Somewhere The Bells Ring (Christmas) Read online

  “Bailey.”

  He spoke softly, so as not to startle her.

  She turned toward him. In her long, white nightgown, hair tumbled down around her, wearing that lost look, she bore an unnerving resemblance to the mysterious woman in Wilkie Collins’ classic mystery, The Woman in White. Eric fervently hoped the similarity ended there. As he recalled from the novel, that unfortunate lady had been unhinged.

  Leaving the door ajar, he stepped inside. “We missed you at breakfast.”

  She answered distractedly. “I wasn’t hungry.”

  He limped to where she stood, the hitch in his leg a little less pronounced today. Maybe he was getting stronger. “Why are you here, looking for ghosts?”

  “Or a door to the past.”

  He tried to coax a smile to her trembling lips. “Did you check inside the wardrobe?”

  “Eric, I’m being serious.”

  “That’s what worries me.” Leaning on his cane with one arm, he closed his other around her shoulders and drew her against him. Such a natural act, and she accepted his embrace without pulling back. She smelled of flowers from her perfume and wood smoke. “Mercy, child,” he said in his best imitation of Ella, “it’s as cold as a tomb in here.”

  “It wasn’t last night.”

  Praise for Beth Trissel

  “Ms. Trissel’s alluring style of writing invites the reader into a world of fantasy & makes it so believable it is spellbinding.”

  ~Camellia, Long and Short Reviews

  Somewhere

  the Bells Ring

  by

  Beth Trissel

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Somewhere the Bells Ring

  COPYRIGHT Ó 2011 by Beth Trissel

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Tamra Westberry

  The Wild Rose Press

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0706

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Faery Rose Edition, 2011

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To my grandfather, Charles J. Churchman,

  who excelled at all he did,

  including outstanding service as

  a Marine Corps Captain

  in France during World War One.

  Though I never knew him,

  I grew up with much admiration for this man

  taken from his family long before my time.

  Like ripples on a pond,

  the sadness at his untimely death flowed out

  and encompassed future generations,

  and his memory lives on.

  The Bells, by Edgar Allan Poe

  “Hear the sledges with the bells—

  Silver bells!

  What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

  How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

  In the icy air of night!

  While the stars that oversprinkle

  All the heavens seem to twinkle

  With a crystalline delight;

  Keeping time, time, time,

  In a sort of Runic rhyme,

  To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

  From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

  Bells, bells, bells—

  From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.”

  Chapter One

  The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia

  December 1968

  Every story has a beginning and an end, but Bailey Randolph wasn’t certain when hers began. Perhaps here at Maple Hill where time seemed to stand still in the gracious Virginia home built during the reign of one of the King Georges. The old house whispered secrets like murmuring pines and the passing years made scant difference, apart from slow ruin. Despite the ravages of the Civil War and Great Depression, Maple Hill still had a rare grandeur and blended elegance with wilderness, rather like the contrast of darkness and light in a Rembrandt painting.

  The rambling, tree-filled yard merged with a field, up behind the house, that led to the wooded knob that gave Maple Hill its name. It was on her return walk from this vantage point, and the darkening woods behind her, when Bailey first spotted the figure in an upstairs window.

  Swaddled in Aunt Meg’s scarf and coat with the collie frisking at her legs, Bailey stopped in the snow-encrusted grass to grab Captain’s collar before he bounded after a red fox. The dog forgot his chase—unusual—and lifted his head at the brick house rising between snowy trees much as she imagined an English manor might appear, though on a smaller scale. Smoke trickling from the chimney scented the crisp air and light flickered in a second story window. The figure passed in front of the glass.

  Odd. No one stayed in that room. With an excess of space, it wasn’t needed and remained closed off. Maybe the housekeeper, Ella, her dusky skin creased like a multi-folded letter, or her doe-eyed daughter Rosa Mae readied it for company.

  Her gaze on the window, Bailey let go of Captain and straightened. Again, she glimpsed the shadowed form at the glass before he turned away. Yes, he. She couldn’t say how, but she sensed this was a male presence. Perhaps Ella’s brother Old John shifted furniture while she tidied up. Perhaps…

  Bailey wondered about ghosts after seeing her brother Brian’s in her bedroom. Not while she was under the influence—before that—but definitely after he’d been killed in Vietnam.

  Members of the Randolph family did not see ghosts, or get themselves expelled from the highbrow girls’ college all the Randolph women attended. Convalescence was what Bailey needed, according to her harried businessman father. Her stepmother had three younger children at home to worry over. And telling people her real mother wasn’t dead but actually an undercover spy with the CIA no longer fooled anyone, least of all Bailey.

  She sucked in the frosty, smoke-tinged air and shook her head to clear it of fanciful imaginings. The figure must be related to guests coming. After all, Christmas was almost upon them with the accompanying bittersweet stab of nostalgia. A visitor might be nice, depending. Not that she could afford to be choosy, with only Aunt Meg, Captain, and Ella for company. Old John and Rosa Mae said little; Ella spoke for them all.

