The Tales of Aylfenhame Compendium

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Avoiding Mr. Stanton and Mr. Green proved to be more difficult than Sophy had anticipated. Everywhere she went, she heard them spoken of, usually in terms of the strongest praise; everyone was enchanted with them, everyone hoped to become their intimate friend, or to see their daughters distinguished by some particular attention.

Worse, Sophy could scarcely leave her home without encountering them somewhere. If she walked into town, she passed them on the street; if she wandered over the fields or through the woods, she would see them coming back from a ride or a ramble of their own. Mr. Stanton was not again so rude as to stare openly at her, but she often felt his gaze upon her, only to find him looking elsewhere when she turned.

A week went by, and most of another, and still neither Mr. Stanton nor Mr. Green satisfied the hopes of Tilby society by distinguishing any particular young woman. Sophy would have preferred it if they had. If some other—more deserving—young woman caught Mr. Stanton’s eye, it would necessarily bring an end to the intolerable speculation that surrounded the two men and their unattached hearts. After ten days of gossip—and Mr. Stanton’s odd behaviour—Sophy greeted the return of her particular friend, Miss Isabel Ellerby, with infinite relief.

Miss Ellerby was a few years older than Anne, and considerably more rational. She was also rather prettier than Anne, and certainly wealthier; but she hardly seemed aware of either distinction, treating both her friends with gentle good nature. Having spent a few weeks with an aunt in York, she returned with a great deal of news, and walked up to the parsonage directly in order to share it.

Sophy listened to the tales of Mrs. Grey’s household with far more interest than she had ever felt on the subject before. She was delighted to hear of Isabel’s engagements abroad, and the doings of her York acquaintance, in any degree of detail, because it bore no relation whatsoever to the tiresome two who had invaded Tilby.

But such felicity could not last. Isabel had not been sitting with Sophy above half an hour before Anne arrived, out of breath as if she had run all the way.

‘Isabel!’ she cried on entering the parlour. ‘I heard that you were returned! I thought I should find you here. Well! You will never guess what has happened while you were gone.’ Sophy resigned herself to another interminable discussion of all Mr. Green’s and Mr. Stanton’s doings, and indeed a lengthy recitation followed. She purchased a few moments’ respite for herself by untangling the ribbons of Anne’s forgotten bonnet and taking it out into the blissfully quiet hall.

There she met Thundigle bustling through with an armful of cloth.

‘Thundigle!’ she cried in relief. ‘How glad I am to see you! Only tell me there is some emergency in the kitchen and that I am needed at once, and I shall be completely happy.’

Thundigle spread his brown eyes wide and blinked at her. ‘Surely you cannot be wishing for catastrophe, Miss Sophy.’

‘Indeed I don’t, precisely.’ She broke off as Anne’s voice, raised in rapturous enthusiasm, emanated through the walls to permeate the quiet hallway.

Sophy exchanged a raised-brows look with Thundigle, and the latter nodded gravely.

‘I see,’ he said, and thought for a moment. ‘Mary has just put on a kettle of stew,’ he offered.

‘Perhaps Mary might spill some of it upon me, obliging me to change my clothes.’

‘If not, then I would be most happy to capsize it in your direction, Miss Sophy.’

Sophy began to smile. ‘A most obliging offer, but I would need a reason to go to the kitchen first.’

‘I might bring you tea in the parlour, in a few moments,’ Thundigle offered. ‘And I might, in a moment of infinitely regrettable clumsiness, spill a cup or two upon your gown.’

Sophy laughed at this image, but quickly sobered. ‘As tempted as I am, I shall not impose upon your clumsiness. Can you imagine the damage to my poor gown? And I haven’t another muslin anywhere near as good.’

Thundigle sighed with apparent regret, though a rare twinkle appeared in his nut-brown eyes. ‘Perhaps you might propose a walk instead, to somewhere Miss Anne might find diverting.’

