The Mysterious Howling (12 page)

Miss Charlotte Mortimer was the most difficult to choose for, as she had already read so many books. Penelope finally settled on a lovely blank journal that she thought would make an elegant gift.

When Penelope paid for all these items and realized she still had enough money left over to stop at the confectioner's for chocolate, she was filled with a rare and wonderful feeling: For the moment at least, her life overflowed with more good fortune than she had
previously known existed. Beaming, she went to fetch the children.

“All right, children, I am all done shopping, and now we will have a most delicious surprise. Children?” Penelope looked around the children's section. The packages were heaped in the corner where she had left them. A copy of that ridiculous
Mayhem for Boys
book was lying facedown on the carpet, but the Incorrigibles were gone.

“Alexander? Beowulf? Cassiopeia! Where are you?” Up and down the aisles she searched. They were not admiring the Giddy-Yap, Rainbow! books, nor were they browsing in the poetry section. In desperation she even climbed into the front window display and knocked over the tall stacks of books beneath the N
EW FROM
A
MERICA
sign (the featured title was a shockingly long novel that seemed to be about a whale; it was nearly as heavy as one, too, judging from how it felt when one of them landed on Penelope's foot). But there was no sign of the children, anywhere.

Penelope grew so worried, she started to pant, just as the children would do. What if they had wandered away and were now lost in the city, with its busy, dangerous streets and large, succulent population of pigeons?

“Stop, no, don't come any closer! Stand back,
children, someone will get hurt—”

The old lady's voice was drowned out by a surge of yapping and barking. The noise was coming from outside the store.

Penelope ignored the angry clerk who was scolding her for ruining the window display, pushed through the long line of customers waiting at the cash register, and raced outside to the street. Halfway up the block she saw the three Incorrigibles gathered in a tight circle on the sidewalk. Whatever poor creature they had surrounded was clearly the property of an elderly, fashionably dressed woman who swung her handbag wildly while calling out, “Please, children, keep your distance! Leave my Reginald alone!”

“
Leave my Reginald alone!
”

“Alexander Incorrigible!” Penelope barked sternly, as she caught up with them. “What on earth is going on out here? The other two may be forgiven for leaving the bookstore without permission, but you are old enough to know better.”

Sheepishly, Alexander stepped back, and his two siblings followed suit. Gazing up at her from the sidewalk was a tiny, sad-eyed Yorkshire terrier. It wore a large, garishly jewel-studded collar.

“Ma'am, I am deeply sorry that the children disturbed you during your walk.” Penelope curtsied for
extra politeness. “I am their governess. I should not have left them unattended even for a moment.”

The woman looked at her with understanding. “No need to apologize, my dear! I was only worried that they might get hurt. My Reginald is not at all friendly, I'm afraid. He nips and bites at the slightest provocation. I can never let anyone get near him for fear they will lose a finger, especially children— Heavens, will you look at that!”

Beowulf was down on his haunches, scratching Reginald gently between the ears and murmuring to him in some mysterious doggie language. The little terrier had a look of pure bliss on his scruffy whiskered face. Soon he rolled over onto his back for more.

“He seems to be in a fine mood now,” Penelope observed.

“But—I am shocked! He has never let anyone rub his tummy before,” the woman cried.

“Regawoo sad,” Beowulf explained. “Neck hurts. See?”

Before anyone could stop him, Beowulf unbuckled the fancy collar that Reginald wore and pressed it hard against the hand of the dog's owner.

“Don't be silly, little boy. This is the special collar I bought when Reginald was just a puppy. He wears it all
the time—
Ouch!
It scratched me. How can that be?” She turned the collar over, and a look of realization spread across her face. “The sharp prongs that hold on the jewels are bent outward, rather than in. Oh, how awful! All this time poor Reginald has been suffering, and I had no idea. Come, my darling pooch, let me carry you home. You must never wear that awful collar again.”

As soon as the collar came off, Reginald's tail began thrashing side to side with joy. Now he all but leaped into his mistress's arms and covered her face with adoring licks. She looked as if she might cry. “Oh, Reginald! In all our years together you have never shown me such affection! Finally we can be happy. Tonight I shall cook you a nice lamb chop to celebrate. . . .”