  Bailey gazed beyond the house at the frozen countryside. The valley was in the grips of a fierce winter. Reindeer and polar bears would be at home here. An icy creek wound through the snow-covered meadow. Beyond this, the rays from the setting sun bathed the hills and distant ridges in a rosy gold wash. She watched as the brilliant colors faded to a pink blush along the horizon. Midnight blue arched across the sky and darkness swallowed the land, accentuating the melancholy enveloping her. There were no bright city lights, no hustle and bustle to mask her loneliness. Would she ever belong anywhere?

  An unmistakable glow drew her eye back to that second story window. She’d swear a fire burned in the hearth, and as far as she knew, it was boarded up. Surely she wasn’t imagining that?

  Her father warned about the lingering effects of pot smoking. Bailey only tried it once in her dorm room and royally disgraced herself. Not that she clearly remembered the event; seems getting high does that to you. Worse—whatever she’d done involved a boy, also discovered in her
room. Peter somebody.

  She wasn’t embracing free love as she’d been accused, or joining the hippies. Long hair and holey jeans didn’t qualify her for the ranks. She was just a hippie wannabe and didn’t fit in with anyone. And here she was at Maple Hill seeing things. They’d probably lock her away. Maybe they already had.

  The sound of a car engine revving up claimed her attention. Aunt Meg’s black ‘56 Chrysler New Yorker headed down the lane. It was late in the day for a trip into town. All the shops were closed. Bailey better go back inside and see what was happening. Besides, she could no longer feel her toes.

  “House, Captain.” She crunched across the white yard with the faithful collie and stomped her boots before tracking snow onto the enclosed back porch. Stamping again on the mat just outside the kitchen door, she called, “I’m back!”

  “Bout time!” Ella boomed from inside the kitchen.

  A string of sleigh bells on the door jingled as Bailey turned the handle and burst into the warmth, Captain at her heels. The spiciness of Ella’s ginger cookies mingled with the meaty roast in the oven. Scratchy carols played softly from the radio propped on the windowsill. The basket of Christmas cards on the holly-sprigged table cloth, the red poinsettia, snowman salt and sugars, and sheets of cookies waiting to be stored in festive tins made a scene that would delight Norman Rockwell.

  A wooden ladle in hand, Ella turned from three pots simmering on the stove. A blue-checked apron and floral dress strained to cover an ample figure that reflected her culinary skills; the bulky gray sweater, an old friend she was never without. “Don’t you go making a mess on my clean floor.” She waved the ladle at the dog. “Out! Git on to the porch.”

  He retreated behind Bailey, who pleaded, “But it’s cold!”

  “Got him a nice bed out there with plenty of blankets. Fresh water, food.” Ella sent Captain scurrying to his box, the door jangling behind him. “Won’t hurt him none with all that fur. Could sleep outside like a wolf.” Still muttering, she grabbed the mop in the corner and stumped over in faded house shoes and support hose to attack the puddle spreading on the linoleum beyond the small braided rug where Bailey stood.

  Part Cherokee, part Negro, and part Bailey wasn’t sure what, maybe past slave owner as some of those men had sired offspring, Ella ruled the kitchen and most of the house. She wouldn’t allow a scrap of a kitten inside let alone a collie, and soft-spoken Aunt Meg deferred to her wishes. However, Ella insisted she knew her place and housed herself, Old John, and Rosa Mae out in the old kitchen behind the house, more of a cottage now, with a big hearth she put to use.

  With a decided “Humph,” Ella restored the mop and tugged at the wool wrapping Bailey like a mummy. “Where you been, child? Don’t you go fretting your Aunt now.”

  “No. Sorry. Lost track of time.” Easily done here.

  Clucking disapproval, Ella helped Bailey struggle out of the too-big coat then hung her wraps from the hooks on one pale yellow wall. “Can’t stand about in them stocking feet. Catch your death.” Ella snatched pink slippers from an assortment in the cupboard and nudged Bailey’s numb toes into the fuzzy footwear. She then inspected her as she might a stray dog, only a dog wouldn’t get this far.

  “That mane of yours could do with taming, like a half wild pony.” She ran her critical gaze over Bailey’s frayed sweater and jeans. “Don’t you got nothing better to wear? Look like a bum coming round the house.” She sniffed. “Smell like one too.”

  “It’s incense—”

  “I told you not to be burning that stuff. Set the house on fire next thing. And don’t you be thinking ‘bout coloring on them walls.”

  A reference to Bailey’s bedroom murals at home. She’d had to begin somewhere with her art. No one accused Michelangelo of coloring on the ceiling.

  “You go and git a nice hot bath and find something pretty to put on.”

  “Ella—”

  She held up a righteous hand with the demeanor of a pastor about to deliver a sermon. “You’ll be glad enough to fix yourself up when you hear who’s coming.”

  Bailey considered the muted excitement in Ella’s coffee-colored eyes. “Santa Claus?”

  Ella cocked her gray head at a jaunty angle. “Better.”

  “Than Santa? Who?”

  Ella played her trump card. “Mr. Eric hisself.”

