“BLAST!” IT WAS LORD FREDRICK Ashton’s favorite exclamation, but for once his outburst had nothing to do with the date of the next full moon. “A baby, a baby, a baby!” he muttered as he paged through his almanac. “Dr. Veltshmerz says the little tyke’ll arrive at the beginning of May. Only a month away, and still so much to do. I must hire a new baby nurse, first of all. That mopey Russian girl didn’t work out. Just as well! I never liked the looks of her, with those stooped shoulders and darting, shifty eyes. And the baby’s room has to be made ready. What sort of wallpaper does a baby like? I’ve no idea. I’ll have to let Mrs. Clarke manage it. Then there’s Constance to contend with. Big as a house, but still in good spirits! I’m sure I wouldn’t be, if I were waddling about at three times my normal size the way she is. Do you have any children, Quinzy? I don’t expect you do. I’ve never heard you mention them, what?”
His guest slumped in one of the armchairs that faced the row of ancestral portraits in Lord Fredrick’s study. The man’s face was thin and pale, with raw, weather-scarred patches on his cheeks. A shock of black hair spilled across his forehead like ink.
“My family tree does have a touch of mystery about it,” he replied after a pause. “But if I had a child, Fredrick, you would surely know all about him.”
It was a sly answer, for the man in the chair most certainly did have a child. “Judge Quinzy” was merely a role he played, as if he were an actor on the stage. In reality he was Lord Fredrick’s own father, Edward Ashton! (That a son would not recognize his father may seem hard to believe, but Lord Fredrick’s eyesight was notoriously poor. Too, in his current state, Quinzy hardly resembled the stout, silver-haired Edward Ashton who gazed forbiddingly from the portrait that hung not ten feet away. Only the eyes were the same, penetrating and dark, but Quinzy concealed his behind thick-lensed glasses.)
“Yet I approve of children, in principle,” the imposter went on. “Without them, who would carry on the line? The day your wife adds a fresh twig to the Ashton family tree will be a memorable occasion, I have no doubt.” His voice was cool and even, but his ceaseless finger drumming could not hide the tremor in his hands. Edward Ashton knew what his son did not: that there was a terrible curse on the Ashtons that could only be ended by an even more terrible crime. It was the crime he had spent most of his life planning, and it had to be carried out before the birth of Fredrick’s child. Yet here he sat, shaking like a leaf in autumn, with only one moon left and his duty as yet unfulfilled!
“Fresh twig, quite right.” Out of habit, Lord Fredrick patted his pockets for a cigar. He found none, for the smell of cigar smoke had grown offensive to his wife’s increasingly sensitive nose, and he had ordered Mrs. Clarke, the head housekeeper, to remove all cigars from the premises months ago. “What do you think I ought to name the little fellow? It’ll be a boy, of course. We only seem to have boys, we Ashtons!”
“Only boys, eh? Curious . . .” Here again the imposter knew more than his son, for there had been an Ashton girl, once. A secret sister, whose name and existence had been blotted out. Now the memory of her was all but erased, as if it had been written in invisible ink.
“I could name the child after my father.” Lord Fredrick was still prattling about the baby. “But perhaps that’s a bad idea. The old chap came to a gooey, gruesome end, after all. What do you think, Quinzy? Is it bad luck to name the child Edward?”
“Quinzy” did not answer, for Edward Ashton had sunk into his own half-mad thoughts. Bad luck to be named Edward? Perhaps, but not because of that blasted medicinal tar pit at the spa of Gooden-Baaden, where he had faked his own death so many years before. That was the path he had chosen: to die to all who knew him, and to all he knew—his devoted wife, his bumbling, nearsighted son, his palatial home, his vast fortune. And yet he lived on in secret, under many names and disguises, including “Judge Quinzy.” In this way, he could attend to his wicked task freely, anonymously, without bringing more scandal to the name of Ashton.
You are a monster. So the insolent young governess had said when she learned the full, murderous scope of his plan. But was he? Simply because he had vowed to save his family, no matter the cost?