As Penelope and the Incorrigibles watched, the woman toddled down the street in happy communion with her canine companion, who now rode contented and collarless in her purse.

“Lamb chop, cooked?” Alexander frowned. “Lamb chop, yuk.”

Cassiopeia nodded sagely. “Regawoo ketchup,” she said. “Ketchup, ketchup, ketch
awooooooo!
”

T
HE MINOR DELAY CAUSED BY
the encounter with Reginald, the necessity of going back in the bookstore
to help the clerk tidy the window display and then gather up all their packages, plus a final stop at the confectioner's—for certainly the children deserved chocolate now!—all conspired to put Penelope and the Incorrigibles somewhat behind schedule. As Penelope was paying for their dark chocolate fudge, their milk chocolate mousse tarts, their chocolate almond toffee, and their chocolate peppermint candy, she glanced at the clock that hung above the counter and realized it was nearly four o'clock.

“Come, children, we must run to meet the carriage right away. It is time!” she cried. Quickly she gathered up all the packages in her sticky hands, and she and the children made their way as best as they could through the holiday crowds, back to the Dying Swan Tearoom where Old Timothy was to meet them. Despite their best efforts they were two minutes late; the carriage was already there, and Lord and Lady Ashton were standing together by the door.

Penelope was so mortified by her tardiness that she ran straight to Lady Constance and blurted half a paragraph of apologies before realizing that the lady and her husband were in the middle of a heated conversation. Even more embarrassed, she crept into the carriage where the children were already busy
gobbling up all the chocolate. Despite her usual misgivings about eavesdropping, she could not help it; she could hear every word through the carriage window.

“Blast it, Constance, all I'm saying is, this party of yours—couldn't it be pushed back a few days?”

“Pushed back?” Lady Constance repeated the words as if they were in a language she did not understand. “What can that possibly mean?”

“Change the day. Reschedule. Have it the following week. That's not such a catastrophe, what? Gives you more time to fuss over the house, too—all your hanging wreaths and gilt-edged baubles and whatever else you have planned.”

There was a terrifying silence. Then:

“Fredrick. This is a
Christmas
party. It is to be held on
Christmas Day
. Are you suggesting that I can somehow change the date of Christmas?”

“Now, Constance, don't take it that way—”

“May I also remind you that the invitations have already been sent, the musicians have been engaged, the flowers have been ordered? Even the moon is cooperating! And Leeds' Thespians on Demand have already been booked!”

“I say, Constance—thespians? Surely that is an unnecessary expense.”

“But they are the
entertainment
!” Lady Constance's voice rose steadily in pitch as she spoke, like an operatic soprano
la-la-la
-ing her way up the scale. “People say their
tableaux vivant
are positively lifelike!”

“Sounds awfully dull for a party, what?” Lord Fredrick chuckled, rather meanly, in Penelope's opinion. It seemed to her that Lady Constance was losing the argument. It must have seemed so to Lady Constance as well, because her childish protests abruptly gave way to a different strategy.

“My dear husband,” she said, with an icy calm. “Leeds' Thespians are simply all the rage right now. We are lucky to get them, and I am quite sure they cannot come any other day. The date of the party cannot be changed; it is out of the question. In fact, I am astonished that you would make such an unreasonable request. Why, pray tell?”

Silence. Penelope wondered if Lord Fredrick would press the issue further, and she heard him take in a breath as if to continue the debate—but then he surrendered all at once, like a chess player tipping over his king.

“Sorry to upset the apple cart, dear. You are quite right about the party. Too much trouble to change things about at this late date, and so forth. But unfortunately—that is to say, it's possible”—Lord Ashton hemmed and
hawed like a schoolboy who had been called upon by the teacher to provide an answer he did not know—“as a matter of fact, I may have a prior engagement on the day, that's the rub.”

Lady Constance gasped audibly. Penelope wondered if there were tears welling up in those round blue eyes.

“What—what sort of engagement could you possibly have on Christmas Day?”

“It is business, dear. It would not interest you.”

“But surely it can be changed.”

His silence provided answer enough.

“Fredrick, does that mean you will not be attending our party?” She sounded more stunned than angry. “My debut as hostess of Ashton Place? Our first Christmas as husband and wife?”

“Well, I shall do my best. On your way, now; it's getting dark.”

