ICAP 1 - The Mysterious Howling Page 7

  “A party?” Penelope repeated, stunned. “With guests?”

  “Naturally with guests! It would not be much of a party otherwise.” Margaret had finished; Lady Constance’s hair was now an alarmingly complex knot of yellow braids. She dismissed the girl with a wave, and Margaret seemed only too happy to go, although she cast a sympathetic look toward Penelope as she backed out the door and hurried away.

  Lady Constance turned and faced Penelope. “Well, I am disappointed, but at least my husband will be pleased. Lord Fredrick was not keen on the idea of the party at first, but when he seized upon this notion of the Incorrigibles attending, he changed his mind. Isn’t it strange? Why he insists on keeping them here at Ashton Place I do not know. There are certainly enough orphanages in England to take them in. But ‘finders keepers’ he says, and laughs! Oh, how ridiculous men can be. You are lucky, Miss Lumley. A girl of your station will likely stay a spinster and not have to concern yourself with such matters.”

  “‘I wander through the meadows green,’” Penelope thought to calm herself, “‘made happy by the verdant scene—’”

  “But I told Lord Fredrick in no uncertain terms: I will not permit the peculiarities of these three untamed waifs to disrupt my party plans. After all, it will be my first Christmas as lady of the house! I would be devastated, utterly devastated, if anything were to spoil the occasion.”

  Now, there is a scientific principle that states: Once a train has left the station and is going along at a good clip, it is often fiendishly difficult to slam on the brakes, even if you are clearly headed for trouble (the same holds true for horses that have already left their barns). This principle is Newton’s very first law of motion and was considered old news even in Miss Penelope Lumley’s day.

  Penelope had taken physics at Swanburne and, thus, knew all about Newton’s laws of motion. Still, she felt that a final, desperate, and heroic attempt to change the course of events that now led inexorably and disastrously to the children attending Lady Constance’s party seemed called for, and so she gave it her all.

  “Lady Constance, your plans for a holiday ball sound delightful, and I am sure the children would hate to miss it,” she began, “but coincidentally, I was intending to ask you if I may take them on a ski holiday in France until after the New Year. It would be a suitable reward for all their hard work, and we would be out of your way for the ball.”

  To give you an idea how final, desperate, and heroic this suggestion was, it should be noted that Penelope had never skied in her life, nor had she ever been to France that she could recall, nor did she know precisely where one might ski in France. However, she assumed that any country with so sterling a reputation must be equipped with mountains somewhere; the rest of the necessary information she knew she could easily find in an encyclopedia.

  “Send the children away at Christmas? What would people think of me?” Lady Constance’s sarcastic laugh was so piercing, Penelope wanted to cover her ears. “No, now I am quite decided, and in any case Lord Fredrick will not have it any other way. The Incorrigibles will attend the ball. Based on your glowing report of their progress, I have every confidence that you will have these poets of yours ready in time.”

  “Writing poetry is one thing,” Penelope said cautiously, “but a party? Parties tend to be large and loud and full of strangers. I am not sure—”

  “Tsk-tsk! What could be more natural than children enjoying themselves at a party? And you have more than a month to prepare. Read your history, Miss Lumley; military invasions have been planned in less time than that! They will need new clothes, of course. I will ask Mrs. Clarke to arrange a visit from the tailor and dressmaker. Impeccable table manners will be required, that goes without saying.” She drummed her pink nails on the top of the vanity in concentration. “Let me see, what else? There will be entertainment, charades, and so forth; it would be most desirable for the children to participate.”

  At the mention of charades, Penelope felt a glimmer of hope. Charades at least might go over well, as long as the tableaux did not involve any reference to small, bushy-tailed animals that stored nuts in their cheeks.

  Lady Constance stood and attempted to control her great round skirt, which bobbed around her comically. “Whoops! These new cage crinolines take some getting used to,” she said gaily. “But they are all the fashion. Very well, I must be off to my luncheon engagement. As for the Incorrigibles and the ball: Mark my words, their future rank in society will depend on the impression they make that evening.”

