The Mysterious Howling Page 14

  Beowulf, not to be outdone, howled, too.

  “Now that’s what we came to see,” Maytag remarked to Hoover. He sounded very pleased. “That’s what Ashton promised.”

  Cassiopeia jumped onto the foot of the stage area, threw back her head, and—

  “Enough!” Lady Constance marched up to the stage and pulled the curtain shut. Then she spoke to the proprietor in a fury. “Sir! These are not the tableaux I instructed you to prepare. I asked for something uplifting! Something with artistic merit! And all you have to show us is wolves, wolves, and more wolves! Why is that, pray tell?”

  The actor bowed his head. “I apologize, my lady, but it was specifically requested. I have it in writing.”

  He then reached into an interior pocket of his waistcoat and produced a letter, which he handed to Lady Constance. Her expression did not change as she read it, but when she looked up, her attitude was quite transformed. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “That will be all. Everyone, let us offer our thanks to the good thespians from Leeds.”

  The actor playing Little Red Riding Hood pushed back his hood. “All? But we have hardly performed.”

  “You are Leeds’ Thespians on Demand, are you not?” Lady Constance hissed through her teeth. “Well, I demand that you stop. You shall be paid your full fee, but now you must go.”

  As the disappointed actors took down the curtain and packed up their unused props and costumes, the party guests shrugged and resumed drinking and flirting with one another’s spouses, just as party guests have done since the beginning of time. But questions pirouetted around Penelope’s mind faster than even the ballerinas of the Imperial Russian Ballet could have managed: Who had requested these awful stories about children and wolves? Obviously it was not Lady Constance; she seemed as dismayed by the content of the tableaux as Penelope was. And what had been revealed in that letter?

  The children had stopped howling, and now watched the actors packing up with keen interest. For the moment they seemed more entertained than disturbed by the strange goings-on, but Penelope’s sense of foreboding had returned at twice its previous level. Unexpected encounters, unsettling remarks, a distraught hostess, a theatrical flop—the party had turned out to be much more interesting than expected, to be sure, but fresh mysteries kept slithering to the surface like earthworms after a heavy rain, and Penelope had had enough. In another few moments, she decided, she would fashion some excuse for her and the children to leave.

  But, alas and alack! Timing is everything, as one of the actors from Leeds could surely have told her. If only she had reached this conclusion a few moments earlier! For at that very second a disagreement broke out between Baroness Hoover and her husband:

  “We shall catch a play in London, dear. Will that make it all right?” he soothed.

  “But I was so looking forward to the tableaux!”

  “It was frightening the children, precious. Didn’t you hear them howling?”

  “They didn’t look frightened to me,” she snapped. “They looked rather at home in those tales, in fact. But if the children did not care for the actors’ tableaux,” she added slyly, “perhaps they will show us one of their own.”

  Then Judge Quinzy, who had returned to the party with the faintest dusting of snowflakes on his jet-black hair, turned to the Incorrigibles. “What a splendid idea,” he said in his smooth, charming way. “Will you indulge the baroness and grace us with a presentation of your own choosing?”

  The children were excited by the request and quickly conferred with one another in that private, guttural code they sometimes used among themselves. Penelope wondered what on earth they could be thinking of. But as she was about to discover, their thinking was not on earth. In fact, it was all at sea.

  “Incorrigibles tableaux!” Alexander announced proudly, after another brief huddle. “Title: ‘Wreck of the Hespawoo.’ A poem by Longfelloo.”

  “Longfelloo? I think they’re talking gibberish,” someone griped, but he was quickly shushed by the other guests.

  Using the long drawstring of her reticule as rope, Cassiopeia lashed herself firmly to a potted fern. “Mast!” she explained.

  Beowulf took the role of her desperate sea captain father, while Alexander ran about them as the storm, howling like the wind, and quite convincingly, too.

  “Rain!” Cassiopeia instructed. Beowulf grabbed one glass of champagne after another off a nearby serving tray and tossed them at her, until her dress was sopping and her hair dripped in wet tendrils.

