The Vanishing Sculptor

  Tipper shielded her eyes from the bright sun with a hand propped against her brow. She stood on the covered balcony that ran along the second floor of the mansions west side. Rolan’s farm lay beyond the forest. The road that led to the village passed by his front gate. So far she had not spotted any activity along the winding lane. No sight of a wagon bringing her mother home.

  She dropped her hand to clasp the other and wrung her fingers together. “Oh, I do wish this day were over.”

  “I’m finished.” The tumanhofer’s voice startled Tipper.

  She jumped and turned quickly. He scowled at her.

  Pressing her lips together against saying something foolish, she kept her thoughts to herself. Why did the man have to be so prickly? Had he figured out he was not going to get his position of apprentice? He’d have the right to be even more unpleasant when she sent him packing without meeting her father. “You don’t look very pleased about being done.”

  The muscles in his face tightened a fraction more. “One naturally prefers to execute a painting in one’s own style. Still, I am pleased with the results.”

  “Well.” Tipper paused, fumbling for words that would answer this touchy coxcomb. None came to her. “Shall we go see it?”

  He blocked the door to the upstairs hall, and she waited for him to move aside. With her head held high in imitation of her mother’s regal stance, she brushed past the shorter man. Walking briskly, she headed toward the main staircase, a showy affair that curved down from two points to the high-ceilinged foyer below.

  In the hallway to the back of the house, Bealomondore displayed his small painting on a console table flush against the wall.

  “The light is not good here,” he complained. “I would like to present the piece with a full complement of candles. Perhaps two branches to the side and a shallow row in front.”

  “Yes, yes.” Tipper picked up the painting, touching only the sides.

  The smell of fresh oil paint reminded her of sitting in her father’s studio while he worked on a masterpiece in progress. He would hum at times while making slow, deliberate strokes. Other times his hand moved so quickly the air seemed to buzz as it did when a fibbird flew past. She remembered the excitement of an image exploding out of a mundane background.

  She tilted the canvas in her hand to catch the dying sunlight from the west window. She gasped. The exquisite detail of flowers, foliage, and a spray from the fountain captivated her. How could she declare this piece inferior and not worthy of her father’s attention? Tears sprang to her eyes. Bealomondore had captured the vibrancy of Verrin Schope.

  Why had her father had to withdraw from his family, abandon them? Anger surged through her, washing away sentimentality and destroying her appreciation of fine art.

  She turned to the stiff tumanhofer, her face feeling like a frozen mask. “It’s an interesting interpretation of my father’s style. I shall show it to my mother and have your answer by tomorrow at breakfast. She will be tired after her venture to market. I suspect she will have dinner in her room and go early to bed, but I promise you I’ll seek an audience this evening.”

  For a moment, the young artist’s composure slipped. His eyes rounded in astonishment. “You seek an audience with your own mother?”

  “My mother never forgets she is the second daughter of King Yellat.” Tipper quickly turned away to hide her thoughts. Her mother had trouble remembering the day of the week but never the fact that she had worn a circlet crown of finest gold from the day she was born.

  Tipper replaced the painting on the table. “I’ll ask Gladyme to bring you all the candles you require. I’m afraid you will have your dinner in solitude again this evening. I will attend my mother in order to find an opportune moment to present your request.”

  “Your father?”

  “As is his custom, he will not appear in the main house while there is a stranger present.”

  She heard his sigh. She could not look back lest she lose her resolve.

  4

  Impropriety

  Beccaroon circled the main house in the fading light. The rosy rays of sunset tinted Verrin Schope’s home so that the building looked made of pink marble. Beccaroon landed on the decorative parapet surrounding the flat roof of the mansion. Covered archways protruded from the patterned tiles of the floor. Each of these charming cupolas led to a stairway. Steps descended through the attic of the manor to the third floor.

  The colorful bird strutted across the band of elaborate design that surrounded a smoother surface used for dancing. He remembered the many cotillions and summer concerts that had once been part of the grand house’s activities. It had been years since friends had gathered to dance on this roof. So long ago that Tipper probably did not remember the spectacular events.

