The Mysterious Howling (4 page)

“No! Edith-Anne couldn't bear to think of it, but what could she do? It was her own Rainbow—dear, sweet Rainbow!—who had the patience to run alongside Silky, hour after hour. Who took the carrots Edith-Anne gave her and nosed them through the fence at her snorting, unhappy friend. Who showed Silky, through patient example, how pleasant it was to be groomed by an adoring little girl, to have one's hooves rubbed with oil, and then to have all those bright red ribbons
braided through one's mane!

“When Mr. Alpo arrived, halter in hand, to take his prize, how shocked he and the Krupps were to see Drusilla perched happily on Silky's back! His clean coat shone in the sun as he and Rainbow trotted side by side through the course Edith-Anne had prepared for them: circling to the left, circling to the right, a wide figure eight, then diagonals across and back, and a perfect finish in the center. The ponies even took a bow.”

Penelope had to stop there—partly because the tale was over, partly to wipe her eyes (the story always touched her deeply), but mostly because of the dreadful noise emanating from Mrs. Clarke.

Naturally Mrs. Clarke had been amazed by the sight of three filthy children slowly settling themselves into the dirt and hay at Penelope's feet, drawn by her voice and rapt as kindergartners, although surely they could not understand a word of Penelope's story—but Mrs. Clarke herself was now weeping uncontrollably at the tale of Rainbow and Silky. It took several moments for her to compose herself enough even to blow her nose.

“I think that is all the story we have time for now, children,” Penelope said gently. “Now you three must stay here in the barn quietly for a bit, while I go make
arrangements for you, but I will come back very soon. And I will bring fresh milk and plum cake when I do.”

Whether the children understood her exact meaning was unknown, but the general tone of her words seemed to have gotten across, for there was no more howling. Also, as soon as Penelope rose to leave, the youngest of the three leaped into the warm spot on the ground where Penelope had been sitting and curled up in a ball; the look on her face was very much like contentment.

That started Mrs. Clarke wailing all over again, and Penelope had to lend her a fresh handkerchief before they could make their way back to the house.

T
HE
F
OURTH
C
HAPTER
Lord Fredrick tells a most unbelievable tale!

P
ENELOPE
'
S NOTION THAT THE CHILDREN
ought to be brought inside at once and settled in the nursery met with some resistance from her walking companion, at least at first.

“Lady Constance will have to”—
huff, puff
—“give her permission,” said Mrs. Clarke, who, if anyone had asked her, would have sworn that the journey both to and from the barn was decidedly uphill.

“Permission? For children to live indoors? I should think she will!” Penelope exclaimed. “What other
answer could she give?”

To that, Mrs. Clarke gave no reply. The brisk walk back to the house was making her too winded to converse intelligently. “All this trotting to and fro will be the”—
huff!
—“death of me!” she wheezed, although, as you already know, regular aerobic exercise was far more likely to improve her cardiovascular fitness than cause her demise.

Penelope, meanwhile, could not erase the leering, pocked face of Mr. Alpo—for that is how she imagined him to look—from her mind's eye, and it simply made her desire to protect the children all the more urgent. “In that case,” she said firmly, “Lady Constance will have to come out to the barn and view the situation for herself.”

When they arrived at the house, Mrs. Clarke had to sit down and drink a glass of blackberry cordial to settle her nerves, so young Margaret was instructed to deliver the message to Lady Constance. She soon returned, and even the comically squeaky tone of Margaret's voice could not conceal the sternness of her mistress's reply: Under no circumstances would Lady Constance venture outside that evening. She had retired to her private rooms until further notice and would take supper alone due to a severe headache.

Discouraged but hardly defeated, Penelope felt she had no choice but to plead with Lady Constance in person. Mrs. Clarke looked ready to object, but Penelope laid a hand on her shoulder. “Remember Silky!” she said with feeling, and after that Mrs. Clarke could only nod and wish her Godspeed.

Penelope marched straight to Lady Constance's chambers. Her knock received no answer. She knocked again and called through the door.

“Lady Constance, it is Miss Lumley, the governess! I must have your ear for a moment regarding the children. Their current accommodations are quite unacceptable.”

There was a thud and a small crash from inside. After a moment, Lady Constance opened the door a crack and immediately began to wail. “You gave me your word,” she cried. “You signed a contract! Oh, please, Miss Lumley! Do not leave us before you begin! I am beside myself. It is only six months since Lord Fredrick and I were married. I am not fond of children in general, and to suddenly become the foster mother to three—and to three such wild, dirty,
incorrigible
creatures—well, I am quite over my head!”

