“I closed the book on him.”
THE change in the great house was subtle but immediate. Ysabo noticed it first after they left the underground chamber, tracking wet footprints on the stones, and were met by solicitous servants who did not elude their eyes, but sought them, offering towels and a fire, dry clothes. They seemed to recognize everyone but Ridley Dow, the stranger whom they welcomed with courtesy and good cheer, offering him, as Hydria commanded, the best of everything.
He declined with thanks and went off somewhere with the wizard instead.
They escorted Ysabo to her chambers, which seemed to be exactly where they had always been in a house whose bustlings were at once domestic and unfamiliar. As they passed through the great hall to the stairs, someone flung open the broad doors through which the knights rode at midday. But the knights seemed to be elsewhere; the hall, except for musicians and elderly courtiers playing chess, was oddly peaceful. Nothing came in the door but light and wind, the soughing of the trees, the surprising sounds, beyond the courtyard walls, of a blacksmith’s hammer, the bellow of some barnyard animal.
It was as though several different times had merged, like ripples in water crossing one another, changing shape, forming a new pattern. One of the ripples had to do with the wizard’s book; another with the spellbound house and those who had been born and lived and died within that dark time while the queen and the wizard had been imprisoned; a third had to do with Queen Hydria’s house as it had been, generous, rich, happy, before Nemos Moore had found his way into it. Nothing had been lost, Ysabo realized slowly and with wonder, except a thoroughly wicked sorcerer, who existed now only in the pages of a book.
The servants delivered her into the hands of her ladies, who took such delight in her return that they rendered her nearly speechless. They exclaimed over her wet clothes and seemed to think she had fallen into a stream while riding in the wood. Their smiling eyes suggested some romantic import to the mythical ride, part of which she must surely have enjoyed.
Ysabo found it easiest just to agree with everything they said.
A pair of them escorted her to Maeve’s chambers; as usual, Aveline was with her.
The ripples of time had flowed a bit differently through their memories. They welcomed Ysabo with relief; she was not sure how long she had been trapped in the bell chamber, but apparently long enough for them to worry.
“We haven’t seen you all day,” Aveline said. “No one could find you. Were you with Zondros?”
“Zondros.” Belatedly, she remembered a knight with ivory hair and black brows; she wondered if he still existed, or if he had turned back into a painting in Blagdon’s book. “Oh. Mostly I—ah—I was immersed in a book.”
They took it with remarkable calm, this shattering of ritual. “We missed you,” Aveline murmured, smoothing Ysabo’s drying hair. There was no sign in the room of the wedding dress; it must have gone the way of the paper knights, she realized with relief.
The door opened; a lady murmured, “Queen Hydria.”
Maeve and Aveline stared at one another. Maeve dropped her embroidery; they both rose hastily, and curtsied to the tall queen, whose gray and black hair swirled now into a braided pile on her head, whose exquisite green gown and blue mantle matched her teal eyes. She wore a crescent of gold in her hair, jewels on her fingers, in her shoes.
She smiled at them. They gazed at her silently, memories coming and going in their eyes. Was she a dream? Their faces wondered. Were they the dream? Whose story had they all been in?
Aveline spoke first, huskily. “My lady. You have been gone—No, we have—Where have we all been all this time? And how old have we gotten to be?”
“You remember,” Hydria said gently, with a sigh of relief. “Please. Sit with me. We can get to know one another.”
“Did we ever?” Maeve asked confusedly. “Or are you a story that Nemos Moore told us long ago?”
“Perhaps. I have been spellbound, like this house, for a very long time. Years past my counting. You both know Nemos Moore?”
“He came to visit us now and then,” Maeve answered. “Mostly when Aveline was small, and I was young. He took us out—I think he did—I remember roads, rain, adventures . . . Or was it only stories?”
“It may have been only stories,” Hydria said. “But his stories had a way of seeming very real. I think you are still in your own time. I am as old as I was when he bound me into the bell, but I came back into your time. Those who were spellbound with me, servants, courtiers, knights, remember me. Those, like you, who were born to the ritual and bound by it, know me as a name. A memory of Aislinn House. One of the tales that Nemos Moore found in Blagdon’s book and brought to life.”
“The ritual.” Aveline had picked up Maeve’s embroidery; she sat with it in her hand, absolutely still, looking back. “There was a ritual once. I remember it. Pieces of it. A long time ago. Wasn’t it?”
“Not worth remembering,” Hydria said with an edge in her voice. “My wizard Blagdon has made me a new bell,” she added, “with a beautiful sound. The other was weathered and cracked; it had a toll like all the sorrows in the world. This one speaks a bubble of gold. You will hear it this evening. I am giving a feast in honor of his work.”
“Blagdon,” Maeve murmured politely, looking as though she were struggling to remember. Her face brightened. “He wrote poetry, didn’t he? And painted with inks. Delicate scenes of Aislinn House when it was ancient. Nemos Moore—” She checked herself, seeming to feel a chill in the air. “Someone,” she amended vaguely, “showed me his book. Beautiful, it was.”
