The Bell at Sealey Head

Fifteen

Miranda Beryl’s entourage of friends and their servants lodged at the inn showed no signs, after several days, of leaving for more convenient quarters. Indeed, they had already given a predictable shape to their days. Just after noon, never before, they began to appear in the taproom, one by one, like a gaudy and ruffled flock of birds homing in on their favorite watering hole. Mr. Pilchard ran errands early to be back in time to cook for them. He sent up their breakfasts as the orders came down: hot, crisp rolls, butter and strawberry jam, baked eggs flavored with herbs and cheese, sausages, a hash of finely chopped onion, smoked salmon, and potato, hot slabs of clove-scented ham, plenty of tea and coffee and ale. All of this was delivered to the taproom by two of Colin Baker’s boys, who were used to kitchen chores, dodging choppers and elbows, and remembering the sudden, urgent whims of the guests.

When the guests finished breakfast, they wandered outside, where their servants, for whom Mr. Pilchard had cooked much earlier, had horses saddled, carriages ready and waiting. By noon, the guests had rattled away to Aislinn House. The inn was quiet all afternoon. Mrs. Quinn and Lily tidied the rooms. Mr. Pilchard cleaned the kitchen and began to prepare for the next meal. Judd walked into town, placed orders for the evening meal at the fish market, the butcher, the grocer, as Mr. Pilchard suggested. He kept an eye open for Ridley Dow, whom he did not see, and for Gwyneth, whom he did once or twice, at a distance and accompanied by a Sproule.

Finished with his errands, he made a brief appearance at the stationer’s. He would poke his head in the door, catch Mr. Trent’s eye. Mr. Trent would shake his head, then raise a brow. Judd would shake his own head. They would both shrug. Judd would return to the inn.

The guests would wander back in the evenings sometime between sundown and midnight. Those who came back earlier usually began earnest and quite ruthless card games in the taproom. Mr. Pilchard made them sandwiches or entire suppers, whatever they requested. Judd stayed in the taproom, serving them, relaying orders to Mr. Pilchard, who seemed tireless and constantly inventive. By midnight the guests retired with their cards, bottles of brandy, and late-night repasts to their rooms. Judd and a yawning Mr. Quinn cleaned the taproom. Judd checked the kitchen before he went to bed, found it empty, the cook in bed, he assumed, and the spotless pots ready for the morning. As always, he read himself to sleep.

In the late afternoon, before the guests began appearing and duty called Judd back to the taproom, he visited his father.

Dugold took an innkeeper’s interest in the daily business. After Judd described the most exotic of the outfits their guests wore that day—a cloak lined with lemon satin, a pair of gold shoe buckles shaped like spaniels—he would produce whatever vexations had plagued him during the day. Dugold always had some advice to share, whether or not Judd had already solved the problem with the leaky pipe, the broken beer tap handle, or Mrs. Quinn wanting to tie bows on all the doorknobs.

Then Judd would fetch a mug of beer for his father, and, in that idle hour before sundown, continue reading The Secret Education of Nemos Moore. Dugold, after offering the opinion that magic he couldn’t see wasn’t of much use to him, usually napped through much of the book. But he woke up when Nemos Moore found his way to Sealey Head.

“Must have gotten lost,” he muttered. “All that magical power he says he has, and he winds up in a town full of dead fish.”

“No, no; he was following the sound of the bell.”

“The bell.” His father’s eyes sought his, came close. “Our bell? The one in the water?”

“Yes.”

“What for?”

Judd skimmed the page silently. “A source of great power, he calls it. An ancient, labyrinthine mystery.”

“Which was—what?”

“Like a maze. A puzzle. Not,” he added, scratching his head, “the simple echo of a bell on a foundering ship.”

“A mystery in Sealey Head?” his father asked incredulously. “Where does he think he is?”

“I don’t know,” Judd said, flipping the page avidly. “Let’s find out. Ah—New chapter. ‘In Which He—’ ” His voice stopped; he sat still, staring at the page.

“You’ve gone off without me,” Dugold commented. “I may not care for the book, but I like the sound of your voice.”

“ ‘In Which He Finds His Way to Aislinn House.’ ” He raised his eyes, stared at his father. “That’s what it says.”

“So?”

“So. That’s why—that’s why Ridley Dow went there.”

“To Aislinn House.”

“Looking for the bell ...”

Dugold closed his eyes, screwed them up tightly, and shook his head as though to get rid of extraneous notions, empty words, paradoxes. He opened his eyes again, reached for his beer. “You lost me, boy. Where is that Ridley, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Judd breathed, turning pages again. “Let’s see if we can find him.”

But the adroit and knowledgeable Mr. Moore grew strangely vague once he had entered Aislinn House. Odd details—a flock of crows, a broom closet—drew his notice. The bell was scarcely mentioned. A beautiful woman named Hydria, with a long and mysterious past, took up most of the pages. She sounded, Judd thought, like someone out of a very old ballad, the queen of a rich and magical realm accessible easily to anyone with a little imagination. Dugold began to snore in the middle of the descriptions. Judd read on, searching in vain between the lines for Ridley Dow, until the sound of his own bell, and the thump of boots on the floorboards, drew him back to the taproom and his thirsty guests.