“Aren't you traveling back with us in the carriage?”

“I think I shall return to the club for a bit and come home later.”

“But we came all this way to meet you! I thought you would ride back home with us.”

“Well, I'm sure I never asked you to do that. And don't take those Incorrigible children on any more outings, will you? They might get loose! That would be an
awful bother; I'd have to catch 'em all over again. Make sure they're at the party, what? There's a new chap at the club named Quinzy who's itching to meet them, and the fellow's a judge so it's plain common sense to throw him a bone, so to speak. ‘A friend on the bench is a friend indeed,' what my father used to say, rest his soul. Now I'll see you after supper, or perhaps a bit later. Up you go, dear.”

Before any more could be said, Lord Fredrick hoisted his wife into the carriage and nodded to Old Timothy to get under way. Perhaps Penelope imagined it, but it seemed to her that a dark look briefly shadowed the face of the enigmatic old coachman. It was the kind of tense, held-breath expression designed to conceal some strong emotion, like anger, or revulsion, or even fear. But then it was gone, and he called a “Cluck-cluck, heigh-ho!” to the horses, and they were off.

Lady Constance turned her face to the window, away from Penelope. At the moment there seemed nothing Lady-like about her; more than anything she looked like a disappointed young woman who was trying to make the best of a bad hand, a predicament Penelope found easy to understand. For the first time since meeting her, Penelope felt a twinge of compassion for her mistress.

“There are times when married life is not what I expected,” Lady Constance finally remarked, after three quarters of an hour had passed.

“I am sorry.” Penelope spoke in a soft murmur, so as not to wake the children. By this time all three Incorrigibles had fallen asleep, as children on the way home from a long excursion so often do, even to this day. Their fingers and faces were covered with sticky chocolate, and they lay together all in a heap.

“Oh, don't be sorry!” Lady Constance forced a bitter laugh. “It is only a party, after all. Anyway, I suppose this is what is meant by ‘growing up.'”

“Pardon me, my lady—what is?”

Lady Constance smiled tightly, though her eyes shone. “Finding out the difference between what one expected one's life would be like and how things really are.”

Penelope found this a thought-provoking remark; it would have served as the very definition of irony if not for the fact that it was so sad—but Lady Constance, rather uncharacteristically, said no more. Other than an occasional sleepy “
Ahwoo
” from a dreaming child, they traveled in silence, through the forest and all its mysteries, back to Ashton Place.

T
HE
E
LEVENTH
C
HAPTER
Preparations are complete; now there is nothing to do but pray
.

A
S YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY
had cause to discover, a statement can be both completely true and completely misleading at the same time. This is called “selective truth telling,” and it is frequently used in political campaigns, toy advertisements, and other forms of propaganda.

For example, the statement “In the wake of their ill-fated shopping trip, Lady Constance resumed her former distant manner toward Penelope and the children” is a perfectly true sentence that nevertheless fails
to paint an accurate picture of events. Lady Constance did resume her former distance toward Penelope and the children, but in fact, she became distant from everyone. She took to her room, had all her meals sent in, and refused to come out, not even to supervise the unpacking of the new crystal champagne flutes that had been special-ordered from a Viennese glassblower and arrived buried in vast crates of sawdust.

Penelope wondered if Lady Constance had taken ill, but when she inquired Mrs. Clarke just rolled her eyes and muttered something about “the moon on a string not being enough for some people.” It was an enigmatic reply, but with mere days left before the party Penelope had no time to waste puzzling over how a string might actually be attached to the moon, or whether this was yet another example of poetical language in action.

Instead, during every waking moment from breakfast until bedtime, she drilled the children on all they had learned in preparation for the big event: table manners, proper introductions, handshakes, bows, and curtsies. She tried and quickly abandoned trying to teach them how to play charades; they were simply no good at guessing the names of famous people, since they had never heard of any of them. And she
undertook a thorough review of the schottische, making sure to confine the dancing to the nursery this time.

The children endured it patiently and without signs of nervousness, but privately Penelope fretted: What had she forgotten? Was there time to teach Alexander a simple tune on the piano? Cassiopeia might be able to learn a bit of finger crocheting if they worked straight through dinner and used extra thick wool—and Beowulf was very close to being able to do a cartwheel.

