ICAP 2 - The Hidden Gallery (2 page)

W
HEN
L
ADY
C
ONSTANCE SAID THAT
the condition of Ashton Place was “all thanks to those dreadful Incorrigible children,” she was referring to the events of the previous Christmas, only a few months prior. That is when Alexander, Beowulf, and Cassiopeia, after being asked to perform a
tableau vivant
for the guests at Lady Constance's elegant holiday ball, managed to make an absolute wreck of the house while in hot pursuit of a runaway squirrel. The whole time they were dressed in their new party clothes, which were
also, unfortunately, ruined.

How a squirrel ended up smack dab in the middle of the dance floor was unknown. Mrs. Clarke thought the dim-witted rodent may have simply snuck in through an open window, but Penelope suspected foul play, for there had been some strange goings-on at the ball that seemed purposely designed to work the Incorrigibles into a frenzy: a series of entertainments based on the theme of wolves, for example (which, Penelope discovered afterward, had been commissioned by someone who bore the initial A).

But the fateful appearance of that mayhem-inducing squirrel was the topper. The children had chased the pint-sized troublemaker all the way upstairs, only to discover faint, mysterious howling sounds emerging from a secret attic room, the door to which had been camouflaged beneath some rather tasteless wallpaper.

Penelope puzzled over these mysteries daily, and had even paid a surreptitious visit or two to the attic while the children were otherwise engaged. There she heard nothing unusual, although she was by now quite familiar with the strange, dark forest scene that was painted on the wall.

The mural itself had been damaged in spots by all the wallpapering done over it, so she was not able to
make out the artist's signature. However, after consulting some dusty books of art history she found in Lord Fredrick's library, she concluded that it was a third-rate example of the Ominous Landscape school of painting, which had never quite caught on with critics or the general public and had been quickly superseded by other, less depressing styles.

That this particular Ominous Landscape featured the terrifying figure of a wolf, yellow eyed and with fangs that dripped blood, was one more disturbing mystery to add to the pile. It was all rather unsettling to think about; in short, it would be a relief to get away from Ashton Place for a while—and to London! What a marvelous adventure that would be!

Back in the nursery, Penelope gathered the children 'round and told them of Lady Constance's plan. She fully expected their excitement to match her own, for who would not feel a thrill to visit London, home of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, capital city of the nation, seat of the empire, and (one might argue) the cultural and economic crossroads of the world?

Cassiopeia, the youngest Incorrigible, looked up at Penelope with her green, pixieish eyes.

“Nutsawoo come, too?” she asked sweetly. “To Londawoo?”

Penelope had not thought of this. Nutsawoo was the very same squirrel that had caused such a ruckus at the holiday ball. Somehow the furry scamp had avoided being torn to shreds by the children and had subsequently become Cassiopeia's beloved pet, living on the tree branches outside the nursery windows. Having already given such glorious chase in pursuit of him (or her—Penelope was not entirely sure how one told the sex of a squirrel, and was not inclined to investigate), the children had grown more or less immune to Nutsawoo's “squirrelyness” and could coexist calmly with the anxious little creature. Alas, this privilege did not extend to others of Nutsawoo's kind. To the Incorrigibles, they remained fair game.

Cassiopeia gazed pleadingly at her governess, waiting for an answer. What to do? Nutsawoo could not come to London; that was obvious. But how to convince Cassiopeia? The child was quite attached to her twitchy, beady-eyed pet.

“The city is no place for a squirrel,” Penelope began, but then thought better of it, for of course the many parks of London were no doubt overrun with squirrels.

“Nutsawoo is not accustomed to travel and might catch cold,” she then commenced to say, but again she stopped, for surely Nutsawoo had done nothing his
whole life but skitter from tree to tree over the vast forests of Ashton Place. In terms of sheer mileage, he had likely traveled far more than Penelope had, and in all sorts of weather, too.

Beowulf and Alexander flanked their sister. All three children lifted their shining eyes to Penelope, and one of them (she could not tell which) whimpered imploringly. It reminded her of the not-so-distant afternoon when she had first discovered the three siblings locked in the barn at Ashton Place, unkempt, unschooled, and untamed—truly, so much had changed since that day! And yet so much, clearly, had not, for Beowulf was starting to drool in anticipation of her reply.

“Nutsawoo,” she said finally, “does not own any appropriate luggage.”

The three Incorrigibles looked at their governess as if she were not entirely well. However, Penelope had once taken a class at Swanburne called Great Orations of Antiquity, in which she had to memorize famous speeches given by generals and politicians from days of old. From this exercise she had learned that when faced with the task of having to convince the citizenry of a flimsy argument, the best strategy is to speak in a loud voice and leave no time for questions.

“No luggage. There; that settles the matter,” she
bellowed. “Nutsawoo will stay here and keep an eye on the nursery while we are gone. On to geometry! Gather your graph paper, please.”

Cassiopeia's eyes began to well up with tears.

“It will be a short trip and the time will go quickly,” Penelope added, sounding less firm than before.

“Postcard?” the girl asked with a sniff. “For Nutsawoo?”

Penelope was about to explain that Nutsawoo could not read, but then she sighed. For how could she argue? After all, these were three children who had lived in the woods with no one but wild animals to care for them. If they could be taught, by patient repetition and the judicious use of treats, to live indoors, eat cooked food (liberally doused in ketchup, of course), appreciate the rudiments of poetry, and even perform complicated dance steps, as the Incorrigibles had already, impressively, done, who was to say that dear Nutsawoo, somewhere in the shallows of that simple, frantic squirrel brain, might not appreciate receiving a picture postcard from London? The naughty fur ball might even write back, for all Penelope knew.