Sophy sighed and shook her head. ‘I cannot, indeed, for we would be almost certain to bump into Anne’s new beaux! I cannot think how it keeps happening.’

Thundigle greeted this piece of information with a thoughtful look, and ultimately made no reply. ‘I must get on,’ he apologised, and left again in the direction of the kitchen.

Sophy returned to the parlour just in time to hear Anne say, ‘You should have seen how he stared at Sophy! Nothing could be more particular! He is to be at the Adairs’ ball, you know, and I am persuaded he will ask her to dance first.’

Sophy, torn between embarrassment, chagrin and mild alarm, knew not what to say. Fixing on the one piece of Anne’s speech that was news to her, she turned the conversation by asking: ‘Are the Adairs to give a ball? I had not heard.’

‘Yes!’ cried Anne. ‘It has only just got about this morning. Mr. Stanton and Mr. Green are so friendly with Mr. Edward already that they have decided to give a ball to welcome them to the neighbourhood. Everyone is to be invited! Only think how magnificent! They will be hoping that Elizabeth will catch Mr. Stanton’s eye, I shouldn’t wonder, or maybe Mr. Green’s. But I think Mr. Stanton much prefers Sophy.’

Sophy could imagine no such thing, and said so. The Adairs were among the principle families in Tilby, with a large modern house and four or five thousand-a-year in income; their two children, Edward and Elizabeth Adair, were uncommonly handsome, and it was generally agreed that both would do well in marriage. The former was a natural associate for two such young gentlemen, and the latter an equally natural wife for one of them; what could Sophy have to do with any of that?

Anne refused to be swayed, however, and with more loyalty than perspicacity she insisted that Sophy was every bit as handsome as Miss Adair, and far more agreeable.

Isabel watched this exchange with sharp attention, her dark eyes lingering on Sophy’s face. ‘I shall look forward to meeting them both,’ was all she ventured to say.

Sophy merely smiled, relieved to reflect that she, in all her poverty and her lack of fashion, would almost certainly be omitted from the Adairs’ invitation list.

But in due course, a handsome invitation card arrived at the parsonage, and upon seeing it, Sophy’s heart sank. Typically an occasion for great excitement, this particular invitation filled her with a mixture of strange, fluttering nervousness (a most unwelcome feeling) and an obscure dread. The ball was to take place very soon, in a mere few days’ time. Sophy recollected that Mr. Green and Mr. Stanton had only been said to remain in the neighbourhood for a few weeks; this, she supposed, was an effort to induce them to stay longer.

She briefly considered declining the invitation. Her father would certainly not wish to go, and she might claim any manner of indisposition for herself, without eliciting any true alarm in her friends. But Anne had not confined her speculations about Mr. Stanton to Sophy’s parlour; her enthusiasm had, as usual, overridden her sense, and she had spread her ideas somewhat farther abroad. To decline the invitation would, then, invite far too much comment. She resigned herself to an evening of small trials, and wrote to accept the invitation.

But there remained another problem to be resolved: the question of what she could wear. She had, in the past few years, become somewhat notorious for wearing the same yellow silk gown to each and every assembly. Her skill with a needle might ably transform the neckline or the hem, adjust the sleeves or trim it anew, according to the changes in fashion; but nothing could disguise the faded primrose colour, or fool Tilby society into thinking it new.

She hardly knew how it was, but the prospect of wearing this tired old friend yet again filled her with dismay. The silk was beginning to break down under the arms, which must be her excuse; the elderly fabric might fall into tatters at any moment. But she had no choice in the matter, for she had no gown with which to replace it.

She dared not ask her father for the means to buy another. The anxious care he took of her health did not extend to her wardrobe; content with patched and fraying attire himself, he could see no reason why Sophy should be any more concerned with neatness. Blind to the vagaries of fashion and oblivious to the censure and ridicule that Sophy’s shabby appearance often brought, he had far rather secure another brace of birds for his table than advance Sophy so much as a shilling for such frivolities as ball clothes. She knew better than to ask.

