“His staying in the north. If he doesn’t enjoy society, why force him? He’s keeping a sharp eye on his means of production, which is more than the rest of us can say.”
“You’ve got a clever daughter, Keeler.” Cyril favored Sofie with a smile at last. She returned it gratefully. “You’re lucky she’ll be here to inherit the family business.”
“Oh, no.” Sofie twirled her fork against her plate, scratching at the china. “I’m afraid it all goes to Steben. Mother thought I might be … overwhelmed.”
“Sofie.” Keeler cast a sharp glance down the table.
Cyril ignored the matron’s censure. “Steben?”
“Loelia’s going to be married in the summer,” said Sofie. “Steben is her intended.”
“And he has a fine head on his shoulders,” said her mother. “He’s just come down from the university at Farbourgh City, with a degree in economics. He’ll be a credit to the Keeler mills.”
“Will he keep the name, do you think?” The venom in Sofie’s voice told Cyril this was an old argument. “Loelia isn’t.”
“Sofie, that’s enough.”
Sofie opened her mouth, but Berhooven cut her off.
“What a spirited young woman,” he said. “Keeler, your supper table must be a lively place. Why don’t you have us all around some time?”
The conversation turned towards memorable past parties. Cyril invented some anecdote about the dreary social scene in the Hellican Islands: “Really,” he said, “I try never to be at home.” Sofie retreated into silence, and maintained it through dessert and coffee.
The party broke up earlier than Cyril was used to. He had already resigned himself to retiring when Berhooven cornered him in the drawing room.
“You’re not thinking of heading back to your hotel?” He kept his voice low and watched Cyril from under thick eyebrows. “You’ve come all the way from the Islands and you’re just going to go to bed? I had you pegged as a bit of a playboy. ‘I try never to be at home’ and all that.”
“I’m still a little under the weather,” said Cyril, but he let it sound like he could be convinced. Berhooven he knew the least about, from Landseer’s correspondence.
The man jumped on his hesitancy. “Come on, you’ve got to let me show you a little Nuesklan hospitality. Nothing for a complaint of the throat like a little tipple.”
“Don’t let Ives lead you down a path of dissipation.” Sofie threaded her arms into her coat, held open by a footman, then cast an appraising glance down Cyril’s figure. “I’ve seen him lay stronger men low.”
“You’re afraid for my morals?”
“I’m afraid for your liver,” she said, and followed her mother out the door.
*
Berhooven’s car was surprisingly shabby, dinged in small collisions and left unrepaired. And he drove it himself, whereas the Keeler women both got into the back of a sleek blue affair with ebony running boards. Van der Joost stayed behind for cigars and, presumably, political talk, but there was a man waiting for him in the driver’s seat of a black car with a long bonnet.
“I thought we’d start at the top and work our way down,” said Berhooven. “Does that sound all right by you?”
Cyril assured Berhooven he would defer to a local’s judgment.
Their first stop was an upscale club decorated in tacky bucolic fashion. Farther down the cliffs they sat through a tame burlesque. Cyril tried to figure out if Berhooven was testing him, or truly thought that these were titillating venues.
He got his answer over thin, sour wine in an empty hotel bar. They sat by the window, looking over the boardwalk. Few people were out enjoying the seaside—the night had turned icy with sleet. Cyril was tired and bored, and had so far got nothing worth knowing out of Berhooven.
“You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself,” said his host.
“My head,” said Cyril. “I don’t think drinking is helping my cold after all.”
But Berhooven caught him in his lie. “I think you’re just a hard man to impress,” he said. “It’s time we went around the bay.”
Cyril realized it had been a test, and his apathy had helped him pass. “Around the bay?” he asked.
“If you want real entertainment,” said Berhooven, putting down a few bills for their tally, “you’ve got to head down to the wharves. I hope you don’t mind beer in the evening.”
“I don’t mind beer at all,” said Cyril, “provided it’s good.”
“This is Nuesklend,” said Berhooven. “Bad beer is a hanging offense.”
*
On the other side of the bay, Cyril felt at home immediately. Here, among the low buildings and towering rock, people braved the slippery pavement. They scurried in between bars and restaurants, flashing warm light and sound into the street each time they opened a door. In anticipation of the election, blue-and-yellow bunting hung from second-story windows: the colors of the regionalist party.
“Up on the cliffs it’s all industrialists,” said Berhooven, shouting over the roar of wind-driven surf. “A lot of them Ospies, like our friends at dinner.”