The Long-Lost Home Read online

  “Well, as a matter of fact, it does, but don’t you three be worrying yourself about curses and whatnot! Let’s just say that finding the good Madame was important. Anyway, I searched for the old Gypsy all over London, at all of her usual haunts. Haunts, get it?”

  Agreeably, the children groaned at his clever use of the word “haunts.” Simon grinned and grabbed one of the wooden baking paddles, which he proceeded to ride like a hobbyhorse ’round the bakehouse. “I checked the occult bookstores, the spooky carnivals, the abandoned cemeteries, and all the obscure and little-trafficked corners of the city. Nothing!”

  He dismounted, breathless. “Panic set in! As I said, I’d promised Miss Lumley some answers that only Madame Ionesco could give, and I wasn’t making any progress. I even worried that our dear Penny might be cross with me about it, and perhaps that’s why she wasn’t answering my letters.”

  The children’s eyes grew wide and sad. “Well, never mind that,” Simon quickly went on. “Imagine it: day after day, I search for the soothsayer. At night I sleep backstage at whatever theater has left the stage door unlocked. If you don’t mind a firm surface, a pile of sandbags can make a decent mattress, you’ll be pleased to know.”

  “But what about Madame Gypsy Cake?” the children begged.

  “I’m nearly there, mates!” His voice took on a mysterious tone. “About a week ago, with the moon only one night short of full, I’m pushing a janitor’s broom across the stage of the Royale Piccadilly in exchange for a meal”—now the wooden paddle stood in for the broom—“when I hear a ghostly voice calling from the back of the theater. ‘Simon!’ it moans, eerie as can be. ‘Simon Harley-Dickinson!’”

  He paused for effect, and indeed, the children were on tenterhooks. “Well, I know how to pick up a cue when I hear one,” he continued. “I drop my broom, take a deep breath, and answer back, ‘Angels and ministers of grace defend us!’”

  “Shakespeare!” the children cried.

  “You bet it is.” Simon struck a theatrical pose. “It’s what Hamlet says when the ghost of his kingly dad turns up at the castle at Elsinore. I know the speech by heart, and would have been keen to play it, too—but before I can spit out another forsooth, the mysterious Madame herself waddles down the aisle and plants herself at the footlights.

  “‘Madame Ionesco! Where on earth have you been?’ says I. She smirks, as if I’d asked the wrong question! ‘Never mind where,’ she says. ‘Now listen. A message has come to me from Beyond the Veil. We must go to the rich man’s house, quick! Call us a cab, would you, honey?’” He paused. “By ‘the rich man’s house,’ she meant Ashton Place, in case you had any doubts.”

  “But what was the message?” Beowulf asked, in thrall to the story.

  Simon shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Madame Ionesco. Whatever she saw in her orb of prognostication, so far she’s kept it to herself. Anyway. ‘Aye aye, Madame,’ I reply. I dash out of the theater to find us a hansom cab, and to whom should I bump smack into but the enigmatic coachman himself!”

  “Old Timothy!” the children yelled.

  “Correct! His carriage was parked right outside the stage door of the Royale Piccadilly. What were the odds of that happening, I ask you? But no, don’t answer”—for the children had already begun to figure it out—“as I expect that even the laws of mathematics are not up to the task of explaining Old Tim.”

  The children concurred.

  “After my shock wears off, and we exchange brief pleasantries, I ask if we can hitch a ride back to Ashton Place. ‘Only if you can bake!’ he says. ‘I can’t go home without a baker, or Mrs. Clarke’ll have my hide.’ To prove his point, he gives me this very copy of the Ashton Weekly Gazette, in which a curious advertisement appears, as you may see for yourselves.” Simon produced the newspaper to show the children as he recited from memory, “‘Excellent bread baker needed. Experience with angry mobs preferred.’ Well, I’ve faced the matinee crowds on the West End and lived to tell about it, but I’m all thumbs in the kitchen. On the other hand, nothing fazes Madame Ionesco, and she’s as good a baker as she is a prognosticator.”

  “Gypsy cakes!” The Incorrigibles rubbed their tummies and swooned.

  “It’s her specialty, and a fine one, too,” Simon agreed. “‘Old Tim,’ I say, ‘it seems we’re both in luck. We need a ride, and you need a baker.’ Off we went! Along the way the coachman suggests we’d be wise to travel incognito. I ask why, and he answers, ‘Because I said so! Suspend your disbelief, lad, and just do it.’ That’s how Flora the Bread Lady was born. One loaf, and she was a shoo-in for the baker’s job, though I suspect she may have knocked out the competition with some hocus-pocus, too, if rumors are to be believed.”

