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11 - The House of Arden - E Nesbit · Daily Classic Sci Fi Books

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Chapter eight, Guy Fawkes, Part two. The woman had dragged Edred out
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of the room and by the stairs by this time. Elfrida following decided that
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her speech was the harshest part of her If she was really horrid, thought
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the girl, she wouldn't try to cheer him up with velvet and swords and
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diamond buckets. Can't I go? She said aloud. The woman turned and
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slept her not hard, but smartly. I told thee how it would be
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if thou wouldst not hold that dunning tongue. No, thou can't go.
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Little ladies stay at home and soothe their simplers. Thou'll go to court soon
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enough. I won't. So Frida sat and watched while Edred was partially washed.
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The soap got in his eyes just as it gets in yours nowadays.
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And dressed in the beautiful white pager's dress, white velvet, diamond buckles,
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little sword in all, you are splendid, she said. Oh I do
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wish I was a boy. She added, for perhaps the two thousand and
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thirty second time in her short life. It's not that thou'll be wishing when
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thy time comes to go to court, said the woman. There my little
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lord, give thy old nurse a kiss, and stand very cautious and perfect,
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not to say thy fine feathers. And when thou hearest thy mother's robes
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on the stairs, go out and make thy bow, like they tutor taught
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thee. It was not Edith's tutor who had taught him to bow, but
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when a rustling of silks sounded on the stairs, he was able to go
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out and make a very creditable obeisance to the stately magnificence that swept down towards
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him. Elfrida thought it best to curtsey beside. Her brother aunt Edith had
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taught them to dance the minuet, and somehow the bow and courtesy which belonged
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to that dance seemed the right thing now. And the lady on the stairs
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smiled well pleased. She was a wonderfully dressed lady. Her bodice was of
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yellow satin, richly embroidered, her petticoat of gold tissue with stripes, her
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robes of red velvet lined with yellow muslin with stripes of pure gold. She
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had a point lace apron and a color of white satin under a delicately worked
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rough. And she was a blaze of beautiful jewels. Thou art a fine
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page. Indeed, my son said the lady, stand aside, and take
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my train as I pass, And thou, dear daughter, so soon as
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thou art of an age for it, thou shalt have a train and a
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page to carry it for thee She swept on, and the children followed.
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Lord Arden was in the hall hardly less splendid than his wife, and they
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all went off in a coach that was very grand, if rather clumsy.
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Its shape reminded a freeder of the coach which the fairy god Mother made for
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Cinderella out of the pumpkin, and she herself, as she peeped through the
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crowd of liveried servants to seat start, felt as much like Cinderella as any
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one need wish to feel, and perhaps a little more. But she consoled
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herself by encouraging a secret feeling she had that something was bound to happen,
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And sure enough something did. And that is what I am going to tell
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you about I own that I should like to tell you. Also what happened
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to Edward. But his part of the adventure was not really an adventure at
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all, though it were the thing he will never forget as long as he
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remembers any magic happenings. We went to the King's house, he told Elfrida.
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Later, Whitehall is the name I should like to call my house Whitehall,
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if it wasn't called aden Castle, you know. And there were thousands
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of servants, I should think, all much finer than you could dream of,
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and lords and ladies, and lots of things to eat and bear,
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baiting and cock fighting in the garden cruel, said Elfrida. I hope you
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didn't look a little I did, said Edward. Boys have to be brave
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to bear sights of blood and horor, you know, in case of them
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growing up to be a soldier. But I liked the mask best. The
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Queen acted in it. There wasn't any talking, you know, only dressing
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up and dancing. It was something like the pantomime, but not so sparkly.
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And there was a sea with waves that moved all silvery and pennet scenes,
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and dolphins and fishy things, and a great shell that opened, and
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the queen and the ladies came out and danced, and I had a lot
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to eat such rummy things, And then I fell asleep, and when I
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woke up. The king himself was looking at me and saying, I had
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a bonny face. Bonnie means pretty. You'd think a king would know better,
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wouldn't you. This was all that Edred could find to tell. I
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could have told more, but one can't tell everything. And there's Elfrida's adventure
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to be told about. When the coach had disappeared in the mist and the
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mud, for the weather was anything but summer weather, Efrida went upstairs to
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the room where she had left the old nurse. She did not know where
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else to go. Sit thee down, said the nurse, Sue, on
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thy sampler. There was the sampler, very fine, indeed in a large
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polished wood frame. I wish I needn't, said Elfrida, looking anxiously at
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the fine silks. Tut tut, said the nurse. How will they grow
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to be? Lady? If thou dosn't mind they needle? I'd much rather
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talk to you, said Elfrida, coaxingly. Thou canst shutter as well as
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sue. The nurse said, as well, I know it to my cost,
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would that thy needle flew so fast as their tongue? Sit thee down?
