The Bell at Sealey Head (22 page)
Read The Bell at Sealey Head Online
Authors: Patricia McKillip
But, alas, the handsome man they assumed was captain, since he did most of the speaking, told them apologetically. For various reasons, neither captain nor crew could leave the ship. The reasons were vague: things were hinted at, allusions were made to the nature of
the cargo, to a distinguished unnamed presence, to the contract with the ship’s owner, a formality surely, but they had given their word of honor not to leave the ship until it was safely in port. You understand, being men of the world.
the cargo, to a distinguished unnamed presence, to the contract with the ship’s owner, a formality surely, but they had given their word of honor not to leave the ship until it was safely in port. You understand, being men of the world.
Indeed the two men did. They glanced down at the boards beneath their feet and understood that either a woman of unearthly beauty, or the heir to a great realm, or a hold crammed with gold and jewels lay just beyond eyesight.
But, the captain continued, there was no reason why he should not extend his own invitation to the dignitaries of Sealey Head. They should come to supper on the ship the very next night, and they would be given such a repast as they would remember for the rest of their lives. And they should, of course, bring their wives.
Mr. Blair and Sir Magnus Sproule agreed with alacrity. Such was the miserable fare in town the past months—thin fish soups, ancient bread and cheese, withered vegetables, hard, sour fruits—that they were already dreaming, as they clambered down the side into their boat, of rich creamy sauces and hot, bloody, peppered meat.
They hastened to shore, spread a general, appeasing word of their visitors’ peaceful intentions. And then they conferred in private with Mr. Cauley and Lord Aislinn.
The four of them were pretty much the extent of the dignitaries in town, besides the owner of the stationer’s shop, a most intelligent man who might even discern where the strangers came from. But he grew dizzy and was prone to fainting just putting one foot into a rocking rowboat; there would be no persuading him. The four of them it would be. Wives had been mentioned, it was reluctantly remembered. Wives should be brought, lest the omission be considered rude or suspicious. Lord Aislinn’s wife, having come to the conclusion that anything must be an improvement over life with her
selfish, profligate, untrustworthy, misery-making libertine of a husband, had departed this vale some years earlier. He would bring his daughter, Eloise, he decided immediately, his eye brightening at the thought of a wealthy, charming husband who might be away at sea most of the time, leaving his possessions under the care of his father-in-law.
selfish, profligate, untrustworthy, misery-making libertine of a husband, had departed this vale some years earlier. He would bring his daughter, Eloise, he decided immediately, his eye brightening at the thought of a wealthy, charming husband who might be away at sea most of the time, leaving his possessions under the care of his father-in-law.
That determined, they hastened home with the news, causing four pairs of eyes to gleam with anticipation for the first time in months. And of the four, the eyes of Lord Aislinn’s daughter shone the brightest.
Gwyneth stopped. The twins, Pandora on the sofa, Crispin prone on the carpet with his chin on his hands, looked at her expectantly.
“Go on,” Crispin urged. “Tell what they ate at the feast.”
“She doesn’t find a husband, does she?” Pandora asked uncertainly. “Gwyneth, does this have a happy ending?”
“I don’t know. Which way would make it happy? That she does find a husband, or she doesn’t?”
“Well, she can’t marry one of them, can she? They’re wicked!”
“So,” Toland Blair murmured over a palm frond, “I’m beginning to think, is my eldest daughter. What have you in mind for those poor unfortunates?”
Gwyneth considered her plot and reddened slightly. “Nothing good, I’m afraid.”
“I think it’s a marvelous story,” Crispin said staunchly, sitting up. “Only I wish you didn’t write it in fits and starts. You should just finish it.”
“Well, I would if my writing life didn’t go in fits and starts.”
“Do you know what’s going to happen?” Pandora demanded.
“Yes. I think I finally have all of the pieces.”
“Speaking of invitations,” Mr. Blair said, rummaging around his desk. “Your aunt Phoebe and I have both been invited to the Sproules’—ah—what did they call it? ‘Evening affair, with supper and dancing, to meet Miss Beryl,’ ” he read from the card. “Phoebe is very pleased. Though it’s quite soon: they give us only two days to choose our dancing slippers.”
“I believe they were concerned about Lady Eglantine,” Gwyneth answered as vaguely as possible. Her father slewed an ironical eye at her.
