The Unseen Guest Read online

  “Pecked to death by murderous pheasants,” Fredrick mumbled, his mouth full of turnips.

  “Peasants!” Lady Constance half bolted from her seat. “Why, the countryside is full of peasants! Who knew they could be so easily provoked? Surely we ought to get rid of them at once.”

  “Nonsense, dear. Without peasants, who would do all the work? Anyway, it wasn’t peasants; it was pheasants. Murderous pheasants.”

  The children, who knew all about pheasants (or Phasianidae, as this family of birds was properly called), helpfully squawked to clarify the matter for Lady Constance.

  “That’s it.” Lord Fredrick nodded and flapped his arms like wings. “Caw! Caw! Big, stupid birds they are. Tasty, too. Think I’ll have some more.”

  Lady Constance watched in a daze as her husband speared another drumstick from the platter. “Surely you are joking. I have never heard of murderous pheasants.”

  “That’s what the coroner said, too.” Lord Fredrick bit into the bird with gusto. “Grandfather Pax and his pheasants, my father and his tar pits. All the men in my family meet gruesome ends, it seems. Wonder what mine will be?”

  His mother’s complexion turned white as the linen tablecloth. “Don’t say such things, Fredrick.”

  Lady Constance tried to lighten the mood. “Silly Fredrick! You make it sound as if the Ashtons were cursed. Ha ha ha!”

  Nobody laughed. A gust of wind blew open the shuttered windows, and all the candles in the room went out.

  In the darkness, there were only voices. Lord Fredrick cried, “Find some matches, what?” and “Blast!” The children yapped in alarm, the admiral shouted words of courage, the widow wailed, and Lady Constance shrieked.

  It was difficult to tell in all that noise, but Penelope could swear she also heard a distant howl.

  Nevahwoo!

  Nevahwoo!

  Nevahwooooooo!

  THE FIFTH CHAPTER

  A journey through Unmapped Territory, leading to Parts Unknown.

  “SILENCE!” ADMIRAL FAUCET BELLOWED IN the darkness. “Don’t panic, men! Nor women and children, either.”

  He struck a match on the bottom of his boot and circled it ’round the room like a tiny searchlight, revealing each person in turn. The children crouched on their chairs, alert and ready to pounce. Penelope brandished a candlestick like a weapon. (At the Swanburne Academy, the girls had once put on a famous play that begins with the appearance of a ghost and ends with a dramatic duel involving a poison-tipped foil, a perfectly thrilling scene in which no fewer than four of the leading characters meet very gruesome ends indeed. Clearly, the experience had left its mark, as well as some residual skill at swordplay.) Lady Constance whimpered from beneath the dining-room table. And Lord Fredrick Ashton was hanging on to his mother, who did not seem to mind at all.

  Penelope brandished a candlestick like a weapon.

  Nevahwoooooooooo!

  Bang! Bang!

  It was the wind, howling mournfully through the open windows while the shutters banged back and forth. Throwing down her candlestick, and for the second time that day, Penelope ran to the windows and wrestled them closed. “The latch seems to have snapped,” she said. “But this will do until a locksmith can be summoned.” Quick as a wink, she removed a hairpin and used it to secure the broken latch.

  Once she was done, the admiral relit the candles. “Well done, governess. You’d be a useful person to have along on a safari. After all, an explorer must be resourceful! Why, once when I was in Africa, I sailed down the Nile in a raft made of nothing but lashed-together reeds and a sail woven out of palm leaves. What’s for dessert?”

  Oddly, the brief scare of the snuffed-out candles and howling wind seemed to break the spell of gloom cast by the Widow Ashton’s gruesome tales. Or perhaps it was the prospect of dessert that lifted everyone’s spirits; in any case, the entire party moved to the parlor for after-dinner sweets and drinks. A sticky bread pudding was brought in. There was warm honeyed milk for the children, and coffee and sweet Madeira wine for the adults.

  After the pudding was served, and with only a tiny nudge from his governess, Beowulf stood up. “I have a gift for you, your gracious widowhood,” he announced to the Widow Ashton. From behind his back he produced the picture he had drawn earlier, which had been carefully rolled up and concealed in Alexander’s spyglass case until the right moment came to present it. The Widow Ashton fumbled for her pince-nez as the admiral took the drawing in both hands and gave an admiring whistle.

