“You two looked lovely in the veils, by the way,” said Jeffrey when the delicate creations were back in their boxes, miraculously still in pristine condition.
“Maybe we can keep them until we get married.” Lydia took one last look before the lids went back on.
“I doubt I’ll wear a veil, let alone one Jeffrey’s mother picked out,” said Batty. “If I even get married.”
“That’s a long way off for both of you,” said Jeffrey. “We can talk about veils when the time comes.”
THE LAST OF THE wedding guests was gone, and only a few Penderwicks remained—Lydia’s parents and Jane—and her parents were in their car and ready to go. Lydia, to her enormous delight, wasn’t going with them. Instead, she was staying on at Arundel until the summer was over and school about to begin.
“You’re certain you don’t want to come home, Lyds?”
“Mom.” She’d already answered this question five times this morning.
“Iantha,” said Lydia’s father. “Wouldn’t you stay here if you were eleven?”
“You know I would.” Iantha hugged Lydia again—for the fifth time—and got into the car. “We’ll be back in a week and a half to get you. Have fun with Alice.”
Now it was her father’s turn for a hug.
“Thank you for translating my motto,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome. It’s a good one. We love you—be safe and well.”
Lydia had chosen her motto near the end of the wedding procession while she was doing her final turn. “I dance to my destiny.” Ad fatum meum salto. It covered everything important, and Lydia loved how it felt to say, the syllables rolling off her tongue. She waved good-bye to her parents, still scarcely believing she’d been given a reprieve. It had come at almost the last minute, after the wedding cakes and before the speeches, and it had been Jane’s idea. She’d said that if she didn’t have to go back to work, she’d want to stay at Arundel forever, and Lydia said that she did want to stay forever, and Jane said, so then, why didn’t she, at least until school started? Jane then asked Natalie and Cagney, who discussed it with Lydia’s parents, and before long, Alice and Lydia were celebrating to the band’s raucous version of “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
When her parents’ car had disappeared down the lane, Lydia danced her way to the carriage house, chanting Ad fatum meum salto, Ad fatum meum salto. She needed to see Jane before she, too, was gone, to ask her a question—intriguing, startling, and important. It had come to Lydia that morning as she was drifting awake. Not all at once, but in pieces, as memories popped, scenes flashed, and hints untangled. Veils and wings, Mrs. Tifton and Jane, Wesley and…Wesley, songs, and jitterbugs, until they were fitting together like jigsaw pieces, into a picture that was either nonsense or excitingly possible. Lydia was going to find out from Jane which of those was true.
When she got to the carriage house, Jane was loading a box of books into her clunky old car. The sewing machine, ironing board, and dress dummies had gone home in Flashvan with Batty and Ben, but Jane always kept her books near.
“Nothing yet from Alice?” Jane asked. “Still no idea about the secret?”
Lydia had been banished from the cottage since after breakfast and told not to come back until she was summoned. Alice had a surprise brewing, which she’d said Lydia would probably like, but if she didn’t, they could just ignore it. Lydia had tried to guess, but Alice wouldn’t even listen, telling Lydia she would never get it right and had to be patient. But she couldn’t be stopped from thinking about it and, after dismissing a few wild ideas—like a pony come to live at the cottage—had decided on something more prosaic, and thus possible.
“I think it might be another chicken, to give Hatshepsut a new interest, now that Hitch is gone.”
“Another chicken would be fun. Maybe I’ll find a way to fit a chicken into my book.”
“The chicken wouldn’t time-travel, would it? Because I’m not sure they’d like it.”
“Good point. The chicken can be in one of the pasts my detective visits, maybe the one in which Philippa meets Pieter de Hooch, the painter. What do you think?”
Lydia thought she’d need more information about Pieter de Hooch before deciding. She also still thought that Lydia Nel would be a better name than Philippa Nel for Jane’s heroine, but she had more important matters to discuss. “Jane, I have a question.”
“Pieter de Hooch would have to be a side story. I don’t want to write a mere time-traveling romance. I want to make some solid points about the validity of art as done by the individual.”
“Jane—”
“I thought of Rembrandt instead of De Hooch, but that’s too obvious.”
“Jane!”
“What?”
“I have a question.” Lydia took a deep breath. “Remember when I asked why you wouldn’t promise Mrs. Tifton that none of us would marry Jeffrey, and you said it was a matter of principle?”
“Yes, I remember.” Jane began to fuss with her books, rearranging the ones at the top of the box. “Was that your question?”
“Just the first part.” Lydia waited until Jane was looking at her instead of the books. “I think it was more than a matter of principle. I think you didn’t want to promise because Batty might marry Jeffrey someday, and you didn’t want your promise to be a lie. Even to make Mrs. Tifton stop being angry, you didn’t want to lie.”
“And you want to know whether or not that’s true?”
“Yes, please.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“Oh! I didn’t, I mean—” Lydia was trying to figure out how she felt, and wished she’d done it before asking the question. “Batty’s only eight years older than I am, and I haven’t even had a real crush yet!”
“Don’t panic, Lyds,” said Jane. “You said ‘someday,’ remember? If Batty and Jeffrey do get married, it won’t happen until she’s older, when they’re both older. Like in seven or eight years.”
“And you think they will.”
“I think they might. This could be a phantasm. I have no idea what Batty thinks or if she’s even considered it. And I won’t ever ask her unless she brings it up. Skye and Rosy are both more certain than I am—Skye swears they’re perfect for each other.”
“Then Batty is Jeffrey’s destiny.”
