The Long-Lost Home

by Maryrose Wood

  Miss Mortimer frowned. “Susannah, if I had known about this—”

  “You would never have given her the book. I know. It was a risk I ought not have taken.” Mater Lumley turned to Penelope. “I left the clue for you, Penny. I had hoped one day you would figure it out, and find comfort in knowing where we were, at least.”

  “Geography was never my best subject,” Penelope sheepishly admitted. “All those midsized European nations and their capital cities, imports and exports and what have you! I could hardly keep them straight.”

  Simon adjusted his wig, which had gang agley once more. “I’d have spotted it straight away, if I’d seen it. Serves me right for not reading more poetry.”

  Miss Mortimer hustled them along. “There will be plenty of time for poetry, if all goes well. Now, let us get inside and put ourselves in Mrs. Clarke’s care. Gossip travels quickly in a house such as this. It is best for us to remain incognito for a little while longer, at least.”

  THE EXPRESSION ON MRS. CLARKE’S face was a sight to behold.

  “Miss Lumley, my word! You’ve come home at last! Well, nothing should surprise me ever again, and that’s the truth. Here’s Simon trotting about in my old clothes, and you drop in from the sky—the very sky itself!—dressed like a sailor boy, and the servants are gossiping about a moon falling in the daffydils, and look who turns up!” She paused to dab her eyes; she was already on her third pocket handkerchief. “It’s your long-lost ma and pa, and now you tell me these three precious children are Lumleys, too! I don’t know what to say, except providence is kind, and we oughtn’t ever lose hope, for there’s no telling what the next hour will bring, is there?”

  They had gathered in a cozy downstairs room off the kitchen that only the servants used. Most great houses of the day would not bother with such a room, but at Ashton Place Mrs. Clarke was in charge, and she wanted her staff to have a comfortable spot to take tea breaks and put their feet up when they were tired. She had decorated the room herself. It was a riot of floral patterns, soft carpets, and comfortable furniture strewn with pillows, nothing like the formal, antique-filled rooms upstairs.

  Trays of hot tea and buttered toast were brought out, and pitchers of milk and biscuits for the children. Once they were settled, Mater Lumley, Pater Lumley, and Miss Mortimer promised to tell the tale of how they had ended up crashing their balloon in the garden (you may think of it as the tale of the moon balloon landing, although nowadays “moon landing” has come to mean something quite different, as the astronauts among you are well aware).

  Mater Lumley helped herself to more tea, and a biscuit, too. Then she began. “Penelope, even before you surprised us by showing up in Frankenforde, we had arranged for your aunt Charlotte—yes, children, Miss Mortimer is your aunt as well!—to fly our balloon from its hiding place in a remote part of the Alps to the meadow green outside the town.”

  “I had done it before, several times,” Miss Mortimer said. “And always on the night of the new moon, to avoid having too many moons in the sky at once. This time we could not wait. Years from now, I expect, grandparents will tell their grandchildren stories of that strange day when there were two moons in the sky.”

  “Moon plus moon equals two moons!” Cassiopeia said, clearly thrilled at the notion.

  “Indeed it does, Cassawoof! I was delayed—rather embarrassingly!—when I made a right turn at the Danube River instead of a left. Such a beautiful sight! I grew distracted while admiring it and got quite turned around.”

  Now Pater Lumley picked up the tale. “Charlotte arrived not long after Penelope and Admiral Faucet took off in his balloon. Quickly we prepared to leave. We had released all the ropes but one when Edward Ashton himself came crashing out of the trees and into the meadow.”

  “But how did he find you?” Penelope asked. “That meadow was so tucked away and private.”

  “He did have the exact latitude and longitude, though,” Simon answered.

  “Yes, and he may have seen the first balloon rising from the forest. Or perhaps he was just lucky,” Pater Lumley went on. “He was wild and incoherent, and soaking wet, too—he must have swum across the lake. Even as our balloon rose from the ground, he seized that last anchor rope and tried to stop us, but we got away. Or so we thought.”

