The Long-Lost Home Read online

  “A troika from Plinkst to the train station in Moscow,” she thought, tracing the journey back to England in her mind. “Then the train from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. From there, some sort of boat to take me ’round Scandinavia”—“The capital of Denmark is Copenhagen!” she paused to note, pleased that she remembered—“and then south to Brighton. Then, another long train ride to Ashton Place.”

  Blast! All those tickets to purchase, and all those nights spent in hotels, and here she was without a ruble to her name! Truly, travel was a great bother and a great expense, and it was no wonder most people preferred staying at home. “If only there were some way to skip all that moving about, and simply be in the place I am thinking of,” she thought miserably.

  There is such a way, of course: it is called reading books, for a well-told story plunges us all at once into the sights and sounds and smells of the tale we are reading, and even the slight bother of turning a page now and then cannot persuade us otherwise. Surely most of us know what it is to miss one’s stop on the omnibus, or fail to hear repeated cries to wash one’s hands and come to supper, simply because one has one’s nose, and mind, and heart, buried inside a book.

  Penelope knew this feeling well, for she loved a good book more than anything. Alas, Ashton Place was not in a book, and she could not transport herself there simply by reading about it! There was a great expanse of Russia and Europe, and miles of roiling sea, between her and the place she most longed to be.

  And that curséd contract she had signed! It meant the Babushkinovs could have her pursued and arrested if she dared leave their estate without permission.

  Tick-tock, time flies, the clock warned. Tick-tock, time flies, tick-tock, time flies. . . .

  The candle on the night table was sputtering, the wick nearly gone. Penelope had always preferred early bedtimes, but in Plinkst she often found herself unable to sleep. She would lie in the dark on her narrow, straw-stuffed bed. Her room was a small one off the kitchen that had once been a pickle pantry, and it still smelled sharply of vinegar, as if a barrel of sauerkraut were hidden someplace nearby.

  “Simon,” she whispered (as the sailors among you know, sauerkraut was often served aboard long sea voyages to prevent scurvy, and Simon had eaten his share of it during his days at sea). “Simon! Where, oh where is your promised letter? What has Madame Ionesco told you about the curse upon the Ashtons, and how to rid ourselves of it once and for all, but without bloodshed or treachery?”

  This was the main reason she had not already plotted her escape. Recall that Penelope was a governess, not a soothsayer. She knew which was a metaphor and which was a simile, which a stalagmite and which a stalactite (well, usually). She could play chess, divide fractions, write in cursive, and do a strong-voiced recitation of at least three different Shakespearean sonnets. These skills and more had been part of her education at Swanburne, and she was grateful for every one of them.

  But how to undo a curse? Never, not once, had such a thing been mentioned in all her years at school. When it came to the supernatural, Penelope was simply out of her league, as they say nowadays. If she left Plinkst, Simon would have no way to reach her, and she would never receive the urgently needed advice from Madame Ionesco.

  If she left Plinkst, she would truly be on her own.

  Then again—and the idea pained her sharply even as she thought it, like swallowing something cold too quickly—perhaps she already was.

  QUIET AS A MOUSE, SHE padded out of her room. She had some hard thinking to do, and she always thought better while walking.

  How she longed for a friend to talk things over with! But Penelope had no friends in the Babushkinov household. Now and then she tried to exchange a few words in French with the chef, to keep in practice, but the kitchen was always in an uproar. The grocery bills had not been paid in months and yet somehow the poor man (his name was Pierre) was expected to provide elaborate meals three times a day. The last time she had stopped in to ask him what he had planned for dinner, he clawed at his face and shrieked, “De la soupe à l’air, un soufflé à l’air, un rôti d’air, des tartes pochées à l’air!” which Penelope understood to mean “Air soup, air soufflé, roasted air, and poached air tarts!”

  Other than the Babushkawoos, the only person she spoke with now and then was the Princess Popkinova. This ancient woman was the mother of Captain Babushkinov. She knew some English but did not care to use it. Most of the time she preferred not to speak at all. It was Penelope’s lack of Russian that guaranteed she would not annoy the old woman with conversation, which is why the princess found her an acceptable companion, and would occasionally send for her in the evenings. They would sit in silence, or play a popular Russian card game called durak, which meant “fool.” Other times the princess would watch from her wheeled invalid chair as Penelope sewed.

