Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

“The parlour door, too,” he said.

  So they locked the parlour door, and Elfrida put the key in a safe place, “for fear of accidents,” she said. I do not at all know what she meant, and when she came to think it over she did not know either. But it seemed all right at the time.

  They had provided themselves with a box of matches and a candle–and now the decisive moment had come, as they say about battles.

  Elfrida fumbled for the secret spring.

  “How does it open?” asked the boy.

  “I’ll show you presently,” said the girl. She could not show him then, because, in point of fact, she did not know. She only knew there was a secret spring, and she was feeling for it with both hands among the carved wreaths of the panels, as she stood with one foot on each of the arms of a very high chair–the only chair in the room high enough for her to be able to reach all round the panel. Suddenly something clicked and the secret door flew open–she just had time to jump to the floor, or it would have knocked her down.

  Then she climbed up again and got into the hole, and Edred handed her the candle.

  “Where’s the matches?” she asked.

  “In my pocket,” said he firmly. “I’m not going to have you starting off without me–again.”

  “EDRED AND THE BIG CHAIR FELL TO THE FLOOR.”

  “Well, come on, then,” said Elfrida, ignoring the injustice of this speech.

  “All right,” said Edred, climbing on the chair. “How does it open?”

  He had half closed the door, and was feeling among the carved leaves, as he had seen her do.

  “Oh, come on,” said Elfrida, “oh, look out!”

  Well might she request her careless brother to look out. As he reached up to touch the carving, the chair tilted, he was jerked forward, caught at the carving to save himself, missed it, and fell forward with all his weight against the half-open door. It shut with a loud bang. Then a resounding crash echoed through the quiet house as Edred and the big chair fell to the floor in, so to speak, each other’s arms.

  There was a stricken pause. Then Elfrida from the other side of the panel beat upon it with her fists and shouted–

  “Open the door! You aren’t hurt, are you?”

  “Yes, I am–very much,” said Edred, from the outside of the secret door, and also from the hearthrug. “I’ve twisted my leg in the knickerbocker part, and I’ve got a great bump on my head, and I think I’m going to be very poorly.”

  “Well, open the panel first,” said Elfrida, rather unfeelingly. But then she was alone in the dark on the other side of the panel.

  “I don’t know how to,” said Edred, and Elfrida heard the sound of some one picking himself up from among disordered furniture.

  “Feel among the leaves, like I did,” she said. “It’s quite easy. You’ll soon find it.”

  Silence.

  CHAPTER VII. THE KEY OF THE PARLOUR

  ELFRIDA was behind the secret panel, and the panel had shut with a spring. She had come there hoping to find the jewels that had been hidden two hundred years ago by Sir Edward Talbot, when he was pretending to be the Chevalier St. George. She had not had time even to look for the jewels before the panel closed, and now that she was alone in the dusty dark, with the door shut between her and the bright, light parlour where her brother was, the jewels hardly seemed to matter at all, and what did so dreadfully and very much matter was that closed panel. Edred had tried to open it, and he had fallen off the chair. Well, there had been plenty of time for him to get up again.

  “Why don’t you open the door?” she called impatiently. And there was no answer. Behind that panel silence seemed a thousand times more silent that it ever had before. And it was so dark. And Edred had the matches in his pocket.

  “Edred! Edred!” she called suddenly and very loud, “why don’t you open the door?”

  And this time he answered.

  “Because I can’t reach,” he said.

  I feel that I ought to make that the end of the chapter, and leave you to wonder till the next how Elfrida got out, and how she liked the not getting out, which certainly looked as though it were going to last longer than any one could possibly be expected to find pleasant.

  But that would make the chapter too short–and there are other reasons. So I will not disguise from you that when Elfrida put her hand to her pocket and felt something there–something hard and heavy–and remembered that she had put the key of the parlour there because it was such a nice safe place, where it couldn’t possibly be lost, she uttered what is known as a hollow groan.