Later, after Hydria had gone, she looked helplessly at Aveline. “I must be getting old,” she said. “I can’t remember anymore who’s alive or dead.”
“We’ll find out at supper tonight,” Aveline assured her, and looked at Ysabo. “You will be there?”
“Yes, Aveline.”
“Good,” she sighed. “As long as I see you, I know where I am in this house. I still have all my memories of you.”
The knights came to supper as always. Their faces had changed, Ysabo thought. They smiled; they spoke to the women as well as to one another; they touched their wives. They weren’t mindlessly noisy, like a flock of crows, intent on only one another and their food, saying nothing that hadn’t been said a thousand times before, as though even their conversation had been ritual. One among them, Ysabo noticed, had long pale hair and black brows. He looked at her several times down the long table as though he knew her. His eyes were gray. Once he gave her a sweet, intense smile that astonished her.
Ridley Dow had not appeared for supper, nor had Blagdon. Ysabo suspected they were together somewhere, sharing their unusual knowledge and experiences. She hoped she would see him to thank him before he returned to the other Aislinn House. She found the queen’s eyes on her once. Hydria, holding her gaze, raised her cup and inclined her head.
“To Ysabo,” she said, without explaining why. Her court raised their cups and cheered without knowing exactly why and drank to Ysabo, who finally understood exactly why.
Twenty-three
The bell tolled the sun down, as always, and Ridley walked out of the stillroom pantry door.
It was a different bell, Judd thought: a deep, sweet, mellow toll that had forgotten all its sorrows. And a different Ridley, rumpled, unshorn, carrying a fat bright book under his arm and smiling peacefully as he saw who waited for him. He went to Miranda Beryl, who was sitting with Judd on the table; he set the book down and took her hands.
“All’s well,” he said, and kissed her fingers. She freed her hands, put her arms around his neck, held him tightly. Judd heard her long, slow sigh.
“So many years of secrecy,” she said, raising her head to meet his eyes. “Ridley, we won’t know how to behave among people. Is Nemos Moore—Is he truly—”
“Gone, yes.” He tapped the book. “In here. And the wizard who trapped him there taught me the spell in case my wicked ancestor finds his way out betwe
en the lines. The wizard’s powers are astonishing. He said I could come back whenever I like to learn from him.”
“Nemos Moore is in that book?” Miranda and Judd exclaimed together.
“Yes. A paper sorcerer, he is now.” He smiled over her shoulder at Judd. “Come to rescue me, did you?”
“Well, of course. Along with Emma and Hesper.”
“Invaluable women.”
“Gwyneth was here, too, most of the afternoon, until her aunt sent a message to the inn and found out that Judd had come here,” Miranda said. “She requested rather adamantly that her niece return home for tea. We were prepared to take the other Aislinn House by storm, except that the house refused to let us in.”
“I’m so very, very glad it did. Nemos Moore was an evil, dangerous old man; his cooking alone would have killed me if you hadn’t sent Hesper in time. He would have had no mercy for any of you, either.”
“I am so sorry,” Judd said ruefully.
“How could you have known? He was under my nose, and I didn’t recognize him. Anyway, he was a wonderful cook.” He cocked a sympathetic brow at Judd. “I suppose we’re back to Mrs. Quinn.”
“Indeed not,” Miranda answered. “I lent him Mrs. Haw. My guests spend most of their time there anyway; she was wasted here, and most unhappy.”
“What a marvelous idea!”
“Wasn’t it?” Judd agreed, smiling.
“Ridley.”
“Yes, my dear one?”
“You were going to explain to us how you rescued Aislinn House from Nemos Moore and changed the voice of that bell.”
“Yes, it does sound completely different, doesn’t it?” He paused; they waited. “Well. It’s complicated.” He hesitated again. “Very.”
The door opened; Emma put her head in. “Excuse me,” she said, and saw Ridley. She put her hands over her mouth. “Oh, you’re back. Oh, Mr. Dow, is everything—”
“Yes.”
“I knew it,” she whispered behind her hands. “I knew it when I heard that bell. That everything was right again. And so did Lady Eglantyne.”
Miranda opened her mouth; nothing came out for a moment. “Were you with her?” she asked abruptly.
“Yes, miss. My mother is still at her bedside. We all heard the bell. Lady Eglantyne just said, ‘Good.’ Then she closed her eyes and—and went. Shall I send for Dr. Grantham?”
“Yes, please, Emma.”
“I am sorry, miss.”
“So am I,” Miranda murmured. She was silent a moment, touching her fingertips quickly to her eyes. She dropped her hand, continued steadily, “And tell Mrs. Blakeley and Mr. Fitch. Tell them not to worry. They will still have their places in this house for as long as they choose.”
“I will.” Emma lingered, a line across her brow. “She must have opened a few doors in her life, to understand what happened.”
Miranda nodded, blinking. “She understood a great deal. Much of it always between the lines in our letters. Where Nemos Moore never thought to look.”
Emma’s eyes moved to Ridley. “Ysabo?” she asked softly.