  Perhaps from habit, then, Penelope’s aimless walking led her to the hall outside the princess’s bedroom. The princess tended to doze in her chair for much of the day, which meant she was often awake late at night, playing solitaire alone in her room.

  On this night the door had been left ajar, and a soft light flickered from within. Penelope switched to an extra-silent tiptoe, but it was too late. The princess was awake and had already caught sight of her accidental visitor. Her eyes were hooded and sharp, like an eagle’s.

  Penelope curtsied and said, “Good evening, Princess.”

  The old woman grunted and used one long, gnarled finger to beckon Penelope inside. Her playing cards were spread out on a tray table set in front of her wheelchair. She swept them into a pile. “Durak,” she barked. “We play.”

  Penelope hesitated. “If you wish—but perhaps it is too late?”

  “Too late! Too late!” The old woman repeated the phrase in her creaky, accented English, like an ancient Russian parrot. “Too late for cards? Nyet. For life? Da. I am older than my life. You understand, yes?”

  The Princess Popkinova was a gloomy talking bird indeed. Then again, Penelope was in a dark mood herself. “No hopeless case is truly without hope,” she replied without conviction, and pulled up a chair.

  “I hope for nothing.” The princess stared, unblinking. “You?”

  “I hope for . . . nothing in particular,” Penelope said evasively.

  “You lie, ha ha!” the old woman exclaimed. “You hope to leave. But is no escape from Plinkst.” She counted on three fingers, unfurling each in turn like a claw. “Born. Unhappy. Die. Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?” Penelope blurted. The princess smirked and said nothing.

  What an irritating old woman! It had been a mistake to come in, and now Penelope simply wanted to get it over with. “Shall we play?” she inquired briskly. Without waiting for a reply, she picked up the deck and shuffled the cards. Then she dealt, six cards each.

  The cards were difficult for the princess to hold. The old woman’s knuckles were so swollen with arthritis, Penelope wondered if she could even remove the large jeweled rings she wore on each finger, or whether she would have to be buried in them.

  Penelope won the first game, which gave her more pleasure than perhaps it should have. “Ah-deen! Dva! Tree!” she counted idly as she dealt the cards once more.

  The princess raised an eyebrow. “You learn Russian?”

  “Just a few words I picked up from Boris and Constantin.”

  “Say again,” the princess ordered.

  “Ah-deen, dva, tree,” Penelope repeated, cautious. “I imagine my pronunciation is a bit off.”

  “Again! Again!” The old woman thumped her fist on the tray in tempo. “Strong!”

  “Ah-deen, dva, tree. Ah-deen, dva, tree. Ah-deen, dva, tree . . .” Penelope chanted the words over and over, as the princess demanded. A contented, dreamy look came over the old woman’s face. She closed her eyes and moved her stiff hands in the air.

  “Dance,” she croaked. “Look.” She curved one of her gnarled fingers toward the wall opposite the window. There were vines outside
, ropy and twisted and moving in the gusty breeze. Their moon-cast shadows formed lean shapes that stretched and folded, leaped and spun and skated across the cracked plaster.

  “I was dancer once. For the tsar! How beautiful I was. . . . Ah, Saint Petersburg! I never should have left.” Her eagle eyes bored into Penelope. “I will die in Plinkst. But I was alive in Saint Petersburg.”

  “Saint Petersburg,” Penelope repeated, not knowing what else to say.

  The princess’s eyes drifted shut and her face went slack. Moments later, a soft snore indicated that she had fallen asleep. Her chin dropped to her chest, her clawed hands softened, and the playing cards slipped to the floor.

  Penelope gathered the fallen cards. She found a pillow to prop next to the old woman’s head and tucked a lap blanket around her legs, but she did not leave right away. Instead, she sat and watched the shadows play on the wall, leaping and twirling to the steady beat of the princess’s rattling breath.

