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

much longer!” said the witch sharply. “Come, shall I call the Mouldiwarp, or will you?”

“You do,” said Elfrida. “I say, Dicky, what did you mean? Do tell us⁠—there’s a dear.”

Betty Lovell was tearing up the short turf in patches, and pulling the lumps of chalk from under it.

“Help me,” she cried, “or I shan’t be in time!” So they all helped.

“Couldn’t Dick go with us⁠—if we have to go?” said Elfrida suddenly.

“No,” said Richard, “I’m not going to⁠—so there!”

“Why?” Elfrida gasped, tugging at a great piece of chalk.

“Because I shan’t.”

“Then tell us what you meant before the Mouldiwarp comes.”

“You can’t,” said a little voice, “because it’s come now.”

Everyone sat back on its heels, and watched where out of the earth the white Mouldiwarp was squeezing itself between two blocks of chalk, into the sunlight.

“Why, I hadn’t said any poetry,” said Elfrida.

“I hadn’t made the triangle and the arch,” said old Betty Lovell. “Well, if ever I did!”

“I’ve been here,” said the mole, looking round with something astonishingly like a smile of triumph, “all the time. Why shouldn’t I go where I do please, nows and again? Why should I allus wait on your bidding⁠—eh?” it asked a little pettishly.

“No reason at all,” said Elfrida kindly; “and now, dear, dear Mouldiwarp, please take us away.”

A confused sound of shouting mixed with the barking of dogs hurried her words a little.

“The hunt is up,” said the old witch-nurse.

“I don’t hold with hunting,” said the Mouldiwarp hastily, “nor yet with dogs. I never could abide dogs, drat the nasty, noisy, toothy things! Here, come inside.”

“Inside where?” said Edred.

“Inside my house,” said the mole.

And then, whether they all got smaller or whether the crack in the chalk got bigger they never quite knew, but they found themselves walking that crack one by one. Only Elfrida got hold of Richard’s hand and held it fast, though he wriggled and twisted to get it free.

“I’m not going back to your own times with you,” he said. “I’ll go my own way.”

“Where to?” said Elfrida.

“To wherever I choose,” said Richard savagely, and regained possession of his own hand. It was too late⁠—the chalk had closed over them all.

As the chalk had closed so thoroughly that not a gleam of daylight could be seen, you might have expected the air they had to breathe to be close and stuffy. Not a bit of it! Coming into the Mouldiwarp’s house out of the May sunshine was like coming out of a human house into the freshness of a May night. But it was darker than any night that ever was. Elfrida got hold of Edred’s hand and then of Richard’s. She always tried to remember what she was told, and the Mouldiwarp had said, “Always hold hands when there’s magic about.”

Richard let his hand be taken, but he said, quite sternly, “You understand I mean what I say: I won’t go back to their times with them.”

“You were much nicer in James the First’s time,” said Elfrida.

Then a sound like thunder shook the earth overhead, an almost deafening noise that made them thrill and hold each other very tight.

“It’s only the King’s horses and the King’s men hunting after you,” said the Mouldiwarp cheerfully. “Now I’ll go and make a white clock for you to go home on. You set where you be, and don’t touch nothing till I be come back again.”

Left alone in the fresh, deep darkness, Elfrida persisted in her questions.

“Why don’t you want to come with us to our times?”

“I hate your times. They’re ugly, they’re cruel,” said Richard.

“They don’t cut your head off for nothing anyhow in our times,” said Edred, “and shut you up in the Tower.”

“They do worse things,” Richard said. “I know. They make people work fourteen hours a day for nine shillings a week, so that they never have enough to eat or wear, and no time to sleep or to be happy in. They won’t give people food or clothes, or let them work to get them; and then they put the people in prison if they take enough to keep them alive. They let people get horrid diseases, till their jaws drop off, so as to have a particular kind of china. Women have to go out to work instead of looking after their babies, and the little girl that’s left in charge drops the baby and it’s crippled for life. Oh! I know. I won’t go back with you. You might keep me there forever.” He shuddered.

“I wouldn’t. And I can’t help about people working, and not enough money and that,” said Edred.

“If I were Lord Arden,” said Richard, through the darkness, “I’d make a vow, and I’d keep it too, never to have a day’s holiday or do a single thing I liked till all those things were stopped. But in your time nobody cares.”

“It’s not true,” said Elfrida; “we do care⁠—when we know about it. Only we can’t do anything.”

“I am Lord Arden,” said Edred, “and when I grow up I’ll do what you say. I shall be in the House of Lords, I think, and of course the House of Lords would have to pay attention to me when I said things. I’ll remember everything you say, and tell them about it.”

“You’re not grown up yet,” said Richard, “and your father’s Lord Arden, not you.”

“Father’s dead, you know,” said Elfrida, in a hushed voice.

“How do you know?” asked Richard.

“There was a letter⁠—”

“Do you think I’d trust a letter?” Richard asked indignantly. “If I hadn’t seen my daddy lying dead, do you think I’d believe it? Not till I’d gone back and seen how he died, and where, and had vengeance on the man who’d killed him.”

“But he wasn’t killed.”

“How do you know? You’ve been hunting for the beastly treasure, and never even tried to go back to the time when he was alive⁠—such a little time ago⁠—and find out what really did happen to him.”

“I didn’t know we could,” said Elfrida, choking. “And even