ICAP 2 - The Hidden Gallery (10 page)

“Judge Quinzy! I beg your pardon.” She gave a quick curtsy, and almost lost her balance.

“A pleasure to see you again, Miss Lumley.” He smiled. “What a splendid day we had! Didn't we, children?”

They children nodded in agreement. Instinctively, Penelope put a protective arm around her three pupils. “Forgive my rudeness, Your Honor, but I am confused.
How did you come to take the children to the zoo?”

“A happy accident,” he answered with a shrug. “When I heard that my dear friends the Ashtons were in residence in London, I came by to pay a call. But when I arrived, Lady Ashton was at the hairdresser, and Lord Ashton had not yet arrived. However, this charming young lady”—at which Margaret giggled shrilly—“was entertaining the children near the front door. They were quite impossible to miss.”

“We were playing at ice-skating, Miss,” Margaret squeaked in explanation. “The floor's rather slippery there, I'm afraid.”

“Naturally, my first thought was of you, Miss Lumley,” the judge went on. “At once I inquired if you were still employed by the Ashtons—I would have been sorely disappointed if you were not, for you know how impressed I was by your three pupils when I met them at Christmas. But Margaret told me the children were only in her care for the afternoon, for you had gone to have lunch with a friend. I do hope it was a pleasant rendezvous,” he added, smooth as silk.

“It was, Your Honor,” she said, but inside she was seething. How dare he insinuate anything of that sort! And with Simon standing right there!

Judge Quinzy gestured behind him. “My carriage
is large, as you see. And it seemed too fine a day to stay indoors skating around the floor in one's stocking feet, don't you agree?” The children demonstrated their skating techniques, and Judge Quinzy chuckled warmly.

“His Honor even said I should take the afternoon off and enjoy myself while he took the children to the zoo, and he'd square it with Lady Ashton personally, but I'd given my word to watch the three young'uns, so I wouldn't dream of it,” Margaret said proudly. “But I do wish you'd been with us, Miss Lumley. I've never been to a zoo park before! It was more fun than—well, a barrel of monkeys. We left a note in the mail tray for you, hoping you'd come.”

“I arrived just as the children were climbing aboard this noble coach of polished ebony, if you don't mind the poetical language. My muse seems to be back in full force.” To Penelope, Simon quietly added, “I got your letter about that Gypsy fortune-teller. A strange business! I came straight over.”

Penelope thought she saw Judge Quinzy's right eyebrow arch momentarily, but he quickly composed himself. “The children were so delighted to see Mr. Harley-Dickinson, naturally I invited him to join our expedition,” the judge explained.

Perhaps she was still discombobulated from the fall, but Penelope had a nagging sense that Judge Quinzy's tale did not quite add up. “What an exciting day you had, children,” she said briskly as she looked each child over in turn. “You will have to tell me all about it—after you take your baths, that is,” she said, crinkling her nose, for the elephant smell was really quite pronounced.

“Educashawoo,” Alexander agreed. Beowulf was too busy examining the velocipede to comment. Cassiopeia looked up at her governess and laughed. “Messy apples!” she said, indicating Penelope's head.

Embarrassed, Penelope reached up to smooth her hair, which had started the day in its usual neat bun, but was now in a state of wind-whipped disarray. “Thank goodness for my hatpin,” she thought as she tucked the loose strands back under her hat, which had miraculously stayed on during her wild velocipede ride. (As Agatha Swanburne once said, “A nice sharp hatpin has many uses; no woman should leave home without one,” but it was a private comment made to a close relative, which explains why Penelope was unfamiliar with the remark.)

Judge Quinzy looked as if he was about to say something. He did not. However, Penelope felt him
watching her with a strange intensity, rendered all the stranger by the way his thick glasses magnified his eyes. It made her self-conscious, and she finished tucking in her hair as quickly as she could.

“Lumawoo, see. Postcards from zoo!” Cassiopeia announced, waving a fistful of them.

“My heavens! You have chimpanzees, and panthers, and baboons, and even a hippopotamus. Nutsawoo will be thrilled.” Then Penelope frowned. “Cassiopeia, how did you pay for those?”

The little girl pointed at Judge Quinzy.

“Your Honor, I must protest,” Penelope said firmly. “Taking the children to the zoo was already much too generous. You certainly did not have to buy postcards.” Penelope almost added, “for a squirrel,” but stopped herself just in time.