“That’s what Wesley said, actually, when he called me the night before he left. He also said that you and Alice helped him figure it out.”
“We did?” But she hadn’t known herself.
“That’s what he said,” said Jane. “It seems that Wesley noticed more than we’d given him credit for. On the other hand, he also said my first big success will be with a series of novels, maybe five of them.”
“That could happen.”
“I don’t want to write a series.”
Here came Lydia’s signal, the call of the eastern towhee. Ly-di-AH-AH-AH-AH.
“That’s Alice. She’s ready for me. But, Jane—”
“Everything’s going to be okay, Lyds, honest, whatever happens. And look at it this way. Mrs. Tifton is so certain one of us is after Jeffrey—she can’t be wrong about everything, can she?”
“Poor old Mrs. Tifton.” Now that Lydia was certain Mrs. Tifton wouldn’t suddenly reappear—Jeffrey had said she planned to go back to New York City any minute—Lydia could afford to feel a little sorry for her.
Jane didn’t agree with Lydia’s sympathy. “Poor Mrs. Tifton! Poor us, if she becomes Batty’s mother-in-law!”
Ly-di-AH-AH-AH-AH.
“I should go,” said Lydia.
Jane hugged her fiercely. “Yes, go, and don’t think too much about Batty and Jeffrey. Just have a wonderful time being eleven at Arundel. I’m jealous, sort of. No, I’m not really. I’ve had another idea for Philippa—”
“Who should be called Lydia
.”
“No, she shouldn’t! Go! Go, before Alice runs out of whistles.”
Ly-di-AH-AH-AH-AH. Ly-di-AH-AH-AH-AH. Ly-di-AH-AH-AH-AH.
Three times! The eastern towhee was getting impatient. Lydia hugged Jane, one last time, before sprinting off to the hedge tunnel. A quick wave to the lily pond—she’d already told the frogs she was staying for another week and a half—and onward. Another wave to Zeus, and an extra spurt of speed to get her through the tunnel, and—
CRASH! Lydia slammed her head into something surprisingly solid. She fell, stunned. She didn’t think she was badly damaged, but for now it felt best to keep her eyes closed.
“Are you unconscious?” asked someone in a panic, and Lydia felt a breeze on her face. “Please tell me, are you dying?”
Her eyes fluttered open, then shut again. In that brief moment, she’d seen a Canadiens hat being waved over her—that had been the breeze—and, beyond the hat, a boy with a cast on his arm. She must have bumped into the cast.
“Some chicken,” she murmured.
“What did you say?” he asked. “Are you babbling?”
The hedge tunnel got more crowded—Alice had joined them.
“Jack!” she said. “What did you do to Lydia? Why does she look dead?”
“She kind of ran into my cast.”
“Kind of! It looks like you slugged her with it. I wanted you to surprise her, not murder her. Lydia, Lydia, can you hear me? It’s Alice and my stupid brother.”
“She’s not dead,” said Jack.
“Not yet, anyway. She could be on her way out.”
Lydia smiled, trying to reassure the Pelletiers that she wasn’t dying.
“Now she’s smiling at you, Jack, so she’s probably brain-dead.” Alice held up two fingers. “Lydia, how many fingers?”
Lydia opened her eyes. “Two.”
Jack held up four. “How many now?”
“Four. Hello, Jack. I didn’t know you were coming home.”
“Alice wanted to keep it a secret.”
“And, Lyds, aren’t you amazed I did, for twenty-seven entire hours?” asked Alice. “I found out yesterday while you were at your MOPS. Get this: Jack came home because he broke his arm falling out of a tree he was climbing in his hockey skates—because he’s the dumbest person on the planet—for a film he and Marcel were making that never would have been as good as our alien film.”
“You don’t know that, Alice,” he protested. “Our film was going to be really good.”
Lydia tried to sit up, but there wasn’t room.
“Don’t move,” said Alice. “It could be dangerous.”
“I’m okay, Alice, honest.”
“No thanks to my brother.”
“Shh,” said Jack. “Listen—is that who I think it is?”
The call had come from across the gardens. “Lydia!”
“I can’t believe it,” said Lydia. “She’s supposed to be on her way back to New York City.”
“Not until this afternoon,” said Alice. “That’s what she told Mom.”
“Lydia. Lydia!”
“She’s getting closer,” Jack whispered. “Do you want to see her?”
Someday Lydia might have to see Mrs. Tifton again, but that wouldn’t be for another seven or eight years. Until then, Mrs. Tifton was on her own.
“No, thank you.”
“Good, because I don’t, either. Alice, back up and give us room.”
Jack took Lydia’s hand to help her crawl out of the tunnel, then stand up, slowly and carefully, in case she had any effects from the bonking. But she felt fine—oh my goodness, she felt wonderful.
“Hurry,” said Alice.
“Ready, Lydia?” Jack asked. “Can you run?”
Could she? A bobolink warbled the answer.
“Yes,” said Lydia, all hope and exhilaration. “Yes, I can.”
And away they went, the three together, prancing, leaping, gamboling into the future.
When JEANNE BIRDSALL was young, she promised herself she’d be a writer someday—so that she could write books for children to discover and enjoy, just as she did at her local library. She is also the author of The Penderwicks, which won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, and The Penderwicks in Spring, all of which were New York Times bestsellers.
Jeanne lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, in a rambling house surrounded by gardens. Find out more about Jeanne and her books at JeanneBirdsall.com.
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The Penderwicks at Last Page 21
