The Unmapped Sea (2 page)

“Dearie me! It's not quite as simple as all that.” Mrs. Clarke glanced at Margaret, who had only narrowly avoided dropping her tray. “Well! We'll have to have a bit of a talk about it . . . later.”

“But I wish to know
now
. Truthfully, Mrs. Clarke—and don't think I don't see you there, too, Margaret, your eyes round as crumpets!—the looks on both of your faces make me uneasy! You must tell me everything there is to know about having babies this second, or I shall be even more upset than I already am. And surely that would not be good for the child.” Her head whipped in Penelope's direction. “Miss Lumley, the doctor is gone. There is no need for you to continue writing down my every word. Unless
you
would like to explain his meaning?”

Penelope covered the page with her arm so that no one could see her pictures of Moon-Faced Veltschmerz, as she had just named him in a caption. (It was rude to write such a thing, and perhaps she ought not to have done so, but it must be said that her penmanship was
beyond reproach.) “Mrs. Clarke is a woman of great maturity and experience, my lady. I am quite sure it is best if she were the one to illuminate the subject for you.” She stood and bobbed a quick curtsy. “With your permission, I will leave you to discuss the matter in private.”

Mrs. Clarke gave her a wild, pleading look, but Penelope was already at the door. She knew quite well how babies got out of their mothers, for she had assisted the Swanburne veterinarian at the birthing of lambs and calves since she was a little girl. Still, she hardly felt it was her place to discuss the matter with Lady Constance. That kind of information was best learned from a grown-up and thoroughly trustworthy person, and Mrs. Clarke was nothing if not that.

“N
UTSAWOO, HOLD STILL
!” C
ASSIOPEIA
I
NCORRIGIBLE
, the youngest of the three Incorrigible children, was in the midst of painting a portrait, and she was having a devil of a time getting her subject to pose properly. “No twitching, no nibbling, no scampering, please!”

The nursery smelled like oil paint, turpentine, and ponies (this last aroma was due to the horsehair paintbrushes the children used). All three young artists stood before their easels. All three had been
attempting to paint the same model, which is to say, Nutsawoo. 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. Even as Cassiopeia scolded him, the restless rodent dashed to the window, which was closed against the frigid winter air. He wrung his paws pleadingly to be let out, while those nervous, beady eyes gazed with longing at the snow-covered elm branches just outside.

It is a common misconception that squirrels hibernate during the winter. They do not, but there is little for them to do in the cold weather, and so they stay in their treetop homes, cuddled up with their squirrel friends for warmth and living on the nuts and seeds they so frantically hoarded in the warmer months. Only a highly unusual squirrel, half tamed with cooing words, gentle head scratches, and the frequent offering of treats, could be persuaded to leave a cozy wintertime nest and come skittering indoors through a nursery window to pose for a portrait in oils. Nutsawoo was just such a creature, but he was still a squirrel, and his walnut-sized brain had no room for patience, never
mind an appreciation for art.

This was no reflection on the talent or dedication of the artists, of course. The children liked to look at art, and they liked making paintings. They had become quite skilled at it, too, for Penelope considered art an essential part of their education, as it had been of hers. (Some of you may already be familiar with the excellent paper she once wrote on Ominous Landscapes for her art history class at Swanburne. Less successful was her attempt to re-create the pottery of ancient Greece. Making pottery is a messy business, involving buckets of muddy clay, rapidly spinning wheels, and special ovens called kilns that bake at fiendishly hot temperatures. As befalls many beginning potters, Penelope's first effort was lumpy and off-center, and developed a large crack while in the kiln. However, as Agatha Swanburne once said, “To do something familiar and succeed is no surprise. But to try something new and fail—why, that is the start of an adventure!”)

In just this bold and Swanburnian spirit, each of the three children had resolved to paint Nutsawoo's portrait in a different style. Alexander, the eldest, had taken a classical approach, and depicted Nutsawoo draped in a toga, as people wore in the long-ago days of the Roman Empire. That proud fuzzy head gazed
out upon a view of the Colosseum, a wreath of bay laurel perched on teeny-tiny ears. Long, thoughtfully splayed whiskers gave the twitchy creature a philosophical expression; one upraised paw held a gilded acorn. The acorn, Alexander explained, was symbolic. His siblings nodded sagely at that.

Beowulf, a few years younger and possessed of a true artistic temperament, chose a more experimental style. His portrait was made of countless small dabs of color—not plain russet browns and grays, but bright, unmixed tints never before seen on any squirrel in the whole long history of squirrels. Up close, one only saw the dots, but as the viewer stepped back, the image of the squirrel came thrillingly into view. (Beowulf had no way of knowing this, of course, but some decades later this exact style would be taken up by a small but influential group of painters, mostly in France. They were called the Pointillists, and their dot-filled paintings hang in museums to this very day. Bear in mind that one does not have to be a Pointillist, or even French, to make attractive pictures out of colored dots. If paint is scarce, small, brightly colored candies will do in a pinch, assuming one has the discipline not to devour one's work while creating it. Art is a perfectly nutritious thing to consume, but candy is best eaten in moderation.)

As the youngest Incorrigible, Cassiopeia may have known less about art than her brothers, but she knew what she liked, and what she liked was excitement and adventure, and a touch of spookiness, too. 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. Nutsawoo stood in the middle, barrel-chested, with bulging biceps and fat squirrel cheeks pulled back in a toothy snarl, and all around him was fog and mist and yellow glints of danger, like eyes peeking out of the unseen cave depths.

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. Hunks of wet snow thudded silently into the snowbanks below, and the reluctant model's tiny paw prints soon disappeared in the blowing drifts.