They were growing bored, he understood from their comments as they drank his ale and brandy. Bored with the imposed quiet, the desultory afternoons in Aislinn House, where they waited for Lady Eglantyne to die, bored with the quaint fishing town, the little tedious boats coming and going, the rides along the beach or in the wood where one never met anyone, not anyone one knew, or cared to, at any rate. Their noisy card games began earlier and earlier; they gambled and drank through the evening, joined by others staying at Aislinn House who were tired of the sedate evenings there. The taproom, full of brightly dressed people calling for food and drink as they shuffled their cards, certainly had a prosperous air about it. Judd, who missed his own long evenings with his father and his books and the sound of the sea, found himself perversely wishing, even as gold clinked into the till, that they would all go away.

One afternoon, when they had begun to drift in especially early for their games, the doorbell jangled yet again, and Mr. Quinn came to join him behind the taproom bar.

“You have visitors,” he told Judd. “I showed them into the sitting room. I’ll take over here.”

Judd, cheering up at the thought of Gwyneth, was only mildly disappointed to find a Sproule with her instead of her sister Pandora. At least there was only one of them.

Gwyneth was gazing with astonishment at the bedecked little room, the only place in the inn that the guests avoided.

“It looks like a ball gown,” she said to Judd. “All lace and bows. Even the mantelpiece is swagged with silk.”

“I didn’t do it,” Judd assured her.

“Oh, come, Mr. Cauley. You’re among friends. You can confess. ”

Daria picked up a conch shell trailing a pink ribbon from one of its spikes. “I think it’s sweet. Shells are quite naked, fresh out of the sea, aren’t they.” A shout, followed by a wave of laughter, rolled out of the taproom. “Gracious, Mr. Cauley, whatever is going on in there?”

“Miss Beryl’s guests are playing cards.”

“Really?” Gwyneth looked out the sitting room door, and encountered the closed taproom door, with its narrow window of crackled glass. “Can we peek in?”

“Whatever for?” Daria demanded.

“Are they playing with dice? Are they betting?”

Judd smiled at her. “A dozen men on their way to being drunk are busy trading their considerable wealth back and forth over a handful of painted paper cards.” He crossed the hall, opened the door a little, and she applied her eye to the scene.

She stepped back finally, looking oddly contented. “I thought as much. But I wasn’t certain.”

“My dear Miss Blair, what kind of tale are you writing?”

“The kind that tells you what it is as it goes along. Thank you, Mr. Cauley, that was extremely helpful.”

“Would you like to go in and try a hand?”

“Don’t tempt me. I don’t want the experience, only the details.” She hesitated, her smile fading a little. “No Mr. Dow in there.”

“No.”

“How very odd.”

“Yes.”

She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “Daria talked almost of nothing else as we rode up here. I think she’s in love.”

“I am sorry,” Judd said sincerely, as they went back into the sitting room, where the beribboned Daria, upon the sofa with bows pinned all over it, seemed to be merging with her background. “I do wish very much that I had some inkling of where Mr. Dow has gone. But I haven’t heard a word.” At least, he thought but did not say, nobody has found the body washed ashore.

“Oh,” Daria sighed, melting a little more into the sofa as she slumped. “I was so hoping ... Well.” She straightened determinedly and opened the reticule she carried. She took out an envelope, handed it to him. “We rode up here to invite you to a party at Sproule Manor in honor of Miranda Beryl. Music, dancing, supper. Please come. All of Miss Beryl’s guests and half of Sealey Head will be there. And,” she added wistfully, “I very much hope Mr. Dow as well.”

Judd looked at Gwyneth. “Will you be there?”

“Of course.”

“Then so will I.”

“Of course she’s coming,” Daria said a trifle moodily. “She’s practically family. My brother wrote her down first on his invitation list. Well, first after Miranda Beryl, of course.”

“And who was first on your list?” Gwyneth teased. Daria blushed a little and got to her feet restively.

“Tea?” Judd offered, but nothing, he saw, would have kept Miss Sproule except the prospect of Mr. Dow.

“Thank you. We have other invitations to deliver, and we promised Gwyneth’s aunt . . . My brother should be there, by then. He rode to Aislinn House to give the invitation to Miss Beryl. I hope,” she added to Gwyneth, her eyes widening, “she does not keep him. He seems a bit distracted these days, with the party.”

“Indeed,” Gwyneth murmured.

“Oh, my dear,” Daria said quickly, her hand closing solicitously upon Gwyneth’s elbow. “You mustn’t take it seriously.”

Gwyneth drew breath, held it for a moment; Judd watched her, brows crooked, wondering. She loosed it finally. “Yes,” she said decidedly. “I think I must.”

