by Edith Nesbit
“Oh, Edred, how jolly of you!” said Elfrida, quite touched.
“I’ve got something for Elfrida too,” said Aunt Edith, feeling among the rustling pile of brown paper, and tissue paper, and string, and cardboard, and shavings, that were the husks of Edred’s presents. “Ah, here it is!”
It was a book–a red book with gold pictures on back and cover–and it was called “The Amulet.” So then it was Elfrida’s turn to clasp her aunt round the waist and tell her about her dearness.
“And now to supper,” said the dear. “Roast chicken. And gooseberry pie. And cream.”
To the children, accustomed to the mild uninterestingness of bread and milk for supper, this seemed the crowning wonder of the day. And what a day it had been!
And while they ate the brown chicken, with bread sauce and gravy and stuffing, and the gooseberry pie and cream, the aunt told them of her day.
“It really is a ship,” she said, “and the best thing it brings is that we shan’t let lodgings any more.”
“Hurrah!” was the natural response.
“And we shall have more money to spend and be more comfortable. And you can go to a really nice school. And where do you think we’re going to live?”
“Not,” said Elfrida, in a whisper,–”not at the castle?”
“Why, how did you guess?”
Elfrida looked at Edred. He hastily swallowed a large mouthful of chicken to say, “Auntie, I do hope you won’t mind. We went to Arden to-day. You said we might go this year.”
Then the whole story came out–yes, quite all, up to the saying of the spell.
“And did anything happen?” Aunt Edith asked. The children were thankful to see that she was only interested, and did not seem vexed at what they had done.
“Well,” said Elfrida slowly, “we saw a mole–”
Aunt Edith laughed, and Edred said quickly–
“That’s all the story, auntie. And I am Lord Arden, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” the aunt answered gravely. “You are Lord Arden.”
“Oh, ripping!” cried Edred, with so joyous a face that his aunt put away a little sermon she had got ready in the train on the duties of the English aristocracy–that would keep, she thought–and turned to say, “No, dear,” to Elfrida’s eager question, “Then I’m Lady Arden, aren’t I?”
“If he’s lord I ought to be lady,” Elfrida said. “It’s not fair.”
“Never mind, old girl,” said Edred kindly. “I’ll call you Lady Arden whenever you like.”
“How would you like,” asked the aunt, “to go over and live at the castle now?”
“To-night?”
“No, no,” she laughed; “next week. You see, I must try to let this house, and I shall be very busy. Mrs. Honeysett, the old lady who used to keep house for your great-uncle, wrote to the lawyers and asked if we would employ her. I remember her when I was a little girl; she is a dear, and knows heaps of old songs. How would you like to be there with her while I finish up here and get rid of the lodgers? Oh, there’s that bell again! I don’t think we’ll have any bells at the castle, shall we?”
So that was how it was arranged. The aunt stayed at the bow-windowed house to arrange the new furniture–for the house was to be let furnished–and to pack up the beautiful old things that were real Arden things, and the children went in the carrier’s cart, with their clothes and their toys in two black boxes, and in their hearts a world of joyous anticipations.
Mrs. Honeysett received them with a pretty, old-fashioned curtsey, which melted into an embrace.
“You’re welcome to your home, my lord,” she said, with an arm round each child, “and you too, miss, my dear. Any one can see you’re Ardens, both two of you. There was always a boy and a girl–a boy and a girl.” She had a sweet, patient face, with large, pale blue eyes that twinkled when she smiled, and she almost always smiled when she looked at the children.
Oh, but it was fine, to unpack one’s own box–to lay out one’s clothes in long, cedar-wood drawers, fronted with curved polished mahogany; to draw back the neat muslin blinds from lattice-paned windows that had always been Arden windows; to look out, as so many Ardens must have done, over land that, as far as one could see, had belonged to one’s family in old days. That it no longer belonged hardly mattered at all to the romance of hearts only ten and twelve years old.
