The House of Arden · Chapter 6 (1/2)

VI

The Secret Panel

“Where shall we hide him?” Elfrida asked impatiently.

Cousin Bet, fired by Elfrida’s enthusiasm, jumped up and began to finger the carved flowers above the chimneypiece.

“The secret room,” she said; “but slip the bolt to and turn the key in the lock.”

Elfrida locked the room door, and turned to see the carved mantelpiece open like a cupboard.

Then Elfrida flew to the window and set back the casement very wide, and in climbed the beautiful gentleman and stood there, very handsome and tall, bowing to Miss Betty, who sank on her knees and kissed the white, jewelled hand he held out.

“Quick!” said Elfrida. “Get into the hole.”

“There are stairs,” said Betty, snatching a candle in its silver candlestick and holding it high.

The Chevalier St. George sprang to a chair, got his knee on the mantelpiece, and went into the hole, just as Alice goes through the looking-glass in Mr. Tenniel’s picture. Betty handed him the candle, which his white hand reached down to take. Then Elfrida jumped on the chair and shut the panel, leaped down, and opened the room door just as the maid reached its other side with the supper-tray.

When the cousins were alone Bet threw her arms round Elfrida.

“Don’t be afraid, little cousin,” she whispered, “your Cousin Bet will see that no harm comes to you from this adventure.”

“Well, I do think!” said Elfrida getting out of the embrace most promptly, “when it was me let him in, and you’d have screamed the house down, if I hadn’t stopped you⁠—”

“Stop chattering, child,” said Bet, drawing a distracted hand over her pretty forehead, “and let me set my wits to work how I may serve my King.”

“I,” said Elfrida scornfully, “should give him something to eat and see that his bed’s aired; but I suppose that would be too vulgar and common for you.”

The two looked at each other across the untasted supper.

“Impertinent chit!” said Bet.

“Chit yourself,” said Elfrida.

Then she laughed.

“Come, Cousin Bet,” she said, “your uncle’s away and you’re grown up. I’ll tell you what to do. You just be wise and splendid, so that your portrait’ll be in the illustrated Christmas numbers in white satin and an anxious expression. ‘The saviour of her King’⁠—that’s what it’ll say.”

“Don’t wander in your speech, child,” said Cousin Bet, pressing her hand to her brow, “I’ve enough to distract me without that. And if you desire to ask my pardon, do so.”

“Oh, well, I beg your pardon⁠—there!” said Elfrida, with extreme irritation. “Now perhaps you’ll give your King something to eat.”

“Climb into that hole⁠—with a tray? And the servants, perhaps, coming in any minute? What would you say to them if they did?”

“All right, then, I’ll go,” said Elfrida, only too glad of the chance.

Bet touched the secret spring, and when Elfrida had climbed into the dark hole⁠—which she did quite easily⁠—handed her the supper-tray.

“Oh, bother,” said Elfrida, setting it down at her feet with great promptness. “It’s too heavy. He’ll have to come down and fetch it. Give me a candle and shut the panel, and tell me which way to go.”

“To the right and up the steps. Be sure you kneel and kiss his hand before you say a word.”

Elfrida reached down for the candle in its silver candlestick, the panel clicked into place, and she stood there among the cobwebby shadows of the secret passage, the light in her hand and the tray at her feet.

“It’s only a Mouldiwarp magic adventure,” she said, to hearten herself, turned to the right, and went up the stairs. They were steep and narrow. At the top she saw the long, light-line of a slightly opened door. To knock seemed unwise. Instead she spoke softly, her lips against the line of light.

“It’s me,” she said, and instantly the door opened, and the beautiful gentleman stood before her.

The secret room had a little furniture⁠—a couch, a table, chairs⁠—all old-fashioned, and their shapes showed beautiful, even in the dim light of the two candles.

“Your supper,” said Elfrida, “is at the bottom of the stairs. The tray was too heavy for me. Do you mind fetching it up?”

“If you’ll show me a light,” he said, and went.

“You’ll stay and eat with me?” said he, when she had lighted him back to the secret room, and he had set the tray on the table.

“I mustn’t,” said Elfrida. “Cousin Bet’s such a muff; she wouldn’t know where to say I was if the servants came in. Oh, I say! I’m so sorry I forgot. She told me to kneel and kiss your hand before I said anything about supper. I’ll do it now.”

“Nay,” said he, “I’ll kiss thy cheek, little lady, and drink a health to him who shall have thy lips when thou’rt seventeen and I am⁠—what was it⁠—five hundred?”

“Two hundred and thirty,” said Elfrida, returning his kiss cordially. “You are nice, you know. I wish you were real. I’d better go back to Bet now.”

“Real?” he said.

“Oh, I’m talking nonsense, I know,” said Elfrida. “I’ll go now.”

