Harding's Luck Part 37

Edred's father and Mrs. Honeysett agreed that Edred had done it in the delirium of a fever, brought on by his anxiety about his friend and playmate. People do, you know, do odd things in fevers that they would never do at other times.

The redheaded man and the woman were tried at the a.s.sizes and punished.

If you ask me how they knew about the caves which none of the country people seemed to know of, I can only answer that I don't know. Only I know that every one you know knows lots of things that you don't know they know.

When they all went a week later to explore the caves, they found a curious arrangement of brickwork and cement and clay, shutting up a hole through which the stream had evidently once flowed out into the open air. It now flowed away into darkness. Lord Arden pointed out how its course had been diverted and made to run down underground to the sea.

"We might let it come back to the moat," said Edred. "It used to run that way. It says so in the 'History of Arden.'"

"We must decide that later," said his father, who had a long blue lawyer's letter in his pocket.

CHAPTER XI

LORD ARDEN

THERE was a lot of talk and a lot of letter-writing before any one seemed to be able to be sure who was Lord Arden. If the father of Edred and Elfrida had wanted to dispute about it no doubt there would have been enough work to keep the lawyers busy for years, and seas of ink would have been spilled and thunders of eloquence spent on the question.

But as the present Lord Arden was an honest man and only too anxious that d.i.c.kie should have everything that belonged to him, even the lawyers had to cut their work short.

When Edred saw how his father tried his best to find out the truth about d.i.c.kie's birth, and how willing he was to give up what he had thought was his own, if it should prove to be _not_ his, do you think he was not glad to know that he had done his duty, and rescued his cousin, and had not, by any meanness or any indecision, brought dishonor on the name of Arden? As for Elfrida, when she knew the whole story of that night of rescue, she admired her brother so much that it made him almost uncomfortable. However, she now looked up to him in all things and consulted him about everything, and, after all, this is very pleasant from your sister, especially when every one has been rather in the habit of suggesting that she is better than you are, as well as cleverer.

To d.i.c.kie Lord Arden said, "Of course, if anything _should_ happen to show that I am really Lord Arden, you won't desert us, d.i.c.kie. You shall go to school with Edred and be brought up like my very own son."

And, like Lord Arden's very own son, d.i.c.kie lived at the house in Arden Castle, and grew to love it more and more. He no longer wanted to get away from these present times to those old days when James the First was King. The times you are born in are always more home-like than any other times can be. When d.i.c.kie lived miserably at Deptford he always longed to go to those old times, as a man who is unhappy at home may wish to travel to other countries. But a man who is happy in his home does not want to leave it. And at Arden d.i.c.kie was happy. The training he had had in the old-world life enabled him to take his place and to be unembarra.s.sed with the Ardens and their friends as he was with the Beales and theirs. "A little shy," the Ardens' friends told each other, "but what fine manners! And to think he was only a tramp! Lord Arden has certainly done wonders with him!"

So Lord Arden got the credit of all that d.i.c.kie had learned from his tutors in James the First's time.

It is not in the nature of any child to brood continually on the past or the future. The child lives in the present. And d.i.c.kie lived at Arden and loved it, and enjoyed himself; and Lord Arden bought him a pony, so that his lame foot was hardly any drag at all. The other children had a donkey-cart, and the three made all sorts of interesting expeditions.

Once they went over to Talbot Court, and saw the secret place where Edward Talbot had hidden his confession about having stolen the Arden baby, three generations before. Also they saw the portrait of the Lady Talbot who had been a Miss Arden. In rose-colored brocade she was, with a green silk petticoat and her powdered hair dressed high over a great cushion, but her eyes and her mouth were the eyes of d.i.c.kie of Deptford.

Lady Talbot was very charming to the children, played hide-and-seek with them, and gave them a delightful and varied tea in the yew arbor.

"I'm glad you wouldn't let me adopt you, Richard," she said, when Elfrida and Edred had been sent to her garden to get a basket of peaches to take home with them, "because just when I had become entirely attached to you, you would have found out your real relations, and where would your poor foster-mother have been then?"

"If I could have stayed with you I would," said d.i.c.kie seriously. "I did like you most awfully, even then. You are very like the Lady Arden whose husband was shut up in the Tower for the Gunpowder Plot."

"So they tell me," said Lady Talbot, "but how do you know it?"

"I don't know," said d.i.c.kie confused, "but you _are_ like her."

"You must have seen a portrait of her. There's one in the National Portrait Gallery. She was a Delamere, and my name was Delamere, too, before I was married. She was one of the same family, you see, dear."

d.i.c.kie put his arms round her waist as she sat beside him, and laid his head on her shoulder.

