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

and get her to marry him out of gratitude. But no one’ll ever know. And the baby’s mother, she wore away bit by bit, to a shadow, and then she died, and after that the East House was shut up for good and all, to fall into rot and ruin like it is now. Don’t you cry, missie. I know’d you wouldn’t like the story, but you would have it; but don’t you cry. It’s all long ago, and she and her baby and her young husband’s all been happy together in heaven this long time now, I lay.”

“I do like the story,” said Elfrida, gulping, “but it is sad, isn’t it?”

“Thank you for telling it,” Edred said; “but I don’t think it’s any good, really, being unhappy about things that are so long ago, and all over and done with.”

“I wish we could go back into the past and find the baby for her,” Elfrida whispered⁠—and Edred whispered back⁠—

“It’s the treasure we’ve got to find. Excuse our whispering, Mr. Beale. Thank you for the story⁠—oh, and I wanted to ask you who owns the land now⁠—all the land about here, I mean, that used to belong to us Ardens?”

“That Jackson chap,” said old Beale, “him that made a fortune in the soap boiling. The Tallow King, they call him. But he’s got too rich for the house he’s got. He’s bought a bigger place in Yorkshire, that used to belong to the Duke of Sanderstead, and the Arden lands are to be sold next year, so I’m told.”

“Oh,” said Edred, clasping his hands, “if we could only find the treasure, and buy back the land! We haven’t forgotten what we said the first time: if we found the treasure we’d make all the cottages comfortable, and new thatch everywhere.”

“That’s a good lad,” said old Beale, “you make haste and find the treasure. And if you don’t find it, never fret; there’s ways of helping other folks without finding of treasure, so there is. You come and see old Beale again, my lord, and I shouldn’t wonder but what I’d have a white rabbit for you next time you come along this way.”

“He is an old dear,” said Elfrida, as they went home, “and I do think the films will be dry by the time we get back; but perhaps we’d better not print them till tomorrow morning.”

“There’s plenty of light today,” said Edred, and Elfrida said⁠—

“I say?”

“Well?”

“Did you notice the kind of clothes we wore in those pictures⁠—where they were stowing away the treasure?”

“Oh!” groaned Edred, recalled to a sense of his wrongs. “If only Mrs. Honeysett hadn’t opened the door just when she did, we should know exactly where the treasure was. It was the West Tower they took it to, wasn’t it?”

“I’m not sure,” said Elfrida, “but⁠—”

“And if it had gone on we should have been sure⁠—we should have seen them come away again.”

“Yes,” said Elfrida, and again she remarked, “I say?”

Edred again said, “Well⁠—?”

“Well⁠—suppose we looked in the chests we should be sure to find clothes like those, and then we should be back there⁠—living in those times, and we could see the treasure put away, and then we really should know.”

“A1, first class, ripping!” was Edred’s enthusiastic rejoinder. “Come on⁠—I’ll race you to the gate.”

He did race her, and won by about thirty white Mouldiwarp’s lengths.

There had been no quarrel now for quite a long time⁠—if you count as time the days spent in the Gunpowder Plot adventure⁠—so the attic was easily found, and once more the children stood among the chests, with the dusty roof, and the dusty sunbeams, and the clittering pigeon feet, and the soft pigeon noises overhead.

“Come on,” cried Elfrida joyously. “I shall know the dress directly I see it. Mine was blue silk with sloping shoulders, and yours was black velvet and a Vandyke collar.”

Together they flung back the lid of a chest they had not yet opened. It held clothes far richer than any they had seen yet. The doublets and cloaks and bodices were stiff with gold embroidery and jewels. But there was no blue silk dress with sloping shoulders and no black velvet suit and Vandyke collar.

“Oh, never mind,” said Edred, bundling the splendid clothes back by double armfuls. “Help me to smooth these down so that the lid will shut properly, and we’ll try the next chest.”

But the lid would not shut at all till Elfrida had taken all the things out and folded them properly, and then it shut quite easily.

Then they went on to the next chest.

“I have a magic inside feeling that they’re in this one,” said Elfrida gaily. And so they may have been. The children never knew⁠—for the next chest was locked, and the utmost efforts of four small arms failed to move the lid a hair’s breadth.

“Oh, bother!” said Edred; “we’ll try the next.”

But the next was locked, too⁠—and the next, and the one after that, and the one beyond, and⁠—Well, the fact is, they were all locked.

The children looked at each other in something quite like despair.

“I feel,” said the boy, “like a baffled burglar.”

“I feel,” said the girl, “as if I was just going to understand something. Oh, wait a minute; it’s coming. I think,” she added very slowly⁠—“I think it means if we go anywhere we’ve got to go wherever it was they wore those glorious stiff gold clothes. That’s what the chest’s open for; that’s what the others are locked for. See?”

“Then let’s put them on and go,” said Edred.

“I don’t think I want any more Tower of Londons,” said Elfrida doubtfully.

“I don’t mind what it is,” said Edred. “I’ve found out one thing. We always come safe out of it, whatever it is. And besides,” he added, remembering many talks with his good friend, Sir Walter Raleigh, “an English gentleman must be afraid of nothing save God and his conscience.”

“All right,” said Elfrida, laying hands on the chest-lid that hid the golden splendour. “You might help,” she