wherever I choose,’ said Richard savagely, and regained possession of his own hand. It was too late – the chalk had closed over them all.
As the chalk had closed so thoroughly that not a gleam of daylight could be seen, you might have expected the air they had to breathe to be close and stuffy. Not a bit of it! Coming into the Mouldiwarp’s house out of the May sunshine was like coming out of a human house into the freshness of a May night. But it was darker than any night that ever was. Elfrida got hold of Edred’s hand and then of Richard’s. She always tried to remember what she was told, and the Mouldiwarp had said, ‘Always hold hands when there’s magic about.’
Richard let his hand be taken, but he said, quite sternly, ‘You understand I mean what I say: I won’t go back to their times with them.’
‘You were much nicer in James the First’s time,’ said Elfrida.
Then a sound like thunder shook the earth overhead, an almost deafening noise that made them thrill and hold each other very tight.
‘It’s only the King’s horses and the King’s men hunting after you,’ said the Mouldiwarp cheerfully. ‘Now I’ll go and make a white clock for you to go home on. You set where you be, and don’t touch nothing till I be come back again.’
Left alone in the fresh, deep darkness, Elfrida persisted in her questions.
‘Why don’t you want to come with us to our times?’
‘I hate your times. They’re ugly, they’re cruel,’ said Richard.
‘They don’t cut your head off for nothing anyhow in our times,’ said Edred, ‘and shut you up in the Tower.’
‘They do worse things,’ Richard said. ‘I know. They make people work fourteen hours a day for nine shillings a week, so that they never have enough to eat or wear, and no time to sleep or to be happy in. They won’t give people food or clothes, or let them work to get them; and then they put the people in prison if they take enough to keep them alive. They let people get horrid diseases, till their jaws drop off, so as to have a particular kind of china. Women have to go out to work instead of looking after their babies, and the little girl that’s left in charge drops the baby and it’s crippled for life. Oh! I know. I won’t go back with you. You might keep me there for ever.’ He shuddered.
‘I wouldn’t. And I can’t help about people working, and not enough money and that,’ said Edred.
‘If I were Lord Arden,’ said Richard, through the darkness, ‘I’d make a vow, and I’d keep it too, never to have a day’s holiday or do a single thing I liked till all those things were stopped. But in your time nobody cares.’
‘It’s not true,’ said Elfrida; ‘we do care – when we know about it. Only we can’t do anything.’
‘I am Lord Arden,’ said Edred, ‘and when I grow up I’ll do what you say. I shall be in the House of Lords, I think, and of course the House of Lords would have to pay attention to me when I said things. I’ll remember everything you say, and tell them about it.’
‘You’re not grown up yet,’ said Richard, ‘and your father’s Lord Arden, not you.’
‘Father’s dead, you know,’ said Elfrida, in a hushed voice.
‘How do you know?’ asked Richard.
‘There was a letter—’
‘Do you think I’d trust a letter?’ Richard asked indignantly. ‘If I hadn’t seen my daddy lying dead, do you think I’d believe it? Not till I’d gone back and seen how he died, and where, and had vengeance on the man who’d killed him.’
‘But he wasn’t killed.’
‘How do you know? You’ve been hunting for the beastly treasure, and never even tried to go back to the time when he was alive – such a little time ago – and find out what really did happen to him.’
‘I didn’t know we could,’ said Elfrida, choking. ‘And even if we could, it wouldn’t be right, would it? Aunt Edith said he was in heaven. We couldn’t go there, you know. It isn’t like history – it’s all different.’
‘Well, then,’ said Richard, ‘I shall have to tell you. You know, I rather took a fancy to you two kids that Gunpowder Plot time; and after you’d gone back to your own times asked Betty Lovell who you were, and she said you were Lord Arden. So the next time I wanted to get away from – from where I was – I gave orders to be taken to Lord Arden. And it—’
‘Come along, do, dear,’ said the sudden voice of the Mouldiwarp. ‘The clock’s all ready.’
A soft light was pressing against their eyes – growing, growing. They saw now that they were in a great chalk cave – the smugglers’ cave, Edred had hardly a doubt. And in the middle of its floor of smooth sand was a great clock-face – figures and hands and all – made of softly gleaming pearls set in ivory. Light seemed to flow from this, and to be reflected back on it by the white chalk walls. It was the most beautiful piece of jeweller’s work that the children – or, I imagine, anyone else – had ever seen.
‘Sit on the minute hand,’ said the Mouldiwarp, ‘and home you go.’
‘But I can’t go,’ said Edred grimly, ‘till I’ve heard what Richard was saying.’
‘You’ll be caught, then, by the King and his soldiers,’ said the witch.
‘I must risk that,’ said Edred quite quietly. ‘I will not go near the white clock till Richard has told me what he means.’
‘I’ll give him one minute,’ said the Mouldiwarp crossly, ‘not no more than that. I’m sick to death of it, so I am.’
‘Oh, don’t be cross,’ said Elfrida.
‘I bain’t,’ said the Mouldiwarp, ‘not under my fur. It’s this Chop-and-change, I-will-and-I-won’t as makes me so worritable.’
‘Tell me, what did you mean – about my father?’ Edred said again.
‘I tried to find you – I asked for Lord Arden. What I found wasn’t you – it was your father. And the time was your time, July, 1908.’
‘WHAT!’ cried Edred and Elfrida together.
‘Your father – he’s alive – don’t you understand? And you’ve been bothering about finding treasure instead of finding him.’
‘Daddy – alive!’ Elfrida clung to her brother. ‘Oh, it’s not right, mixing him up with magic and things. Oh, you’re cruel – I hate you! I know well enough I shall never see my daddy again.’
‘You will if you aren’t little cowards as well as little duffers,’ said Richard scornfully. ‘You go and find him, that’s what you’ve got to do. So long!’
And with that, before the Mouldiwarp or the nurse could interfere, he had leapt on to the long pearl and ivory minute hand of the clock and said, ‘Home!’ just as duchesses (and other people)