  “Snow, snow!” she yelled. Beowulf seized handfuls of white linen napkins, quickly shredded them with his teeth, and flung them in the air around her. Meanwhile, Alexander seized the round silver serving tray and held it in front of him as if were the helm of the ship. Bracing himself wide and bowlegged in a way that was thrillingly reminiscent of a sea captain, he proclaimed:

  “And fast through the midnight dark and drear,

  Through the whistling sleet and snow,

  Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept

  Tow’rds the reef of Norman’s Woe.”

  “Woe!” The children rocked back and forth to simulate the tossing of the ship in a storm and howled with merry abandon. “Woe-wooooe! Awhoooooooooooooooooe!”

  “Woe-wooooe! Awhoooooooooooooooooe!”

  “Stop them! Somebody stop them!” Lady Constance shrieked, clutching at her temples. “They are mad! Oh, my head hurts!”

  “Bravo, bravo!” Baron Hoover was on his feet, applauding. “This is marvelous!”

  “Children, well done, but that is enough—” Penelope was also impressed with the presentation, but she thought it best to end there. After all, it was well past bedtime, and it had been a very long day, and—

  “Eeeeeek!” It was the lady with the fur-collared dress. She stared in horror at the floor. “Eeeeeeeek!” she screamed, twice as loudly. “It is alive! I think it is a rat!”

  The napkin storm abated, the Hesperus stopped sinking, and everyone looked down. Something furry and trembling peeked out from beneath the edge of the woman’s gown. For a sickening moment Penelope thought that the dead creatures draped around her neck had miraculously come to life and were now seeking some kind of awful revenge.

  “Ashton always keeps a gun in his study,” one of the men offered. “I will go—”

  “No!” Penelope cried. “It is only a squirrel; they are harmless. Let me coax it to safety—”

  But the eeeeeking woman could not wait; she lifted the skirt of her gown and delivered a swift kick, which sent the squirrel skidding to the center of the ballroom. After giving itself a shake, it scampered in confused zigzags around the dance floor. Finally, it sat up on its haunches, its button eyes fearfully darting around, wringing its tiny monkeylike hands in dismay.

  Ever sympathetic to animals in need (and urgently aware that the sooner the squirrel was whisked out of sight, the better), Penelope slowly approached. She offered the squirrel a morsel of petite madeleine. “Here, poor nubbin, now we will just lead you out of doors again where you belong—”

  Before she could say more, a terrible growling sound filled the room.

  It was not the violinist tuning this time. A whole army of incompetent cellists could not have made this sound. It was fierce. It was bloodcurdling. It was coming from the Incorrigibles.

  Penelope wheeled around. “No,” she warned in a panic. “Children, no! Squirrels no! You know better. You must calm yourselves—”

  But it could not be helped. The excitement of the party, the provocation of the tableaux, “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” the consumption of far too many sweets—the children were, as they say nowadays, overstimulated. This was simply the squirrel that broke the camel’s back. Before Penelope or anyone else could stop them, they stared, hunkered down, and pounced.

  The squirrel bolted, with the children barking and yapping in pursuit. Around the ballroom the creature raced, underneath tables and up across the window ledges, although it dimwittedly ignored the one
that had been opened. Soon the children had it backed into one end of the room. After a moment of terrified squeaking, it spotted the Christmas tree and jumped. Alexander leaped after it. Amid the alarmed cries of the guests, the tree swayed drunkenly, first this way, then that, before toppling over with a mighty crash.

  Broken ornaments littered the floor. The women screamed; many of the men screamed also. The delicate sensibilities of Leeds’ Thespians could not endure this ruckus. They clambered on top of the chairs and began declaiming, in their trained and resonant voices, an impressive variety of off-color phrases that are not necessary to reprint here.

  Meanwhile, the chase continued. The squirrel maneuvered so quickly, it was nothing but a gray blur. Cassiopeia’s champagne-soaked dress was badly torn; the boys’ sailor suits were covered with stains and their straw hats all frayed. However, the children did look as if they were having a marvelous time.

