Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  Another letter fits in here: —

  “Dear Rose of the World, — Here’s a go! It’s only ten o’clock, but I must write to you. What do you think? Mysteries of Udolpho! Drelincourt, the Home of Mystery! But I’ll tell you from the beginning.

  “Your letter came this morning. The excellent Sebastien — you were quite right, I should never have got on without him — brought it up when he called me.

  “I read it before I dressed, and I took it to the window because the room is very large and dark and the bed miles from the window. It’s a big bed, like a four-post hearse. And the sun was jolly, and the park like a fire-new toy out of a box for a giant baby; and I read your letter and put it on the window ledge, and went to my bath. There’s a bathroom opening out of my bedroom; Sebastien turns on the water and hovers with warm towels. But everything is simply the Lap Of.

  “When I came back from the bath your letter was nowhere to be seen. (That’s the dramatic, mysterious touch; eh, what?)

  “So, of course, I looked for it all about the room. Nowhere! Then the awful truth flashed across me — it must have flown out of the window. There was a pretty strong wind blowing, and no doubt when the bathroom door was opened... you see? Your letter, blowing about the terrace for the under-gardener to read! (Bear up. It wasn’t really, but I thought it was.)

  “I dressed like the wind (does it?) and flew down. Your letter was not on the terrace nor among the flowerbeds. I looked and looked. I was just going in to enlist Sebastien in a search party when I saw something white sticking in the ivy under my window.

  “What could it be? My style is getting too dramatic — I mean, of course, it was your letter. So I went through the shrubs and tried to reach up to it. No go!

  “So then I started to climb up the ivy. It was very strong and old, and quite easy going. And I got your letter all right.

  “And then I noticed — now I’m coming to it — a ridge of stone, and the ivy not quite so thick. A bit of it came away in my hand, but I was holding on by the other hand all right.

  “And then I saw — what do you think?

  “But I cannot wait for you to guess. It was a window ledge, the stone ridge, and above it a window boarded up.

  “Then when I’d got down I looked up at that place where the ivy grew so thickly. In fact, in the symmetry of that side of the Ancestral Hall a window is missing. Of course, I went in at once to see which it was.

  “But Wilkes caught me in the hall, and I was ashamed not to have breakfast. I felt he knew all about my letter. I had asked a gardener if he had seen it.

  “But after breakfast! — Oh, I asked Wilkes what window it was that had been boarded up. And he said, ‘None in my time, Sir Anthony.’

  “And he’s been here twenty-two years!

  “And I can’t ask Lady Blair till she comes down, can I? It’s a glorious mystery. I did wish you were here.

  “Because I explored the house, and there does really seem to be a lump missing between the library and the outside. Only the house is such an odd shape — it’s been built on to at odd times, you know. It was an abbey once, and every Drelincourt since Henry VIII.’s time seems to have added his little bit. I’ll finish this when I’ve seen Lady Blair, and found out if there really is anything.

  “Later.

  “It’s a much more glorious mystery than I thought. I’ve explored a bit more, and I’m practically certain there is a bit missing, just where that window is, outside. And I’ve asked Lady Blair. And here I insist on being dramatic “ME. ‘What is that window that was blocked up?’

  “HER. ‘ What window?’

  “ME. ‘Just below my room.’

  “HER. ‘Surely you are mistaken. There are no windows there.’ (And she has known the house ever since she was a kiddie.)

  “ME. ‘But surely—’

  “HER. ‘There’s nothing but ivy and the wall. The house, you know, is very irregularly built.’

  “ME. ‘Yes. I see. Thank you.’

  “End of dramatic bit.

  “But I don’t really see at all, of course: I don’t see why she doesn’t know about the window. And if she does know, I don’t know why she doesn’t want me to know. As Mr. Edgar Jepson would say, ‘It partakes of the nature of the distinctly rum.’ I don’t know, as I say. But I’m going to know. Oh, Rose, it only wanted this. I had everything else — and now, in my own house, I’ve got life’s crowning joy — a mystery! — Yours exultantly, “A. D.

