The House of Arden · Chapter 5 (2/2)

Long before the carriage drew up in front of the “Bull” at Tonbridge, Elfrida felt that if she only had a piece of poetry ready she would say it, and ask the Mouldiwarp to take her back to her own times, where, at any rate, carriages had springs and roads were roads. And when the carriage did stop she was so stiff she could hardly stand.

“Come along in,” said a stout, pleasant-faced lady in a frilled cap; “come in, my poppet. There’s a fine supper, though it’s me says it, and a bed that you won’t beat in Kent for soft and clean, you may lay to that.”

There was a great bustle of shouting ostlers and stablemen; the horses were taken out before the travellers were free of the carriage. Supper was laid in a big, low, upper room, with shining furniture and windows at both ends, one set looking on the road where the sign of the “Bull” creaked and swung, and the other looking on a very neat green garden, with clipped box hedges and yew arbours. Getting all the luggage into the house seemed likely to be a long business. Elfrida saw that she would not be missed, and she slipped down the twisty-cornery backstairs and through the back kitchen into the green garden. It was pleasant to stretch one’s legs, and not to be cramped and buffeted and shaken. But she walked down the grass-path rather demurely, for she was very stiff indeed.

And it was there, in a yew arbour, that she came suddenly on the grandest and handsomest gentleman that she had ever seen. He wore a white wig, very full at the sides and covered with powder, and a full-skirted coat of dark-blue silk, and under it a long waistcoat with the loveliest roses and forget-me-nots tied in bunches with gold ribbons, embroidered on silk. He had lace ruffles and a jewelled brooch, and the jolliest blue eyes in the world. He looked at Elfrida very kindly with his jolly eyes.

“A lady of quality, I’ll be bound,” he said, “and travelling with her suite.”

“I’m Miss Arden of Arden,” said Elfrida.

“Your servant, madam,” said he, springing to his feet and waving his hat in a very flourishing sort of bow.

Elfrida’s little curtsey was not at all the right kind of curtsey, but it had to do.

“And what can I do to please Miss Arden of Arden?” he asked. “Would she like a ride on my black mare?”

“Oh, no, thank you,” said Elfrida, so earnestly that he laughed as he said⁠—

“Sure I should not have thought fear lived with those eyes.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Elfrida contemptuously; “only I’ve been riding in a horrible carriage all day, and I feel as though I never wanted to ride on anything any more.”

He laughed again.

“Well, well,” he said, “come and sit by me and tell me all the town news.”

Elfrida smiled to think what news she could tell him, and then frowned in the effort to think of any news that wouldn’t seem nonsense.

She told him all that she knew of Cousin Bet and the journey. He was quite politely interested. She told of Cousin Bet’s purchases⁠—the collar of pearls and the gold pomander studded with corals, the little gold watch, and the family jewels that had been reset.

“And you have all tonight to rest in from that cruel coach?” he said.

“Yes,” said Elfrida, “we don’t go on again till after breakfast tomorrow. It’s very dull⁠—and oh, so slow! Don’t you think you’d like to have a carriage drawn by a fiery iron horse that went sixty miles an hour?”

“You have an ingenious wit,” said the beautiful gentleman, “such as I should admire in my wife. Will you marry me when you shall be grown a great girl?”

“No,” said Elfrida; “you’d be too old⁠—even if you were to be able to stop alive till I was grown up, you’d be much too old.”

“How old do you suppose I shall be when you’re seventeen?”

“I should have to do sums,” said Elfrida, who was rather good at these exercises. She broke a twig from a currant bush and scratched in the dust.

“I don’t know,” she said, raising a flushed face, and trampling out her “sum” with little shoes that had red heels, “but I think you’ll be two hundred and thirty.”

On that he laughed more than ever and vowed she was the lady for him. “Your ciphering would double my income ten times over,” he said.

He was very kind indeed⁠—would have her taste his wine, which she didn’t like, and the little cakes on the red and blue plate, which she did.

“And what’s your name?” she asked.

“My name,” said he, “is a secret. Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes,” said Elfrida.

“So can I,” said he.

And then a flouncing, angry maid came suddenly sweeping down between the box hedges and dragged Elfrida away before she could curtsey properly and say, “Thank you for being so kind.”

“Farewell,” said the beautiful gentleman, “doubt not but we shall meet again. And next time ’tis I shall carry thee off and shut thee in a tower for two hundred years till thou art seventeen and hast learned to cipher.”

Elfrida was slapped by the maid, which nearly choked her with fury, and set down to supper in the big upstairs room. The maid indignantly told where she had found Elfrida “talking with a strange gentleman,” and when Cousin Betty had heard all about it Elfrida told her tale.

“And he was a great dear,” she said.

“A ⸻?”

“A very beautiful gentleman. I wish you’d been there, Cousin Betty. You’d have liked him too.”

Then Cousin Bet also slapped her. And Elfrida wished more than ever that she had some poetry ready for the Mouldiwarp.

The next day’s journey was as bumpety as the first, and Elfrida got very tired of the whole business. “Oh, I wish something would happen!” she said.

It was a very much longer day too, and the dusk had fallen while still they were on the road. The sun had set red behind black trees, and brown twilight was thickening all about, when at a crossroads, a man in a cloak and mask on a big black horse suddenly leaped from a hedge, stooped from his saddle, opened the carriage door, caught Elfrida with one hand by the gathers of her full travelling coat (he must have been frightfully strong, and so must the gathers), set her very neatly and quite comfortably on the saddle before him, and said⁠—

“Hand up your valuables, please⁠—or I shoot the horses. And keep your barkers low, for if you aim at me you shoot the child. And if you shoot my horse, the child and I fall together.”

