My dear Lady Misericordia,

I hope this letter finds you well. If it doesn’t yet, then I’m sure it will improve your mood considerably, because I have some news for you that I think you will like.

You, my Lady, no longer have a private tutor, not even one absent without leave.

Your father, Lord Daunt, has fired me and I have been obliged to leave my post immediately, with no notice and with no pay. And so you, my Lady, as a consequence, have no Latin, no History, no Geography, no books and no slate, you are free to be as illiterate and trivial a savage as ever populated an English drawing room.

I flatter myself that you may even in the midst of your joy spare a small thought for your poor tutor, left without gainful employment and no hope of any further. Flatter is perhaps the wrong word. I delude myself.

But you need worry not, my Lady, if you ever were, for no sooner did your father sack me than he employed me again: as an extra hand on his expedition!

Yes: I am now an official member. A tutor no more, I am, from today, an adventurer!

My first official task being: to clean the remaining bits of bread and cheese out of the lifeboat. It is a sort of punishment for what your father calls my ‘pleasingly uncharacteristic foolishness and idiocy’, which I think is a sort of compliment.

But the weather has calmed, the ship rocks barely noticeably and I am explorer: I am feeling considerably better today, as you might imagine.

Even the reappearance of Walter the seagull has not dampened my good mood, in fact he has even been helping me by gobbling up most of what was left of the mushed up food.

In the meantime I have been helping Professor Cumulus and Harry in an experiment. The Professor has an idea that power could be generated from the movement of the waves, just as the wind drives windmills, and we were trying to construct a mechanism to test his theory.

One thing I must admit is that, outside of the confines of his laboratory and Ghastington, out here in the world, the Professor’s absent-mindedness is quite something to behold. At home it appeared an eccentricity, here it is a positive danger to life and limb.

For example, we were busy lowering buckets over the side of the boat to see how they rose and fell on the waves, when the Cumulus’ hat blew off and landed in the sea. Before we knew what he was doing, the Professor swung a leg out over the side of the ship and prepared to jump down into the waves.

Without hesitation Harry and I caught hold of him and held him fast.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, “My hat’s down there...”

“Professor,” I said, “You can’t...”

“Why not? It’s only a couple of steps away, I’ll be just a minute.”

“You can’t swim,” said Harry.

“It’s the ocean, Professor,” I protested, “You’ll drown.”

“Oh yes, oh goodness,” the Professor smiled sheepishly and shook his head, “I had forgotten, the ocean, of course, one can’t walk on that, can one?”

And to think that it is this man’s genius that we are following all the way to the North Pole. But it cannot be denied, the Professor is a brilliant man, even if that brilliance shines a little too bright for him to see plainly, sometimes. And I’m sure that Lord Daunt, your father, would not have mounted this expedition without good cause. 

Even if both of them are being exceptionally secretive about what we are actually going in search of. I am sure they have a goal in mind, but if you ask either of them all you get is a stern glare from one and gleeful little grin from the other.

All in all though, you can see that we are very lucky to have Harry with us, since he sticks to Professor Cumulus like glue and ensures that he doesn’t do anything too hazardous.

We may have got off on the wrong foot, but now that I am no longer having to pretend to be a footman, Harry and I are getting on famously. He is proving to be not just an admirable watchdog for the Professor, but also an able assistant and quite the promising young scientist in his own right.

I am still trying to place where I might have met him before, as he is tantalisingly familiar. I suppose I must have seen him about Ghastington Manor during the preparations for the expedition, but I wish I could put my finger on it. Still, I am sure he is going to prove a useful member of our party.

I wish I could say the same thing about Baronet Oxshott, but since he has spent the whole day just practising with a harpoon that he found in the hold, with an constant, monotonous grunting and splashing as he threw it over and over again at nothing in particular, I cannot quite bring myself to.

No, that is unfair: he did a least get Walter the seagull to fetch the Professor’s hat back for him, even if Walter then refused to return it, but took to eating it instead.

But I must go now, my Lady, night is drawing in and with it the weather. The boat is starting to rock again and I think I am going to have to go and lie down and moan to myself for a bit.

Yours,

Adventurously (if a little queasily) 

Timothy Hope, Esq, Tutor