The Mysterious Howling Page 10

  Once there, the boys posed comically in their new sailor hats and thanked Lady Constance profusely by using the socially useful phrases Penelope had taught them, such as “Most appreciated!” and “I offer you my humble gratitude.” At first, Cassiopeia was confused by her reticule and started to gnaw on the leather clasp, but Penelope quickly corrected her and all was well.

  There was a small bookstore tucked between the milliner’s and the shoemaker’s shops. Lady Constance had walked past it without a second glance, but Penelope made a mental note to return as soon as Lady Constance left for her lunch appointment. That hour came soon enough, and although she got stuck holding all the packages—“Would you mind terribly, Miss Lumley? I couldn’t possibly arrive at the tearoom carrying so many boxes and bags. Fredrick will accuse me of squandering the Ashton family fortune in a single afternoon, and besides, my poor fingers are beginning to ache!”—Penelope was glad to be left to her own devices at last.

  “This way, children,” she said, leading them straight to the bookstore. “We have some shopping of our own to do.” Once inside, she was able to settle her three charges in a corner of the children’s section to watch the packages and flip through books. They immediately seized upon a copy of a popular new book that was on prominent display. Beowulf handed it to Penelope so she could see the title.

  “Hmph,” she said. “It is called Mayhem for Boys: First Lessons in Wanton Destruction.”

  The children looked at her, confused.

  “Mayhem?” Alexander tentatively asked. “Mayhem yes?”

  “No! No mayhem, no!” Penelope corrected firmly. “I’m sure it is meant to be ironic.”

  They looked even more confused. Penelope sighed. Irony was certainly a worthy topic for discussion, but she was eager to start browsing among the books.

  “Irony is when you say one thing but mean something else,” she explained quickly, “or when you expect things are going to happen one way and then they turn out quite differently—well, it is difficult to put into words. I will have to point out an example when one arises. Now behave yourselves and do not leave this spot. I will return as soon as I have done with my shopping.”

  Finally, she was free to find presents for everyone on her list. First, the children. For Alexander she chose an introductory Latin text; for Beowulf a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets; and for Cassiopeia a book of Greek myths that explained the tales behind the constellations (including the girl’s namesake, the crown-shaped arrangement of stars the Greeks called Cassiopeia, which can easily be seen in the northern sky to this very day). They were ambitious choices, perhaps, but as Agatha Swanburne once said, “When the impossible becomes merely difficult, that’s when you know you’ve won.”

  She even found something suitable for Lady Constance: a small volume about the stately homes of England that was mostly pictures. Selections were made for Mrs. Clarke (a collection of pudding recipes), Margaret (a popular romance novel that Penelope herself had difficulty putting down once she peeked inside), and Jasper (a thrilling memoir of Arctic exploration by Lieutenant Bedford Pim of the Royal Navy, including his dog-sled encounters with the native Esquimaux people of wildest Canada! Penelope hoped it would not be rude to ask to borrow this volume back once Jasper was done reading it).

  Miss Charlotte Mortimer was the most difficult to choose for, as she had already read so many books. Penelope finally settled on a lovely blank journal that she thought would make an elegant gift.

  When Penelope paid for all these items and realized she still had enough money left over to stop at the confectioner’s for chocolate, she was filled with a rare and wonderful feeling: For the moment at least, her life overflowed with more good fortune than she had previously known existed. Beaming, she went to fetch the children.

  “All right, children, I am all done shopping, and now we will have a most delicious surprise. Children?” Penelope looked around the children’s section. The packages were heaped in the corner where she had left them. A copy of that ridiculous Mayhem for Boys book was lying facedown on the carpet, but the Incorrigibles were gone.

  “Alexander? Beowulf? Cassiopeia! Where are you?” Up and down the aisles she searched. They were not admiring the Giddy-Yap, Rainbow! books, nor were they browsing in the poetry section. In desperation she even climbed into the front window display and knocked over the tall stacks of books beneath the NEW FROM AMERICA sign (the featured title was a shockingly long novel that seemed to be about a whale; it was nearly as heavy as one, too, judging from how it felt when one of them landed on Penelope’s foot). But there was no sign of the children, anywhere.

