The Unmapped Sea (7 page)

By now Alexander had his spyglass up. “Man overboard! All hands on deck!” He threw down the spyglass, crouched low to let his sister slip to the ground, and ran headlong toward the water.

Beowulf and Cassiopeia raced after him. “Wait!” Penelope yelled. She retrieved the spyglass from the sand and scanned the waves until she could see the swimmer, too. He was far out, well past the breaking surf, but he swam with strong, rhythmic strokes and seemed in no distress.

The children were at the water's edge. As far as Penelope knew the Incorrigibles had never once been swimming in their lives. Now all three looked ready to plunge into the icy sea to rescue this strange man. “Children, stop! He is not drowning,” she called as she ran to them. “It appears he is swimming back to the beach.” Fascinated, they stood and watched as the mysterious swimmer churned his way through the water. When the waves rose up, they lost sight of him, but each time he reappeared, lifted by the crest of a swell, he was that much closer to the shore.

Before long, it was apparent that he wore no bathing costume whatsoever.

“My goodness! Let us avert our gazes,” Penelope instructed, for now it was too late to leave, and the man might yet need help, or a hot cup of tea at the very least. “I expect our swimming friend will be just as surprised to see us as we are to see him.” The four of them turned their backs to the sea and covered their eyes. Soon there was a splashing sound, and a series of low-pitched grunts.

Penelope called over her shoulder. “Good afternoon! Please forgive our intrusion. We did not expect to encounter any swimmers here today. Do you require assistance?”

“Ah. Ha. Hah.” His slow, deep laugh was like three strikes on a bass drum. “Wait. My clothes are by rocks. Don't peek.”

His footsteps were silent on the sand, but in a voice low as thunder he narrated his progress. “First, pants. Then, boots. Then, shirt. Last, cape. Now you look.”

Peeping shyly above their hands, Penelope and the children turned around. The man was tall, with thick black hair that ran rivers of seawater down his broad face. His shoulders were wide enough to have sat two Incorrigibles on each side. His mustache and sideburns bristled like the body brush Old Timothy used to groom the horses. His long bearskin cape hung
to the top of his boots, which had a military look to them, with the trousers tucked neatly inside.

His shoulders were wide enough to have sat two Incorrigibles on each side.

Beowulf sniffed and pointed at the cape. “
That
is the bear I smelled.”

“Smart boy. Russian bear very strong. Fur, very soft.” The man shook his head like a great dog to get the water out of his hair, and spat seawater from his mouth. Then he bowed. “Captain Ivan Victorovich Babushkinov. At your service!” He straightened and clicked his boots together sharply enough to make a loud
clack!

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Captain. I am Miss Penelope Lumley.” Penelope did her best to curtsy on the uneven slant of the beach. “These children are my pupils. May I present Cassiopeia, Beowulf, and Alexander Incorrigible.”

All three children eagerly offered socially useful phrases, as they had been taught to do when being introduced to a grown-up.

“How do you do, Captain Walrus Mustache?” Cassiopeia said grandly.

“Eternally obliged for you putting on your clothes, sir!” Beowulf said.

“All hail the captain!” Alexander offered a crisp salute. They all tried to click their heels as Captain
Babushkinov had. It was no easy thing to do in the sand, and they nearly knocked themselves over in the attempt.

“Alexander. Like the tsar. I approve of this name. But you two”—he gestured at Beowulf and Cassiopeia—“your names are too hard to say. I call you Boy and Girl instead.” The captain lifted one black eyebrow at Penelope. “So. You are teacher?”

“Yes, I am the children's governess.”

He lifted the other eyebrow. “You are here to teach them to swim?”

“Heavens, no! It is much too cold. . . .” She stopped, embarrassed. “That is to say . . .”

But he was already laughing that booming bass-drum laugh. “Ah. Ha. Hah. Too cold for you, maybe! I go back to hotel now. Cold swim makes hungry captain.” He bowed at the waist.
“Do svidaniya.”

