But her heart still cried out with pain and confusion at the extent of the trickery that had been played upon her. That sense of self, so important to the peace of any young woman, had been built upon a lie and was now torn from her entirely.
Was I wrong to do it? Isabel did not know if her aunt had done the right thing. Perhaps no one would ever be able to say for certain. But the question that weighed upon her mind was: How would her mother react if she were to learn the truth? If she had not been able to accept the real Isabel at her birth, would she be able to do so now?
Should she, in short, tell her mother and father — and the rest of the world — the truth, or should Eliza’s Glamour conceal the true Miss Ellerby forever?
No answers to these questions presented themselves, and Isabel’s head began to ache with the effort of puzzling her way through the possible consequences of exposure versus concealment. It proved difficult for her to focus upon the conversation in the parlour that morning, which ought to have been reassuring in its ordinary simplicity. At length she excused herself, ignoring her aunt’s attempts to catch her eye, and collected her bonnet and shawl. The day was fine, and not too hot, and she intended to partake of the refreshment of a walk in Tilton Wood.
Her going thither also served another purpose. She walked for half an hour, turning her steps in the direction she had taken a mere few weeks previously — before she had learned of the peculiarity of her heritage; before she had become something so other than Miss Ellerby of Ferndeane. On that day, she had been so absent in her mind that she had lost herself, and encountered unexpected aid.
When she judged that she had arrived in roughly the same part of the wood, she stopped. The exertion of rapid walking had overheated her, and she took off her bonnet, looping the ribbon over her arm. The breeze felt refreshing as it ruffled her hair, and she unwound her shawl from her shoulders as well. ‘Tiltager!’ she called softly. ‘Tiltager, I would speak with you.’
No response reached her ears, and she knew disappointment. Had she found the right place? The woods looked familiar to her, but perhaps she misremembered. She wandered a little, her bonnet swinging upon its coloured ribbons, and called Tiltager’s name from time to time. At length, just as she was preparing to abandon the project and return home, she heard a faint little voice hailing her from somewhere in the vicinity of her knees. ‘Goodest of mornings, Mistress!’
Isabel looked down, and smiled. The little fae looked unchanged, gnarled as a bundle of twigs and wispy as a dried leaf; only the tattered brown dress that she had worn had been replaced with a merrier garment of faded violet rags, and she wore a bundle of moss for a hat. She bowed as she had before, and held up for Isabel’s interest a cluster of daisies.
‘Thank you,’ Isabel said, and carefully took the flowers. ‘Tell me, Tiltager. Why is it that you call me “Mistress”?’
‘My line has served yours for centuries, Mistress,’ said Tiltager happily. ‘Did you not know?’
‘I did not know that I was of any line at all, save for that of the Ellerby family.’ Isabel tucked the daisies into the sash of her gown and smiled at the little fae. ‘Nor that there was any such arrangement as you describe.’
Tiltager bowed again. ‘My granny trained your great-grandsire’s companion,’ she said proudly. ‘May I be of help to you?’ She quivered with enthusiasm at the prospect, which made Isabel smile, though it puzzled her a little.
‘Someday I would like you to tell me more of my forebears,’ she said, ‘since you appear to know far more than I. But today, I have a particular question to put to you.’
Tiltager adopted a listening pose so exaggerated that Isabel laughed. ‘It will be my pleasure to answer any question you may have, Mistress!’
‘I pray you, do not call me Mistress! For though I shall be glad of your help, I do not consider you as a servant.’
Tiltager tilted her head at the word servant. ‘What is it that you speak of?’
Isabel attempted to explain the concept of servitude, but Tiltager could not understand her. ‘I am here to help,’ she simply repeated, and grew injured by Isabel’s efforts to assure her that she was in no way bound to do so. At length Isabel abandoned the discussion, reassuring Tiltager as best she could that she had meant no offence — for she saw that she had inadvertently hurt her.
‘I am very much in need of your help,’ she assured the fae, ‘for I have a difficult task to fulfil. Do you know a way into the Hollow Hills?’