  “That’s my Bertha, all right. Did you do this yourself? Why, you’re a regular Audubon.”

  “Audawho?” Beowulf asked, puzzled.

  “John James Audubon drew birds that were dead and stuffed. But I’d wager Bertha was moving at a fast clip when you spotted her, and even so, you caught her likeness very well. That makes you better than Audubon, laddybuck!”

  Beowulf grinned from ear to ear and seemed to grow taller on the spot.

  Lord Fredrick put down his coffee cup. “I’m feeling rather stuffed myself. What say we go to my study, Faucet? Let the ladies play whist, or stitch advice onto pillows, or whatever it is they do when we’re not around.”

  “It’s your house, Ashton; I’ll do whatever you like. Say, lad—Beowulf, is it?—if it’s birds you want to draw, come to your uncle Freddy’s study. There’s enough taxidermy in there to keep you scribbling for a year.” Standing, the admiral turned to Alexander. “You come along, too, young man. You look old enough to try a cigar, eh?”

  Penelope jumped to her feet so quickly she nearly spilled her pudding. “You are so kind to include them, sir, but it is long past the children’s bedtime—and I fear the cigar smoke would upset their tummies after such a rich meal.” In fact, cigar smoke was the least of Penelope’s worries. The one time she and the children had wandered by accident into Lord Fredrick’s study, the sight of his vast collection of taxidermy had upset more than just their tummies. All those dead animals, in lifelike poses, with their sightless, staring glass eyes—surely the boys would remember?

  “I want to go,” said Beowulf, slipping off his chair to the ground. “If Audubon draws stuffed birds, I draw stuffed birds.”

  “Me too, Admiral Laddybuck.” Alexander jumped to his feet and assumed the wide, bow-legged stance of a sea captain that he often used when playing pirates.

  Lord Fredrick shrugged from the doorway. “Bring ’em along, I don’t care. As long as I get my port, what?”

  The admiral turned and clicked his heels at the boys. “You heard your uncle Freddy. Follow me, men! Brave explorers are we, off to Parts Unknown! Hup, hup, hup, hup.”

  “But, Admiral—it is already past ten o’clock….”

  As a rule, brave explorers do not have worried governesses mouthing objections to their adventures in Parts Unknown. Alexander and Beowulf gave only the briefest apologetic parting glance at Penelope, who felt utterly helpless to stop them from going with the admiral and Lord Fredrick.

  “But what about Cassiopeia?” she called after them, for she knew the little girl would be hurt not to be included in the admiral’s invitation, had she known about it. Luckily, she did not. The exhausted child was facedown in her pudding, fast asleep. In any case, the boys were already gone. Penelope returned to her chair as if in slow motion; when she folded her hands in her lap, her knuckles turned white.

  “Well, now it is just us ladies, left to enjoy ourselves in peace. Isn’t that nice?” Lady Constance did not sound nearly as cheerful as her words suggested; in fact, she sounded quite cross. “Dear Mother Ashton, shall I ring for a deck of cards, as Fredrick suggested?”

  “No cards for me,” said the Widow Ashton, rising. “The hour is late, and I have too much on my mind. Look at sweet Cassagurr! She is worn-out, poor thing, and needs a mother’s tender care. I shall go to bed, too, and leave you to tuck her in.”

  “As I do every single night, without fail,” Lady Constance declared. “And sing lullabies, too. La la laaaaa, la la laaaaa�
��”

  “You might want to rinse her off first; she looks a bit sticky.” The widow paused. “But I suppose even the stickiest pudding is better than a tar pit. Good night.”

  ONCE HER MOTHER-IN-LAW WAS OUT of the room, Lady Constance would have nothing to do with the messy, sleepy child. It was up to Penelope to wash the pudding off Cassiopeia’s face and hands with a napkin dipped in water, and carry her all the way upstairs to the nursery. There she changed the groggy girl into a nightgown and rolled her into her bed. “Nevahwoo,” Cassiopeia mumbled, drifting back to sleep.

  Penelope was tired, too, and worried about the boys. She tried to calm herself with reading, but she could not concentrate on the story, and the words swam upon the page. When Albert suggested to Edith-Anne Pevington, “Let’s be friends,” Penelope read, “Gruesome ends.” When Edith-Anne announced that Rainbow needed a “new bridle and bit,” Penelope could have sworn it said “medicinal tar pit.”