  Penelope grew so worried, she started to pant, just as the children would do. What if they had wandered away and were now lost in the city, with its busy, dangerous streets and large, succulent population of pigeons?

  “Stop, no, don’t come any closer! Stand back, children, someone will get hurt—”

  The old lady’s voice was drowned out by a surge of yapping and barking. The noise was coming from outside the store.

  Penelope ignored the angry clerk who was scolding her for ruining the window display, pushed through the long line of customers waiting at the cash register, and raced outside to the street. Halfway up the block she saw the three Incorrigibles gathered in a tight circle on the sidewalk. Whatever poor creature they had surrounded was clearly the property of an elderly, fashionably dressed woman who swung her handbag wildly while calling out, “Please, children, keep your distance! Leave my Reginald alone!”

  “Leave my Reginald alone!”

  “Alexander Incorrigible!” Penelope barked sternly, as she caught up with them. “What on earth is going on out here? The other two may be forgiven for leaving the bookstore without permission, but you are old enough to know better.”

  Sheepishly, Alexander stepped back, and his two siblings followed suit. Gazing up at her from the sidewalk was a tiny, sad-eyed Yorkshire terrier. It wore a large, garishly jewel-studded collar.

  “Ma’am, I am deeply sorry that the children disturbed you during your walk.” Penelope curtsied for extra politeness. “I am their governess. I should not have left them unattended even for a moment.”

  The woman looked at her with understanding. “No need to apologize, my dear! I was only worried that they might get hurt. My Reginald is not at all friendly, I’m afraid. He nips and bites at the slightest provocation. I can never let anyone get near him for fear they will lose a finger, especially children— Heavens, will you look at that!”

  Beowulf was down on his haunches, scratching Reginald gently between the ears and murmuring to him in some mysterious doggie language. The little terrier had a look of pure bliss on his scruffy whiskered face. Soon he rolled over onto his back for more.

  “He seems to be in a fine mood now,” Penelope observed.

  “But—I am shocked! He has never let anyone rub his tummy before,” the woman cried.

  “Regawoo sad,” Beowulf explained. “Neck hurts. See?”

  Before anyone could stop him, Beowulf unbuckled the fancy collar that Reginald wore and pressed it hard against the hand of the dog’s owner.

  “Don’t be silly, little boy. This is the special collar I bought when Reginald was just a puppy. He wears it all the time— Ouch! It scratched me. How can that be?” She turned the collar over, and a look of realization spread across her face. “The sharp prongs that hold on the jewels are bent outward, rather than in. Oh, how awful! All this time poor Reginald has been suffering, and I had no idea. Come, my darling pooch, let me carry you home. You must never wear that awful collar again.”

  As soon as the collar came off, Reginald’s tail began thrashing side to side with joy. Now he all but leaped into his mistress’s arms and covered her face with adoring licks. She looked as if she might cry. “Oh, Reginald! In all our years together you have never shown me such affection! Finally we can be happy. Tonight I shall cook you a nice lamb chop to celebrate. . . .”

  As Penelope and the
Incorrigibles watched, the woman toddled down the street in happy communion with her canine companion, who now rode contented and collarless in her purse.

  “Lamb chop, cooked?” Alexander frowned. “Lamb chop, yuk.”

  Cassiopeia nodded sagely. “Regawoo ketchup,” she said. “Ketchup, ketchup, ketchawooooooo!”

  THE MINOR DELAY CAUSED BY the encounter with Reginald, the necessity of going back in the bookstore to help the clerk tidy the window display and then gather up all their packages, plus a final stop at the confectioner’s—for certainly the children deserved chocolate now!—all conspired to put Penelope and the Incorrigibles somewhat behind schedule. As Penelope was paying for their dark chocolate fudge, their milk chocolate mousse tarts, their chocolate almond toffee, and their chocolate peppermint candy, she glanced at the clock that hung above the counter and realized it was nearly four o’clock.