  “P.S. — I’ve just read this over. I seem to have felt jolly when I wrote it. But I’ve been fumbling round all the afternoon, and now I somehow feel as though I’d just as soon the house knew its own mind, and reconciled its inside with its outside. ‘You don’t know your own mind,’ I hear you say. True. I don’t.”

  CHAPTER IX. THE GREAT DISCOVERY

  “IT’S no use,” Linda Smith told Esther Raven; “it can’t be the same again ever. I wish it hadn’t happened.”

  The two were the first arrivals at Rose’s house with the window-boxes. They had found a paper on the door, and the paper said —

  “To the Septet.

  Gone to buy things.

  La clef dans le usual endroit.”

  And they had found the key wedged between window-box and brick and let themselves in, and taken their hats off and re-arranged their hair.

  “I wish it hadn’t happened,” said Esther, “and a couple of spiteful cats we are to wish it. And of course things’ll never be the same. Why should they? The Septet was too nearly the Real Right thing to last. I knew something would happen, but I didn’t think it would be this.”

  “What did you think it would be?”

  “An engagement of course. It always is an engagement that breaks up Societies.”

  “But who? Rose and Anthony?”

  “Not much,” said Esther scornfully; “he doesn’t care for anything but his chemical rubbish.”

  “Who then? “ Linda asked.

  “Oh, Rose and the Outsider — or you and Bats. Or me and the whole lot of them — how should I know?”

  “I should have thought Rose and Anthony—”Linda persisted.

  “Then you’d have thought wrong,” said Miss Raven shortly. “One has to notice things if one writes, — and I tell you if I had a thousand a year to be paid so long as Rose and Anthony weren’t engaged, I should feel that I’d got it for life.”

  “I wonder! “ Linda was busy with a strip of red and green embroidery. She always filled up odd waiting moments with embroidery, and carried a thimble in her pocket, as our grandmothers used to do. “I hope it never does happen. I hope they never will get engaged.”

  “Why? “ Esther asked sharply, “Because they wouldn’t be happy. At least I don’t think so.”

  “They’d be as happy as most people, I suppose,” said Esther.

  “I sometimes think,” Linda went on, very intent on her work, “that Anthony’s different from other people.”

  “Of course he is: we all are.”

  “No — but really different from all of us. Like a changeling, you know. Perhaps he is a changeling.”

  “Perhaps you’re a goose,” said Esther. “I’m sorry he won’t be here. He’s come more regularly lately.”

  “Yes,” said Linda.

  “But of course,” Esther added, “we can’t expect him to be keen on a twopenny-halfpenny Septet when he’s got an income, and estates, and a title, and all that.”

  “Any one would think you grudged it — only, of course I know you don’t.”

  “How do you know I don’t?” Esther flamed out; “because I do. I want it much more than he does. So do you. Why should he have everything? He was all right. He was doing the work he wanted to do — he loves his work. Now I hate mine, and you hate yours. We ought to have had it.”

  “Or Rose, or William, or the doctor?”

  “No, they’ve all got what they like to do. It’s you and I that are out in the cold. As for Rose, she’s a beauty and she has a settled income
, and she does the work she likes doing, and she doesn’t know how bad her work is. What more does she want? I call that being in Heaven. I hate my work — and I know how bad it is. And when she falls in love she’ll get the man she wants by just holding up her little finger. Now you and I”

  “Thank you,” said Linda with decision, “speak for yourself. I don’t want to hear about what won’t happen when I hold up my little finger, because I never shall. As for Rose — she’s a darling, and I hope she’ll get the man she wants, if she ever does want one!”

  “Loyal and deserving Linda! Of course she’s a darling. But all the same, if I didn’t love her so much, I should hate her.”

  From which it will be seen that the secret of the betrothal of the occupants of Malacca Wharf had been well kept.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Linda, deeply loyal.

  “No — but Rose will. Here she comes. Rose!” she called, as the door opened, “I was just saying that if I didn’t love you so much, I should hate you.”