  “They do look like dancers,” she thought. Her brow furrowed, as it sometimes did when she was thinking very hard. “Like ballet dancers, at the Imperial Russian Ballet. In Saint Petersburg!”

  THE THIRD CHAPTER

  A thrilling invitation arrives by post.

  THE NEXT MORNING, FOR THE first time in many weeks, the Babushkinov household received a letter in the mail.

  It was found by Svetlana, the grim-faced servant who did more than her share of work around the estate. Whether she would be so grim-faced if she were not bound to the Babushkinovs as a serf is a question only Svetlana could answer, but to be a serf in Russia was a terrible condition, a form of slavery that caused suffering to millions. (Svetlana could not know this, of course, but the tsar would eventually abolish serfdom altogether, saying that it was better to “liberate the peasants from above” than wait for them to seize their freedom from below. But just as Rome was not built in a day, centuries of injustice could not be made right so easily. There would be many years of famine, unrest, revolution, and other difficulties yet to come. Still, as Agatha Swanburne once observed, “Better to take one small step in the right direction than run a mile in the wrong one.”)

  Penelope had never exchanged more than a curt nod with Svetlana. On the rare occasions when they met, Svetlana looked at her with suspicion, as if wondering why that weak-looking English girl wasted her time fussing over useless children when there were carpets to be beaten, horses to be shod, beet fields to be plowed, and leaky roofs to be patched.

  On this particular morning, there was also a walkway to be swept clear of snow (as you recall, a fresh layer had fallen the previous evening). This job, like so many others, fell to Svetlana, and that is how she happened to find an entirely unexpected letter lying on the front step.

  Coincidentally—though you may judge for yourselves how much of a coincidence it was!—Penelope had risen extra early that morning and instructed three groggy, unwilling Babushkawoos to get up and clean the nursery from top to bottom. “We shall have no more atlases covered in dust,” she said, in a voice so firm and resolute that, for once, the children found they had no choice but to do as they were told.

  “The rest of the morning will be devoted to the study of art,” she announced when they were done. The Babushkawoos fussed and complained, and Boris went so far as yelling, “Art is dumb,” whereupon Penelope gave him a look that could have thawed Siberia. She marched the trio through the halls until they reached the entryway, where a large, dreary painting loomed.

  “Here we have the subject of today’s lesson: Overuse of Symbolism in the Unhappy Pastoral,” she explained. “Symbolism is when an object is meant to stand for an idea or feeling. Pastoral means having to do with life in the country. Unhappy means—well, I am quite sure you know what unhappy means. Interpretations, please!”

  The painting showed an old man in cracked spectacles standing beside a lame horse, in the midst of a homestead that had burned to the ground, so that only the smoking ruins remained. The sky above was thick with storm clouds, and a vulture swooped overhead. Try as they might, the Babushkawoos could find nothing symbolic, pastoral, or even particularly unhappy about the picture. Finally Boris guessed, “I know! The glasses are a symbol that he can’t see. Am I right?”

  “Quite so, quite so.” Penelope nodded. “Boris, your deep insight reminds me of the character of Tiresias in Greek mythology, for though he is blind, he is a soothsayer, which means he sees what others cannot—why, good morning, Svetlana! How do I say good morning in Russian, children?” Svetlana had just finished sweeping the steps. She shook the snow off her broom before stepping back inside.

  The children hesitated. “DOH-bruh-yeh OO-truh,” they mumbled, with downcast eyes. Speaking to serfs was not something their mother encouraged.

  “DOH-bruh-yeh OO-truh,” Penelope repeated with a broad smile. (Note that Russian words are properly written in the Cyrillic alphabet, like so: доброе утро. Cyrillic writing is based on the alphabet of ancient Greece, while the Latin alphabet used by most Western languages is based on that of ancient Rome. Alphabets are a fascinating topic, and there would be no monogrammed pocket handkerchiefs without them, but it is a topic best saved for later, as Svetlana is terribly overworked as it is, and now she has an unexpected letter to deal with on top of everything else.)

  “Poochta!” Svetlana grimly replied, for that is how the Russian word for “mail” sounds. She closed the front door and showed the letter to Penelope. A dusting of snowflakes still clung to the envelope, like a sprinkling of white sugar on a cupcake.

