The Interrupted Tale (24 page)

Ashton smiled. “Simon Harley-Dickinson, at my service, indeed. It appears you have done me a great service, although, I assure you, I would have solved the riddle of the ink myself, eventually. I am nothing if not patient.” He closed the book and cradled it in his arms like a child. “Poor Fredrick! It was never my desire to pass my affliction on to him. But thanks to this volume, his suffering will soon be over.”

“Surely, your cruelty is the true cause of his suffering,” Penelope said sharply. “You let him think you were dead, all these long years!”

“My cruelty? Perhaps. Yet everything I have done, I have done for my family. Do you think it has been easy for me to stand in the shadows as my son grew to manhood? To know that, moon after moon, year after year, he hides himself away in the attic in shame? And all because he is an Ashton. That is the proud lineage that I gave him, along with its curse! It is my duty, my purpose—my obsession, if you will—to undo the harm my ancestors have wrought. Renouncing my name, my very existence, was a small price to pay. What I have had to do, and may have yet to do, I cannot do as Edward Ashton. Let Judge Quinzy bear the blame for my misdeeds! I will not bring more shame upon my family.”

His words rained down, sharp as hailstones. “Do not speak to me of cruelty, Miss Lumley. Better Fredrick believe me dead than to think I abandoned him willfully. You of all people ought to know how it feels to be left behind.”

As if on cue, the howling duet in the distance resumed. It sounded much closer than before.

“Ahwoo! Ahwoo!”

“Ahwooooooo!”

Ashton cringed. “Listen to my son, Miss Lumley. Listen! And imagine the gruesome end that awaits him, and me, if this curse is not ended.” He held up Pudge's diary. “I believe the answer is contained in this book, for it was on this voyage that the curse upon my family began.”

Simon and Penelope exchanged a look. “But surely you already know what it says,” Simon interjected. “Didn't your father tell you? It was your admiral grandpa who got the whole mess started, after all.”

Ashton's face clouded. “I was a boy, no bigger than this one”—he nodded at Beowulf—“when I first heard rumors of the curse's existence. Mind you, I was its victim already. My earliest memories are of me howling in misery at the moon, helpless to stop myself, as my mother held me and wept. My father denied everything. ‘Curses are poppycock,' he said. ‘You just need willpower, that's all.' Oh, the humiliation of it! My father ordered me not to speak of it or to complain. He told me to take up hobbies to distract myself, as he had done—hunting, oil painting, and so on. He even installed a secret attic apartment at Ashton Place so that I might suffer in privacy. Still, I would not give up. Eventually, he confessed the truth: Yes, there was a curse on the Ashtons, but one that could only be ended in the next generation of our lineage—my son's generation, not mine. He promised he would tell me more when I was older. Before he did, he met a gruesome end.”

“The Honorable Pax Ashton, pecked to death by murderous pheasants.” Just saying it made the back of Penelope's neck grow cold.

Ashton nodded. “My mother, Wilhelmina, was never the same afterward. She lived out her days hidden in those very attic rooms, railing against the evil of birds. Years later, it always pleased her when her little grandson, Fredrick, would bring her a pheasant he had shot. After my father's death, I, too, became obsessed. I consulted soothsayers, and sought out the world's experts on curses and the lifting of curses. Most were charlatans, liars, fakes, and phonies, but the ones with a true gift all had the same vision: a family tree split down the middle, like an oak after a lightning strike, sap running from the wound like blood.”

Once more, Penelope thought of Madame Ionesco's vision of the wolf babies—but the old soothsayer had said nothing about a tree. “A bleeding tree . . . what does it mean?”

“That is what I asked as well. Always I received the same answer. ‘The hunt is on.' That was my clue—my only clue. Still, I thought I understood. Four times I have tried to break this curse! Four times I have failed. Fredrick's affliction remains; if anything, it grows worse. There must be more to it, I realized—more than my father had told me, more than the soothsayers could see. I would have to go to the source. Luckily, the school was in need of money; it was a simple matter for a wealthy and generous man like Judge Quinzy to charm his way onto the board of trustees.”

“Buy his way on, you mean,” Simon said sharply.

“Most people find money irresistibly charming. I'm sure even my so-called friends, the Baron and Baroness Hoover, and the Earl of Maytag, would lose much of their affection for me if my wallet were suddenly to run dry. For now, though, they do my bidding without question and accept my lavish gifts with glee. Their votes were worth every penny I paid.