  “Aha! you see now,” said Edred outside. “You see I’m not so stupid after all.”

  Elfrida was thinking.

  “I say,” she called through the panel, “it’s no use my standing here. I shall try to feel my way up to the secret chamber. I wish I could remember whether there’s a window there or not. If I were you I should just take a book and read till something happens. Mrs. Honeysett’s sure to come back some time.”

  “I can’t hear half you say,” said Edred. “You do whiffle so.”

  “Take a book!” shouted his sister. “Read! Mrs. Honeysett–will–come–back–some–time.”

  So Edred got down a book called “Red Cotton Nightcap Country,” which he thought looked interesting; but I don’t advise you to try it. And Elfrida, her heart beating rather heavily, put out her hands and felt her way along the passage to the stairs.

  “It’s all very well,” she told herself, “the secret panel is there all right, like it was when I went into the past, but suppose the stairs are gone, or weren’t really ever there at all? Or suppose I walked straight into a wall or something? Or perhaps not a wall–a well,” she suggested to herself with a sudden thrill of terror; and after that she felt very carefully with each foot in turn before she ventured to put it down in a fresh step.

  The boards were soft to tread on, as though they had been carpeted with velvet, and so were the stairs. For there were stairs, sure enough. She went up them very slowly and carefully, reaching her hands before her. And at last her hands came against something that seemed like a door. She stroked it gently, feeling for the latch, which she presently found. The door had not been opened for such a very, long time that it was not at all inclined to open now. Elfrida had to shove with shoulder and knee, and with all the strength she had. The door gave way–out of politeness, I should think, for Elfrida’s knee and shoulder and strength were all quite small–and there was the room just as she had seen it when the Chevalier St. George stood in it bowing and smiling by the light of one candle in a silver candlestick. Only now Elfrida was alone, and the light was a sort of green twilight that came from a little window over the mantelpiece, that was hung outside with a thick curtain of ivy. If Elfrida had come out of the sunlight she would have called this a green darkness. But she had been so long in the dark that this shadowy dusk seemed quite light to her. All the same she made haste, when she had shut the door, to drag a chair in front of the fireplace and to get the window open. It opened inwards, and it did not want to open at all. But it, also, was polite enough to yield to her wishes, and when it had suddenly given way she reached out and broke the ivy-leaves off one by one, making more and more daylight in the secret room. She did not let the leaves fall outside, but on the hearthstone, “for,” said she, “we don’t want outside people to get to know all about the Ardens’ secret hiding-place. I’m glad I thought of that. I really am rather like a detective in a book.”

  When all the leaves were plucked from the window’s square, and only the brown ivy boughs left, she turned back to the room. The furniture was all powdered heavily with dust, and what had made the floor so soft to walk upon was the thick carpet of dust that lay there. There was the table on which the Chevalier St. George–no, Sir Edward Talbot–had set the tray. There were the chairs, and there, sure enough, was the corner cupboard in which he had put the jewels. Elfrida got its door open with I don’t know what of mingled hopes and fears. It had three shel
ves, but the jewels were on none of them. In fact there was nothing on any of them. But on the inside of the door her hand, as she held it open, felt something rough. And when she looked it was a name carved, and when she swung the door well back so that the light fell full on it she saw that the name was “E. Talbot.” So then she knew that all she had seen in that room before must have really happened two hundred years before, and was not just a piece of magic Mouldiwarpiness.

  She climbed up on the chair again and looked out through the little window. She could see nothing of the Castle walls–only the distant shoulder of the downs and the path that cut across it towards the station. She would have liked to see a red figure or a violet one coming along that path. But there was no figure on it at all.

  What do you usually do when you are shut up in a secret room, with no chance of getting out for hours? As for me, I always say poetry to myself. It is one of the uses of poetry–one says it to oneself in distressing circumstances of that kind, or when one has to wait at railway stations, or when one cannot get to sleep at night. You will find poetry most useful for this purpose. So learn plenty of it, and be sure it is the best kind, because this is most useful as well as most agreeable.