Then to go down one’s own shallow, polished stairs (where portraits of old Ardens hung on the wall), and to find the cloth laid for dinner in one’s own wainscoated parlour, laid for two. I think it was nice of Edred to say, the moment Mrs. Honeysett had helped them to toad-in-the-hole and left them to eat it–
“May I pass you some potatoes, Lady Arden?”
Elfrida giggled happily.
The parlour was furnished with the kind of furniture they knew and loved. It had a long, low window that showed the long, narrow garden outside. The walls were panelled with wood, browny-grey under its polish.
“THE CHILDREN WENT IN THE CARRIER’S CART.”
“Oh,” said Elfrida, “there must be secret panels here.”
And though Edred said, “Secret fiddlesticks!” he in his heart felt that she was right.
After dinner, “May we explore?” Elfrida asked, and Mrs. Honeysett, most charming of women, answered heartily–
“Why not? It’s all his own, bless his dear heart.”
So they explored.
The house was much bigger than they had found it on that wonderful first day when they had acted the part of burglars. There was a door covered with faded green baize. Mrs. Honeysett pointed it out to them with, “Don’t you think this is all: there’s the other house beyond;” and at the other side of that door there was, indeed, the other house.
The house they had already seen was neat, orderly, “bees-whacked,” as Mrs. Honeysett said, till every bit of furniture shone like a mirror or a fond hope. But beyond the baize door there were shadows, there was dust, windows draped in cobwebs, before which hung curtains tattered and faded, drooping from their poles like the old banners that, slowly rotting in great cathedrals, sway in the quiet air where no wind is–stirred, perhaps, by the breath of Fame’s invisible trumpet to the air of old splendours and glories.
The carpets lay in rags on the floors; on the furniture the dust lay thick, and on the boards of corridor and staircase; on the four-post beds in the bedchambers the hangings hung dusty and rusty–the quilts showed the holes eaten by moths and mice. In one room a cradle of carved oak still had a coverlet of tattered silk dragging from it. From the great kitchen-hearth, where no fire had been this very long time, yet where still the ashes of the last fire lay grey and white, a chill air came. The place smelt damp and felt–
“Do you think it’s haunted?” Elfrida asked.
“Rot!” was her brother’s brief reply, and they went on.
They found long, narrow corridors hung crookedly with old, black-framed prints, which drooped cobwebs, like grey-draped crape. They found rooms with floors of grey, uneven oak, and fireplaces in whose grates lay old soot and the broken nests of starlings hatched very long ago.
Edred’s handkerchief–always a rag-of-all-work–rubbed a space in one of the windows, and they looked out over the swelling downs. This part of the house was not built within the castle, that was plain.
When they had opened every door and looked at every roomful of decayed splendour they went out and round. Then they saw that this was a wing built right out of the castle–a wing with squarish windows, with carved dripstones. All the windows were yellow as parchment, with the inner veil laid on them by Time and the spider. The ivy grew thick round the windows, almost hiding some of them altogether.
“Oh!” cried Elfrida, throwing herself down on the turf, “it’s too good to be true. I can’t believe it.”
“What I can’t believe,” said Edred, doing likewise, “is that precious mole.”
“But we saw it,” said Elfrida; “you can’t help believing things when you’
ve seen them.”
“I can,” said Edred, superior. “You remember the scarlet toadstools in ‘Hereward.’ Suppose those peppermint creams were enchanted–to make us dream things.”
“They were good,” said Elfrida. “I say!”
“Well?”
“Have you made up any poetry to call the mole with?”
“Have you?”
“No; I’ve tried, though.”
“I’ve tried. And I’ve done it.”
“Oh, Edred, you are clever. Do say it.”
“If I do, do you think the mole will come?”
“Of course it will.”
“Well,” said Edred slowly, “of course I want to find the treasure and all that. But I don’t believe in it. It isn’t likely–that’s what I think. Now is it likely?”
“Unlikelier things happened in ‘The Amulet,’” said Elfrida.
“Ah,” said Edred, “that’s a story.”
