Chapter Three

On the way to Lady Audrey's house, young Beatrice Baudelaire tried very hard to think about everything that had just happened to her in the last hour. As she climbed into Edgar's horse drawn carriage, she tried to think about how she was, just two hours ago, enjoying root beer floats with a newly found friend. As she rode down the street and through the rest of traffic, she pondered whether she was doing the right thing by going with Edgar. When she passed by the man trying to fix his motorcycle, she meditated on the worry that Lady Audrey would be a noble person or a terrible villain. But most of all, she wondered whether she could trust anyone she had met or would meet today. For some time, Beatrice had been involved with an organization called "V.F.D". The organization, while almost completely gone today, consisted of various people, secretly doing noble things to protect the world from lurking dangers. V.F.D was something her three guardians had been a part of, and she had met a several people involved with this noble group, and, although she had only given the title to herself, Beatrice considered herself a member of V.F.D. The sad truth, however, is that the more often people try to do noble things, the more often they find themselves in trouble for their pain. This trouble had been the cause of many of Beatrice's troubles, and she found that troubling. These troubling troubles troubled her as she worried whether these troubling troubles troubling her would trouble the already troublesome troubles of a new guardian, and she also troubled over whether her new guardian's troubles would be trouble for her troubling troubles, or trouble for the troubling troublers that troubled her. So, in short, she was troubled.
None of these troubles were helped by Edgar, who insisted on not speaking the entire ride to Lady Audrey's. So Beatrice sat, in silence, wondering what lay ahead of her. I don't know if you know this, but time, like a burglar or a matching sock, can move incredibly quickly when one is not paying attention. It is for this reason that, before she had even realized she was near to her new home, she was actually there. When she looked up, though, she instantly wondered where "there" was. Beatrice found herself in a small, run down part of town with only one road, and plants growing in every direction. There were no stoplights, and no signposts. It was an abysmal place, but Edgar didn't seem to notice.
"Lovely place." Edgar said, glancing briefly at his watch. "And we got her a full three minutes ahead of schedule. Well, it would be foolish to waste that time here and now. Out you go."
While Edgar tied up the horses, Beatrice climbed down from the carriage, taking her suitcase with her. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the home, or rather, what was left of it. The house was a rather large mansion, dilapidated and crumbling. Dilapidated is a word which here means "ramshackle". The green paint was peeling off of the sides of the house, and the windows were smashed and broken on both sides. Part of the front wall was entirely missing, revealing two floors of rooms, each with their own knick knacks and appliances. The driveway was almost nonexistent, being only moderately cleaner than the rest of the dirt in front of the house. The entire sight transfixed Beatrice, a phrase which here means "caused her to wonder what kind of person would live in a house like this". It didn't seem very noble to allow one's windows to be broken. It didn't seem very noble to allow the green paint to peel from someone's walls. And it certainly didn't seem noble to let a wall go missing.
As Beatrice pondered these things, she suddenly heard a rather loud and deliberate cough. She started instantly, realizing that Edgar had grown impatient. The two of them headed towards the house, Edgar glancing had his watch constantly.
Edgar knocked on the front door. There was no response. Again he knocked, but there was no response. Frustrated, Edgar pressed the button to ring the bell for the door, but he heard no sound. While they waited for a response, Beatrice became more and more anxious, wondering who was on the other side of the door, and why they wouldn't answer. It is very difficult to experience something that you fear will be scary and uncomfortable, but it is far worse to ask to wait for it, being left with nothing to do but think about what is about to happen.
There was a click sound. Slowly, the door opened, and Beatrice and Edgar saw a beautiful woman with long, red, curly hair and a small smile open the door. She was wear a deep green dress that was shaped to look like leaves and vines wrapped around her body, like a giant plant had grown around her and she had been too busy with her hair to notice.
"Hello?" she said, more as a question than a welcoming statement. First, she looked at Edgar, observing him for a moment. Then, she looked at Beatrice, and her smile grew wider.
"Edgar Poe." Edgar Poe said curtly.
"Lady Audrey." Lady Audrey said softly. She then nodded to the Beatrice, who reflexively reached into her breast pocket and produced a small card.
"Beatrice Baudelaire, Lady Audrey. My card."
She extended her hand to her new guardian, who took and read the card.
"Beatrice Baudelaire. Baticeer Extraordinaire. You train bats, Beatrice?"
"Yes, ma'am." She said, nodding. "At least, I do when I have a bat available."
"Available?" asked Lady Audrey, somewhat confused.
"Yes, ma'am. Available. Bats can, unfortunately, be very unreliable and are prone to heading away without return."
"I believe in that way bats are quite like most people." Lady Audrey said.
"Indeed." responded Beatrice.
"Well," interrupted Edgar, checking his watch, "I would love to stay and continue our conversation, but I need to head back to the bank if I am to take advantage of my three minute lead on the day. I assume that you are all set, Ms. Baudelaire?"
Without waiting for a response, Edgar tipped his hat to the both of them and began to walk back to the horse drawn carriage. It was at this time, for the first time, the Beatrice felt very afraid for what may happen next.
There are very few people in the world that like to be left alone. It is true of most people that, even the gravest of situations can be made slightly better with the knowledge that one enduring the situation with a friend. And, if a friend is unavailable, a banker. As I, myself, sit and type these letters in the pouring rain, hoping that the water does not wash away these words, my typewriter, or myself, I often wish that I was still in contact with one of my few surviving friends or bankers. Alas, just as I have no one to turn to at the moment, Beatrice had no one to turn to then. She watched Edgar ride away on his carriage, checking his watch as he went. When he was finally out of sight, Beatrice thought that this would be the last familiar face she would see for a long, long time.