“Thankawoo,” Cassiopeia said sweetly to the judge. “Thankawoo very much.”

Judge Quinzy patted her on the head. “You are very welcome, Miss Incorrigible.” He turned to Penelope. “And you are too kind, Miss Lumley. I am not nearly as generous as you believe. You see, a man in my position is expected to busy himself with serious pursuits. It can be rather dull, I'm afraid. I was grateful for the excuse to visit the zoo, since I have no children of my own.”

Penelope nodded, understanding. And yet, she thought a few moments later, there was something about the way Judge Quinzy helped Beowulf onto the velocipede, and then held on as the boy got his bearings and began to scoot 'round and 'round the carriage, laughing, while the judge clapped his hands and called out phrases of encouragement, that—in her admittedly limited experience of such things—could only be described as fatherly.

N
OWADAYS, PEOPLE RESORT
to all kinds of activities in order to calm themselves after a stressful event: performing yoga poses in a sauna, leaping off bridges while tied to a bungee, killing imaginary zombies with imaginary weapons, and so forth. But in Miss Penelope Lumley's day, it was universally understood that there is nothing like a nice cup of tea to settle one's nerves in the aftermath of an adventure—a practice many would find well worth reviving.

As you might imagine, Penelope was now in sore
need of just such a soothing cuppa, and the Incorrigible children were in sore need of baths; truly, the scent of elephants was so distinctive that Mr. Hixby may have had a point, after all. So back to Number Twelve Muffinshire Lane they marched, after bidding Judge Quinzy good day and offering more thanks for his kindness, all of which he grandly waved off.

Penelope felt she owed a debt to Margaret, too. If not for the young housemaid's sense of duty—and Simon's timely arrival, of course—the children might have been whisked off to spend the day alone with Judge Quinzy, an uncomfortable notion at best. It spoke so well of Margaret's character that Penelope wondered if she, too, had been influenced by the wisdom of Agatha Swanburne somewhere along the way.

She tried to say as much, but the humble girl just giggled and squeaked, “No need for all that, miss! I was just minding the children, like I said I would. If you'll pardon me, I'd best get back to work. Mrs. Clarke will be lookin' for me.” She bobbed a quick curtsy and raced back to the house. Now that Penelope had returned, Margaret would spend the rest of this lovely day cleaning fireplace grates, sweeping carpets, and tending to the whims of her high-strung mistress whenever Lady Constance rang the bell.

“Poor Margaret,” Penelope thought as she watched the good-hearted girl skitter gracefully away across the cobblestones. “I hope Lady Constance does not scold her for going to the zoo. If she does, it will be my fault for mentioning it. And poor Lady Constance! I wonder if she knows how vexing people find her?”

Vexing, indeed! Even as she had the thought, Penelope wished she might invite Simon in for tea and a few of the biscuits that the children had begged her to buy at the Charming Little Bakery. (While paying for her purchase, she was saddened, but not wholly surprised, to overhear the baker complaining: Apparently a young boy had stolen two loaves of rye bread and a half dozen sticky buns before making a fast getaway, not twenty minutes earlier.)

But Penelope knew that if Lady Constance saw her entertaining an actual caller—and a young gentleman, mind you!—there would be no end to the hysteria.

Instead Penelope and Simon strolled at a leisurely pace, while the children took turns scooting beside them on the velocipede. Cassiopeia was much too small for her feet to reach the ground, so her brothers had to steady her and push her along, but they did not seem to mind.

Penelope was eager to ask Simon about the
fortune-teller, but first she simply had to know what had happened at the zoo, and so she asked him to tell her the story.

“Really, the children were remarkable,” Simon began as they walked. “I've got a soft spot for animals myself—”

“Do you? So do I!” Penelope knew it was rude to interrupt, but his statement pleased her so greatly that the words burst out of her. She almost added, “Especially for ponies,” but she was not sure whether her exhortations to Rainbow while riding the velocipede had been overheard by Simon, so she omitted that detail for now.

“You do? Fancy that.” He, too, sounded pleased. “Anyway, I'm usually able to make friends with even the most skittish beasts. Runs in the family. My great-uncle Pudge, the sailor, tells the story of how he cozied up to an albatross once, out at sea—but honestly, the children showed a knack for it the likes of which I've never seen. They even helped give some medicine to a sick elephant.”

