Miss Ellerby and the Ferryman

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

If Isabel had entertained hopes that her mother’s preparations for the assembly might, by nightfall, be considered completed, she was obliged to banish all such comforting thoughts almost as soon as she arose the following morning. She was woken at an intolerably early hour by her mother’s sudden appearance in her room, apparently for the sole purpose of expressing her renewed concerns about Isabel’s choice of gown — and shoes — and ornaments. Though Isabel succeeded in banishing her within a very few minutes, the attack was renewed at the breakfast table.

The onslaught continued throughout the day, and by the time the hour approached to step into the family carriage and depart, Isabel’s nerves were torn to ragged shreds. She was, therefore, in no fit state to bear with equanimity the speech her father saw fit to address to her before she left the house.

Mr. Ellerby was typically of a congenial disposition, and inclined to be an indulgent parent. But once in a great while, when some matter struck him as bearing particular importance, he became grave and dignified, and spoke at great length in a style bordering upon forbidding. He was in just such a humour when Isabel, answering his summons, arrived at the door to his book-room. He gazed at his daughter with such pride that Isabel’s heart softened even as she quailed at what she must inevitably hear.

‘My dear Isabel,’ he said gravely, as he indicated the chair in which she was to sit. ‘You do the family great honour today.’

Isabel blinked, and wondered, with brief anxiety, whether he referred to her appearance in some obscure fashion or whether her hand had already been bestowed upon Mr. Thompson without her knowledge. She took the chair without speaking, taking great care not to crush the silken skirts of the lavender gown she had been at last persuaded into wearing.

‘Your mother and I are both keen that this alliance with the Thompson family should take place,’ he continued, ‘and in view of the success of her diligent efforts I am sanguine indeed! For nothing could be more attaching than your appearance this evening. No man of sense, I am sure, could remain indifferent.’

Taking this to mean that she was expected to captivate the mysterious Mr. Thompson by the close of the assembly, Isabel could not feel much flattered by this tribute to her looks. Instead, a tight knot of anxiety formed in her stomach. Would Mr. Thompson find her appearance agreeable? Did she truly wish him to? How did he feel about the proposed alliance? She said none of these things, however, replying merely with a murmur of suitably modest gratitude for his confidence in her.

Mr. Ellerby’s manner swiftly developed its deepest gravity and he said, ‘I need not inform you, Isabel, of how important it is that you make a creditable appearance before the Thompsons. You are well aware of the desirability of this connection — the more so, following your brother’s engagement to Miss Ellis. Indeed, I would not have sanctioned such a marriage had I not been possessed of the fullest confidence in your ability to improve the family’s consequence with your own.’

‘Yes, father.’ Isabel, listening to this with a sinking heart, could find nothing more to say. It was his appalling confidence which silenced her; he could not conceive of a scenario where his daughter might fail in an object to which she had been assigned, or decline to do her duty.

Mr. Ellerby smiled upon his daughter with paralysing affection and said, more kindly, ‘You will make us very proud, my dear. I have not the smallest doubt of it. And when Mr. Thompson sees you this evening, I know he cannot fail of being extremely pleased with you.’

Isabel murmured something else appropriate, and tried to ignore the deepening sense of foreboding she suffered in the wake of it. But an hour later, as she stepped down from her family’s carriage and entered the Assembly Rooms at Alford, her spirits were so much affected that she struggled to muster even the appearance of enjoyment and anticipation that would satisfy her mother. Her cloak was taken, her shoes exchanged for the slippers suitable for dancing, and the assembly began; in such a whirl of colour and heat and noise that Isabel, in her troubled state, soon began to feel severely discomposed. In the mass of faces both familiar and strange which passed before her, she failed to distinguish the features which had been described to her as Mr. Thompson’s. Finally her mother, impatient to achieve the sole object of the evening’s excursion, caught her arm and propelled her towards a knot of particularly finely-dressed people who had taken up a station on the farthest side of the room from the door.

Isabel saw at once the reason for her mother’s extreme anxiety about her choice of attire. The Thompson family bore every appearance of both considerable wealth and a value for the latest and highest fashions which far exceeded Isabel’s own. They resembled a group of peacocks which had strayed into a farmyard; their clothes were in the best possible taste, and not at all garish, but the quality of their silks and velvets and the superiority of their jewels and ornaments cast even the best of Alford’s society into the shade.