“Still, I did not want my research to draw attention. I knew the baroness to be stingy, rigid, and mean—the perfect temperament to throw a well-run school into turmoil. I gave her free rein. I counted on her small-minded interference in the day-to-day running of the school to keep attention diverted elsewhere, while I searched for the information I needed.” He shook his head. “What a tiresome ordeal that was! Most of the Swanburne letters were useless to me. All that cheerful correspondence, full of sound advice! I read through hundreds, perhaps thousands, before I found what I was looking for.”

Penelope was lost. “But what does it mean, to ‘go to the source'? What do the letters of Agatha Swanburne have to do with the curse upon the Ashtons?”

A slow smile snaked across his face. “An excellent question, and one I will leave you to puzzle over in your own time. Suffice it to say, the letters confirmed that some record of the admiral's doomed voyage still existed. The ship's log was lost in the shipwreck, but the cabin boy's diary in invisible ink had been saved. What delicious irony to discover it had been hidden at Ashton Place all along! When Fredrick could not find it, I nearly despaired—until you and the children delivered it right into my hands. A kindness for which I am truly grateful.”

The boys growled at this, but Ashton paid them no mind. “Once in possession of the diary, the ink proved more stubborn than I expected. Again, you have provided a solution when I had nearly given up.” He rubbed his nose quickly, as if he had an itch. “It seems the Swanburne motto is proven correct: No hopeless case is truly without hope. I will read this diary, and I will learn the origins of this curse upon my family . . . ah—ah—
choo
!”

“Feather up your nose?” Alexander asked, and offered a handkerchief.

Ashton ignored him, though his nose twitched uncontrollably. “I will end this curse, Miss Lumley. No matter the price, to me, to you, or to those wolf children of yours. I will end it!
Ah-choo!
” He looked around, wild-eyed. “
Ah-choo!
Has someone let a cat inside?”

“A cat in a henhouse?” Simon scoffed. “That'd be ill-advised.”

Simon was correct, and yet a glimpse of something small and tiger striped flitted through the shadows.

“Meow!”
it said fearfully.
“Meow!”

“Shantaloo!” the boys cried, delighted.

“Ah-choo!”
Edward Ashton sneezed so loudly the walls shook and the chickens
buck-buck-buck
ed in alarm.

He turned and bolted for the exit. Before he could reach it, the door to the chicken coop flew open violently, as if kicked. Lord Fredrick Ashton burst inside, panting and sniffing.
“
Kitty,
ahwooo! Woof! Woof!
”

“No no no, Your Howling Lordship! Kitty is
not
for chasing!” Cassiopeia's piping, scolding voice was like a puppet version of Penelope's. She pushed her way past her runaway pupil. “Tigawoo, come here at once!”

With the bored indifference that cats exhibit even when they are doing as they have been told, the feline troublemaker moseyed over to Cassiopeia and allowed herself to be picked up. Safely imprisoned in the girl's arms, the cat stared at Lord Fredrick. The tip of her tail twitched with scorn.

 

Lord Fredrick Ashton burst inside, panting and sniffing.

 

Meanwhile, Lord Fredrick Ashton, lord and master of the vast estate that bore his name, and one of the richest men in all of England, hunkered on all fours on the dirt floor of the chicken coop, whimpering like a dog that has just been scolded.

“Ah-choo!”
Edward Ashton's reddened eyes blazed with shame and fury. “Behold my son and heir, pride of the Ashton family tree!”

“Father?” Fredrick Ashton squinted in his direction. Of course Edward Ashton looked nothing like how his son might have remembered him, but then again, Fredrick's eyesight was notoriously poor. “Fathawoo?” he howled tentatively.

“
Ah-choo!
Forgive me, Fredrick,” Ashton said, backing his way to the door. “Next time we meet, this torment will be over. I swear it.
Ah-choo!
” He shoved the cannibal book into his coat pocket. Then Edward Ashton wheeled and dashed outside.

“Stop! We must stop him!” Penelope cried, for she could not bear to see the cannibal book spirited away before they could finish reading it—not after all they had done to find it, and steal it, and visibilize it, too! She raced outside in pursuit. Simon followed, but Ashton was already on his horse. Stubbornly, Penelope grabbed hold of the reins.

“Out of my way!” Ashton roared. Still she hung on. The frightened horse reared and pawed its massive hooves in the air, perilously close to Penelope's head.

“Watch out!” Simon grabbed her and pulled her to safety. She strained against him and shouted at Edward Ashton.

