The Interrupted Tale: Chapters 2–3

“Oh, how glorious to be a postal worker!” she thought as she spread her treasures across the ottoman, so as to have the satisfaction of seeing them all at once.

It contained comical descriptions of life in Witherslack, as well as a tasty-sounding recipe for Hungarian goulash that called for vast amounts of paprika.

What with all her responsibilities as governess, not to mention the endless parade of mysterious events that seemed to crop up willy-nilly at Ashton Place, she had not written to her friend nearly as often as she should.

Indeed, Penelope suspected that Quinzy might actually be Lord Fredrick Ashton’s father, Edward Ashton, who had long been presumed dead after meeting a gruesome end in a medicinal tar pit during an otherwise pleasant spa vacation.

We plan a day of festivities and a delicious dinner, followed by speeches that I hope will be both pithy and wise, as Agatha Swanburne herself would wish.

There was little chance that the spoiled young mistress of Ashton Place would become a benefactor to Swanburne—or Swansong, as she sometimes glibly called the school.

Lady Constance sounded petulant.

She carried a frilly parasol against the sun, and twirled it to and fro in irritation.

“It will not require any exertion, I promise. But if you could imagine that it were spring right now...”

Immediately, she wished she had not been so direct, for Lady Constance’s expression looked suddenly brittle, like a soft bread roll gone stale and hard.

“What nerve! Asking me for a donation to support the Sunburne School. It is a short letter, thank goodness, and her handwriting is very neat. But really! If one wants money, one ought to inherit it from one’s parents, as I did, or failing that, one ought to marry a rich person, as I also did. That is the proper way to get money, Miss Lumley. One does not simply go around asking for it.”

“Miss Lumley, if I decide to pay you your salary, are you going to squander it on gifts, or hide it in a piggy bank somewhere? Or will you be sensible with it, and spend it on something worthwhile?”

“Well, you do put up with those dreadful children, and so you shall be paid your salary. You must give the steward a note of instruction from me. Write it and sign my name; you know better than anyone what you are owed.”

It would be most unseemly to draw attention to yourself in that way.”

Penelope’s embarrassment blew her back to the house like a skiff caught in a hurricane.

(As Agatha Swanburne once said, “The most eloquent letter says nothing if it cannot be read.”)

Then she wrote the amount, whimsically added Yours in both sun and shade, and signed Lady Constance’s name with a flourish.

Her good mood restored and ample money for train tickets in her apron pocket, Penelope climbed the stairs back to the nursery.

The boys looked crestfallen, and Penelope rushed to explain.

Penelope had tried to conjure the scene so many times that she no longer could tell what was memory and what was simply her own imagined version of the day.

Her reverie was broken by a whimper.

Besides, their excitement about cake had reminded her of an important task that she would have done at once, except that the urgency of Miss Mortimer’s summons had knocked it out of her mind: She needed to write a thank-you note to Mrs. Clarke for organizing that wonderful surprise birthday party.

The tune for this ditty was suspiciously like a tune from Pirates on Holiday, the nautical operetta whose first act Penelope and the children had witnessed while visiting London some months earlier.

All three children rapidly fired their slingshots into the void.

On cue, the children began to sing.