Tiltager’s eyes widened, and she shook her head, sending her knotted curls flying. ‘Oh, Mistress! You do not wish to go there, no indeed!’
‘Isabel, please. I do not wish to go there, precisely, but I must urgently speak with someone who I believe to be residing there.’
Tiltager continued to protest, but Isabel was firm. At last the little fae sighed deeply, and flopped onto her back among the moss. ‘I know a way,’ she said.
‘Will you take me, and one other?’
‘If I must,’ said Tiltager unhappily.
‘Why is it so ill-advised?’
‘Because the folk of England, they wander in and then they do not always wander out!’ said Tiltager. ‘They are lost, and forever!’ She sat up suddenly, and jumped to her feet. ‘But you are not wholly of the folk of England, you! Perhaps it will be all right.’ She smiled, and added helpfully, ‘But I hope you are not particularly attached to this other person that you intend for me to guide.’
‘She is my aunt, and of the same line.’
Tiltager brightened further. ‘Then we shall make a merry party of it, yes! And perhaps there is a small chance that we will all come out again.’
Isabel tried not to feel too alarmed.
‘It will be best to go at night,’ continued Tiltager. ‘For that is when they are dancing! And most of them will be too busy and merry to notice you and your aunt. I think it will be much better.’
‘It will not be easy for us to be abroad at night. Shall it be so very ill-advised to go in the daytime?’
Tiltager looked grave. ‘If you wish it especially, then of course we will go in the daytime.’
‘But you think it unwise.’
‘Most unwise! Most very much unwise.’
Eliza would not shy from such an adventure, Isabel knew that well enough. Nor, precisely, did she. Only it would be difficult indeed to escape Ferndeane at night without waking anyone. ‘Where is the way into the Hills?’
Tiltager looked surprised. ‘Why, we are close upon it now. It is at yonder edge of the Wood.’ She pointed unerringly behind herself, without making the smallest effort to orient herself first.
‘Are there many ways into the Hills, Tiltager?’
‘None, that I know. Not for many miles.’
Isabel was surprised, too, though after a moment’s reflection she felt that she should not be. Tilby was not precisely usual in the generality of English towns and villages. There were, on average, more household brownies in residence across Tilby than in other places, and no other town that she had ever seen or heard of had a troll for a bridge-keeper. And it was, perhaps, no coincidence that her own Aylir ancestor, whoever it had been, had come here, and left a child behind. What it was about Tilby that drew such interest from the denizens of Aylfenhame, she did not know.
‘I shall find you here this evening,’ Isabel said. ‘At a late hour, once the moon is up. Will you be waiting?’
‘I shall be waiting!’ said Tiltager, and bowed.
Isabel took her leave soon afterwards, aware that she had been gone some little time already. She did not wish to excite comment or suspicion at home; not when she was to so far transgress as to leave Ferndeane in the late hours and wander abroad at night. If she were to be caught leaving or returning, it would be as well to avoid compounding those problems with some earlier misdemeanour; her mother’s temper would not be quick to recover.
On returning home, she found an early opportunity to speak to her aunt alone, and availed herself of it at once. E
liza, predictably, was excited by the prospect, and eager to accompany Isabel. She appeared to wish to take her niece’s request of company as a sign that her meddling had been forgiven, but Isabel could not fully assure her of that. She did not precisely know how she felt about Eliza’s actions; only that she was more than sensible of the folly of venturing into the Hills alone, and none but her aunt could or would follow her there. The arrangement was made, to creep from the house at midnight, once all had sought their beds. Thus they parted, conspirators in Isabel’s second secret undertaking in a month, to while away the intervening hours with all the innocent and mundane activities of a normal day at Ferndeane.
Isabel was unused to subterfuge. It was not easy for her to undergo the rituals of dinner, and subsequently supper, with her family while betraying none of the unease and guilt she felt inside. Her brother engaged her in conversation about her visit to her aunt in York, and she was obliged to conceal from him the truth of her sojourn in Aylfenhame as well as disguising her discomfort about her upcoming venture behind a facade of normality. The strain resulted in a headache before dinner was over, and weariness threatened to dissuade her from attempting the Hills at all.