“The absent tray will betray you,” said he, taking food and wine from it and setting them on the table. “Now I will carry this down again. You have all the courage, but not quite the cunning of a conspirator.”

“How long are you going to stay here?” Elfrida asked. “I suppose you’re escaping from someone or something, like in history?”

“I shall not stay long,” he said. “If anyone should ask you if you have seen the King, what would you say?”

“I should say ‘no,’ ” said Elfrida boldly. “You see, I can’t possibly know that you’re the King. You just say so, that’s all. Perhaps really you aren’t.”

“Exquisite!” said he. “So you don’t believe me?”

“Oh, yes, I do!” said Elfrida; “but I needn’t, you know.”

“S’life!” he said. “But I wish I were. There’d be a coronet for somebody.”

“You wish you were⁠—”

“Safely away, my little lady. And as for coronets, the jewels are safe. See, I have set them in the cupboard in the corner.”

And he had.

Then he carried down the tray, and Elfrida, who was very hungry, tried to persuade Bet that she must eat, if only to keep up her strength for the deeds of daring that might want doing at any moment.

But Bet declared that she could not eat; the least morsel would choke her. And as for going to bed, she was assuring her cousin that she knew her duty to her King better than that, and that she would defend her Sovereign with her life, if need were, when her loyal ecstasies were suddenly interrupted.

For the quiet of the night was broken by a great knocking at the castle door and the heavy voice of a man crying⁠—

“Open, in the Queen’s name!”

“They’ve come for him! All is lost! We are betrayed! What shall we do?”

“Eat,” said Elfrida⁠—“eat for your life.”

She pushed Bet into a chair and thrust a plate before her, put a chunk of meat-pie on her plate and another on her own.

“Get your mouth full,” she whispered, filling her own as she spoke⁠—“so full you can’t speak⁠—it’ll give you time to think.”

And then the door opened, and in a moment the room was full of gentlemen in riding dress, with very stern faces. And they all had swords.

Betty, with her mouth quite full, was trying not to look towards the panel.

Elfrida, whose mouth was equally full, looked at the gentleman who seemed to be leading the others, and remarked⁠—

“This is a nice time of night to come knocking people up!”

“All hours are alike to a loyal subject,” said a round, fat, blue-eyed gentleman in a green suit. “Have you any strangers under your roof tonight?”

“Oh!” cried Bet, “all is lost!”

The gentlemen exchanged glances and crowded round her. Elfrida shrugged the shoulders of her mind⁠—if a mind has shoulders⁠—and told herself that it didn’t matter. History knew best, no doubt, and whatever seemed to be happening now was only history.

“You have a stranger here?” they asked; and, “Where is he? You cannot refuse to give him up.”

“My heart told me so,” cried Bet. “I knew it was he you were seeking,” and with that she fainted elegantly into the arms of the nearest gentleman, who was dressed in plum-colour, and seemed to be struggling with some emotion which made him look as if he were laughing.

“Ask the child⁠—children and fools speak the truth,” said the fat, blue-eyed gentleman.

Elfrida found herself suddenly lifted on to the table, from which she could see over the heads of the gentlemen who stood all round her. She could see Bet reclining on the sofa, and the open door with servants crowding in it, all eyes and ears.

“Now,” said a dozen voices, “the truth, little miss.”

“What do you want to know?” she asked; and, in a much lower tone, “I shan’t tell you anything unless you send the servants away.”

The door was closed and the truth was asked for again.

“If you’ll only tell me what you want to know,” she said again.

“Does any stranger lie here tonight?”

“No,” said Elfrida. She knew that the beautiful gentleman in the secret chamber was not lying down, but sitting to his supper.

“But Miss Arden said ‘All is lost,’ and she knew ’twas he whom we sought.”

“Well,” Elfrida carefully explained, “it’s like this. You see, we were robbed by a highwayman today, and I think that upset my cousin. She’s rather easily upset, I’m afraid.”

“Very easily,” several voices agreed, and someone added that it was a harebrained business.

“The shortest way’s the best,” said the plum-coloured gentleman. “Is Sir Edward Talbot here?”

“No, he isn’t,” said Elfrida downrightly, “and I don’t believe you’ve got any business coming into people’s houses and frightening other people into fits, and I shall tell Lord Arden when he comes home. So now you know.”

“Zooks!” someone cried, “the child’s got a spirit; and she’s right, too, strike me if she isn’t.”

“But, snails!” exclaimed another, “we do but protect Lord Arden’s house in his absence.”

“If,” said Elfrida, “you think your Talbot’s playing hide-and-seek here, and if he’s done anything wrong, you can look for him if you like. But I don’t believe Lord Arden will be pleased. That’s all. I should like to get down on to the floor, if you please!”