She popped a small chocolate into her mouth, clutched at her temples, and swooned. Luckily
Penelope's reflexes were swift, and she caught her new mistress before she hit the floor.

“Lady Constance,” Penelope said, putting her back on her feet, “you must give me leave to settle the children in the nursery. After all, they are in your care.” Wisely, Penelope chose not to offer her opinion of the care they had received so far.

“You will need to speak to Lord Ashton about that. I am much too ill to make any decisions,” Lady Constance replied, retreating back inside her private parlor. “He will be home within the hour.” With that, she slammed her door shut and could not be persuaded to converse any further.

P
ENELOPE USED THE HOUR WISELY
; she made up the children's beds, tidied the nursery, and cleared it of breakable objects. She also instructed the kitchen to bake plum cakes, and the scent of fruit and cinnamon was already wafting through the house. It had even permeated Lord Fredrick's study, where she now sat across from the man himself, waiting for him to speak.

Sadly, the sweet cake-baking smell could not mask the far less delicious odor of Lord Fredrick's cigar. The current master of Ashton Place had the same long and
narrow nose, sloping forehead, and prominent, somewhat pointed ears depicted in the ancestral portraits that hung on the wall behind where he sat. Penelope could read the names off the engraved brass plaques mounted below each painting:
Admiral Percival Racine Ashton. The Honorable Judge Pax Ashton. Lord Edward Ashton
. The one of Lord Edward was her least favorite of the paintings (although she could not honestly say she liked any of them); he was a very rotund man and even the painted-on buttons of his coat looked as if they wanted to pop off the canvas. She found his expression decidedly unpleasant and made a point of averting her smoke-stung eyes from that harsh, heavy-lidded gaze.

“Of especially naughty children, it is sometimes said, ‘They must have been raised by wolves,'” Lord Fredrick finally remarked, tapping his cigar into a bronze ashtray shaped like a fox. “And, by Jove, these rascals actually were!”

“I take it,” Penelope said, blinking, “that they are not your own natural-born children, then?”

“Mine? Certainly not. I don't know who in blazes they belong to, nor do I much care to know.” His eyes glinted with pleasure. “A fascinating trio they are, though. Suitable for scientific study, what? I suppose
you want to hear the story of where I found 'em.”

“It may be useful in explaining their current condition,” Penelope said, unflinching. She could forgive the enigmatic coachman, Mrs. Clarke, and even silly Lady Constance for concealing the truth from her until after she had accepted the position, but she really was quite furious that the children had been locked in the barn. Mrs. Clarke assured her that food and water was brought in daily and that they had plenty of hay and the saddle blankets for warmth—but no watercolor paints? No decks of cards? Not a single book to pass the time? Granted the children could not yet read, but surely they could turn pages and admire the illustrations? To Penelope's way of thinking, it approached the barbaric.

“Very well, but I warn you, it's a most unbelievable tale.” Lord Fredrick leaned back in his armchair. “Miss Lumley, have you ever gone hunting?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I am rather tenderhearted about animals, in fact.” She fixed her eyes straight ahead as she spoke. Except for where the paintings hung, the walls of the study were completely covered with stuffed and mounted heads of every imaginable type of beast—from tiny rabbits to a massive, antlered elk. Their sightless glass eyes made Penelope feel
intensely observed, and the whole room gave her a sad and queasy sensation in her tummy.

“Tenderhearted, eh? Pity,” Lord Fredrick said. “Hunting is a marvelous pastime. Communing with nature and all that! Although it can be dangerous. In my own family there have been some—unfortunate accidents.” He jerked his head behind him in the direction of the portraits. “They met gruesome ends, all of 'em. Positively gruesome! All killed while hunting. Except for my father, Edward—although his end was most gruesome of all, in its way. Never even found the body. Anyway, that's how I caught 'em—the children, I mean. It was on a hunting expedition, right here on the grounds of Ashton Place. You can see for yourself; the Ashton Woods are very large indeed. I've hunted in that forest my whole life, and still, there are corners I've never seen.”

He paused to chew the end of his cigar. “It was ten days ago. I was out stalking with a pair of my favorite hounds and Old Timothy, the coachman—you've met him, I take it? He's a trusted family servant and knows how to keep quiet in the trees. I often take him out with me, to carry water for the dogs and so forth.”

“I have met him,” she replied. “He picked me up at the station.”