“But why not share the information in the diary? Perhaps we could help each other untangle its meaning.”

“Step aside, governess, I warn you!”

This time, Simon stood in Ashton's way. “She's right, Edward old chap! The diary is written in verse. Miss Lumley is an expert in the poetic-meter department, and I'm a bit of a bard myself. Perhaps we could sort out the mystery together.”

A gust of cold air swept through the valley. The clouds skidded across the sky, and the glowing face of the full moon was revealed. It bathed them all in its ghostly light.

“Help each other? But the hunter cannot help his prey.” The horse gave a pained whinny as Edward Ashton pulled it hard around. “How shocked you look, governess! Surely you ought to have figured it out by now.”

He urged his mount forward until Penelope and Simon had no choice but to step aside or be trampled. “I am no gardener, but I do know this: When a tree splits down the middle, one side must be pruned away for the other to survive. How providential that you and those children came under my very roof! It is almost enough to make one believe in fate.”

“It was Miss Charlotte Mortimer who sent me to Ashton Place, in response to a job advertisement!” Penelope had to shout to be heard over the howl of the wind. “And what do the Incorrigible children have to do with it?”

Edward Ashton laughed. “Geneology, Miss Lumley! A wonderful hobby. I highly recommend it.” He leaned forward in his saddle and kicked the horse sharply in the sides.

Penelope and Simon watched helplessly as horse, rider, and long-lost diary galloped away,
ta-TUM, ta-TUM, ta-TUM, ta-TUM, ta-TUM.

The Fifteenth and Final Chapter
A generous donation comes from an unexpected source.

T
HE
CAKE
WAS FINISHED, AND
left a queasy feeling of regret in its wake. Edward Ashton was gone, and Great-Uncle Pudge's diary with him. It was bad luck as far as Penelope and Simon were concerned, for they had dearly wanted to finish reading the cannibal book. Alas, Edward Ashton had interrupted them before they had gotten to the “good part,” as one might say nowadays, and the diary's contents would be known only to him, and to Great-Uncle Pudge, too, since he was the one who wrote it. But Pudge was sworn to secrecy, and the Harley-Dickinsons took their oaths seriously. This Penelope had seen for herself.

Yet all was not lost. As Agatha Swanburne once observed, “Luck is only luck; the bad is often merely the good in disguise.” The bad luck was that Edward Ashton was gone, but the good luck was that so was Judge Quinzy. Now, one member short and without a chairman to appoint a replacement, the board of trustees of the Swanburne Academy was stripped of all its power.

“It is an unexpected turn of events, but rules are rules,” explained Miss Mortimer, who sounded cheerful as a lark in spring as she announced the mysterious disappearance of the chairman at the next morning's assembly. “I have consulted the school's bylaws, and they are clear as can be: In the absence of a duly appointed chair, the board's responsibilities will fall to the holder of the Swanburne Seat,” she said, reading from a yellowed document. “That person will remain in charge ‘until things settle down and life gets back to normal.' Once again, our wise old flounder—I mean, founder—has provided a sensible solution, and written in plain English, too.”

“And who on earth is the holder of the Swanburne Seat?” the baroness demanded.

“As it happens, I am,” Miss Mortimer said with an enigmatic smile. For a moment she looked as if there might be more to say on this topic, but if there was, she kept it to herself.

Penelope, slumped in the first row of the auditorium, yawned and dozed until the children had to poke her awake. The ordeals of the CAKE had quite worn her out, and their evening in the chicken coop had not ended with the sudden departure of Edward Ashton, either. She and Simon had scarcely had time to exchange tragic looks over the loss of the diary when Lord Fredrick Ashton, still in the grip of his wolfish curse, had finally noticed all those delicious-looking chickens (as you know, his eyesight was very poor).

“No no no!” Cassiopeia scolded as he licked his lips. Recall that she had been unable to stop Lord Fredrick from chasing Shantaloo from the observatory to the chicken coop (they had gone to the observatory to practice howling at sheep who were too far away to mind it, Cassiopeia later explained, but the curious cat had followed them and proved to be Lord Fredrick's undoing). Likewise, her stern instruction now was unlikely to help him resist the chickens.

This was no reflection on Cassiopeia's skill as a teacher, of course. Willpower, self-control, stick-to-itiveness—call it what you will, but like most other skills, the knack of doing what one must and finishing what one begins, rather than being distracted by every tasty-looking bit of poultry that comes along, takes a good deal of practice to master. The Incorrigible children already knew this, but Lord Fredrick Ashton had not had the same careful training in how to resist temptation. Especially the kind posed by small, twitchy animals. Like squirrels, for example. Or cats. Or even—

“Chickens, woof!” he barked, forgetting all about Shantaloo. “Chick
ahwoo
!” He began to drool.

