The Interrupted Tale Read online

  Neither Penelope nor the children had ever seen Mrs. Clarke’s room, so their planned excursion felt like a true adventure. With their pillowcase mailbags slung over their shoulders and jaunty postal helmets perched upon their heads (these were actually bowls left over from the soup at luncheon, wiped clean with a dish towel), Penelope and the Cake-Eating Postal Tygers headed upstairs to deliver their letter, singing all the way.

  They found Mrs. Clarke’s room without difficulty. It was at the end of the narrow, low-ceilinged hallway and had a rag-rug welcome mat woven from the same fabrics as Mrs. Clarke’s trademark floral print dresses. Cassiopeia did the honors of slipping the note beneath the door, as she was closest to the ground.

  “A job well done,” Penelope declared. “What say you, Postal Tygers? Shall we return to the Nursery General Post Office and draw some stamps? Each one featuring a different sort of cake, perhaps?”

  A few more choruses of their marching tune brought them back to the stairwell. In one direction, the steps led downstairs to the third floor. In the other was a much narrower and steeper flight of steps that led upward, to the attic. These stairs were dark even in daytime, for there was no window anywhere near.

  “Lumawoo, wait.” Alexander tipped his head to the side, a pose that Penelope knew meant he was listening extra hard.

  Ba-bump—ba-bump—ba-bump—ba-bump—

  Thump!

  “Someone is upstairs, in the attic,” Penelope said in a low voice. “Stay here, children. I am going to see who it is.”

  “Maybe ghost?” Beowulf asked, sounding hopeful.

  “Or mail bandits.” Alexander brandished his slingshot.

  “Or pirates!” Cassiopeia growled dangerously.

  “It may be a lost bird caught in the rafters,” Penelope said, although she too feared something worse. At that the children insisted on coming, and would hear no argument, so to the attic the four of them climbed, step by unseen step.

  Penelope willed her heart not to race as she led them up the lightless stairs. It had been many months since the first time she and the children had ventured to the attic and discovered the ominous landscape that had been painted there, then hidden beneath layers of wallpaper. On that occasion, too, they had heard something unexpected, a mysterious howling sound that came from behind that very same wall.

  Without matches or a candle, she had to walk with her hands stretched in front of her, so she might feel the door at the top of the stairs as they approached. She groped for the knob; she found it and gave it a twist. The door was stuck and would not budge.

  She put her shoulder to the door. “Heave-ho!” she grunted, and pushed. As she did, the door was flung open from the other side, and she tumbled forward. The children were right behind her. Now the four of them lay in a heap in the pitch-dark.

  “Owwwwwwww!” A spooky howl came from someplace nearby.

  “Ghost bandits!” Alexander yelled. “Slingshots, up! Load acorns! And—fire!”

  “Aye-aye, Captain!” his siblings cried. All three children rapidly fired their slingshots into the void.

  “Ow, ow!” the ghost cried. “Stop, I say! Don’t shoot! Blast, can’t see a thing up here; it’s dark as the inside of a boot. Hold on, my candle’s gone out, what?” A match was struck, and a candle lit. “Blast, I say! Who’s attacking me? In my own home, no less!” For there, in the unsteady light, was Lord Fredrick Ashton himself, tangled in cobwebs that he tried in vain to bat away. Red welts on his face showed where the acorns had hit.

  “It is Miss Lumley and the Incorrigible children, my lord,” Penelope replied in a shaky voice.

  He squinted in their general direction. “Well, well, well—the wolf children and their governess. What are you doing up here, then? Other than pelting me with nuts, I mean?”

  “Blast, I say! Who’s attacking me?”

  “Apologies for the attack, my lord! We are delivering the mail.” Alexander bowed low. His manners were really quite excellent, thanks to his governess’s careful training. “Postal Tygers, at your service.” On cue, the children began to sing.

  “Our tyger feet

  Are quieter than most.

  We can’t be beat

  Delivering the post.”

  Lord Fredrick pulled anxiously at his collar. “Tigers? What nonsense. Go back to your books and globes and whatnots, what? The attic is no place for singing.”

