The Unmapped Sea: Chapters 1–3

He was a morose and irritable man, not at all the sort of person one would expect to spend his days caring for the sick.

His gruff speech and lack of sympathy made his patients feel far worse than they did before; consequently, they put on brave faces and made heroic efforts to rise from their sickbeds, so as to never have to see the unpleasant doctor again.

As the polyglots among you are doubtless already aware, the German weltschmerz is pronounced “Veltschmerz,” and it means—but more on that topic later; Lady Constance has yet to hear her diagnosis, and patience was never one of her virtues.

“Lady Ashton, need I remind you? You are with child. An intruder grows within your womb, and it cares not one whit about your discomfort. The monster is far too busy kicking its tiny, vicious feet and pummeling away with those miniature yet brutal fists. With your permission...” He pressed the stethoscope to the lady’s heart and listened.

“Has the medical profession come to this? Will no one help me? Woe, woe, and more woe! I am alone, adrift, abandoned in my hour of need! I hope you are writing all this down, Miss Lumley. Otherwise, no one is likely to believe my tale of abuse. The horror! The cruelty! The injustice!”

Her job was to care for the three wards of Lord Fredrick Ashton, otherwise known as the Incorrigible children.

She had also doodled ten moons in various phases: full, waning, waxing, gibbous, crescent, and so on.

Her countless pithy sayings were at the heart of Penelope’s education there, but one need not be poor, bright, or female to benefit from the wise lady’s advice.

All three had remarked, ruefully and more than once, that they now understood why there are so few portraits of squirrels hanging in the great museums of the world, for the job of an artist’s model is to hold still, and this is something the average squirrel finds exceedingly difficult to do.

She had placed a large and fierce-looking Nutsawoo in what could only be called an Ominous Landscape—a murky grotto festooned with moss, with half-hidden figures lurking in the shadows and storm clouds swirling through a gunmetal sky.

The real Nutsawoo was unimpressed with these imaginative portrayals.

The squirrel wanted out, and the moment Cassiopeia cracked open the window he bolted through, bouncing his way to the ground on snow-laden branches that spilled their frozen burdens in his wake.

They are too busy bemoaning the difficulty of making good art in an imperfect world, and are often found writing melancholy poetry to mourn the tragedy of it all.

They call it ennui.

Alexander imitated the enigmatic coachman’s rolling, bow-legged walk.

But the dream of a happily howling household had caused Beowulf to have an epiphany of his own.

The list grew and grew: Miss Charlotte Mortimer, the headmistress of the Swanburne Academy. Madame Ionesco, a soothsayer who, in addition to being able to see Beyond the Veil, also baked tasty Gypsy cakes, which the children liked very much. They even thought of Lord Fredrick's mother, the Widow Ashton, who had been kind to them the one time she had visited Ashton Place.

“‘I wander through the meadows green/Made happy by the verdant scene’,” she recited softly.

These were the first lines of “Wanderlust,” her favorite of the poems.

“There’s been a fortnight of mist on the landing,” she announced, staring straight ahead.

“An English beach in January? Hilarious! Mrs. Clarke, you cannot fool me. Obviously my husband has discovered that his surprise reached my ears by mistake. Now he has sent you to tell me this ridiculous story to keep me ‘off the scent,’ as the gentlemen of the hunt would say. But I am not so easily bamboozled! No intelligent person would plan a beach vacation in the off-season. Not a soul of interest would be there. There would be no one to meet for luncheon, or with whom to go shopping..."

“Poor Lady Constance! And her poor husband, and poor everyone,” she fretted to Margaret, who had brought a warm footbath and a glass of blackberry cordial to settle the older lady’s nerves.

Only in the nursery did this farcical mix-up escape attention.

A hand mirror and a box of chocolates lay on the table next to her, and a skein of yellow woolen yarn was draped over her head, to stand in for Lady Constance’s long, butterscotch-colored hair.

There was no return address given, for Simon had lost the lease on his tiny garret apartment in London while at sea with the pirates and now lived, as he liked to say, out of his suitcase and off of his wits.

Hope you don’t mind, but I told her about Pudge’s diary, and all that ominous bunkum Edward Ashton said about family trees split in two and so on.

For a minute I’ d thought she’ d taken a jaunt Beyond the Veil herself!

I’ll write it the way she said it, so as not to lose any of the spooky nuance.

Margaret had been ducking sock balls and prattling away this whole time.

He spent far less time at his gentlemen’s club, and was more willing to endure his wife’s meandering streams of conversation, although he still had little to say in answer but “Harrumph!”

“Yes, you. Who else? You and the wolf children and Old Timothy are the only ones who know about my howling fits. And Mother, too, of course, but she’s still traipsing around Europe, playing croquet and waiting for my dead father to turn up again. Highly unlikely, I’d say! Poor fellow, what a way to go. Drowned in a tar pit, and while on holiday, too. Gooey, gooey, gooey.”

Even as her gallant helpers lifted her, she paused in midair to give whispered instructions to a shivering Mrs. Clarke.

Alexander had climbed halfway up the drapes to get his compass, spyglass, and sextant down from a high shelf.

For now, in the words of the plucky young governess herself: “First, to Brighton...”
Clang clang! Clang clang!

The rolling fields were piebald as a Holstein cow, white in the hills and hollows where the snow had gathered, and dark where the bare earth peeked through.

However, the poem she had selected for their holiday studies was so perfectly maritime themed that she thought it really ought to be saved for Brighton, when she could intone its spooky refrains with the fresh salt air in their lungs and the roar of the surf as accompaniment.

“Arrivederci!” she trilled in a high voice.

“A professional thespian would hardly be surprised, but truly, it is amazing how a modest use of stagecraft can make one person resemble another....”

In a bold hand, she wrote on the envelope: Mr. Simon Harley-Dickinson, member in good standing of the Bards and Poets Society, the Professional Organization for Scribes, Playwrights, Scribblers, and Devotees of Thespis, care of the Theatrical Firmament, London, England.

“Wishing you good luck on your theatrical adventures...” “With best wishes, from your friend...” “From your faithful partner in crime...”
But it all sounded so formal, so familiar, so glib, so forced!