The House of Arden

The House of Arden A Story For Children
By E. Nesbit

T. Fisher Unwin Ltd
London: Adelphi Terrace
TO JOHN BLAND
First Published
1908
Second Impression
1922
Third Impression
1923

The House of Arden
CHAPTER I
ARDEN'S LORD
IT had been a great house once, with farms and fields, money and
jewels--with tenants and squires and men-at-arms. The head of the
house had ridden out three days' journey to meet King Henry at the
boundary of his estate, and the King had ridden back with him to lie in
the tall State bed in the castle guest-chamber. The heir of the house had

led his following against Cromwell; younger sons of the house had
fought in foreign lands, to the honour of England and the gilding and
regilding with the perishable gold of glory of the old Arden name.
There had been Ardens in Saxon times, and there were Ardens still--but
few and impoverished. The lands were gone, and the squires and
men-at-arms; the castle itself was roofless, and its unglazed windows
stared blankly across the fields of strangers, that stretched right up to
the foot of its grey, weather-worn walls. And of the male Ardens there
were now known two only--an old man and a child.
The old man was Lord Arden, the head of the house, and he lived
lonely in a little house built of the fallen stones that Time and
Cromwell's round-shot had cast from the castle walls. The child was
Edred Arden, and he lived in a house in a clean, wind-swept town on a
cliff.
It was a bright-faced house with bow-windows and a green balcony that
looked out over the sparkling sea. It had three neat white steps and a
brass knocker, pale and smooth with constant rubbing. It was a pretty
house, and it would have been a pleasant house but for one thing--the
lodgers. For I cannot conceal from you any longer that Edred Arden
lived with his aunt, and that his aunt let lodgings. Letting lodgings is
one of the most unpleasant of all possible ways of earning your living,
and I advise you to try every other honest way of earning your living
before you take to that.
Because people who go to the seaside and take lodgings seem,
somehow, much harder to please than the people who go to hotels.
They. want ever so much more waiting on; they want so many meals,
and at such odd times. They ring the bell almost all day long. They
bring in sand from the shore in every fold of their clothes, and it shakes
out of them on to the carpets and the sofa cushions, and everything in
the house. They hang long streamers of wet seaweed against the pretty
roses of the new wall-papers, and their washhand basins are always full
of sea anemones and shells. Also, they are noisy; their boots seem to be
always on the stairs, no matter how bad a headache you may have; and
when you give them their bill they always think it is too much, no

matter bow little it may be. So do not let lodgings if you can help it.
Miss Arden could not help it. It happened like this.
Edred and his sister were at school. (Did I tell you that he had a sister?
Well, he had, and her name was Elfrida.) Miss Arden lived near the
school, so that she could see the children often. She was getting her
clothes ready for her wedding, and the gentleman who was going to
marry her was coming home from South America, where he had made
a fortune. The children's father was coming home from South America,
too, with the fortune that he had made, for he and Miss Arden's
sweetheart were partners. The children and their aunt talked whenever
they met of the glorious time that was coming, and how, when father
and Uncle Jim--they called him Uncle Jim already--came home, they
were all going to live in the country and be happy ever after.
And then the news came that father and Uncle Jim had been captured
by brigands, and all the money was lost, too, and there was nothing left
but the house on the cliff. So Miss Arden took the children from the
expensive school in London, and they all went to live in the cliff house,
and as there was no money to live on, and no other way of making
money to live on except letting lodgings, Miss Arden let them, like the
brave lady she was, and did it well. And then came the news that father
and Uncle Jim were dead, and for a time the light of life went out in
Cliff House.
This was two years ago; but the children