  After what seemed an eternity but was obviously not (in fact, calling any length of time “an eternity” is yet another example of hyperbole in action), the children succeeded in cornering the squirrel near the doors that led out of the ballroom. Then, in what was either a brilliant stroke of luck or a bit of disastrously poor timing, depending on whether you were rooting for the squirrel or the children, the doors swung open.

  “My word!” exclaimed Mrs. Clarke. She stood in the doorway, holding a large pitcher on a tray. “I just ran downstairs to get more milk for the tea, and on the way back I heard the most terrible racket—Aaaaaaah! Dear heavens above, what has happened in here? It’s like a hurricane hit!”

  Somewhere in its nut-sized brain, the squirrel must have recognized its only chance for escape. With a desperate lash of its tail the rodent bolted between Mrs. Clarke’s legs, through the doors of the ballroom, and disappeared into the vast house beyond.

  The children froze, but only for a moment. Then Cassiopeia raised her tiny fists in the air. “Mayhem!” she bellowed, pointing out the door.

  Spurred on by her battle cry, the yapping Incorrigibles tore off after the squirrel, in hot and, it must be said, happy pursuit.

  THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER

  In the wake of mayhem, a disturbing discovery!

  A TRAUMATIZED HUSH fell over the party guests, punctuated only by the fizz of candles extinguishing themselves in the spilled wine that now spread in scarlet puddles over the recently scrubbed wood floors, and by the hiccupping sobs of Lady Constance. A more complete vision of chaos would be hard to imagine.

  “Well,” laughed one of the male guests, after what seemed like (yet obviously was not) another eternity. “I’d say the Hesperus has been well and truly wreck’d at last!”

  Then the floodgates opened. The shocked silence gave way to a roar of complaints: “Look, my shoes are destroyed—and I bought them in Paris!” “Has anyone seen my spectacles?” “What sort of poorly run household would keep squirrels as pets?” And, most chilling of all to Penelope’s ears: “Those awful children! No doubt they will be sent to the workhouse after this. They are not fit to live among civilized society!” She thought it was the baroness’s voice, but it was hard to know. Everything was madness and misery and people shouting at one another.

  “Oh, where is Fredrick?” Lady Constance had crawled atop the piano for safety. “Where is he, where is he? He has missed the party, and now everything is ruined, ruined, ruuuuuuuuuuuuined!” Alas, it would be inaccurate to call her outburst anything but a howl of dismay.

  Penelope struggled through the crowd to get to the door, her mind fixed on a single idea: She had to find the children! She knew if she could reason with them for a moment and perhaps offer some tempting biscuits and a soothing, gentle story, they would soon regain their composure and let the squirrel go in peace (assuming there was still an intact squirrel left to set free, of course).

  “Look outside—an intruder!” It was not clear who gave the warning, but a fresh chorus of screaming and weeping rose up as many frightened heads turned toward the window.

  An intruder? Had the bandits come at last? Penelope was so overwrought, she was not thinking clearly. “What if the children were only trying to herd the squirrel outdoors?” she wondered frantically. “They may be outside this minute—they could be in terrible danger!”

  Although she had nearly reached the door, now she turned and fought her back way through the crowd, toward the windows. Under normal circumstances Penelope was a stickler for good manners, but there was no way to get through without some pushing and elbowing, and her “Excuse me!” and “May I please get through?” went unheard in the hubbub. With some regret Penelope did what she had to do to reach the windows. When she arrived, she discovered that the ragged breathing of more than two hundred hysterical guests had fogged the glass. She had to rub a circle in it to see out.

  Through that circle she saw—no, not the children—it was a ghost! “‘A sheeted ghost’!” she croaked in horror. (As you no doubt recall, “sheeted ghost” was Longfellow’s evocative phrase. Penelope had not gotten a clear-enough look to see if this ghost was, in fact, wearing a sheet, or some other ghostly garb more suitable to the weather. However, the expression was fresh in her mind, and out of her mouth it flew.)

  Now, you may think it silly for a person already fifteen years of age to believe in ghosts, but Penelope had once heard a very frightening Christmas story with ghosts in it, and it had affected her thinking on the subject. It was by a rather popular writer named Mr. Dickens, who lived in London and published stories in the magazines. Miss Charlotte Mortimer had sometimes cut them out to read to the girls.