“Of course we will send postcards to Nutsawoo. And we shall bring him back a present as well. In fact,” she went on, with the instinctive knack every good
governess has for turning something enjoyable into a lesson, and vice versa, “I will expect all three of you to practice your writing by keeping a journal of our trip so that Nutsawoo may know how we spend our days. Why, by the time we return, he will think he has been to London himself! He will be the envy of all his little squirrel friends,” she declared.

Penelope had no way of knowing if this last statement was true. Could squirrels feel envy? Would they give two figs about seeing London? Did Nutsawoo even have friends? To seriously consider the answers to these questions would require Penelope to do something called “going off on a tangent,” which is another way of saying “to stray from the subject at hand.” To go off on a tangent is always a risky maneuver, for once one has gone, it is often surprisingly difficult to find one's way back. Penelope knew better than to let this happen, so she simply stood her ground and waited.

Luckily, it took only a moment for her statement about Nutsawoo to have the desired effect on the children.

“Pictures?” Beowulf asked. Beowulf loved to draw and had a real talent for it, too.

“Yes, you may include pictures in the journal.” Fearing she was making the assignment too easy, Penelope
added, “But the captions must be written in French. Now, that is quite enough discussion, for ‘Ten parts talking is half as much as one part doing,' as Agatha Swanburne used to say. Never mind about the graph paper. We shall study geometry by calculating the volume of our suitcases and organizing our packing accordingly.”

The children eagerly obeyed and gathered their possessions into neat piles, which they proceeded to measure. Alexander jumped on his pile and knocked it over a few times before settling down to work, and Beowulf had a tendency to gnaw on his ruler, but not to the extent where it threw off his arithmetic. Cassiopeia, though the youngest, was a whiz at math, and easily finished before her brothers.

All the while Penelope heard the three of them murmuring to one another in funny little grunting sounds, which, she assumed, constituted their efforts to learn some French in time for the trip. She hardly expected them to do so, as they were still getting accustomed to expressing themselves in English (as opposed to barks and howls), but the challenge would help keep them occupied and, she sincerely hoped, far away from trouble.

“We shall study geometry by calculating the volume of our suitcases and organizing our packing accordingly.”

“I
TELL YOU
, M
ISS
L
UMLEY
, it was just like watching one of those Spaniards in the tight suits and funny hats—the ones who get in the ring with a crazed bull and cry, ‘Toro! Toro!' while waving a red blankie around.” Mrs. Clarke used her large apron (conveniently stained cherry red, since she had recently baked a pie) to demonstrate.

“Toro! Toro!” she exclaimed with verve. “Except this time Lady Constance was the minotaur, and Lord Fredrick was the bull, you should pardon the expression.”

“I believe you are referring to a matador,” Penelope helpfully corrected. Mrs. Clarke did not seem to pay her any mind. She was too busy relishing her own performance, a dramatic reenactment of the negotiations between Lady Constance and her husband, in which the lady informed Lord Fredrick that he needed to lease a town house in London at once.

According to Mrs. Clarke, the encounter could only be described as toreadorical: the outright threats and faked retreats, the defiant swirl of Lady Constance's red skirts, the snorting, stamping protest of Lord Fredrick. Finally, the cunning matador played dead. Then, when the bull's guard was down, she brandished a dagger to deliver the final blow.

In Lady Constance's case, this meant a heartrending bout of weeping, followed by the threat that she would succumb to something called a “conniption fit” if Lord Fredrick did not agree to her plan that instant. Penelope did not know if a conniption fit was a serious medical condition, but it certainly sounded unpleasant to endure, and even worse to witness.

Lord Fredrick must have thought so as well, for it was quickly decided. A house in the city would be leased, a battalion of servants would be installed, and Lady Constance would be given a generous shopping allowance to boot.

“It'll be a pleasant change of scene for the staff, anyway.” Mrs. Clarke was flushed with exertion and excitement. “But if Lady Constance doesn't give alternate Sundays as a half day for the servants, there will be plenty of grumbling among them, mark my words.”

“A half day would hardly be enough time to see the sights of London,” Penelope began to protest, but she was interrupted by a frightful noise, which seemed to have its origins rather close by.

“Torowooooooooooooo! Torowooooooooooooo!”

It was the Incorrigibles. Penelope had been under the impression that they had retired to the back nursery for afternoon naps, or perhaps some quiet activities
such as chess (which the boys enjoyed a great deal) or practicing sums on the abacus (a favorite pastime of Cassiopeia's). But in fact they were leaping from bed to bed in a wild game of bullfighting. Alexander had assumed the role of matador, and Beowulf and Cassiopeia were taking turns charging at him. One of the red velvet curtains from the window now served as the matador's blanket.

“Children, stop!” Penelope cried in alarm. “That will be quite enough of that. The poor window curtain! All the loops are torn off. It will not hang up properly again without a good deal of mending.”

The children, whose tendency to get carried away was exceeded only by their eagerness to please, looked crestfallen.

“Sorry, Lumawoo,” Alexander offered, his head down. The other two made apologies as well, using the socially useful phrases they had studied so diligently. “Deepest apologies! Regretfully yours! Will not happen again!”

“Peculiar, isn't it?” Mrs. Clarke observed, as an aside. “Three savage creatures such as they are, and yet they still enjoy imitating wild animals. You'd think they would've had quite enough of that sort of thing in the forest, where they were raised.”

Of course, it was Mrs. Clarke they were imitating, for how would the children know anything about bull-fights and matadors? They would not have been likely to meet any in the woods of Ashton Place. Nor could they fairly be called “savage,” not after all Penelope's hard work teaching them. Did savages know their multiplication tables? Did they enjoy the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow? Could they repeat a few pithy phrases in Latin? Certainly not, and the Incorrigibles could do all those things, after a fashion.