“Ah.”
“May we go?” the twins demanded together. Crispin’s voice, sliding perilously into the upper registers, sounded so much like his sister’s that he blushed scarlet; his mouth clamped shut.
“Of course not.”
“But I am so rivetingly curious about Miranda Beryl,” Pandora exclaimed. “Please, Papa!”
“You weren’t invited,” he said pitilessly. “We’ll tell you all about it. And hope that it doesn’t end in the kind of disaster your sister’s story portends.” He contemplated Gwyneth in silence a moment, smoothing his mustache. “It can’t have been your extremely conscientious governess. Or that bland educational establishment in Landringham. I can’t imagine what it was that gave your mind such an aberrant turn.”
“Luck, I suppose,” Gwyneth said cheerfully, and went to put her papers away.
At tea the next afternoon, Aunt Phoebe could talk of nothing else—of shoes and silks and Gwyneth’s hair and the generosity of the Sproules—until the twins moaned in torment, and Gwyneth felt like joining them. Fortunately, Daria arrived with news that wrested everyone’s attention from the party.
“Mr. Dow is back at the inn!” she exclaimed almost as she entered. Her stricken eyes, very round and for once unblinking, kept them from instant, general rejoicing; held in abeyance, they all waited for the bad news. “He has had an accident! But—” She held up her hand, cutting short the immediate agitation. “He will be fine, I heard. He will attend our party.”
She waited; so did everyone else, trying to anticipate the next emotional hurdle.
Finally, Aunt Phoebe said, rather bewilderedly, “That’s wonderful news—I mean about—Gracious, child, what kind of an accident?”
“I’m not really—Nobody quite—” She turned to Gwyneth; her face was bright now, with relief and delight. “I am so happy!” she breathed, clutching Gwyneth’s hands, which Gwyneth had fortunately just emptied of her last bite of cherry tart. “I can’t wait to see him.”
“I can’t, either,” Pandora sighed. “Why didn’t he come tonight? He must miss us.”
“I’m sure he does,” Daria said quickly. “He is resting this evening. That’s what Judd Cauley told me, when I saw him at the stationer’s shop. Mr. Trent was delighted with the news, of course.”
“As we are, as well,” Aunt Phoebe said, pouring Daria tea. She glanced at the door, missing something else.
Under the table, Dulcie asked through a mouthful of crumbs, “Tantie, where’s the bird?”
“Raven!” Aunt Phoebe exclaimed. “Yes. Where is your brother this evening? We miss him as well.”
Crispin opened his mouth, closed it again under Gwyneth’s narrow-eyed stare. Daria took a precipitous gulp of hot tea, which rendered her speechless a moment.
“He—ah—rode over to Aislinn House. To ask after Lady Eglantyne, of course, make sure her condition has not worsened.”
“Of course,” Aunt Phoebe said smoothly. “Very proper.”
“Yes.”
They both gave little, darting glances at Gwyneth, who, unable to work up a sufficiently mortified expression, reached for a cherry tart instead and handed it to Dulcie.
“Oh, don’t encourage her!” Aunt Phoebe cried, instantly diverted. “Dulcie, come out from under that table before you turn into an uncivilized hooligan.”
“Are there civilized hooligans?” Pandora asked sweetly.
“Yes,” Gwyneth said. “Both of you twins. Go away, as I know you’re longing to do, and let us talk.”
“Raven promised he would stop here on his way home,” Daria told Gwyneth earnestly and unconvincingly. “Oh, Gwyneth, all Miss Beryl’s guests are coming, and most of those from Sealey Head whom we invited. Sproule Manor will scarcely hold such a crush! We will be forced to dance on the cliff.”
“Did you find some musicians of delicacy and refinement?”
“No,” Daria said complacently, choosing the plumpest macaroon. “But they’re young and energetic, and they’ll play the moon down. Now, tell me what you will wear.”
Gwyneth wore thin pale green muslin over a shift of white silk so embroidered and beribboned it reminded her of the sitting room in Judd’s inn. Her father brought out the carriage for the half-mile journey to Sproule Manor. The moon, while far from full, was at least congenial, smiling upon them as they rattled up the coast road. Half of Sealey Head seemed to be walking along it, everyone dressed in their best, waving cheerfully at the intermittent carriages. Gwyneth heard the vigorous, spirited fiddling even over the tide before they reached the manor.