“The mole said we were in a story. I say, Edred, do say your poetry.”
Edred slowly said it–.
“‘Mole, mole,
Come out of your hole;
I know you’re blind,
But I don’t mind.’”
Elfrida looked eagerly round her. There was the short turf; the castle walls, ivied and grey, rose high above her; pigeons circled overhead, and in the arches of the windows and on the roof of the house they perched, preening their bright feathers or telling each other, “Coo, coo; cooroo, cooroo,” whatever that may mean. But there was no mole–not a hint or a dream or idea of a mole.
“Edred,” said his sister.
“Well?”
“Did you really make that up? Don’t be cross, but I do think I’ve heard something like it before.”
“I–I adopted it,” said Edred.
“?” said Elfrida.
“Haven’t you seen it in books, ‘Adopted from the French’? I altered it.”
“I don’t believe that’ll do. How much did you alter? What’s the real poetry like?”
“‘The mole, the mole,
He lives in a hole.
The mole is blind;
I don’t mind,’”
said Edred sulkily. “Auntie told me it the day you went to her with Mrs. Harrison.”
“I’m sure you ought to make it up all your self. You see, the mole doesn’t come.”
“There isn’t any mole,” said Edred.
“Let’s both think hard. I’m sure I could make poetry–if I knew how to begin.”
“If any one’s got to make it, it’s me,” said Edred. “You’re not Lord Arden.”
“You’re very unkind,” said Elfrida, and Edred knew she was right.
“I don’t mind trying,” he said, condescendingly; “you make the poetry and I’ll say it.”
Elfrida buried her head in her hands and thought till her forehead felt as large as a mangel-wurzel, and her blood throbbed in it like a church clock ticking.
“Got it yet?” he asked, just as she thought she really had got it.
“Don’t!” said the poet, in agony.
Then there was silence, except for the pigeons and the skylarks, and the mooing of a cow at a distant red-roofed farm.
“Will this do?” she said at last, lifting her head from her hands and her elbows from the grass; there were deep dents and lines on her elbows made by the grass-stalks she had leaned on so long.
“Spit it out,” said Edred.
Thus encouraged, Elfrida said, very slowly and carefully, “‘Oh, Mouldiwarp’–I think it would rather be called that than mole, don’t you?–’Oh, Mouldiwarp, do please come out and show us how to set about it’–that means the treasure. I hope it’ll understand.”
“That’s not poetry,” said Edred.
“Yes, it is, if you say it right on–
“‘Oh, Mouldiwarp, do please come out
And show us how to set about
It.’”
“There ought to be some more,” said Edred–rather impressed, all the same.
“There is,” said Elfrida. “Oh, wait a minute–I shall remember directly. It–what I mean is, how to find the treasure and make Edred brave and wise and kind.”
“I’m kind enough if it comes to that,” said Lord Arden.
“Oh, I know you are; but poetry has to rhyme–you know it has. I expect poets often have to say what they don’t mean because of that.”
“Well, say it straight through,” said Edred, and Elfrida said, obediently–
“‘Oh, Mouldiwarp, do please come out
And show us how to set about
It. What I mean is how to find
The treasure, and make Edred brave and wise and kind.’
I’ll write it down if you’ve got a pencil.”
Edred produced a piece of pink chalk, but he had no paper, so Elfrida had to stretch out her white petticoat, put a big stone on the hem, and hold it out tightly with both hands while Edred wrote at her dictation.
Then Edred studiously repeated the lines again and again, as he was accustomed to repeat “The Battle of Ivry,” till at last he was able to stand up and say–
“‘Oh, Mouldiwarp, do please come out
And show me how to set about
It. What I mean is how to find
The treasure, and make me brave and wise–”
If you don’t mind,” he added.
And instantly there was the white mole.
“What do you want now?” it said very crossly indeed. “And call that poetry?”
“It’s the first I ever made,” said Elfrida, of the hot ears. “Perhaps it’ll be better next time.”
“We want you to do what the spell says,” said Edred.