  “It is for howling, though,” said Beowulf sagely.

  Lord Ashton’s jaw clenched in anger, which made his almost-pointed ears quiver in a frankly canine way. “Trying to catch a fellow in the act of howling, is that it? Well, let me tell you something, young pup. If there’s any howling coming from the attic of Ashton Place, it’s none of your beeswax. Anyway, you’ve done a fair share of howling yourselves, haven’t you?”

  The children nodded, for it was true, and they were not ashamed of it.

  “Some people have howling fits now and then, that’s all. They’re entitled to their privacy, just like everyone else. Now, off with you, and don’t come back! And I’ll thank you not to tell anyone about this little adventure, either.”

  “Yes, sir. Very sorry to intrude, my lord.” Penelope curtsied as best she could with shaking knees, and the children gazed at Lord Fredrick with understanding—they, who happily scratched and howled and barked, indoors and out, in sun and shade and in the moonlight, too.

  Cassiopeia let her mailbag slip to the floor. She stepped forward and took Lord Fredrick’s hand. “It’s all right to howl,” she said, full of sympathy. But the master of Ashton Place became angrier still.

  “Off with you, I said! Go downstairs to the nursery, and stay there!” His eyes gleamed yellow in the dark, and the children stepped back in fear. “Except for you, Miss Lumley. You are to come see me in my study at five o’clock, precisely one hour from now. I would have a word with you. In private.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Penelope answered with a gulp. A private word with Lord Fredrick did not bode well, for her or for the Incorrigibles. “I shall be there at five, on the dot.”

  The Fourth Chapter

  Penelope acquires a new student.

  Ga-dong! Ga-dong! Ga-dong! Ga-dong! Ga-dong!

  With solemn authority, the tall ebony clock in the corner of Lord Fredrick’s study struck five. Penelope was far too preoccupied with worry to notice how the five ga-dongs made a perfect line of iambic pentameter, which only goes to show how extremely worried she was.

  “Why,” she thought, “why, oh why did we not simply bring the letter to the post office as we should have, rather than trying to deliver it ourselves? Then none of this would have happened, and I would be at my writing desk this very minute, drafting my speech for the CAKE with my new fountain pen! A valuable lesson has been learned: Delivering the mail is a job for skilled professionals, and ought not to be attempted by amateurs. Dear me, Lord Fredrick looks very cross! I wish he would speak, though I dread what he might say.”

  Lord Fredrick Ashton was in his chair by the hearth. He took a long time lighting his cigar, and with each passing minute, Penelope grew more convinced that she was about to be dismissed from her job. “It would be poor timing if so,” she thought morosely, “for I can hardly make a speech about my successful career as a governess if I have just been fired in disgrace.” Her triumphant homecoming to Swanburne seemed ready to unravel before they had even boarded the train—and all because of a thank-you note!

  “Well, well, well,” Lord Fredrick began. He took a puff on his cigar. “Miss Lumley. Your snooping or mail delivering or whatever it was seems to have been a bit of bad luck, for both of us. Now my little secret is out.”

  “What—what secret, my lord?” she stammered.

  “Don’t play dumb. Those wolf children of yours understood straightaway.” The lord of Ashton Place leaned forward in his armchair and fixed her with his blurry gaze. “Let me put it to you in a nutshell, Miss Lumley. I howl, my father howled. From what I’ve been told, his father did, too.
When I asked why, Father always said it was our family legacy and he’d explain when I was older. Then he met a gruesome end in a gooey tar pit, and that was the end of that. Blasted mystery, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “A mystery indeed, my lord.” The eyes of the ancestral portraits in Lord Fredrick’s study seemed to stare at her accusingly. Each of the three Ashton forebears had met a gruesome and untimely end: Admiral Percival Racine Ashton, killed in a hunting accident (whether he had been torn to bits by bears, wolves, or some other fierce animal had never been determined, for there was too little of him left to tell). Judge Pax Ashton, pecked to death by furious pheasants. And finally, Lord Fredrick’s father, Edward Ashton, said to have drowned in a tar pit but whose body had never been found.