But really, how much was too much? It was a party, after all, and parties were meant to be enjoyed. Yet Lord Fredrick had said his friends were “itching” to meet the children; the very idea made Penelope feel as if she might break out in a rash. If the children failed to meet expectations, what then? Every fact and figure Penelope had ever learned seemed to swirl before her eyes. Which skill or scrap of knowledge would be called for? There was no way to tell! She began to panic.

“Remember, children,” she said frantically. “Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark! Helsinki is the capital of Finland!”

By this point the children were giddy with fatigue. Alexander nodded gravely and offered a chess piece to his brother.

“Finland?” His voice was comically deep.

“Capital!” Beowulf replied, sounding uncannily like Lord Fredrick.

“Cassawoof poem!” Cassiopeia announced, mischief in her eye. “Title: ‘Helsinki':

“Sinki,
blinki,
stinki,
Helsinki!”

She curtsied, and her brothers dissolved into giggles.

At the sight of the three of them nipping and rolling on the carpet, exhorting each other with socially useful phrases such as “Pass the salt, please!” and “May I take your umbrella?” Penelope realized she had gone too far. They were children; it was Christmas. The party was only a party. They would eat, dance, play, enjoy themselves, and the chips, as they say nowadays, would simply have to fall as they may.

“All right, never mind about Finland.” Penelope extended both hands to help the children up from the floor. “As Agatha Swanburne used to say, ‘Doing your best is the best you can do,' and we have certainly
done our best. Let us take a walk and play outdoors. We have been working too hard for too long, and I believe it has started to snow.”

T
HEIR ROMP OUTDOORS WAS
wonderfully invigorating. The children were quite skilled at identifying animal tracks in the snow, although Penelope had to discourage them from actually sniffing their way along the ground. Instead, she taught them to make angels by lying on their backs and waving their arms and legs. They returned to the house in high spirits, with tingling red cheeks and snow-frosted eyelashes. Mrs. Clarke intercepted them at the door.

The children were quite skilled at identifying animal tracks in the snow
. . .

“There you are! Look at you, all covered with ice like three wild things. By which I mean no offense, of course!” she added quickly.

“No boots in the house!” Alexander said proudly, kicking off his snow-encrusted galoshes. His siblings quickly followed suit.

Penelope flushed with pride at their courteous behavior. What had she been so worried about? The children were charming and well mannered; whatever minor quirks lingered from their unusual upbringing, the howling and drooling and so forth—these would soon fade. She had let herself become fretful for no
good reason, and was reminded of how she had foolishly imagined bandits might board the train on the day she arrived at Ashton Place. How easy it was to imagine the worst when one was nervous! And how long ago that fateful day seemed!

She smiled warmly at the housekeeper, whom she now considered a friend. “Never fear, Mrs. Clarke, we shall be very careful not to track snow indoors. I know how hard the staff has worked to make the house sparkle for the party tomorrow.”

Mrs. Clarke rolled her eyes. “Oh, the party, the party, it'll be the death of me! It's an awful thing to say of Christmas Day, but the sooner it's over, the better I'll feel. Heavens to Betsy, I almost forgot why I've been standing here waiting for you lot! Lady Constance has come out of hiding, and she's asking for you. I told her you'd gone out-of-doors, and she said very well, but I must tell her the minute you and the children are returned. She wants you to meet with her in the drawing room as soon as you're ready.”

Penelope felt the healthy glow she had acquired during their snowy adventure drain from her cheeks. But before she could ask why they had been called, Mrs. Clarke provided the answer.

“My lady says tomorrow she will simply be too
busy, what with the guests arriving and having to get dressed and so forth—so she wishes to give the Incorrigibles their Christmas presents tonight and have it done with.”

The children squealed happily at this news. Penelope was relieved and thanked Mrs. Clarke for the information. But privately she thought it was a very questionable practice to give Christmas gifts early; in fact, the idea of it caused her a little pang. Any gift ought to be appreciated, of course, and thank-you notes promptly written, but still—early presents meant there would be that much less to open under the tree on Christmas morning.

