The Mysterious Howling (10 page)

She did not have to wait long for it to begin; in fact, she had barely made it through the task of giving the children the day's spelling words before the summons came. Margaret's high-pitched voice soared even higher with nervousness as she delivered the message—“Lady Constance requests your presence in the dining room—as soon as you can, she says! Oh my, oh my!”

Penelope had not had a reason to enter the formal dining room of Ashton Place before. “This must be what the great cathedrals of Europe look like!” she thought, as she stared with amazement at the high, beamed ceiling and rows of arching windows. From this you may safely conclude that Penelope had never been inside an actual cathedral, but it was an enormous room nevertheless, the kind in which your voice echoes everywhere if you should somehow muster the courage to speak.
The great mahogany dining table was big enough to fit all the knights of King Arthur's court, although of course it was the wrong shape (King Arthur liked his knights in a circle, while this table was long and rectangular, but still, it was very large). Even Lady Constance seemed to have shrunk a size smaller just by virtue of standing within this vast, imposing space.

An army of servants were scurrying around the table like ants, sorting, counting, and polishing what Penelope was certain must be a mine's worth of silver. Dinner plates, dessert dishes, creamers, skewers, candlesticks, butter dishes, forks, spoons, teapots, trays, platters, ladles, tureens—the long table was covered end-to-end with treasure.

“There you are, Miss Lumley!” Lady Constance trilled as Penelope approached. “And how are your preparations for the party coming along? The children are excited, no doubt? There is so much to do! As you see, today we must take inventory of the silver to see if we are sufficiently stocked to entertain. There is barely enough here for even a medium-sized gathering, but with the purchase of a few new platters and serving spoons, we will muddle through somehow.”

“I am well, thank you, and so are the children” was all Penelope could manage in answer.

“Christmas is such a pleasant time of year. And yet so horribly exhausting! Do the children know what to expect of the holiday? The stockings, the caroling, the tree, and so forth? Oh, dear, I suppose I will have to have gifts for them! Motherhood is still so new to me, tra la!”

Now, Penelope did not know what to think. You will recall that she had expected she might be scolded for entering Lord Fredrick's study and perhaps falsely accused of taking the almanac. It had even occurred to her that the police might be summoned and criminal charges filed, after which she would have to bravely defend herself in front of a stern, white-wigged judge. Her eloquence would earn a standing ovation from the dazzled spectators, who would find it impossible to believe that this mere girl of fifteen was not a trained lawyer.

Yet the conversation did not seem to be headed in that direction at all.

“Miss Lumley, you must be wondering why I called for you,” Lady Constance said charmingly. “It is because I must apologize!”

Penelope's mouth fell open. “For what?” she tried to say, but the sound got stuck someplace inside her throat.

“Poor Fredrick! He is such a doting and perfect
husband in every conceivable way, but now and then his temper becomes quite excitable.” Lady Constance smiled with excessive sweetness. “I expect you have got wind of this almanac business?”

Penelope nodded, afraid to say anything.

Lady Constance's forced laugh echoed through the dining hall. “Dear me, you would think that tattered old book was the family Bible, the way he frets over it! But he says it is important; it has to do with practical matters, scheduling the rotation of the crops and determining the best times of year for trapping badgers and so forth. I don't pretend to understand men's business. Well, when he mentioned at breakfast that it was missing, naturally I replied, quite idly, that perhaps the children were using it. Only because I noticed there are so very many books in the nursery—and really, do you think that is necessary? I worry all that reading will injure their poor eyes! And of course I was thinking back to the sorts of mischief my brothers and I got into when I was a girl. Oh, we were magpies! We would steal Papa's cigars and hide them in the sofa cushions! We were terribly spoiled. I'm sure our old governess would have spanked us if she'd had her own way, but of course she would never dare, my mother would have fired her on the spot. Do you spank the Incorrigibles, I wonder? You may if you like,
you know; it wouldn't bother me in the least.”

“I have not yet found it necessary,” Penelope said, trying to keep her temper steady.

