Miss Ellerby and the Ferryman (2 page)

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.