  When Penelope saw the pale, wizened face in the darkness just outside the window, where no face had any business being—why, she recognized it at once! It was the very specter Mr. Dickens had described, the one who had spooked her so thoroughly that she could not bear to finish hearing the tale, even though Miss Mortimer had assured her it ended happily, with much laughter and a prize turkey fully twice the size of Tiny Tim.

  “It is the ghost!” she screeched in terror. “The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come!”

  But it was not that ghost nor any other: A second rub of the fogged glass revealed it was Old Timothy, the coachman. Penelope quickly saw her mistake. Luckily, no one had paid attention to her panicked screech, as it was merely one among many, but the revelation filled her with fresh dread: Why was Old Timothy at the window? Had the pandemonium in the ballroom roused his curiosity enough to scale the hedge and look inside? Or was there some other, more sinister reason for his unexpected presence in the shrubbery?

  She rapped on the windowpane, hard enough to rattle it. “Did you set a squirrel loose in the house?” she demanded to know. Conveniently, the enigmatic coachman could not hear her, since she was on one side of the glass and he was on the other, but their eyes met for the briefest second before he slipped away into the moon-cast shadows. In that second she was sure she had her answer: Old Timothy was the culprit! What other explanation could there be?

  Mrs. Clarke appeared at her side drenched with milk, for the pitcher had been upended when the squirrel made its dramatic exit. “Miss Lumley! There you are,” she huffed. “You must go find the children. I don’t like the way some of the gentlemen are talking. Stop staring out the window like that, dear! Heavens, you look like you just saw a ghost!”

  “But why would the coachman do such a thing?” Penelope felt the urge to weep welling up inside her. “Why set a squirrel loose—when he knows how the children can barely control themselves—unless he wanted them to—unless he intended them to . . .” She could not make enough sense of it all even to finish her own thought.

  Mrs. Clarke dragged Penelope away from the window. “Calm down, dear. It’s no wonder a squirrel got in. There’s a window open—and look at all the trees that have been brought in the house! The poor squirrelykins couldn’t tell indoors from out, that’s all. Now pull yourself together, for if you don’t find the children soon, the gentlemen are going to form a search party.”
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  Whatever else Mrs. Clarke intended to say was drowned out by the rising wail of a most unpleasant sound—high-pitched, unhinged, emanating from the vicinity of the piano yet entirely unmusical.

  “Find those Incorrigibles!” Lady Constance screamed. “They are running amok!”

  “Find those Incorrigibles! They are running amok!”

  AS YOU MAY KNOW, the phrase running amok originally referred to elephants that had become separated from their herds and went galumphing through local villages, causing wreckage, destruction, and miscellaneous (to use Cassiopeia’s term) mayhem.

  Whether three small- to medium-sized children and one tiny, terrified squirrel could cut a swath of destruction comparable to that of an enraged elephant remained to be seen. Perhaps Lady Constance was guilty of hyperbole when she said the children were “running amok,” or perhaps she was offering an accurate assessment of the situation. No matter. Penelope fully intended to find the children, although she was far more worried about them (and, to a lesser but real extent, the squirrel) than she was about the antique furniture or the precious hand-loomed Arabian carpets that Lady Constance was so frantic about.

  She instructed Mrs. Clarke to tell the servants not to run about the house yelling for the children (so as not to frighten them into hiding). Then her search began. There was a scattered trail of cookie crumbs to follow for a while, but it disappeared at the foot of the great central staircase. If only the children had not been so thorough in the use of their napkins!

  But now was no time for regrets. She had to decide which way to go: upstairs, downstairs, or down the opposite hall to the other side of the house? “The children will be following the squirrel, that is the key,” Penelope mused, which led her to the intriguing question: If Penelope were a squirrel, where would she run? (Although admittedly intriguing, the question was also nonsensical. Obviously, if Penelope were a squirrel, it would be a highly unusual squirrel. It would be a Swanburne squirrel through and through, and, therefore, its behavior could not be considered representative of the high-strung and woefully undereducated furball that is more typical of the species. But Penelope was too flustered to think of this at the time.)