Eliza sensed her difficulties, and exerted herself to deflect attention from her niece wherever possible. She chattered in the liveliest fashion about the calls they had paid upon her acquaintance, and the dinners and evening parties they had attended; she made light of Isabel’s supposed bout of illness, while still contriving to present it as full reason enough to explain Isabel’s absence from York society for near upon a week; and she entered into the interminable discussions of Charles’s upcoming wedding with sufficient enthusiasm to disguise her niece’s lack of liveliness on the subject. Isabel was grateful to her, and endeavoured to remonstrate with the part of her soul which blamed Eliza for the masquerade she had imposed upon Isabel’s life. She felt plagued with guilt; guilt that she had deceived her parents, and would do so again; guilt that she could resent her aunt, when Eliza had probably displayed a truer and deeper concern for her happiness than any other member of her family; guilt that she could not welcome the heritage which Eliza gloried in.
When at last she was permitted to retire to her room, she wished deeply that she could tuck herself into bed with Tafferty beside her, and sleep away the tumult of emotions she had suffered throughout the day, and the weariness they had left behind. But she grimly pushed such impulses aside, and forced herself through the motions of changing her evening attire for more practical walking dress. She whiled away the ensuing hour with a book, though her mind refused to focus more than passingly upon the text. Her thoughts drifted back to the Ferryman, and the way he had laughed with her, danced with her, welcomed her and accepted her. She held his smiling image firmly in mind, reminding herself of the irreproachable reasons behind her departure from propriety, obedience and — so her mother would certainly say — good sense. A voice at the back of her mind persisted in wondering: How would he feel about her true appearance? Would he be pleased? Would he be dismayed? What if it was her very Englishness that had appealed to him? How would he react to the truth of her heritage, her face, her nature?
This voice went steadfastly ignored.
At last she heard a faint tap upon the door, and put away her book. When Eliza entered moments later, Isabel stood ready to accept the bonnet and shawl which her aunt brought with her. They donned their outdoor attire in silence, and crept unshod through the house with Tafferty padding along at their heels. The hour was early enough that some one or two servants were still awake and at work; Isabel trusted that any faint sounds she and her aunt made would be put down to such a source, but still she did not breathe easily until they had successfully traversed the great staircase and slipped out of the front door. The house would be locked up for the night upon their return, so she made sure to take the spare door key from its regular spot in the porch and tuck it into her reticule.
They paused upon the threshold to don stout walking shoes, and then slipped away into the darkness. Isabel’s heart pounded alarmingly as they crept down the driveway and out into the fields, for she had never before been afoot in the full dark of night, and so far beyond the shrubbery of Ferndeane as they now ventured.
The moon was bright, but its silvery light availed them little once they stepped beneath the trees of Tilton Wood. Eliza had had sufficient forethought to acquire a lamp, however, and she held it high, lighting the path some few feet ahead of them. Tafferty took the lead, navigating the uneven pathways of Tilton more successfully, with her sensitive night eyes, than either Eliza or Isabel could have done alone. The half-hour it took to reach Tiltager’s part of the wood passed with agonising slowness to Isabel’s mind, as it seemed that their passage beneath the trees stretched interminably. They had woven Glamours behind themselves, maintaining the illusion that both she and Eliza lay peacefully asleep, in case anybody should take it into their heads to go into either of those rooms. But every moment, Isabel imagined some unlucky chance undoing all of their careful plans, and exposing her absence to the household. She could not be calm, not even with her aunt’s confident reassurance.
When they at last found Tiltager these concerns rapidly faded from Isabel’s mind, for she was faced with the very near prospect of entering the Hollow Hills, and without the permission or invitation of any of those who lived within. Tiltager bowed and chattered as she led them through the Wood towards the Hollow Way, and Isabel’s courage threatened to fail her more than once as she pictured all the possible catastrophes that might befall them once within. She was obliged to summon the Ferryman’s image to her mind and hold fast to it, in order to go on, and nothing but the recollection of his wit and his smile and the tragedy of his unearned plight could keep her from abandoning all thought of pursuing the elusive Piper.
