The Interrupted Tale Read online

  Dedication

  For Andrew and Joe, with whom I shared an unforgettable (and unescapable) walk through the ferns

  Contents

  Dedication

  The First Chapter

  The Second Chapter

  The Third Chapter

  The Fourth Chapter

  The Fifth Chapter

  The Sixth Chapter

  The Seventh Chapter

  The Eighth Chapter

  The Ninth Chapter

  The Tenth Chapter

  The Eleventh Chapter

  The Twelfth Chapter

  The Thirteenth Chapter

  The Fourteenth Chapter

  The Fifteenth and Final Chapter

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Praise for The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place

  Books by Maryrose Wood

  Back Ad

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  The First Chapter

  A Swanburne girl thinks of home.

  AT THE SWANBURNE ACADEMY FOR Poor Bright Females, birthday parties were cheerful but brief affairs. They took place at breakfast, in the dining hall, over bowls of hot porridge. (It was customary to offer the birthday girl an extra helping, which was generous but hardly necessary, as porridge is rather filling to begin with.)

  Small gifts were permitted as long as they were of the humble sort that the girls could make themselves, such as knitted neck scarves and monogrammed handkerchiefs and, of course, the ever-popular pillows embroidered with the sayings of the school’s founder, Agatha Swanburne. But after the porridge had been eaten, the presents opened, and a round of “For she’s a credit to Swanburne, for she’s a credit to Swanburne, for she’s a credit to Swah-han-burne! And so say all of us!” had been rousingly sung, the party was done, and all the girls, including the birthday girl herself, were shooed off to their lessons straightaway.

  “Remember, a sound education is the very best present of all,” Miss Charlotte Mortimer, the headmistress, would say, clapping her hands to signal an end to the festivities. “Off you go, now. Don’t forget to clear your plates.” Clap clap clap!

  Nothing unkind was meant by the brisk efficiency of these celebrations. There was simply a great deal to learn, and limited hours in which to learn it. As Agatha Swanburne herself once remarked, “So many cupcakes, so little time”—an unfortunate mathematical ratio that remains in effect to this very day.

  Miss Penelope Lumley no longer lived at the Swanburne Academy, of course. She had graduated more than a year earlier, and was now a professional governess in the grand house known as Ashton Place, currently the home of Lord Fredrick Ashton and his excitable young wife, Lady Constance. (The historically minded among you have doubtless heard of the Ashtons; in Miss Lumley’s day, they were known for their immense wealth and sprawling estate, including a vast and mysterious forest in which some unusual things had been known to happen—but more on that subject later.)

  With its manicured gardens, countless elegant rooms, and a fleet of servants tending to the house and its residents, Ashton Place was a far more luxurious setting than the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females could ever hope to be. Even so, on this particular autumn morning, Penelope found herself feeling rather homesick for her alma mater. She missed the hard wooden benches and chilly classrooms in winter (for there was rarely enough wood to keep more than a modest fire going in each hearth, even on the coldest days). She missed the long march from the dormitories to the dining hall every morning, during which the girls bellowed the school song with great feeling and even greater volume, in order to wake themselves up. She even missed the porridge, which, to be frank, was sometimes lumpy, especially if one let it get cold.

  Most of all, she missed the birthdays. For although the parties were short and lacked cake, and the presents were homespun and predictable (to Penelope’s knowledge, never had any Swanburne girl received a golden locket from a secret admirer on her birthday, or a magic lamp with a wish-giving genie inside, or even a sweet-tempered pony to spoil and train and make one’s best friend forever and evermore)—still, at Swanburne, when it was your birthday everyone knew it. The day began with gifts and a song, and there were friends close at hand to share jokes and make a fuss. Even the sternest teachers and the brash older girls with whom you hardly dared to speak smiled at you in a special, knowing way your whole birthday long.

  “Nevertheless, it is my birthday, even if no one knows it but me,” Penelope confided to her bedchamber mirror, as she readied herself for the day ahead by brushing her hair into its customary neat bun. “I am sixteen years old, at last.”

