The Bell at Sealey Head

by Patricia McKillip

  “So much for spending the summer reading your books. My father will be pleased.”

  “The end of summer,” Daria murmured, her stunned expression easing a little. “That’s ages away. Anything could change by then.”

  “Yes,” Raven said, with a little sideways glance at Gwyneth.

  “Yes,” Aunt Phoebe agreed.

  Gwyneth drew a step closer to Judd, told them both firmly, “No.”

  They heard a sudden shout from Pandora, two closed doors away in the library. It brought Phoebe to her feet.

  “What ails the child?”

  “Oh, dear,” Gwyneth said ruefully. “She must have read the end of my story.”

  Judd put his teacup down and squared his shoulders. “That reminds me ... Is your father at home?”

  Phoebe sighed again, audibly. “Mr. Blair is in the library, Judd. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you.”

  Judd found Toland Blair and Mr. Trent there, with the twins, one disgruntled, the other grinning. The two men, immersed in the final pages of Gwyneth’s story, nodded absently to him.

  “I can’t believe she killed poor Eloise,” Pandora muttered, sitting on the sofa with her arms crossed.

  “I think it’s brilliant,” Crispin said cheerfully.

  “I think it’s diabolical,” Mr. Blair murmured. “Have you read this, Judd?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you still want to marry her?” He glanced up, smiled at the expression on Judd’s face. “If my daughter is pleased with you, so am I. Maybe you can persuade her to change her ending, show us all some mercy.”

  “Oh, could you?” Pandora was on her feet suddenly, clinging to Judd’s arm. “I think if my sister can please herself, she might allow Eloise to do the same.”

  “I wonder if any of it is true?” Mr. Trent said, looking over his spectacles at Judd. “Do you know?”

  Judd hesitated, found the most ambiguous answer the most accurate. “No.”

  “I’ll have to look into my histories.”

  “I do think she could come up with another ending,” Pandora insisted stubbornly. “One where they all live happily ever after and the sea people become their friends.”

  Crispin groaned. Pandora flung herself back on the sofa to expostulate. Judd left them in dispute and went into the hall, where he found Gwyneth waiting for him.

  “He was most reluctant to give up his beloved daughter,” Judd told her, “but could not deny her what she seemed, so peculiarly, to want.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said, taking his arm. “He’s relieved that anybody at all would want a woman with such a deranged imagination and abnormal sensibilities. I just bade Mr. Dow good night; he has gone back to Aislinn House for the evening. Raven is under the table playing with Dulcie; Aunt Phoebe and Daria are making dire predictions about the romance between Miss Beryl and Mr. Dow. It will end, they think, around midsummer. Miss Beryl will flee to Landringham in complete, crashing boredom, complaining that she cannot get Mr. Dow’s attention for the book that’s always under his nose. Mr. Dow will contemplate throwing himself over Sealey Head into the sea, but will eventually allow himself to be consoled by Miss Sproule ...”

  “And you and I?”

  “Will watch the sun go down every evening from the Inn at Sealey Head, and listen to the bell.”

  “Will you ever write the true story?” he asked her.

  “Of course I will, when you and Ridley get around to telling it to me,” she said, leading him out the door and down the road toward the headland bathed in light from the lowering sun. “But no one will ever believe it.”