  She lingered on the portrait of Edward and thought of Judge Quinzy. The stocky build had dwindled to slimness, the thick silver hair tinted black, and the distinctive Ashton nose altered with putty, but those dark and penetrating eyes would be impossible to mistake. Perhaps it was why Quinzy always concealed his behind thick glasses.

  “Howling, scratching, barking—you can’t imagine what a nuisance it is. Only happens when the moon is full. When it’s at its worst, I lock myself away in the attic. I’ve a set of rooms up there, ever since I was a boy.” Lord Fredrick’s bitter laugh pierced the air. “Other lads got tree houses and velocipedes. I got my own private attic for baying at the moon. No complaints, mind you. I’m glad to have it. It’s a cozy spot. Nicely furnished. Old Timothy brings up my meals. Sometimes I go up there on my good days, just for a bit of quiet. Usually I tell Constance I’m at the club. Last thing I need is her lurking around, full of questions, watching me paw at my own ears. I’m no danger to anyone, mind you. It’s just . . . well, it’s embarrassing, that’s all.”

  Whether an avid hunter with poor eyesight posed no danger to anyone was debatable, in Penelope’s view. “I am sorry for your difficulties, my lord,” she said. “But if you cannot help it, surely you have nothing to be ashamed of. Perhaps your true friends, and even Lady Constance, would understand better than you think, if they only knew the truth.”

  Lord Fredrick snorted. “It’s all right to howl, isn’t that what the littlest pup said? Hah! Easy for her to say. The Incorrigible children were raised by wolves in a forest. Of course they howl. Anyone would, under those conditions. It’s an ironclad excuse. I was raised by wealthy Ashtons. Good manners, the best schools, blasted hunting parties every week. My father made me go. I like to hunt, don’t get me wrong. That is, I learned to like it, over time. But I’ve always been a dreadful shot. Imagine being the only boy in the county who couldn’t hit a serving tray at ten paces.” Indeed, Lord Fredrick’s eyesight was very poor. “And when the other lads found out what came over me at the full moon . . . If you were me you’d be a bit secretive too, I’d expect.”

  “I am sorry, Lord Ashton,” she said again, for she was.

  “Not as sorry as I am. My own mother’s ashamed of me. ‘Poor Freddy, how’s your tragic condition? Poor Freddy, you must have inherited it from your father. Make sure you don’t have children! They’ll turn out just like you!’ Miss Lumley, I ask you: Did your parents ever warn you not to have children so they don’t turn out like you?”

  Of course, Penelope would have been grateful to have any conversation at all with her parents in recent years, but now was not the time to say so. She shook her head. “No, my lord. My parents never said anything like that to me—at least, that I can recall.”

  “Lucky you, then. Well, no matter what Mother thinks of me, she had no business blabbing my personal business at dinner. After all the trouble I take to hide it! Now Constance won’t leave me alone about it.”

  Penelope sat up extra straight in her chair, much the way Miss Mortimer did when she was reminding the girls at Swanburne not to mope and complain. She, too, had a strong inclination to tell Lord Fredrick to buck up and look on the bright side. After all, was he not a very rich man, still young, and in reasonably good health twenty-seven days out of every twenty-eight? But she knew this advice would not be well received. When people feel sorry for themselves, the last thing they want is to be reminded how fortunate they really are. “A misery contest is not worth entering, for one only wins by losing,” as Agatha Swanburne once observed, and yet there are many who insist on holding such competitions, even to this very day.

  “My lord, the children and I have no desire to intrude upon your personal affairs,” she said, hoping to put an end to the conversation. “I apologize for our accidental meeting in the attic, and for the acorn attack as well. I assure you, it will never happen again.”

  He leaned forward in his chair. “Never mind all that. Miss Lumley, I summoned you here for a reason. There’s something I’ve wanted to discuss with you for some time, but there was no way to do it without letting my embarrassing secret slip. Now that you know, it doesn’t matter.” He paused and drummed his fingers on the chair arm. “How do you stop the children from acting like wolves?”