  “SHE SAW THAT THE NAME WAS ‘E. TALBOT.’”

  Elfrida began with “Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!” but there were parts of that which she liked best when there were other people about–so she stopped it, and began “Horatius and the Bridge.” This lasts a long time. Then came the Favourite Cat drowned in a tub of Gold-fish–and in the middle of that, quite suddenly, and I don’t know why, she thought of the Mouldiwarp.

  “We didn’t quite quarrel,” she told herself. “At least not really, truly quarrelling. I might try anyhow.”

  So she set to work to make a piece of poetry to call up the Mouldiwarp with.

  This was how, after a long time, the first piece came out–

  “‘The Mouldiwarp of Arden

  By the nine gods it swore

  That Elfrida of Arden

  Should be shut up no more.

  By the nine gods it swore it

  And named a convenient time, no doubt,

  And bade its messengers ride forth

  East and West, South and North,

  To let Elfrida out.’”

  But when she said it aloud nothing happened “I wonder,” said Elfrida, “whether it’s because we quarrelled, or because it just says he let me out and doesn’t ask him to, or because I had to say Elfrida to make it sound right, or because it’s such dreadful nonsense. I’ll try again.”

  She tried again. This time she got–

  “‘Behind the secret panel’s lines

  The pensive Elfrida reclines

  And wishes she was at home.

  At least I am at home, of course,

  But things are getting worse and worse.

  Dear Mole, come, come, come, come!’”

  She said it aloud, and when she came to the last words there was the white Mouldiwarp sitting on the floor at her feet and looking up at her with eyes that blinked.

  “You are good to come,” Elfrida said.

  “Well, what do you want now?” said the Mole.

  “I–I ought to tell you that I oughtn’t to ask you to do anything, but I didn’t think you’d come if it really counted as a quarrel. It was only a little one, and we were both sorry quite directly.”

  “You have a straightforward nature,” said the Mouldiwarp. “Well, well, I must say you’ve got yourself into a nice hole!”

  “It would be a very nice hole,” said Elfrida eagerly, “if only the panel were open. I wouldn’t mind how long I stayed here then. That’s funny, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said the Mole. “Well, if you hadn’t quarrelled I could get you into another time–some time when the panel was open–and you could just walk out. You shouldn’t quarrel. It makes everything different. It puts dust into the works. It stops the wheels of the clock.”

  “The clock!” said Elfrida slowly. “Couldn’t that work backwards?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said the Mole.

  “I don’t know that I quite know myself,” Elfrida explained; “but the daisy-clock. You sit on the second hand and there isn’t any time–and yet there’s lots where you’re not sitting. If I could sit on the daisy-clock the time wouldn’t be anything before some one comes to let me out. But I can’t get to the daisy-clock, even if you’d make it for me. So that’s no good.”

  “You are a very clever girl,” said the Mouldiwarp, “and all the clocks in the world aren’t made of daisies. Move the table and chairs back against the wall; we’ll see what we can do for you.”

  While Elfrida was carrying out this order–the white Mole stood on its hind feet and called out softly in a language she did not understand. Others understood it though, it seemed, for a white pigeon fluttered in through the window, and then another and another, till the room seemed full of circling wings and gentle cooings, and a shower of soft, white feathers fell like snow.

  Then the Mole was silent, and one by one the white pigeons sailed back through the window into the blue and gold world of out-of-doors.

  “Get upon a chair and keep out of the way,” said the Mouldiwarp. And Elfrida did.

  “THE ROOM SEEMED FULL OF CIRCLING WINGS.”

  And then a soft wind blew through the little room–a wind like the wind that breathes softly in walled gardens and shakes down the rose-leaves on sparkling summer mornings. And the white feathers on the floor were stirred by the sweet wind, and drifted into little heaps and lines and curves till they made on the dusty floor the circle of a clock-face, with all its figures and its long hand and its short hand and its second hand. And the white Mole stood in the middle.

