The Unmapped Sea (18 page)

“Remarkable,” Penelope said as the Incorrigibles showed off their creations. “Are there really dinosaurs in the secret world of hermit crabs?”

Probably not, the children conceded, although secret dinosaurs could not be ruled out.

Lord Fredrick picked up a papier-mâché skull of a megalosaurus. “‘Alas, poor Yorick!'” he said, in a deep, theatrical tone.

“Shakespeare!” Alexander cried in recognition.

“Right you are, wolf boy. It's from
Hamlet
. We acted
it out at school when I was no older than you. ‘To be, or not to be!' I've forgotten most of it by now, but that line I remember. It was good fun being someone else for a change, as I recall. Bit of a relief, to be honest.”

“Now, now, lordawoo. Don't be
weltschmerz
.” Cassiopeia had spent more time with Lord Fredrick than her brothers had, and felt more familiar with him. Without shyness, she took him by the hand and led him to a chair. “Sit, relax, and enjoy the seaweed,” she advised as Veronika continued her nearly imperceptible Dance of the Fronds.

Lord Fredrick watched for a while, but soon grew distracted and gazed out the porthole window. “Wish I could remember more. There was a nice bit about ‘a sea of troubles,'” he said, still quoting
Hamlet
. “That's what I've got, a sea of troubles. Poor Constance! I do wish I could take her to Italy. It's not so much to ask, really.”

His face clouded with sadness, and the kindhearted Incorrigibles besieged him with offers of entertainment. Would he like a short lesson about mollusks? A rousing sea chantey? Perhaps he would like to make something out of papier-mâché?

“I know! Let's hear a poem from Lumawoo,” Beowulf suggested, and his siblings agreed readily, for with all the distractions of their holiday they had not
yet heard the poem their governess brought with her from Ashton Place.

The Babushkinov children were less eager, until Penelope announced that the poem she had chosen included a gloomy supernatural bird.

“It is not a raven, this time, but an albatross,” she explained.

“Gloomy birds make the best poems,” Beowulf assured the twins, and they grudgingly agreed to give it a try.

Lord Fredrick was still adrift on his sea of troubles, but he pulled up his chair to join the others. Someone even put Max on his knee, for who is not cheered by holding a baby? He did his best to prop up the child, and groaned comically at the boy's heft and damp diaper, but he did not give him up, even when Veronika offered to take him away.

Penelope took out the poetry book and opened it to the correct page. “This mysterious poem is by Mr. Samuel Coleridge. It is called ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.'” She had not given much thought to the title before, but now it struck her as a coincidence, for had she not recently met an ancient mariner with a taste for poetry?

She began to read it aloud, and although it was
not an easy poem to follow, the hypnotic beat of the poetic meter soon captured the attention of her listeners. Verse by verse, the ancient mariner of the title unfurled his tale of a long-ago sea voyage that went horribly, spookily wrong. By the time she reached the part where the doomed ship and its desperate crew were becalmed in some haunted, unmapped sea, with not even a breath of wind to move them along, even the Babushkawoos were wide-eyed.

“Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.”

“Eureka!” she cried, though it was not part of the poem. She turned to Lord Fredrick. “Never fear, my lord. Lady Constance will have her ship. It is all quite simple, really; I cannot imagine why I did not think of it before.”

Lord Fredrick nodded, but his eyes were closed and he waved at her to continue, for by now he, too, had become lost in the strange tale penned by Mr. Coleridge, and wished to hear the end. Simon looked at her with intense curiosity, but that discussion would have to wait until later. Calmly, on the outside at least, she continued to read.

“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.”

T
HE DEEP THOUGHTS AND HYPNOTIC
rhythm of the poem had left the children in a state of dazed contemplation. Master Gogolev snored philosophically from the floor. Lord Fredrick was in no hurry to relinquish his role as Max's babysitter; the enormous infant had fallen asleep in his lap, and he was loath to disturb the child by getting up.

Penelope's new and excellent idea required certain arrangements to be made, and there was no time to waste. She instructed the others to ponder the meaning of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” on their own, and invited Simon to join her for a walk down
Front Street. By the time they arrived at their destination, she had explained her idea.