  “It sounds very subtle. How are you? “ said Rose, coming in with many parcels. “Yes, awfully subtle and clever. So clever, that I’m sure it’s been used half a dozen times already. So don’t put it in one of your stories as a novelty. The answer to the subtlety is, 4 Of course, dear, you would — that’s the only real basis for friendship,’ and the subtler in the book is always frightfully impressed.”

  “I am,” Esther owned, “and here comes William looking like a Scilly gardener with daffodils in both hands.”

  “Coals to—”Esther said; “look at her flower beds.” The narrow borders had put on the pink and yellow and white and blue pattern that bulbs are meant to make.

  “I don’t often make floral offerings,” Bats said, “and when I saw your flower beds I felt — well, there!”

  “You can’t have too much of a good thing,” said Rose, “and that’s another clever thing that’s been used before, so you can’t have it for your book, Esther. You get the table ready while I put the flowers in water.” The Septet was met to tell of the outcome of its advertisement, but the only advertisement that has anything to do with the story was the one answered by Anthony Drelincourt. But the recountal of the others’ answerings made the evening a merry one.

  Rose, as Ruler of the Feast, decided that the Tales of the Adventures of the Advertisement Answerers was enough event for one evening, and when she had served coffee they all went across the yard and down to the wharf, and packed themselves into the long round-nosed punt.

  “Is there room?” Mullinger asked, “because really I don’t a bit mind if I sit here and smoke. I can read, too. ‘A book of verses underneath the bough—’”

  “I’m sure you can read. But you needn’t. There’s room for eight or nine of you if you only sit still. The Muddy Duck’s as fine a craft as there is on the river,” said the doctor, who had a boat about twenty-five feet long which he called a yacht, and had sailed to Flanders in — his proudest achievement.

  “What an evening! “ said Mullinger. “Anthony ought to be here.”

  “Anthony,” said Esther Raven a is in the lap of luxury, and lost to us for ever. And I think there ought to be a new rule. Nobody ought ever to say they wish some one else was here. It’s a reflection on present company.’’ “ It wouldn’t be a bad rule for all parties of pleasure — not just the Septet,” said Rose. “Let’s go up the river and look at the sky.”

  “Then the doctor and Mullinger can’t see it if they’re rowing,” said Bats perversely.

  “Oh, but the sky is just as beautiful the other way, you know,” Mullinger hastened to protest; “look at the rosy flush in the north — not by eastern windows, only, you know.”

  So they went up-stream singing harmoniously, which is unusual in those waters, charming the ears of all such masters of small craft as were not, at that hour, too drunk for appreciation. And a man has to be very drunk indeed not to appreciate good singing — in fact, up to a certain point, the drunker the more appreciative.

  When it grew dusk they rigged a spare scull as a mast, and hung a big red and gold and blue Chinese lantern upon it, and so back along the gleaming, darkling, dirty, beautiful river, singing the last song. You know it, of course. It is the first effort of every young glee club. But even that cannot spoil its beauty. Let us have it from the beginning as six of the Septet had it that April night: —

  “O who will o’er the Downs so free,

  O who will with me ride,

  O who will up and follow me

  To win a blooming bride?

  Her father he has locked the door,

  Her mother keeps the key,

  But neither bolts nor bars shall keep

  My own true love from me.

  “I saw her bower at break of day,

  ’Twas guarded safe and sure; I saw her bower at twilight hour,

  ’Twas guarded then no more.

  The varlets they were all asleep,

  And there was none to see

  The greeting fair that passed there

  Between my love and me.

  “I promised her to come again

  With comrades brave and true,

  A gallant band with sword in hand

  To break her prison through.

  I promised her to come at night —

  She’s waiting now for me; And ere the dawn of morning light

  I’ll set my true love free.”

  “And ere the dawn of morning light

  I’ll set my true love free,”

  the voices repeated in the darkness, and with the last “free” the punt bumped against the rotting timber of the wharf with the neat simultaneousness that was Rose’s pride.

