The House of Arden E. Nesbit (top android ebook reader TXT) š
- Author: E. Nesbit
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āPlease,ā she said, very quickly, āis this 1707, and is Queen Anne dead?ā
āHeaven forbid,ā said everyone in the room; and Bet added, āLa, child, donāt delay us with your prattle. The coach will be here at ten, and we must lie at Tonbridge tonight.ā
So Elfrida, all eyes and ears, squeezed into a corner between a bandbox and a roll of thick, pink-flowered silk and looked and listened.
Bet, she gathered, was her cousinā āan Arden, too. She and Bet and the maids, and an escort of she couldnāt quite make out how many men, were to go down to Arden together. The many men were because of the Arden jewels, that had been reset in the newest mode, and the collar of pearls and other presents Uncle Arden had given to Bet; and the highwaymen, who, she learned, were growing so bold that they would attack a coach in St. Paulās Churchyard in broad daylight. Bet, it seemed, had undertaken commissions for all her girl friends near Arden, and had put off most of them till the last moment. She had carefully spent her own pin-money during her stay in town, and was now hastily spending theirs. The room was crowded with tradesmen and women actually pushing each other to get near the lady who had money to spend. One woman with a basket of china was offering it in exchange for old clothes or shoes, just as old women do now at back doors. And Cousin Betās maid had a very good bargain, she considered, in a china teapot and two dishes, in exchange for a worn, blue lutestring dress and a hooped petticoat of violet quilted satin. Then there was a hasty meal of cakes and hot chocolate, and, Elfrida being wrapped up in long-skirted coat and scarves almost beyond bearing, it was announced that the coach was at the door. It was a very tight fit when at last they were all packed into the carriage, for though the carriage was large there was a great deal to fill it up, what with Cousin Bet and her great hoops, and the maids, and the bandboxes and packages of different sizes and shapes, and the horrid little pet dog that yapped and yahed, and tried to bite everyone, from the footmen to Elfrida. The streets were narrow and very dirty, and smelt very nasty in the hot June sun.
And it was very hot and stuffy inside the carriage, and more bumpety than you would think possibleā āmore bumpety even than a wagon going across a furrowed cornfield. Elfrida felt rather headachy, as you do when you go out in a small boat and everyone says it is not at all rough. By the time the carriage got to Lewisham Elfridaās bones were quite sore, and she felt as though she had been beaten. There were no springs to the carriage, and it reminded her of a bathing-machine more than anything elseā āyou know the way it bumps on the shingly part of the shore when they are drawing you up at the beach, and you tumble about and canāt go on dressing, and all your things slide off the seats. The maids were cross and looked it. Cousin Bet had danced till nigh midnight, and been up with the lark, so she said. And, having said it, went to sleep in a corner of the carriage looking crosser than the maids. Elfrida began to feel that empty, uninterested sensation which makes you wish you hadnāt come. The carriage plunged and rattled on through the green country, the wheels bounding in and out of the most dreadful ruts. More than once the wheel got into a rut so deep that it took all the men to heave it out again. Cousin Bet woke up to say that it was vastly annoying, and instantly went to sleep again.
Elfrida, being the smallest person in the carriage except Amour, the dog, was constantly being thrown into somebodyās lapā āto the annoyance of both parties. It was very much the most uncomfortable ride she had ever had. She thought of the smooth, swift rush of the trainā āeven the carrierās cart was luxury compared to this. āThe roads arenāt like roads at all,ā she told herself, ātheyāre like ploughed fields with celery trenches in themāā āshe had a friend a market gardener, so she knew.
Long before the carriage drew up in front of the āBullā at Tonbridge, Elfrida felt that if she only had a piece of poetry ready she would say it, and ask the Mouldiwarp to take her back to her own times, where, at any rate, carriages had springs and roads were roads. And when the carriage did stop she was so stiff she could hardly stand.
āCome along in,ā said a stout, pleasant-faced lady in a frilled cap; ācome in, my poppet. Thereās a fine supper, though itās me says it, and a bed that you wonāt beat in Kent for soft and clean, you may lay to that.ā
There was a great bustle of shouting ostlers and stablemen; the horses were taken out before the travellers were free of the carriage. Supper was laid in a big, low, upper room, with shining furniture and windows at both ends, one set looking on the road where the sign of the āBullā creaked and swung, and the other looking on a very neat green garden, with clipped box hedges and yew arbours. Getting all the luggage into the house seemed likely to be a long business. Elfrida saw that she would not be missed, and she slipped down the twisty-cornery backstairs and through the back kitchen into the green garden. It
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