“It is a simple question of verisimilitude. . . . Where on earth is this fellow?” Insistently, and for the third time, Penelope rang the bell. “It is private here,” she remarked to Simon as they waited. “I believe it will do quite nicely, for our purposes.”

Simon looked around. “I'll say it's private. There's no one here.”

Impatient, Penelope called through cupped hands. “Hello! Is anyone minding the front desk?”

“Yes, yes; just a moment, please!” The desk clerk at the Left Foot Inn came stumbling out of the office, yawning and rubbing his eyes as if he had been roused from a deep sleep. “Who's ringing the bell in January? Only a madman would turn up here in the off-season—Oh! You again.” He gave Penelope a knowing look. “Well, you can't say I didn't warn you about the Babushkinovs. They must have done something unspeakable to send you running back.” He propped his elbows on the desk and put his chin on his hands. “What was it? Start at the beginning, and don't leave anything out.”

Penelope raised a disapproving eyebrow. “My good sir, gossip has no place in polite conversation. As a wise
person named Agatha Swanburne once said, ‘Inform, praise, thank, or amuse—or be quiet and listen, that works, too.'” She gestured at Simon. “My colleague and I are here to inquire if the Left Foot Inn is still empty of guests.”

The clerk pursed his lips. “Completely empty, I am overjoyed to report.”

“Excellent!” Penelope turned to Simon. “Just as I had hoped.”

“What she means is, we'll take it,” Simon added. The two of them stood smiling at the clerk, as if the whole business were already settled.

He gaped at them, uncomprehending. “You'll take—what?”

“Why, the hotel. What else?” Penelope said, with Simon cheerfully nodding along. “For Monday, please.”

The clerk looked appalled. “You wish to reserve the
entire
hotel?”

“From stem to stern. Fore and aft. And from port to starboard, too.” Simon elbowed Penelope as if he had made a hilarious joke.

“Monday? But that's the day after tomorrow!”

“Correct. But we shall not arrive until the afternoon, so you will have more than enough time to get
the hotel shipshape, as it were.” Penelope paused as Simon snorted with mirth at her pun. “Please instruct the kitchen: At five o'clock we will host a formal dinner for a party of, say, twenty people.” She tallied up the guest list in her head: the Ashton household, the Babushkinovs, the Incorrigibles, Dr. Martell, and possibly a few others, too, for a real ship would be full of passengers, and verisimilitude was the goal. “Best make it twenty-five,” she said. “There is no need to order flowers or decorations, for we have our own . . .” She stopped, unsure of how to describe it.

“Artistic consultants,” Simon interjected.

“Yes! The artistic consultants will prepare the hotel prior to the arrival of the dinner guests. Please give them your full cooperation. Lastly, you must make sure that all of your employees speak only Italian for the duration of our stay. A few basic, socially useful phrases will suffice.”

“Dinner? Decorations? Speaking Italian?” The clerk closed his eyes and shivered, as if trying to shake off a bad dream. “This is a mammoth undertaking. Unprecedented! I am not sure we can oblige—but
if
we can, I must warn you, it will be enormously expensive.”

Penelope knew that Lord Fredrick could afford any expense, but
A Swanburne Girl Is Thrifty
, as one of the
embroidered pillows in Miss Mortimer's office read. “Nonsense,” she answered firmly. “It is a themed dinner party, plain and simple. You may certainly charge extra for speaking Italian, but otherwise there is nothing unusual about it. The theme is
Bella Italia
. Do keep that in mind when you plan the menu.” Meaningfully she added, “You may send the bill to Lord Fredrick Ashton, care of the Right Foot Inn.”

Even the hotel clerk at the Left Foot Inn in Brighton had heard of the richer-than-Midas Ashtons. He harrumphed and frowned, and slammed his hand on the brass service bell a few times out of sheer frustration until the ringing drove him mad and he stuffed the bell in a drawer. “All right,” he said. “We'll do it.”

