Elfrida

“ Shall I not be merry, when steel, and nobility, and a wife are put upon my shoulders?”
“My lord groweth complimentary,” said Elfrida, hardly able to speak for laughter. “I do feel afraid that the air of Kennet Hold, and the drink it affords, have somewhat unsettled his brains!”
“Beautiful Elfrida,” said the bridegroom, “true it is that the brains of Sir Reginald had a terrible knock this day, and thy brother knows whence it came; but we will forget these quarrelsome topics, and give up the evening to merriment. My brains are as firm as thine own. Marry, the wine is marvellous good!” ”

“ Elfrida, wife of Athelwold, the King’s favourite, and daughter and heiress to Olgar Earl of Devonshire, was a beauty of the true Helena complexion. To see her, for most men, was to covet; to possess her, for the one, was to wear a crown of exquisite thorns. The orchard needs most watching when the fruit is ripe, and Elfrida hung at perpetual ripeness, maddening to parched lips without. The keeper of this garden of sweet things might hardly enjoy it for his fear of robbers. ”

“ Dickie assured her.
"Well, then," said Elfrida slowly, "we are. . . . You listen hard and believe with both hands and with all your might, or you won't be able to believe at all. We are not what we seem, Edred and I. We don't really belong here at all. I don't know what's become of the real Elfrida and Edred who belong to this time. Haven't we seemed odd to you at all? Different, I mean, from the Edred and Elfrida you've been used to?" ”

“ There was a cool masterfulness in the tone of this that arrested Elfrida's feeling of half-penitence, and armed her instantly. Whatever desire she had felt to assert and indulge her individuality at any expense, in her own attitude there had been the consciousness of what they owed one another. She had defied it, perhaps, but it had been there. In this it was ignored; Janet had gone a step further—her tone expressed the blankest indifference. Elfrida drew herself up.
"Thanks, it was delightful. An escape from London always is, as you say. Unfortunately, one is obliged to come back." ”

“ Once more she would appear before the world, not as the beautiful, magnificent Elfrida, the proud and powerful woman of other days, but as a humble penitent doing her bitter penance in public, one of a thousand or ten thousand humble pilgrims, clad in mean garments, riding only when overcome with fatigue, and at the last stage of that long twenty-five-mile journey casting off her shoes to climb the steep stony road on naked, bleeding feet. ”

“ So they sat still, all but their tongues.
"Is he in the past?" said Elfrida; "because if he is, it wasn't much good our writing to him."
"You hold your little tongues," said the Mouldiwarp, "and keep your little mouths shut, and your little eyes open, and wish well to the white magic. There never was a magic yet," the mole went on, "that was the worse for being well-wished."
"May I say something," said Elfrida, "without its stopping the magic?" ”

“ Elfrida reminded him, "and it's lower, and you get bigger as you go down, so it prickles more of me than yours does you."
"Let's go back to the attic and try and get back into our own time. I expect we just got in to the wrong door, don't you? Let's go now."
"Oh, no," said Elfrida. "How dreadfully dull! Why, we shall see all sorts of things, and be top in history for the rest of our lives. Let's go through with it."
"Do you remember which door it was—the attic, I mean?" Edred suddenly asked. ”

“ It is very annoying to have our thoughts read. Elfrida said swiftly, “Not often you can’t,” and then stopped short. For a moment the children stood looking at each other with a very peculiar expression. Then a sigh of relief broke from each.
“Fielded!” said Edred.
“Just in time!” said Elfrida. “It wasn’t a quarrel; nobody could say it was a quarrel. Come on, let’s go and look at the cottages, like the witch told us to.” ”

“ Bet touched the secret spring, and when Elfrida had climbed into the dark hole—which she did quite easily—handed her the supper-tray.
“Oh, bother,” said Elfrida, setting it down at her feet with great promptness. “It’s too heavy. He’ll have to come down and fetch it. Give me a candle and shut the panel, and tell me which way to go.” ”

“ Presently Elfrida made her appearance. The bridegroom started as she entered the hall: perhaps the exterior qualifications of the Saxon beauty might not altogether correspond with the exaggerated reports which his ears had greedily drunk. Her figure might be called elegant, but was certainly too short to deserve the appellation of dignified; her face might be deemed pretty, but the pertness which was its prevalent characteristic disqualified it for the epithet of beautiful. Instead of the soft yellow hair which her adorer had expected, he beheld a profusion of dark brown ringlets ”

