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

came to call you, knowing full well what your hands would be like after all that messing about with poison in dishes; and if I was your aunt I’d forbid it downright. And now come along and wash your hands, and don’t let’s have any more nonsense about it. Do you hear?”

I daresay you notice that Mrs. Honeysett was quite cross at the end of this speech and quite coaxing and kind at the beginning. She had just talked herself into being cross. It’s quite easy. I daresay you have often done it.

It was a silent dinner⁠—the first silent meal since the children had come to Arden Castle. You can judge of Edred’s feelings when I tell you that he felt as though the rabbit would choke him, and refused a second helping of gooseberry pie with heartfelt sincerity. Elfrida did not eat so much as usual either. It really was a bitter disappointment. To have been so near seeing where the treasure was, and then⁠—just because they hadn’t happened to bolt the door that last time⁠—all was in vain. Mrs. Honeysett thought they were sulking about a silly trifle, and nearly said so when Edred refused the pie.

It was at the end of dinner that Elfrida, as she got down from her chair, saw Mrs. Honeysett’s face, and saw how different it looked from the kind face that she usually wore. She went over to her very slowly, and very quickly threw her arms round her and kissed her.

“I’m sorry we’ve been so piggy,” she said. “It’s not your fault that you’re not clever enough to know about pictures and things, is it?”

If Mrs. Honeysett hadn’t been a perfect dear, this apology would have been worse than none. But she was a perfect dear, so she laughed and hugged Elfrida, and somehow Edred got caught into the hug and the laugh, and the three were friends again. The sky was blue and the sun began to shine.

And then the two children went down to old Beale’s.

There were roses in his garden now, and white English flags and lupins and tall foxgloves bordering the little brick path. Old Beale was sitting “on a brown Windsor chair,” as Edred said, in the sun by his front door. Over his head was a jackdaw in a wicker cage, and Elfrida did not approve of this till she saw the cage door was open, and that the jackdaw was sitting in the cage because he liked it, and not because he must. She had been in prison in the Tower, you remember, and people who have been in prison never like to see live things in cages. There was a tabby and white cat of squarish shape sitting on the wooden threshold. (Why are cats who live in country cottages almost always tabby and white and squarish?) The feathery tail of a brown spaniel flogged the flags lazily in the patch of shade made by the water-butt. It was a picture of rural peace, and old Beale was asleep in the middle of it. I am glad to tell you that Lord Arden and his sister were polite enough to wait till he awoke of his own accord, instead of shouting “hi!” or rattling the smooth brown iron latch of the gate, as some children would have done.

They just sat down on the dry, grassy bank, opposite his gate, and looked at the blue and white butterflies and the flowers and the green potato-tops through the green-grey garden palings.

And while they sat there Elfrida had an idea⁠—so sudden and so good that it made her jump. But she said nothing, and Edred said⁠—

“Pinch the place hard, and if it’s still there you’ll kill it perhaps”⁠—for he thought she had jumped because she had been bitten by an ant.

When they had finished looking at the butterflies and the red roses and the green-growing things, they looked long and steadily at old Beale, and, of course, he awoke, as people always do if you look at them long enough and hard enough. And he got up, rather shaking, and put his hand to his forehead, and said⁠—

“My lord⁠—”

“How are you?” said Elfrida. “We haven’t found the treasure yet.”

“But ye will, ye will,” said old Beale. “Come into the house now; or will ye come round along to the arbour and have a drink of milk?”

“We’d as soon stay here,” said Edred⁠—they had come through the gate now, and Edred was patting the brown spaniel, while Elfrida stroked the squarish cat. “Mrs. Honeysett said you knew all the stories.”

“Ah,” said old Beale, “a fine girl, Mrs. Honeysett. Her father had Sellinge Farm, where the fairies churn the butter for the bride so long as there’s no cross words. They don’t ever get too much to do, them fairies.” He chuckled, sighed, and said⁠—

“I know a power of tales. And I know, always I do, which it is that people want. What you’re after’s the story of the East House. Isn’t it now? Is the old man a-failing of his wits, or isn’t he?”

“We want to know,” said Edred, companionably sharing the flagstone with the feather-tailed spaniel, “the story about why that part of the house in the castle is shut up and all cobwebby and dusty and rusty and musty, and whether there’s any reason why it shouldn’t be all cleaned up and made nice again, if we find the treasure so that we’ve got enough money to pay for new curtains and carpets and things?”

“It’s a sad tale, that,” said old Beale, “a tale for old folks⁠—or middle-aged folks, let’s say⁠—not for children. You’d never understand it if I was to tell it you, likely as not.”

“We like grown-up stories,” said Elfrida, with dignity; and Edred added⁠—

“We can understand anything that grownups understand if it’s told us properly. I understand all about the laws of gravitation, and why the sun doesn’t go round the earth but does the opposite; I understood that directly Aunt Edith explained it, and about fixed stars,