The Interrupted Tale Read Online Free PDF

was about the ferns. But Judge Quinzy on the board of trustees is no joke. It seems Miss Mortimer never received my warning about him. What can he be plotting? How fortunate that this invitation to speak at the CAKE gives me an excuse to go to Swanburne and put things right.”
    Sleepy as she was, her mind would not stop flitting from one worry to the next. “But, dear me, a speech! Thank goodness I took that class on Great Orations of Antiquity. It ought to come in useful as I prepare my remarks. And the twelfth of October is only a week away. . . .”
    Â 
    Clickety-clack, clickety-clack . . .
    Whoo-hoo!
    Whoo-hoo!
    Penelope awoke the next morning thinking of trains—or train tickets, to be precise. She had recently used all her savings to pay for the services of Madame Ionesco, a Gypsy soothsayer of spooky reputation. It was Madame Ionesco who had eerily suggested that Edward Ashton might not be dead at the bottom of a tar pit, but still alive, although she did not explain how or why that might be. This unexpected news from Beyond the Veil had been worth every penny, but now Penelope had not a cent to her name with which to buy tickets to Heathcote.
    True, her salary was generous, but Lady Constance rarely thought to pay it unless asked. This Penelope seldom bothered to do, for she only spent money on books, presents, and the occasional soothsayer, and how often did the need for a soothsayer arise? Not often, in her limited experience. Yet now the urgency of making such a request could not be denied, unless she and the children intended to walk to Swanburne.
    â€œWhich would take many months, given the shortness of Cassiopeia’s legs,” she reasoned. “We would miss the CAKE completely. And who knows what mischief the Person Who Calls Himself Quinzy But Whom I Suspect Is Really Edward Ashton, Long Presumed Dead, may have accomplished by then?”
    Therefore, after sharing breakfast with the children and setting them to work dusting the nursery bookshelves (this chore always took a good long while, for the children could not help being distracted by the books they were supposed to be dusting), Penelope went in search of Lady Constance. She found her outdoors, in the cutting garden.
    â€œBut I ordered flowers!” Lady Constance sounded petulant. She carried a frilly parasol against the sun, and twirled it to and fro in irritation. “These are nothing more than knobby, ugly, dirty turnips. I asked for beautiful and frightfully expensive tulips. ”
    The gardener, a young, plain-spoken fellow, gestured toward his wheelbarrow. To Penelope’s eye it seemed to be full of small, misshapen potatoes. “These are the flowers, ma’am. At least, they will be in the spring, if I put them in the ground now.”
    Penelope curtsied. “Lady Constance, good morning. May I have a word?”
    â€œNot now, Miss Lumley.” Lady Constance covered her mouth with one hand as if she did not want the gardener to hear, although she spoke just as loudly as before. “This man seems to think these unattractive lumps are tulips, rather than turnips. I fear he is not well.”
    Penelope peered into the wheelbarrow for a closer look. “Tulip bulbs, how exciting!” she exclaimed. Indeed, tulips were wildly popular in Miss Lumley’s day, particularly “broken” tulips, which were not really broken at all. It simply meant that the tulips were striped in different colors, rather like Mr. Blake’s tyger, although one could no more mistake a tulip for a tyger than a tyger for a turnip.
    The gardener sighed and leaned on his spade. “No offense, m’lady, but if I don’t plant them soon they’ll rot. Now, where would you like them?”
    â€œNowhere! Who would want such unattractive things lying about?”
    The poor fellow scratched his head. “Once they’re planted you won’t see the bulbs, m’lady. They’ll be