Chime. Part 16

"Your frock, miss, it be ever so fine," said one of the skip-rope girls.

"Them flowers in your hat," said another. "They doesn't be real, does they?"

The flowers weren't real, but what lay beneath the netting at Leanne's breast was. It was real. She was, in short, like a gland.

Swollen.

Leanne feminina regularitatis est.

But she didn't breakfast with Eldric every morning, as I did. She didn't laugh with him as they expanded their bad-boy Latin vocabulary. She didn't have boxing lessons with him, and surely, he never admired her fist. Did he?

The sky turned to ashes. It snapped and growled.

"To the Alehouse!" Eldric promised fish and chips all round, and a blue-ribbon fish for the ninety-four-times rail-jumping girl.

The children stuck to him. They clung to his arms, they s.n.a.t.c.hed at his jacket.

I hate children.

Cecil took my arm. "I made a botch of it before. Let me try again, talking to you, that is."

"Talk away," I said, following the group to the Alehouse. It was a kind of test. Can Cecil Trumpington walk and talk at the same time?

"You're not as kind as you could be."

How true, lamentably true. I'm sorry, Father. I do not love my neighbor as myself.

The bloated sky opened up. Rain fell in ark-loads. Cecil and I ran for the Alehouse. The children were already seated at the bar, in fits of laughter because Eldric had ordered a plate of gold-medal fish and chips.

"I don't see what's so funny," said Eldric.

I'd have liked a plate of gold-medal fish and chips myself, but the rules were clear. Fisher-brats at the bar, gentry at the tables.

Leanne, Cecil, and I gazed at one another. The three of us, together, were thin as gruel. We needed Eldric as thickening agent.

The longer I looked at Leanne, the more I saw her as a bundle of cliches. Raven's-wing hair, laughing eyes. Ruby lips, sh.e.l.l-like ears. You could probably mix them up and it would make no difference.

Ruby ears and sh.e.l.l-like lips?

Heaving cheeks and scarlet bosom?

I was rather surprised to find Cecil gazing not at the scarlet bosom but at my face. He'd spoken to me. He was waiting for my response.

Leanne helped me out, gazing at me with her curling eyes. "That frock does suit you wonderfully. Pity, it's the sort of thing I can't wear. It wouldn't suit me at all."

What did Leanne mean beneath her talc.u.m-powder words? Was this one of those compliments that turns around to bite?

Then a marvelous piece of conversational good fortune came our way: The Hangman rose and walked past us. He was an enormous fellow. Heads turned, following him. Conversations faltered, leaving dribbles of silence, until he pushed out the door.

Don't think about it, Briony; don't spoil the day! Nelly's hanging has nothing to do with you. It doesn't matter that she's a witch and is going to hang. Or that she's not a witch and is going to hang. Just count yourself lucky you've avoided her fate so far. Just fall into the conversation about witches and hangings and ooh, isn't it exciting!

Leanne was quite the witch hunter. Her entire family had been plagued by witches. Not only had witches driven her uncle mad, they'd brought her cousin out in boils; he had the scars to prove it. Not to mention her sister-in-law- Leanne delivered herself of this information with a terrible sort of gusto. Her cheeks shone, her eyes were rosy. News of Nelly's trial had brought her to Swanton initially, and now she'd returned to see Nelly hanged.

Don't let her guess what I am! Let's hope she's like the others, who look only at the surface. Let's hope she'd never think that a girl with black-velvet eyes and cut-gla.s.s cheekbones could be a witch.

"Please excuse me." Leanne turned to the window. She didn't want to miss a single thrilling moment. I understood now why she'd chosen a table by the window, despite the chill. I understood why every table next to a window was taken. A hanging is a good bit of fun, but not in the rain. Best get yourself a pint and watch from inside.

Two pints, rather. Don't forget, it's Two-Pint Friday.

I rose. "I'll help Eldric with the food." But he was already on his way back, loaded with hot pies and pickled eggs and bees-wine and ale. "And lemon tart for after."

I pretended to be busy. I pretended I might need something at the bar. Let's see, what was it? Oh, yes: I needed not to watch Nelly hang.

The spectators roared. I jumped. If we were in Spain, they'd have shouted Ole! That's right, think about Spain, not Swanton.

You've a lot not to think about, Briony. You mustn't think about the delay of the London-Swanton line. You mustn't think about what's happening in the square, not about the crash of the trapdoor, the jerk of the noose, the twitching of- Don't think about it!

But you can't ignore a hanging when you're surrounded by the beating of fists and the stomping of feet and the cries of general good humor that accompany an execution.

The first chime. The Alehouse fell silent. The second chime, the third. A chime for every year of Nelly's life.

The fifth chime-the seventh-twelfth- Would Rose mind my hearing twelve chimes of a person's life?

The eighteenth-the nineteenth- Silence now. Nelly's life had been counted out to its end.

Leanne swung back to her food. "Pity," she said.

Pity?

"Father will be cross," said Cecil. "He so dislikes making a mistake."

A mistake. Nelly hadn't turned to dust. She'd been no more than a girl with red hair.

