The Unmapped Sea (8 page)

“As Agatha Swanburne said, ‘Never assume, but if one must, never assume the worst,'” Penelope sternly reminded herself. “It is just as easy to imagine nice things as the opposite, so that is what I shall do.”

To the children's delight, she joined them in hopping the last little way to the Right Foot Inn. “If there is a governess, I expect that she and I will get along famously,” she announced, hopping double time to catch up. “When we all return to our homes, perhaps she will even wish to be pen pals.”
Hop!
“I hope so! It would be fascinating to”—
hop!
—“learn a bit of Russian.”

“Do svidaniya,”
the children boomed. “See you later!”

“Yes,
do svidaniya
,” Penelope repeated. “And how splendid it would be to hear all about the Imperial Russian Ballet, in Moscow. I wonder if”—
hop!
—“our new friends have ever seen them”—
hop!
—“perform?”

T
HE
F
IFTH
C
HAPTER
The horrible Babushkinovs appear at last.

T
HE SIGN ABOVE THE ENTRANCE
to the Right Foot Inn was nearly identical to that of the Left Foot Inn, with the sole exception that it showed a right foot, rather than a left. (To call it the “sole exception” is an example of a pun. As Lady Constance suspected, a pun is a word used to suggest more than one meaning at the same time. In this case, “sole” means “the only one,” but it also means “the bottom of the foot.” Curiously, a sole is also a type of fish. How one word came to mean three such unrelated things is a question too profound
to grapple with at present. Alas, such mix-ups are common in every language and remain the cause of unfortunate misunderstandings to this very day.)

In any case, Alexander did not have to consult his compass, spyglass, or sextant to know that the Right Foot Inn was the right inn, for there in the lobby was Jasper, supervising the distribution of the luggage. He grinned to see them arrive.

“So you've turned up at last, you brave explorers! Mrs. Clarke told me to keep an eye out for you. Did you find the beach?”

The children nodded. They were no longer hopping, but they each stood on one leg, like a trio of flamingoes.

“What's happened to your other feet?” Jasper heaved the last of the trunks onto a luggage trolley. “I hope the hermit crabs didn't get hold of your toes.”

“Ah. Ha. Hah,” the children boomed. They each tried to click their heels while standing on one leg, but the sound of one foot clicking proved elusive, as they swiveled in vain on their sole remaining soles. Naturally Jasper thought they were demonstrating how to dislodge a hermit crab from one's toe.

He ruffled their three heads. “That'll show them crabs, eh? Go bite someone else's toe, you big-clawed
bully! Hop on, I'll give you a ride.”

The Incorrigibles gladly climbed aboard the luggage trolley and pretended to row with coat-hanger oars as Jasper pushed them along. “You're in room fourteen, in the east wing of the hotel,” he said to Penelope, who had declined to ride, although it was tempting. “Lord and Lady Ashton are in the west wing. Mrs. Clarke thought it best to put a bit of distance around Lady Constance. Heaven knows what she'll do when she figures out that Brighton isn't going to turn into the Italian Riviera anytime soon!”

His remark puzzled Penelope, who knew nothing about Lady Constance's unfortunate misunderstanding. Jasper quickly filled her in.

“Let me see if I understand you properly, Jasper: Lady Constance pretends to believe we are taking our holiday in Brighton, which is true, although she thinks it is false. Meanwhile, she is convinced that the entire staff is playacting in order to conceal from her a trip to Italy that does not, in fact, exist.” Penelope shook her head. If only solving the mystery of the Ashton curse was this straightforward!

“That's about the size of it,” Jasper agreed. He leaned back to stop the trolley from rolling any farther, for they had arrived at the end of the hall. “All
ashore!” he called to the children, who jumped off and began hauling the suitcases to the door. To Penelope he quietly added, “I wouldn't waste your time unpacking, Miss Lumley. My guess is we'll be on the next train back to Ashton Place once Lady Constance figures out the truth.”

Penelope lost her balance as surely as if she had been standing on the deck of a ship in a squall.
Would
Lady Constance demand they all go home, despite the doctor's orders? With Simon still on his way to Brighton and a pesky curse yet to undo? Not if she could help it.