The children tried to say it, which made him laugh again.

“Is Russian. Means, ‘See you later.'” Still laughing, he strode up the beach. “
Do svidaniya.
See you later!”

“I
ASSURE YOU, THERE ARE
no Ashtons here, miss. We've no guests at all, not one. It's not what you'd call a profitable state of affairs, but that's the management's business, not mine.” The hotel clerk leaned forward on
the reception desk and peered unhappily at the Incorrigible children. “Personally, I appreciate the quiet. Gives a man time to think.”

“Or take a nap,” Penelope thought but did not say. It had taken nearly ten minutes for the clerk to respond to the brass bell that sat on the countertop, next to a sign that read
WELCOME TO THE LEFT FOOT INN
!
WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS. PLEASE RING FOR PROMPT AND CHEERFUL SERVICE.
On the bright side, the lack of a quick response had given the children many turns each to ring the bell, which they greatly enjoyed (although, upon reflection, the incessant
clang clang! Clang clang!
may have partly accounted for the clerk's ill temper).

“I have no wish to disturb your contemplations, sir, but my instructions are clear.” Penelope glanced at the slip of paper Mrs. Clarke had given her. “We were told to meet our party at the inn on Front Street. The directions say, ‘Look for the sign of the'—after which there is a drawing of a human foot.” The inn fit the description perfectly, for the sign that hung above the door depicted a large bare foot sandwiched between the words
THE
and
INN
.

“Terribly sorry to disappoint you,” the clerk said, sounding neither sorry nor disappointed. “As I said,
the Left Foot Inn is vacant. Whoever you're looking for is not here. If you insist on staying, I suppose we could accommodate you. Unless you intend to be demanding! That would never do, as there's only me here this time of year, and a part-time housekeeper, and a cook on alternate Sundays. Frankly, we prefer to be left alone during the off-season.”

Penelope turned and surveyed the hotel lobby. Other than the Incorrigibles and the clerk himself, there was not another soul in sight. “They should have checked in this afternoon,” she insisted. “A dozen household staff, in the service of Lord Fredrick Ashton.”

“Maybe they got lost on the way from the station.” Alexander shook his head ruefully. “I should have navigated!”

“Maybe something ominous happened,” Beowulf suggested. “Ominous weather?”

“Ominous pirates,” Cassiopeia said knowingly.

The man looked at her askance. “Even pirates have the sense not to holiday at the beach in the off-season. If you'd come in July, we'd be full up. I'd have to turn you away, and wouldn't that be a pleasure! But Brighton, in January? Empty as a pauper's bank account.”

In answer, the children clicked their heels together and imitated the captain's bass laugh. “Ah. Ha. Hah,”
they intoned, in their deepest voices.

“Not quite right, are they?” the clerk said sympathetically, to Penelope.

Penelope's spine went straight as the handle of a whip. “The children are merely observing that Brighton in the off-season is not as empty as you claim,” she retorted. “We have scarcely been in town an hour, and already we have met a visitor from Russia. He is a military captain, of tremendous dignity and command.”

“He had no clothes on,” Cassiopeia explained.

“He had hair like a walrus.” Beowulf stroked the sides of his face to indicate a fearsome growth of whiskers.

“He said I was like the tsar.” Alexander snapped his heels together. This time it made such a loud and satisfying
clack
that he immediately checked his shoes to make sure they were still intact.

The hotel clerk gasped. “You don't mean the Babushkinovs? That horrible family! They were guests here last week, it's true, but there was . . . an incident. The management had no choice but to ask them to leave. If the Babushkinovs are still in Brighton—well, there's only one other hotel that's open. They must be staying there. Perhaps that's where your missing Ashtons are as well.” He shuddered. “Sharing a hotel with
those dreadful Babushkinovs!”

He looked around in terror and lowered his voice, although there was no one near to eavesdrop. “My advice is to avoid them at all costs. And whatever you do, don't mention Napoleon! It seems to set them off.” (As the historians among you know, Napoleon Bonaparte had once been the Emperor of France. After conquering most of Europe, he decided to invade Russia, and a terrible war ensued. Russia prevailed over the French in the end, but it was a brutal conflict lasting many months, and hard feelings remained on both sides, even years later.)