"Here's an idea," said Eldric. "Let's play that game where you ask the questions-you know the one, Briony."

I could slap him-punch him! Didn't he care that they'd hanged the wrong girl? "Most every game asks questions."

My fingers arranged themselves into a terrifically nonstupidibus sort of fist.

"Questions such as, 'Which Old One would you be?' " said Eldric. "Or, 'Which Old One would attack you?' "

"Old Ones!" said Leanne, with a double-barreled sort of exclamation mark, perhaps to fill the world with all the exclamation marks Rose never used. Conservation of matter, and all that.

"The metaphor game." I'd punch him on that squarish corner of his boy-man jaw.

"What invention would Leanne be?" I said, thinking of the rack and the skull crusher.

"The very thing!" said Eldric. "To which I have just the answer. If Leanne were an invention, she'd be a motorcar."

"I adore motorcars!" said the fine horsewoman, raising her tinkling eyes and laughing her twinkling laugh.

"But not the careful, boxy sort of motorcar," said Eldric. "The lower, longer sort. Black, I think. Calf-leather interior."

"What a lovely game!" said Leanne, clapping her sultry hands. "Let me think of an invention for Eldric."

The electric light, of course. But Leanne had her own idea.

"The telephone, I think."

Because he talks too much?

"You're ever so good at bringing far-flung people together."

She was right. I hated her.

"What would I be?" said Cecil.

The X-ray, of course. Cecil likes to look through girls' clothes.

The barkeep lit the lanterns. They flared blue with a stink of the Hot Place, then paled when Father walked in. He tends to have that effect.

Father headed straight for our table. What would Father be if he were an invention?

"Will you sing with us, Briony?"

I had to look up.

Father can't be an invention. He's only old, nothing new.

"Please do!" said Cecil. "You have a lovely voice. I haven't heard you in ages."

"Another time, perhaps," I said. But there'd be no other time. When Father stopped singing, so did I. I stopped so thoroughly I can't sing anymore.

"Please?" said Father. "Please, Briony Vieny?"

Briony Vieny? He hadn't called me that in ages. Rosy Posy. Briony Vieny. Give it up, Father. There's no Briony Vieny anymore, or Rosy Posy. We grew out of those girls while you were away. They died.

"Will you choose a song?" said Father.

How does love die? In the first year, Father touches Stepmother's hair and sings Black is the color of my true love's hair. In the fourth year, he buries her and says, as usual, nothing.

" 'Black Is the Color.' " I turned away before Father's face began to disappear, before his eyes went pale, his lips white.

Sorry, Father. You were the one who asked.

I grasped the fork with my right hand, just as all non-witchy girls must do. I stabbed into the pie. Steam burst from the crust, smelling of cinnamon and wine.

I set down my fork. One reason to cook with cinnamon and wine is to disguise the taste of eel. But you can't fool me.

"Shall I get you something else?" said Eldric.

I shook my head. The very thought of eel brought up the taste of sick. I sipped at the bees-wine. It buzzed about my mouth but didn't buzz away the taste. Why hadn't he brought fish and chips as he had the three Fridays past? Did he think Leanne a touch above Two-Pint Friday fare?

Quiet again in the Alehouse as the Hangman slid back through the door. Rain dripped from his hat brim, flicked off his jacket as he hung it up. Everyone looked at him; he looked at no one. He took his old seat, he looked at no one.

"What a nasty job," said Leanne, proponent of ridding the earth of witches. She smiled, exposing her heart-shaped teeth. "I wonder that he can bear to eat."

Cecil said he wondered too, but I didn't. Let's say you do something wicked, such as smash your sister's wits. Does that mean you shall have no more cakes and ale?

No. Your heart must go on ticking, and your mouth must go on eating, and your brain must go on sleeping; and if you enjoy the occasional pint, what of it? You may as well enjoy the pint. If someone makes a joke, you may as well laugh.

Your heart ticks on, that's all there is to it. Life goes on, that's all there is to it.

Black is the color of my true love's hair.

Her lips are like some rosy fair.

"I like girls with golden hair," said Cecil to no one in particular, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed at a bit of my hair.

He was tipsy. "Leave me be, Cecil." How could Fitz have stood his company, Fitz, my tutor genius.

But look at Eldric. Was he also tipsy? Look at him, slipping off his chair, onto his knees. Look at him, kneeling at Leanne's feet. Look at him, strumming an imaginary guitar.

The sweetest face and the gentlest hands.

I love the ground whereon she stands.

I stood up. What was I doing here? I hated other people my age. How stupid they were. I should hate to be a regular girl with a sugar-plum voice. I should hate to have swan-like lashes, and a thick, sooty neck. I sound as though I'm joking, I know, but I should truly hate to be like Leanne, so charming and ordinary and stuffed with cliched feelings. I'm glad I'm the ice maiden. Who wants to be crying over every stray dog?

Not I. Scratch my surface and what do you see? More surface.

I excused myself. I said I mustn't neglect Rose, which Eldric would have known was a lie, if he'd been attending properly, which he wasn't. He knew perfectly well that Pearl looked after Rose on Fridays-on quite a lot of other days, as well.