She turned to Jasper. “Thank you for your assistance with the luggage. As for Lady Constance, we must all do our best not to upset her. In fact,” she added, thinking quickly, “I recommend that all of us ‘play along' with her unfortunate misunderstanding.”

“But surely that's just setting her up for disappointment.” Jasper looked dubious, but Penelope was, after all, a governess. The opinion of such a highly educated person carried a great deal of weight among the staff. “Plus it's a bit complicated to pull off, don't you think?”

“Nonsense, it could not be more simple.” Penelope stood straight and tall, and imagined herself a great orator from the days of antiquity, inspiring reluctant
troops to undertake an impossible mission. “All you need do is pretend that you are pretending we are staying in Brighton, while at the same time revealing that you are concealing a trip to the Italian Riviera. Think of her health, Jasper!” she pressed. “Given her delicate condition, we must not deliver bad news unnecessarily. And surely there is no harm in expecting nice things to happen.”

“No, of course not. Until they don't,” he answered with a frown. “That's when the trouble starts. But if you think it's the right thing to do . . .”

“Right foot in!” the children cried, and jumped onto their right feet, for Jasper had said the word “right,” and this was their new game.

“I know it is, Jasper,” Penelope said. She smiled reassuringly. “I will leave it in your capable hands to persuade all the staff to do the same.”

“I'll do my best,” he said. “But I'm starting to wish we'd never left home.”

“Left foot in!” the children shouted, and switched feet.

J
ASPER PRODUCED THE KEY AND
dragged their suitcases inside. It was a cozy room, clean and tidy—shipshape, one might say—with a pleasingly nautical theme.
Paintings of sailing ships hung on the walls, and the bedroom window was in the shape of a porthole. There were two double beds, so that Penelope could share one with Cassiopeia, and the boys could share the other. The beds were comfortable, neither too soft nor too hard, and the bedcovers had a crisp navy-blue stripe running around each edge. The detail reminded Penelope of the Swanburne school uniforms, which she took as a lucky omen.

Confident that her instructions to Jasper had settled this business about making a quick exit from Brighton, Penelope had the children unpack and put away all their things, just as if they were at home. She arranged for dinner to be delivered to their room. (As it happened, the evening's dinner special was a tender fillet of sole, swimming, as it were, in a sea of buttery sauce.)

All the while they were unpacking, and eating, and even as they readied themselves for bed, the Incorrigible children could not stop talking about the Babushkinovs. They wondered how many children there were, how many boys and how many girls, what they looked like and how they dressed. They wondered what their favorite books and poems were, what games they knew, and how they felt about navigation,
paintings, and pirates (you may easily guess which of the Incorrigible children wondered which of these things).

Most of all, the Incorrigibles wondered how soon they might meet this fascinating family, and how long it would take for them all to become the very best of friends.

“Questions may be asked at will, but answers will come when they wish,” Penelope said as she tucked each curious, drowsy Incorrigible into bed.

“Did wise flounder Agatha say that?” asked Cassiopeia, who still sometimes mixed up the words “founder” and “flounder.” (To clarify: Founder means the person who first built or created something, and flounder is a type of fish that is often mistaken for sole. The word “flounder” has other meanings as well, but there is no time to delve into that now, as the Incorrigible children are sleepy and must be put to bed.)

“Agatha Swanburne said many things, and that may have been among them,” Penelope replied, for she herself could not remember if she had heard that saying before, or had simply made it up on the spot. “Good night, one and all.”

She blew out the last of the candles and settled in a chair near the porthole-shaped window. Her mind,
too, was filled with questions, although not about the Babushkinovs. Was the Home for Ancient Mariners close enough to walk, or would she have to persuade Old Timothy to drive them in the carriage? Was the Brighton postal clerk being optoomuchstic to promise that her letter to Simon would be delivered on Friday, despite its poetic form of address? And would a borrowed pirate costume from a flop West End operetta be enough to fool Great-Uncle Pudge into revealing the secrets of Ahwoo-Ahwoo?

