Latest / Classic Science Fiction Books / 10 - The House of Arden - E Nesbit

Transcript

10 - The House of Arden - E Nesbit · Classic Science Fiction Books

0:00
Chapter eight, Guy Fox, Part one three days because there had been a
0:07
quarrel. But days pass quickly when the sun shines, and it is holiday
0:12
time, and you have a big ruined castle to explore and examine, a
0:16
castle that is your own or your brothers. After all, said Elfrida,
0:21
Sensibly, we might quite likely find the treasure ourselves without any magic MOLDI warpin
0:26
us at all. We look thoroughly, we won't leave a stone unturned.
0:31
We shall have to leave a good many stones unturned, said Edred, looked
0:35
at the great gray mass of the keep that tw tall and frowning above them.
0:40
Well, you know what I mean, said Efreida. Come on,
0:44
and they went. They climbed the steep worn stairs that went round and round
0:49
in the darkness, stairs littered with dead leaves and moat and dropped feathers,
0:54
and the dry, deserted nests of owls and jack doors, Stairs that ended
0:59
suddenly in daylight, and a steep last step, and the top of a
1:02
broad, ivy grown wall, from which you could look down down, down,
1:07
past the holes in the walls where the big beams used to be,
1:11
past the old fireplace, still black with the smoke of fires, long since
1:15
burnt out, past the doors and windows of rooms whose floor fell away long
1:19
ago, down down to where ferns and grass and brambles grew green at the
1:26
very bottom of the tower. Then there were arch doors that led to colonnades
1:30
with strong little pillars and narrow windows, wonderful little unexpected chambers and corners,
1:37
the best place in the whole white world for serious and energetic hide and seek.
1:42
How glorious, said Elfrida, as they rested, scarlet and panting after
1:47
a swilling game of I Spy. If all these broken bits were mended so
1:52
that you couldn't see where the new bits were stuck on, and if it
1:56
could all be exactly like it was when it was brand new, there wasn't
2:00
the house when he was brand new, the house like it is now,
2:04
I mean, said Edred. I don't suppose there was any attic with chests
2:08
in when the castle was new. There couldn't be, not with all the
2:13
chests, said Elfrida. Of course not, because some of the clothes in
2:16
the chest weren't made till long after the castle was built. I believe grown
2:22
ups can tell what a broken thing was like when it was new. I
2:25
know they can with bones, masdons and things, and they made out what
2:30
Hercules was like out of one foot of him that they found, I believe,
2:34
she added hastily. I've got an idea, said Edred. If he
2:39
could get back to where the castle was all perfect like a model and rare
2:44
pictures of every part, then when we found the treasure, we should know
2:47
exactly what to build it up like, shouldn't we, Yes, said Elfrida
2:52
very gently. We certainly should. But then we should have to know how
2:55
to draw first, shouldn't we. Of course we should eat it, agreed,
3:00
But that wouldn't take long if we really tried. I never do try
3:04
at school. I don't like it, but it's jolly easy. I know
3:07
that Bumslammy always takes the drawing price, and you know what it doffer.
3:12
He is. We might begin to learn, now, don't you think.
3:15
Efrida sat down on a fallen stone in the middle of the castle yard and
3:20
looked at the intricate, wonderful arches and pillars, the cranulated battlements of the
3:24
towers, the splendid stoutness of the walls, and she sighed yes, she
3:30
said, let's begin now, and you'll have to lend me one of your
3:35
pencils, said he, because I broke mine alt bids trying to get the
3:38
parlor door open the day you'd got the key in your pocket quite a long
3:43
when it was You'll have to lend me along one alf. I can't draw
3:46
with those little indie bits that get inside your hand and prick you with the
3:50
other end. I don't mind, said she, so long as you don't
3:53
put it in your mouth. So they got large sheets of writing paper and
4:00
brown calf bound books for the paper to lie flat on, and they started
4:03
to draw arden Castle. And as Elfrida tried to draw everything she knew was
4:08
there, as well as everything she could see, her drawing soon became almost
4:13
entirely covered with black lad They had no India rubber, and if you drew
4:17
anything wrong, it had to stay drawn. When you first begin to draw,
4:21
you draw a good many things wrong, don't you. I assure you
4:26
that nobody would have known that the black and gray muddle on Elfrida's paper was
4:30
meant to be a picture for Castle. Edwards was much more easily recognized,
4:35
even before he printed Arden Castle under it in large, uneven letters. He
4:42
never once raised his eyes from his paper and just drew what he thought the
4:46
front of the castle looked like from the outside. Also, he sucked his
4:49
pencil earnestly, Elfrida's pencil, I mean, and this made the lines of
4:55
his drawing very black. There, he said, at last, it's ever
5:00
much lighter than yours. Yes, said Elfrida. But there's more in mine.
