ICAP 2 - The Hidden Gallery

by Wood, Maryrose

  “Good, honest labor,” Lady Constance said approvingly as she gazed into her vanity mirror. “I am glad to hear it. For how could Lord Ashton and I take a pleasant turn in a carriage of a Sunday, if our horses were not properly shod—eek! Is that a pimple?”

  “Ahwoooooooo!”

  “Woof! Woof!”

  “Ahwoooooooo!”

  From somewhere inside the house it came: the unmistakable sound of howling and barking. Penelope blanched. “If you will forgive me, Lady Constance, I ought not to leave the children unattended for so long—”

  “Ahwoooooooo!”

  “Woof! Woof!”

  “Ahwoooooooo!”

  The noise seemed to be getting closer. Lady Constance placed a hand threateningly on her scabbard. “It mystifies me, Miss Lumley, how you can even persist in calling those three untamed creatures ‘children.’ Just listen to them! If they dare enter my dressing room, I shall…I shall—why, I don’t know what I shall do—”

  “Excuse me, Lumawoo?”

  The three Incorrigible children appeared in the doorway to Lady Constance’s dressing room. They carried pencils and rulers and compasses. Alexander held several sheets of graph paper, all covered with drawings of triangles.

  “Very sorry to disturb,” he said with a bow.

  “Salutations, noble lady! Forgive the interruption.” Beowulf bowed even lower, and Cassiopeia performed a curtsy so deep she needed help to stand up again.

  Sheepishly Alexander held out the paper. “Question, Lumawoo. Area of a triangle?”

  “Chaos est rex regis,” Beowulf added in Latin, by which he meant “confusion reigns.”

  Cassiopeia rolled her eyes. “No chaos. Half base times height. Easy!”

  The boys still looked muddled. “But which is height?” They turned their papers around and around, trying to figure out which point of the triangle was the top.

  “That is an excellent question,” Penelope said, quickly corralling the children. “If you will accompany me back to the nursery, we will discuss—”

  “Ahwooooooooo!”

  “Yap! Yap!”

  “Ahwooooooooo!”

  The children looked at each other, bewildered.

  “Use words, not barks?” Beowulf suggested, but to whom did he suggest it? For although these ahwoos, woofs, and yaps were indisputably of a barking, howling nature—and sounded as if they were just outside the room, in fact—they were certainly not being uttered by the Incorrigibles.

  From the hallway came sounds of scuffle and collision.

  “Blast, blast, blast!” a man’s voice cried, followed by, “Yap!”

  Lord Fredrick lurched into the room. To Penelope he looked dreadfully uncomfortable. He scratched at himself uncontrollably, and every so often one of his legs seemed to twitch.

  “I say, Constance, where’s my almanac? Can’t find it for some reason. Need to check something—blasted calendar! I’ve mixed up the dates, I’m afraid—woof!”

  Alexander leaned close and sniffed Lord Fredrick. He turned to his siblings and shrugged.

  “Silly Fredrick, we are going to the theater; surely no one could have a mix-up about that.” Lady Constance stood and twirled. “Aren’t you going to compliment me on my outfit?”

  “Very pretty, yes, yes.” He peered at the eye patch. “But there’s something on your face, dear. Might want to wash it off, woof!”

  Lady Constance frowned. “What is that dreadful noise you keep uttering? Surely you are not making fun of me?”

  “Not at all, dear. There’s—yap! woof!—something stuck in my throat, that’s all.” He cleared his throat, to demonstrate, but instead of “ahem” it came out more like “ahwoo,” and he quickly covered his mouth.

  “Well, I hope you are not going to be this noisy during the play. I simply detest it when other people talk during a performance.” She swaggered past the children and fixed her one usable eye on Fredrick. “Are you ready, husband? You seem a bit…unkempt.”

  “Of course, perfectly ready”—the rubbing and scratching had made his hair stand up every which way—“but if I could just get a peek at the almanac—drat, I hope I didn’t leave it at the club—”

  “You can find it when we get home, silly. Now call for Timothy to bring the carriage ’round, please! And tell him we’ll take the brougham; it looks terribly sharp in the daylight—”

  “Already did, my dear. You might say I’m itching to leave myself, what?” Lord Fredrick commenced to rub his back against the door frame. “Where the blast is he—ow, ow, wow bow wow—”

  A butler stepped around him and announced, “Your carriage is waiting outside, my lord.”