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And if the little tree be done by dinner time, thou shalt have
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leave to see thy cousin Richard, I suppose, thought Elfrida, taking up
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the needle, that I am fond of my cousin Richard. The sewing was
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difficult and hurt her eyes, but she persevered. Presently, some one called
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the nurse, and Elfrida was left alone. Then she stopped persevering. Whatever
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is the good? She asked herself, of working at a simpler that you
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hadn't time to finish, and that would be worn out anyhow, years and
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years before you were born? Near Frida, who's doing that sampler? Is
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the same age as me and born the same day, she reflected, And
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then she wondered what the date was, and what was the year. She
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was still wondering and sticking the needle idly in and out of one hole,
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without letting it take the silk with it, when there was a sort of
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platter on the stairs. The door burst open, and in came a jolly
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boy of about her own age. That has done, He cried, mine,
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too, old parrot nose kept me heart at it. But I thought
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of thee and for once I did all his spiddings. So now we are
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free come play ball in the garden. This Ilfida concluded must be cousin Dick,
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and she decided at once that she was fond of him. There was
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a big and beautiful garden behind the house. The children played ball there,
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and they ran in the box alleys and played hide and seek among the cut
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trees and stone seats and statues and fountains. Old Parrot Knows who was cousin
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Richard's tutor, and was dressed in black and looked as though he had been
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eating lemons and vinegar, sat on a seat and watched them, or walked
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up and down the flag terrace with his thumb in a dull looking book.
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When they stopped their game to rest on a stone step leaning against the stone
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seat, old parrot Nose walked very softly up behind the seat and stood there
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where they could not see him, and listened. Listening is very as honorable,
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as we all know. But in those days tutors did not always think
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it necessary to behave honorably to their pupils. I always have thought, and
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I away shall think, that it was the eavesdropping of the tiresome old tutor,
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mister Parados or parrotns which caused all the maschief. But Ifrida has always
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believed and always will believe that the disaster was caused by her knowing too much
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history, that is why she is so careful to make sure that no misfortune
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shall ever happened on that account. Anyway, that is one of the reasons
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why she never takes a history price at school. You never know, she
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says, And in fact, when it comes to a question in an historical
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examination, she never does know. This was how it happened. Elfrida,
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now that she was no longer running about in the garden, remembered the question
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that she had been asking herself over the embroidery frame. And it now seemed
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sensible to ask the question of some one who could answer it. So she
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said, I say, cousin Richard, what day is it? Elfrida understood
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him to say that it was the fifth of November? Is it really?
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She said, then it is sky Fawx's day. Do you have fireworks?
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And in pure liteness of heart, began to hum, please to remember the
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fifths of November the gunpowder treason at Plot. I see no reason why gunpowder
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treason should ever be forgot. Tis not a merry song, cousin, said
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cousin Richard, nor a safe one. Tis best not to sing of treason.
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But it didn't come off, you know, And he's always burned in
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the end, said Elfrida. Are there more verses? Cousin Dick asked,
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No. I wonder what treason the Bella deals with, said the boy,
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don't you know? It was then that Elfrida made the mistake of showing off
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her historical knowledge. I know, and I know some of the names of
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the conspirators too, and who they wanted to kill in everything? Tell me,
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said cousin Richard. Idly. The king hadn't been feared to the Catholics,
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you know, said Elfrida, full of importance, So a lot of
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them decided to kill him and the houses of Parliament. They made a plot.
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There were a whole lot of them in it. They said Lord Arden
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was but he wasn't. And some of them were to pretend to be hunting
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and to seize the Princess Elizabeth and proclaim a queen, and the rest were
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to blow the houses of Parliament up when the king went to open them.
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I never heard this state from my t you, said cousin Richard, laughing,
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proceed cousin, Well, mister Pearcey took a house next the Parliament House,
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and they dug a secret passage to the walls under the Parliament houses,
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and they put three dozen calves of gunpowder there and covered them with faggots,
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and they would have been all blown up. Only mister Tresham brought to his
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relation, Lord Monteagle, that they were going to blow up the King and
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watch King, said Cousin Richard. King James the First, said Elfrida,
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Why what for? Cousin Richard had sprung to his feet, and old parrot
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nosed Elfrida by the wrist. He sat down on the seat and drew her
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gently till she stood in front of him. Gently. But it was like
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the hand of iron in the velvet love of which no doubt you have often
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read. Now, Mistress Arden, he said, softly, tear me over
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again this romans that you tell your cousin Elfrida told it. And where did
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you hear this pretty story? He asked? Where are we now, gasped
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Elfrida, who was beginning to understand here in the garden. Where else,
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said Cousin Richard, who seemed to understand nothing of the matter here in my
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custody, said the tutor, who thought he understood everything. Now tell me
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on every name, every particular, or it will be the worse for thee
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and thy father. Come, sir, said cousin Richard, you frighten my
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cousin. It is but a taye, she told. She is always merry
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and full of many inventions. It is a tay she shall tell again before
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those of higher power than I, said the tutor in a thoroughly disagreeable way,
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and his hand tightened on Afrea's wrist. But but it's history, cried
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Elfrida in despair. It's in all the books. Which books, he asked,
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keenly, I don't know all of them, she suddenly answered, suddenly,
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because she now really did understand just the sort of a venture in which
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her unusual knowledge of history, and to do her justice, her almost equally
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unusual desire to show off, had landed her. Now, said the hateful
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tutor, For such, Afriida felt him to be. Tell me the names
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of the conspirators. It can't do any harm, Efrida to it herself.