Mr. and Mrs. Thompson had both attended their son to the assembly. The elder Mr. Thompson was tall, his wife of a height perfectly matched to his. All three possessed smooth, curling locks in similar chestnut shades, and dark eyes. They more nearly resembled a work of art than a family of flesh and blood.

The younger Mr. Thompson was as tall as his father, with the same burnished curls. He was dressed in a pair of superb pale knee-breeches with a dark coat and waistcoat. This was all that Isabel was able to discern with the brief glance she dared to direct at him before introductions were made, and the curtsey she offered directed her eyes back to the floor.

‘It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Ellerby,’ said Mr. Thompson. She raised her eyes to his face, and saw, to her relief, that he was smiling. His countenance was boyish, though she gathered him to be of some eight-and-twenty years of age, and his dark green eyes bore an expression of friendliness and good humour which she found reassuring. They rested upon her, moreover, with an air of mild approval, and she guessed him to be ready to be pleased by her. Isabel took a breath, and as she let it out much of her nervousness dissipated along with it.

He solicited her hand for the first dances in a very proper style, and with modesty which further recommended him to her; for he must be well aware that she had no power of refusal. He led her into the set, and as they awaited the beginning of the music he talked to her in an agreeable way about the dance, and the number of couples, and the roads, in a fashion exactly calculated to soothe. She found him to be an excellent partner. He danced with a little reserve, but with grace and perfect correctness. When the two dances were over, she was conscious of having enjoyed them more than she had expected to.

Afterwards, he led her to a sofa, bowed over her hand as he settled her upon it, and retreated for a few moments. He returned shortly, bearing a glass of punch for her, and seated himself beside her with a smile.

‘I hope the circumstances of this meeting have not left you feeling too uncomfortable,’ he said. ‘Our families have been a little high-handed, I fear.’

Isabel was surprised into a genuine smile, though she felt it incumbent upon her to make a polite demurral.

‘Oh, come now,’ he said, laughing. ‘To introduce us like this and expect that we should dutifully take to one another! It cannot have been easy for you, and I am sorry for it.’

‘It has been unusual,’ Isabel conceded, though she smiled as she spoke.

Mr. Thompson nodded. ‘I did want to assure you that I shan’t press any suit upon you unless we should both genuinely wish it,’ he continued. ‘And regardless of the wishes of your mother — or mine — I do not expect that any such conclusion can be arrived at under so short an acquaintance as this evening allows. Several more meetings, at least, will be necessary to determine our feelings.’

Isabel had not expected to receive such plain-speaking, and it briefly disconcerted her. But she was also reassured by it, and a moment’s reflection allowed her to say, ‘I am pleased to find that I can view the prospect of further meetings with pleasure.’

It was spoken with sincerity, for she found in Mr. Thompson a congenial young man, not at all the self-important high-stickler she had been picturing under the onslaught of her Mama’s panic. It was far too early to imagine with equanimity the prospect of a lifetime spent as his wife, but the idea did not actively repel her.

Mr. Thompson smiled upon this cautious praise, looking, Isabel thought, rather relieved. Had his mother been as urgent with him as Mrs. Ellerby had with Isabel? Surely not, for the Thompsons enjoyed undoubtedly the stronger social position as well as being far wealthier.

Mr. Thompson began to talk of his family in a manner designed, Isabel felt, to introduce to her some idea of the company she would be keeping if she married him. She watched the dancers as he spoke of his three sisters, for she could see them all, suitably partnered and whirling about the floor. The picture he painted agreed but little with what she saw, for he spoke of amiable, unpretending young women, and they did not, to her eye, appear much pleased with their company.

She saw her brother Charles as well, dancing with Jane Ellis. Charles was smiling, and Jane was in high bloom. The match was not what her parents had hoped for, but that it made him happy, none could deny. Her friend Anne had also married the man of her choice, as had Sophy Landon. Isabel could only hope that her parents had chosen as well for her, as Anne, Charles and Sophy had chosen for themselves.