Every window blazed; lamplight splashed upon the cliff, revealing the dancers that Daria had envisioned. Along one side of the grassy knoll, great fires blazed; a pig, a couple of lambs, a side of beef turned nakedly on their spits above the flames. The smells of brine, smoke, and meat mingled enticingly in the wind. Gwyneth wondered what Miranda Beryl’s elegant guests would think of that eyeful of country ways.
Inside, the house smelled of a hundred beeswax candles in chandeliers, candelabras, sconces, and sticks. Fires raged in the hearths at either end of the hall, for the doors were wide open to the wind, cooling the crowd within. Boots pounded among dancing slippers on the oak floors; the city folk, glasses of wine or punch in their hands, watched from the sidelines. Their gowns, Gwyneth noted with envy, were of simple, subtle lines, whose fabrics dazzled the eye with hues over which light shifted like water, changing teal to blue, and rose to crimson, and glinting through lovely, nameless colors along the way.
Rooms on both sides of the hall were open to reveal groaning boards within, already surrounded by unabashed townspeople, who knew that the Sproules, above all, liked their guests to make the most of their bounty, and who seldom got such a feast as this anywhere else.
Aunt Phoebe and Toland Blair were hailed by Dr. Grantham almost immediately. Gwyneth listened to news, or lack of it, about Lady Eglantyne, then wandered off for a glimpse of the guest of honor. She found Daria first, who pulled her across the floor at the edge of the dancers, then into the crowd.
“Look at her!”
Miss Beryl wore purple, the wine-dark shade visible just under the surface of the sea where the great kelp fronds grew closest to the light. Against it, her skin turned a flawless cream; her pale hair, wrapped around miniature purple irises the color of her gown, looked like a garden after a snowfall.
She extended an arm languidly; Raven, flushing with pleasure, took her empty glass and worked his way toward the bottles and jugs and punch bowls on a table just outside the door.
“Oh,” Daria groaned. “I do wish she would go back home. She is spoiling everything.”
“Never mind,” Gwyneth said.
“But I do mind. I mind for you! And for myself—I so want you as a sister. If he proposes to her tonight, I will smack him with a beer jug.”
Gwyneth laughed. “You will always have me for a sister. We don’t need Raven for that.”
Daria glowered a moment longer at the lovely Miss Beryl, then sighed, her face easing.
“Well, she would never have him, anyway. Look at all those admirers around her. Mr. Moren has scarcely left her side all evening. She’d hate Sealey Head. And Raven, estimable as he is, lacks a certain—oh—dashing quality most pleasing to women with nothing better to do than fall in and out of love.”
“Indeed.”
“Eminently worthy, though,” Daria assured her, “on a practical, daily basis.” She grew abruptly silent; Gwyneth felt fingers, tense and chilly, close around her wrist. “Is that—Just coming in—”
“Yes,” Gwyneth said, taller and able to see over more heads. She smiled at the sight of the fair head beside the dark. “I believe it is Mr. Dow. With Mr. Cauley.”
Daria tugged her so quickly into the crush again that she left a trail of splashed punch and apologies before she entirely caught her balance.
Ridley Dow saw them as they squeezed through a final tangle of elbows and backs, into the quieter realms along the wall. He looked pale, Gwyneth thought, and shadowy beneath his lenses. He didn’t move to meet them; he hovered near the protection of the stones but greeted them warmly as they reached him.
“Miss Blair, how are you? Miss Sproule, what a delightful gathering. How kind of you to think of it.”
“Mr. Dow, how are you? Where have you been?” Daria asked precipitously. “We heard you had an accident!”
“A minor one. I’m much better now.”
“But you look far too pale, even in this light, doesn’t he, Gwyneth? What happened? Nobody will tell us.”
Ridley Dow shrugged slightly, then seemed to wish he hadn’t. “It was foolish enough. A sort of hunting mishap.”
“Did you fall off your horse?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Where have you been? Poor Judd Cauley thought you had abandoned him. I do hope you are well enough to dance, Mr. Dow. But where were you? And why didn’t you tell poor Mr. Cauley where you had gone?”
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