Harding's Luck Part 31

CHAPTER IX

KIDNAPPED

AND now New Cross seemed to go backwards and very far away, its dirty streets, its sordid shifts, its crowds of anxious, unhappy people, who never had quite enough of anything, and d.i.c.kie's home was in a pleasant cottage from whose windows you could see great green rolling downs, and the smooth silver and blue of the sea, and from whose door you stepped, not on to filthy pavements, but on to a neat brick path, leading between beds glowing with flowers.

Also, he was near Arden, the goal of seven months' effort. Now he would see Edred and Elfrida again, and help them to find the hidden treasure, as he had once helped them to find their father.

This joyful thought put the crown on his happiness.

But he presently perceived that though he was so close to Arden Castle he did not seem to be much nearer to the Arden children. It is not an easy thing to walk into the courtyard of a ruined castle and ring the bell of a strange house and ask for people whom you have only met in dreams, or as good as dreams. And I don't know how d.i.c.kie would have managed if Destiny had not kindly come to his help, and arranged that, turning a corner in the lane which leads to the village, he should come face to face with Edred and Elfrida Arden. And they looked exactly like the Edred and Elfrida whom he had played with and quarrelled with in the dream. He halted, leaning on his crutch, for them to come up and speak to him. They came on, looking hard at him--the severe might have called it staring--looked, came up to him, and pa.s.sed by without a word! But he saw them talking eagerly to each other.

d.i.c.kie was left in the lane looking after them. It was a miserable moment. But quite quickly he roused himself. They were talking to each other eagerly, and once Elfrida half looked round. Perhaps it was his shabby clothes that made them not so sure whether he was the d.i.c.kie they had known. If they did not know him it should not be his fault. He balanced himself on one foot, beat with his crutch on the ground, and shouted, "Hi!" and "Hullo!" as loud as he could. The other children turned, hesitated, and came back.

"What is it?" the little girl called out; "have you hurt yourself?" And she came up to him and looked at him with kind eyes.

"No," said d.i.c.kie; "but I wanted to ask you something."

The other two looked at him and at each other, and the boy said, "Righto."

"You're from the Castle, aren't you?" he said. "I was wondering whether you'd let me go down and have a look at it?"

"Of course," said the girl. "Come on."

"Wait a minute," said d.i.c.kie, nerving himself to the test. If they didn't remember him they'd think he was mad, and never show him the Castle. Never mind! Now for it!

"Did you ever have a tutor called Mr. Parados?" he asked. And again the others looked at him and at each other. "Parrot-nose for short," d.i.c.kie hastened to add; "and did you ever shovel snow on to his head and then ride away in a carriage drawn by swans?"

"It _is_ you!" cried Elfrida, and hugged him. "Edred, it _is_ d.i.c.kie! We were saying, _could_ it be you? Oh! d.i.c.kie darling, how did you hurt your foot?"

d.i.c.kie flushed. "My foot's always been like that," he said, "in Nowadays time. When we met in the magic times I was like everybody else, wasn't I?"

Elfrida hugged him again, and said no more about the foot. Instead, she said, "Oh, how ripping it is to really and truly find you here! We thought you couldn't be real because we wrote a letter to you at the address it said on that bill you gave us. And the letter came back with 'not known' outside."

"What address was it?" d.i.c.kie asked.

"Laurie Grove, New Cross," Edred told him.

"Oh, that was just an address Mr. Beale made up to look grand with,"

said d.i.c.kie. "I remember his telling me about it. He's the man I live with; I call him father because he's been kind to me. But my own daddy's dead."

"Let's go up on the downs," said Elfrida, "and sit down, and you tell us all about everything from the very beginning."

So they went up and sat among the furze bushes, and d.i.c.kie told them all his story--just as much of it as I have told to you. And it took a long time. And then they reminded each other how they had met in the magic or dream world, and how d.i.c.kie had helped them to save their father--which he did do, only I have not had time to tell you about it; but it is all written in "The House of Arden."

"But our magic is all over now," said Edred sadly. "We had to give up ever having any more magic, so as to get father back. And now we shall never find the treasure or be able to buy back the old lands and restore the Castle and bring the water back to the moat, and build nice, dry, warm, cozy cottages for the tenants. But we've got father."