  Curious, she examined her fingers and wiggled her toes. At sixteen they seemed no different than before. Nor did the mirror show any evidence of transformation. Her drab, dark hair, her clear gray-green eyes, her brow that was prone to furrowing in deep concentration, especially when there was a mystery to be solved—all seemed unchanged by the momentous nature of the day. Yet a page on the calendar had turned, and here she was, sixteen! To Penelope it sounded quite grown-up, never mind that she spent most of her waking hours in a nursery full of toys (which was understandable, since she was, in fact, a governess).

  Now, some of you may be tempted to feel sorry for Penelope, for what could be sadder than to have a birthday that no one knows about? Recall that she was not without companions at Ashton Place. She was on cordial terms with Mrs. Clarke, the head housekeeper, and was equally fond of Margaret, the good-hearted and squeaky-voiced housemaid. There was no question that Penelope was liked and admired by all the household staff.

  Even so, in Miss Lumley’s day, to be the governess in a grand estate was a lonely job. She was not counted among the servants, for she was an educated person and had no household duties other than tending to the children. Yet she was in no way the equal of her employers. She was rudely ordered about by Lady Constance and could be dismissed from her position with a word.

  In short, in a world where a person’s place in society was either high or low, Penelope was somewhere in between. It made it difficult to feel real friendship with anyone, at least in the free and easy way she had once had with the girls at Swanburne, where one Poor Bright Female was no better or worse than any other.

  For this and perhaps some other reasons, the people to whom she felt closest at Ashton Place were her pupils: Alexander, Beowulf, and Cassiopeia Incorrigible, the three wards of Lord Fredrick Ashton. The children had been found barking and yapping in the forest during one of Lord Fredrick’s frequent hunting expeditions. Their puppyish behavior was a consequence of having been raised by wolves, although, as Penelope had discovered, they may have had some human help as well.

  The Incorrigibles adored their Lumawoo, as they called her (little howling ahwoos often snuck into the children’s way of talking, due to the wolfish influence of their early years). But they were still children, which was not quite the same as Penelope having friends her own age. In any case, she was much too kindhearted to have told the Incorrigibles about her birthday, for one simple reason: She did not know when the children’s birthdays were, and neither, she assumed, did they, and she would never want to hurt their feelings by drawing attention to that fact.

  “After all, an uncelebrated birthday is not nearly as bad as never having a birthday at all,” she thought. “Poor Incorrigibles! It would be terribly unkind of me to make a fuss about turning sixteen, given the circumstances.” Still thinking, she closed the door of her bedchamber behind her and headed toward the nursery. “Anyway, presents can be such a nuisance. All those bits of torn wrapping paper to tidy up! And if one does not get presents, one does not have to bother writing thank-you notes, which sav
es both time and ink.”

  As you can see, it was Penelope’s nature to try to cheer herself up when feeling glum. “No birthday cards means no danger of paper cuts. No cake means I will have a good appetite for supper. And no birthday candles greatly reduces the risk of accidental fire. Really, I am quite lucky to be spared all that bother. If there is anyone for whom one ought to feel sorry, it is the children. Even if they did know when their birthdays were, I am quite sure the wolves in the forest would not have had the slightest notion of how to throw a decent party. . . . Eureka!”

  (For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “Eureka!” is what to exclaim when you have discovered something worth shouting about. It was an ancient Greek scholar named Archimedes who first shouted “Eureka!” He was in the bathtub when it happened; coincidentally, his discovery had to do with how water in a bathtub rises when an ancient Greek scholar is bathing in it, and how measuring this “displaced” water would be a foolproof way to find the volume of said scholar, should anyone need to do that. Bear in mind that this is advanced mathematics; most of us will never need worry about the volume of old Greek men in the bath. What is important is that shouting “Eureka!” is both enjoyable and a spur to productivity. Try it for yourselves: You will discover how peppy it makes one feel to do one’s math homework when there is a bracing cry of “Eureka!” to look forward to at the completion of each problem.)

  “Eureka!” Penelope exclaimed again, for her idea was truly an excellent one. “I will organize a birthday party for the children! Since there is no way of knowing when their true birthdays are, I shall simply declare today to be the Incorrigible Birthday and do all of them at once, one, two, three. It will be a wonderful surprise for them, and pleasant for me as well. For this way there will be cake and singing anyway, and I doubt I will miss being given any more handkerchiefs, as I already have so many.”

