THE HOUSE OF ARDEN - A Children's Fanyasy book by e. Nesbit

CHAPTER I Arden’s Lord-2

“Oh, no,” said Edred; and added, on the inspiration of the moment, “Why mayn’t we have a picnic—just Elf and me—on the downs, to keep my birthday? It doesn’t matter it being the day before, does it? You said we were too little last summer, and we should this, and now it is this and I have grown two inches and Elf’s grown three, so we’re five inches taller than when you said we weren’t big enough.”

“Now you see how useful arithmetic is,” said the aunt. “Very well, you shall. Only wear your old clothes, and always keep in sight of the road. Yes; you can have a whole holiday. And now to bed. Oh, there’s that bell again! Poor, dear Eliza.”

A Clapham cub, belonging to one of the lodgers, happened to be going up to bed just as Edred and Elfrida came through the baize door that shut off the basement from the rest of the house. He put his tongue out through the banisters at the children of the house and said, “Little slaveys.” The cub thought he could get up the stairs before the two got round the end of the banisters, but he had not counted on the long arm of Elfrida, whose hand shot through the banisters and caught the cub’s leg and held on to it till Edred had time to get round. The two boys struggled up the stairs together and then rolled together from top to bottom, where they were picked up and disentangled by their relations. Except for this little incident, going to bed was uneventful.

Next morning Aunt Edith went off by the eight-thirty train. The children’s school satchels were filled, not with books, but with buns; instead of exercise-books there were sandwiches; and in the place of inky pencil-boxes were two magnificent boxes of peppermint creams which had cost a whole shilling each, and had been recklessly bought by Aunt Edith in the agitation of the parting hour when they saw her off at the station.

They went slowly up the red-brick-paved sidewalk that always looks as though it had just been washed, and when they got to the top of the hill they stopped and looked at each other.

“It can’t be wrong,” said Edred.

“She never told us not to,” said Elfrida.

“I’ve noticed,” said Edred, “that when grown-up people say ‘they’ll see about’ anything you want it never happens.”

“I’ve noticed that, too,” said Elfrida. “Auntie always said she’d see about taking us there.”

“Yes, she did.”

“We won’t be mean and sneaky about it,” Edred insisted, though no one had suggested that he would be mean and sneaky. “We’ll tell auntie directly she gets back.”

“Of course,” said Elfrida, rather relieved, for she had not felt at all sure that Edred meant to do this.

“After all,” said Edred, “it’s our castle. We ought to go and see the cradle of our race. That’s what it calls it in ‘Cliffgate and its Envions.’ I say, let’s call it a pilgrimage. The satchels will do for packs, and we can get half-penny walking-sticks with that penny of yours. We can put peas in our shoes, if you like,” he added generously.

“We should have to go back for them, and I don’t expect the split kind count, anyhow. And perhaps they’d hurt,” said Elfrida doubtfully. “And I want my penny for——” She stopped, warned by her brother’s frown. “All right, then,” she ended; “you can have it. Only give me half next time you get a penny; that’s only fair.”

“I’m not usually unfair,” said Edred coldly. “Don’t let’s be pilgrims.”

“But I should like to,” said Elfrida.

Edred was obstinate. “No,” he said, “we’ll just walk.”

So they just walked, rather dismally.

The town was getting thinner, like the tract of stocking that surrounds a hole; the houses were farther apart and had large gardens. In one of them a maid was singing to herself as she shook out the mats—a thing which, somehow, maids don’t do much in towns.

“Good luck!” says I to my sweetheart,

“For I will love you true;

And all the while we’ve got to part,

My luck shall go with you.”

“That’s lucky for us,” said Elfrida amiably.

“We’re not her silly sweetheart,” said Edred.

“No; but we heard her sing it, and he wasn’t here, so he couldn’t. There’s a sign-post. I wonder how far we’ve gone? I’m getting awfully tired.”

“You’d better have been pilgrims,” said Edred. “They never get tired, however many peas they have in their shoes.”

“I will now,” said Elfrida.

“You can’t,” said Edred; “it’s too late. We’re miles and miles from the stick shop.”

“THEY WENT SLOWLY UP THE RED-BRICK-PAVED SIDEWALK.”

“Very well, I shan’t go on,” said Elfrida. “You got out of bed the wrong side this morning. I’ve tried to soft-answer you as hard as ever I could all the morning, and I’m not going to try anymore, so there.”

“Don’t, then,” said Edred bitterly. “Go along home if you like. You’re only a girl.”

“I’d rather be only a girl than what you are,” said she.

“And what’s that, I should like to know?”

Elfrida stopped and shut her eyes tight.

“Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t!” she said. “I won’t be cross, I won’t be cross, I won’t be cross! Pax. Drop it. Don’t let’s!”

“Don’t let’s what?”

“Quarrel about nothing,” said Elfrida, opening her eyes and walking on very fast. “We’re always doing it. Auntie says it’s a habit. If boys are so much splendider than girls, they ought to be able to stop when they like.”

“Suppose they don’t like?” said he, kicking his boots in the thick, white dust.

“Well,” said she, “I’ll say I’m sorry first. Will that do?”

