Patricia McKillip - The Bell at Sealey Head

Miranda rose, stood over the slight, perturbed figure beneath the lacy coverlet. She let her fingers fall gently on her great-aunt’s wrist. “I’ll find out,” she promised. “Go to sleep.”

“Be careful, my dear.”

She watched Lady Eglantyne close her eyes, then gestured to Emma to follow her out.

“Emma,” she said very softly. Behind the closed doors along the hallway, faint voices could be heard, laughter, complaints. “Did you open one of the doors for Ridley again?”

“No, miss. If he’s in there, he found his own way. I never saw him come back into the house, either.”

“Do you know where the bell is, in the other house? Did the princess ever talk about it?”

“No. I asked her about it; she only said it was part of the ritual. She never said where it is, or who rings it.”

Miss Beryl stood silently, willowy and languid in her frothy morning gown. She gazed at something disturbing in a fall of light, a frown in her eyes. “If Ridley is there,” she said finally, “Nemos Moore must have found him. Ridley said he wanted to cause trouble. I can’t imagine what he did to change a pattern as inflexible as that bell. It’s like the moon rising on the wrong side of the world. Emma, what have you to do this morning?”

“Feed your guests, miss,” Emma said, envisioning trays backed up on the kitchen table and Mrs. Haw threatening to walk straight into the woods if anyone complained of cold eggs.

“Is that all? Never mind my guests. I need you to help me find Ridley.”

“But, Mrs. Haw,” Emma protested. “She’ll have no one to take the breakfast trays up, and she’ll have all the maids and valets coming to the kitchen raising their brows at her and speaking down their noses.”

“What about my kitchen staff?”

“They only prepare, miss; they don’t deliver. So they gave me to understand.”

“H’m,” was what Miss Beryl had to say, with particular emphasis, about that. “Find Mrs. Blakeley and send her to me. I’ll have her give them something else to understand.”

“Yes, miss.” She hesitated. “Perhaps Mr. Dow is still at the inn.”

“I doubt it,” Miss Beryl said briefly. “I’ve seen nothing of Mr. Moren, either, this morning. I’ll be in my room, changing into something with more authority and fewer frills. And a pair of boots in case I need to trample on Mr. Moren’s feet again.”

“Yes, miss,” Emma said again, beginning to wonder, with some misgivings, what Miranda Beryl had in mind. But she turned away without explaining, and Emma went to the breakfast room, which nobody got up for, and where Mrs. Blakeley spent her mornings in the quiet, darning the moth holes in the table linens.

Emma delivered Miss Beryl’s summons, reassured the housekeeper that it had nothing to do with Lady Eglantyne, and accompanied her at least as far as the staircase, when somebody banged the doorknocker. Mr. Fitch, who generally hovered in the library to pounce on the door, was nowhere in earshot. “You’d best answer it, Emma,” Mrs. Blakeley said, as she went up. “He must be at the silver again.”

Emma veered from the stairs and went to wrench open the door. To her astonishment, she found unexpected yet familiar faces, and together at that, she noted, without a Sproule around anywhere.

“Good morning, Miss Blair, Mr. Cauley,” she said a trifle breathlessly. Both their mouths had opened; at the sight of Emma nothing came out. They seemed to have also expected anyone but her.

“Oh, Emma,” Gwyneth breathed finally. “I’m so glad to see you. We’ve come looking for Ridley Dow.”

“Yes, please, come in. I’ll let Miss Beryl know you’re here. I’m afraid I can’t say about Mr. Dow. I suppose,” she added without hope, “he’s not at the inn?”

“No. Neither is my cook,” Judd said tersely.

“Oh, Mr. Cauley.” Emma put her fingers to her mouth. “I am sorry.”

“That’s hardly the worst of it.”

But Gwyneth interrupted before he could add anything more interesting. “Do you know, Emma, I don’t think we really need to trouble Miss Beryl at all. Perhaps you could just show us into the library, or some quiet place, where we could wait alone for Mr. Dow?”

Emma eyed her, mute with surprise, and then with sudden, improbable conjecture. “I think you should have your word with Miss Beryl.”

“But we don’t need to disturb—”

“She is already disturbed, and she’ll want to see you. Come into the drawing room. Nobody will be down for another hour at least. She’ll want to see you.”

They followed her silently. She hoped, hurrying upstairs after she left them alone, that they wouldn’t go wandering off on their own without her.

“Miss Blair and Mr. Cauley,” she told Miranda Beryl, who appeared at her chamber door in sedate gray wool from throat to boot. She looked glacial at the idea of idle company. “I think,” Emma added, “they might have noticed the bell. They came to search for Mr. Dow.”

Miss Beryl’s brows rose. She came out without a word, gesturing for Emma to follow her. She barely greeted her guests as they stood awkwardly at the cold fireplace; she asked abruptly, “Emma said she thinks you might have come because of the bell. Do you have any idea where Ridley Dow is?”

They stared at her, wordless again. Judd cleared his throat.

“No. And yes, we noticed the bell. I think—We’re afraid he might be in a great deal of danger.”

Miss Beryl nodded so sharply she nearly dropped a curl. “Yes. I’m afraid of that as well. Can you open doors, too?”

“Doors?” Gwyneth echoed faintly.

Miss Beryl sighed, dropped so gracefully into a chair she seemed to melt into it. “Sit down. Please. You came here to look for Mr. Dow. What kind of danger would you expect him to be in, here where there’s nothing more threatening than boredom or an overboiled egg?”

Mr. Cauley drew breath, held it before he spoke. “None here,” he said softly. “Not in this side of Aislinn House.” He paused; Miranda Beryl was nodding again. “Then you know,” he continued haltingly. “You know about the other Aislinn House?”

“Ridley told me. Emma opened doors to it. That’s how Ridley found his way there the first time. This time, he might have found his own way in.”

“Yes,” Judd said, his hands tightening on the arms of his chair. “Something extraordinary must have happened in that Aislinn House to startle the bell into ringing at the wrong time of day.”

“Ridley. You think Ridley happened.”

“Yes.” He added, seemingly at a tangent, “And my cook went missing from the inn this morning as well.”

“Your cook,” Miss Beryl said blankly.

“Mr. Pilchard.”

“Mr. P—” She stopped, frowning at a dust mote. “Why do I know that name?”

Emma felt her nape hairs prickle. “The stranger, miss,” she whispered. “He is the stranger in Sealey Head who would look to you like he belongs here.”

“Mr. Pilchard,” Miranda Beryl echoed faintly. “Your cook is Nemos Moore?”

“I think—I think so,” Judd answered, looking dazed. “I believe he tried to poison Ridley yesterday, which is why he was so sick when you came. Fortunately, you sent for Hesper in time. Miss Beryl, how do you know about the bell, about the other Aislinn House? Ridley Dow spoke of you as someone with whom he was scarcely acquainted in Landringham. Nor did he wish more, it seemed.”

She smiled suddenly, revealing a lovely, startling glimpse of the secret Miss Beryl. “So did I, Mr. Cauley. Speak of him that way, I mean. To keep Nemos Moore’s eyes off him, and always on me. My friends here know Nemos Moore as the clever and wealthy Mr. Moren, who amuses himself in my company. To him, I’m the idle and fatuous heir of Aislinn House, which he regards quite possessively. To him, Mr. Dow has been only a rather earnest, scholarly young man who collects books and becomes excited about the most cobwebby topics, like ancient history and the habits of nightjars.”