Mr. Thompson had progressed to speaking of his horses. She turned her attention back to him, watching his face as he talked. Amiable he might be, and well-looking, but he seemed well-pleased to talk at great length upon his own topics without requiring much response from her. Conscious of a feeling of boredom, it occurred to her that she had made little effort to speak, and she sought in her mind for a suitable topic.

But then the orchestra began to play a lively reel, which instantly inspired Mr. Thompson to bring an end to his disclosures and to say instead, ‘May I solicit you as a partner for a second time, Miss Ellerby?’

Grateful for the interruption and not at all disinclined to dance, Isabel smiled upon him and allowed him to lead her back onto the floor. But as she waited for the couples to form and the dance to begin, she became aware of an alteration in the music. It began as a subtle change in the tone, as though one of the instruments had wandered off to play a slightly different part. Then it began to seem as though the instruments themselves had undergone some indescribable change; that what had once been a fiddle had transformed into something similar, but not quite the same — like the difference between a pianoforte and a harpsichord.

Isabel was obliged to turn about entirely in order to see the orchestra, and thus risk missing the beginning of the dance. But as the tones and the tune grew rapidly stranger, she could not refrain from satisfying herself that all was well. She turned.

The orchestra was not clearly visible from the dance floor, for they were raised up upon a square balcony which overlooked the hall some way above the dancers’ heads. At first, all she could discern was the white, full sleeve of a fiddler billowing as he played, and a becurled head bobbing in time to the music. But then one of the players leaned over the rail to survey the dancers, affording Isabel a clear view of his countenance.

He was not human; that much she discerned at a glance. His skin was too white, and it shimmered in an odd way, like mother-of-pearl. His hair was pale too, long and straight and bound back in a fashion no gentleman would ever think proper. His eyes glittered like chips of ice and his smile stretched a fraction too wide.

Isabel stared. She now saw that not one of the four-piece orchestra was human, for beside the pale fiddler stood another man, taller than the first, whose golden skin and green-streaked hair were every bit as wild and strange. There were two others besides these, both dark of skin and hair and eye. All four wore clothes of outlandish style, and their ears curled at the tips.

Isabel had spent little time beyond the shores of England, but she had thrice travelled beyond the walls which separated her homeland from the realm of the fae. Aylfenhame, it was called, and its principle denizens were the Ayliri. In face and form and feature they resembled humans, and yet they were not like at all.

These musicians were Ayliri, but how they came to be playing for a country assembly in England she could not guess. Lesser denizens of Aylfenhame often wandered into England; indeed many, such as the household brownies and Balligumph the bridge-keeper, settled in England entirely. But to her knowledge, the Ayliri visited but rarely, and never without good reason.

Her thoughts flew to Sophy. Her dearest friend in the world, Miss Sophy Landon, had — by a series of strange events — come to marry one of the Ayliri, and had settled in Aylfenhame. Had she somehow contrived to send these musicians?

But Isabel could not conceive of how Sophy could have known of the assembly at all, nor why she might have chosen to interfere in such a way. Besides, Isabel felt sure that until a few minutes ago, both the music and its players had been human indeed.

The dancers were in shambles and the steps forgotten as the music grew stranger, and the ball guests more uneasy. Mr. Thompson was at Isabel’s elbow, a picture of gentlemanly concern as he tried to steer her away from the confusion. ‘I do not know what can be amiss with the musicians,’ he was saying in a placid way, ‘but I trust it will soon be put right. In the meantime, please come and sit out of the way, and I will procure you some refreshment.’

Isabel stared at him in confusion. His smile was tranquil enough, and he betrayed no sign that he was other than mildly puzzled. Had he not observed how badly amiss the musicians were?

Rising over the strains of the music came a dull, hollow boom, and then another: the main doors had been thrown open. Whirling to observe this new disturbance, Isabel saw streaming into the assembly room the strangest procession of people she had ever beheld.

At their head strode a tall, thin man, taller than anyone else in the room. He wore knee-breeches, waistcoat and cutaway coat in the fashion of the English gentry, but his were cut from strange, shimmering fabrics dyed in the colours of spring flowers. His hair was indigo in hue and fell in a tangled mess around his face, and at his lips he held a strangely curling pipe. The music he played upon this enchanting instrument rippled like water, and melded perfectly with the lively melody the orchestra played.