“Now, now, keep your paws off my birds, if you please!” Thankfully, the ruckus in the henhouse had summoned Dr. Westminster back from his rounds; he came jogging in just in the nick of time. Old Timothy arrived moments later, moving a bit slower but in hot pursuit of his runaway master.

Another unexpected father-son reunion in the chicken coop? Truly, what were the odds? But there was no chance for Penelope to share this plot twist with Simon, for Lord Fredrick whimpered with hunger for the chickens, and the situation needed to be addressed at once.

After hearing a brief explanation of Lord Fredrick's condition from Penelope, and a description of the first lesson in his Howling Enjoyment Program from Cassiopeia, Dr. Westminster stroked his chin. “A fascinating case, Dr. Lumley and Dr. Incorrigible, and far from hopeless, too. I'd say some HEP is just what the gentleman needs. The full-moon business complicates things, but I see nothing here a bit of training couldn't improve, at least.” He frowned and patted his coat. “I'll need some treats that will suit his tastes. What does he like?”

“Billiards at the club?” Alexander suggested.

“Glass of port?” Beowulf offered.

Dr. Westminster emptied his pockets. “Blast! All I have is chicken feed.”

“I've got it!” Old Timothy pulled one of Lord Fredrick's favorite cigars out of a pocket and offered it to his scratching, drooling master. “Here you go, Freddy. A fresh El Regente, imported from Habana. It's your favorite.” He used the same soothing tone of voice that Penelope had learned from Dr. Westminster (who, it now appeared, may have learned it from his own father!).

It took some persuading, but “Cigawoo,” the Lord of Ashton Place finally conceded. He took the cigar, and Old Timothy helped him light it. Before long he was puffing away, which at least kept him from barking at the birds. The chickens settled down to roost, Shantaloo fell asleep in Cassiopeia's lap, and the aromatic scent of the hand-rolled Cuban all but erased the stink of the visibilizer from the chicken coop. For once, Penelope had been glad of the strong cigar smell.

Miss Mortimer tucked her yellowed copy of the bylaws out of sight. “I believe those are all the announcements I have, so let us get on with this glorious day. Oh! There is one more thing: All that business about wolves at Swanburne turned out to be a false alarm. In other words, much ado about nothing.”

“Shakespeare!” cried the Incorrigible children.

“Correct! And that concludes the morning's assembly,” Miss Mortimer said.
Clap clap clap!
“Girls, grab your gardening shears. We have a great deal of work to do to put things right.”

 

“All hail to our founder, Agatha!

Pithy and wise is she.

Her sayings make us clever,

And don't take long to tell.

When do we quit? Never!

How do we do things? Well!”

 

It was wonderful to hear the Swanburne girls singing the school song with spirit, and just as wonderful to see them working together to cut down the ivy from the entrance to the school. They snipped and chopped in time to the music. Soon the motto was revealed once more, in all its optimistic glory.

“No hopeless case is truly without hope,” Penelope read, and fell silent.

Simon noticed her thoughtful look. “It's a perplexing business, isn't it?” he said. “What with the moon curse, and ‘the hunt is on,' and Ahwoo-Ahwoo, and all the rest. I wish we could have read a bit more of that poem Pudge wrote.”

“As do I.” She turned to him. “But I was thinking about how easily the former board of trustees was bamboozled by that fake Judge Quinzy. One could have hardly found a worse person to put in charge of the school. It reminds me of the old saying—”

“A flounder saying?” Cassiopeia piped up. The boys had buried themselves in a heap of shorn ivy, but Cassiopeia stood next to Penelope and Simon, with Shantaloo curled in her arms. The fussy little cat had not left her alone since being rescued from Lord Fredrick. One moment it wriggled to get down; the next it yowled to be picked up and petted. Cassiopeia had been kept busy as a nursemaid with a newborn baby, although she did not seem to mind.

Penelope shook her head. “It is a much older saying than those of Agatha Swanburne. It may even be older than the pithy wisdom of Cicero. It goes like this: ‘Don't set a fox to guard the henhouse.'”

“Or a Lord Fredrick to guard a henhouse,” Cassiopeia said solemnly, scratching Shantaloo between the ears. “Or a tyger kitty.”