  “Got your wrap, Constance?” Lord Frederick said between scratches.

  “Of course. And my sword, tee hee!” No one laughed, but Lady Constance seemed not to care; she was too busy admiring her scabbard.

  “Yap! Pardon me!” Lord Fredrick looked embarrassed. “Blast these sneezing fits! Coming down with a bit of a cold, I’m afraid.”

  Penelope and the children watched Lord Fredrick in fascination. Even in the span of these few minutes, his twitching, scratching, and grunting had become more pronounced. So much so that Lady Constance, who rarely paid close attention to other people, had no choice but to notice.

  “Are you all right, dear?” she asked impatiently. “You are frightfully twitchy.”

  He pawed frantically at his ear and peered out the window. “Bit of a rash, I think—must have been something I ate. Hours before dark yet, I see. What sort of moon are we expecting, eh? Anybody know? Would it possible to change our tickets for another night, I wonder?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Fredrick; it’s the premiere! And who cares about moonlight?” Lady Constance said gaily, taking her husband’s arm. “Soon we shall see all the footlights blazing!”

  “Quite so, dear—woof! Pardon me. Yap!”

  And with that, they left.

  IN THE KITCHEN, in the laundry, in all the distant parlors of Number Twelve Muffinshire Lane, Penelope knew there were servants tending fires and trimming candlewicks, dusting shelves and sweeping carpets, filling washbasins with fresh water and emptying the old—but still the house seemed terribly quiet. As pleasant as it was to escape the grating prattle of Lady Constance and the bizarre behavior of Lord Fredrick, it also felt oddly sad to be the one left behind.

  Odd, perhaps, but hardly surprising. Imagine how it would be if several people of your acquaintance purchased new outfits in anticipation of a special occasion, got dressed in a flurry of giggles and jokes, and then headed off in a group, chatting and laughing, while you remained at home in stretchy exercise pants, with nothing to do but sort socks. Penelope rarely indulged in self-pity, but now she felt as she imagined Cinderella must have, after her mean stepsisters headed out for the ball at the palace and left poor Cinderella home alone to pick lentils from the ashes.

  “Yet it is only right that Lady and Lord Ashton enjoy a night out,” she thought bravely. “For they are wealthy and of the noble class, and I am not. My place is here, being a good governess to the children—and answering Lady Constance’s mail,” she concluded with a sigh. “But answering letters is far less unpleasant than picking lentils out of ashes, so I shall do my best and try to be cheerful about it.”

  Penelope put the Incorrigibles to work on the letters as well—not answering them, of course, but counting them. They had carried all the mail into the dining room so as to have use of the big table; now the children were sorting the envelopes into groups of five and ten and thus got in a bit of practice with their multiplication tables. It was not nearly as much fun as a night at the theater would have been, but educationally speaking, at least the evening would not be a total waste.

  Knock! Knock!

  Two sharp raps at the front door echoed throughout the house.

  “Not the post, again,” Penelope thought as she blotted yet another letter (this one she had signed, “In spite of everything, my lips remain sealed.
Yours, Lady A.”) How many more letters could there be?

  “Ten…twenty…thirty…” The children were excellent counters, which merely underscored how very many pieces of correspondence were already on hand. All this mail, and still no word from Simon, and none from Miss Mortimer either! It hardly seemed fair, and all too soon their stay in London would be over. So far their trip had not been quite the nonstop carnival of culture Penelope had hoped for, what with all the distracting danger and mystery and so on, but still, it was London, and who knew if and when she would return? The footlights of the West End might remain a distant, unfulfilled dream forevermore.

  And she might never see Simon again, either. Poor Simon! She hoped he had not been convicted as a thief and transported to Australia over that silly velocipede. All his troubles had been caused by trying to be helpful to Penelope, and now she would never even get to say, “Thank you” to dear, kind, perfectly nice Simon.

  “Simawoo,” Alexander said.

