads so that they ache, and you’re stupid. I expect that’s what made you say I was stupid.”

“Oh, dear,” said Elfrida despairingly. “You know that was before I shook you, and I did say I was sorry.”

“I know it was, but it comes to the same thing. Come on⁠—let’s have a squint at your old secret room.”

But, unfortunately it was now dinnertime. If you do happen to know the secret of a carved panel with a staircase hidden away behind it, you don’t want to tell that secret lightly⁠—as though it were the day of the week, or the date of the Battle of Waterloo, or what nine times seven is⁠—not even to a grownup so justly liked as Mrs. Honeysett. And, besides, a hot beefsteak pudding and greens do not seem to go well with the romances of old days. To have looked for the spring of that panel while that dinner smoked on the board would have been as unseemly as to try on a new gold crown over curl-papers. Elfrida felt this. And Edred did not more than half believe in the secret, anyway. And besides he was very hungry.

“Wait till afterwards,” was what they said to each other in whispers, while Mrs. Honeysett was changing the plates.

“You do do beautiful cooking,” Edred remarked, as the gooseberry-pie was cut open and revealed its chrysoprase-coloured contents.

“You do the beautiful eating then,” said Mrs. Honeysett, “and you be quick about it. You ain’t got into no mischief this morning, have you? You look as though butter wouldn’t melt in either of your mouths, and that’s always a sign of something being up with most children.”

“No, indeed we haven’t,” said Elfrida earnestly, “and we don’t mean to either. And our looking like that’s only because we brushed our hairs with wet brushes, most likely. It does make you look good, somehow; I’ve often noticed it.”

“I’ve been flying round this morning,” Mrs. Honeysett went on, “so as to get down to my sister’s for a bit this afternoon. She’s not so well again, poor old dear, and I might be kept late. But my niece Emily’s coming up to take charge. She’s a nice lively young girl; she’ll get you your teas, and look after you as nice as nice. Now don’t you go doing anything what you wouldn’t if I was behind of you, will you? That’s dears.”

Nothing could have happened better. Both children felt that Emily, being a young girl, would be more easy to manage than Mrs. Honeysett. As soon as they were alone they talked it over comfortably, and decided that the best thing would be to ask Emily if she would go down to the station and see if there was a parcel there for Master Arden or Miss Arden.

“And if there isn’t,” Elfrida giggled, “we’ll say she’d better wait till it comes. We’ll run down and fetch her as soon as we’ve explored the secret chamber.”

“I say,” Edred remarked thoughtfully, “we haven’t bothered much about finding the treasure, have we? I thought that was what we were going into history for.”

“Now, Edred,” said his sister, “you know very well we didn’t go into history on purpose.”

“No; but,” said Edred, “we ought to have. Suppose the treasure is really those jewels. We’d sell them and rebuild Arden Castle like it used to be, wouldn’t we?”

“We’d give Auntie Edith a few jewels, I think, wouldn’t we? She is such a dear, you know.”

“Yes; she should have first choice. I do believe we’re on the brink, and I feel just exactly like as if something real was going to happen⁠—not in history, but here at Arden⁠—Now-Arden.”

“I do hope we find the jewels,” said Elfrida. “Oh, I do! And I do hope we manage the lively young girl all right.”

Mrs. Honeysett’s best dress was a nice bright red⁠—the kind of colour you can see a long way off. They watched it till it disappeared round a shoulder of the downs, and then set about the task of managing Emily.

The lively young girl proved quite easy to manage. The idea of “popping on her hat” and running down to the station was naturally much pleasanter to her than the