The Willoughbys (8 page)

Nanny and the Willoughbys were out for a walk. This was something that old-fashioned families did from time to time, to expose themselves to invigorating fresh air. Nanny had donned her blue cape, which was the official uniform for nannies.

"Walk briskly, children," said Nanny, "and swing your arms."

They did so.

"Skip, if you like," Nanny said. "Skipping is very healthful."

"What is skipping?" Jane asked.

"Yes, what is skipping?" asked the twins.

"It's like this, dolts," Tim told them, and he skipped ahead of them to demonstrate.

"No more saying of the word
dolt,
" Nanny announced. "I dislike it."

"What about
dodo?
" Jane asked.

"Well, let's allow
dodo
for now," Nanny said after thinking it over. "If someone does something
really
stupid, it is permissible to call that person a dodo.

"And," she added, looking at Tim, who had returned, "if you think that was skipping, you are a dodo.
This
is skipping"

She demonstrated, skipping to the corner of the block with her cape flying behind her. She turned and beckoned to the children, and they skipped toward her one by one. Nanny gave some further instructions—
a little more left foot, Tim; no timidity, go flat out, A; good job, much better than before, B
—and a pat on the back for Jane, who stumbled and skinned her knee but was heroically not crying.

Now, having walked for several blocks and skipped for the last one, the children found that they were on a familiar street. They had not been back to this street since the day they had trudged here hauling a wagon containing a basket with a baby in it. Tim nudged Barnaby A and nodded meaningfully toward the mansion that loomed ahead. Both of the twins gave nervous glances but then looked away and concentrated on remarks about the quality of the asphalt in the street and a particularly odd-shaped cloud in the sky. Jane fell silent and had a sad look. She had
liked
the baby, actually, though when its hair was cropped she had found it homely. From time to time she had missed it and wondered about it.

Nanny skipped ahead, not noticing that a hush had fallen upon the children.

"The windows are repaired," Barnaby B pointed out in a whisper.

"And the cat has been fed," his twin noticed. "It was thin before, but now it's pudgy."

"Someone has mowed the lawn," Tim observed.

"Shhhh," said Jane suddenly. "I hear a giggle."

They stood still, the four of them, and after a moment Nanny returned. She had skipped the entire length of the block, assuming the children were behind her. Now she came back to see why they had stopped. "The important thing in terms of fresh-air intake," Nanny said to them, "is continuity! If you stop, you lose your continuity. Why ever are you standing about like dodos? You are breathing stagnant air."

The children shifted their feet and didn't reply. Tim began to hum a bit. The twins stared at the pavement.

"What's that sound?" Nanny asked suddenly.

"I'm just humming 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,'" Tim explained. "I try to do it in its entirety twice a day. Usually no one hears me. Sometimes I do it in the bathroom. It is possible to hum while brushing one's teeth."

"No, no. I meant
that
sound." Nanny held up one finger to silence them, and now they could all hear the delicious giggle from the porch of the mansion.

"I think we should go home," Barnaby A said nervously.

"Yes, isn't it lunchtime? Weren't you planning vichyssoise for lunch, Nanny?" asked Barnaby B.

"Let's skip home!" suggested Tim. He did a few tentative moves of his feet and arms.

"It's a very sweet sound," Jane said, glancing at Nanny.

"It's a baby!" Nanny announced. "On the porch of that mansion! Let's go look!"

"I believe," Tim said, "that it is quite against the law to enter a private gate and cross a private walk and ascend the steps of a private porch. I think we might very well be arrested, Nanny, if we investigate this any further. Let's leave at once. Fifty points off anyone who does not leave immediately."

"Nonsense," said Nanny. "You stopped that silly point thing weeks ago. Come. Close the gate behind you in case there is a dog confined in the yard. I once knew someone whose spaniel fled when a gate was left open and it was never seen again and three members of the family died of grief"

Jane took Nanny's hand and followed her through the gate. "I do love babies," Jane confided. "I've always wanted one. I remember when we found—"

Tim interrupted her. "I don't believe people die of grief," he muttered. He came through the gate as well and latched it behind him. Only the twins remained on the sidewalk, looking nervous.

"Yes, they do," Nanny told him. "They waste away. I have known at least twelve people who have died of grief. It's a terrible way to go."

"It is indeed!" a loud voice suddenly said. All of them, even Nanny, jumped.

A large man with a thick mustache had appeared suddenly through a door that opened onto the porch. He was wearing a tweed jacket and a polka-dot bow tie, and he was carrying a box of cookies.

"I myself came very close to dying of grief not long ago," he announced. "How do you do—I am Commander Melanoff. What are you doing on my porch? Have a ginger cookie?"

Nanny took one. "We heard a lovely giggle from your porch and came to investigate. I have learned over the course of my many years that it is a bad idea, usually, to investigate piteous weeping but always a fine thing to look into a giggle." She bit into the cookie. "Delicious," she said. "Twins!" she called to the other side of the fence. "There are cookies!" Timidly the two Barnabys came through the gate and approached the porch. "How do you do and thank you for the ginger cookie," Nanny said, extending her hand, which the commander shook. "I am sorry to hear that you almost died of grief. Have you recovered?"

"I'm somewhat better," he replied. He passed the box of cookies around to the children. "My source of solace has been this lovely infant." He walked toward the end of the large porch, where a grinning baby with curly hair stood grasping the side of her playpen, and they followed him.

"It's not the same baby," Jane whispered to Tim. "Its hair isn't stubbly."

"It grew, dolt, since Mother chopped it off." Tim looked nervously toward Nanny to see if she had heard the word
dolt,
which she had so recently forbidden. But she was leaning over the baby, smiling and talking in a babylike voice.