“But it’s not as if—”

“Your brother seems infatuated with Miss Beryl, and I for one could not be happier.”

Daria blinked at her. “But—he—she couldn’t—”

“How do we really know what another’s heart will do? Until they do it? I think it’s a lovely idea.”

“But—Well, of course it is, but—”

“And as you say, he does regard me as part of the family. A dear sister. I’m quite content with that. Mr. Cauley, we will see you soon, then, at Sproule Manor.”

“But, Gwyneth,” Daria protested, following her out the door. She glanced pleadingly at Judd as she passed him. “If you hear anything at all of Mr. Dow—”

“I’ll send word, I promise. Thank you for the invitation. I look forward to it.”

She nodded glumly, cast an appalled glance at the taproom door as laughter exploded out of it, then a more grateful one at the innkeeper as he escorted her out the front door.

The sun set, but if the bell rang, Judd didn’t hear it over the ringing of the inn bell, as more and more of Miranda Beryl’s guests left the dreary silence of Aislinn House for the boisterous, convivial company in the taproom. Judd left Mr. Quinn behind the bar and helped Mr. Pilchard, who was alone in the kitchen by then. He took orders from the guests, for whom drinking and cards were a hungry business, conveyed them to the cook, and brought the dishes up from the kitchen. Finally, around midnight, he began snuffing out candles. Miranda Beryl’s guests rattled away in their carriages. His own finished their hands, gave final orders to Mr. Quinn and Mr. Pilchard, and took their cards and trays upstairs. Judd helped Mr. Quinn clean the taproom, then stuck his head back down the kitchen stairs. All was dark and quiet there.

On impulse, he said to Mr. Quinn, who had locked the taproom and was checking the doors, “I’m going for a breath of air. Don’t lock me out.”

He hadn’t seen the waves under his nose for days, it seemed. Months. The breath of air was more a blast of wind, misty with spindrift, for the tide was frothing up the side of the cliff, trying to shake the inn into the sea. A little coracle moon drifted serenely among the briskly scudding cloud. Dimly, within the wind, Judd could hear the laughter of the gamers, or the memory of it, anyway, for most of the windows were dark. A couple, his own among them—Mrs. Quinn must have kindly lit his lamp—cast little pools of light into the dark.

Within one of them, he saw someone standing.

He started, then stepped eagerly forward, calling softly, “Ridley?”

“No,” Mr. Pilchard said, his bulky figure turning. “Only your cook, Mr. Cauley. I came out to hear the tide. Haven’t stopped listening for it yet.”

Judd joined him at the cliff ’s edge. “I know,” he sighed. “I’ve missed it, too. It’s been years since we’ve had such a full house. I forgot how much work it is.”

Mr. Pilchard chuckled. “You’re doing well.” He held something, Judd saw; a bowl that smelled vaguely like supper.

“Thanks to you. I could have gone back to my books if Mrs. Quinn were still in the kitchen.”

“Ah, it’s almost too easy, cooking in all that room, on a floor that doesn’t throw you off your feet and toss all the plate out of your cupboards.”

They watched a top-heavy wave welter drunkenly up to the cliff, lose its balance, and careen into it, sending spray up over the top. Judd wiped his face and nodded at the bowl in the cook’s hands.

“Your supper? At long last?”

The cook glanced down at it. “No. Only scraps. I got into the habit of feeding them to the birds. Hungry buggers, always. Any news of your Mr. Ridley?”

“Mr. Dow. No.”

“Ah. Where was he off to when you last saw him?”

“Aislinn House, he said. He took his horse. Maybe he was called back to Landringham and didn’t have time to send us word.”

“Aislinn House. That’s the great house up the hill where all the extra gamers are coming from. Maybe he’s still there.”

Judd turned, saw the faint gleam in the distance, among trees tossed in the wind like kelp, of windows still alight in the house. “Maybe,” he said slowly. “He did disappear around the time Miss Beryl arrived. I believe he knows her.”

“There you are, then.”

“Maybe . . .” Judd said again, doubtfully. “But I think he wanted to go there before she came.”

“Well. Then she came, and he changed his mind. Such happens.”

“It does, indeed, Mr. Pilchard. No mystery, then?”

“From where I can see, no mystery at all. But then, I’m no expert at these things, Mr. Cauley,” he added apologetically. “Not as though I know what I’m talking about, when I’m not talking about food. But I’d say if that’s all it is, no use worrying or going looking for him. He’ll wander back when he’s ready.”

“You’re probably right. Well. I think I’ll go upstairs and read his books. Coming in?”

“Not just yet,” Mr. Pilchard said. “I’m still waiting for the birds. Blustery night. Takes them a while to catch the scent. I’ve left the kitchen door unlocked; I’ll go in that way.”

“Good night.”

He left Hieronymous Pilchard to feed the gulls and retired to his bed with the arcane mystery of the life of Nemos Moore.