It was then that the moon finally peeked out from behind the clouds. “Waxing gibbous, a few days short of full,” she thought, gazing out the window. “If my plan succeeds, the bouncing Baby Ashton will never feel a twinge of the Ashton curse. Although I suppose a knack for baying at the moon is hardly the worst thing that can happen to a child! Just look at the Incorrigibles. They can bark and howl with the best of them, and never give it a second thought.”

Penelope stifled a yawn and glanced at the sleeping children. The boys lay curled on their right sides, neat as two spoons in a drawer, but Cassiopeia had sprawled like a starfish and took up the whole bed. Luckily, the girl was a sound sleeper and did not awaken as Penelope gently rearranged her limbs, by first tucking the
left foot in, and then the right. Then Penelope slipped her whole self in, under the covers. Soon she was as deeply asleep as the rest.

B
Y THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON THE
children had explored the entire hotel, with the sole exception of the west wing, where they had been told not to set foot (neither right foot nor left, it was made clear by Mrs. Clarke).

With their cheerful spirits, good manners, and socially useful phrases, the Incorrigibles charmed everyone they met. The front-desk clerk let them ring the bell as much as they liked. The bellhops gave them rides on the luggage trolleys, and they even convinced the cook to let them help peel potatoes in the kitchen. “Such lovely, well-behaved children,” members of the hotel staff whispered to one another. “Not like those terrible Babushkinovs!”

Naturally, hearing this made the Incorrigibles even more eager to meet their future friends, but the morning came and went, and they caught no sight of them. Nor, despite some vigorous sniffing, did they detect any smell of bears.

Still, Penelope kept them occupied. After lunch they put on their coats and walked back to the post office.
There Penelope left instructions that all incoming mail for P. Lumley ought to be delivered to the Right Foot Inn. She took extra care in describing how only the Right Foot Inn was the right inn, so that no letter might be wrongly left at the Left Foot Inn, which was the wrong inn. Naturally, the postal clerk understood it all perfectly.

By the time they were done at the post office, the sun had broken through the clouds, and they decided to walk to the end of the chain pier, which jutted out over a thousand feet into the Channel. It was called a chain pier because it was structured much the way a suspension bridge is, with towers placed at either end and spaced along the length of it. The towers sat upon strong oak piles sunk deep into bedrock, and heavy chains draped between the towers supported the weight of the pier.

After making it to the end of the pier and admiring the view of Brighton from the sea, the Incorrigibles pleaded to go back to the beach for more deep breaths, and to search for hermit crabs among the rocks. Alas, they found none, and wondered if it was simply too cold for the little creatures.

“Perhaps they are shy. Hermits are known for being solitary,” Penelope explained. (If her teeth had
not been chattering with cold, she might have further explained that the word “hermit” comes from the Greek word
eremos
, which means desert. “But hermit crabs do not live in the desert,” you say. You are correct; they do not. However, in ancient times there were people who spent their days in solitude, thinking and having epiphanies. They often chose to live in the desert, away from the distractions of the world, and so the word “hermit” came to describe a person who prefers to be alone. That crustaceans in the sea are named after people in the desert is yet another example of how slippery words can be. Fortunately, when one tires of words, one can always look at paintings, which manage to have their say without using any words at all.)

Everywhere they went, the children practiced clicking their heels and imitating the captain's unmistakable basso laugh. Only when they were shivering too much to even say “Ah. Ha. Hah!” was Penelope able to persuade them to go back to the hotel. They stood in the lobby with coats on, thawing themselves gratefully by the hearth.

“Surely there is nothing so pleasant as coming close to the fire when one is chilled to the bone!” Penelope finally dared to peel off her gloves. “I think we have
each earned a cup of hot tea, and some biscuits, and perhaps a nap.”

“Ah. Ha. HAM!” Cassiopeia said to Beowulf, for while they were out, Penelope had casually mentioned that they might soon be paying a call to the Home for Ancient Mariners, or the HAM, for short.

“Ah. Ha. HAM!” he boomed back. They clicked their heels and fell to the ground. “
Do svidaniya!
See you later!” they said, giggling, and got up to do it again.