  “Come, children, we must run to meet the carriage right away. It is time!” she cried. Quickly she gathered up all the packages in her sticky hands, and she and the children made their way as best as they could through the holiday crowds, back to the Dying Swan Tearoom where Old Timothy was to meet them. Despite their best efforts they were two minutes late; the carriage was already there, and Lord and Lady Ashton were standing together by the door.

  Penelope was so mortified by her tardiness that she ran straight to Lady Constance and blurted half a paragraph of apologies before realizing that the lady and her husband were in the middle of a heated conversation. Even more embarrassed, she crept into the carriage where the children were already busy gobbling up all the chocolate. Despite her usual misgivings about eavesdropping, she could not help it; she could hear every word through the carriage window.

  “Blast it, Constance, all I’m saying is, this party of yours—couldn’t it be pushed back a few days?”

  “Pushed back?” Lady Constance repeated the words as if they were in a language she did not understand. “What can that possibly mean?”

  “Change the day. Reschedule. Have it the following week. That’s not such a catastrophe, what? Gives you more time to fuss over the house, too—all your hanging wreaths and gilt-edged baubles and whatever else you have planned.”

  There was a terrifying silence. Then:

  “Fredrick. This is a Christmas party. It is to be held on Christmas Day. Are you suggesting that I can somehow change the date of Christmas?”

  “Now, Constance, don’t take it that way—”

  “May I also remind you that the invitations have already been sent, the musicians have been engaged, the flowers have been ordered? Even the moon is cooperating! And Leeds’ Thespians on Demand have already been booked!”

  “I say, Constance—thespians? Surely that is an unnecessary expense.”

  “But they are the entertainment!” Lady Constance’s voice rose steadily in pitch as she spoke, like an operatic soprano la-la-la-ing her way up the scale. “People say their tableaux vivant are positively lifelike!”

  “Sounds awfully dull for a party, what?” Lord Fredrick chuckled, rather meanly, in Penelope’s opinion. It seemed to her that Lady Constance was losing the argument. It must have seemed so to Lady Constance as well, because her childish protests abruptly gave way to a different strategy.

  “My dear husband,” she said, with an icy calm. “Leeds’ Thespians are simply all the rage right now. We are lucky to get them, and I am quite sure they cannot come any other day. The date of the party cannot be changed; it is out of the question. In fact, I am astonished that you would make such an unreasonable request. Why, pray tell?”

  Silence. Penelope wondered if Lord Fredrick would press the issue further, and she heard him take in a breath as if to continue the debate—but then he surrendered all at once, like a chess player tipping over his king.

  “Sorry to upset the apple cart, dear. You are quite right about the party. Too much trouble to change things about at this late date, and so forth. But unfortunately—that is to say, it’s possible”—Lord Ashton hemmed and hawed like a schoolboy who had been called upon by the teacher to provide an answer he did not know—“as a matter of fact, I may have a prior engagement on the day, that’s the rub.”

  Lady Constance gasped audibly. Penelope wondered if there were tears welling up in those round blue eyes.

  “What—what sort of engagement could you possibly have on Christmas Day?”

  “It is business, dear. It would not interest you.”

  “But surely it can be changed.”

  His silence provided answer enough.

  “Fredrick, does that mean you will not be attending our party?” She sounded more stunned than angry. “My debut as hostess of Ashton Place? Our first Christmas as husband and wife?”

  “Well, I shall do my best. On your way, now; it’s getting dark.”

  “Aren’t you traveling back with us in the carriage?”

  “I think I shall return to the club for a bit and come home later.”

  “But we came all this way to meet you! I thought you would ride back home with us.”