5:05
It doesn't matter how much there is in a picture if you can't tell
5:09
what it's meant for, said Edred, with some truce. Now in mine
5:13
you can see the towers and the big gate, and the windows, and
5:15
the twiddly in and outness on top. Yes, said Elfrida. But well,
5:21
let's do something else. I don't believe we should either of us learn
5:25
to draw well enough to rebuild Arden by not before we found the treasure.
5:29
I mean, perhaps we might meet a real artist like the one we saw
5:32
drawing the castle yesterday in the past, I mean, and get him to
5:36
draw it for us, and bring the picture back with us. And oh,
5:41
cried Edred, jumping up and dropping his masterpiece and the calf bound volume
5:46
and the pencil. I know, the brownie, the brownie. Yes,
5:53
take it with us. Then we could photograph the castle all perfect, But
5:58
we can't take it with us, can't we said Edred? That's all you
6:01
know. Now I'll tell you something that first time, A bit of plaster
6:06
was in my shoe when we changed, And it was in my shoe when
6:10
we got there, and I took it out when we were learning about Dog's
6:14
Delight, and I flipped it out of the window. And when we got
6:17
back and had changed in everything, there was that bit of plaster on my
6:21
own shoe. If we can take plaster, we can take photographs, cameras.
6:26
I mean this close and intelligent reasoning, commanded Elfrida's respect, and she
6:31
wished she had thought of it herself, But then she had not had any
6:35
plaster on her shoe, so she said, you're getting quite clever, aren't
6:40
you, aha, said Edred. You'd like to have thought of that yourself,
6:45
wouldn't you. I can be clever sometimes, same as you can.
6:49
It is very annoying to have our thoughts re at. Efrida said, swiftly,
6:54
not often, you can't, and then stopped short for a moment.
6:59
The children stood looking at each other with a very peculiar expression. Then a
7:03
sigh of relief broke from each feel it, said Edred. Just in time,
7:10
said Elfrida. It wasn't a quarrel. Nobody could say it was a
7:13
quarrel. Come on, let's go and look at the cottages like the witch
7:16
showed us to. They went. They made it two of inspecting that day
7:21
and the next and the next, and they saw a great many things that
7:26
a grown up inspector would never have seen. Poor people are very friendly and
7:30
kind to you when you are a child. They will let you come into
7:33
their houses and talk to you and show you things in a way that they
7:36
would never condescend to do with your grown upulations. This is, of course,
7:42
if you are a really nice child and treat them in a respectful and
7:45
friendly way. Edred and Elfrida very soon knew more about the insights of the
7:49
cottages rond Arden than any grown up could have learned in a year. They
7:55
knew what wages the master of the house gout, what there was for dinner,
7:59
and what oftener there wasn't, how many children were still living and how
8:03
many had failed to live. They knew exactly where the rain came through the
8:07
wotten thatch and bad weather, and where the boards didn't fit, and so
8:11
led the drafts in, and how some of the doors wouldn't shut somewhat open,
8:16
and how the bedroom windows were as often as not not made to open
8:20
at all. And when they weren't visiting the cottages or exploring the castle,
8:24
they found a joyous way of passing the time in the reading aloud of the
8:28
history of Arden. They took it in turns to read aloud. Elfrida looked
8:33
carefully for some mention of Sir Edward Talbot and his pretending to be the Chevalier
8:37
Saint George. There was none, but as Sir Edward Talbot had been accused
8:41
with the Lord Arden of the time of flotting against his Most Christian Majesty,
8:46
King James the First, I wonder if he was like myne Edward Talbot,
8:50
said Elfrida. I would like to see him again. I wish I told
8:54
him about his having been born so many years after he died, But it
8:58
would have been difficult to explain, wouldn't it. Let's look in Green's history
9:01
book and see what they looked like when it was his most Christian Majesty,
9:05
King James the First. Perhaps it was this which decided the children. When
9:11
the three days were over, to put on the clothes, which most resembled
9:13
the ones in the pictures of James the first's time in Green's history. Edred
9:20
had full breeches pulled out little balloons, and a steeper crowned head, and
9:24
a sort of tune neck of crimson velvet, and a big starred ruff from
9:28