  Frustrated, she shut the book. She wished—oh, what did she wish? She wished her friend Simon Harley-Dickinson were here to talk things over with. Simon was the perfectly nice young playwright whom Penelope had met in London. They had shared some memorable adventures, and the children had become quite fond of him as well. It was Simon who taught Alexander how to use the sextant and had even sent him his spare one as a gift. He had a knack for navigation, a loyal heart, and a keen interest in getting to the bottom of things. And there was something about his company that made Penelope feel a bit fluttery on the inside, as if a flock of warblers on the wing had taken a detour through her tummy.

  It was just like how Edith-Anne Pevington felt about her new acquaintance Albert, except Albert was fictional, of course, and Simon, with his mop of wavy brown hair and that darling gleam of genius in his eyes, was wonderfully, winsomely real. But he was far away, too; too far to readily ask for advice.

  “‘The plot thickens’—that is what Simon would say,” Penelope thought, chewing her lip. “A strange, wolflike illness that comes on the full moon; a family history of meeting gruesome ends…Madame Ionesco, the Gypsy fortune-teller we met in London, said something about the children being under a curse. Could the Ashtons be under a curse, too? It would be an unlikely coincidence if they were, but I suppose that for anyone to be under a curse is highly unlikely to begin with. I do wish I could speak to Simon! No doubt he would find it all very inspiring and get loads of plots out of it, enough for a whole trunk full of plays. I shall have to write him a letter tomorrow”—and here she yawned, for it was well past her bedtime as well—“asking him to interpret the widow’s strange tales.”

  Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo—

  The clock struck the quarter hour. Penelope awoke with a start. She had nodded off in her chair; it was now fifteen minutes past eleven o’clock. Cassiopeia snored softly from her bed (it sounded as if the poor child might still have some pudding up her nose), but the boys’ beds were empty.

  The sight of those smooth, unrumpled blankets struck fear in Penelope’s heart. “Agatha Swanburne would march to Lord Fredrick’s study right now and insist on putting the boys straight to bed,” she thought, and started for the door, but then she had second thoughts. “Or perhaps she would say something philosophical, like ‘A watched clock never chimes,’ and fix herself a cup of tea.” Alexander and Beowulf were in their own house, after all, under the supervision of two adult gentlemen, one of whom was their legal guardian. What was she so worried about? The boys were probably having a rip-roaring time, and being welcomed into the company of men was surely good for them, even if it did leave Penelope sitting helplessly, waiting for their return.

  She sat once more in her chair, closed her eyes, and tried to imagine Alexander and Beowulf as they might grow up as Lord Fredrick’s wards, at home in the world of proper English gentlemen: a world of private clubs and taxidermy-filled studies, brandy snifters and expensive cigars, games of billiards and talk of the stock exchange. And, of course, hunting expeditions. She tried, but she could not do it. Such a future for the Incorrigible boys seemed entirely improbable in her eyes, but she did not know what other, different fate to picture for them, either.

  “One thing is certain: They will not be boys forever,” she thought, remembering Mrs. Clarke’s comment about the too-short trousers. And Lord Fredrick Ashton was a wealthy and powerful man. If he began treating the Incorrigibles as if they were his own natural-born children, as his mother seemed to think he should, wouldn’t that be lucky for them?

  Perhaps it would, but whether it was gooden luck or baden remained to be seen. “And there is something peculiar about the Ashtons,” Penelope thought as sleepiness descended upon her again like a fog, “with their howling fits and gruesome ends. I hope the day does not come when the children think they would have been better off”—she yawned—“living in the woods….”

  CUCKOO. CUCKOO. CUCKOO. Cuckoo—

  “Hup, hup, hup, hup!”

  “Shhhh!”

  It was quarter past midnight when the boys finally marched back to the nursery. They were much too excited to stop talking but too giddy with exhaustion to make any sense.

  “A-hunting we will go!”

  “To Bertha we will go! Hup, hup, hup!”

  Penelope roused at the sound of their “hup, hup, hup.” Groggy with sleep, she struggled to understand what they were obviously eager to tell her.

  “We are going hunting!”

  “For Bertha!”

