The House of Arden · Chapter 9 (2/2)

“Never mind. I’ll tell you all about Lady Nithsdale,” and proceeded to tell Dick, vaguely yet inspiringly, the story of that wise and brave lady. I haven’t time to tell you the story, but any grownup who knows history will be only too pleased to tell it.

Dick listened with most flattering interest, though it was getting dusk and colder than ever. The lights were lighted in the house and the trapdoor had become a yellow square. A shadow in this yellow square warned Dick, and he pinched Edred’s arm.

“Come,” he said, “and let us apply ourselves to our books. Virtuous youths always act in their preceptors’ absence as they would if their preceptors were present. I feel as though mine were present. Therefore, I take it, I am a virtuous youth.”

On which the shadow disappeared very suddenly, and the two boys, laughing in a choking inside sort of way, went down to learn their lessons by the light of two guttering tallow candles in solid silver candlesticks.

The next day Edred got the old nurse to take him to the Court, and because the Queen was very fond of Lady Arden he actually managed to see her Majesty and, what is more, to get permission to visit his father and sister in the Tower. The permission was written by the Queen’s own hand and bade the Lieutenant of the Tower to admit Master Edred Arden and Master Richard Arden and an attendant. Then the nurse became very busy with sewing, and two days went by, and Mr. Parados rapped the boys’ fingers and scolded them and scowled at them and wondered why they bore it all so patiently. Then came The Day, and it was bitterly cold, and as the afternoon got older snow began to fall.

“So much the better,” said the old nurse, “so much the better.”

It was at dusk that the guard was changed at the Tower Gate, and a quarter of an hour before dusk Lord Arden’s carriage stopped at the Tower Gate and an old nurse in ruff and cap and red cloak got out of it and lifted out two little gentlemen, one in black with a cloak trimmed with squirrel fur, which was Edred, and another, which was Richard, in grey velvet and marten’s fur. And the lieutenant was called, and he read the Queen’s order and nodded kindly to Edred, and they all went in. And as they went across the yard to the White Tower, where Lord Arden’s lodging was, the snow fell thick on their cloaks and furs and froze to the stuff, for it was bitter cold.

And again, “So much the better,” the nurse said, “so much the better.”

Elfrida was with Lord Arden, sitting on his knee, when the visitors came in. She jumped up and greeted Edred with a glad cry and a very close hug.

“Go with Nurse,” he whispered through the hug. “Do exactly what she tells you.”

“But I’ve made a piece of poetry,” Elfrida whispered, “and now you’re here.”

“Do what you’re told,” whispered Edred in a tone she had never heard from him before and so fiercely that she said no more about poetry. “We must get you out of this,” Edred went on. “Don’t be a duffer⁠—think of Lady Nithsdale.”

Then Elfrida understood. Her arms fell from round Edred’s neck and she ran back to Lord Arden and put her arms round his neck and kissed him over and over again.

“There, there, my maid, there, there!” he said, patting her shoulder softly, for she was crying.

“Come with me to thy chamber,” said the nurse. “I would take thy measure for a new gown and petticoat.”

But Elfrida clung closer. “She does not want to leave her dad,” said Lord Arden⁠—“dost thou, my maid?”

“No, no,” said Elfrida quite wildly, “I don’t want to leave my daddy!”

“Come,” said Lord Arden, “ ’tis but for a measuring time. Thou’lt come back, sweet lamb as thou art. Go now to return the more quickly.”

“Goodbye, dear, dear, dear daddy!” said Elfrida, suddenly standing up. “Oh, my dear daddy, goodbye!”

“Why, what a piece of work about a new frock!” said the nurse crossly. “I’ve no patience with the child,” and she caught Elfrida’s hand and dragged her into the next room.

“Now,” she whispered, already on her knees undoing Elfrida’s gown, “not a moment to lose. Hold thy handkerchief to thy face and seem to weep as we go out. Why, thou’rt weeping already! So much the better!”

From under her wide hoop and petticoat the nurse drew out the clothes that were hidden there, a little suit of black exactly like Edred’s⁠—cap, cloak, stockings, shoes⁠—all like Edred’s to a hair.

And Elfrida before she had finished crying stood up the exact image of her brother⁠—except her face⁠—and that would be hidden by the handkerchief. Then very quickly the nurse went to the door of the apartment and spoke to the guard there.

“Good luck, good gentleman,” she said, “my little master is ill⁠—he is too frail to bear these sad meetings and sadder partings. Convey us, I pray you, to the outer gate, that I may find our coach and take him home, and afterwards I will return for my other charge, his noble cousin.”

“Is it so?” said the guard kindly. “Poor child! Well, such is life, mistress, and we all have tears to weep.”

But he could not leave his post at Lord Arden’s door to conduct them to the gates. But he told them the way, and they crossed the courtyard alone, and as they went the snow fell on their cloaks and froze there.

So that the guard at the gate, who had seen an old nurse and two little boys go in through the snow, now saw an old nurse and one little boy go out, all snow-covered, and the little boy appeared to be crying bitterly, and no wonder, the nurse explained, seeing his dear father and sister thus.

“I will convey him to our coach, good masters,” she said to the guard, “and return for my other charge, young Master Richard Arden.”

And on that she got Elfrida in her boy’s clothes out at the gate and into the waiting carriage. The coachman, by previous arrangement with the old nurse, was asleep on the box, and the footman, also by previous arrangement, was refreshing himself at a tavern near by.

“Under the seat,” said the old nurse, and thrusting Elfrida in, shut the coach door and left her. And there was Elfrida, dressed like a boy, huddled up among the straw at the bottom of the coach.