  “How?” His question took her by surprise, for neither Lord Fredrick nor his wife had ever expressed any interest in the children’s education before. “It takes patience, I suppose, and a great many reminders, and we must be careful to avoid temptation, especially if the children are hungry. Treats are also useful, as a reward for good behavior.”

  “Patience? Treats? That’s not going to work with me, I’m afraid.” He held up a hand to stop her interjecting. “Yes, me. Why do you think I’m so interested in having the wolf children live here? I’ve been keeping an eye on their progress. Not directly. Through Old Timothy.”

  Old Timothy! It was true that the enigmatic old coachman of Ashton Place had a habit of lurking nearby. Penelope had often suspected that he was watching her and the children. She had come to think it was out of friendship, for he had been distinctly helpful to them on several occasions—but had he merely been spying on them all along?

  Lord Fredrick rose and paced the length of his study. “The moment I laid eyes on those three, barking and running wild in the forest, it came to me. ‘Eureka!’ I thought. Three children raised by wolves. If they can be taught to stop scratching and howling, then maybe . . . well, maybe so can I.” He gestured with his cigar. The trail of smoke seemed to form letters in the air that disappeared before they could be read. “I had Constance place the advertisement, though I put in the bit about ‘experience with animals strongly preferred.’ Then you showed up. And you do seem to have a knack for handling them, Miss Lumley. They’ve never bitten you, have they?”

  Penelope’s mind clickety-clacked like an abacus, trying to sort out this new information, but Lord Fredrick’s question demanded an answer. “No, my lord. They have not,” she said meekly.

  His study was filled with taxidermy, and Lord Fredrick wandered from one lifeless creature to the next, idly petting their sawdust-filled heads. “The truth is, Miss Lumley, I’m sick of it. Sick of missing Christmas parties and openings on the West End, just because they fall on the full moon. I try to keep track, but that blasted almanac won’t stay put.” Nervous, he glanced out the window of his study. “The moon is always catching me unawares.”

  Penelope was no astronomer, of course, but she understood enough to know that the moon had been keeping a rather predicable schedule for countless thousands of years. She resisted the urge to point this out to Lord Fredrick. Instead she replied, “My lord, are you suggesting that I try to teach you to stop acting so wolfishly, just as I have taught the children?”

  “Why not? But my condition only comes upon me when the moon is full. So there won’t be many chances for lessons. You’ll have to work quickly. And you can’t tell a soul, of course. Will you do it?”

  What a plot twist this was! Not only was she not being fired, Lord Fredrick Ashton himself wanted to become one of her pupils! It would make a thrilling conclusion to her CAKE speech, if only she were not sworn to secrecy. Yet at the same time Penelope feared Lord Fredrick was being optoomuchstic (th
at is to say, he had taken his optimism much, much too far) in thinking she could help him.

  After some consideration, she replied, “Sir, if you wish to proceed with lessons, of course I will oblige, but I should warn you—the children’s circumstances are different from yours. They have some wolfish habits, true, but the moon plays no part. It has more to do with their upbringing among the animals of the forest, as if they spoke English with a charming accent left over from their native tongue. In your case, I believe it would be helpful to know more about this family legacy your father spoke of.” She paused, and recalled the warning words of Madame Ionesco. “Have you ever considered that the Ashtons might be under some sort of a curse?”

  He flinched at the word. “Curses? Poppycock! And what if there were such a thing? Everyone’s cursed one way or another, what? One fellow has bad eyesight and howls at the moon. This one suffers heartburn; that one’s a terrible dancer.”

  As he spoke, Lord Fredrick rested his hand on the head of a stuffed tiger. The glass eyes flickered yellow in the firelight. “‘It’s what you do with the curse you’re under that counts.’ That’s what Father always told me, anyway. He was full of pithy sayings like that.” He paused. “Blast, Father did use to say that! I wonder now if he was giving me some sort of clue? Pity he died so unexpectedly. He could have told us all about it, and then the mystery would be solved.”

  “But what if he is not dead?” Penelope nearly blurted—yet she stopped herself, for she had no proof that Quinzy was really Edward Ashton, and she knew Lord Fredrick would never believe her without proof.