The Mysterious Howling (2 page)

“Any other questions?”

Despite his gruffness, Penelope smiled. After sharing such a pleasant journey in the fresh air, she felt that she and coachman were now friends and could trust each other.

“Tell me about the children! I so look forward to meeting them.”

“Ah,” he said, his face suddenly clouding over. “The children are—well, I do think it's Lady Ashton's place to discuss the children, I do.”

And, except for one brief and heartfelt outburst (which would not occur for another three-quarters of an hour), that was the last word he spoke for the rest of the journey.

T
HE
S
ECOND
C
HAPTER
Penelope and Lady Constance converse to the accompaniment of strange noises
.

I
F YOU HAVE EVER VISITED
a theme park full of roller coasters, water slides, and thrilling games of chance, you were undoubtedly tickled half to death by it all. But then, just when it seemed the excitement had reached a fever pitch from which you might never recover, the tedious ordeal of waiting in a long line for the bathroom may have suddenly made you so bored that you wished you were home in bed with the flu.

So it was with Penelope. Despite the two days of
anxious travel she had just endured and the important job interview that awaited her, as she sat there trapped in the carriage seat next to a coachman who had decided not to talk, Penelope grew excruciatingly bored. She decided it would be rude to glance at her poetry book.

“I shall have to resort to the scenery to keep me occupied,” she thought, turning her mind to the task. They were now passing through stately woods. Dutifully she admired the golden-tipped canopy of leaves and observed how the sunlight could penetrate only here and there, dappling a lush undergrowth of ferns. Some of these she could identify even from a distance: Hart's-tongue ferns, cinnamon ferns, and some with attractive crinkled edges she thought were called corrugated ferns or, if they weren't, ought to be. Penelope had once attended a lecture at Swanburne given by the deputy vice president of the Heathcote Amateur Pteridological Society, and considered herself quite knowledgeable about ferns as a result.

Then she imagined the trees as they would soon look in the full blaze of autumn color—and then afterward, in winter, as a field of bare-branched giants standing on a blanket of white. It made her wonder (although not aloud), “And where will I be come Christmas? If
all goes well, I will live here at Ashton Place, a strict but kind-hearted governess with three clever pupils who both fear and adore me.”

Penelope had read several novels about such governesses in preparation for her interview and found them chock-full of useful information, although she had no intention of developing romantic feelings for the charming, penniless tutor at a neighboring estate. Or—heaven forbid!—for the darkly handsome, brooding, and extravagantly wealthy master of her own household. Lord Fredrick Ashton was newly married in any case, and she had no inkling what his complexion might be.

“Or perhaps I will mumble my way through my interview like a dimwit and be sent home again in shame,” she fretted. “Though, alas! There is no home for me to return to!”

At which point the carriage hit a pothole and flew thirteen-and-one-half inches into the air before crashing down again. The driver took this opportunity to break his silence with the brief and heartfelt outburst mentioned earlier, but it is not necessary to reprint his exact words. Fortunately, Penelope was unfamiliar with the expression he used and was, therefore, none the worse for hearing it.

However, she took the interruption as a reminder that wallowing in self-pity, even in the privacy of her own mind, was not the Swanburne way. Instead, she cheered herself with the idea that she might soon have three pupils of her own to teach, to mold, and to imbue with the sterling values she felt so fortunate to have acquired at school. If each child came equipped with a pony, so much the better!

And then, abruptly, they were out of the trees and coming over the crest of a hill, passing between great stone pillars that framed a tall and forbidding black iron gate.

Once through the gate, she could finally see before her the house known as Ashton Place.

T
HE COACHMAN WAS RIGHT
: Ashton Place was a very grand house indeed. It was perfectly situated in the sheltered lowland ahead and big as a palace, with the lovely symmetrical proportions of the ancient Greek architecture Penelope had so often admired in her history books at Swanburne.

From the hilltop vantage of the gate Penelope could see that the surrounding property numbered not in the hundreds, nor the thousands, but in the tens of thousands of acres—in fact, the forest she had just passed
through was part of the estate. There were orchards and farms and groups of other, much smaller houses as well. These were the cottages in which the servants lived, and where the blacksmith, tinsmith, and tanner plied their trades. There was even a smokehouse for the curing of fresh bacon, ham, sausage, and all sorts of meat-based delicacies that would nowadays be purchased in a supermarket, uninterestingly wrapped in plastic.

And Penelope noted with delight: There was a barn big enough to house a whole herd of ponies, with their long, lovingly brushed tails and red ribbons braided prettily through their manes—oh, how Penelope wished the job were already hers! But the interview was still ahead, and she resolved to keep her wits about her.

The driveway approaching the main entrance curved around formal gardens of great beauty, now tinged with the first brushstrokes of autumn color. The coachman brought the carriage straight to the front of the house and assisted his passenger brusquely to the ground. A kind-faced, square-built woman of middle age was waiting to greet the new arrival.

“Miss Lumley, I presume?”

Penelope nodded.

“I'm Mrs. Clarke, the head housekeeper. Thank
goodness you've arrived! Lady Constance has been asking for you every quarter hour the whole blessed day. Don't make such a stricken face, dear. You're not late. Lady Constance tends to be impatient, that's all it is. But look at you—you're hardly more than a child yourself! Jasper, see to her bag, please!”