“Really?” Lady Constance seemed surprised. “How curious. In any case, I said what I said without thinking; I assure you I meant no harm by it. But, oh, what a fit my Fredrick threw! ‘I rue the day I ever found that grubby lot in the forest,' he roared. Truly, he is not mean or cross as a rule, as I say, just every now and again, when he's been away at his club and then comes home late at night. I think sometimes the whiskey they serve there must give him a headache.”

By this point Penelope felt like Longfellow's doomed
Hesperus,
battered to and fro by the relentless storm of Lady Constance's words. Like the brave sea captain's daughter, she knew she must simply endure until it was over.

“But then—oh, I hope you will not think me ridiculous.” Lady Constance picked up a silver serving tray and checked her reflection in it before putting it back with the others. “I watched him snort and stamp around the room like an angry bull for a full two minutes before I remembered: I had borrowed the almanac myself!”

“You? So—but—does that mean it is found?” Penelope stammered.

“It was never lost! It was on my dressing table, right where I'd put it.” Lady Constance seemed pleased for no good reason that Penelope could comprehend. “It was all because of the party invitations, you see! Naturally I assumed my party would be on Christmas, but the stationer was kind enough to remind me that, out here in the country, it is customary to have an evening party when the moon is full, so that guests can travel safely.” She sighed. “Not like London, where you can throw a party whenever you please. I find the gaslights of London thrilling—ah, but you have never seen them? You must. The charms of the city are quite preferable to this rustic life, in my opinion.”

There was nothing about the grandeur of Ashton Place that Penelope thought could fairly be called “rustic,” but she kept that opinion, along with several others, to herself.

“So the almanac had to be consulted. I meant to put it back where I found it, but then my attention was completely absorbed with choosing the exact shade of paper for the invitations, and the color of ink for the calligrapher, and—well, it just flew out of my head.”

Penelope was half dizzy from following the corkscrew turns of Lady Constance's conversation, but at least she was glad to learn that she and the children
(and Margaret and Jasper) were safe from any possible accusation. Even so, what was the point of this story? For an awful moment Penelope thought that she might have unwittingly become Lady Constance's confidante. O dreadful fate! Day after day, listening to this endless prattling—she would rather be governess to a whole pack of actual wolves than suffer through that.

“So
that
is why I must apologize,” Lady Constance concluded. “For in all the confusion over that silly, silly almanac, I completely forgot to have anyone tell you that I arranged for my dressmaker to come to fit you and that naughty minx, Cassiopeia, for your party dresses. Her name is Madame LePoint.” Lady Constance pronounced it in the French manner, so it sounded like “leh pwanh.” It was a very ducklike utterance—
pwanh, pwanh, pwanh
. Penelope could imagine how a flock of mallards rising into the air would make that exact sound.

“When is the appointment?”

“Why, today! Madame is here now, waiting in the drawing room. And the tailor is here, too, to measure the boys, although boys' clothes are so much less interesting than girls'. Shall I have Mrs. Clarke escort them to the nursery?”

“No need. I will take them there myself,” Penelope said in a daze. She did not wonder that Lord Fredrick
occasionally suffered from headaches; ten minutes of conversation with Lady Constance and she was starting to get one herself.

“And it turns out the party will be on Christmas Day, after all!” Lady Constance chirped. “The moon herself insists upon it! Isn't that simply
perfect
?”

A
S IF SUMMONED BY
P
ENELOPE
'
S
thoughts of the previous evening, a small package arrived from Miss Charlotte Mortimer in the morning's post. Penelope read the enclosed letter greedily while Madame LePoint measured Cassiopeia for her dress.

My dear Penny,

I am so pleased to hear from you! Your thanks are kind but totally unnecessary; there was nothing in my letter of recommendation but the plain truth. You have earned your position on your merits, and you should be very proud of yourself, as I am
.

Your three pupils fascinate me more than I can say; I hope you will send frequent & detailed updates as to their progress. I trust they do not yet speak sufficient English to describe what their life in the forest was like, or what they might remember of life before then?

