The Mysterious Howling: Chapter 3–6

Reckless personalities may do foolish and extravagant things, such as buying a yacht even if they are prone to seasickness and do not know their port side from their aft, while more cautious souls might busy themselves with trivial, repetitive tasks as they wait for the surprise to wear off.

Reckless personalities may do foolish and extravagant things, such as buying a yacht even if they are prone to seasickness and do not know their port side from their aft, while more cautious souls might busy themselves with trivial, repetitive tasks as they wait for the surprise to wear off.

Reckless personalities may do foolish and extravagant things, such as buying a yacht even if they are prone to seasickness and do not know their port side from their aft, while more cautious souls might busy themselves with trivial, repetitive tasks as they wait for the surprise to wear off.

Penelope’s trunk was brought up to a small, second-floor bedroom, and Mrs. Clarke sent a young lady’s maid named Margaret upstairs to help “put away your frocks and bonnets,” as the girl explained in her shy, squeaky voice.

There it was again—the baying, barking, and howling of the dogs. Could they be hungry again so soon after being fed? Did they miss their master and long for the thrill of the hunt? Or was there something else amiss?

There it was again—the baying, barking, and howling of the dogs. Could they be hungry again so soon after being fed? Did they miss their master and long for the thrill of the hunt? Or was there something else amiss?

“Since the children are not yet ready to make my acquaintance,” she thought, seizing her cloak, “I have no duties to speak of and, therefore, none I can be accused of shirking.”

“Hallooooo!’ the eldest boy replied, in a soft, lilting howl.

When Mr. Alpo arrived, halter in hand, to take his prize, how shocked he and the Krupps were to see Drusilla perched happily on Silky’s back!

Naturally Mrs. Clarke had been amazed by the sight of three filthy children slowly settling themselves into the dirt and hay at Penelope’s feet, drawn by her voice and rapt as kindergartners, although surely they could not understand a word of Penelope’s story—but Mrs. Clarke herself was now weeping uncontrollably at the tale of Rainbow and Silky.

Penelope, meanwhile, could not erase the leering, pocked face of Mr. Alpo—for that is how she imagined him to look—from her mind’s eye, and it simply made her desire to protect the children all the more urgent.

“You signed a contract! Oh, please, Miss Lumley! Do not leave us before you begin! I am beside myself. It is only six months since Lord Fredrick and I were married. I am not fond of children in general, and to suddenly become the foster mother to three—and to three such wild, dirty, incorrigible creatures—well, I am quite over my head!”

She popped a small chocolate into her mouth, clutched at her temples, and swooned. Luckily Penelope’s reflexes were swift, and she caught her new mistress before she hit the floor.

She also instructed the kitchen to bake plum cakes, and the scent of fruit and cinnamon was already wafting through the house. It had even permeated Lord Fredrick’s study, where she now sat across from the man himself, waiting for him to speak.

She could forgive the enigmatic coachman, Mrs. Clarke, and even silly Lady Constance for concealing the truth from her until after she had accepted the position, but she really was quite furious that the children had been locked in the barn.

“We’d ventured deep into the woods, deeper than usual, until we wandered into a clearing and startled some birds into the air. I’d gotten off a shot at a good-sized something or other, maybe a pheasant. Old Timothy was certain I’d hit it, but neither of us saw where it fell, so we set the dogs loose to find it. Instead, they flushed those three ragamuffins out of the underbrush, naked as the day they were born and yapping and howling like a litter of wolf cubs.”

“Although excitable and in need of calisthenics, she is also warmhearted and efficient. She would have had the makings of a Swanburne girl, given the right training and encouragement. Well, it is never too late to improve oneself!”

She spoke with some trepidation, due to the fact that Penelope had lived most of her life in an all-girls’ school and had as little knowledge of how to fasten boys’ trousers as Alexander and Beowulf.

“Cassawoof!” Cassiopeia barked obligingly from the loveseat on the other side of the room. She had one woolen stocking pulled halfway up her arm and was flapping it around with delight.

Seeing these three waifs in their cast-off state broke her heart a little.

She began the letter by thanking her former headmistress profusely, and then went on:
As for my three pupils: They are Alexander, Beowulf and...Cassiopeia...

They do not seem to speak any language other than barking, howling, and some strange guttural noises they use among themselves.

But they are clever mimics, and I have no doubt that they will soon be prattling away.

Alexander loped across the nursery, fetched a ball out of the toy trunk, and brought it back to drop at Penelope’s feet.

“Now, Cassiopeia—doily!” With some guidance (on the first attempt she grabbed a doll in a lacy dress), Cassiopeia succeeded in bringing a doily back to Penelope.

Obviously the children were already well acquainted with nature, but giving plants their botanical names would serve as a good introduction to Latin, as well as to each kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, and so forth.

Obviously the children were already well acquainted with nature, but giving plants their botanical names would serve as a good introduction to Latin, as well as to each kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, and so forth.

However, Penelope was already feeling quite worn out from her first full day as a governess, and privately she hoped the children would forego educational pursuits and simply romp about in the falling leaves and wear themselves out a bit before supper.

Even with so many interesting thoughts in her head, Penelope found herself stifling a yawn. She was tired and hungry and imagined the children were as well.

Penelope had gazed upon the inscription countless times since she was a young girl no bigger than Cassiopeia, but its message had never seemed so apropos to her personal predicament as it did now: “No hopeless case is truly without hope.”

Truly, sometimes Penelope felt as if the wise founder of her alma mater were speaking directly through the ages, just to her.

“After all,” she thought, “the children can hardly be blamed for their uncivilized condition—no more than poor Silky could be blamed for his, or the Poor Bright Females of Swanburne Academy for their lack of solvent relatives!”

It was riveting to watch—nowadays it would make a fine documentary for broadcast on a nature channel on cable television—but there was a seemingly endless number of squirrels on the grounds of the estate, and they rendered Penelope’s outdoor excursions with the children much too full of excitement to be truly enjoyable.

“I was merely being prudent,” Lord Fredrick replied, in his merry, thoughtless way, “in case we find another twenty-three grubby children wandering in the forest. Twenty-six letters in the alphabet, what!”

“Nothing is wrong with the name of Ashton, dear husband! That is the point. Ashton is an ancient and noble name. A name ripe with glorious history. A name with illustrious and, dare I say, wealthy associations. What will happen when we have a child, Fredrick? That is who should bear the family name. Not these—these—incorrigibles!”

“These three vagabonds are not Ashtons. Not Ashtons at all. They are the Incorrigibles, indeed—and that is what we shall call them, from now on.”

“Beowulf Incorrigible! Cassiopeia Incorrigible! Three more unwieldy names would be difficult to imagine. But, as the saying goes, ‘Nothing good was ever learned from eavesdropping, so mind your business and let others mind theirs.’”

The branches were mostly bare of leaves now, and the squirrels were in full-fledged autumnal hysteria, frantically seeking nuts and burying them everywhere their tiny one-track minds could think of.

“Down, Beowulf!” Penelope pulled hard on his ankle and brandished some tasty biscuits with her free hand.

She maneuvered all three of them back into position at the base of the tree and implored them to stay, just for a few seconds this time.