his little neck, more uncomfortable even than your eaton collar is after you've been
9:33
wearing flannels for days and days. And Elfrida had long tide stays with a
9:37
large flat shaped piece of wood down the front, and very full long skirts
9:41
over a very abrupt hoop. When the three days were over, the door
9:46
of the attic, which, as usual after quarrel, had been quite invisible
9:50
and impossible to find, had become as plain as the nose on the face
9:54
of the plainest person you know. And the children had walked in and looked
9:58
in the chests till they found what they wanted. And now they put on
10:03
ruffs and all the rest of it to the accompaniment, or, as it
10:05
always seemed, with the help of soft pigeon noises. While they were dressing,
10:11
Elfrida had the brownie camera tightly in one hand or the other. This
10:16
made dressing rather slow and difficult, but the children had agreed that if it
10:20
were not done, the brownie would be, as Edred put it, liable
10:24
to manish, as everything else belonging to their own time always did, except
10:28
their clothes. I can't explain to you just now how it was that their
10:33
clothes didn't vanish. It would take too long, But it was all part
10:37
of the magic of white feathers, which are, as you know, the
10:41
clothes of white pigeons. And now a very odd thing happened as Edred put
10:46
on a second shoe, which was the last touch to the united toilets.
10:52
The walls seemed to tremble and shake and go crooked like a house of cards
10:56
at the way instant before topples down. The floor slap entered to that degree
11:01
that standing on it was so difficult as to be at last impossible. The
11:05
rafters all seemed to get crooked and mixed, like a box of matches when
11:09
you spill them on the floor. The tight roof that showed blue daylight through
11:13
seemed to spin like a top, and you could not tell at all which
11:16
way up you were. All this happened with dreadful suddenness, but almost as
11:20
soon as it had begun, it stopped with a jerk like that of a
11:24
clockwork engine that has gone wrong. And the attic was gone, and the
11:30
chests and the blue chink ties of the roof, and the walls and the
11:33
rafters, and the room had shrunk to less than half its old size,
11:37
and it was higher, and it was not an attic any more, but
11:41
a round room with narrow windows, and just such a fireplace with a stone
11:45
hood as the ones the children had seen when they looked down from the tops
11:48
of the towers. You must have often heard of events that take people's breath
11:54
away. The sudden change did really take away the breast of Edred and Elfrida,
11:58
so that for a few moments they could only stare at each other like
12:03
eye Fox's masts. As Elfrida later said, I see, said Edred,
12:09
when breath enough for speech had returned to him. This is the place where
12:13
the attic was after the tower fell to pieces. But there isn't any attic,
12:18
really, said Elfrida. You know we can't find it if we quarreled,
12:22
and missus Sunnyset doesn't ever find it. It isn't anywhere. Yes,
12:26
it is, said Edred. We couldn't find it if it wasn't well,
12:31
said Elfrida gloomily. I only hope we may find it. That's all I
12:35
suppose. We may as well go out. It's no use sticking in the
12:39
sorid little room. Her hand was on the door. But even as she
12:43
fumbled with the latch, which was of iron and of a shape to which
12:46
he was wholly unaccustomed, something else happened, even more disconcerting than the turnover
12:52
change in which the attic and the chests had disappeared. It is very difficult
12:56
to describe. Perhaps you happen to dislike tracking in trains with your back to
13:01
the engine. If you do dislike it, you dislike it very much.
13:05
Indeed, it makes your headache and gives you a queer feeling at the back
13:09
of your neck, and makes you turn so pale that the grown up people
13:13
with whom you are traveling will ask you what is the matter, and sometimes
13:16
heartlessly insist that the bunds you had at the junction, or the chocolate creams
13:20
pressed into your hand at the parting hour by Uncle Fred or Aunt Imogen,
13:24
are the cause of your sufferings. The worst feeling of all is that terrible
13:30
sensation, as though your heart and lungs and the front part of your basket
13:33
were being drawn slowly but surely through your backbone. Eric shaking a very long
13:39
way off. The sensations which now held Edred and Efrida were exactly like those
13:43
which, if you don't like traveling backwards, you know only too well.