"What's your daughter's name, Commander?" she asked. "Oh, I see:
Ruth.
Sweet monogram"

"Yes, her name is Ruth. But she is not my daughter. She's my, ah,
ward.
"

"Oh, lovely!" said Nanny. "You are an old-fashioned family, like us. We are four worthy orphans with a no-nonsense nanny."

"Like Mary Poppins?" suggested the man, with a pleased look of recognition.

"Not
one bit
like that fly-by-night woman," Nanny said with a sniff. "It almost gives me diabetes just to think of her: all those disgusting spoonfuls of sugar! None of that for me. I am simply a competent and professional nanny. And you are a—let me think—"

"Bereaved benefactor?" suggested the commander.

"Exactly. A bereaved benefactor with a ward. Like the uncle in
The Secret Garden.
What was his name? Oh yes: Archibald Craven."

"Oh my, no, not
one bit
like that ill-tempered scoundrel of an uncle. I am simply a well-to-do widower who happened to find a baby on my doorstep."

"We are both wonderfully old-fashioned, aren't we? Hello, Baby Ruth!" Nanny turned back to the baby and said in a sweet, high-pitched voice, "Aren't you fortunate to have found—" She hesitated. "What does she call you?" she asked the man.

"She doesn't speak yet. But I've been a bit worried about the question of what she will call me. I do like the sound of Papa," he said, and then paused and dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief. "But—"

"Brings back sad memories?" Nanny asked sympathetically.

"Indeed."

"Well, there is time. Children?" She turned to the four Willoughbys. "This is Baby Ruth."

They nodded awkwardly.

"Give her a gingersnap," she directed them. "They're not too spicy, are they, Commander? An infant this age shouldn't have spicy food."

"No," he said, "they're quite bland. She likes them. But thank you for alerting me to that. I am new to this and sometimes it is hard to know what is proper. I've been thinking, actually, about looking for a nanny. I don't suppose..." He gave her a questioning look.

"She's
ours,
" said Barnaby A, in an outraged tone. "And we're orphans, or at least almost orphans, so we
need
her!"

"We must go now," said his twin. "It's almost time for dinner."

"We haven't even had lunch yet, B," Nanny pointed out.

"I meant the cat's dinner. It's almost time for our cat's dinner."

The children moved toward the porch steps. "Well," said Nanny to the commander, "it was lovely to meet you, but the children seem eager to move on. Perhaps our paths will cross again. Goodbye to you, Commander Melanoff.

"And bye-bye to you as well, Baby Ruth," she said to the infant, who waved back with a chubby hand.

"Wait! I don't know your names," Commander Melanoff said suddenly, just as Nanny was latching the gate behind her. The children were halfway down the street.

"I'm just Nanny," she called back. "The children are Tim, A, B, and Jane."

"A and B? How odd."

"They're twins," Nanny explained.

"I see," he replied, though he didn't.

"They are all Willoughbys."

He nodded. "Goodbye, then," he called. He turned to the playpen and to Ruth because it was time to take her inside for her afternoon nap. But he had a puzzled look on his face.
Willoughby,
he thought. There was something vaguely familiar about the name.

15. A Regrettable Transaction

"Uh—oh," Barnaby A said as they approached their own house at the end of their outing. "What's that on the sign?"

They had all become very accustomed to the
FOR SALE CHEAP
sign that was still tacked to their window box and to the tacked-on addition that announced the reduction of the price. And they were so accustomed to scurrying into their disguises and poses at the approach of prospective buyers that Jane could become a lamp in very few seconds and Tim could burrow under his fur rug in no time at all. Nanny took a little longer to transform herself into a statue of Aphrodite because, of course, she had to shed her clothes and powder herself and wrap herself in a sheet—all a little time consuming. But it was routine by now. The real estate agent would call to announce a showing of the house, and all of them would automatically move into their places, waiting for the sound of her key in the front-door lock.

Usually the showings were very short. Sometimes the prospective buyers never even reached the upstairs. That was always a bit of a disappointment to Nanny, and she was thinking of moving her statue's position perhaps to the parlor, where people would have a better view of Aphrodite.

"
Curses!
" Tim said in horror as he ran forward and read aloud the further addition to the sign. "Look at this! How could this have happened? We've been sold!"

"Oh, no!" Barnaby B groaned. "We should never have gone for a walk!"

"Terrible things always happen when one is out for a walk," Jane pointed out sadly. "Remember Little Red Riding Hood? And, oh dear, Hansel and Gretel?"

Nanny opened the door and hurried inside. On the hall table she found a hastily written note. "It's from the real estate agent," she explained with a worried look, and read it aloud to the children, who had gathered around her.

"'Congratulations! I'm sorry you weren't home when I called to announce our visit. But the house looked lovely and smelled so appealing—raisin cookies, I think—and the prospective buyer fell in love with it and has given me a ton of money. You have two weeks to leave. Please feel free to take your undies. Good luck.'"

"Oh, no!" the twins wailed.

"Drat!" said Tim with a scowl.

Jane stamped her foot and began to cry.

"Let us not waste time with tears and useless expostulations," Nanny told them. "What if this were a story in a book with a well-worn maroon leather binding? What would good old-fashioned people do in this situation?"

"They would call the sheriff," Tim said.

"Murder the villain," the twins suggested.

Jane simply continued to sob, and Nanny handed her a lace-trimmed hanky.

"They would make a plan," Nanny announced. "But first," she added, heading toward the kitchen and reaching for her apron where it hung on a wall hook, "they would bake a lemon soufflé." She opened the refrigerator and took out some eggs.

While the soufflé was in the oven—and during that time they all were required to tiptoe (because heavy footsteps can ruin a baking soufflé; not many people know this, Nanny pointed out, and that is why there are so many ruined soufflés in the world)—the mail was delivered in a whoosh through the mail slot of the front door.