I hope you will not mind a small piece of advice: Do not
let them run free in the forest. I have reason to think the woods of Ashton Place may hold dangers for them that you cannot anticipate. Call it the intuition of an old teacher!

You must forgive me for a very foolish omission! In my haste to bid you farewell at the station, I forgot to give you the enclosed package. It is a supply of the same herbal poultice used to treat your hair at Swanburne. I strongly recommend you apply it every six weeks, as we have always done
.

Be strong, my ha'Penny, and look after your students! Your new life must be very grand indeed, and no doubt you will face many unexpected challenges. But I know you will remain the same brave, clear-eyed, and good-hearted girl you have always been. I look forward to your next letter
.

Your friend & fellow educator,

Miss Charlotte Mortimer

Penelope folded the letter with care and slipped it into her pocket. “Silly Miss Mortimer,” she thought with a smile, “as if I would let any of my students run free in a wood full of wild animals! She is overcautious to remind me, but I know it is only out of concern.”

And it was true that life at Ashton Place was very grand and that most people would consider this a stroke of good fortune, for the children and for Penelope as well. But as she watched poor Cassiopeia endure
what was without question a very long fitting for such a short dress (the little girl being only a smidgen over three feet tall), it occurred to Penelope that the simple, unspoiled life at Swanburne might suit most children far better than being forced to stand still for hours while a dressmaker wrapped one 'round and 'round in expensive sateens, sticking terrifying pins here and there and scolding “Don't move, don't move!”

“Cassawoof hot!” the child begged. “Cassawoof no dress!” She looked imploringly at Penelope. The boys had gotten off easy; the tailor had quickly taken their measurements and then left, after announcing that he would be making them each a crisp white-and-blue sailor suit with a black kerchief to tie around the neck. For Madame LePoint, however, mere measurements would not suffice. She had brought dozens of different fabrics with her, plus swatches of ribbon and lace, scissors, boxes of pins, and armloads of taffeta. The pinning had already gone on for hours, and Penelope had run through all the treats in the nursery trying to keep Cassiopeia from squirming loose and hiding under her bed.

“Are you almost done, Madame LePoint? We are eager to get back to our lessons.” Penelope tried to sound polite, but she too had lost patience.

“I'll be done when I am done, mademoiselle!”
Madame LePoint kept the spare pins pressed between her lips as she worked and, thus, could talk only out of one side of her mouth, but this did not prevent her from speaking rapidly and in a French accent, too. “A party dress is a work of art, no? It takes time. And the little girl has such unusual coloring. Look at her hair: One rarely sees such a rich shade of auburn on a child. I must find the perfect fabric to set it off.” She held a swatch of silk next to Cassiopeia's hair. “The moss green suits her beautifully, but this lemon yellow is too much.”

Then she held the same swatch against Penelope's hair. “Feh! So drab! Nothing clashes, but nothing matches, either.
Tant pis!
” This was a French expression Penelope understood to mean “too bad, tough luck, that's the way the croissant crumbles,” or something along those lines.

“I am sorry that it is beyond your skill to make a dress to flatter my complexion,” Penelope said curtly. She was not vain, of course, but that did not mean she did not have feelings. She knew her hair was not particularly striking. It was very dark, nearly black, and lacked shine. That is why Miss Charlotte Mortimer had sent the herbal poultice; at Swanburne her headmistress used to apply it to Penelope's head every six weeks or so to maintain scalp health and repel lice. No doubt it helped, but Penelope had long ago accepted
that a thick mane of glossy, bouncy ringlets was not destined to be hers. However, she had read many books in which girls who start out plain blossom into great beauties, and almost as many in which girls who stay plain are loved all the more for their warm hearts and good common sense. Penelope was confident that one fate or the other would be hers eventually, and so she tried not to give the matter too much thought.

Madame LePoint snorted, which was potentially dangerous because of all the pins in her mouth. Happily none of them took flight. “Of course I will make you a dress! You can't attend a holiday ball looking like
that
.” The dressmaker jerked her head in the direction of Penelope's plain frock and apron. “Lady Ashton has given me detailed instructions.”