Alexander poked his head out of the ivy. “Or a Nutsawoo to guard an acorn.”

“Or an Incorrigible to guard a piece of cake!” Beowulf added. That made them all laugh.

Magistra Grimsby, who had been listening, leaned in. “In Latin we say
‘Ovem lupo committere
.
'
‘Don't set a wolf to guard the sheep.'”

No one could argue with that.

 

W
ITH THEIR LEADER GONE AND
the board dismissed, the rest of the foxes—that is to say, Baroness Hoover and the Earl of Maytag—had no reason to linger among the hens. The baroness packed her bags and left in a fury right after the morning assembly. All her husband's attempts to calm her had been in vain, and the words she uttered upon hearing the girls' full-throated bellowing of the school song would have made a sailor blush (but not a pirate, for as you might guess, pirates are not so easily shocked).

The Earl of Maytag did not care one way or the other about the singing, but he was deeply annoyed by Quinzy's disappearance. “Never would have wasted my time on a girls' school if Quinzy hadn't made such a fuss about it! I'd rather be out hunting grouse. Well, now he's run off. When he turns up again, I'll give him a piece of my mind. At least the dinner was worth the trip. That was a tasty goulash, what?”

It was the newest trustee, Lady Constance Ashton, who did something utterly unexpected. Early in the morning on the day after the CAKE, she paid a private visit to Miss Charlotte Mortimer and made an extremely generous donation to the school. “Use it for whatever the girls require,” she said briskly. “New uniforms, perhaps. Something with a bit of lace around the collar would be nice. And hire a staff of gardeners, if you please! There are not nearly enough flowers along the paths. Tulips are impractical for such a large area, but daffodils should do quite nicely. It would be a pity to let all that sunlight go to waste.”

Even Miss Mortimer, who was rarely flummoxed by anything, was taken by surprise. “We are so grateful, Lady Ashton,” she said. “To what do we owe your extraordinary kindness?”

Lady Constance trilled a nervous laugh. “I cannot explain it myself! For some reason, being around so many young people has made me feel somehow—what is the word?—maternal?” At this admission, her cheeks blushed pink as two fresh-bloomed roses. Truly, the always pretty Lady Constance did look unusually radiant, despite all the cake and screaming of the previous evening.

“Children do have that effect on the heart,” Miss Mortimer said warmly. “I hope you will visit us again in the spring to see the gardens we will plant in your honor.”

Lady Constance's pale hands fluttered around her tummy like birds. “Well, I may be busy in the spring; who knows? But we shall see, we shall see!”

Mr. Felix Trundle, the singing solicitor, had to return promptly to his business in Heathcote (although not before adding a booming bass line to the formerly all-girl arrangement of the school song, which everyone found quite thrilling). But the Archduchess Ilona Laszlo chose to spend the afternoon at Swanburne, so she might catch up with her friends in the languages department. Naturally, they all spoke fluent Hungarian, so Cecily's services were not required and she had the afternoon free.

Penelope was overjoyed, for it meant she could spend some time with her old friend. It also gave her the chance to introduce Cecily to the children and, of course, to Simon. (Simon proved to be a source of fascination to all the Swanburne girls, especially the older ones. Perhaps it was his pirate's swagger, or that poetical shock of hair that fell in his eyes. He did not seem to notice the girls' interest, however, and spent most of his time discussing advanced navigational techniques with Alexander, and teaching sea chanteys to Beowulf, and letting Cassiopeia wrap herself 'round one leg to make him limp as he walked, as if he had a peg leg.)

The pleasant afternoon flew by, and at last the time came for Penelope and Cecily to say their farewells. They hugged for a long time, and Cecily whispered in her ear, “I think that Simon is sweet on you. It's not every day a fellow writes notes in a bottle and throws them in the ocean!”

“But—but I did not even receive the notes,” Penelope stammered. “Ashton Place is nowhere near the sea.”

Cecily pressed her hands to her heart and swooned. “Still, he took the time to send them. And while imprisoned by pirates, too! That's awfully romantic, don't you think? Do you like him, too?”

“I think . . . that is to say, I admire his talent a great deal. His hair has a pleasant wave to it, to be sure. And have you noticed the gleam of genius in his eyes?” Penelope blurted, a bit too eagerly.

“Sure, there's an awfully nice gleam in there.” Cecily grinned and tossed her braids from side to side. “Wish we had such charming playwrights in Witherslack. But who knows? Maybe one'll wash ashore someday.”