  Beccaroon clicked his tongue against his beak and entered between pillars supporting a painted gable in the nearest cupola. At the bottom of the dark stairwell, a heavy wooden door blocked his path.

  “Doors,” he muttered under his breath. “Confounded nuisances.”

  At least Verrin Schope had had the courtesy to remove the knob and replace it with a bar handle. The parrot grabbed the metal lever with his beak and pulled down. The latch clicked, and he maneuvered the door open. Entering the dim hallway, he cast a grim look at the odious slab of wood. Obligation compelled him to pull the blasted thing shut. He sighed and reached for the handle.

  “I’ll get that,” said Tipper from the shadows behind him. She breathed heavily as she glided past him. Her shoes made no sound as she hurried across the carpeted floor. “I saw you fly in and came to meet you. Where’s Mother?”

  “Behind me by five minutes at the most.”

  Tipper gasped. “I must find Bealomondore and make sure he doesn’t cross paths with Mother.”

  “I don’t approve of this scheme of yours, Tipper.”

  “I don’t either, but sometimes one has to do what is distasteful.”

  “Does one?” asked Beccaroon as his girl raced away.

  “Yes!” she called back over her shoulder. “If you have a scatterbrained mother and an absent father, the answer is yes!”

  She disappeared around a corner. Beccaroon followed in his stately stride. “I believe,” he said to the empty corridor, “that Boscamon will teach my young friend the efficacious nature of truth.”

  He ruffled his neck feathers, the image of a juggler throwing balls into the air disturbing his calm. The traditional view cast Boscamon as a mysterious conjurer manipulating daily circumstances. A circus performer who tossed balls into the air had never appealed to Beccaroon. Surely if someone had the power to control the universe, he would be more caring. As the magistrate, Beccaroon took his duties seriously.

  He leaned toward there being a deity. Obviously, order came from somewhere beyond the scope of the temporal races. Although great minds could detect design in nature that had to be intelligently created, no one explained the phenomena to his satisfaction.

  Nevertheless, in the end, balance was maintained. He pictured truth as a chunk of ice in a pond. One could push it beneath the water, but it would bob to the surface. He had instructed Tipper on the reality of choices. Action created reaction. There would be a reckoning for Tipper’s deception. Experience would teach her the validity of his observations.

  He strutted down the hall, following his girl, and muttered, “I hope the lesson doesn’t hurt too much.”

  Tipper’s thin leather soles beat a rapid rhythm on the wooden servants stair. She’d chosen the quickest route to the parlor, where she had last seen Bealomondore sipping a glass of wine and reading a book from her father’s library.

  Outside the door, she took a moment to slow her breathing and run through the lines she would use to put off the tumanhofer. After squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin, she swept into the room.

  “My mother is about to arrive.”

  Bealomondore jumped to his feet. “I will be allowed an audience?”

  “No,
not tonight. I’ve explained. I will use the best of my diplomacy to present your case in a favorable light. Popping up out of nowhere and surprising her is the worst tack you can take. Please, avoid her at all costs. In the morning, at breakfast, I will tell you what I have accomplished.”

  The artist scowled, and Tipper held her breath, wondering if he would accept her terms. Finally he let out a sigh that seemed to deflate his shoulders.

  “All right.” He scooped up the book he had been reading. “Mind if I take this to my room? I doubt I will sleep tonight waiting for the verdict.”

  “Of course, Master Bealomondore, take the book. And if you would like, I will have Gladyme check on you before she goes to bed. Perhaps you would like her to bring you a light refreshment later?”

  The tumanhofer bowed. “You are too kind.”

  Tipper hesitated. Was that a snide remark? No matter. She would have the artist out of the way.

  She curtsied. “I fear we are not an easy family to get to know. My father is very much immersed in his work. My mother is of a nervous nature and doesn’t like to have her routine disturbed. And I have not studied the social graces. I beg you to forgive us our inhospitable ways.”