“W
ELL, THAT WAS QUITE AN
adventure!” Penelope burst into the nursery breathless, for she had bounded up the two flights of stairs from the parlor just as Nutsawoo
was bouncing his way down the elm branches. “The doctor was the most unpleasant man you could imagine. And poor Lady Constance! To think that she will soon be having a baby of her very own, and yet seems to have no idea whatsoever—” She stopped, for she did not wish to make the children overly curious about Lady Constance's personal affairs. “Never mind all that. How are the portraits coming along?”

Alas, the painters were in a funk. The loss of their model had made their creative energies pull up short, like a pony shying from a jump, and now three potential masterpieces lay unfinished. Even if Nutsawoo came back, it would be of no use, for the mad rush of inspiration had fizzled. The usually energetic children lay draped over the furniture, limp as empty coats.

Penelope sniffed. “It smells like painting in here, at least. Surely you have made some progress?”

The Incorrigibles heaved long, morose sighs and shook their heads. They were stuck, sunk in a quicksand of gloom. Optimism had become its opposite. The very notion that art mattered, or that squirrels mattered, seemed laughable.

In short, they had
weltschmerz
.

“Eureka!” you may well cry. “So that is what
weltschmerz
means! Why, it is nothing more than the
grumpy feeling one gets when a pleasant task is interrupted.” If only it were so simple.
Weltschmerz
is not the frustration and despair of dropping an ice-cream cone to the hot August sidewalk after taking but a single lick. Nor is it the pang of disappointment one feels after tearing open an attractively wrapped present, only to find it is something hideous: a sweater so itchy it might as well have been knitted from poison ivy, for example, or one of those dreadful “educational” toys that teach only how difficult it is to properly insert batteries. The fact that one must still write a courteous thank-you note despite the wretchedness of the gift only makes the suffering worse, but that, too, is not
weltschmerz
.

Snow globes that slip and shatter, best friends who move to faraway towns, birthday parties missed because of an ill-timed case of pinkeye—such misfortunes, difficulties, and losses are part of life. This is why sensible people always carry a clean pocket handkerchief: One never knows when a few well-earned tears may need to be shed. But
weltschmerz
is another kind of misery altogether. To the
weltschmerz
stricken, disappointment itself seems a disappointment. They care nothing for snow globes or parties. 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.

(Interestingly, the French also have a word that means a painfully bad mood. They call it
ennui. Ennui
means you have grown weary of the world. How someone could grow weary of living in France is another question altogether; the cheese is beyond compare and so are the sweets, especially those involving
chocolat
—but that topic, like so many others, is best saved for later.)

“You must have done something while I was downstairs,” Penelope said, mystified by the children's behavior. “May I look?”

The trio of artists groaned and slumped, and gestured wanly in the direction of their easels. Penelope examined the paintings, one by one.

“These are marvelous, and so different from one another!” she exclaimed. “They simply need to be finished. If you have run out of pep, you can easily complete them tomorrow. There is no need to be discouraged. Rome was not built in a day, you know,” she added, for Alexander's painting had put her in mind of this old but still true saying.

Beowulf, ever the most sensitive of the three, slid bonelessly to the floor. He landed with a thud, and lay there helpless as a sack of flour.

“No finishing,” he moaned. “No squirrel! And thus, no art.”

“Nutsawoo ran away,” Alexander explained. “Now we have no model.”

“And no hope!” Cassiopeia pressed her hands to her temples and let her eyes roll up in their sockets. It was quite a dramatic gesture, worthy of a stage performance on the West End.

“Being an artists' model is no job for the twitchy. But surely you know what a squirrel looks like by now,” Penelope reasoned. “They are all more or less alike, save the color.”

Whether a squirrel would agree that squirrels were all more or less alike was a topic for debate, but there was no opportunity to discuss it just then, for a strange noise pierced the air. It was not a howling sound, exactly, but certainly howling-like: a high-pitched wail of shock and dismay.

“Lord Fredrick?” the children asked, then frowned, for it did not sound like him. Nor did they need an almanac to tell them the moon was not full. The waning crescent was clearly visible out the nursery window, perched like a rocking horse on the bare branches of the elm.

“I fear it is Lady Constance.” Her way blocked by
the easels, Penelope climbed over the armchair so she might listen at the door. “Remember, children. We do not discuss Lord Fredrick's howling with anyone. It is a private matter, and we are obliged to respect that.” (As only a very few people knew, Lord Fredrick's urge to howl during the full moon was the result of a curse placed on his family several generations before, when his great-grandfather, the admiral, was shipwreck'd on a cannibal-infested island named Ahwoo-Ahwoo . . . well, it is a long story, as you might imagine.)

“Oh, woe! Ohhhhh, oh, woe!” Again the tragic sound came. Penelope flinched. If Lady Constance felt in need of a more in-depth biology lesson after her conversation with Mrs. Clarke, Penelope would be the logical person to provide it, given that she was the only professional educator in the household. Once more she pressed her ear to the door. To her great relief, she heard no one approach.

“Does Lady howl, too?” Cassiopeia asked with hope. The Incorrigibles were expert howlers themselves, although not because of a curse. They came by it quite naturally, for the three siblings had been raised by wolves, until the day Lord Fredrick had found them running wild in the vast forests of Ashton Place. Thanks to their own efforts, and the skill and patience
of their governess, they had since learned to temper their canine ways. However, small, tasty-looking animals did sometimes set them off, especially if it was near suppertime, and little wolfish
ahwoo
s continued to pepper their speech. To be frank, they also liked talking that way, as most children would, and saw no urgent reason to stop.

“Maybe Mrs. Clarke will howl next?” Beowulf impishly proposed.

“Or Margaret?” Cassiopeia attempted a high, squeaky howl of the sort Margaret would be likely to emit. Even Penelope had to chuckle at that.

“Or Cook.” Alexander attempted a full-bodied sort of howl that seemed just right for Cook.