  With her lip quivering only a little (for the thought of those sweet monogrammed handkerchiefs made her even more homesick for Swanburne than before), Penelope opened the door to the nursery. “Children, rise and shine! You will never guess what today is—”

  “Tuesday?” Alexander jumped up and blocked her way into the room. Still, she was able to get a glimpse of Beowulf at his desk, chewing on some object that he quickly hid in his pocket.

  “No, it is Thursday,” Penelope replied, squeezing past. “Where is your sister?” The boys looked down at the floor, up at the ceiling, and sideways at each other, everywhere but at their governess.

  “Owwwwwwooooooh!”

  The howl of pain came from the back nursery, where Penelope found Cassiopeia in her bed, whimpering and thrashing to and fro. “Cassiopeia, what is it? Are you ill?”

  “Very ill.” The girl squeezed her head with both hands and waggled her tongue from side to side. “Tummy ache.”

  “And I have a headache,” Beowulf added, crossing his eyes.

  “We are all sick. I am dizzy, see?” Alexander tottered about the room, spun in a circle, and fell to the floor. Then he gazed up at Penelope and croaked, “Highly contagious! Plague, perhaps?”

  Penelope helped the boy to his feet. “I doubt it is plague. But I hope it is not the chicken pox.”

  “Chicken pox!” Beowulf strutted around the room and flapped his arms like wings, until his brother shot him a look. “I mean, ahhhhhhh! Ahhhhh!” He clutched his leg and moaned in agony.

  Penelope frowned. “I thought you had a headache?”

  “In my leg I do,” Beowulf explained. “From chicken pox.” He hopped on his one good leg and made chicken noises. “Buck-buck, buck-buck!”

  “Tummy ache!” Cassiopeia wailed. “In my nose! Ahhh!” Then she buried her head under a pillow, from which some sort of unidentifiable, repetitive, smothered sound—weeping? sneezing? giggling?—could be heard.

  Penelope looked around the room and considered this unexpected turn of events. The children were acting strangely, to be sure. But perhaps it was because they were sick. In any case, it was obviously not the right day for an Incorrigible birthday party.

  No party! Her disappointment swelled, and she permitted herself one small, melancholy sigh before saying, “Our topic of study for today is poetic meter, but there is no point in doing lessons when you are all so sick. I presume you do not feel well enough for breakfast?”

  The children were acting strangely, to be sure.

  The children’s eyes gleamed with hunger, but all three shook their heads.

  “That is too bad, for I believe the kitchen baked fresh biscuits this morning.” Penelope waited for some sort of reaction, for the children dearly loved biscuits, but three stoic faces avoided her gaze. “Very well,” she said, not wholly convinced. “Stay in bed, all of you. I shall go ask Mrs. Clarke to summon a doctor.”

  PENELOPE FOUND MRS. CLARKE IN the pantry, inspecting bags of flour for beetles. “The children are not feeling well,” she said, trying not to look, for the thought of bugs in the flour threatened to put her off her own breakfast. “Alexander is dizzy, and Cassiopeia is in bed with a tummy ache. Would you be so kind as to have the doctor called?”

  Mrs. Clarke dug into each bag with a tin flour scoop and a sieve. “The doctor? For a child’s tummy ache? Nonsense. I’ll send up Margaret with a hot-water bottle, some castor oil, and a nice big spoon. Hold the bag open, would you, dear, while I snoop around for weevils.”

  Penelope obliged, although she was not wearing an apron and the flour made white streaks on her skirt. “Beowulf is also ill. He claims to have a headache in his leg.”

  “In his leg? Well, that’s peculiar. Got one!” Mrs. Clarke crushed the bug between two fingers and flicked it to the ground.

  Penelope winced. “Highly peculiar, I agree. That is why I would like the doctor to examine them—”

  “A sip of brandy will dull the pain. Anyway, it’s not the end of the world to let them suffer. Builds character! Look, there’s another weevil right there.” She squinted at the tiny intruder. “We’ll have to sift this whole batch.”