He nodded reassuringly. “I don’t know what we would have done without her. She helped us all with enormous courage. She can tell you everything when you find her again.”
“Thank you, Mr. Dow. I’m very glad to see you safe.”
“So am I, Emma. So am I.”
Judd left him to wait for Dr. Grantham and to tend to the domestic details of death with the new lady of Aislinn House. Miranda offered him a horse, which he accepted gratefully, wondering, as he rode home in the lingering spring dusk, what he would find in the way of chaos among his own staff and the new cook, all left to deal with the rambunctious guests by themselves. But the scene seemed much as usual when he arrived: gambling in the taproom, Mr. Quinn calling orders down the stairs, wonderful smells wafting up them.
“I took your father his supper,” Mr. Quinn told him. “He’s been asking for you. He seemed a bit worried. I took the liberty of mentioning Miss Blair; that calmed him down.”
“How did you—?”
“Small town, Mr. Cauley, small world.” He produced a rolled-up manuscript with a wildflower wilting underneath its ribbon. “She sent this up to you.”
Judd read Gwyneth’s story later to his father, when the inn quieted, and they could drink a beer together. Dugold listened without a word, giving it far more careful attention than he had to Nemos Moore’s adventures.
At the end of it, he grinned. “Now there’s a tale you might believe in! She made all that up? Are we sure?”
“That some previous Lord Aislinn didn’t gamble away his daughter to some ruthless sea folk? Not to mention one of your ancestors gambling away our inn.”
“It rings true,” Dugold said stubbornly, and Judd smiled.
“It does indeed. We’ll ask her.”
Ridley came back late; they stayed up even later, while Ridley told another story of the bell, so complex, so full of mystery and magic that Judd found it as unbelievable as the secret Aislinn House. But there it was.
The next day, he was summoned to tea in a note from Gwyneth, by order of her aunt. He brought the manuscript with him, to the delight of the twins, who met him at the door and wrested it out of his hands.
“She sent it to you before she even read it to us,” Crispin grumbled. “We had to wait for the ending.”
Pandora was regarding him with a disconcerting intensity, as though trying to understand what exactly had possessed her older sister. She smiled sweetly at him in a manner he found vaguely ominous.
“Will I do?” he asked her finally.
“I suppose, if she must. Anyway, you’re much better than the bird. Aunt Phoebe is wonderfully annoyed.”
But Phoebe seemed resigned when he ventured with trepidation into the overstuffed parlor. She greeted him graciously, and poured him tea with only the faintest of sighs. Raven and Daria were already there, along with Ridley Dow, who had been at Aislinn House most of the day. Judd was surprised to see him.
Gwyneth came to him, slipped a hand under his elbow, and smiled at him. The simple, trusting gesture took his breath away; his teacup rattled on the saucer.
“Gwyneth,” he said softly, with a great deal of satisfaction.
“Judd?”
“Nothing. Just that. I wanted to say your name.”
She smiled again. “Did you like my story?”
“Yes, very much. My father is convinced that it must be true, though how the Cauleys got their inn back from the wicked sea folk, he couldn’t say. Perhaps that should be your next story.”
“I don’t know . . . I’m unsure about my ending.”
“Why? What don’t you—”
But Phoebe interrupted them, raising her voice. “Gwyneth. Mr. Cauley. Mr. Dow says he has a piece of news he came especially to tell us first.”
“Oh, what is it, Mr. Dow?” Daria asked eagerly. “Have you fallen in love with Sealey Head? Are you going to take up residence?”
“Part of the year at least,” Ridley answered. He paused, searching for words, it seemed, in the face of the Sproules’ anticipations. He continued finally, gently, “Miss Beryl and I have been secretly engaged for over a year. We didn’t want to announce it during the sad time of Lady Eglantyne’s illness. Now that it is over, we can be open about our decisions. Miss Beryl has become quite fond of Sealey Head and plans to keep Aislinn House as a peaceful haven from the noise and crush of Landringham.”
Daria interrupted, her voice so high it fairly squeaked. “You’re getting married?”
“To Miss Beryl?” Raven said incredulously. “But you never—you hardly seemed to—”
“We couldn’t speak of it,” Ridley said apologetically. “For various reasons. It is my dearest hope that you can share our happiness.”
There was a thump: Aunt Phoebe sitting down hard on the rocker. “Why, Mr. Dow!” she exclaimed. “I never imagined—you seem so unlikely!”
Gwyneth gave a hiccup of laught
er, caught it behind her hand. Phoebe flushed bright red. Ridley only chuckled.
“I understand.”
“I beg your—”
“No, no, Miss Blair. Perhaps it’s more that Miss Beryl has seemed unlikely. When you know her better, and I hope you do, you’ll understand why she might choose a bookish, bespectacled scholar with uncivilized habits and inexplicable interests.” He cast another apologetic glance at Judd. “Since we plan to marry in Sealey Head at the end of the summer, I’m afraid you must put up with those of our noisy friends who have also been enchanted by Sealey Head.”
The Bell at Sealey Head Page 24