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This is James the first time, and I'm in it. But it's three
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hundred years ago, all the same, and it all has happened, and
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it can't make any difference what I say, So I'd better tell all the
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names I know. The hateful tutor shook her Yes, all right, she
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said, and to herself she added, it's only a sort of dream,
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I may as well tell. Yet, when she opened her mouth to tell
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all the names she could remember of the conspirators of the poor old gunpowder plot
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that didn't come off all those years ago, she found herself not telling those
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names at all. Instead, she found herself saying, I'm not going to
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tell. I don't care what you do to me. I'm sorry I said
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anything about it. It's all nonsense. I mean, it's only history.
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And you ought to be ashamed of yourself listening behind doors, I mean out
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of doors, behind stone seats, when people are talking nonsense to their own
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cousins. Efida does not remember very exactly what happened after this. She was
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furiously angry, and when you are furiously angry, things get mixed and tangled
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up in a sort of dreadful red mist. She only remembers that the tutor
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was very horrid and twisted her wrists to make her tell, and she screamed
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and tried to kick him. That cousin Richard, who did not scream,
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did, on the other hand, succeed in kicking the tutor. That she
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was dragged indoors and shut up in her room without a window, so that
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it was quite dark. If only I'd got Edward here, she said to
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herself, with tears of rage and mortification. I try to make some poetry
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and get the moldy warp to come and fetch us away. But it's no
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use till he comes home. When he did come home, after the bear
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baiting and the cock fighting and the banquet and the mask, Lord and Lady
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Arden came with him, of course, and they found their house occupied by
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an armed guard, and in the dark little room a pale child, exhausted
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with weeping, who showed them again and again that it was all nonsense.
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It was only history, and she hadn't meant to tell indeed she hadn't.
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Lady Arden took her in her arms and held her clothes and tenderly, in
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spite of the grand red velvet and the jewels. Thou'st done no harm,
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said Lord Aarden, a pack of silly tales. To morrow, I'd see
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my Lord Salisbury, and prick the silly bubble. Go thou to bed,
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sweetheart, he said to his wife, and let the little maid lie with
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thee. She's all a tremble with tears and terrors. To morrow, my
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Lord's secretary shall teach these popinjays their place, and Aden House shall be empty
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of them, and we shall laugh at this fine piece of work that a
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solemn marplot has made out of a neime or two and the young child's fancies.
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But to morrow night all will be well, and we shall lie down
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in peace. But when tomorrow night came, it had as all night self
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the day's work behind it. Lord Arden and his lady and the little children
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lay not in Aden House in sorrow, not in Aden Castle on the downs
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by the sea, but in the Tower of London, charged with high treason
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and awaiting their trial. For my Lord Salisbury had gone to those words under
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the houses of Parliament and had found that Bold's soldier of fortune, Guy Fawkes,
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with his dark eyes, his dark lantern, and his dark intent,
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and the names of those in the conspiracy had been given up, and King
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James was saved, and the parliaments, but the Catholic gentleman whom he had
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deceived and who had turned against him, and his deceits were face to face
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with the rag and the scaffold. And I can't explain it all, because,
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of course Afrida knew as well as I do, that it all happens
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three hundred years ago, or if you prefer to put it that way,
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that it had never happened, and that anyway, it was mister Tresham's letter
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to Lord Monteagle, and not Elfrida's singing of that silly rhyme that had brought
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the Ardens and all these other gentlemen to the tower and to the shadow of
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death. And yet she felt that it was she who had betrayed them.
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She felt also that if she had betrayed a base plot, she ought to
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be glad, And she was not glad. She had taken advantage of having
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been born so much later than all these people, and of having been rather
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good at history, to give away the lives of all these nobles and gentlemen,
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that they were traitors to King and Parliament made no manner of difference.
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It was she, as she felt, but too bitterly, who was the
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traitor. And in the thick walled room in the tower, where the name
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of Rawley was still fresh in its carving. Elfrida lay awake long after Lady
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Arden and Edward were sleeping peacefully, and hated herself, calling herself a traitor,
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a coward, and an uttered duffer. End of Section eleven.