  “Well, I’m sure I never asked you to do that. And don’t take those Incorrigible children on any more outings, will you? They might get loose! That would be an awful bother; I’d have to catch ’em all over again. Make sure they’re at the party, what? There’s a new chap at the club named Quinzy who’s itching to meet them, and the fellow’s a judge so it’s plain common sense to throw him a bone, so to speak. ‘A friend on the bench is a friend indeed,’ what my father used to say, rest his soul. Now I’ll see you after supper, or perhaps a bit later. Up you go, dear.”

  Before any more could be said, Lord Fredrick hoisted his wife into the carriage and nodded to Old Timothy to get under way. Perhaps Penelope imagined it, but it seemed to her that a dark look briefly shadowed the face of the enigmatic old coachman. It was the kind of tense, held-breath expression designed to conceal some strong emotion, like anger, or revulsion, or even fear. But then it was gone, and he called a “Cluck-cluck, heigh-ho!” to the horses, and they were off.

  Lady Constance turned her face to the window, away from Penelope. At the moment there seemed nothing Lady-like about her; more than anything she looked like a disappointed young woman who was trying to make the best of a bad hand, a predicament Penelope found easy to understand. For the first time since meeting her, Penelope felt a twinge of compassion for her mistress.

  “There are times when married life is not what I expected,” Lady Constance finally remarked, after three quarters of an hour had passed.

  “I am sorry.” Penelope spoke in a soft murmur, so as not to wake the children. By this time all three Incorrigibles had fallen asleep, as children on the way home from a long excursion so often do, even to this day. Their fingers and faces were covered with sticky chocolate, and they lay together all in a heap.

  “Oh, don’t be sorry!” Lady Constance forced a bitter laugh. “It is only a party, after all. Anyway, I suppose this is what is meant by ‘growing up.’”

  “Pardon me, my lady—what is?”

  Lady Constance smiled tightly, though her eyes shone. “Finding out the difference between what one expected one’s life would be like and how things really are.”

  Penelope found this a thought-provoking remark; it would have served as the very definition of irony if not for the fact that it was so sad—but Lady Constance, rather uncharacteristically, said no more. Other than an occasional sleepy “Ahwoo” from a dreaming child, they traveled in silence, through the forest and all its mysteries, back to Ashton Place.

  THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER

  Preparations are complete; now there is nothing to do but pray.

  AS YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY had cause to discover, a statement can be both completely true and completely misleading at the same time. This is called “selective truth telling,” and it is frequently used in political campaigns, toy advertisements, and other forms of propaganda.

  For example, the statement “In the wake of their
ill-fated shopping trip, Lady Constance resumed her former distant manner toward Penelope and the children” is a perfectly true sentence that nevertheless fails to paint an accurate picture of events. Lady Constance did resume her former distance toward Penelope and the children, but in fact, she became distant from everyone. She took to her room, had all her meals sent in, and refused to come out, not even to supervise the unpacking of the new crystal champagne flutes that had been special-ordered from a Viennese glassblower and arrived buried in vast crates of sawdust.

  Penelope wondered if Lady Constance had taken ill, but when she inquired Mrs. Clarke just rolled her eyes and muttered something about “the moon on a string not being enough for some people.” It was an enigmatic reply, but with mere days left before the party Penelope had no time to waste puzzling over how a string might actually be attached to the moon, or whether this was yet another example of poetical language in action.

  Instead, during every waking moment from breakfast until bedtime, she drilled the children on all they had learned in preparation for the big event: table manners, proper introductions, handshakes, bows, and curtsies. She tried and quickly abandoned trying to teach them how to play charades; they were simply no good at guessing the names of famous people, since they had never heard of any of them. And she undertook a thorough review of the schottische, making sure to confine the dancing to the nursery this time.

  The children endured it patiently and without signs of nervousness, but privately Penelope fretted: What had she forgotten? Was there time to teach Alexander a simple tune on the piano? Cassiopeia might be able to learn a bit of finger crocheting if they worked straight through dinner and used extra thick wool—and Beowulf was very close to being able to do a cartwheel.