“We want to know,” said Edred, companionably sharing the flagstone with the feather-tailed spaniel, “the story about why that part of the house in the castle is shut up and all cobwebby and dusty and rusty and musty, and whether there’s any reason why it shouldn’t be all cleaned up and made nice again, if we find the treasure so that we’ve got enough money to pay for new curtains and carpets and things?”
“It’s a sad tale, that,” said old Beale, “a tale for old folks—or middle-aged folks, let’s say—not for children. You’d never understand it if I was to tell it you, likely as not.”
“We like grown-up stories,” said Elfrida, with dignity; and Edred added—
“We can understand anything that grown-ups understand if it’s told us properly. I understand all about the laws of gravitation, and why the sun doesn’t go round the earth but does the opposite; I understood that directly Aunt Edith explained it, and about fixed stars, and the spectroscope, and microbes, and the Equator not being real, and—and heaps of things.”
“Ah,” said old Beale admiringly, “you’ll be a-busting with book-larnin’ afore you come to your twenty-one, I lay. I only hope the half of it’s true and they’re not deceiving of you, a trusting innocent. I never did hold myself with that about the sun not moving. Why, you can see it a-doin’ of it with your own naked eyes any day of the week.”
“You wouldn’t deceive any one,” said Elfrida gently. “Do tell us the story.”
So old Beale began, and he began like this—
“‘AH,’ SAID OLD BEALE ADMIRINGLY, ‘YOU’LL BE A-BUSTING WITH BOOK-LARNIN’ AFORE YOU COME TO YOUR TWENTY-ONE, I LAY.’”
“It was a long time ago—before my time even, it was, but not so long afore, ’cause I can recomember my father talking about it. He was coachman at the castle when it all happened, so, of course, he knew everything there was to know, my mother having been the housekeeper and gone through it all with the family. There was a Miss Elfrida then, same as there is now, only she was older’n what you are, missy. And the gentlemen lads from far and near they come a-courting her, for she was a fine girl—a real beauty—with hair as black as a coal and eyes like the sea when it’s beating up for a storm, before the white horses comes along. So I’ve heard my father say—not that I ever see her myself. And she kept her pretty head in the air and wouldn’t turn it this way or that for e’er a one of them all. And the old lord he loved her too dear to press her against her wish and will, and her so young. So she stayed single and watched the sea.”