He left it all—the doctor, the manor, the housekeeper, the car full of children, and the harridan of a reporter—behind, determined not to think on the day anymore. The pub and a pint awaited.
Mille-fleur
Their screaming certainly did carry in the close confines of the automobile.
The chauffeur scowled at Sylvia in the rearview mirror, and she turned away, her headache doubling.
“Children, please sit. All of you, sit now. Sit down.” She had been instructed by Lady Smythe-Helsing not to raise her voice at the children, as that would damage their fragile psyches. She had also been instructed not to ever lay a hand on any of them in an effort to control them—such efforts led to violence, which could not be tolerated. If she ever did any such thing out of Lady Smythe-Helsing’s view, the children would report it. Never mind them, the chauffeur would report it. And he had the gall to glare at her for their misbehavior.
So here they were, the four little darlings scrambling all over the seats and each other, throwing their dolls and stuffed bears and India-rubber balls, kicking at the windows and ceilings, punching and screaming. Alice, Andrew, Anna, Arthur.
“That famous doctor is opening his house for tours, just for the afternoon, take the children to visit, it will be so educational,” Lady Smythe-Helsing had announced this morning. Commanded. “Simpson will drive you. Hurry along, won’t you?” The children had been lined up, tallest to shortest, oldest to youngest, ages ten to five, looking smart and crisp, the boys in their pressed suit jackets and ties—real, not clip-on—the girls in their pleated skirts and snow-white blouses with lace-trimmed Peter Pan collars. So lovely, weren’t they? Their mother had kissed their rosy cheeks as they beamed up at her. Then Lady Smythe-Helsing had left Sylvia alone with them while she went to lead the latest meeting of the Oakwaddling Village Improvement Society.
The children had looked at Sylvia with such a piercing sense of anticipation.
Now that they had turned the interior of the car into a rugby pitch, the chauffeur looked at Sylvia, clearly thinking, How could you let them carry on so? He’d report to the mistress how the incompetent governess couldn’t control a few innocent children.
“Miss Sylvia, are we there yet?” said the youngest boy, Arthur.
“Not yet, dear.”
“I want to be there now!”
“Unless you’ve found a way to alter space and time, you’ll have to wait.”
He bit his lip and furrowed his brow, as if considering. If anyone could find a way to disrupt the workings of the universe, it would be one of the Smythe-Helsing children.
Meanwhile, Sylvia stared out the window, wishing she could speed up time. They had reached the drive leading to Dr. Lambshead’s manor when they passed a woman in a dress suit walking away. She seemed angry. They’d also passed a car earlier—so the doctor’s tours of his manor were popular. That many more people to notice the unruly children and tsk-tsk the poor governess who couldn’t control them. Sylvia sighed.
Finally, the car stopped before the manor’s carved front doors. Sylvia struggled to pop the door open, succeeded, and the children exploded out of the car. They ran laps around it, pulled each other’s hair and sleeves and skirts and ties. Sylvia couldn’t tell if they were screaming or laughing. Well, if they ran it out now, maybe they’d actually sleep tonight.
She glanced at the chauffeur, intending to discuss procedures for getting them all home. “I’ll wait,” he said, glaring.
Sighing again—she probably sighed more than she spoke—Sylvia moved to the bumper to head off the latest lap around the car. Andrew pulled up short in front of her, and the others crashed into him. Sylvia pointed to the house. “That way.”
Screaming, they rocketed toward the ancient-looking and no-doubt fragile front doors, which obediently opened inward. The housekeeper, a stern-looking woman who seemed even more ancient and weathered than the doors, stood by them. Even the children fell silent at her appearance.
The old woman glared at Sylvia and said, “Here for a tour, miss?”
Sylvia swallowed and nodded. “Yes, if you please. The children really aren’t so bad—”
“This way.” The housekeeper disappeared into a darkened vestibule.
Alice, the oldest, glanced at Sylvia, sizing her up.
“Go on,” Sylvia said, but the children had already raced inside. Sylvia hurried to follow them.
Housekeeper and children waited by another set of doors at the end of the entryway.
“If you would kindly keep the children in the parlor.” The housekeeper glared with her beady, crab-like eyes, and opened the door. Sylvia and the children inched inside.
When Sylvia saw the parlor, she nearly cried. So many things, all of them smashable. Pottery, glassware, trinkets with gears and levers, arcane instruments made of spindly wire, fabric to be soiled, paper to be torn, entire cabinets to be toppled, and a wall full of art to be destroyed. Almost lost among portraits whose gazes followed her hung a floral tapestry in faded colors, which looked like it would disintegrate if one merely breathed on it. It was an odd, blurred thing that almost seemed to change shape if she turned her head just so.
The children trembled—vibrating, anticipating, potential energy waiting to burst forth—hoping for the chance to get their dirty little claws on everything. The housekeeper closed the double doors, her gaze still boring into Sylvia, as if expecting the worst and knowing it would be the governess’s fault if even the smallest sliver broke free from the leg of a chair. The children would destroy it all, and the doctor would report the horror to Lady Smythe-Helsing, and Sylvia would be fired.
And would that really be such a bad thing? Perhaps she could leave right now, climb out a window and run . . .
She put a hand against her forehead, trying to stave off the headache building behind her eyes. “Children, do behave,” she said, by rote, out of habit, tired and unconvincing, even though the children hadn’t moved since the closing of the door. It was only a matter of time before the human whirlwind.
Still, the children didn’t move. Sylvia allowed herself to exhale. She attempted an actual instruction.
“Why don’t you sit here on the sofa while we wait?” she said. Quietly, the children obeyed. They lined up on the sofa and sat, one after the other, no one pinching anyone.
Extraordinary. Truly extraordinary. Something was terribly, terribly wrong here.
Sylvia sat in a wingback chair across from them, watching. They sat, hands folded in laps, and waited, not making a sound, not even flinching. Somewhere, a clock ticked, and it sounded like the tolling of a funeral bell. Sylvia’s heart was racing for no reason at all.
When the double doors opened again, she nearly shrieked, hand to her breast to still her heart. The children merely looked.
The housekeeper stood there, like a monk, in her brown dress. She frowned. “There’s been a change of plans. I’m afraid the doctor has been unexpectedly detained. You’ll have to come another time.”
That was that. The whole afternoon for nothing, and now Sylvia was going to have to herd the children back outside, and back to the car for the ride home.
But they left the parlor quietly, single-file by height and age. Outside, on the front steps, they halted in a row, like little soldiers, while the car pulled around. They got in, sat quietly, and stayed that way until the car left the grounds of Lambshead’s manor. Then, they burst into screams, the boys hit the girls, the girls pinched the boys, and everybody bounced against the ceiling. She could only watch. They were spring toys that had been let loose.