  “And you found a job—as a chimney climber?” Alexander asked, puzzled.

  “Oven elf?” Beowulf guessed.

  “Smoke inspector?” That was Cassiopeia’s theory.

  “Nothing so fancy. I was just trying to fix the flue. It was stuck.” Simon’s tale was done. He put the wooden paddle back in its place. “I haven’t found a job yet. We thespians don’t have much experience with honest employment. I’m not sure where to begin.”

  “You could be Shakespeare,” Alexander suggested.

  “The Bard of Ashton Place,” Beowulf said, trying out the title.

  “Ashton’s Thespians Deluxe!” Cassiopeia crowed. She and Beowulf acted out a brief swordfight in which they both met gruesome ends, much like the conclusion of Hamlet. They ended up sprawled on the bakehouse floor, a tragic tangle of limbs.

  Simon reached out both hands and helped them up. “Someday, perhaps! But pretending to be a bard is not much of a disguise, since I already am one. And Shakespeare’s long dead. It’d only draw attention if he turned up at Ashton Place.”

  Alexander frowned, thinking. “You need a job that is incognito.”

  “More incognito than Shakespeare,” Beowulf said.

  “You need the most incognito job there is,” Cassiopeia declared. But what job would that be? It would have to suit Simon’s talents and temperament, while also allowing him to be completely unrecognizable.

  The Incorrigibles furrowed their brows and stroked their chins. Idly, Beowulf picked up the newspaper Simon had handed them earlier. Together the children perused the pages.

  Simon poked at the rising bread loaves in frustration. “Frankly, I’m stumped. If only there was a job opening for a household navigator! That would work. Or I’d settle for being the Ashton astronomer. I know a thing or two about the constellations. I’d call myself Starry Sam, the Milky Way Man, or something of that ilk. . . .”

  His voice trailed off. A troika of Incorrigibles looked up at him. Six wide eyes gleamed with insight.

  “What?” Simon asked, suddenly uneasy. “You don’t like Starry Sam?”

  “Simawoo,” Cassiopeia said as her brothers giggled helplessly, “we know the perfect job for you.”

  THE APPLICANT FOR THE JOB of baby nurse folded her large gloved hands in the lap of her brightly floral-patterned dress. She was tall, and perched with difficulty on one of the delicate antique side chairs in the front parlor of Ashton Place. “My name is Mrs. Penworthy,” she said in a deep contralto voice. “Mrs. Elsinore Penworthy.”

  The lady smiled primly and scratched under the edge of her bonnet. The bonnet covered all her hair except for two short lengths that stuck out at each ear. It was not what one would call an elegant hairdo. It had a bit of a horse-tail look about it, to be frank. Her dress was ill fitting, snug across the shoulders and loose around the middle. However, the colorful meadow-flower print of the fabric and the shocking flounce of pink tulle that had been unevenly stitched ’round the hem surely lent the garment a festive air.

  “Penworthy, eh? Write that down, Incorrigibles.” Lord Fredrick chewed aggressively on his unlit cigar. Unlike Mrs. Clarke’s advertisement for the baker, the advertisement Lord Fredrick had placed for a baby nurse in the Ashton Weekly Gazette had made no mention of angry mobs.
Consequently, the household had been flooded with applicants. They formed a long line at the door of Ashton Place that stretched the full length of the curved driveway, past the formal gardens and the blooming daffodils, and onto the grassy lawn.

  Such a quantity of prospective baby nurses made Lady Constance throw up her hands. “Look at them all! They keep coming, like ants at a picnic. I want nothing to do with it, if you please,” she exclaimed, and waddled off to inspect her tulip garden once more.

  This left Lord Fredrick in charge, though he was quick to admit he felt out of his depth. Mrs. Clarke convinced him to let the Incorrigible children assist, as they were still quite young and were bound to have more insight into what a baby might like than an older person would. Alexander had the neatest handwriting and took notes on each applicant, while Beowulf and Cassiopeia escorted the ladies in and out of the parlor.