  “Unbeknownst to us, Ashton had climbed up the rope and lashed himself to the bottom of the gondola. Imagine riding in the open air like that, all the way to England! But we did not fly nearly as high as you and Admiral Faucet did. Our balloon is—or should I say was—well camouflaged,” Mater Lumley said. “Your father painted an excellent moon face, didn’t he, children?”

  “Moon balloon!” the children agreed. They tossed biscuits into the air and caught them in their mouths. It was a joyous reunion, after all.

  Miss Mortimer tossed and caught one, too. “I thought our ship of the air was not flying quite right,” she said after she was done swallowing. “I blamed it on the extra sandwiches we packed. Still, we made it to England swiftly, thanks to favorable winds.”

  She leaned forward, as a good storyteller does when the most exciting part is about to be told. “It was not until we were quite close, but still high above the forest that surrounds Ashton Place, that Edward Ashton made himself known. He hauled himself up the ropes. Before we could subdue him, he smashed a pair of thick spectacles he must have had with him and used the broken glass to poke our balloon full of holes. Like Swiss cheese.”

  Cassiopeia turned to her brothers. “See, the moon is made of cheese!” All three patted their tummies. That would be a great deal of cheese, for sure.

  “We lurched and nearly tipped,” Miss Mortimer went on. “Ashton dangled from the ropes above. ‘Thanks for the lift,’ he said, and jumped.”

  “He jumped from the balloon in midair? But surely he was killed!” Penelope exclaimed.

  The three balloonists shook her heads. “He had made himself a parachute out of his own dark cloak,” Miss Mortimer explained. “I think we must assume he survived.”

  “He must have dropped the book of poems during his fall.” Penelope looked thoughtful. “Come to think of it, there has been no news of Admiral Faucet since I too jumped ship. I hope he is all right.” In answer to Simon’s surprised look, she said, “I held a low opinion of the admiral before our trip, but there is something about sharing an adventure that makes friends of the most unlikely companions.”

  Miss Mortimer nodded in agreement. “I expect the admiral landed safely. His vessel was in good condition, the weather was fair, and he is an experienced pilot. But balloons are unpredictable and easily blown off course. He could be in a different part of England altogether.”

  “I’d bet the moon itself he’s all right. That Faucet fellow has a knack for survival, and self-invention, too.” Simon turned to the rest of them. “Speaking of survival, and moons—our soothsayer friend Madame Ionesco warned us to expect real theatrics from Beyond the Veil tomorrow. The first full moon of May means closing night for the curse upon the Ashtons, as we theater folk say. I wish there was something we could do to prepare.”

  Miss Mortimer paused to take a deep calming breath, which made Penelope even more worried than before. “Does the fortune-teller have a plan?” the headmistress asked.

  “After a fashion,” Penelope replied. “It involves some complex negotiations with parties no longer living.”

  “We don’t want anyone to commit murder,” Beowulf explained. The Incorrigible children were now curled in their blankets, still listening.

  “I am glad to hear it, Beowulf.” Miss Mortimer tucked her legs beneath her on the sofa. Everyone was getting sleepy, it seemed. “We must be vigilant about Edward Ashton, for he is unhinged and capable of anything. As for the spirits Beyond the Veil—I fear there is nothing we can do to prepare for them. We will put our trust in your friend the soothsayer.”

  “When it comes to the supernatural, Madame Ionesco is as reliable as they come. I realize that’s not saying much. But I think t
he old girl can pull it off,” Simon declared. Still, an air of doubt had entered the room.

  “We must hope for the best,” Pater Lumley said firmly. “The main thing is that we are together now. We are safe for the moment, and there is nothing to do but wait.”

  “No matter what happens tomorrow, we have these hours together, at least.” Her words sounded grim, but Mater Lumley was smiling. “And you must have so many questions for us. All those questions you have saved for later! Now you may ask away. We truly have all the time in the world.”

  THERE WAS SO MUCH TO ask, and to tell.

  Penelope and the Incorrigibles heard about their parents’ years in remote alpine villages, on the run from danger with baby Penelope in tow. “The hunt was on for us, but it was our children Edward Ashton wanted, even before you were born,” Mater Lumley explained. “We used fake names and disguises and stayed on the move. We succeeded in keeping you a secret, Penny dear. He never knew you existed. But it was only a matter of time. You were getting older. You needed safety and stability, an education, and other children to play with. We had to face facts.”