  With a twinge of embarrassment Penelope realized that she must have spoken the name aloud. “Yes, Simon,” she said briskly. “Now, about those multiplication tables—”

  “Simawoo,” Beowulf tugged at her sleeve and pointed.

  “Simahwoooooo!” Cassiopeia howled in delight.

  “That’s right, kids. It’s me! Simawoo Harley-Dickinson, late of Scotland Yard. Good evening to you, Miss Lumley. Say, I hope you don’t mind me barging in like this.”

  Penelope stood up. The letters in her lap fell to the floor, and her mouth fell as far open as her jaws would allow. “Mr. Harley-Dickinson! I am so very glad to see you! Are you all right? Oh, I have imagined the most dreadful things”—and she stopped right there, for she was afraid she might melt into a puddle of tears, which hardly seemed appropriate, given how happy she was.

  The children felt no such confusion; all three leaped upon Mr. Harley-Dickinson as if he were a human jungle gym. He just laughed.

  “I tell you, Miss Lumley, lately my life has been one dramatic plot twist after another! You’re a good influence, I must say—all of you.” Gently he peeled the children from his limbs. “I must apologize for missing our appointment yesterday. You see—”

  “It was the velocipede!” she exclaimed.

  “Indeed it was. No sooner had I completed my tour of every bookstore in London—”

  “Did you find any Hixby’s?” she blurted again.

  Simon smiled. “I’m getting to that! No sooner had I finished my tour of the bookstores of London than I was stopped by a police officer. The fellow takes a long, suspicious look at my mode of transport. ‘Proof of ownership!’ he demands, and holds out his meaty hand, like so.

  “‘Now, sir,’ I say, ‘on what basis can you demand such proof?’

  “‘I’m demandin’ it because this contraption matches the description of one such item reported stolen,’ he says.

  “‘What’s the description?’ I say.

  “Without even checking his notes, the fellow replies, ‘Velocipede, slightly used. Two wheels, handlebars, black.’

  “‘I see,’ I say. ‘And when was it stolen?’

  “‘This very morning,’ he says.

  “‘Well,’ I say, ‘here’s my alibi: This morning I was out at the zoo with Judge Quinzy—a judge, mind you—and if you don’t believe me, you can ask hizzoner yourself.’

  “‘Well,’ he says, ‘all right, come with me to the station house and we’ll see about this Judge Quinzy of yours.’ So we go to the police station. Forms are filled out in triplicate. Handcuffs applied. And I wait, and wait. After a lifetime or so, the officer comes back. ‘No such judge,’ he says.

  “‘What do you mean?’ I retort. I tell you, I was miffed! No such judge? ‘I rode in the bloke’s carriage myself,’ I say.

  “And the bobby replies, ‘There’s no Quinzy in the Directory of Judges, is what I’m saying.’ He showed me the book himself, and he was right. No Quinzy at all. It made my alibi sound a wee bit suspicious, and that’s how I got thrown in the lockup. They only let me out because—you won’t believe it—some cheeky rogue stole the velocipede! Right out of police headquarters!” Simon slapped his knee in hilarity. “No evidence, no case. They had to let me go.”

  “Oh, no!” Penelope was both horrified and fascinated by this strange and comical adventure. “But—handcuffs, dear me! It must have been awful!”

  “Awfully interesting, more like it. What an inspiring collection of rogues I met in the clink! I’ve got enough material for twenty plays now.” He beamed. “I tell you, Miss Lumley, ever since I met you and these charming Incorrigible children, unexpected things just keep on happening. I’ll never be at a loss for words again.”

  “Quinzawoo, zoo, who?” Cassiopeia, asked, meaning, obviously, “If, as you say, there is no such person as Judge Quinzy, then who was the man who took us to the zoo the other day?”

  “Good question, Cassawoof.” Simon hoisted the girl onto his knee. “That chap we met calls himself Judge Quinzy. Whether Quinzy’s his real name I can’t say, but he’s definitely not a judge.”

  Penelope was bursting to know: “And the Hixby’s?”

  His expression grew serious. “It’s just as you guessed, Miss Lumley. I checked every bookshop from here to Charing Cross. There are no Hixby’s guides, of any kind, anywhere. Nobody’s ever heard of them. What you’ve got there is sui generis.”