At the word “elephant,” the children started galumphing around, laughing and making loud trumpeting noises. Simon looked abashed. “I hope it doesn't frighten you to hear what happened, Miss Lumley. As you can see, nobody got hurt.” Penelope reassured
him, and his voice grew thrillingly dramatic as he told what happened next:

“When we arrived at the elephant cage, the zoo-keeper was at his wit's end trying to persuade the ailing pachyderm to take his pill. Before anyone could stop them, the children scrambled over the bars! Beowulf shimmied up the elephant's trunk to hold it out of the way. Cassiopeia petted his great gray knee to calm the beast, and Alexander calmly took the pill from the zoo-keeper and popped it down the elephant's gullet, one two three.” The children happily acted out the scene as he described it, using the velocipede as a stand-in for the elephant.

“Bravo! What an adventure you had! And it also explains the smell. But children, remember, climbing into zoo cages is not something to make a habit of. I hope you will keep that in mind.” Privately, of course, Penelope was very proud of the Incorrigibles for rushing to the aid of a sick animal, for it is just what she would have done, no matter how many iron bars were in the way.

She waited until the children had scooted out of earshot again before asking, “Mr. Harley-Dickinson, tell me: Did the children show any fright when faced with more familiar, forest-dwelling-type creatures?
Bears, for example? Or”—her voice wavered as she said it—“wolves?”

“Oh, we never saw the Wildlife of Great Britain exhibit. It was closed for repairs,” Simon explained. “Judge Quinzy was keenly disappointed about that. But we amused ourselves nicely with the giraffes and orangutans and whatnot. The children couldn't get enough of them. They pointed and laughed as if they'd never seen anything so funny.”

“How interesting,” Penelope observed to herself. “To the Incorrigible children, these exotic beasts must have been as strange and comical looking as a person in a clown costume would be to the average child.” But to Simon she only said, “It sounds like everyone had a marvelous time.”

Simon gave her a curious look. “Forgive me for noticing, Miss Lumley, but you don't seem very surprised by my zoo story. Maybe I've got it wrong, but I suspect the average governess would have a conniption fit at the hair-raising tale I've just portrayed.” He frowned. “Or perhaps I failed to capture the death-defying drama of it all? I hope my muse hasn't left me again.”

Penelope felt her cheeks flush. Even though it seemed as if they had known each other for ages, in reality, her acquaintance with Simon was still so new
that she had not yet mentioned the fact that the children had been raised by wolves. Was now an appropriate time? Penelope had read all the etiquette books in the Swanburne library, but she could not recall a rule that applied specifically to this situation.

“I assure you, Mr. Harley-Dickinson, your zoo story was nothing short of riveting, and I would hear it again in a heartbeat. But the children have a somewhat unusual background,” she said cautiously. “It tends to make them highly skilled with animals. I have observed it myself, and that is why I am not surprised by your tale.”

“Unusual background?” Simon stopped walking and turned to Penelope. “That's just what Judge Quinzy said. He's a curious fellow. Wanted to know all about me, how I'd made your acquaintance, and what I thought of the children. I told him three more clever and charming tykes I'd not had the pleasure of meeting. ‘But what do you make of their unusual background?' he said. ‘Well,' I replied, ‘it
is
unusual; not every child gets to roll around in piles of money like they do at Ashton Place. But as long as that sensible Miss Lumley's in charge, it shouldn't completely ruin them.'” Simon grinned. “Hizzoner guffawed nonstop for a minute and a half after that one. Say, what
did
he
mean by it? Were they in the circus?”

The Incorrigibles were still busy playing with the velocipede. Penelope wondered how much she ought to reveal, but one look at Simon's perfectly nice face made up her mind. Quickly she told him all she knew about the children's “unusual background.”

Now it was his turn to be riveted. “Raised by wolves! You don't say,” he exclaimed when she was done. “I'd write a play about it, but no one'd believe me.”

And then, because she simply had to trust someone, she told Simon everything: all about the strange goings-on at Ashton Place, the mysterious danger that Miss Mortimer had warned her about, and the fortune-teller's bizarre words, “The hunt is on.” The only part she left out, in fact, was Miss Mortimer's request that she not investigate the matter further. For truly, what harm could come of satisfying her curiosity?

“So you see, Mr. Harley-Dickinson,” she concluded, “that is why I must speak with that Gypsy. Unlikely as it seems, the semitoothless soothsayer may know something about what lies beneath all these confounding events.”

Simon shook his head. “I'm afraid I've got bad news for you, Miss Lumley. I haven't seen Madame Ionesco
for days—not since the day I met you and the children, in fact.”

