The Long-Lost Home

by Maryrose Wood

  “Too soon for my taste!” Simon blurted, but he was not the only one who thought it. Who knew what the next day would hold?

  The good housekeeper tried again to say something cheerful, for she was one of those people who believe too much silence makes a room gloomy. She glanced outside and remarked, “It’s always so dark before the moon rises, isn’t it?”

  No one could argue with that.

  THE FIFTEENTH AND FINAL CHAPTER

  The night of the full moon comes at last.

  WHILE THE LUMLEYS SLEPT, THE moon rose. It was full and round as a loaf of Gypsy cake, and bright enough to cast long, dancing shadows on the grass.

  Beyond the Veil, the spirits stirred. In the bakehouse, the dough for the morning’s bread rose. It is safe to say the soothsayer got very little sleep that night.

  But she was not the only one awake.

  At the grand house known as Ashton Place, something else began to stir, too.

  Imagine a tulip bulb that has spent long months asleep in the cool, dark earth. One day, whether through happenstance, the hands on the clock, the phases of the moon, or some secret primordial plan, the moment comes when it is finally ready to sprout.

  On the outside, very little changes. At least, at first.

  Inside, however, great events begin to unfold. . . .

  LADY CONSTANCE WAS NO STRANGER to complaining, but this was something altogether different. She had spent the night waking and dozing and waking again. Unable to sit still, she wandered the halls like a restless ghost. Every hour or so she asked for snacks, but left most uneaten.

  As the day of the full moon dawned and blossomed, her restlessness turned into something more, well, cowlike.

  “Mooooo!” she said, after demanding more tea and of course, chocolates. “Moooooo!” When she was done mooing, she looked surprised. “Fredrick, is there a cow in here?” she asked. He had not left her side for hours.

  “Not that I can tell, dear.” Lack of sleep made him even more bleary-eyed than usual. “But you yourself just made the most heartfelt mooing noise. Are you all right?”

  “Was that me?” She dabbed her forehead with a napkin from her tray. She was looking quite pink all of a sudden. “For a moment, it felt as if something was getting ready to burst! What I imagine the tulip bulb must feel like, when the tulip begins to grow. A most peculiar type of discomfort. Never mind, it’s gone now.” She patted his hand and went back to nibbling her chocolate.

  But before long, that bursting-into-bloom feeling came again, and that was when Mrs. Clarke took over the proceedings. “You, my lady, are getting ready to have your baby,” she announced.

  “Mooooooo! Am I? Is that what this noise is all about?” Lady Constance patted her belly. “Well, I shall miss being ’round as the full moon. It is amusing to waddle like a duck, and I have grown used to it. But the baby will be amusing, too. MOOOOO!” This one came more sharply, almost as a surprise. A drop of sweat trickled down her forehead. “Mrs. Clarke, look.” She was a little out of breath. “It seems I may have begun to perspire. Can you imagine such a thing?”

  Lord Fredrick had no idea what to make of it. He took the housekeeper aside. “I say, Mrs. Clarke, is she turning into a cow?”

  “It’s all quite normal, Your Lordship. It only means the baby will be here soon.” Mrs. Clarke’s tone was reassuring, but she had a businesslike look about her, for there was much to be done.

  Dr. Veltschmerz was sent for. He arrived within the hour but declared the situation well in hand and went out for a stroll and a cigar. Margaret ran in and out, bringing fresh towels and water and tea and buttered toast, clean pocket handkerchiefs, and whatever else Mrs. Clarke ordered.

  As for Lord Fredrick, in Miss Lumley’s day, it was the custom for a father-to-be to wait out these sorts of occasions at his gentlemen’s club, where he could smoke a pipe, drink a glass of brandy, talk politics, and so on. However, Lord Fredrick was much too concerned about Constance and the Bouncing Baby Ashton to set one foot outside his wife’s bedchamber. He hovered like an anxious mother hen and spent as much time mopping his own brow as he did his wife’s.

  Interestingly, the person Lady Constance most wanted by her side was Mrs. Elsinore Penworthy. Margaret was sent to fetch the baby nurse, galumphing downstairs in a flash, wig only slightly askew (or agley, if you prefer the old Scottish word). Lady Constance lit up like the dawn to see her dear lady friend.

  “Mrs. Penworthy—may I call you Elsinore?—take my hand, if you please! Moooo!” By this point, her cheeks turned bright red each time the feeling came. “My word! This is going to be rather a large tulip, I think!”