  Bealomondore frowned again, but there was a touch of compassion in his gaze. “I fear that your family suffers at the hand of your habits.”

  Tipper felt her back stiffen and her chin come up. This tumanhofer had no business passing judgment on how they lived. “We are mostly content,” she countered.

  “Perhaps you have nothing to compare your present circumstances with, but surely your parents are aware that to squander a life is foolishness.”

  A rustle preceded the words pronounced behind Tipper. “Squander? Foolish?”

  Horrified, Tipper whipped around to find her mother standing in the doorway.

  “Do you already know of my purchase, Tipper?” Lady Peg looked over her shoulder. “Here they come now.”

  Grunting accompanied the arrival of something heavy. Rolan appeared in the doorway with a familiar grandfather clock angled on his back and shoulder. He held a rope to keep it from sliding.

  Lady Peg gestured toward the far wall. “Right there, Rolan. Thank you so much. I’ve always wanted such a clock for that space, and this is just the thing. I do admit it was a bit dear. But perfect, don’t you think, Tipper?” She gestured toward Bealomondore. “Give Rolan a hand, won’t you? Help him ease it down to the floor. I’m so glad Rolan is strong. He’s the best of neighbors, as I am sure you are aware.”

  Bealomondore shot across the room to give aid.

  Lady Peg’s face folded into lines of confusion. “I don’t believe you are a neighbor, sir. Do I know you? Do you know Rolan? What are you doing in our house? We generally do not accept visitors. Company disturbs my husband.”

  Tipper’s mother turned a worried look upon her daughter.

  “This is Master Bealomondore, Mother. He’s respectable and from a fine family on the coast, beyond the Sunset Mountains.”

  The tumanhofer faced Lady Peg and bowed deeply. “Madam, is the clock in precisely the right location? Do you want us to shift it left or right?”

  “To the left three inches so that it is exactly between those two bookcases.” Lady Peg tapped her finger against her chin. “No, no, I don’t remember any Bealomondores. I don’t know you at all.”

  Rolan and the tumanhofer shouldered the clock to one side. Bealomondore stepped back to eye the symmetry of the new location. Rolan cast Tipper an apologetic look.

  She nodded, knowing full well the good farmer had tried his best to delay her mother’s arrival.

  “Is this satisfactory, Lady Peg?” Bealomondore nodded toward the clock.

  “Not at all.”

  The tumanhofer turned back to gaze at the position of the huge piece. “I believe it is centered, Madam. Would you like us to obtain a measuring stick?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The clock. Precisely, the clock’s position in relationship to the two bookcases.”

  Tipper’s mother squared her shoulders and looked the visitor in the eye. “Young man, clocks do not have relationships with bookcases. At least not in my house. The whole idea is preposterous and, I believe, most improper. Tipper says you are respectable, but I am not convinced you even have an acceptable understanding of what is decent and upright.”

  Rolan stepped forward with humor barely concealed by his twitching lips. “Lady Peg, we must be reasonable. The clock is upright. I don’t believe the young tumanhofer is completely off kilter.”

  The lady frowned. “You are right, and generally I respect your opinion. But I do not know any Bealomondores, Rolan. You can’t say I do.”

  The gentleman farmer nodded. “But Mistress Tipper knows one, Lady Peg.”

  Her mother turned to Tipper. “You do? Which Bealomondore are you acquainted with?”

  Tipper threw propriety to the wind and pointed to their guest. “That one.”

  She waited for the reprimand.

  “Don’t point, Tipper. There is no call to lower our standards of decorum.”

  Lady Peg glanced over the tumanhofer one more time. When her gaze returned to Rolan, her smile blossomed.

  “Rolan, you are ever the good neighbor. Thank you for my excursion to Soebin. I enjoyed the company of your good wife, Zilla.” She patted his brawny arm. “But please excuse me now. I’m tired, and there is a Bealomondore in my house. I must find Verrin Schope and inform him of this intrusion. And then I am going to bed. Tipper, have Gladyme bring me toast and warm milk, please.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Lady Peg strolled out of the room, looking very much like a regal noblewoman who was not one bit tired.