“ Elfrida added lightly, "than I believe in this exaltation you impute to the race of a passion it shares with—with the mollusks. It's pure self-flattery."
There was a moment's silence. Elfrida clasped her hands behind her head and turned her face toward the window so that all the light that came through softly gathered in it. Janet felt the girl's beauty as if it were a burden, pressing with literal physical weight upon her heart She made a futile effort to lift it with words. "Frida," she said, "you are beautiful to—to hurt to-night Why has nobody ever painted a creature like you?" ”

“ And as the children ran towards the house they knew that every man in that crowd would now be ready to risk his life to save from the sea those Frenchies whom they had sat up all night to kill with swords and scythes and bills and meat-choppers. Men are queer creatures!
To get out of it—back to the safe quiet of a life without shipwrecks and witches—that was all Elfrida wanted. Holding the mole in one hand and dragging Edred by the other, she got back to the castle and in at the open front door, up the stairs, and straight to a door—she knew it would be the right one, and it was. ”

“ And in those long-ago days—which really aren't so very long ago—your being so much cleverer than your neighbours would be quite enough. You would soon be known as the "wise woman"—and from "wise woman" to witch was a very short step indeed.
So Elfrida, not understanding, said, "Yes; is your fowl ill?"
"'Twill mend," said the old woman,—"'twill mend. The healing of my hands has gone into it." She rose, set the hen on the hearth, where it fluttered, squawked, and settled among grey ashes, very much annoying the black cat, and laid her hands suddenly on Elfrida's shoulders. ”

“ The gentlemen exchanged glances and crowded round her. Elfrida shrugged the shoulders of her mind—if a mind has shoulders—and told herself that it didn't matter. History knew best, no doubt, and whatever seemed to be happening now was only history. ”

“ The men in their queer uniforms, carrying their queer weapons, huddled closer together, and all eyes were fixed on the ship as it came on and on.
"Is it sure to be wrecked?" whispered Elfrida, catching at old Lord Arden's hand.
"No hope, my child. Get you home to bed," he said.
It did not make any difference that all this had happened a hundred years ago. There was the cold, furious sea lashing the rocks far down below the cliff. Elfrida could not bear to stay and see that ship smash on the rocks as her carved work-box had smashed when she dropped it on the kitchen bricks. ”

“ It is always difficult to remember exactly where one is when one happens to get into a century that is not one's own.
Edred would have liked to stay all day watching the busyness of every one and the beautifulness of the horses, but Elfrida dragged him away.
They had to find the witch, she reminded him; and in a dreadful tumble-down cottage, with big holes in its roof of rotten thatch, they did find her.
She was exactly like the pictures of witches in story books, only she had not a broomstick or a high-pointed hat. ”

“ And I can’t explain it at all—because, of course, Elfrida knew as well as I do that it all happened three hundred years ago—or, if you prefer to put it that way, that it had never happened, and that anyway, it was Mr. Tresham’s letter to Lord Monteagle, and not Elfrida’s singing of that silly rhyme, that had brought the Ardens and all these other gentlemen to the Tower and to the shadow of death. And yet she felt that it was she who had betrayed them. She felt also that if she had betrayed a base plot, she ought to be glad, and she was not glad. She felt—and called herself—a sneak. ”

“ Elfrida shuddered. “What was that?” she cried.
“What’s what?” asked her aunt; while her uncle said “Banana,” and fell to his dessert again.
“No—something cold: it made me shudder, just as if something had gone by.”
The Blue Lady, ambushed behind a vast tooled-leather screen, gloated over her success.
“Oh, that!” said Lady Silthirsk: “that’s one of the fixtures—a spook. We rather like her—it’s so picturesque and old-world, ain’t it? Some people can see her—I always can. She’s blue—quite an inoffensive mauvy blue. Oh, I distinctly like her. ”