Lord Fredrick nodded and went on with his tale. “We'd ventured deep into the woods, deeper than usual, until we wandered into a clearing and startled some birds into the air. I'd gotten off a shot at a good-sized something or other, maybe a pheasant. Old Timothy was certain I'd hit it, but neither of us saw where it fell, so we set the dogs loose to find it. Instead, they flushed those three ragamuffins out of the underbrush, naked as the day they were born and yapping and howling like a litter of wolf cubs.” Lord Fredrick took a deep puff on his cigar. “If Old Timothy hadn't seen what they were in time to stop me, I might have gotten off a shot or two.”

“A ‘shot or two'—you mean, at the children?” The queasy feeling in Penelope's tummy was growing worse, and she wished she had something safe and familiar to hold: her poetry book, perhaps, or the small pillow cross-stitched with one of Agatha Swanburne's sayings—“Complaining Doesn't Butter the Biscuit”—that her school friend Cecily had made in sewing class and given her for a birthday present two years before.

“I can't see for toffee at distances, I'm afraid,” Lord Fredrick confessed, although he did not sound the least bit apologetic. “I can read the newspaper as well as the next man, if I hold it close, but more than twelve
paces away and your guess is as good as mine.”

“And yet you have managed to . . .” Penelope paused, not knowing a delicate way to say “heartlessly slaughter these many dozens of animals,” so instead she waved a hand vaguely around the study at all of the stuffed, staring heads.

“The woods are full of life, Miss Lumley.” Lord Fredrick made a swooping gesture with his cigar, leaving trails of smoke in the air. “If you listen for a rustling in the leaves and shoot at it, you're bound to hit something sooner or later. How was I to know there were children living in the forest? On my own estate! It's most irregular.”

The smoke made her eyes water and her throat burn, but she was determined not to cough. “And then?”

“Old Timothy always has a rope with him. He's used it in the past to tie up bigger game, like this elk here, and have the dogs drag it home. It was quick work to lasso the children and haul them back to the house. Although I shall not soon forget the racket they made! I was tempted to leave them behind more than once.”

Penelope bit her tongue and waited for Lord Fredrick to finish.

“We herded them into the barn. My wife was rather upset, of course, but had the sense to place an
advertisement for governess straightaway—and you know the rest. They're filthy and uncivilized, to be sure, but on the plus side you've got a blank canvas to work with.” Lord Ashton tapped more ash off his cigar. “I've read your letter of recommendation. Surely a girl of your talents will thrive on the challenge, what?”

“If I am given permission to manage them as I see fit, I have no doubt that their better natures will prevail,” Penelope answered rather boldly. “However, at this very moment, they are still locked in the barn wearing nothing but blankets, and Lady Constance has not yet given me leave to move them into the nursery.”

“‘As you see fit,' what is meant by that? Ah, you are concerned about my wife's feelings, is that it? Now, Miss—Lumley, is it?—I realize that Constance is rather high-strung about all this, but I assure you, as soon as they can say ‘please' and ‘thank you' and perform some simple tricks, her maternal nature will blossom like a rose. She'll feel calmer about it in the morning. For tonight, let things stay as they are. There'll be less trouble that way all around.”

“But sir,” Penelope pressed, “children should sleep in beds, in clean pajamas, and have bedtime books read aloud—”

“After years of living in the wild, one more night in
a barn won't kill 'em.” Lord Fredrick pushed his chair back in a way that made it clear: The conversation was finished—Penelope's side of it, anyway. “You can read stories to 'em in the nursery tomorrow, assuming they don't have fleas, of course. Remember, Miss Lumley, they were found on my property and that means I can do with 'em as I please. Finders keepers, what? Here, look: I have chosen names for all three.” He took a small note card out of his vest pocket and handed it to Penelope. “See that they learn to answer to these. It is very tedious to say ‘Hey, boy!' or ‘Hey, girl!' and get no reaction. Even my hounds can come when called.”

“As you wish.” Penelope took the card from him without bothering to look at it, since her eyes were suddenly blurry with tears, and this time not from the smoke. “It shall be our very first lesson.”

B
Y THE TIME
P
ENELOPE
had made her way back to the barn carrying a basket full of fresh-baked plum cakes and a large pitcher of milk, the sun had already dipped far below the horizon. With no daylight to illuminate its interior the barn was quite dim, and yet with so much dry hay scattered everywhere, Penelope was afraid to light a candle. The children seemed perfectly comfortable in the dark, though, and at the smell of
the cakes, they gathered close to their new governess without a trace of fear.