XI
Lord Arden
There was a lot of talk and a lot of letter-writing before anyone 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 Dickie 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 Dickie’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 everyone has been rather in the habit of suggesting that she is better than you are, as well as cleverer.
To Dickie Lord Arden said, “Of course, if anything should happen to show that I am really Lord Arden, you won’t desert us, Dickie. You shall go to school with Edred and be brought up like my very own son.”
And, like Lord Arden’s very own son, Dickie 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 homelike than any other times can be. When Dickie 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 Dickie was happy. The training he had had in the old-world life enabled him to take his place and to be unembarrassed 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 Dickie 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 Dickie 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 Dickie 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 Dickie 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 Dickie 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.”
Dickie 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 Dickie,” 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 anyone. 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.
Dickie, 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