The carpetbag was whisked inside by a young man who appeared from nowhere. As for the trunk of books, which the coachman was struggling to lift—“Leave that in the carriage for now,” Mrs. Clarke directed. She jangled the large ring of keys she wore at her waist and gave Penelope an appraising look. “Until we see how things go.”

M
RS
. C
LARKE HUSTLED HER DIRECTLY
to the drawing room in such a flurry of chatter Penelope barely had time to gape at the grandeur of the house's vast interior. Still, it was impossible to ignore the sheer size and quantity of the rooms, the plushness of the carpets underfoot, the curtains of sumptuous velvet, the way the woodwork shone with the burnished glow of a dark jewel.

The drawing room had been prepared for the interview as if it were a stage set, with two chairs drawn near each other and a tea tray already in place on the
sideboard. Mrs. Clarke seemed more nervous than Penelope; she babbled nonstop. “Have a seat there by the window, dear. The air will refresh you. You must be starved! There's tea at hand, but now that you're here I'll bring up a tray of sandwiches in case you feel peckish. Speaking for myself, I can't travel more than a half mile from home without taking some refreshment, and here you've come all the way from who knows where—”

“Heathcote. Excuse me for interrupting,” said Penelope, “but what is that unusual sound?”

Mrs. Clark's mouth slammed shut and stayed that way for a count of three, and then flew open again to emit another stream of even more rapid chatter. “What sound? I'm sure I don't hear any sound, certainly not an ‘unusual' sound or any other type of sound that one wouldn't normally expect to hear in a busy household such as this—”

“It
is
an unusual sound,” said Penelope, tilting her head to listen. “It's coming in the windows. It has a sort of a howling feeling to it.”

“A how—a how—!” Mrs. Clarke's rushing river of words suddenly went dry. At that moment a bell rang from some distant place within the house. It was a pleasant, mellow-toned bell, but even the airiest, tinkling
chime can be rung insistently and in a panic, and that was unmistakably the type of ringing this was.

Mrs. Clarke gave a small, involuntary yelp. “Ai! That'll be Lady Constance. I'll go tell her you're here and settled. And I'm sure I don't hear anything like a how—a how—well, nothing unusual, to be sure! Here, let me close the windows, dear, so the bugs can't get in—”

At which point, despite the frantic ringing of the bell and Penelope's comment that the breeze was, in fact, quite refreshing and that it would be a pity to shut up windows on such a lovely autumn day, Mrs. Clarke took pains to shutter and bolt every window in the room.

“W
OULD YOU CARE FOR SOME TEA
, Miss Lumley?”

“Thank you kindly, I would.”

Lady Constance poured the tea herself. “So perhaps she is not
completely
spoiled,” thought Penelope with relief. Lady Constance had appeared within moments of Mrs. Clarke's departure, quite breathless, as if she had raced down the halls. Otherwise she was much as Penelope had pictured her: perhaps nineteen or twenty at the most, with blond hair the color of butterscotch pudding and pale, circular blue eyes that
were a bit too large for her face.

The round eyes gave her the appearance of a doll, as did her pink-hued cheeks and upturned nose. Penelope knew little about fashion, but even she could see that Lady Constance's tiered silk gown was of the most extravagant style. It called to her mind the words of Agatha Swanburne: “That which can be purchased at a shop is easily left in a taxi; that which you carry inside you is difficult, though not impossible, to misplace.”

Lady Constance smiled charmingly. “Well! I have never interviewed a possible governess before! I feel somewhat nervous; you must forgive me.”

“It is my first interview as well,” Penelope offered, “so perhaps between the two of us we will muddle through.”

Lady Constance smiled again and stirred her tea. An awkward moment passed, until the two young ladies spoke at once.

“Where are the—”

“What do you—”

“Pardon me!”

“No, you must go first, of course,” Lady Constance declared. Penelope briefly imagined those round, doll eyes were taking in her plain dress and sensible footwear, but shooed away the thought as fast as it came.

“I have you at a terrible disadvantage, I realize,” Lady Constance went on. “I have seen your résumé and letter of recommendation from Miss Mortimer, so I feel I know a great deal about you. Your headmistress has described you in the most
glowing
terms. But you must have many questions about life here at Ashton Place. Please ask; I will do my best to answer, and we will let the conversation proceed in that way.”

She sat back pertly in her chair and folded her hands, as if she were the one in need of a job.

“If you insist.” Penelope felt suddenly cautious at the notion of having to interview her prospective employer. “I understand that you are seeking a governess for three children. Perhaps you might tell me their ages and a bit about them.”

“Oh!” Lady Constance trilled a strange, forced laugh. “Let us not talk about the children just yet.”

Penelope thought this an odd response, frankly.

“Forgive me,” she said after a moment. “I don't mean to pry. But a governess for the children is the available position, is it not?” She smiled what she hoped was a warm and friendly smile. “I hope there has not been a mistake?”

“Oh no, heavens, no!” Lady Constance stirred her tea again with vigor, although the sugar had long since
dissolved. “We are in dire need of a governess, there is no doubt. It's just that”—she seemed to be struggling to find words and avoided Penelope's gaze—“children are not a very
interesting
topic, I find. That is to say, children are merely—children. All more or less alike. Don't you agree?”

“. . . children are not a very
interesting
topic, I find.”

Penelope did not, but she did not say so. It had just occurred to her that Lady Constance was far too young to have school-age offspring of her own. Whose children were they, she wondered, whom Lady Constance found so unworthy of discussion?