"An odd person, isn't he?" muttered Lady Audrey. Beatrice nodded. "I love your scarf, Beatrice," she continued, "where did you get it?"

She was referring, of course, to the bright red scarf that Beatrice had wrapped around her neck. It was rather long for her, with tassels at the end of it, and it was put tightly around her neck several times to compensate for her relatively small stature.

"I inherited it from my guardians, ma'am."

"Ah, yes, them." Lady Audrey sighed. "I'm very, very sorry for your loss, dear Beatrice."

"As am I," replied Beatrice.

There was a brief silence as Beatrice thought about her loss. It was Lady Audrey who broke the silence.

"Well, dear child, do come in. There is a lot to see and I must teach you how to feed the plants before dinner time!"

Lady Audrey then turned and walked through into the main room of the crumbling mansion. With trepidation, a word which here means "worry that the roof was going to fall on her head any moment, crushing her immediately", Beatrice followed.

The inside of the mansion was as destroyed and rotten as the outside. The staircase was broken, with several steps missing. Paintings lay strewn across the floor. The doors that were still on their hinges were open wide. As Beatrice walked through the house, her feet brushed aside books, baubles, and a boomerang. It seemed that anything and everything that one would have consider putting away, hanging up, or nailing down as off its hinges and in the wrong place. Beatrice's heart would have sunk if she had not been distracted by Lady Audrey's response to the environment.

Lady Audrey walked into the center of the main room, seemingly unshaken by her surroundings. Instead, she helped a melody to herself that Beatrice did not recognize. It seemed as if it did not even occur to her that she dwelled in such a bleak and decrepit place, the word decrepit here meaning "gloomy and broken". Sometimes, in order to keep one from completely despairing and throwing oneself on the floor and wailing miserably, it may be necessary to find something hopeful about one's situation. Beatrice wanted to do just this, but couldn't find anything pleasant to say. Finally, she thought of something to say.

"It will certainly be nice to sleep under the stars," Beatrice said, staring up at the missing part of the ceiling.

"Oh, I'm afraid that you won't be seeing the stars for quite a while, dear Beatrice," Lady Audrey replied with a small smile.

This statement sent a shiver of fear through Beatrice.

"Why is that?" she asked, so quietly it was almost a whisper.

Lady Audrey tilted her head, looking at Beatrice as if trying to figure out why she would ask such a silly question. Then she let out a laugh.

"Why, Edgar didn't tell you anything about me, did he, dear child?"

Beatrice shook her head.

"This isn't my house, dear."

"It isn't?" asked Beatrice.

"No, of course not," replied Lady Audrey, "this is."

It was at this time that Lady Audrey blew a whistle, calling in the two most beautiful ponies you had ever seen. With laughter and giggles, Lady Audrey taught Beatrice how to ride one of the ponies, and the two of them spent the rest of their days running through forest and having fun, silly, and perfectly safe adventures, and neither of them ever betrayed the other in a grizzly and frightening way. The end.

This, as you may suspect, is not truly what happened, but I find it occasionally comforting to write happy endings to this miserable story, that I may read them at a later time and end on these endings, pretending that what happened next never happened

But, alas, it happened. It happened the moment Lady Audrey showed that she was standing on a wooden panel in the middle of the main room. With a flourish, she lifted the panel, motioning for Beatrice to come to it. Beatrice did, but, upon inspection, could not see anything except for a large, black hole. Lady Audrey spoke softly.

"Come, dear child. It's quite safe, I assure you."

With that, Lady Audrey lowered herself into the hole with her hands. Beatrice watched as her new guardian sank into the black calmly, until all that was visible was her hands. Then, quite quickly, Lady Audrey let go, and her hands vanished into the black. Beatrice gasped in surprise, wondering where she went.

"Well, dear? Are you coming or not?" echoed a voice from the dark.

Beatrice continued to lean over; trying to discern what was in the darkness. Try as she might, she saw nothing, but she did smell a great deal. There were very many fragrances, both vile and sweet. It was almost overwhelming how many different scents were in the darkness below her. This puzzled her greatly, but she did not quite know what to make of it.

It was she stared over into the darkness that she remembered the words that her eldest guardian said to her one night. It was several years ago, and she could only remember small details of the event. Beatrice thought about when she stood on a mountain, staring into a cave in front of her. The weather was distressingly cold, and her guardians were huddled together under a silver blanket. The eldest of her guardians stared at the cave in front of them, and spoke words of courage.

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear."

With that statement, the three guardians and young Beatrice headed into the cave.

Beatrice remembered this moment very well. As it ran through her mind, she resolved to overcome her fear.

"Beatrice?" called the voice from the darkness.

"I'm coming," replied Beatrice.

She leaned over the side, lowered herself into the hole with her hands. She watched herself sink into the black, slowly, until all that was visible to her were her hands. Then, quite quickly, Beatrice let go and her hands vanished into the dark. Beatrice took a deep breath, wondering where she went.