  “Latin?” Beowulf asked excitedly.

  “Clever boy! Latin it is. ‘Sui generis’ it means ‘one of a kind.’ As for Madame Ionesco, the missing Gypsy, what with being in jail and all, I haven’t been able to conduct a thorough search for her just yet. However, on the way over I did manage to come into possession of these—”

  As if all the rest were not extraordinary enough, Simon now proceeded to reach into his vest pocket, from which he produced a fistful of tickets. At first Penelope was taken aback; all she could think of was that man outside Buckingham Palace, selling tickets to the pauper’s food line.

  “Are those—tickets?” she gasped.

  “Not just tickets, Miss Lumley. Theater tickets!” He grinned. “Remember I told you I was acquainted with the stage manager at the Drury Lane? And they had a new show, opening tonight, as it happens? Apparently the King of Belgium, or Hungary, or some other midsized European nation, bought a whole box for the premiere and then canceled due to a civil war breaking out, so my friend had some extra seats to dispose of. Five, in fact.”

  “Theater tickets! You don’t mean—” Penelope could scarcely believe it.

  “That’s right, Miss Lumley.” Already the children were swaggering about like sailors; Alexander had put up a hand to cover one eye. “We’re going to see Pirates on Holiday.”

  THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER

  The audience goes wild,

  and so do the actors.

  “DON’T LOOK NOW, BUT EVERYTHING’S about to change,” warned Agatha Swanburne, and the wise woman was right as usual. The fickle Fulcrum of Fortune had seesawed back again, this time with Penelope on the upward-bound seat.

  In terms of luck, one might say the Incorrigible children and Simon were zooming skyward as well, for soon they would all be enjoying the premiere performance of Pirates on Holiday from the luxurious comfort of the Royal Box. Five tickets, free of charge! This was an unexpected development indeed.

  Perhaps it was the abrupt change in altitude, but Penelope was practically light-headed with joy. However, she had not completely lost her grip. She knew it was optoomuchstic to think they might get through the evening without running into the Ashtons, or to imagine that such an encounter would be anything less than extremely unpleasant. What explanation would she give for her presence at the Drury Lane Theater?

  “The truth is always best,” she concluded as she quickly assembled clean clothes for the children and brushed the dust off her one and only hat. And who could worry about such things now? If they were going to make the curtain, they had to leave at once. Simon assured her it would be fast
est to walk, since the streets around the theater got so congested in the evenings that even the omnibus could scarcely pass. Nor was there time to feed the children a proper dinner, and the kitchen was all out of biscuits. Penelope trusted that the excitement onstage would be enough to engage their attention until snacks could be provided, after the show.

  “Moon, moon, moon, moon, moon,” the children counted as they marched along. Penelope assumed they were thinking of the circled dates in Lord Fredrick’s almanac, but no; they were passing one of those long, rectangular, neoclassical buildings one saw so often in London, with scores of windows all in a row. Each window framed a reflection of the moon, which had risen even as they walked. It was as full as a moon could be, round as a dinner plate and glowing with an eerie blue-white light.

  “Say, children,” said Simon, after the “moon, moon, moon” chant began to grow tiresome. “I know another song you might like. It’s about Drury Lane, and we’re on our way to the Drury Lane Theater. I’ll teach it to you.”

  He did, and now he and the children sang:

  “Do you know the Muffawoo?

  The Muffawoo, the Muffawoo!

  Do you know the Muffawoo,

  Who lives on Drury Lane? Woof!” all the way to the theater.

  Penelope did not join in. She kept glancing up at the moon, and thinking of Lord Fredrick and his odd behavior. She thought of the sui generis Hixby’s guidebook, the fictitious Judge Quinzy, and the mysterious danger Miss Mortimer had warned her about. She thought of the Incorrigible children’s “unusual background,” and the long-lost Lumleys, too.

  Penelope had already done quite a bit of math that day, between teaching the children how to figure the area of a triangle and performing a thorough review of the multiplication tables, but at the moment she only longed to “put two and two together,” as the saying goes, and come up with some sort of answer that made sense.