  Simon—that is to say, Mrs. Penworthy—squeezed her hand gamely. “Just imagine how lovely it will be when it blossoms,” she crooned.

  FIRM IN THEIR RESOLVE TO enjoy each other’s company fully until fate might decree otherwise, Penelope and the children were giving Miss Mortimer and Mater and Pater Lumley a tour of the nursery when the news came. The grown-ups had oohed and aahed over the excellent globe and the well-stocked bookshelves, the watercolor paints and the abacus, the wooden building blocks, and all the knitted gifts the Incorrigible children had begun, if not always finished.

  Miss Mortimer was especially charmed by the large, sunny window. “What a fine-looking elm tree, with such graceful, spreading branches,” she remarked. “And those sweet springtime sounds of the warblers and nuthatches are like music to the ear. . . .”

  “Eeeeeeeeeeek!” It was Margaret, who had arrived at a gallop and now stood squealing with excitement in the doorway. “There you all are! Mrs. Clarke told me to run quick as the wind and tell you four things: the baby’s on its way, the doctor’s come and gone, Mrs. Penworthy’s looking after Lady Constance—”

  “Mrs. Penworthy!” Penelope exclaimed. She would not have taken Simon for a midwife!

  “Well, she is the baby nurse, after all. . . . Drat, now I’ve lost track. How many was that?”

  “Three!” the children cried.

  “One more then, let me think. . . . Oh! The baker! That was it. She wants you to send for the baker, right away.”

  “Yes!” Mater Lumley glanced anxiously at her husband and seized a cardigan from the pile of knitted things, as if preparing to go out. “We must fetch the baker, now.”

  He nodded and threw a scarf around his neck. “No having babies without the baker, no sirree!”

  “Certainly, the baker must be summoned at once,” Miss Mortimer said with urgency, and pulled on some mittens.

  “The baker, the baker!” the children yelled, and ran around frantically dressing themselves in knitwear from head to toe.

  Margaret, who was not privy to all the complexities of the situation, seemed puzzled by this sudden outcry for baking expertise. “’Scuse me,” she chirped, “but what’s the point of a baker when a lady’s having a child?”

  “I am surprised you do not know, Margaret.” Penelope’s words poured out lickety-split, for now that the big moment had arrived, she too was overcome with nerves. “Having a baby is hard, hungry work, and a snack is bound to come in useful. And no one knows better than a baker how to take loaves and muffins and pies and buns out of the oven, and having a baby is like that, very much like it indeed. Now run to the bakehouse, children, quick! Tell Madame—that is, Flora the Bread Lady—to come to the house right away.” (And that is how the phrase “having a bun in the oven” came to mean “soon to have a baby.” It was Miss Penelope Lumley who first came up with the metaphor, you see, though she is rarely given credit for it.)

  MATER AND PATER LUMLEY ACCOMPANIED the children to the bakehouse, for safety’s sake. So far there had been no sign of Edward Ashton, though Old Timothy had been riding the grounds since dawn, looking for him.

  The Lumleys soon returned, with Madame Ionesco and as many baskets of fresh bread as they could carry. They marched straight upstairs to Lady Constance’s private parlor. Penelope and Miss Mortimer were already there. Lady Constance was in her bedch
amber, along with Lord Fredrick, Mrs. Clarke, and Mrs. Penworthy. Margaret ran in and out as required, but otherwise the door that led from the parlor to the bedchamber stayed closed.

  “Make sandwiches. This is gonna take a while,” the soothsayer said to Pater Lumley, putting him in charge of the bread, but there was one special loaf she set aside for Lady Constance. “I put a little spell on that one,” she confided to Penelope. “The new-mommy spell. It’ll make things easier for her. All right, I’m going in. Nobody leave!” she admonished them all. “These things take time. I need all hands on deck. You kids know what that means?”

  “Aye aye, Madame Gypsy Cake!” the children answered, saluting. Madame Ionesco gave them a wink and disappeared behind the bedchamber door.

  “Moooooo!” The cowlike lowing sounds came at intervals, and an impromptu waiting room sprang up in the parlor. Extra chairs and small tables were brought in. Fresh tea trays were delivered on the half hour and the empty cups whisked away. Pater Lumley made sandwiches by the dozen, and everyone agreed they were excellent.