Yet, she told herself, the children would be unlikely to mind. To get presents at all must be a novelty to them, and of course they had lived under trees all their lives. It was Penelope herself who liked getting presents on Christmas morning, or if not
presents,
then at least
a present
. Back at Swanburne, at Christmas, each girl was given the task of being a “Secret Swanburne Santa” whose job it was to make something for one of her classmates (all presents had to be handmade, that was the rule). Countless knitted hats, monogrammed handkerchiefs, and needlepoint pillows featuring the sayings of Agatha Swanburne were exchanged annually,
but one year Penelope had the good fortune of getting Miss Charlotte Mortimer as her Secret Swanburne Santa, and that was the year she had been given her poetry book.

“But, Miss Mortimer, I thought the gifts had to be handmade,” a much younger Penelope had asked, while experiencing a shiver of delight at how completely and thrillingly store-bought the book appeared to be.

“Indeed—and what could be more handmade than a poem?” Miss Mortimer had replied, with a warm and mysterious smile. “That it gets printed in a book after the poet makes it is quite beside the point.” This memory was both happy and sad: happy because it was so pleasant, and sad because it made Penelope think about how much she missed Swanburne—the girls, the teachers, Miss Mortimer. Or perhaps it was her own much younger self, that pint-sized person whom she could never be again, whom she missed. It was hard to say.

Then she looked at the three upturned faces of the Incorrigibles, now bright-eyed with eagerness: proud Alexander, dreamy, drooly Beowulf, and clever little Cassiopeia, who was finding it difficult not to pant with excitement for her present. Penelope thought how dear
to her they had already become and how much they needed her, and she felt a new source of happiness bubbling up from within, warm and slightly gooey, like the heated chocolate syrup one might pour over an ice cream sundae.

In this way Penelope's happy and sad feelings got all mixed up together, until they were not unlike one of those delicious cookies they have nowadays, the ones with a flat circle of sugary cream sandwiched between two chocolate-flavored wafers. In her heart she felt a soft, hidden core of sweet melancholy nestled inside crisp outer layers of joy, and if that is not the very sensation most people feel at some point or other during the holidays, then one would be hard pressed to say what is.

P
LAYING IN THE SNOW
even for a short while makes most children ravenously hungry. Judging from the way the Incorrigibles were starting to chew on their mittens, they too were ready for a snack. So, despite the enticement of the presents that awaited them, Penelope first took the children up to the nursery to change into dry clothes and eat a quick supper. Then, after a thorough check to see that their shoes were tied, their hair was combed, and their fingernails were perfectly clean,
Penelope sent word that she would now bring the children down to the drawing room, where they would remain until it was convenient for Lady Constance to receive them.

The drawing room was so warm! There was a fire blazing in the hearth; the flames leaped up in long orange tongues, and the logs crackled and sputtered. Each of the hundreds of shiny baubles that hung on the tall Christmas tree caught the flickering light of the fire and reflected it in miniature, until the tree itself seemed to shimmer and glow. The children stared in awe. Penelope wondered what, if anything, in the mysterious woods they once inhabited could have prepared them for this sight. A meteor shower, perhaps? A forest fire?

“Don't you think the tree is pretty? Really, is there anything as pretty as a Christmas tree? I think it is the prettiest, prettiest thing in the world!”

Lady Constance swept into the room as giddy and foolish as ever; to look at her, you would think nothing unpleasant had ever happened in the whole history of England. She clasped her hands together and spoke with the kind of false, high-pitched cheerfulness adults sometimes feel compelled to use when talking to children. “When I was a little girl, I used to
insist
on
sleeping under the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve! I wanted to catch Father Christmas in the act. Wasn't that ever so naughty of me?”

To the Incorrigibles, sleeping under a tree was not, as they say nowadays, a big deal. But they smiled and agreed with what Lady Constance had said.

“You are very kind to think of gifts for the children,” Penelope remarked. She did not expect any gift for herself, of course, but the book about stately homes she had selected for Lady Constance was tucked in her apron pocket, wrapped in colorful paper, and sealed with a red ribbon bow. She hoped the perfect opportunity to present it would naturally arise at some point during the conversation.

“I will be frank. I really had no idea what to get you three, but then I thought back to when I was a girl, and the sorts of things my brothers and I would be given as presents, and there you have it.” She handed a package to Alexander. “Here, this is for you two boys to share.” She produced another package and held it out to Cassiopeia. “And this is for you.”