Penelope could scarcely conceal her disappointment. “Is it unusual for her to be absent for so long?”

“A bit, yes. She's usually busy prognosticating all over the neighborhood. You'd be amazed what people will pay for a glimpse of the Great Unknown.”

“I hope no terrible fate has befallen her,” Penelope said, alarmed. “Or are people in her profession able to foresee such calamities and avoid them?”

Simon shrugged. “Wish I knew. But even a fortune-teller's entitled to a holiday now and then. Perhaps she's taken a trip out of town. If you like, tomorrow you and the children can come by my garret for a visit, and we can take a look 'round the neighborhood for her. Afterward I'll show you some of my theatrical haunts. ‘The life of a bard revealed,' and all that. Say, there's a new show opening at the Drury Lane. If we play our cards right, the stage manager will let us in to watch a rehearsal.”

A show! Penelope found the idea far more exciting than she dared let on. “That would be amusing,” she remarked, trying to sound casual. “And tomorrow Lady Constance will be out all day visiting the poor, which means we may come and go—” She could have
said, “without provoking a ridiculous tantrum,” but that would have been unkind. “Without disturbing her,” she finished.

“Visiting the poor? Say, that's admirable. This Lady Constance must be a good egg, as rich ladies go.”

Penelope suppressed a smile, for she had not yet given up hopes of befriending Lady Constance. “You are very kind to say so,” she answered, quite sincerely. “In any case, we would be delighted to join you. The tour you propose sounds highly educational.”

“Or educashawoo, as the Incorrigibles would call it. Cute, the way they do that. Makes a bit more sense, now that I know about the wolf business. Here we are at Number Twelve again. You probably didn't notice, but we've completed five full circumnavigations of Muffinshire Lane. Captain Cook himself couldn't have done better.” Simon pulled at his collar and scuffed his feet on the ground once more. “I suppose I should have mentioned it earlier, but it was too pleasant a conversation to stop walking so soon.”

“Five! Really?” Penelope exclaimed playfully, for of course she had noticed. “It is a credit to your navigational skills that we did not blow off course.”

Simon rubbed the back of his neck. “All right, then. I'll pick you up, say, eleven o'clockish—or would you
rather use that fine guidebook of yours to lead you to the West End?”

“You mean, the
Hixby's
?” Penelope sighed in frustration. “A tall man with a green feather on his sleeve tried to steal it on the train on our way to London. The children stopped him just in time. Now I am almost beginning to wish he
had
stolen it, for it has proven to be of very little use.”

Again, Penelope stopped herself in the nick of time, for she could easily have added, “Imagine, trying to find my way to the zoo by following the smell of elephants!” But of course that would require quite a bit of explaining.

She took the guidebook from her purse and showed it to Simon. “See? The only entry that contains any useful information at all is the one about Gallery Seventeen, at the British Museum.”

“Overuse of Symbolism in Minor Historical Portraits,” he read, thumbing through the pages. “Say, look at that! Eight pages of detailed commentary, hours of operation, admission fees, schedule of holidays, a scale drawing of the museum…” Turning the volume sideways, he added, “And a fold-out map of how to get there, complete with latitude and longitude.”

He shut the book and handed it back to Penelope.
“Impressive. I'd say this Hixby fellow is dead set on getting people to visit Gallery Seventeen.”

“I share your conclusion, Mr. Harley-Dickinson. But I do find it ironic.” Penelope traced the illustration on the book's cover with her fingertip; it was a small, pretty white flower. “For he describes Gallery Seventeen as ‘obscure and little trafficked,' yet the guidebook makes such a to-do about going there, surely it must be overrun with visitors by now. Unless…”

Much as a well-trained pony might jump over a murky brook and land, dry hooved, in the sun-dappled meadow beyond, Penelope's mind now made a sudden leap over the muddle. “Mr. Harley-Dickinson, do you happen to know where all the bookstores in London are located?” She was so excited by her flash of insight that she could hardly keep from clapping her hands.

“You bet I do,” he proudly replied. “Every last one of 'em.”

Penelope felt the deep satisfaction one can only enjoy when in the company of a kindred spirit. “How marvelous!” she exclaimed. Her mind raced, and her words tumbled out willy-nilly. “The children are much too tired for another outing. I dare not leave them again, and in any case, they have not yet finished their
essays on the causes and consequences of the Peloponnesian War.”