I don’t know whether Elfrida would have had the courage to say all this if she had not remembered that this was history-times, and not now-times. But the gentlemen seemed delighted with her bravery.

They lifted her gently down, and with many apologies for having discommoded the ladies, they went out of the room and out of the castle. Through the window Elfrida heard the laughing voices and clatter and stamp of their horses’ hoofs as they mounted and rode off. They all seemed to be laughing. And she felt that she moved in the midst of mysteries.

She could not bear to go back into her own time without seeing the end of the adventure. So she went to bed in a large four-poster, with Cousin Bet for company. The fainting fit lasted exactly as long as the strange gentlemen were in the house and no longer, which was very convenient.

Elfrida got up extremely early in the morning and went down into the parlour. She had meant to go and see how the King was, and whether he wanted his shaving-water first thing, as her daddy used to do. But it was so very, very early that she decided that it would be better to wait a little. The King might be sleepy, and sleepy people were not always grateful, she knew, for early shaving-water.

So she went out into the fields where the dew was grey on the grass, and up on to Arden Knoll. And she stood there and heard the skylarks, and looked at the castle and thought how new the mortar looked in the parts about the living house. And presently she saw two figures coming across the fields from where the spire of Arden Church rose out of the tops of trees as round and green as the best double-curled parsley. And one of the gentlemen wore a green coat and the other a purple coat, and she thought to herself how convenient it was to recognise people half a mile away by the colour of their clothes.

Quite plainly they were going to the castle⁠—so she went down, too, and met them at the gate with a civil “Good morning.”

“You are no lie-abed at least,” said the green gentleman. “And so no stranger lay at Arden last night, eh?”

Elfrida found this difficult to answer. No doubt the King had lain⁠—was probably still lying⁠—in the secret chamber. But was he a stranger? No, of course he wasn’t. So⁠—

“No,” she said.

And then through the open window of the parlour came, very unexpectedly and suddenly, a leg in a riding-boot, then another leg, and the whole of the beautiful gentleman stood in front of them.

“So-ho!” he said. “Speak softly, for the servants are not yet about.”

“They are,” said Elfrida, “only they’re at the back. Creep along under the wall; you will get away without their seeing you then.”

“Always a wonderful counsellor,” said the beautiful gentleman, bowing gracefully. “Come with us, little maid. I have no secrets from thee.”

So they all crept along close to the castle wall to that corner from which, between two shoulders of down, you can see the sea. There they stopped.

“And the wager’s mine,” said the beautiful gentleman, “for all you tried to spoil it. That was not in the bond, Fitzgerald, entering Arden at night at nine of the clock, to ferret me out like a pack of hounds after Reynard.”

“There was nothing barred,” said the green gentleman. “We tried waylaying you on the road, but you were an hour early.”

“Ah,” said the beautiful gentleman, “putting back clocks is easy work. And the ostler at the ‘Bull’ loves a handsome wager nigh as well as he loves a guinea.”

“I do wish you’d explain,” said Elfrida, almost stamping with curiosity and impatience.

“And so I will, my pretty,” said he, laughing.

“Aren’t you the King? You said you were.”

“Nay, nay⁠—not so fast. I asked thee what thou wouldst say if I told you I was King James.”

“Then who are you?” she asked.

“Plain Edward Talbot, Baronet, at your ladyship’s service,” he said, with another of his fine bows.

“But I don’t understand,” she said, “do tell me all about it from the beginning.” So he told her, and the other gentlemen stood by, laughing.

“The other night I was dining with Mr. Fitzgerald here, and the talk turned on highway robbery, and on Arden Castle here, with other matters. And these gentlemen, with others of the party, laid me a wager⁠—five hundred guineas it was⁠—that I would not rob a coach. I took the wager. And I wagered beside that I would rob a coach of the Arden jewels, and that I would lie a night at Arden beside, and no one should know my name there. And I have done all three and won my wager. I am but newly come home from foreign parts, so your cousin could not know my face. But zounds, child! had it not been for thee I had lost my wager. I counted on Miss Arden’s help⁠—and a pale-faced, fainting, useless fine lady I should have found her. But thou⁠—thou’rt a girl in a thousand. And I’ll buy thee the finest fairing I can find next time I go to London. We are all friends. Tell pretty miss to hold that tongue of hers, and none shall hear the tale from us.”

“But all these gentlemen coming last night. All the servants know.”

“The gentlemen came, no doubt, to protect Miss Arden, in case the villainous highwayman should have hidden behind the window curtain. Oh, but the wise child it is⁠—has a care for every weak point in our armour!”

Then he told his friends the whole of the adventure, and they laughed very merrily, for all they had lost their wager, and went home to breakfast across the dewy fields.

“It’s nice of him to think me brave and all that,” Elfrida told herself, “but I do wish he’d really been the King.”