“I was just going to say it first myself,” said Edred, in aggrieved tones. “Come on,” he added more generously, “here’s the sign-post. Let’s see what it says.”

It said, quite plainly and without any nonsense about it, that they had come a mile and three-quarters, adding, most unkindly, that it was eight miles to Arden Castle. But, it said, it was a quarter of a mile to Ardenhurst Station.

“Let’s go by train,” said Edred grandly.

“No money,” said Elfrida, very forlornly indeed.

“Aha!” said Edred; “now you’ll see. I’m not mean about money. I brought my new florin.”

“Oh, Edred,” said the girl, stricken with remorse, “you are noble.”

“Pooh!” said the boy, and his ears grew red with mingled triumph and modesty; “that’s nothing. Come on.”

So it was from the train that the pilgrims got their first sight of Arden Castle. It stands up boldly on the cliff where it was set to keep off foreign foes and guard the country round about it. But of all its old splendour there is now nothing but the great walls that the grasses and wild flowers grow on, and round towers whose floors and ceilings have fallen away, and roofless chambers where owls build, and brambles and green ferns grow strong and thick.

The children walked to the castle along the cliff path where the skylarks were singing like mad up in the pale sky, and the bean-fields, where the bees were busy, gave out the sweetest scent in the world—a scent that got itself mixed with the scent of the brown seaweed that rises and falls in the wash of the tide on the rocks at the cliff-foot.

“Let’s have dinner here,” said Elfrida, when they reached the top of a little mound from which they could look down on the castle. So they had it.

Two bites of sandwich and one of peppermint cream; that was the rule.

And all the time they were munching they looked down on the castle, and loved it more and more.

“Don’t you wish it was real, and we lived in it?” Elfrida asked, when they had eaten as much as they wanted—not of peppermint creams, of course; but they had finished them.

“It is real, what there is of it.”

“Yes; but I mean if it was a house with chimneys, and fireplaces, and doors with bolts, and glass in the windows.”

“I wonder if we could get in?” said Edred.

“We might climb over,” said Elfrida, looking hopefully at the enormous walls, sixty feet high, in which no gate or gap showed.

“There’s an old man going across that field—no, not that one; the very green field. Let’s ask him.”

So they left their satchels lying on the short turf, that was half wild thyme, and went down. But they were not quite quick enough; before they could get to him the old man had come through the field of young corn, clambered over a stile, and vanished between the high hedges of a deep-sunk lane. So over the stile and down into the lane went the children, and caught up with the old man just as he had clicked his garden gate behind him and had turned to go up the bricked path between beds of woodruff, and anemones, and narcissus, and tulips of all colours.

His back was towards them. Now it is very difficult to address a back politely. So you will not be surprised to learn that Edred said, “Hi!” and Elfrida said, “Halloa! I say!”

The old man turned and saw at his gate two small figures dressed in what is known as sailor costume. They saw a very wrinkled old face with snowy hair and mutton-chop whiskers of a silvery whiteness. There were very bright twinkling blue eyes in the sun-browned face, and on the clean-shaven mouth a kind, if tight, smile.

“Well,” said he, “and what do you want?”

“We want to know——” said Elfrida.

“About the castle,” said Edred, “Can we get in and look at it?”

“I’ve got the keys,” said the old man, and put his hand in at his door and reached them from a nail.

“I s’pose no one lives there?” said Elfrida.

“Not now,” said the old man, coming back along the garden path. “Lord Arden, he died a fortnight ago come Tuesday, and the place is shut up till the new lord’s found.”

“I wish I was the new lord,” said Edred, as they followed the old man along the lane.

“An’ how old might you be?” the old man asked.

“I’m ten nearly. It’s my birthday to-morrow,” said Edred. “How old are you?”

“Getting on for eighty. I’ve seen a deal in my time. If you was the young lord you’d have a chance none of the rest of them ever had—you being the age you are.”

“What sort of chance?”

“Why,” said the old man, “don’t you know the saying? I thought everyone knowed it hereabouts.”

“What saying?”

“I ain’t got the wind for saying and walking too,” said the old man, and stopped; “leastways, not potery.” He drew a deep breath and said—

“When Arden’s lord still lacketh ten

And may not see his nine again,

Let Arden stand as Arden may

On Arden Knoll at death of day.

If he have skill to say the spell

He shall find the treasure, and all be well!”

“I say!” said both the children. “And where’s Arden Knoll?” Edred asked.

“Up yonder.” He pointed to the mound where they had had lunch.

Elfrida inquired, “What treasure?”

But that question was not answered—then.

“If I’m to talk I must set me down,” said the old man. “Shall we set down here, or set down inside of the castle?”

Two curiosities struggled, and the stronger won. “In the castle,” said the children.

So it was in the castle, on a pillar fallen from one of the chapel arches, that the old man sat down and waited. When the children had run up and down the grassy enclosure, peeped into the ruined chambers, picked their way along the ruined colonnade, and climbed the steps of the only tower that they could find with steps to climb, then they came and sat beside the old man on the grass that was white with daisies, and said, “Now, then!”