  To suggest that sick children ought to be left to suffer in order to improve their characters seemed quite unlike Mrs. Clarke, whom Penelope knew to be thoroughly kindhearted. Then again, Penelope had never asked her to summon a doctor before. Perhaps there was more to it than she realized.

  “If you say so, Mrs. Clarke,” she replied cautiously. “But if they get any worse, I will have to insist that you reconsider. And while I am thinking of it . . . when the children are feeling well again, perhaps in a few days, or next week, I would like to have a small party in the nursery for them. Could I trouble the kitchen to provide a cake for the occasion?”

  Once more, Mrs. Clarke’s response seemed to lack her usual warmth. “Oh, cake’s an awful bother. A plate of buttered toast and sugar will be more than enough.”

  “Toast and sugar!” Penelope could not hide her dismay. Even at Swanburne, a birthday girl might sometimes get a spoonful of jam in her porridge.

  The housekeeper clucked disapprovingly. “Plenty of children would be grateful for a piece of toast, Miss Lumley, even without the sugar. You can see for yourself, we’re short of good flour. I’ll speak to the kitchen and find out what can be done. No promises, though.”

  SICK CHILDREN. NO PARTY. TOAST instead of cake.

  Sixteen years old, and nobody cared!

  Penelope’s mood was grim. In fact, she felt things could hardly get worse, which is a dangerous way to think, and not only because it makes one the sort of miserable, dissatisfied person whom no one wants to sit next to at parties. Just as an excess of optimism (also known as optoomuchism) can cause one to act without considering what might go wrong, so can an excess of gloom incite one to recklessness. For if things truly cannot get any worse—and alas, this is rarely the case—why bother being careful?

  It was in just this sort of rash and foolhardy mood that Penelope decided not to go straight back to the nursery. Instead, she took a detour that brought her to the entry hall of Ashton Place. T
here she found the housemaid, Margaret, energetically polishing the already gleaming brass door handle.

  “Good morning, Margaret.” Penelope tried to sound cheery. “Lovely day, isn’t it? By any chance, has the mail come?”

  “It surely has, Miss Lumley. Just look on the mail tray,” the girl replied in her piercing mouse squeak of a voice. “Any special reason you want to know?”

  “No! No special reason.” Penelope leafed idly through the unopened letters. Ashton, Ashton, Ashton—those were for Lord Fredrick. They were all from his gentlemen’s club or from various banks, except for one thin, stained envelope with no return address but which bore many colorful postmarks and exotic stamps from distant lands.

  There was also a small, square envelope of heavy, cream-colored paper addressed to Lady Constance Ashton. It looked like a party invitation, Penelope thought with a pang. How unfair it was that some people were invited to parties for no good reason (other than being a Lady and young and fashionable and very rich, of course), while other people, whose actual birthday it was, could scarcely beg a piece of toast from the kitchen!

  There were no more letters on the tray. She had hoped a card might come from Cecily, at least. Cecily was a clever, round-cheeked girl with wildly curly hair that she kept in two thick braids. She and Penelope had been the best of friends at Swanburne; they were assigned to the same dormitory and had even shared a cot when they were small. Like Penelope, Cecily had graduated early. Now she worked as a companion and translator for an elderly Hungarian lady who lived in the town of Witherslack. Cecily had always been a whiz at languages; no doubt she could say “happy birthday” in at least four or five, although Penelope would have settled for one.

  And what about Miss Charlotte Mortimer? Surely Penelope’s former headmistress would never have forgotten her sixteenth birthday! Apparently, she had. Apparently, Miss Mortimer’s attention was now wholly fixed on her current students, and she had no time at all to think of Penelope—why, she had not even replied to the last letter Penelope had sent, even though Penelope had marked it Urgent: Alarming News Contained Within, underlined twice. The alarming news concerned a shady character who had recently joined the Swanburne board of trustees. He went by the name of Judge Quinzy, and Penelope had reason to fear he was up to no good. Such a dire and clearly marked warning ought to be worth a reply. But, apparently, not.