Her meagre allowance would stretch as far as new shoe-roses and a little trim, but no farther. With a heavy heart, Sophy resigned herself to wearing her old primrose silk.

And why should it trouble me so much? She asked herself. Her wardrobe had been the subject of ridicule before; it had used to pain her, when she was a younger woman, but it could not trouble her very much now. She had learned to care less about such things. Something had changed, however, and left her feeling very differently affected.

Isabel took note of the alteration in Sophy’s feelings, it would seem, for three days before the projected ball, she arrived late in the morning, carrying a parcel and wearing a diffident expression.

Sophy, always glad to see her, greeted her with delight; but her pleasure quickly turned to dismay as Isabel continued to hover on the threshold, nervously turning the parcel around in her hands and not quite meeting Sophy’s eye.

‘Isabel, is anything the matter? Please come in; there can be no call for dancing on my doorstep in such a fashion! Have we not been friends these ten years at least?’

Sophy’s warm smile drew a tentative one from Isabel in response, and she took a few quick steps into the room. ‘There is nothing amiss,’ she said. ‘I have brought you something, that is all. That is—if you are minded to accept it.’ She held out the parcel, finally meeting Sophy’s gaze. ‘If you do not like it, you have only to say so; and indeed, Sophy, I would have you know that I mean no slight at all upon your gowns, for they are quite beautiful and you maintain them all so skilfully—if I had half your ability I should have the prettiest clothes in Tilby—’

She stopped, flustered, and Sophy began to understand. She took the parcel and unwrapped the paper, discovering a pile of folded, dark red silk inside. Unfolding it, Sophy discovered that it was a ball-gown, with delicate short sleeves and a gathered neckline.

‘It was one of mine,’ Isabel said apologetically, ‘so it is not new—the merest trifle—I thought perhaps you may wish to make it up new, and so I have brought it to-day. You will have time, I think?’

She paused, and when Sophy still said nothing she added anxiously, ‘You are not offended?’

It was not offence that silenced Sophy’s tongue, but the opposite. Much moved, she smiled at Isabel and said: ‘You are quite the dearest girl there ever was, and everyone shall know it.’

Isabel smiled in relief, and said: ‘Oh, no! It is the merest nothing.’

‘On the contrary, it is everything. It will fully restore my credit with Tilby society—at least, those parts of it worth the impressing. I will indeed trim it—some ribbons about the hem, I think—and it will require only the smallest alteration to the neck. It will look very well!’ After a moment’s thought, she added: ‘And I can contrive a cap to match, I think.’

‘A cap! Oh, Sophy! Must you? It is playing the old maid very sadly!’

‘But so I am,’ Sophy said, laughing. ‘There can be no shame in owning my true state—and it will save the young men from any tiresome sense of obligation when they see me standing by. They will be free to seek more agreeable partners.’

‘You should not talk so—especially when Mr. Stanton has been so particular!’

Sophy rolled her eyes heavenwards, and shook her head. ‘You must not heed Anne; her fancy runs away with her. How can a gentleman be particular to a woman with whom he is not even acquainted? If to stare in a rude fashion is to be particular, why, I am sure that Mr. Stanton has been particular to a great many other people besides.’

Isabel smiled, and conceded. ‘Perhaps Anne has been imagining a great many things; but still I beg you, Sophy, not to wear the cap.’

Sophy eyed her, and would not promise. It was of no use, in her estimation, to put herself forward as a young woman, as a desirable partner, or as a marriageable lady. Better to declare her matronly status at once, with a well-made cap to hide her flyaway hair.

Isabel was not able to prevail on this point. Sophy’s gown was made ready, her cap assembled and the whole was elegantly trimmed in no time at all; and on the evening of the ball, the Ellerby carriage conveyed Sophy to the Adair house in finer style than she had ever appeared before, and in only a slight flutter of spirits.