  “We are in charge of tracking. No dogs. Dogs would bite.”

  “We are good at navigating and good at bird-watching. We can track and not bite. Hup, hup, hup!”

  In bits and pieces, and all while shushing and reminding them to put on their nightshirts for bed and not wake their sister in the process, Penelope came to understand that the two boys planned to accompany Lord Fredrick and the admiral on an expedition into the woods of Ashton Place, with the goal of finding Bertha, catching her, and bringing her back to an ostrich-proof enclosure that the admiral had already designed and that would be constructed behind the barn over the next few days.

  “Brave explorers are we!”

  “Unmapped Territories! Parts Unknown!”

  “This ostrich-gathering expedition sounds interesting, and perhaps even educational,” Penelope whispered, picking up the trail of clothes the weary boys had left on the floor, “but you are not going anywhere until you get a good night’s sleep. We shall discuss it further in the morning.” She sniffed at the dirty clothes and made a face. Everything smelled like cigar smoke.

  “No point catching Bertha if there’s no place to put her. That’s what the admiral says.” Alexander climbed onto his bed and slipped under the light summer blankets. “She’d only run away again.”

  “Perhaps Bertha is not as excited about ostrich racing as the admiral is,” Penelope replied, tucking him in. “Good night, Alexander. Good night, Beowulf.”

  “Nets, Alawoo,” Beowulf mumbled to his brother. “We should bring nets.”

  “Must make list and pack,” Alexander replied dreamily. “I’ll bring my sextant.”

  “I’ll bring pencils.”

  “And a tent.”

  “Ostrich treats to lure her home.”

  “And guns, too. Hup, hup, hup!”

  Penelope was so startled she forgot to whisper. “Guns? Why would you need guns? I thought the plan was to catch Bertha, not shoot her.”

  “Berthahwoo,” Cassiopeia grumbled from her bed, turning over and burying herself deeper under the covers.

  “Guns are not for Bertha.” Alexander snuggled his head into his pillow and closed his eyes. “Guns only to shoot wild animals. Uncle Freddy says we must be careful in the forest.”

  “Yes,” said Beowulf with a yawn. “There are dangerous animals in the woods. That’s what Uncle Freddy says.”

  Ten seconds later, they were both asleep.

  TIRED AS SHE WAS, THE bleary-eyed governess tossed and turned for the rest of the night, dreaming of spooky fores
ts full of dangerous beasts and flocks of scowling, black-feathered ostriches who cried “Nevermore!” as they raced in circles ’round her, and dinner platters full of tasty-looking roast pheasants that suddenly came back to life and started to peck—and peck—and peck—

  “That is quite enough of that,” she resolved the third time she awoke from this same unsettling dream. As she rose and dressed, she racked her brain trying to figure out what sort of expedition the gentlemen really had in mind, and whether it was a good idea for the boys to go along, and if not, how she might prevent it.

  “I am only the governess, after all.” She stabbed the hairpins into her bun with a great deal more ferocity than usual. “Lord Fredrick is their guardian. How am I to overrule him, if it comes to that?”

  And then, of course, there was this business with the guns. She sat in the small rocking chair by her bedside and rocked in time to the ticking clock. “The boys said the guns are for ‘dangerous animals’ only. But which are the dangerous animals, and which are the safe ones?” The question was impossible to answer, for even a warbler is dangerous to an earthworm, and (as Penelope had recently learned) a mild-mannered pheasant could be murderous if provoked. A studious child who could spell “circumnavigate” and had almost mastered long division might be deadly to a tasty-looking pigeon, if the child happened to have been raised by wolves and had gone too long without a snack.

  And a pack of slavering, sharp-toothed wolves might not prove dangerous at all to a trio of human cubs abandoned in the woods, if the wolf pack was willing to take them in and raise them as their own. For all Penelope knew, the Incorrigibles might not have survived without the care of those terrifying beasts.

  Penelope’s rocking slowed, then stopped altogether. She thought of how nearsighted Lord Fredrick was, how prone to shoot first and figure out what sort of prey he had bagged later. “The most dangerous animal in the woods might well prove to be ‘Uncle Freddy,’” she thought with a shudder. “That settles it. If the admiral wants his ostrich back so badly, he is going to have to figure out how to catch it himself.”