  So far there had been a wide range, from energetic young girls to calm, silver-haired ladies with long letters of reference. Most of them seemed perfectly nice. Yet, curiously, the Incorrigible children had objected to them all. “Smells like cheese” was but one example of the many disqualifying flaws they discovered. “Froggish voice,” “dangerously thin ankles,” “failure to smile,” “too much smiling”—these reasons and more were given by the Incorrigibles to rule out one candidate after another.

  By now Lord Fredrick was crabby and tired, and he had nearly given up on ever finding someone suitable.

  “All right, Mrs. Penworthy,” Lord Fredrick said, feigning interest, “you’ve some experience taking care of babies, I expect? Heaven knows I don’t.”

  “Yes—ahem! I mean yes, my lord.” Mrs. Penworthy’s voice cracked like a teenaged boy’s. “I do love babies so. Why, just last week I was tending the sweetest little cherub you can imagine, all dimples and velvety skin and cute little burpie-wurpies.”

  “But not every child is sweet.” Lord Fredrick scowled. “What if the rascal’s a bit wild now and then? Noisy and destructive, like a young pup, what? How would you feel about that?”

  Before she could answer, Alexander loudly cleared his throat. The Incorrigibles positioned themselves behind Lord Fredrick’s chair, so they could only be seen by Mrs. Penworthy. They bared their teeth into wolfish expressions, swiped at each other with pretend claws, made O-shaped howling mouths as if baying at the moon, and so on.

  Mrs. Penworthy’s eyes never left Lord Fredrick. “Well, Lord Ashton, sir, I’ll tell you a tale, if you don’t mind. When I was a wee girl, my father was the master of hounds for a small estate. ‘Have extra patience with the naughty pups, Elsinore,’ he always said. ‘It’s the wildest one in the litter who’ll be leader of the pack someday.’”

  “Blast! I like that answer.” Lord Fredrick chewed his cigar. “Elsinore? That’s in Denmark, what?”

  “The capital of Denmark is Copenhagen,” Beowulf interjected, pleased that he remembered.

  “I wouldn’t know, I’m sure,” Mrs. Penworthy demurred. “I do enjoy a good Danish pastry, though.” (As any globe could tell you, Denmark is the southernmost country of the northernmost nations of Europe. North of Copenhagen is the city of Elsinore, home to the castle where Hamlet takes place, with its wandering ghosts, ill-advised eavesdropping behind the drapes, conversations with skulls, and deadly duels in iambic pentameter. No wonder the play is considered a masterpiece. Imagine how much more enjoyable it would be when viewed with a Danish pastry in one hand and a restorative cup of tea in the other!)

  “Master of hounds . . . Danish pastries . . . I see nothing wrong here.” Lord Fredrick turned to the Incorrigibles. “All right, give me the bad news. What’s the problem this time?”

  All three children shook their heads.

  “What, nothing? Nothing at all?”

  Cassiopeia tugged at his sleeve. “She’s perfect, Lordawoo.”

  “Perfect? Well, well.” He glanced at his pocket watch. “How many applicants are left out there?”

  “Millions! Enough to keep us here past suppertime,” Beowulf said, rubbing his tummy forlornly.

  “Millions is hyperbole,” his sister warned, though she too was getting hungry.

  “I estimate two hundred and twelve,” Alexander announced, after a brief mental calculation. “At eight minutes per interview, that would mean . . .” He scribbled furiously with his pencil to find exactly how many baby nurse interviews could fit into one afternoon, otherwise known as the afternoon/baby nurse problem.

  “Two hundred? Blast!” Lord Fredrick stood and walked the length of the room. “I’ve no patience for all that helloing and chitchat about diapers! The baby’s on his way and there’s no time to waste. Incorrigibles, come!” It sounded like he was calling his dogs, but the children bounded over, following him to the far side of the parlor. He crouched to their level and spoke quietly. “What say you, my wolfish wards? Will Mrs. Penworthy do, or not? If she’s perfect, we’re unlikely to find better, what?”

  “I vote yes,” said Alexander.

  “I vote yes, too,” said Beowulf.

  “I vote yes times two,” said Cassiopeia. “Double yes!”

  “It’s settled, then.” Lord Fredrick strode back across the parlor. “Congratulations, Penworthy! You’ve got the job.”

  Mrs. Elsinore “Incognito” Penworthy gave a satisfied smile and adjusted her—that is to say, his—wig. There had been no ladies’ shoes in all of Ashton Place into which Simon could cram his generously sized feet. Luckily, the flounce of pink tulle (as you may have guessed, it had briefly served as a tutu before being hastily attached to the bottom of one of Mrs. Clarke’s old dresses) added just enough length to keep Simon’s boots concealed, as he—that is to say, she—stood tall and gave Lord Fredrick’s hand a vigorous shake.