If you want a monster to blame, blame the admiral. He cast a bitter glance at the portrait of his grandfather, the vain and selfish Admiral Percival Racine Ashton, who wreck’d his ship on an enchanted isle and carelessly murdered a litter of sacred wolflings, as if they were a brace of grouse on his own estate!
Blame the mother wolf, wild with grief for her slain cubs, and the vengeful curse she had unleashed upon the admiral and all his tribe!
Or blame my father. Yes, blame Pax Ashton, for being too weak to resist his fate. The admiral and his wife met gruesome ends, true, but it was their son Pax whose spirit was curdled by the wolf’s curse. Overnight he turned cruelly against his own twin. He cast her out and ordered her name never to be spoken and all record of her existence destroyed, as if his own once-beloved sister, Agatha—yes, Agatha Ashton was the secret sister’s name!—had never been born at all.
From that day, the family tree had been split in two: Pax and his descendants on one side, Agatha and hers on the other. It was just as the mother wolf had foretold. And now it fell upon him, Edward Ashton, to put things right. He knew what he must do before Fredrick’s child was born, and he would do it, too. On that point he was fixed and unwavering as the North Star itself.
Only one side of the family can remain, or both will perish from the earth.
Which meant if he failed, there would be no more Ashtons, ever again, never, never, nevermore—
“Quinzy, are you listening? I said, how was Switzerland?”
Through sheer will Edward dragged his attention back to his unknowing son. “Switzerland!” He managed a wan smile. “Marvelous country. The Alps are sublime, the marmots endearing. Not to mention the proud ibexes, the flocks of agile goats, the countless rustic villages . . .”
Blasted Switzerland! For two months he had hiked and climbed those snow-capped peaks in the bitterest winter weather, with only his crampons and pickax for company. He had searched every one of those sickeningly quaint villages, with their happy yodelers and endless mugs of hot chocolate, but to no avail. If Switzerland were a person, he would have turned it upside down and given it a good shake to see what fell out of its pockets. If it were a sofa, he would have removed all the cushions and felt his way ’round the edges with his fingertips, the way one might search for enough loose change to pay one’s fare on the omnibus.
And what had he found? Nothing.
It was as if the long-lost Lumleys had vanished from the face of the earth.
Still, he did not quit. To learn the habits of one’s prey was essential; every hunter knew this. He studied the Lumleys as painstakingly as a poet studies the clouds, or as a birdwatcher studies her warblers and nuthatches. He visited every bookshop that carried melancholy German poetry in translation, and every art gallery that showed sentimental watercolors of mountain lakes and alpine meadows. He had seen so many paintings of edelweiss, that cheerful white flower that dots the Alps each spring, that he sometimes found himself doodling pictures in the margins of his train tickets.
But so far, at least, the prey had eluded the hunter. Exhausted and sick, he had slunk back to England to recover, to think, and to scheme. What had he missed?
“You picked a chilly time of year to visit Switzerland, if you ask me,” Fredrick said in a jovial tone. “But to each his own. Next winter I might just do as Constance wants and book us a trip to the Italian Riviera. At least we’ll get some sun that way. Of course, next year there’ll be the baby to think of. . . .”
If there is a next year, for any of us. Once more Edward Ashton lifted his eyes to the ancestral portraits. His gaze lingered—how could it not?—on his own likeness, that of the “late” Edward Ashton. The governess had figured out his secret, for all the good it had done her. Thanks to him she was trapped in Plinkst, as fitting a place as any to await one�
�s doom. The other three were upstairs, innocent as spring lambs, going about their business in the nursery under the drooping eye of that new tutor, that fool, Gogolev—
“But there were five cubs,” Edward Ashton hissed, rising blindly from his seat. “Five cubs killed means five to be avenged. . . .”
“Five of clubs, did you say? Afraid I don’t have time for cards today, not with this baby of mine chug-chug-chugging ’round the bend. But perhaps you’ll take some refreshment before you go? You look a bit peaky, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
Whereupon the current lord of Ashton Place jumped up to help his wobbly, not-really-dead father back to a comfortable chair. “Easy there, Quinzy, old chap,” he said kindly. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost! This trip to Switzerland seems to have worn you out, what? You’d best stay here at Ashton Place and recuperate. It’s much homier than at the club. No, no, I insist! What’s the point of having a house with so many rooms if people don’t stay in ’em?”