  Bailey’s heart lurched. “He’s back on furlough?”

  “Nope. Called from the train station to say he’s home for good. Never said nothing before. Wanted to surprise Miss Meg. He sure did, right enough. She’s bubbling over. Rosa Mae drove her into town to fetch him. What do you think of that, Miss?”

  Quite a lot. Bailey’s mind swirled with images of Eric Burke before he’d joined the Marines and shipped off to Vietnam. Though on the serious side, he was gifted with flashes of wit and a smile that charged his average good looks with masculine glory. His perceptive brown eyes made Bailey wish she were smarter, funnier, everything he was. Not one to suffer fools lightly, he could sometimes be impatient with the shortcomings of others, but he’d always been kind to her. What little notice she’d received from him, that is.

  Four years older and a college athlete, Eric seemed more interested in tossing a football with his friends than conversing with an awkward girl. The only child of Aunt Meg’s late husband by his first wife, he was Meg’s stepson and as near to offspring as the middle-aged woman was likely to get. Eric regarded Maple Hill as his home, whenever he was here, which wasn’t often. Apparently the old house had been in the Burke family practically forever.

  His homecoming was like the return of the young lord of the manor, and Bailey struggled to rein in her excitement. After all, he wasn’t chomping at the bit to see her. “I’m glad he’s back. He must be vastly relieved to leave the war behind.”

  The furrows at Ella’s brow deepened, and the lines at her mouth puckered. “If he can leave it. Miss Meg says his leg’s pinned together in three places.”

  Bailey grimaced. “That bad? I didn’t realize. Can he walk?”

  “With a cane. He won’t never be the same.”

  “But he’s alive. That’s the main thing.” More than her brother had been allowed.

  Ella gave her a long look. “Don’t do no good to brood on Brian’s passing. He’s keeping company with the good Lord now.”

  Bailey could wish God was a little less greedy for company.

  Ella slanted her eyes at Bailey as though she read her blasphemous thoughts then turned to the stove. “I got me a heap to do before they git back. If I hurry, maybe I can make up some biscuits. You three is eating in the dining room this evening. With candles. None of this gathering in the kitchen like field hands.”

  “Do you want any help?”

  Ella stirred the green beans simmering with chunks of ham. “Girl, you’re no hand in the kitchen. Your notion of fixing vittles is opening a tin. Go and git ready. It’s gonna take you awhile. And don’t come back looking like a gypsy,” a reference to Bailey’s beloved peasant blouse and tiered skirt.

  Having Eric to primp for gave Bailey considerably more incentive than usual, and her stepmother, Maeve, had insisted Bailey pack more clothes than she thought she needed for the holidays. Maybe she was at Maple Hill indefinitely as she suspected. “While the family considers what’s best to be done under the circumstances,” were her father’s exact words.

  Grandpa urged grit. A World War One veteran, the silver-haired gentleman was big on grit and had driven Bailey up from Richmond two days ago and deposited her at Maple Hill.

  “You’ll do the right thing,” he said, before driving off down the rutted lane. Bailey wasn’t so sure.

  She padded toward the door in her borrowed slippers then stopped. The news about Eric had made her momentarily forget the figure upstairs. “Which room are you putting Eric in?”

  Ella reached into the cabinet for the shortening. “His own, of course. The white room.”

  Old Southern homes had names, as did the rooms. B
ailey slept in the yellow room across the far hall from the more austere white room outfitted with Eric’s school pennants, trophies, and other masculine decor. Aunt Meg was on the other side of Bailey in the rose room, its walls papered with flowers. A second hall ran past Bailey and Aunt Meg’s rooms and led to the stairs. “What about the room at the end of the front hall? The one on the right?” Bailey didn’t know its name.

  Ella shook her head. “No one uses that one.”

  “That’s what I thought, but…”

  Ella shot her a glance over her shoulder. “What?”

  “Thought I saw a light on in there a little while ago.”

  She frowned. “Can’t. No one’s there.”

  Which left Bailey to arrive at the only logical conclusions, either Maple Hill was haunted or she was losing her mind. She wondered if Eric would find her particular brand of insanity charming or downright weird, or whether he’d even notice her at all.

  Chapter Two

  Sometimes in life, the people who come before you and the events they undergo determine your fate. It seemed to Eric Burke that his course had been predetermined, his path already laid out for him, but he couldn’t see clearly where it led. If he took a wrong turn, he might fall into the void. If he chose rightly, all might still end well. At least, this was the sensation washing over him as he limped into the dining room at Maple Hill.

  Alight with candles, festooned with greenery, the room was a Yuletide dream, and waiting to greet him was Arwen, the Elven princess from The Lord of the Rings. Not that she had elfish ears, they were dainty and set close to her head, but the oval shape of her face framed by tendrils of honey-colored hair, starry eyes dappled green and gold like the forests of Middle Earth, and her petite size gave her an appealing sprite-like appearance.

  His stepmother joined the girl. Blue eyes crinkling in a smile, Meg closed an affectionate arm around her slender shoulders. “You remember Bailey, don’t you, Eric?”