  “Well,” the lady crooned, with a wink that only the children could see, “that’s just ducky, Your Lordship, sir!”

  Lord Fredrick gazed up at his new employee, a half head taller than himself. “Incorrigibles, tell Mrs. Clarke to send the rest of the applicants away. We’ve found our baby nurse, by gum!”

  THE EIGHTH CHAPTER

  Penelope makes a daring escape.

  BACK AT THE BARRACKS, THE Babushkinov twins lost no time in trying to upset Veronika with tales of all she had missed during their walk. “We saw a giant sailing ship that flew in the sky!” they boasted. “We rode in it ourselves! We sailed to Moscow and back within an hour!”

  “Liars,” the girl said, gazing serenely into the distance. By means of bribery and persuasion and threats, Madame Babushkinov had finally convinced her to stop acting like a coward and get out of bed. Now the child stood pale faced and determined, practicing her pliés. One hand rested on the iron bedframe, and the other arm swooped through the air as she squatted and rose, squatted and rose, over and over again.

  “Lay an egg, lay an egg, lay an egg!” her brothers teased as they watched her sink low, knees akimbo.

  Veronika completed her descent. “Mama does not love you,” she answered on her way up. When she reached her tiptoes, she added, “Neither does Papa. They wish you had never be born!”

  The boys’ lips trembled, and Veronika flung her arm skyward in smug satisfaction. Their parents were not there to scold them, not that they would have in any case. The captain had gone out for a career-advancing luncheon with some officers he had met. Madame Babushkinov was off attending to her toilette, with a guard stationed outside the bath to ensure her complete privacy.

  Penelope sat within earshot of the children’s antics, but she scarcely heard them, for she was deep in thought. She was thinking—no, not about the Incorrigibles, or Simon, or the korablik or even what to have for lunch—but about a thrilling novel she had once read called The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. Monsieur Dumas was French, but Penelope had read the book in English, for it was extremely popular and had been translated into many languages. (Monsieur Dumas wrote another, equally popular book called The Three Musketeers, although there are more than three muskete
ers in it. Exactly how many musketeers go into The Three Musketeers—you may think of it as the musketeer/musketeer problem—is well worth investigating, but not just now, for Penelope’s mind is occupied with The Count of Monte Cristo, and for good reason, too.)

  In a nutshell, The Count of Monte Cristo is the tale of a young sailor named Edmond Dantès. He is falsely accused of treason and sentenced to the dreaded Château d’If, a prison located on a small island in the Mediterranean Sea. Dantès endures fourteen desperate years on that curséd isle, waiting for a window of opportunity to escape. When another prisoner dies, he switches places with the dead body and is buried at sea, after which he swims to freedom and is rescued by friendly smugglers. He travels incognito and assumes one disguise after another. Eventually he acquires a large fortune and reappears in society as the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo.

  The rest of the book is devoted to the count’s cruel and complex schemes of revenge against those who had falsely accused him in the first place, all of whom end up ruined or dead. Thus the tale ends as so many tales do, happily for some and miserably for others. Edmond Dantès’s daring break from an island prison is considered one of the greatest escapes in all of literature to this very day.

  Penelope had no interest in revenge, but as a person in the midst of a daring escape herself, The Count of Monte Cristo offered food for thought. Just as Edmond Dantès had tricked his captors by pretending to be a dead body, she had tricked the Babushkinovs into bringing her to Saint Petersburg. But now came the more difficult part of her journey, for to get back to England required passage on a ship. “I would gladly hitch a ride with friendly smugglers, as Edmond Dantès did,” she thought, “but that business about being buried at sea sounds frightfully cold, and I am not much of a swimmer in any case. . . . My heavens! What is that dreadful row?”

  It was Madame Babushkinov. After her toilette, the proud Madame had gone to the common room and imperiously demanded of a lowly soldier that he go and procure buttered rolls and fresh coffee for her and the children. His answer must have displeased her, for her voice cut through the barracks like a siren. “Cash for the commissary, are you mad? I asked for rolls and coffee, not a jewel-encrusted egg! Don’t you know who we are? We are the Babushkinovs! Our name is all the credit we need!” It was not long before the scent of fresh rolls and hot coffee filled the air.