"Well, but look here," said d.i.c.kie. "We got _my_ magic all right, and old nurse said I could work it for you, and that's really what I've come for, so that we can look for the treasure together."

"That's awfully jolly of you," said Elfrida.

"What is your magic?" Edred asked; and d.i.c.kie pulled out Tinkler and the white seal and the moon-seeds, and laid them on the turf and explained.

And in the middle of the explanation a shadow fell on the children and the Tinkler and the moon-seeds and the seal, and there was a big, handsome gentleman looking down at them and saying--

"Introduce your friend, Edred."

"Oh, d.i.c.kie, this is my father," cried Edred, scrambling up. And d.i.c.kie added very quickly, "My name's d.i.c.k Harding." It took longer for d.i.c.kie to get up because of the crutch, and Lord Arden reached his hand down to help him. He must have been a little surprised when the crippled child in the shabby clothes stood up, and instead of touching his forehead, as poor children are taught to do, held out his hand and said--

"How do you do, Lord Arden?"

"I am very well, I thank you," said Lord Arden. "And where did you spring from? You are not a native of these parts, I think?"

"No, but my adopted father is," said d.i.c.kie, "and I came from London with him, to see his father, who is old Mr. Beale, and we are staying at his cottage."

Lord Arden sat down beside them on the turf and asked d.i.c.kie a good many questions about where he was born, and who he had lived with, and what he had seen and done and been.

d.i.c.kie answered honestly and straightforwardly. Only of course he did not tell about the magic, or say that in that magic world he and Lord Arden's children were friends and cousins. And all the time they were talking Lord Arden's eyes were fixed on his face, except when they wandered to Tinkler and the white seal. Once he picked these up, and looked at the crest on them.

"Where did you get these?" he asked.

d.i.c.kie told. And then Lord Arden handed the seal and Tinkler to him and went on with his questions.

At last Elfrida put her arms round her father's neck and whispered. "I know it's not manners, but d.i.c.kie won't mind," she said before the whispering began.

"Yes, certainly," said Lord Arden when the whispering was over; "it's tea-time. d.i.c.kie, you'll come home to tea with us, won't you?"

"I must tell Mr. Beale," said d.i.c.kie; "he'll be anxious if I don't."

"Shall I hurt you if I put you on my back?" Lord Arden asked, and next minute he was carrying d.i.c.kie down the slope towards Arden Castle, while Edred went back to Beale's cottage to say where d.i.c.kie was. When Edred got back to Arden Castle tea was ready in the parlor, and d.i.c.kie was resting in a comfortable chair.

"Isn't old Beale a funny old man?" said Edred. "He said Arden Castle was the right place for d.i.c.kie, with a face like that. What could he have meant? What are you doing that for?" he added in injured tones, for Elfrida had kicked his hand under the table.

Before tea was over there was a sound of horses' hoofs and carriage wheels in the courtyard. And the maid-servant opened the parlor door and said, "Lady Talbot." Though he remembered well enough how kind she had been to him, d.i.c.kie wished he could creep under the table. It was too hard; she must recognize him. And now Edred and Elfrida, and Lord Arden, who was so kind and jolly, they would all know that he had once been a burglar, and that she had wanted to adopt him, and that he had been ungrateful and had run away. He trembled all over. It was too hard.

Lady Talbot shook hands with the others, and then turned to him. "And who is your little friend?" she asked Edred, and in the same breath cried out--"Why, it's my little runaway!"

d.i.c.kie only said: "I wasn't ungrateful, I wasn't--I had to go." But his eyes implored.

And Lady Talbot--d.i.c.kie will always love her for that--understood. Not a word about burglars did she say, only--

"I wanted to adopt d.i.c.kie once, Lord Arden, but he would not stay."

"I had to get back to father," said d.i.c.kie.

"Well, at any rate it's pleasant to see each other again," she said. "I always hoped we should some day. No sugar, thank you, Elfrida"--and then sat down and had tea and was as jolly as possible. The only thing which made d.i.c.kie at all uncomfortable was when she turned suddenly to the master of the house and said, "Doesn't he remind you of any one, Lord Arden?"