  “We will help you deliver the mail,” Penelope announced gallantly. Truly, she seemed to be in excellent spirits. She extended a hand and smiled once more. Slowly, with a suspicious look, Svetlana handed her the letter.

  Penelope whipped out a pocket handkerchief and dabbed the snow off the envelope. “First, let us discover to whom this correspondence is addressed.”

  “Me me me me me!” the horrible Babushkawoos shouted. They pushed each other and scrabbled for the letter.

  Penelope held the envelope high in the air. “Patience, children! This letter might be for your father, the captain, or for your mother, or even for your grandmother, the Princess Popkinova. Why, it might even be for me! How might we find out?”

  “Read it read it read it read it!” they yelled.

  “I am quite sure I have never seen you three so eager to read anything,” she remarked drily. “Perhaps we ought to tackle a bit of poetry before your enthusiasm wanes. Hmm! The penmanship on this envelope is superb. And look, here is the address, plain as the three noses on your three faces . . . why, it seems this letter is intended for . . .”

  “Who who who who who?” the Babushkawoos demanded, like a flock of crazed owls.

  Penelope lifted one eyebrow and waited until they hushed. “It is addressed,” she said, “to Miss Veronika Ivanovna Babushkinova, Plinkst, Russia.”

  Veronika squealed and spun in place like a top. “But who is it from?” she yelped.

  “See for yourself.” Penelope held the envelope so Veronika could read it. The girl’s eyes grew wide, then wider still.

  “The Imperial Russian Ballet in Saint Petersburg!” Veronika snatched the envelope from Penelope. “But why would they write to me? Unless . . .” She held the unopened letter against her forehead. Her eyes fluttered; with a gasp she fell upon a nearby settee. “I can’t open it, I can’t, I can’t,” she babbled. “Oh, my heart will give out, someone, please take it from me before I faint!”

  Her brothers helpfully seized the letter from her and ran to throw it in the fire. That roused her quicker than even the smelliest smelling salts could have, and she chased the twins ’round the room while screaming, “Mama! Mama!” Svetlana’s face grew even more grim, for the out-of-control children were making a mess of the floors she had just cleaned. Silently she slipped away to continue her chores in the fields and barnyard, among creatures far more manageable than three untamed Babushkawoos.

  The
children carried on at full volume, a cacophony of shouting and taunting and weeping. Meanwhile, Penelope moved near the window to gaze out at the snow-frosted estate—honestly, had Plinkst ever looked so pretty?—and waited.

  WITHIN MOMENTS, MADAME BABUSHKINOV’S SCOLDING voice could be heard. “What is all the yelling about? Boris Ivanovich! Constantin Ivanovich! When will you learn to behave?” Then the woman herself stormed in, flushed with annoyance, with one side of her hair put up and the other still hanging loose about her shoulders.

  She gestured wildly with a hairbrush. “Savages! I was in the middle of getting dressed! Why are you having your tantrums here, and not in the nursery? Where is the governess?”

  Penelope was still by the window. She turned to her employer. “Good morning, madame. There have been no tantrums, I assure you. But there is wonderful news, for Veronika has received a letter. Her brothers are terribly excited about it on her behalf, and are simply trying to open the envelope for her, as any well-mannered gentlemen would. Would you like to read it? It appears to be in English, judging from the way it is addressed.”

  All three children calmed at once, for the sight of their governess lying so brazenly to their mother was fascinating to them. Madame Babushkinov snorted and tossed her head like a horse. “Bah! If it is in English, you read it, Miss Lumley. To speak the language is one thing, but to read it? Impossible. Those strange letters! They are like the footprints of chickens, dancing across the page.”

  Penelope gave a meaningful look to the twins, who were still in possession of the envelope. With shuffling feet and downcast eyes, while making sidelong gargoyle faces at their sister, they handed the letter to their governess.

  She took her time examining it, turning it over and over again, as if she had never opened an envelope before. Finally, as there seemed to be no letter opener handy, she slit the flap open with a fingernail and removed its contents with care.