“ This isn’t a bit like the water-shoot or anything. Now, is it?”
Elfrida frowned. Afterwards she was glad that she had done no more than frown. It is dangerous, as you know, to quarrel in a boat, but far more dangerous to quarrel in a century that is not your own. She frowned and opened her mouth. And just as her mouth opened the door of the room followed its example, and a short, dark, cross-looking woman in a brown skirt and strange cap came hurrying in.
“So it’s here you’ve hidden yourselves!” she cried. “And I looking high and low to change your dress.” ”

“ And the dead face was like marble; but the wide-open eyes that had never wholly lost their brilliance and the beautiful lungwort blue colour were like living eyes—living and gazing through the crystal-clear running water at the group of nuns staring down with horror-struck faces at her.
Thus ended Elfrida's darkened life; nor did it seem an unfit end; for it was as if she had fallen into the arms of the maiden who had in her thoughts become one with the stream—the saintly Editha through whose sacrifice and intercession she had been saved from death everlasting. ”

“ The treasure, and make me brave and wise—"
If you don't mind," he added.
And instantly there was the white mole.
"What do you want now?" it said very crossly indeed. "And call that poetry?"
"It's the first I ever made," said Elfrida, of the hot ears. "Perhaps it'll be better next time."
"We want you to do what the spell says," said Edred.
"Make you brave and wise? That can't be done all in a minute. That's a long job, that is," said the mole viciously.
"Don't be so cross, dear," said Elfrida; "and if it's going to be so long hadn't you better begin?" ”

“ As a fact, Elfrida felt the proposal from Ambert was imminent, and though she desired it, she wilfully determined to put it off, as women sometimes will. Blount rose, and, regardless of Ambert's insolent air went with her towards the houses.
Miss Firs-Robinson laughed; she was having a right royal revenge.
"Elfrida's good to the poor, too; in fact, she's good to every one—except perhaps"—thoughtfully—"young men."
"To me," said Mrs. Greatorex spitefully, "she appears the very kindest girl I ever knew to young men, and, indeed, to old men, and all men. ”

“ Elfrida is in here, and she—-"
"Miss Firs-Robinson!" The curate grew crimson. "She—she didn't—-"
"Yes, she did. And a good thing too. Come and speak to her."
"Are you mad?" said Blount. He gathered up his hat and a few other things that had come off during the skirmish—and fled for his life.
CHAPTER XXXI
"Well," said Elfrida angrily, when Mr. Browne got back to her, "you think him very brave, of course, but why did he run away like that? You're a most annoying man, anyway." Elfrida made an irritated movement. "I wasn't thinking of Ambert. He's all right." ”

“ The effect upon Elfrida was hysterical. She controlled herself just long enough to answer with decent gravity, and escaped upon the platform to burst into a silent quivering paroxysm of laughter that brought her overcharged feeling delicious relief, and produced an answering smile on the face of a large, good-looking policeman. Her laugh rested her, calmed her, and restored something of her moral tone. She was at least able to resist the temptation of asking the boy at the book-stall where she bought "John Camberwell" whether the volume was selling rapidly or not. ”

“ He was a widower, the tenant of a small but thriving sheep-farm up yonder in the hills, where abode peace and plenty, much live stock, and many children.
Nothing was wanting but a mistress; and after a while he grew to think that Elfrida was one of the right sort, that she would make a kind mother to the children and a comfortable partner for himself.
The good man began to paint glowing pictures of the place he could take her home to, if she had but a mind to come. I don't think Elfrida turned quite [Pg 186] a deaf ear. ”

“ The mother humored her in this caprice, not thinking it of any consequence. But what was her astonishment, when, happening one holiday to insist, regardless of Elfrida's tears and screams, on dressing her out for a visit to the castle, she found upon her breast, suspended by a string, a piece of gold of a strange form, which she directly recognized as one of the sort she had seen in such abundance in the subterranean vaults! ”

“ But there were times when a vision of Lady Elfrida, gazing at him with wondering, fascinated eyes, passed across his fancy; even the contact with his own race and his thoughts of their wrongs recalled to him the tomb of the soldier Atherly and the carven captive savage supporter. He could not pass the upright supported bier of an Indian brave—slowly desiccating in the desert air—without seeing in the dead warrior's paraphernalia of arms and trophies some resemblance to the cross-legged crusader on whose marble effigy SHE had girlishly perched herself as she told the story of her ancestors. ”