The House of Arden · Chapter 11 (2/3)

It was a silent dinner⁠—the first silent meal since the children had come to Arden Castle. You can judge of Edred’s feelings when I tell you that he felt as though the rabbit would choke him, and refused a second helping of gooseberry pie with heartfelt sincerity. Elfrida did not eat so much as usual either. It really was a bitter disappointment. To have been so near seeing where the treasure was, and then⁠—just because they hadn’t happened to bolt the door that last time⁠—all was in vain. Mrs. Honeysett thought they were sulking about a silly trifle, and nearly said so when Edred refused the pie.

It was at the end of dinner that Elfrida, as she got down from her chair, saw Mrs. Honeysett’s face, and saw how different it looked from the kind face that she usually wore. She went over to her very slowly, and very quickly threw her arms round her and kissed her.

“I’m sorry we’ve been so piggy,” she said. “It’s not your fault that you’re not clever enough to know about pictures and things, is it?”

If Mrs. Honeysett hadn’t been a perfect dear, this apology would have been worse than none. But she was a perfect dear, so she laughed and hugged Elfrida, and somehow Edred got caught into the hug and the laugh, and the three were friends again. The sky was blue and the sun began to shine.

And then the two children went down to old Beale’s.

There were roses in his garden now, and white English flags and lupins and tall foxgloves bordering the little brick path. Old Beale was sitting “on a brown Windsor chair,” as Edred said, in the sun by his front door. Over his head was a jackdaw in a wicker cage, and Elfrida did not approve of this till she saw the cage door was open, and that the jackdaw was sitting in the cage because he liked it, and not because he must. She had been in prison in the Tower, you remember, and people who have been in prison never like to see live things in cages. There was a tabby and white cat of squarish shape sitting on the wooden threshold. (Why are cats who live in country cottages almost always tabby and white and squarish?) The feathery tail of a brown spaniel flogged the flags lazily in the patch of shade made by the water-butt. It was a picture of rural peace, and old Beale was asleep in the middle of it. I am glad to tell you that Lord Arden and his sister were polite enough to wait till he awoke of his own accord, instead of shouting “hi!” or rattling the smooth brown iron latch of the gate, as some children would have done.

They just sat down on the dry, grassy bank, opposite his gate, and looked at the blue and white butterflies and the flowers and the green potato-tops through the green-grey garden palings.

And while they sat there Elfrida had an idea⁠—so sudden and so good that it made her jump. But she said nothing, and Edred said⁠—

“Pinch the place hard, and if it’s still there you’ll kill it perhaps”⁠—for he thought she had jumped because she had been bitten by an ant.

When they had finished looking at the butterflies and the red roses and the green-growing things, they looked long and steadily at old Beale, and, of course, he awoke, as people always do if you look at them long enough and hard enough. And he got up, rather shaking, and put his hand to his forehead, and said⁠—

“My lord⁠—”

“How are you?” said Elfrida. “We haven’t found the treasure yet.”

“But ye will, ye will,” said old Beale. “Come into the house now; or will ye come round along to the arbour and have a drink of milk?”

“We’d as soon stay here,” said Edred⁠—they had come through the gate now, and Edred was patting the brown spaniel, while Elfrida stroked the squarish cat. “Mrs. Honeysett said you knew all the stories.”

“Ah,” said old Beale, “a fine girl, Mrs. Honeysett. Her father had Sellinge Farm, where the fairies churn the butter for the bride so long as there’s no cross words. They don’t ever get too much to do, them fairies.” He chuckled, sighed, and said⁠—

“I know a power of tales. And I know, always I do, which it is that people want. What you’re after’s the story of the East House. Isn’t it now? Is the old man a-failing of his wits, or isn’t he?”

“We want to know,” said Edred, companionably sharing the flagstone with the feather-tailed spaniel, “the story about why that part of the house in the castle is shut up and all cobwebby and dusty and rusty and musty, and whether there’s any reason why it shouldn’t be all cleaned up and made nice again, if we find the treasure so that we’ve got enough money to pay for new curtains and carpets and things?”

“It’s a sad tale, that,” said old Beale, “a tale for old folks⁠—or middle-aged folks, let’s say⁠—not for children. You’d never understand it if I was to tell it you, likely as not.”

“We like grown-up stories,” said Elfrida, with dignity; and Edred added⁠—

“We can understand anything that grownups understand if it’s told us properly. I understand all about the laws of gravitation, and why the sun doesn’t go round the earth but does the opposite; I understood that directly Aunt Edith explained it, and about fixed stars, and the spectroscope, and microbes, and the Equator not being real, and⁠—and heaps of things.”