But even as he spoke through his black mask, he wheeled the horse so that his body was a shield between her and the pistols of the serving-men.

“What do you want?” Cousin Bet’s voice was quite squeaky. “We have no valuables; we are plain country people, travelling home to our farm.”

“I want the collar of pearls,” said he, “and the pomander, and the little gold watch, and the jewels that have been reset.”

Then Elfrida knew who he was.

“Oh,” she cried, “you are mean!”

“Trade’s trade,” said he, but he held her quite gently and kindly. “Now, my fair madam⁠—”

The men were hesitating, fingering their pistols. The horses, frightened by the sudden check, were dancing and prancing all across the road: the maidservants were shouting that it was true; he had the child, and better lose a few jewels than all their lives, and Cousin Bet was sobbing and wailing inside the dark coach.

Well, the jewels were handed out⁠—that was how it ended⁠—handed out slowly and grudgingly, and the hand that reached for them through the dusk was very white, Cousin Bet said afterwards.

Elfrida, held by the highwayman’s arm, kept very still. Suddenly he stooped and whispered in her ear.

“Are you afraid that I shall do you any harm?”

“No,” whispered Elfrida. And to this day she does not know why she was not afraid.

“Then⁠—” said he. “Oh, the brave little lady⁠—”

And on that suddenly set spurs to his horse, leapt the low hedge, and reined up sharply.

“Go on home, my brave fellows,” he shouted, “and keep your mouths shut on this night’s work. I shall be at Arden before you⁠—”

“The child!” shrieked the maids; “oh, the child!” and even Cousin Bet interrupted her hysterics, now quite strong and overwhelming, to say, “The child⁠—”

“Shall I order supper for you at Arden?” he shouted back mockingly, and rode on across country, with Elfrida, breathlessly frightened and consciously brave, leaning back against his shoulder. It is a very wonderful feeling, riding on a great strong, dark horse, through a deepening night in a strange country, held fast by an arm you can trust, and with the muscles of a horse’s great shoulder rippling against your legs as they hang helplessly down. Elfrida ceased to think of Mouldiwarps or try to be a poet.

And quite soon they were at the top of Arden Hill, and the lights of the castle gleamed and blinked below them.

“Now, sweetheart,” said the highwayman, “I shall set you down in sight of the door and wait till the door opens. You can tell them all that has chanced, save this that I tell you now. You will see me again. They will not know me, but you will. Keep a still tongue till tomorrow, and I swear Miss Arden shall have all her jewels again, and you shall have a gold locket to put your true love’s hair in when you’re seventeen and I’m two hundred and thirty. And leave the parlour window open. And when I tap, come to it. Is it a bargain?”

“Then you’re not really a highwayman?”

“What should you say,” he asked, “if I told you that I was the third James, the rightful King of England, come to claim my own?”

“Oh!” said Elfrida, and he set her down, and she walked to the door of the castle and thumped on it with her fists.

Her tale had been told to the servants, and again to Cousin Bet and the maids, and the chorus of lament and astonishment was settling down to a desire to have something to eat; anyhow, the servants had gone to the kitchen to hurry the supper. Cousin Bet and Elfrida were alone in the parlour, where Elfrida had dutifully set the window ajar.

The laurel that was trained all up that side of the house stirred in the breeze and tapped at the window. Elfrida crossed to the window-seat. No, it was only the laurel. But next moment a hand tapped⁠—a hand with rings on it, and a white square showed in the window⁠—a letter.

“For Miss Betty Arden,” said a whispering voice.

Elfrida carried the letter to where her cousin sat, and laid it on her flowered silk lap.

“For me, child? Where did you get it?”

“Read it,” said Elfrida, “it’s from a gentleman.”

“Lud!” said Cousin Bet. “What a day!⁠—a highwayman and the jewels lost, and now a love-letter.”

She opened it, read it⁠—read it again and let her hand flutter out with it in a helpless sort of way towards Elfrida, who, very brisk and businesslike, took it and read it. It was clearly and beautifully written.

“The Chevalier St. George,” it said, “visiting his kingdom in secret on pressing affairs of State, asks housing and hiding beneath the roof of the loyal Ardens.”

“Now, don’t scream,” said Elfrida sharply; “who’s the Chevalier St. George?”

“Our King,” said Betty in a whisper⁠—“our King over the water⁠—King James the Third. Oh, why isn’t my uncle at home? They’ll kill the King if they find him. What shall I do? What shall I do?”

“Do?” said Elfrida. “Why don’t be so silly. That’s what you’ve got to do. Why, it’s a glorious chance. Think how everyone will say how brave you were. Is he Bonnie Prince Charlie? Will he be King some day?”

“No, not Charles⁠—James; uncle wants him to be King.”

“Then let’s help him,” said Elfrida, “and perhaps it’ll be your doing that he is King.” Her history had never got beyond Edward the Fourth on account of having to go back to 1066 on account of new girls, and she had only heard of Prince Charlie in ballads and story books. “And when he’s King he’ll make you dowager-duchess of somewhere and give you his portrait set in diamonds. Now don’t scream. He’s outside. I’ll call him in. Where can we hide him?”