  Thus, the Lumleys had made the heartbreaking decision to hide Penelope in plain sight, as it were, at the Swanburne Academy. They dared not visit but kept a close eye on their daughter through Charlotte.

  “We hoped Ashton would give up, but he had his spies watching us, always. Some awful baroness . . . an earl of something or other . . . ,” Mater Lumley said.

  “Baroness Hoover, and the Earl of Maytag.” Penelope shivered at the names.

  “Yes. Many times we slipped away at the eleventh hour. We missed you dreadfully, Penny, but there seemed no way to contact you without putting you in danger.”

  “And thanks to the hair poultice, you appeared to be one Swanburne girl among many,” Miss Mortimer interjected.

  “You were a needle in a haystack, to be sure!” Simon teased. Penelope shook her head. That poultice! How she had disliked it! But now she knew the reason for it, at least.

  Pater Lumley went on. “We grew ever more skilled at traveling incognito and hiding our whereabouts. To our great delight, we were blessed with three more children. We discovered ballooning, which changed everything, or so we thought. We allowed ourselves to feel safe, so safe that we began to think we might soon bring you home again, Penelope. But then came that day—that dreadful day!—when the three littlest Lumleys disappeared.”

  It was quite an experience for the Incorrigibles to hear this spellbinding story, especially since it was about them. However, their bellies were full of milk and biscuits, and they had made a marvelous pillow fort on the floor to snuggle in, so they listened the way they might have listened to any bedtime story: wriggling and poking one another and looking as if they were not listening at all.

  Mater Lumley dabbed her eyes with a pocket handkerchief. “We had made a brief landing in a field near the village of Heidiheim, to replenish our water jugs from the stream there, and to purchase some goat’s milk and cheese from a farmer we knew well. Our backs were turned for only a moment, and the children were gone.”

  “Maybe we went to pick flowers?” Cassiopeia suggested.

  “Or for yodeling lessons.” Beowulf gave it a try. “Yodle-odle-odle-awoo!”

  “I think we were looking for hot chocolate,” Alexander said.

  “Those were terrible days.” Mater Lumley shook her head. “But we had loyal spies of our own. Charlotte, of course. And Old Timothy.”

  “Enigmatic Old Tim! He had me fooled for ages,” Simon said. “He’d make a swell actor.”

  “I always liked him,” Beowulf said with sleepy conviction, which made everyone laugh.

  “With their help we learned that the children had been spirited away to England and left in the forest of Ashton Place. Imagine! Our own dear children, lost in the woods! It was like something out of the Brothers Grimm. Of course we were frightened. But Timothy found clever ways to care for them, as did some rather unusual wolves.”

  The children yapped softly at the mention of the wolves. Pater Lumley patted Alexander’s head, which was nearest to him. “The wolves were a reminder that the strange curse upon the Ashtons was a mystery bigger than mere reason could overrule.”

  “Like one of those tragic plays from ancient Greece,” Simon offered. “Every time you try to flee your fate, it only makes things worse.”

  Mater Lumley nodded. “Yes. We worried that any attempt at rescue could backfire. And we dared not provoke Edward Ashton to action, for we feared what his action would be.”

  “Murder!” cried Beowulf.

  “Most foul!” Cassiopeia said with feeling.

  “As in the best it is,” Alexander concluded. It was one of the ghost’s lines from Hamlet, and the children said it with such spirit that everyone felt moved to applaud. The children bowed and snuggled back into their pillow fort.

  “We had no choice but to trust in providence,” Mater Lumley continued gently, addressing the children. “Penelope was happy at Swanburne and under her aunt Charlotte’s care, and you three were having a wonderful time with the wolves. What better protectors could you have? We believed you were safe, as long as Fredrick did not find you. For years, he did not.”

  “But then he did find them,” Penelope said quietly.

  “Yes. Thank goodness Old Timothy made sure no one was harmed.”