She missed him. His company cheered and enlivened her in ways she experienced with no one else. In his presence, she was able to do and be as she pleased, with regard neither for the propriety of her behaviour, nor for the opprobrium of society. She had taught him to dance, and she had danced and laughed herself with a degree of merriment, of contentment and happiness she had rarely ever felt before; for she had, at last, ceased to think of the behaviour expected of her, and simply done as she wished. It had been a heady experience, and one she had scarcely allowed herself to think of before, for it cast the rest of her life into a stark, and unflattering, contrast.
Now she allowed those thoughts and memories to overtake her entirely, for they strengthened her resolve and kept her hurrying into the darkness ahead. She did not know how long she and Eliza followed Tiltager and Tafferty through the night, but at length they came to a halt in some part of Tilton Wood which Isabel had never before seen. The trees grew thick and close, their trunks wide and gnarled with age. The ground was no longer flat here: ahead of them rose a tall hill, its sides covered with clusters of dark, aged trees gleaming silvery-grey under the moon.
‘Here we are, strange ladies!’ said Tiltager brightly. ‘Onwards, do you still wish to go?’
‘That we do,’ said Eliza firmly. ‘But first, my dear Isabel, I do advise relinquishing the Glamour. In the Hills, I think it will be advisable to allow our own true selves to show.’
Isabel could not but admit the sense of this, but still she hesitated. She did not think she could restore the Glamour of her face without the benefit of a mirror, and so she would have to travel home and slip back into her bed with her Aylir face on full display. What if they were to encounter someone on the way, or upon their return to the house?
No matter. Her aunt was correct, and she had no time now to concern herself with the possibility of trouble later. She allowed her painstakingly-assembled Glamour to fade, suffering a small pang of regret as she did so, and nodded to her aunt. ‘I am ready.’
Tiltager waited until Eliza had likewise prepared herself, and then turned away from them. She stared up into the trees ahead, motionless and silent, and Isabel could not dis
cern what she was attempting to do. But within moments a light began to shine, a light as pale as the moon but growing ever stronger. At last the brightness swelled to such proportions that Isabel could scarcely bear to look at it a moment longer.
‘Here’s off!’ cried Tiltager, and she jumped forward into the light. Tafferty sprang after her, tail lashing.
Isabel exchanged a look with Eliza, and accepted the hand her aunt held out to her. They moved forward together, shading their eyes against the light until it engulfed them. The glow extinguished abruptly, and Isabel tumbled into darkness.
The first thing Isabel became aware of was the strong scents of flowers and honey in the air, a combination she found both heady and tantalising.
The second was faint strains of music, echoing as they reached her ears. Some oddity in the arrangement of the melody, and the strangeness of the tones, struck her as familiar. She had heard such music once before.
‘The Piper,’ Isabel said softly, reaching for her aunt in the near-darkness. ‘That is his music. He was first seen at Alford, because his regular home is here.’
‘Excellent,’ said her aunt, with strong satisfaction, and such a pragmatic manner that Isabel recollected herself. The passage had disoriented her, and she had to force herself to focus upon her surroundings.
She could see little, initially, for they stood in near darkness. But the ground was soft beneath her feet and she detected the springy texture of grass, or perhaps moss. Looming shadows implied the presence of trees, and she heard the soft sounds of leaves rustling in a cool breeze, and of scurrying animals somewhere close by. In the near distance, soft lights glowed. Tiltager and Tafferty set forth in the direction of the lights, and Eliza and Isabel followed.
The music grew gradually louder as they ventured on, and the lights grew brighter. Stepping carefully, Isabel walked on through dark, whispering trees until the ground dipped beneath her feet and she all but fell.
Miss Ellerby and the Ferryman Page 23