  Mater Lumley taught the children card games. Penelope showed them how to play durak, the game she used to play with the Princess Popkinova. Muffled voices and strains of the occasional sea chantey could be heard from the bedchamber, and those who were tempted to eavesdrop (which was, frankly, everyone) bravely fought the urge.

  As morning turned to afternoon, Mrs. Penworthy—that is to say, Simon—popped out of the inner room for a breather. He looked flushed and so nervous, one might almost imagine he was having a baby himself.

  “I’ve seen many an opening night, but this is a new twist for me!” he said to Penelope, as he gave his scalp a good scratch under the horsehair wig.

  She offered him a sandwich of thin-sliced cucumber and cream cheese. “When I assisted at the births of calves and lambs back at the Swanburne Academy, Dr. Westminster always said we should keep calm and trust nature to take its course.”

  Simon looked unconvinced. “That’s all very well on the farm. It’s different when the cow wants you to hold her hand, sing songs, and tell stories the whole blessed time! I’m running out of material.”

  The bedchamber door opened and Lord Fredrick stepped out. “Penworthy! There you are. Constance is calling for you.”

  “Right-o, sir. Once more unto the breach!” Simon gave Penelope a helpless look, adjusted his dress, and strode back in.

  “I like that Mrs. Penworthy,” Lord Fredrick remarked to Miss Mortimer, as he helped himself to a ham on rye. “A nice, sturdy woman, what? Constance thinks the world of her. I don’t suppose you know this, but there have been some strange twists and turns in the Ashton family tree. Makes me a bit anxious about the baby. I suppose that’s normal, but when your family’s got a curse on it—it’s a long story, I’ll tell you later, if you’re interested. . . . Well, it just makes it all the more stressful.”

  Miss Mortimer knew all about it, of course. “Fredrick—if I may call you that—don’t be afraid. We are here to help make sure things go well.”

  “Yes.” Pater Lumley came and stood by her. “It’s true we have only just met, sir, but you can count us as your friends.”

  Mater Lumley went so far as to lay a hand on Lord Fredrick’s arm. “Your wife and child will be just fine. I am sure of it.”

  “All right, good to hear. No harm in being optimistic, I suppose!” He looked around and took in these visitors as best he could: the calm couple in European clothes; the elegant English headmistress; the slender chap in the sailor suit who looked like he could be Miss Lumley’s twin brother, the resemblance was so strong. “Blast! I’m not quite sure how all of you ended up here in my house. But I daresay it feels perfectly at home having you about. The more the merrier, I suppose!”

  “Mooooooooo!”

  “That’s my girl! I’d best get back inside.” He grabbed another sandwich, a sliced apple, cheddar, and mustard. “Mmm, very good, very good! Yes, I oughtn’t worry. Things are going well.”

  LORD FREDRICK WAS QUITE CORRECT. Inside the birthing room, nature was taking its course. Outside, the Lumleys stood watch over their cousins, the Ashtons. The task of removing the family curse remained in the spooky hands of Madame Ionesco, but first things first. If Edward Ashton had planned a final act of treachery, the time to attempt it was now. So far, however, he was nowhere to be seen.

  Hours passed before Madame Ionesco next emerged.

  “Cutie,” she said to Penelope, who had by now dealt so many games of cards her fingers ached, “tell the cook I need soup. But not just any soup. The Russian kind. It’s red. Made of beets. Very tasty.”

  “You mean borscht,” Penelope said. “Is it good for a lady in labor?”

  Madame grinned her semitoothless grin. “Who says it’s for her?” Back into the birthing room she went.

  The borscht was prepared and delivered, and afternoon turned to evening. It might have been coincidence, but as the sun set and gave the soon-to-rise moon full rein over the sky, Lady Constance’s mooing turned to a different kind of sound altogether.

  “Ahwoooo!” she howled, quite musically. “Ahwoooo! Ahwoooo!”

  “That’s it, my dear!” Lord Fredrick could be heard cheering her on. “Ahwoooo, ahwoooo!”

  Helpfully, the Incorrigible Lumleys joined in, too.

  “Ahwoooo!”

  “Ahwoooo!”

  “Ahwoooooooo!”

  But even all that noise was not enough to conceal the thunder of hooves at a gallop, coming ever closer to the house.

  Penelope leaped to her feet in alarm.

  “Noooooooo!”