  “That Lord Fredrick brought the children home to live as his wards was something no one expected,” Pater Lumley said. “We still don’t fully understand why Fredrick took them in, though of course we are glad he did.”

  “I can explain that.” Penelope straightened, for she too was slumped with fatigue. It was long past her bedtime by now. “As a child, Lord Fredrick was cruelly teased for barking and howling when the moon was full. The Incorrigibles’ wolfish behavior reminded him of his own, but they had no shame about it. He hoped to learn that from them.”

  Alexander sat up. “He wants us to woofy up the baby, too,” he said.

  “What?” Penelope exclaimed. This was the first anyone else had heard about it, and all heads turned.

  “He asked us to.” Beowulf crawled out of the pillow fort and sat on his haunches. “To bark and howl and teach the baby to be woofish.”

  Cassiopeia popped out as well. “We have been practicing. Listen!” The Incorrigibles proceeded to bark and howl with all their might. Mater and Pater Lumley were amazed.

  “What excellent howlers! You’ll have to teach us to do it, too,” Pater Lumley said, ruffling Beowulf’s hair.

  Miss Mortimer had been listening hard to all of this. “It seems we may have underestimated Fredrick,” she said to Mater Lumley. She turned to Penelope. “As soon as the children were found by Lord Fredrick, the Ashtons placed an advertisement for a governess. You know what happened after that! Meanwhile, your parents had taken to spending most of the year in the air. I visited as often as I could, and helped transport the balloon to its various hiding places, mostly high in the Alps.” She gave a sad smile. “The good ship Chanteloup served us well.”

  “Shantaloo?” Penelope repeated, recognizing the name. “Miss Mortimer, did you name your cat after the balloon?”

  The headmistress smiled. “Chanteloup is French. It means ‘song of the wolf.’ I named my cat after my favorite poet.”

  “And I named our balloon after my favorite poet,” Pater Lumley said, a playful twinkle in his eye. He wrote it down so the children could see how it was spelled. Only then did they recognize the word.

  “That is our favorite poet, too!” Beowulf said.

  Penelope had already figured it out. She held up the book so the children could see. “See? It is right on the front.”

  “Chanteloup was my nom de plume,” Mater Lumley said modestly. “I started using it when I wrote my very first verse. I was only sixteen at the time.”

  “Tell us, tell us!” the children cried.

  “Oh, I think you know it already.” Mater Lumley laughed, and began to sing. />
  “All hail to our founder Agatha!

  Pithy and wise is she.”

  Penelope’s own mother had written the Swanburne school song! Really, what were the odds? “To think I have been singing it all these years . . . ,” she began, but she became choked up, and all conversation stopped while her parents took turns hugging her.

  “I have a question,” Alexander said shyly, when things had settled once more. “What are our Lumley names? I think I might remember mine, a little.”

  Mater and Pater Lumley exchanged a glance. “What do you remember?” Pater Lumley asked.

  “Was it . . . Sam?”

  Mater Lumley’s hands flew to her heart. “Yes, it was! We called you Samuel, after my father and Charlotte’s. But you have become Alexander Incorrigible now, haven’t you?”

  He nodded eagerly, for he did want to keep his own name.

  “Then of course that is who you are.”

  “I don’t remember my Lumley name,” Beowulf confessed.

  “I don’t either.” Cassiopeia looked worried, for to learn to spell a second name when she was not yet on solid ground with the first would be asking a great deal.

  Pater Lumley gathered his two youngest children onto his lap. “Beowulf is your Incorrigible Lumley name. And Cassiopeia is yours.”

  Mater Lumley put her hand on Alexander’s head. With the other she squeezed Penelope’s hand. “You are all Incorrigible Lumleys, through and through.”

  Mrs. Clarke had been quiet all this time, taking in every word as her knitting needles silently flew. Now she paused in her work. She rummaged in her pockets for another clean pocket handkerchief, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose with gusto. Yet when she spoke, her tone was chatty, as if it were some other kindhearted housekeeper who had just been overcome with tears for the twelfth time that day.

  “I wonder what name Lord Fredrick and Lady Constance have picked for the baby,” she chirped. “They haven’t mentioned it. I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”