  “Of course, Lady Constance,” Penelope replied dully. “May I be excused now? The children are waiting in the nursery, and it seems we have much to accomplish before the holidays.”

  Lady Constance nodded, and Penelope turned to go. She made it as far as the door before Lady Constance called out.

  “One more thing, Miss Lumley! Make sure the children know the schottische!”

  “Yes, my lady.” Penelope could barely hide her gloom. “The schottische it shall be.”

  THE EIGHTH CHAPTER

  A homesick governess asks: What would Agatha Swanburne do?

  PENELOPE RETREATED TO THE NURSERY, accompanied only by the sharp reproach of her own miserable thoughts.

  Disaster! The holiday ball would be a disaster, and it was all Penelope’s fault. If only she had not been so proud and stubborn! Why had she felt the need to exaggerate the children’s progress just because Lady Constance’s remarks had annoyed her?

  The truth is that one cannot go through life without being annoyed by other people, and this was just as true in Miss Penelope Lumley’s day as it is in our own. Annoyance is a fact of life; one ought not to lose one’s grip because of it, and in doing so Penelope realized she had made a grave and potentially catastrophic error.

  December! For the first time in her life Penelope found herself wishing December would slow to a crawl. Why must Christmas come so soon? She bleakly wondered if there was any chance the children could be made ready for such an important and complicated public appearance in such a short time. It seemed doubtful, but she would have to try. She rued the hours that would be lost from their studies; now all her efforts would have to focus on preparations for the party.

  Orphanages! Why, oh why had Lady Constance brought up the subject of orphanages? The word itself was enough to send a chill through the bones of many a Swanburne girl, for quite a few of those Poor Bright Females were actual orphans, and no matter how plucky and well cared for an orphan may be there is still something regrettable about having become one; that fact cannot be soft-pedaled. Nearly as tragic was the fact that many of the non-orphan girls might just as well have been, since they were stuck with the kind of distant, unfeeling relatives who never visited or remembered birthdays, graduations, or any other occasion when a card or small gift would have been deeply appreciated.

  Penelope’s circumstances fell somewhere between orphan and non-orphan. She had parents somewhere, she was nearly certain, and she did not choose to think they were unfeeling. She simply did not know who they were or when she could expect some sign of their return. Miss Mortimer had always advised her to assume that things had happened for best and focus on her studies, and Penelope had done so willingly. But still, that awful word—orphanages—it was enough to give one an itchy rash just thinking about it.

  “Yet Lord Fredrick did say ‘finders keepers,’” Penelope reminded herself. No doubt it was nothing more than a glib remark, meant as a joke, but it sounded as if Lord Fredrick had no intention of sending the children away. Probably this orphanage business was just careless talk on Lady Constance’s part. But if the children failed to make a good impression at the party, might that change?

  And, as if all that were not upsetting enough: What on earth was the schottische?

  The words circled in Penelope’s brain like vultures: Disaster…December…orphanages…the schottische! Disaster…December…orphanages…the schottische! To the beat of this ominous refrain, she trudged up the stairs t
o the nursery, one heavy footfall following another, like a condemned prisoner climbing the gallows.

  The children were blissfully unaware of the festive fate that lay in store for them, and were delighted at their governess’s return. She did not have the heart to tell them the bad news about the holiday ball right away—new party clothes, honestly! Could anything be more dreadful?—but she was too upset to resume teaching or even to read melancholy German poems in translation.

  Distracted and glum, she had the children repeat the fetch game, but instead of retrieving objects from the toy trunk (a task which had become laughably easy for them by now), Penelope sent them to the bookshelf to find books on topics that she called out at random.

  “Gibbon’s history!” she ordered. Grunting, Cassiopeia lugged back the first volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

  “Rhetoric!” Beowulf found a collection of the speeches of Cicero and offered them proudly.

  “Astronomy!” Alexander returned with a dusty volume about solar eclipses.