“You are quite right, Fredrick. I am not well.” Behind the windburn, Edward Ashton’s cheeks were bone white, and his black eyes glittered with fever. Still, an ember of hope kindled deep within him. What could be more perfect than to regain his strength here, at home? For surely Ashton Place was his home, as much as it was anyone’s.
“I accept your generous offer,” he said, overcome with weariness. “I have always felt at home at Ashton Place. In truth, there is no place else I would rather be.”
Fredrick clapped him on the back. “That’s the spirit. I’m no medical doctor, mind you, but if I were, I’d prescribe a nice cup of tea, and a biscuit or two to perk you up. Stay where you are, and I’ll ring for Mrs. Clarke. We can hear her thoughts on the wallpaper, how’s that? Ahwoof—pardon me!”
He frowned as he tugged on the bellpull. “Yap! Seems I’ve got a bit of a cold coming on. No cause for alarm. They come and go with me, every four weeks or so. Arf! That is to say, ah-choo! Hand me the almanac, would you, Quinzy? It tends to wander off if I don’t put it right back on the shelf. Why, you’d think the book was cursed, woof!”
But Quinzy, or Edward Ashton, or call him what you will, had gone limp in the chair. His eyes roved wildly beneath closed lids, and he did not stir, except to mutter something unintelligible. To a careful listener it might have sounded like “The fifth . . . where is the fifth . . . ?”
Lord Fredrick grabbed the almanac himself and squinted at the pages. “Blasted moon! I’ve mixed it up again. Looks like I’ll be laid up all day tomorrow, and with so much to do, arf! I’d best get an ad in the paper for a baby nurse, quick.”
THE SECOND CHAPTER
“But what of the Incorrigible children?” and questions of that ilk.
AS AGATHA SWANBURNE REMARKED ON the occasion of her eightieth birthday, when presented with a totally unexpected cake, “Well, well! Life is certainly full of surprises!”
As usual, the wise founder was right—but really, what were the odds? The usually optimistic Penelope Lumley was sighing like a Russian in unhappy Plinkst. The usually self-possessed Edward Ashton was muttering and half mad after his failed tour of Switzerland. And the usually gruff and unsentimental Lord Fredrick Ashton was discussing wallpaper with Mrs. Clarke and cheerily picking baby names, and with a full moon coming on, too!
Even Lady Constance had slipped “out of character,” as Simon Harley-Dickinson might say (he was a man of the theater, after all). The usually vain and anxious mother-to-be spent her afternoons waddling contentedly through the new tulip garden. The tulip bulbs had been homely as turnips when planted, but a winter spent underground had worked its magic. Now graceful whorls of green leaves poked through the damp soil, and the stalks had begun to rise, with only a tender green swelling where the flower buds would very soon be.
Mother Nature had planned it all perfectly, for the tulips showed every intention of bursting into bloom four weeks hence, at the beginning of May, just as the Barking—that is to say, Bouncing—Baby Ashton was due to arrive. By then the moon would be full once more.
Truly, it would be a big week for blossomings.
NOW, THIS TALK OF TULIPS is all very well—but what of the Incorrigible children?
It is an excellent question. It was the same question that Penelope asked as she awoke every unhappy morning in Plinkst, and that Miss Charlotte Mortimer brooded upon each evening, in the headmistress’s office at the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females. (It should be noted that Miss Mortimer had taken some mysterious trips of her own in recent months. “As Agatha Swanburne often said, ‘Mind your business, for if you don’t, who will?’” she replied briskly, when the girls dared to ask about her travels. “Now, who among you can name the capital of Sweden? Back to work, please!” Clap clap clap!)
Even Simon Harley-Dickinson must have wondered, from his ever-changing position in the theatrical firmament: What had become of Alexander, Beowulf, and Cassiopeia Incorrigible, the three wards of Lord Fredrick Ashton, of Ashton Place, England? Were they safe and in good health? Were they keeping up with their studies? Was Alexander still growing taller by the day, and had Beowulf managed to give up his habit of gnawing on hard objects when anxious, and was little Cassiopeia (not so little anymore!) attempting to read her own Giddy-Yap, Rainbow! stories at bedtime, now that her devoted governess was no longer there to read them to her?