“We shall do our best to avoid the topic,” Penelope said impatiently. “Now, if you might direct us to the other hotel—”

But the clerk was not listening. “Horrible Babushkinovs!” he said, in a tremulous voice. “You'll know who they are, trust me. They're hard to miss, with all those badly behaved children.”

At the mention of children, the Incorrigibles began to elbow one another and whisper in excitement. Penelope quieted them with a look. “If you please, sir,” she said pointedly, “what is the name of the other hotel?”

“I'll write it down.” From behind one ear he produced a pencil. “Can't miss it. It's just a few blocks
down on Front Street.” He took the note with the directions from Penelope and began to write on it, then stopped. “Well, that's your problem right there, miss. Look at that foot.” He handed the paper back to her. “You've come to the wrong hotel. This is the Left Foot Inn. See?”

Penelope could not see, not until she thanked the man and led the children outside again. Then she looked at the paper, and up at the sign above the entrance to the inn. Both displayed feet, but they were not the same feet.

“On closer examination, it seems our stay in Brighton has gotten off on the wrong foot,” she explained to the children. “Honestly, the clerk might have simply said so. Off we go, to the Right Foot Inn this time. Step lively, now!”

T
HE CHILDREN AMUSED THEMSELVES BY
trying to walk forward with their right feet only. Unsteady hopping ensued. It slowed their progress, but as they did not have far to go, Penelope saw no harm in it.

Privately she could not stop wondering about the clerk's stern warnings against the Babushkinovs. The children must have been having similar thoughts, for soon Cassiopeia hopped over and tugged at Penelope's
sleeve. “Are Horrible Babushkawoos pirates?” she asked, pirates being the most horrible sort of people she could think of.

Beowulf, too, hazarded a guess. “Badly behaved bank robbers?”

“I say horse thieves.” Alexander balanced on his left leg long enough to add, “And failure to write thank-you notes.”

“Or perhaps there was an unfortunate misunderstanding,” Penelope cautioned. “We ought not to jump to conclusions based on gossip. Let us meet the Babushkawoos—I mean, Babushkinovs—with open minds, and see for ourselves what sort of people they are. As Agatha Swanburne said, ‘There is no harm in carrying a borrowed umbrella, but toothbrushes and opinions should always be one's own.'”

The children liked this reply; in fact, the mere possibility of befriending a family of pirates, bank robbers, or horse thieves struck them as both thrilling and highly educational.

As for being “badly behaved,” the Incorrigibles were in swift agreement: If the Babushkinov children were not already in the habit of writing prompt thank-you notes, it would be simple enough to teach them. After all, it was not so very long ago that the Incorrigibles
themselves learned the difference between a salad fork and a fountain pen, or how to curtsy and bow and say a friendly hello when being introduced, rather than growl and hide in a corner. Such minor lapses in a person's education were easily corrected, given a bit of time and patient instruction.

Satisfied, the children continued hopping down Front Street until the Right Foot Inn came into view. At the sight of it Penelope froze. “I wonder if the Babushkinovs employ a governess?” she blurted. The children performed quick calculations—three Incorrigibles plus two Lumawoos and an unknown number of Babushkinovs sounded like marvelous fun to them—but Penelope was overcome with a sudden shyness, for the truth was she had never met another governess before.

On one foot—that is to say, hand—it would be pleasant to have a more grown-up companion with whom to pass the time, and perhaps swap teaching tips for the trickier bits of the multiplication tables. But on the other foot—hand!—what might a proper, professional, thoroughly Russian governess think of Penelope? A mere sixteen-year-old girl at her first position, who used biscuits to train her pupils, and recited poetry aloud in a dramatic voice even when no one was listening? Who
could still—on occasion—be moved to tears when reading a children's storybook about ponies?