  “Perspective drawing…algebraic equations…music theory…” Now giggling at the impossibility of keeping up, the children fetched books at random and stacked the volumes at their governess’s feet. Yet this tottering shrine to the breadth of human knowledge served only to mock Penelope cruelly, for she knew full well that among the large and varied collection of works she had brought in her trunk from Swanburne Academy, there was not a single book that explained how to walk, talk, dress, speak, or eat at a fancy grownup party. And, at present, that seemed to be the only knowledge that mattered.

  ONCE MORE PENELOPE VISITED the library, this time in hopes that she might plumb the mysteries of the schottische, but to no avail. It was neither a breed of dog nor a type of undergarment (these were her first two guesses). Nor was it a weapon, a style of cooking, or something to keep one’s head dry in foul weather. In the end, it was Mrs. Clarke who solved it.

  “‘Shah-teesh?’” Mrs. Clarke repeated, puzzled, when Penelope desperately confided her dilemma. “It sounds edible to me. Maybe you spread it on crackers for a light meal?”

  “I don’t think so. I have already done a thorough survey of appetizers, and it was not among them.” Penelope felt defeated. “It’s something Lady Constance wants the children to know about for the party. I am quite at a loss, and I dare not ask her.”

  “For the party? Ah-ha! You must mean the Scottish!” Mrs. Clarke clapped her hands in delight. “It’s a kind of dance, Miss Lumley. I’m surprised you don’t know it! Did they not teach you any dancing at school? The Highland Scottish, we used to call it, but I suppose that’s not fancy enough for a society ball. It’s a bit like a polka with a reel thrown in. Here, I’ll show you.”

  As it turned out, the schottische was a very energetic type of dance. Mrs. Clarke’s attempt to demonstrate lasted no more than a minute before she had to sit down and take out a handkerchief to mop her forehead.

  “I used to dance like that all night long when I was younger,” she declared. Her face was red, but her eyes were a-twinkle. “Margaret will have to teach you; she’s a spry young thing. I haven’t the wind for it anymore.” Mrs. Clarke jangled her ever-present ring of keys in a thoughtful manner. “So, Lady Constance wants you to learn the schottische, eh? I’ve heard about the new craze among the high-society types. Folk dancing, they call it. A bit of country-bumpkin fun to break up those long, tiring days being rich. Makes you wonder what the gentry’ll do for entertainment next! Wash dishes? Beat the rugs? The housemaids could use the help, surely!” With that, Mrs. Clarke made herself laugh so heartily, her face turned scarlet all over again.

  Penelope got a strange thrill hearing Mrs. Clarke speak so freely of the “high-society types.” It allowed her to feel as if she had been accepted as part of the household, which was pleasant—but it also made her realize that her place in the household was among the servants. That was something new to consider, for, unlike Margaret and Mrs. Clarke, Penelope had a first-class education, probably better than Lady Constance’s (if one excluded dancing, fashion trends, and hair care as topics of study, of course).

  “Hmph,” Penelope thought to herself. “There is something not quite right about that. I will have to give it further analysis when time permits.” For the moment, however, the schottische must have her full attention.

  MARGARET WAS FIRST SURPRISED and then delighted at the notion of giving a dancing lesson to the children. She appeared in the nursery at the appointed time, having changed out of her maid’s apron and into a clean frock, accompanied by the young servant Jasper. For some reason, Jasper’s presence made Penelope feel even more bashful and awkward about this whole dancing business than she already did, but once Margaret explained that the Highland Scottish was properly done as a partner dance, Penelope had to admit that Jasper’s participation would come in useful.

  The boys were delighted to see their trouser instructor again. They proudly showed him how securely their buttons were fastened and how nice and straight their pant legs hung. Margaret fussed admiringly over Cassiopeia’s long auburn hair (the boys’ “poetic” tresses had finally been trimmed by one of the farmers who was known to have a knack for sheep shearing, with no injuries reported).

  Despite her personal misgivings, Penelope thanked both of the young servants profusely for their willingness to spend their time furthering the children’s education.

  “Oh no, it’s my pleasure, miss! Dancing is more fun than changing the beds,” noted Margaret.