“Ah,” said old Beale admiringly, “you’ll be a-busting with book-larnin’ afore you come to your twenty-one, I lay. I only hope the half of it’s true and they’re not deceiving of you, a trusting innocent. I never did hold myself with that about the sun not moving. Why, you can see it a-doin’ of it with your own naked eyes any day of the week.”

“You wouldn’t deceive anyone,” said Elfrida gently. “Do tell us the story.”

So old Beale began, and he began like this⁠—

“It was a long time ago⁠—before my time even, it was, but not so long afore, ’cause I can recomember my father talking about it. He was coachman at the castle when it all happened, so, of course, he knew everything there was to know, my mother having been the housekeeper and gone through it all with the family. There was a Miss Elfrida then, same as there is now, only she was older’n what you are, missy. And the gentlemen lads from far and near they come a-courting her, for she was a fine girl⁠—a real beauty⁠—with hair as black as a coal and eyes like the sea when it’s beating up for a storm, before the white horses comes along. So I’ve heard my father say⁠—not that I ever see her myself. And she kept her pretty head in the air and wouldn’t turn it this way or that for e’er a one of them all. And the old lord he loved her too dear to press her against her wish and will, and her so young. So she stayed single and watched the sea.”

“What did she do that for?” Edred asked.

“To see if her sweetheart’s ship wasn’t a-coming home. For she’d got a sweetheart right enough, she had, unbeknown to all. It was her cousin Dick⁠—a ne’er-do-weel, if ever there was one⁠—and it turned out afterwards she’d broken the sixpence with him and swore to be ever true, and he’d gone overseas to find a fortune. And so she watched the sea every day regular, and every day regular he didn’t come. But every day another young chap used to come a-riding⁠—a fine young gentleman and well-to-do, but he was the same kidney as Master Dick, only he’d got a fine fortune, so his wild oats never got a chance to grow strong like Dick’s.”

“Poor Dick!” said Elfrida.

“Not so fast, missy,” said the old man. “Well, her father and mother, they said, ‘Have him that’s here and loves you, dear,’ as the saying is⁠—a Frewin he was, and his christened name Arnold. And she says ‘No.’ But they keeps on saying ‘Yes,’ and he keeps on saying ‘Do!’ So they wears her down, telling her Dick was drowned dead for sure, and I don’t know what all. And at last she says, ‘Very well, then, I’ll marry you⁠—if you can stand to marry a girl that’s got all her heart in the sea along of a dead young chap as she was promised to.’ And the wedding was set for Christmas. Miss Elfrida, she slep’ in the room in the East House that looks out towards Arden Knoll, and the servants in the attics, and the old people in the other part of the house.

“And that night, when all was asleep, I think she heard a tap, tap at her window, and at first she’d think it was the ivy⁠—but no. So presently she’d take heart to go to the window, and there was a face outside that had climbed up by the ivy, and it was her own true love that they’d told her was drowned.”

“How splendid!” said Edred.

“How dreadful for Mr. Frewin,” said Elfrida.

“That’s what she thought, miss, and she couldn’t face it. So she puts on her riding-coat and she gets out of window and down the ivy with him, and off to London. And in the morning, when the bells began to ring for her wedding, and the bridegroom came, there wasn’t no bride for him. She left a letter to say she was very sorry, but it had to be. So then they shut up the East House.”

“So that’s the story,” said Elfrida.

“Half of it, miss,” said old Beale, and he took out a black clay pipe and a screw of tobacco, and very slowly and carefully filled the pipe and lighted it, before he went on, “They shut up the East House, where she’d been used to sleep; but it was kep’ swep’ and dusted, and the old folks was brokenhearted, for never a word come from Miss Elfrida. An’ if I know anything of the feelings of a parent, they kept on saying to each other, ‘She might ha’ trusted us. She might ’a’ known we’d never ’a’ denied her nothing.’ And then one night there was a knock at the door, and there was Miss Elfrida that was⁠—Mrs. Dick now⁠—with her baby in her arms. Mr. Dick was dead, sudden in a accident, and she’d come home to her father and mother. They couldn’t make enough of the poor young thing and her baby. She had her old rooms and there she lived, and she was getting a bit happier and worshipping of her baby and the old people worshipping it and her too. And then one night someone comes up the ivy, same as Master Dick did, and takes away⁠—not her⁠—but the baby.”

“How dreadful!” breathed Elfrida. “Did they get it back?”

“Never. And never a word was ever found out about who took it, or why, or where they took it to. Only a week or two after Mr. Frewin was killed in the hunting-field, and as they picked him up he said, ‘Elfrida; tell Elfrida⁠—’ and he was trying to say what they was to tell her, when he died. Some folks hold as ’twas him stole the baby, to be even with her for jilting of him, or else to pretend to find it 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.”