  As soon as the door closed behind her, Bealomondore clapped his hands together.

  “Does this mean I shall see Verrin Schope tonight? Will he come here to investigate the intrusion when Lady Peg informs him I am here?”

  “Not a chance,” said Rolan at the same time Tipper commented, “I doubt it.”

  Bealomondore looked from one to the other. “Does anything ever proceed in a natural manner in this household?”

  Rolan and Tipper both answered, “Never.”

  5

  Somewhat Truthful

  Tipper stirred her tea, the tiny silver spoon ringing against the delicate porcelain cup.

  “You’re nervous, my dear,” said Beccaroon.

  “It’s your fault.”

  Beccaroon tilted his head, and his eyes widened.

  “Yes, you,” said Tipper. She frowned and then imitated his voice. “ ‘I don’t approve of this scheme of yours, Tipper.’” She jabbed a fork into her sausage. Grease splattered on her plate as resentment laced her words. “The voice of conscience coming from a feathered friend. You kept me up most of the night.”

  Beccaroon returned to nibbling on a seedcake.

  Tipper’s next words froze on her lips as the door to the hall was flung open. Bealomondore came in with a light step and a smile on his face.

  “Beautiful morning,” he proclaimed and proceeded to take the chair directly across from his hostess.

  His air of expectancy nearly crushed what little appetite Tipper had mustered this morning. She popped the bite of meat into her mouth, trying to deny the man’s effect on her.

  Beccaroon glanced out the tall windows. “The weather is, indeed, fine.”

  The tumanhofer smiled at the parrot. “Fine, yes, very fine.” His eyes turned back to Tipper. She forced herself not to squirm under his steady gaze. She slowly chewed the morsel in her mouth and refused to look up.

  Bealomondore sighed. Disappointment flowed into the room and surrounded them all.

  Tipper swallowed, put down her fork, and folded her hands in her lap. “I am sorry, Master Bealomondore. It was impossible to show my father your fine painting.”

  “Perhaps today?” He spoke softly.

  Tipper shook her head. “I regret that I have deceived you by al
lowing you to think that I would ever be able to win for you the post of apprentice.”

  She lifted her eyes enough to catch the shift in position of her guest. He pulled back, anger replacing the listlessness of remorse.

  She hurried on. “My father is not in the position to take on a student at this time.”

  “You knew this yesterday?”

  She nodded.

  “And the day before?”

  She nodded again.

  Bealomondore stood, his chair scraping harshly across the floor. “I do not understand your motives, nor do I wish to. Good day, Mistress Tipper. I ask Boscamon to bless you and your family. Your needs are greater than mine.”

  Tipper’s head jerked up. The artist was halfway to the door. “What do you want me to do with your painting?”

  He did not turn. “Keep it. It is not my talent displayed but a copy of another’s.”

  The door closed firmly behind him.

  “And,” said Beccaroon, “the paint is still too fresh to transport.”

  “Father put his oil paintings in a deep wooden frame.” She sniffed. “He packaged them to travel faceup, but in such a way that nothing could smear the picture.” She raised the napkin to wipe away a tear. “I remember sitting on the bench in his studio, smelling the paint, watching him construct the box, wishing I could draw pretty pictures too.”

  The door opened again, and Tipper lifted her head, hoping to see the tumanhofer. Another apology might ease her conscience.

  Her mother entered the room, gliding to the table with yards of gossamer fabric in shades of yellow and orange floating around her.

  “I spoke with Master Bealomondore in the hall. He is leaving us.” She sat in her place and rang a silver bell by her glass. “Such a pity too. Your father wanted to meet with him tonight. He’s actually heard of the young man. Tipper, why didn’t you tell me he is a promising artist?”

  Gladyme came into the room with a plate of scrambled eggs, muffins, and sliced fruit.