“Make you brave and wise? That can’t be done all in a minute. That’s a long job, that is,” said the mole viciously.
“Don’t be so cross, dear,” said Elfrida; “and if it’s going to be so long hadn’t you better begin?”
“I ain’t agoin’ to do no more’n my share,” said the mole, somewhat softened though, perhaps by the “dear.” “You tell me what you want, and p’raps I’ll do it.”
“I know what I want,” said Edred, “but I don’t know whether you can do it.”
“Ha!” laughed the mole contemptuously.
“I got it out of a book Elfrida got on my birthday,” Edred said. “The children in it went into the past. I’d like to go into the past–and find that treasure!”
“Choose your period,” said the mole wearily.
“Choose–?”
“Your period. What time you’d like to go back to. If you don’t choose before I’ve counted ten it’s all off. One, two, three, four–”
It counted ten through a blank silence.
“Nine, ten,” it ended. “Oh, very well, den, you’ll have to take your luck, that’s all.”
“Bother!” said Edred. “I couldn’t think of anything except all the dates of all the kings of England all at once.”
“Lucky to know ‘em,” said the mole, and so plainly not believing that he did know them that Edred found himself saying under his breath, “William the First, 1066; William the Second, 1087; Henry the First, 1100.”
The mole yawned, which, of course, was very rude of it.
“Don’t be cross, dear,” said Elfrida again; “you help us your own way.”
“Now you’re talking,” said the mole, which, of course, Elfrida knew. “Well, I’ll give you a piece of advice. Don’t you be nasty to each other for a whole day, and then–”
“You needn’t talk,” said Edred, still under his breath.
“Very well,” said the mole, whose ears were sharper than his eyes. “I won’t.”
“Oh, don’t!” sighed Elfrida; “what is it we are to do when we’ve been nice to each other for a whole day?”
“Well, when you’ve done that,” said the mole, “look for the door.”
“What door?” asked Elfrida.
“The door,” said the mole.
“But where is it?” Edred asked.
“In the house it be, of course,” said the mole. “Where else to gracious should it be?”
And it ran with mouse-like quickness across the grass and vanished down what looked like a rabbit-hole.
“Now,” said Elfrida triumphantly, “you’ve got to believe in the mole.”
“Yes,” said Edred, “and you’ve got to be nice to me for a whole day, or it’s no use my believing.”
“Aren’t I generally nice?” the girl pleaded, and her lips trembled.
“Yes,” said her brother. “Yes, Lady Arden; and now I’m going to be nice, too. And where shall we look for the door?”
This problem occupied them till tea-time. After tea they decided to paint–with the new paint-box and the beautiful new brushes. Elfrida wanted to paint Mr. Millar’s illustrations in “The Amulet,” and Edred wanted to paint them, too. This could not be, as you will see if you have the book. Edred contended that they were his paints. Elfrida reminded him that it was her book. The heated discussion that followed ended quite suddenly and breathlessly.
“I wouldn’t be a selfish pig,” said Edred.
“No more would I,” said Elfrida. “Oh, Edred, is this being nice to each other for twenty-four hours?”
“Oh,” said Edred. “Yes–well–all right. Never mind. We’ll begin again to-morrow.”
But it is much more difficult than you would think to be really nice to your brother or sister for a whole day. Three days passed before the two Ardens could succeed in this seemingly so simple thing. The days were not dull ones at all. There were beautiful things in them that I wish I had time to tell you about–such as climbings and discoveries and books with pictures, and a bureau with a secret drawer. It had nothing in it but a farthing and a bit of red tape–secret drawers never have–but it was a very nice secret drawer for all that.
And at last a day came when each held its temper with a strong bit. They began by being very polite to each other, and presently it grew to seem like a game.
“Let’s call each other Lord and Lady Arden all the time, and pretend that we’re no relation,” said Elfrida. And really that helped tremendously. It is wonderful how much more polite you can be to outsiders than you can to your relations, who are, when all’s said and done, the people you really love.