  This howl of protest came from the window. There, tottering on the edge of the railing that circled the parlor’s private balcony, was Edward Ashton. “Time is running out! Five cubs to be avenged!” he yelled, pounding on the glass. The French doors opened, and he toppled into the parlor.

  “Come here, you rascal!” It was Old Timothy. He scrambled up the vine-covered trellis that led to the balcony quite nimbly for an old bowlegged coachman. “You won’t get away from me again!” Pater Lumley jumped to assist as Old Timothy seized his prey by the collar. “The old schemer was hiding in the woods. I flushed him out of the bushes like a hound flushes out a fox. A merry hunt it was, wouldn’t you say, Eddie, old boy?”

  The intruder was weak from his ordeals and winded from the climb, and it took little effort to subdue him. Pater Lumley cut down the long tasseled cord of embroidered gold silk that served as a bellpull and lashed Edward Ashton to a chair.

  “Apologies for the intrusion, ladies and gents. If not for Dr. Veltschmerz blocking my way, I’d have had this scoundrel bagged before he got past the tulips. But don’t worry. I’ll deal with the gloomy doctor later.” To Penelope he added, “I found your friend Faucet, too, while I was searching the woods. He’s bruised from a rough landing but in good working order otherwise.”

  The door to the bedchamber opened. Lord Fredrick stood framed within it. His face was damp with perspiration, but he showed no sign of barking or howling or scratching. The full moon’s attention was elsewhere, it seemed.

  “Blast! My wife’s in the middle of having a baby. Can you keep the racket down out here?” Then he saw what was going on, or thought he did. “Quinzy, is that you?”

  “Fools! Don’t you understand we are all doomed?” Edward Ashton moaned.

  “Doomed, what nonsense! Get hold of yourself, sir,” Lord Fredrick ordered. “There are children present, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Children, yes! But how many?” Edward Ashton fixed the Incorrigibles with a piercing stare. “One, two, three. One, two, three.” He lifted his head and glared at Penelope. “Four! But where is the fifth?”

  “Is that why you chased us all over Switzerland? Searching for another little Lumley to put in your murderous sights?” Remarkably, Pater Lumley laughed. “That was a lot of trudging through the Alps for nothing, then!”

  “I don’t believe you!” Ashton roared, straining against the kn
ots.

  “I am sorry to disappoint you, Edward,” Mater Lumley said, in a voice both calm and steely. “But these four remarkable children are all we have.”

  Edward Ashton tried to stand, but the cord was too snug. “But—no! It makes no sense.” His eyes darted from one auburn head to the next. “Five cubs to be avenged, the old sailor said. All must be destroyed, or the Ashtons will come to a gruesome and permanent end!”

  “Edward, you really ought to read The Three Musketeers,” Miss Mortimer suggested. “It has four musketeers in it, but nobody seems to mind.”

  “And stop all that gruesome end talk, or I’ll stick a real bag over your head.” Old Timothy was still breathless himself, and mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “Now listen up, everyone. There’s something I ought to warn you about. Those wolves that live in the forest—”

  Mater Lumley interrupted. “No need to warn us about the wolves, Timothy. From what we’ve been told, they are friendly as can be.”

  The old coachman tugged at his collar. “Normally, that’s true. . . .”

  “Wait!” Lord Fredrick cried. “Listen!”

  Waaaaaaa!

  Waaaaaaa!

  There was no mistaking the mewling newborn cry.

  “Hooray, hooray!” the Incorrigibles shouted, for they knew what the sound meant.

  “No! I have failed!” Edward Ashton writhed and struggled as the rope held him fast. “We will all perish!”

  “No one’s gonna perish, you big crybaby.” It was Madame Ionesco, emerging from Lady Constance’s bedchamber. “Where’s the new daddy?”

  Miss Mortimer gave Lord Fredrick a nudge. “I believe the soothsayer means you, Fredrick.”

  “I suppose you’re right! Here I am, soothsayer! What news? Do we have a baby, then?” He tugged at his jacket and smoothed his hair as if he were about to meet the tsar himself.

  “Not exactly.” Madame Ionesco smiled her semitoothless smile. “You better come see.”

  OLD TIMOTHY STAYED IN THE parlor to keep watch over Edward Ashton. Reverent and wide-eyed with curiosity, the rest tiptoed into Lady Constance’s bedchamber.