  “Or slaughtering the pigs for bacon,” Jasper agreed. “Less messy, too. What do you say, Meg? Shall we show ’em how it’s done?”

  First, the two of them demonstrated. The children watched, rapt, but Penelope’s attitude remained skeptical. If knowing the exact steps of complicated and exhausting dances was so important, why had this subject not been taught at Swanburne? Penelope had no objection to dancing on principle, of course. She had read about the Imperial Russian Ballet in Saint Petersburg, where the world’s greatest dancers went to study and perform. The gravity-defying performances of those dancers, with their impossible leaps and lifts, and ballerinas who spun ’round tirelessly, like those on the tops of music boxes—well, that sounded well worth the trouble. A few lessons in that sort of dancing and a pretty costume to match would have been a perfectly pleasant way to spend the afternoon.

  But Penelope’s reverie about the Imperial Russian Ballet was soon drowned out by the ruckus of two ruddy-cheeked servants careening dangerously around the nursery, while the children stamped their feet to keep time. She forced herself to watch: As far as she could tell, this schottische business was nothing more than a pair of people holding hands and skipping, followed by a fast twirl and some hops, and then more of the same. The fact that the partners were expected to maintain contact throughout these clumsy contortions seemed a certain recipe for sprained ankles and embarrassing collisions.

  And yet Jasper and Margaret were beaming as they hopped and skipped—almost as if they were enjoying themselves! The children eagerly copied the steps, and what they lacked in accuracy they made up for in verve. Like the children of Hamelin falling in line behind the Pied Piper, the three merry Incorrigibles stomped and jumped and spun.

  “Wait till you do it with a fiddler playing—that’s the real fun of it!” Jasper laughed. “Now you, Miss Lumley! You must learn it, too.” He held out a hand to Penelope. Margaret, whose cheeks were now flushed a pretty shade of pink, threw him a smile and moved back, out of the way.

  As Penelope reluctantly stepped up to take Jasper’s hand, she could not help noticing how his eyes lingered on Margaret in a way that was nothing short of, well, lingering. Margaret returned his gaze, shy and bold at the same time. It was all quite peculiar; Penelope did not know what to make of it.

  “Here we go!” Jasper cried, stomping one foot to set the tempo. He took Penelope’s left hand in his right, circled his other arm around her waist, and off they went.

  “S
tep-step-step, hop, step-step-step, hop—and skip, and skip, and skip, and skip!”

  Margaret sang a pretty, wordless melody in her high voice; her natural squeakiness sounded conveniently like the scratch of a fiddle. The children clapped their hands and danced along behind. After a few halting circumnavigations of the nursery, Penelope felt she had started to get the hang of it. It was not wholly unpleasant, and Jasper was doing the bulk of the work.

  “Now for a reel!” he cried, and before anyone could protest, he led the parade out of the nursery. Soon they were dancing down the halls.

  “Wait!” Penelope was breathless as he spun her into a fast twirl, but she was laughing, too. “We will disturb Lady Constance!”

  “Lady Constance is out shopping, and Lord Fredrick is at his club, Mrs. Clarke said so,” Margaret reassured her. “Mind the lamps, Jasper! Oh, this is very merry, very merry indeed!”

  And next the revelers were schottisching down a flight of stairs (where they were met with the pressed-lip smiles of housemaids); they reached the end of a hall, a turn was made, a door accidentally pushed open—

  There was the stale smell of cigar smoke. A whiff of formaldehyde. And the unmistakable funk of dead fur.

  The eyes of the ancestral portraits glared, unmoving from their canvases, yet always following, like the moon.

  “It is Lord Fredrick’s study!” Penelope clutched her heart. “Children, don’t look—”

  It was too late. Alexander, Beowulf, and Cassiopeia were aghast. Their eyes swept the walls like searchlights, revealing each mounted, stuffed head in turn: the furred ears, the massive pronged antlers, the bared teeth—all the dead yet sickeningly lifelike trophies of Lord Fredrick’s hunting habit.