So far, so good. But the most dangerous part of the adventure still remained. The nurse got in again easily enough; she was let in by the guard who had seen her come out. And as she went slowly across the snowy courtyard she heard ring under the gateway the stamping feet of the men who had come to relieve guard, and to be themselves the new guard. So far, again, so good. The danger lay with the guard at the door of Lord Arden’s rooms, and in the chance that some of the old guard might be lingering about the gateway when she came out, not with one little boy as they would expect, but with two. But this had to be risked. The nurse waited as long as she dared so as to lessen the chance of meeting any of the old guard as she went out with her charges. She waited quietly in a corner while Lord Arden talked with the boys. And when at last she said, “The time is done, my Lord,” she already knew that the guard at the room door had been changed.

“So now for it,” said Edred, as he and Richard followed the nurse down the narrow steps and across the snowy courtyard.

The new guard saw the woman and two boys, and the captain of the guard read the Queen’s paper, which the old nurse had taken care to get back from the lieutenant. And as plainly Master Edred Arden and Master Richard Arden, with their attendant, had passed in, so now they were permitted to pass out, and two minutes later a great coach was lumbering along the snowy streets, and inside it four people were embracing in rapture at the success of their stratagem.

“But it was Edred thought of it,” said Richard, as in honour bound, “and he arranged everything and carried it out.”

“How splendid of him!” said Elfrida warmly; and I think it was rather splendid of her not to spoil his pride and pleasure in this, the first adventure he had ever planned and executed entirely on his own account. She could very easily have spoiled it, you know, by pointing out to him that the whole thing was quite unnecessary, and that they could have got away much more easily by going into a corner in the Tower and saying poetry to the Mouldiwarp.

So they came to Arden House.

The coachman was apparently asleep again, and the footman went round and did something to the harness after he had got the front door opened, and it was quite easy for the nurse to send the footman who opened the door to order a meal to be served at once for Mr. Arden and Mr. Richard. So that no one saw that instead of the two little boys who had left Arden House in the afternoon three came back to it in the evening.

Then the nurse took them into the parlour and shut the door.

“Now,” she said, “Master Richard will go take off his fine suit, and Miss Arden will go into the little room and change her raiment. And for you, Master Edred, you wait here with me.”

When the others had obediently gone, the nurse stood looking at Edred with eyes that grew larger and different, and he stood looking at her with eyes that grew rounder and rounder.

“Why,” he said at last, “you’re the witch⁠—the witch we took the tea and things to.”

“And if I am?” said she. “Do you think you’re the only people who can come back into other times? You’re not all the world yet, Master Arden of Arden. But you’ve got the makings of a fine boy and a fine man, and I think you’ve learned something in these old ancient times.”

He had, there is no doubt of it. Whether it was being thought important enough to be imprisoned in the Tower, or whether it was the long talks he had with Sir Walter Raleigh, that fine genius and great gentleman, or whether it was Mr. Parados’s knuckle-rappings and scowlings, I do not know. But it is certain that this adventure was the beginning of the change in Edred which ended in his being “brave and kind and wise” as the old rhyme had told him to be.

“And now,” said the nurse, as Elfrida appeared in her girl’s clothes, “there is not a moment to lose. Already at the Tower they have found out our trick. You must go back to your own times.”

“She’s the witch,” Edred briefly answered the open amazement in Elfrida’s eyes.

“There is no time to lose,” the nurse repeated.

“I must be even with old Parados first,” said Edred; and so he was, and it took exactly twenty minutes, and I will tell you all about it afterwards.

When he was even with old Parados the old nurse sent Richard to bed; and then Elfrida made haste to say, “I did make some poetry to call the Mouldiwarp, but it’s all about the Tower, and we’re not there now. It’s no use saying⁠—

“ ‘Oh, Mouldiwarp, you have the power

To get us out of this beastly Tower,’

when we’re not in the Tower, and I can’t think of anything else, and.⁠ ⁠…”

But the nurse interrupted her.

“Never mind about poetry,” she said; “poetry’s all very well for children, but I know a trick worth two of that.”

She led them into the dining-room, where the sideboard stood covered with silver, set down the candle, lifted down the great salver with the arms of Arden engraved upon it, and put it on the table.

She breathed on the salver and traced triangles and a circle on the drilled surface; and as the mistiness of her breath faded and the silver shone out again undimmed, there, suddenly, in the middle of the salver, was the live white Mouldiwarp of Arden, looking extremely cross!

“You’ve no manners,” it said to the nurse, “bringing me here in that offhand, rude way, without ‘With your leave,’ or ‘By your leave’! Elfrida could easily have made some poetry. You know well enough,” it added angrily, “that it’s positively painful to me to be summoned by your triangles and things. Poetry’s so easy and simple.”

“Poetry’s too slow for this night’s work,” said the nurse shortly. “Come, take the children away, I have done with it.”

“You make everything so difficult,” said the Mouldiwarp, more crossly than ever. “That’s the worst of people who think they know a lot and really only know a little, and pretend they know everything. If I’d come the easy poetry way, I could have taken them back as easily. But now⁠—Well, it can’t be helped. I’ll take them back, of course, but it’ll be a way they won’t like. They’ll have to go on to the top of the roof and jump off.”

“I don’t believe that is necessary,” said the witch nurse.

“All right,” said the Mouldiwarp, “get them away yourself then,” and it actually began to disappear.

“No, no!” said Elfrida, “we’ll do anything you say.”

“There’s a foot of snow on the roof,” said the witch nurse.

“So much the better,” said the Mouldiwarp, “so much the better. You ought to know that.”

“You think yourself very clever,” said the nurse.

“Not half so clever as I am,” said the Mouldiwarp, rather unreasonably Elfrida thought. “There!” it added sharply as a great hammering at the front door shattered the quiet of the night. “There, to the roof for your lives! And I’m not at all sure that it’s not too late.”

The knocking was growing louder and louder.