Behind him danced a lady only slightly shorter than he, her figure as wispy and fragile as a blade of grass. Her golden hair was swept up upon her head and bound with long pins, at the ends of which rested living butterflies — Isabel’s startled gaze discerned the slow movement of wings. Her dress mimicked the style of Isabel’s own, but hers was as light and silky as flower petals. Its colour was some hue between purple, blue and pink that Isabel had never seen before, and shockingly vibrant. She wore clusters of glass bells upon her wrists; these she shook in time with the piper’s song, setting them ringing with an eerie music.

Behind these two came six more couples, all dressed in the same manner of familiar, yet strange fashions. Their hair was long and flowing, straight and heavy or curling like wisps of smoke. Some wore their sumptuous locks loose, while others had bound their hair up with jewels and combs. Their eyes flashed with merriment and anticipation and something else — mischief, perhaps.

Isabel’s mind flew back to the visits she had paid to Sophy in the fae town of Grenlowe. Being a skilled seamstress, Sophy had set up a shop there. She now sold fashions for both men and women, wondrous garments which mixed English styles with the strange and beautiful materials available in Aylfenhame and a glimmer of fae magic. These Ayliri were wearing Sophy’s clothes!

Did that mean that Sophy had sent them? But why would she do such a thing? Isabel watched in a daze as the Ayliri dancers streamed through to the centre of the room, the assembly’s displaced guests falling back as one to make way for them. Even the Thompsons’ finery paled to nothing against the riot of colour and light and magic the fae brought with them, and the Alford assembly guests were silent in awe.

The Ayliri formed themselves into a set and began a whirling, laughing dance that was as alien as their music. They dominated the space with their flamboyant movements, and the people of Alford and Tilby were forced back against the walls.

Isabel couldn’t see who first began, but in the blink of an eye she realised that the eight Ayliri were no longer alone in their dance. A young Englishman and his fair partner were whirling along with them. Rapidly, the lines of silent people ringing the walls melted into the set, and it grew bigger and more encompassing.

Isabel watched, mesmerised, and aware of a growing longing to join them — a longing which swiftly deepened into a kind of compulsion. Soon her desire to whirl into the merry dance outweighed her hesitance and her inhibitions and in the next instant she was caught up in the flow, Mr. Thompson swept in alongside her.

No dance in Isabel’s life could have prepared her for the sensations she now felt. She was caught up in a fever of energy, activity and colour so intense she could barely comprehend what she did. The steps were wholly strange to her, yet she knew their patterns instinctively and kept pace with the intricacy of the dance without any effort. Her skirts twirled and swayed around her legs with the vigour of her movements and her cheeks flushed as she was swept along. And the music grew ever stranger.

Moreover, she felt a sense of wild, almost violent joy which had never been hers to experience before; and a sensation of perfect belonging, as though she had always been intended for such a dance as this. Had she but had leisure enough to observe her companions, she would have seen that the same sensations affected all around her. But she had attention for nothing but her own place in the circle, and the lithe, strange, bright figures of the Ayliri who led the dance.

Only one moment amongst this blur of activity particularly impressed itself upon her memory. There came the briefest of pauses in the dance, when, for an instant, the breathless whirl ceased and the dancers waited, suspended, as in the grip of some strange enchantment. And as she waited, among the others, for the dance to continue, Isabel found herself observed.

It was the tall piper’s gaze which rested upon her. His tangled indigo hair was swept back from his face, revealing violet eyes. These eyes were fixed upon Isabel, intent and questioning, though she had no way of knowing what questions he asked of her in the silence of his own mind.

This scrutiny lasted but a moment. Then he lifted his curious pipe to his lips once more, and blew three rippling notes. The fiddlers took up the tune, and the dance resumed. Isabel lost sight of the piper.

The evening passed by in a blur of colour and sound, and the assembly did not break up until the small hours of the morning. Isabel came to herself at last, deposited upon the step of her own home without the smallest recollection of how she came to be there.