What news of the brave Incorrigibles, indeed?
As is so often the case, there was both good news and bad news to report. The good news was that the Incorrigible children still lived in their well-appointed nursery on the third floor of Ashton Place, as they had done since the day a newly hired Miss Lumley had found them huddled in the barn, wild haired and howling after being caught by Lord Fredrick during a hunting expedition.
How frightened they had been! And how close they had come to meeting a gruesome end in the forest, which only the quick thinking of the coachman, Old Timothy, had prevented! Yet they would rather relive that awful day a thousand times—no! a thousand times a thousand (which equals one million, as Cassiopeia could tell you without even using her abacus)—than endure even once more the cold January afternoon on the pier at Brighton, when dear Lumawoo was shipped off to Plinkst before their weeping eyes, and even the deepest breaths of the good salt air could not loosen the knots of grief in their hearts.
Still, the Incorrigible children had not been raised by a Swanburne girl for nothing. To give in to despair was not their way. All three were in good health and fair spirits, and they went about their days, if not happily, at least without complaint. They took their baths and made their beds and put their toys back in the toy chest before bedtime, for that is what Lumawoo would have wanted. Oddly, her absence made them all the more keen to act as they knew she would wish. Perhaps it was a way of imagining her close by, for unlike the Babushkawoos’, their nursery was equipped with an actual globe, and they understood all too well how very far away she was.
Only on rare occasions did their good behavior falter: for example, when peas were unexpectedly served at luncheon. At those times, a meaningful glance from the stronger willed to the weaker was usually all it took to set them back on track.
As for the bad news: their education was now in the hands of the glum Russian tutor, Master Gogolev, who had formerly worked for the Babushkinovs.
Imagine! From Miss Penelope Lumley to Karl Romanovich Gogolev! Penelope could have made a lesson out of it, for Shakespeare had described a similarly unhappy swap in his tragic play Hamlet. It is in the scene where the ghost of Hamlet’s father returns from Beyond the Veil to discuss his own murder with his son. “O HAMlet, WHAT a FALLing OFF was THERE!” the dead king proclaims, in a spooky iambic pentameter. By this the ghost king means that his murderer, Claudius, who has married Hamlet’s widowed mother, the queen, and thus become king of Denmark himself (as had been his scheme all along, the villain!) is far less qualified as both king and husband than the dead king himself had been when he was alive.
To take
a cue from Shakespeare, then, the switch from peerless Penelope to morose Master Gogolev might well make a person say, “O children, what a falling off was there!” But Master Gogolev was too distracted by his own troubles to give a lesson on Hamlet. Nor was he interested in being king of Denmark. He had begged for the job at Ashton Place for one reason only: it was because of Julia, the former nurse to Baby Max Babushkinov.
As they say nowadays, Julia was no prize. She was a careless nurse, anxious and self-pitying, with no more brains than an ostrich (as any ornithologist could tell you, the eyeballs of an ostrich take up most of its skull, with only the tiniest bit of room left for brains). Nevertheless, Gogolev was hopelessly in love with Julia, while Julia found him absurd and offered only scorn and mockery in return. It was a rare flash of good sense when he pleaded to be sent far away from the daily torment of her stoop-shouldered, darting-eyed presence. Captain Babushkinov consented, and that is how Gogolev came to replace Penelope, who had already been hired to replace Gogolev.
But alas, poor Gogolev! More woe was in store for him, for at the eleventh hour, Julia was also hired by the Ashtons, who would soon need a baby nurse of their own. (Those of you with poetic licenses know that “at the eleventh hour” is a way of saying “at the very last minute.” Also note that the eleventh hour in the morning is the perfect time to enjoy a cup of tea, but the eleventh hour at night is a time when only stage actors and theater critics ought to be up and about. No doubt Miss Lumley would advise all of us to stick to early bedtimes. In the words of Agatha Swanburne, “When the sun is up, so must you be! When the sun is down, so must you be, too!”)
The Long-Lost Home Page 2