  “It’s the most romantic place,” said Mullinger, holding the boat steady for the others to disembark. “I always think of ‘ Magic casements opening on the foam ‘ when I — see the lights in Drelincourt’s windows. But to-night it’s all dark and deserted.”

  And on the word came a voice from the darkness quite near the boat. “Hullo,” it said—”Hullo, you strayed revellers!”

  And Anthony came forward into the circle of the lantern’s light. “Hullo, Drelincourt, that you?” Mullinger asked. “Your acute surmise is correct. I say, Rose, I’ve got a fire. And something to tell you. Come along up to my place all of you, if Rose doesn’t mind my collaring her party.”

  They went up, praised the fire, and clamoured for the news.

  “In a minute,” said Anthony. “You’ll be surprised, I warn you.”

  Rose wondered what he was going to say. It couldn’t be — ? But of course not. She wondered how she should feel if he were to say, “I can’t keep it to myself any longer. Rose and I are going to be married. At once.” And then explain to her afterwards that he could not — absolutely could not — live without her any longer.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I propose that you should drink my health in champagne, which I went all the way to the Three Nuns to get. To-day is, so to speak, the birthday of my life.”

  Again Rose wondered.

  “There is a corkscrew with a spike,” he went on, “somewhere about. Bats will know where. And the doctor has in his knife one of those useful things for taking stones out of horses’ feet with. And here’s the champagne,” he said, suddenly producing a large brown paper parcel.

  “I thought the birthday of your life was the day you came into your money,” said the doctor through the rustling of brown paper and straw. “I know it would have been mine.”

  “Not at all,” Anthony assured him; and then a cork popped, and there were no glasses ready, and the wine foamed over and fell on the floor, and Bats wiped it up.

  “That’s unlucky, isn’t it?” Mullinger asked.

  “‘ If you spill your pot of beer,

  Then your luck will disappear.’”

  “On the contrary,” said Anthony, “it’s the luckiest thing in the world. (And besides this isn’t beer, is it?) It’s a libation to the gods of the
laboratory. Most appropriate. Take beakers, if there aren’t enough glasses. In fact, we’ll all have beakers. That’s appropriate too.”

  He spoke with a sort of quick joy that was not gaiety. His eyes were very bright, and his face very pale.

  “Now,” he went on, “I want you all to drink my health ‘blind,’ so to speak. I mean without knowing why it’s the birthday of my life, and all that.”

  “Right O! “ said Bats, standing up with the beaker in his hand. “Let us drink to the health of the mysterious but amiable Anthony Drelincourt — long life and happiness!”

  “May fortune always smile on him,” said Linda.

  “May he live long and die happy,” said the doctor.

  “Success in life and love,” Mullinger said.

  “‘ May all the gifts the gods can send, Ever upon his path attend.’”

  “May he always have exactly what he wants,” said Esther.

  “May he always have exactly what he deserves,” said Bats.

  (“Not that,” said Anthony quickly.)

  “May all his experiments succeed,” said Rose, and, rounding off the chorus, “Long life and happiness!”

  Then they drank, and immediately began to shout “Speech! Speech!”

  Anthony, holding his untasted bumper, raised it and stood up, facing the half circle of his friends, who still held their empty glasses.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “the subject on which I have been asked to address you this evening is one which — oh, hang it all! It’s only that — this time it’s come off!”

  “What?” said every one but Rose and Bats. Rose said nothing, and Bats said, “The experiment?”

  “Yes, the experiment. I’ve found out what I wanted to know. The thing’s there. Done. Complete. Irrefutable. The time I went away — yes, it’s all right.”

  They were crowding round him, proffering handshakes.

  “Yes; when I had to go away, I thought everything would go to pot. Instead, it just quietly went on — and came out right. I was too impatient. I should never have done it if I hadn’t been forced to leave it alone and give it a chance. And now it’s done. It’s the real right thing. And I’m the greatest man since Harvey — I’m not sure that Harvey’s in the same field with me, if you come to that.”