13:48
And the sensations were so acute that both children shut their eyes. The whirling
13:54
feeling and the withdrawing waistcoat feeling, and the headache and the back of the
13:58
neck feeling stopped as suddenly as they had begun, and the two children opened
14:03
their eyes. In a room which Edward at least had never seen before.
14:07
To Elfrida, it seemed strange. She had familiar the shape of the room,
14:11
the position of doors and windows, the metal piece with its curious carvings.
14:16
These she knew, and some of the furniture too. Yet the room
14:20
seemed bare, baarer than it should have been. But why should it look
14:26
bare barer than it should have been, unless she knew how much less bare
14:30
it once was, unless in fact she had seen it before. Oh,
14:35
I know, she cried, standing in her stiff skirts and heavy shoes,
14:39
in the middle of the room. I know this is Lord Arden's town house.
14:43
This is where it was with cousin Buddy, only there aren't such nice
14:48
chairs and things, and it was full of people. Then Edward remained silent,
14:52
his mouth half open and his eyes half shut, in a sort of
14:56
trance of astonishment. This was very different from the last venture in which he
15:00
had taken part. For then he had only gone to the house in Adden
15:03
Castle as it was in Bonney's time, and he had gone to it by
15:07
the simple means of walking down a staircase with which he was already familiar.
15:13
But now he had been transported in a most violent and unpleasing manner, not
15:16
only from his own times two times much earlier, but also from ann Castle,
15:22
which he knew, to Aarden house which he did not know. So
15:26
he was silent, and when he did speak, it was with discontent,
15:30
working on disgust. I don't like it, he began, Let's go back.
15:35
I don't like it. And we didn't take the photograph, and I
15:39
don't like it, and my clothes are hurried. I feel something between a
15:43
balloon and a blue coat. Boy, And you've no idea how silly you
15:46
look? Like missus Noah out of the ark, only Tubby, and I
15:50
don't know who we are supposed to be. And I don't suppose this is
15:54
arden house, and if it is, you don't know when. Suppose it's
15:58
inquisition times and they put us on the stake. Let's go back. I
16:03
don't like it, he ended. Now you just listen, said Elfrida,
16:07
knitting her brows under the queer cap. She wore, I know inside me
16:12
what I mean, but you won't unless you jolly well attend fire ahead.
16:18
Well then even if it was inquisition times, it would be all right for
16:22
us. How do you know? I don't know how I know, but
16:26
I know I do know, said Elfrida firmly. You see I've been here
16:30
before. It's not real, you see it is, said Edred, kicking
16:36
the leg of the table. Yes, of course, but look here.
16:41
You remember the water shoot at Earl's Court and you were so frightened. I
16:45
wasn't, Yes you were, and I didn't half like it myself. I
16:49
wished we hadn't rather, And when it started and we knew we'd got to
16:53
go on with it, oh horrible. And when it was over we wanted
16:57
to go again. And we did, and it it's been so jolly to
17:00
remember. This is like that. See, I don't, said edid I
17:04
understand a single word you say. This isn't a bit like the water shooter
17:08
anything, now, is it? Efrida frowned. Afterwards, she was glad
17:15
that she had done no more than frown. It is dangerous, as you
17:18
know, to crawl in a boat, but far more dangerous to quarrel in
17:22
a century that is not your own. She frowned and opened her mouth,
17:26
And just as her mouth opened, the door of the room followed its example,
17:32
and a short, dark, cross looking woman in a brown skirt and
17:34
strange cap came hurrying in. So it's here you've hidden yourselves, she cried,
17:41
And I looking high and low to change your dress? What for,
17:45
said Edred, For it was his arm, which he had quite ungently caught.
17:49
For what she said, as she dragged him out of the room,
17:52
Why to tend my lord, your father and your lady mother at the masket
17:56
whitehall? Had you forgot already and thou so desirous to tend them in their
18:03
new white velvet broidered with the orange tawney and their lady mother's diamond buckles and
18:07
the second cloak, and the shoe roses and the copper blonde started rough,
18:11
and the Little Soudan all end of section ten. Recording by Sogna