A
FTER THEIR BUSINESS AT THE
Left Foot Inn was settled, Simon walked Penelope back to the Right Foot Inn. After that he intended to make a beeline to the HAM to keep an eye on his great-uncle. “I'll stay with the old salt until he's tucked in bed and the gates are locked for the night,” he assured her. “Trust me, there's no chance that Edward Ashton will get to him before we do! Anyway, not-so-dead Edward's been quiet for so long; perhaps he's given up.”

Penelope wished she could be so sure. She bid Simon farewell and watched him go, with the tiniest ache in her heart that she quickly and firmly put out of her mind. Overall, she felt quite pleased with how she had managed things. The day after tomorrow Lord Fredrick would pose as the admiral, and the Left Foot Inn would pose as a ship. Pudge and Lady Constance would be fooled, the exact words of the curse discovered, and that troublemaking Edward Ashton was still nowhere in sight. Best of all, the children had been introduced to the poetry of Coleridge and the life cycle of the hermit crab, and would soon become expert in the finer points of Italian culture and cuisine. Why, a whole term at Oxford could hardly be more educational than this trip to Brighton in the off-season!

She had not forgotten about Lord Fredrick's full moon needs, either. Before leaving the Left Foot Inn, she had asked that one room be reserved for Tuesday “in the most soundproof part of the hotel,” she was careful to specify.

“As for Lady Constance, I will simply suggest that she spend Tuesday having me write picture postcards to all her friends,” she thought. “I will go slowly and make many mistakes and inkblots, she will grow cross and distracted and will keep starting over. The day
will fly, she will hardly notice her husband's absence, and by Wednesday, all the troubles in our sea of troubles will be over. . . .”

All except one, that is. The ache in her heart came back doubled. Did Simon Harley-Dickinson love her, or did he not? All day Penelope had been on the lookout for evidence as to which way the wind blew, so to speak, but overall he seemed the same cheerful, kind, clever, and thoroughly loyal Simon she had known for more than a year.

“Compared to the horrible throes of lovesickness suffered by Master Gogolev, Simon shows no sign at all of romantic torment,” she thought. “I suppose that answers my question, and I ought not to think of it anymore. Blast that Seashell of Love! I have been caught in a whirlpool because of it, but I expect in time I will find calm waters once more.”

It would be dishonest to say she was not disappointed, but she was also relieved. She liked—well, loved—Simon just the way he was, and she did not think she would enjoy seeing him in a state of love-struck agony, even if she herself were the cause. However, she did resolve to ask Master Gogolev to recommend some love poems to her, ones he thought captured the authentic feel of it, the storm-tossed nerves and woeful
weltschmerz
of the whole experience. They were bound to make educational reading, at least.

T
HE
I
NCORRIGIBLE CHILDREN WERE DELIGHTED
to be given the important responsibility of creating the decorations for the
Bella Italia
dinner at the Left Foot Inn. They worked on the project after supper and all the next morning. Ideas flowed, brushes were dipped in paint, and a great deal of papier-mâché was chewed up and spit out. By early afternoon on Sunday, they were done. The pieces were set aside to dry for the next day.

“Wonderful work all around, children,” Penelope said after all the art supplies were put away and lunch was finally eaten. “Because you have worked so hard, we now have a free afternoon. How would you care to spend it?”

“We want to play with the Babushkawoos!” the children declared. While painting they had made two name signs for the twins to wear 'round their necks, one that said
BORIS
and one that said
CONSTANTIN
, for even the Incorrigibles had grown weary of not being able to tell the boys apart.

But where
were
the Babushkawoos? After some careful sniffing, the Incorrigibles caught the scent of
toe shoes and black eyes, and followed their noses to the dining room. Veronika, Boris, and Constantin were there, tired and cranky and picking at a late lunch. They had spent a long morning with their parents, being dragged along on some tedious grown-up errand. “At a dreadful, boring old bank,” Veronika complained in a melodious whine. “So much talking and signing of papers! I never want to grow up if it means such dull business.”

“On my honor, Veronika Ivanovna Babushkinova,” Alexander said gallantly, “you shall never have to grow up and sign papers! I swear it!” Veronika twirled and giggled.