"I wish you'd really been my mother," he said, and his thoughts were back in the other days with the mother who wore a ruff and hoop. Lady Talbot hugged him tenderly.

"My dear little d.i.c.kie," she said, "you don't wish it as much as I do."

"There are all sorts of things a chap can't be sure of--things you mustn't tell any one. Secrets, you know--honorable secrets. But if it was your own mother it would be different. But if you haven't got a mother you have to decide everything for yourself."

"Won't you let me help you?" she asked.

d.i.c.kie, his head on her shoulder, was for one wild moment tempted to tell her everything--the whole story, from beginning to end. But he knew that she could not understand it--or even believe it. No grown-up person could. A chap's own mother might have, perhaps--but perhaps not, too.

"I can't tell you," he said at last, "only I don't think I want to be Lord Arden. At least, I do, frightfully. It's so splendid, all the things the Ardens did--in history, you know. But I don't want to turn people out--and you know Edred came and saved me from those people. It feels hateful when I think perhaps they'll have to turn out just because I happened to turn up. Sometimes I feel as if I simply couldn't bear it."

"You dear child!" she said; "of course you feel that. But don't let your mind dwell on it. Don't think about it. You're only a little boy. Be happy and jolly, and don't worry about grown-up things. Leave grown-up things to the grown-ups."

"You see," d.i.c.kie told her, "somehow I've always had to worry about grown-up things. What with Beale, and one thing and another."

"That was the man you ran away from me to go to?"

"Yes," said d.i.c.kie gravely; "you see, I was responsible for Beale."

"And now? Don't you feel responsible any more?"

"No," said d.i.c.kie, in businesslike tones; "you see, I've settled Beale in life. You can't be responsible for married people. They're responsible for each other. So now I've got only my own affairs to think of. And the Ardens. I don't know what to do."

"Do? why, there's nothing _to_ do except to enjoy yourself and learn your lessons and be happy," she told him. "Don't worry your little head.

Just enjoy yourself, and forget that you ever had any responsibilities."

"I'll try," he told her, and then the others came back with their peaches, and there was nothing more to be said but "Thank you very much"

and good-bye.

Exploring the old smugglers' caves was exciting and delightful, as exploring caves always is. It turned out that more than one old man in the village had heard from his father about the caves and the smuggling that had gone on in those parts in old ancient days. But they had not thought it their place to talk about such things, and I suspect that in their hearts they did not more than half believe them. Old Beale said--

"Why didn't you ask me? I could a-told you where they was. Only I shouldn't a done fear you'd break your precious necks."

Of course the children were desperately anxious to open up the brickwork and let the stream come out into the light of day; only their father thought it would be too expensive. But Edred and Elfrida worried and bothered in a perfectly gentle and polite way till at last a very jolly gentleman in spectacles, who came down to spend a couple of days, took their part. From the moment he owned himself an engineer Edred and Elfrida gave him no peace, and he seemed quite pleased to be taken to see the caves. He pointed out that the removal of the simple dam would send the water back into the old channel. It would be perfectly simple to have the brickwork knocked out, and to let the stream find its way back, if it could, to its old channel, and thence down the arched way which Edred and Elfrida told him they were certain was under a mound below the Castle.

"You know a lot about it, don't you?" he said good-humoredly.

"Yes," said Edred simply.

Then they all went down to the mound, and the engineer then poked and prodded it and said he should not wonder if they were not so far out.

And then Beale and another man came with spades, and presently there was the arch, as good as ever, and they exclaimed and admired and went back to the caves.

It was a grand moment when the bricks had been taken out and daylight poured into the cave, and nothing remained but to break down the dam and let the water run out of the darkness into the sunshine. You can imagine with what mixed feelings the children wondered whether they would rather stay in the cave and see the dam demolished, or stay outside and see the stream rush out. In the end the boys stayed within, and it was only Elfrida and her father who saw the stream emerge. They sat on a hillock among the thin harebells and wild thyme and sweet lavender-colored gipsy roses, with their eyes fixed on the opening in the hillside, and waited and waited and waited for a very long time.

"Won't you mind frightfully, daddy," Elfrida asked during this long waiting, "if it turns out that you're not Lord Arden?"

He paused a moment before he decided to answer her without reserve.

"Yes," he said, "I shall mind, frightfully. And that's just why we must do everything we possibly can to prove that d.i.c.kie is the rightful heir, so that whether he has the t.i.tle or I have it you and I may never have to reproach ourselves for having left a single stone unturned to give him his rights--whatever they are."