  “All white things obey me,” it said. “Come, sit down on the minute hand, and you’ll be there in no time.”

  “Where?” asked Elfrida, getting off the chair.

  “Why, at the time when they open the panel. Let me get out of the clock first. And give me the key of the parlour door. It’ll save time in the end.”

  So Elfrida sat down on the minute hand, and instantly it began to move round–faster than you can possibly imagine. And it was very soft to sit on–like a cloud would be if the laws of nature ever permitted you to sit on clouds. And it spun round so that it seemed no time at all before she found herself sitting on the floor and heard voices, and knew that the secret panel was open.

  “I see,” she said wisely, “it does work backwards, doesn’t it?”

  But there was no one to answer her, for the Mouldiwarp was gone. And the white pigeons’ feathers were in heaps on the floor. She saw them as she stood up. And there wasn’t any clock-face any more.

  . . . . .

  Edred soon got tired of “Red Cotton Nightcap Country,” which really is not half such good fun as it sounds, even for grown-ups, and he tried several other books. But reading did not seem amusing, somehow. And the house was so much too quiet, and the clock outside ticked so much too loud–and Elfrida was shut up, and there were bars to the windows, and the door was locked. He walked about, and sat in each of the chairs in turn, but no one of them was comfortable. And his thoughts were not comfortable either. Suppose no one ever came to let them out! Supposing the years rolled on and found him still a prisoner, when he was a white-haired old man, like people in the Bastille, or in Iron Masks? His eyes filled with tears at the thought. Fortunately it did not occur to him that unless some one came pretty soon he would be unlikely to live to a great age, since people cannot live long without eating. If he had thought of this he would have been even more unhappy than he was–and he was quite unhappy enough. Then he began to wonder if “anything had happened” to Elfrida. She was dreadfully quiet inside there behind the panel. He wished he had not quarrelled with her. Everything was very miserable. He went to the window and looked out, as Elfrida had done, to see if he could see a red dress or a violet dress coming over the downs. But there was nothing. And t
he time got longer and longer, drawing itself out like a putty snake, when you rub it between your warm hands–and at last, what with misery, and having cried a good deal, and its being long past tea-time, he fell asleep on the window-seat.

  He was roused by a hand on his shoulder and a voice calling his name.

  Next moment he was in the arms of Aunt Edith, or as much in her arms as he could be with the window-bars between them.

  When he told her where Elfrida was, and where the room-key was, which took some time, he began to cry again–for he did not quite see, even now, how he was to be got out.

  “Now don’t be a dear silly,” said Aunt Edith. “If we can’t get you out any other way I’ll run and fetch a locksmith. But look what I found right in the middle of the path as I came up from the station.”

  It was a key. And tied to it was an ivory label, and on the label were written the words, “Parlour door, Arden.”

  “You might try it,” she said.

  He did try it. And it fitted. And he unlocked the parlour door and then the front door, so that Aunt Edith could come in.

  And together they got the kitchen steps and found the secret spring and opened the panel, and got out the dusty Elfrida. And then Aunt Edith lighted the kitchen fire and boiled the kettle; they had tea, which every one wanted very badly indeed. And Aunt Edith had brought little cakes for tea with pink icing on them, very soft inside with apricot jam. And she had come to stay over Sunday.

  She was as much excited as the children over the secret panel, and after tea (when Edred had fetched Emily from the wild-goose chase for a parcel at the station, on which she was still engaged), the aunt and the niece and the nephew explored the secret stair and the secret chamber thoroughly.

  “What a wonderful lot of pigeons’ feathers!” said Aunt Edith; “they must have been piling up here for years and years.”

  “It was lucky, you finding that key,” said Edred. “I wonder who dropped it. Where’s the other one, Elf?”

  “I don’t know,” said Elfrida truthfully, “it isn’t in my pocket now.”