Not thinking about Ilsevel — that must be his priority. As he opened the shutters in the kitchens and the pantry, laboriously pulled off his borrowed coat (could it ever be returned to Mr. Dapper?), pulled on his apron, and began to mix dough, he was careful not to think of her at all. He did not think of her as he reflected upon how, without Lady Silver’s help, he might contrive to restore the coat to its rightful owner. He did not think of her as he remembered the cloudy cakes her sister so much enjoyed, which he had sampled at the banquet and might contrive to recreate. He absolutely did not picture her face as he added sugar and spices to his dough, and only belatedly recalled that his ovens were cold and dark and he could not bake it; that the shop had been closed for some days, and would have no customers even if he could; and that, by now, the new pastry-shop must be open only a few doors up the hill, and his labours were no longer required.
These successive realisations were enough to finish him.
Some hours later, he was seated still on a stool in the stone-cold kitchen, head upon the table, exhausted but unable to sleep, when there came an insistent knocking upon the window. The sound roused him enough to sit up, but not enough to drive him from his stool. He remained there, shivering and befuddled, until the street-door opened and Ilsevel appeared.
‘Phineas!’ she said, and went to him directly. He found his hands taken and pressed, and her beautiful eyes filled with concern and remorse as she looked into his face. ‘Phineas, how can I possibly express how sorry I am? I did not forget you, or I did not mean to, only there was so much to think of — so much to concern me — no, I should not try to explain. Nothing can excuse it.’
Phineas studied the table. Its roughened surface briefly entranced him, and he occupied himself in tracing its convoluted whorls with his eyes; it was easier, and safer, than having to look at Ilsevel. ‘Do not regard it,’ he said. ‘You had much to occupy you, and I had no claim on your attention.’
‘But you did, Phineas,’ said Ilsevel. ‘You do. Come, the ferry is waiting for us.’
He looked up at that, his brow clouding. ‘The ferry?’
‘It will take us immediately back into Mirramay. Is there anything in particular you wish to take with you? Shall I help you to pack it up?’
‘My Lady Silver,’ said Phineas slowly. ‘What can have put it into your mind that I would go back to Mirramay with you?’
She faltered. ‘You… shall not you?’
He withdrew his hands from hers, gestured around at the drab, cold kitchen in which he sat. ‘This is my world. Yours could not be more different, could it?’
‘But there is a place for you there, my Phineas. With me.’ She looked ready to take his hands again, but Phineas kept them out of her reach.
‘There is not,’ he said quietly. ‘Not with you. I might take up a place in your kitchen, perhaps, and bake your favourite sweets, but that is not — that — I would rather—’ He paused, and swallowed down the terrible words that had hovered on the edge of being spoken. ‘I thank you, your highness,’ he said, more calmly, ‘but I cannot go with you.’
‘I would not send you to the kitchen,’ she answered, aghast.
‘That is where I belong.’
He risked a look at her, for it would be the last time he would ever do so. My Lady Silver stood very close; tall and silent, impossibly beautiful as she ever was — and impossibly far beyond him. Exhausted as he was, unwashed, hungry and cold and without hope… he had never felt more unworthy.
No, that was not quite true. Watching her step up to her sister’s side in the throne-room at Mirramay; seeing her wreathed in all the magic and glory of Aylfenhame, all but a queen in her own right; she had shone, the moon to Anthelaena’s sun. He had known, then, that the Ilsevel that he had briefly known was a trick of the light, an illusion he could keep only for a little while. She was Ilsevellian, My Lady Silver, and he was only Phineas Drake.
‘Must I beg you?’ she said softly.
‘Please,’ he said, driven off his stool at last; he backed away from her, creating as much distance as he could before his back hit the wall. ‘Please, do not torment me.’ Her very presence was enough, and he prayed that he would not be obliged to see her again — even as he desperately hated the prospect of her eternal absence.
She bowed her head. ‘Of course,’ she said, and retreated towards the door. ‘Accept my apologies, Phineas.’
The door blew in the wind, and she was gone; gone before Phineas could muster a reply.
Something twinkled upon the table where he had sat. A rose lay there: the very same one he had picked up off the street, after his first glimpse of her. How long ago it seemed.
He collected the rose, handling it with reverence, and laid it tenderly upon the windowsill.
Then he went upstairs to his dark, half-frozen bedchamber, and put himself to bed.
Some days later, an altered Mr. Drake stood in a different kitchen, scrubbed and attired in a fresh, new apron. He was no longer alone, for two apprentices rather younger than he worked under his supervision, and he himself was overseen by Mr. Waller, the proprietor. The new pastry-shop had indeed opened, and upon application Phineas had been quickly taken up as an employee.
It had cost him sorely to do so, for it had meant giving up: on his father’s bakery, where he had lived and worked his whole life through, and on his father also. Not a word of the elder Mr. Drake’s whereabouts had he been able to discover, and not a word from him had he received. He had disappeared without trace — leaving, to Phineas’s horror, a debt-burdened property behind him. The Drake Bakery was gone, given into new hands.
For a few days, Phineas had welcomed the change in his circumstances, for it had always soothed him to engage in productive labour. To mix and knead and shape and bake; these were things he could do. These were simple things, but useful. They brought him peace.
But as he grew accustomed to the new pattern of his days, that hard-won feeling of peace left him. His wayward mind would stray, whisking him away from the settled course of his day and landing him back in all the glorious madness, the shining unpredictability, of the Hollows, and of Aylfenhame. He tried to talk of his experiences, and found himself branded a liar, or a fool; he soon learned to hold his tongue, to revisit those days only in the privacy of his own mind.
He tried not to. To think of magic and mystery and beauty could only hurt him, for no more marked a contrast could there be between that whirl of enchantment and the simpler life that lay before him. No farther removed could he feel from the strange beauty of the Hollows, and the majesty of Mirramay; from the joviality of Mr. Balligumph, and Wodebean’s intrigue; Mr. Dapper’s natty pomposity, the staunch loyalty of the Garden Warders; the infuriating mystery of Tyllanthine, and the utter glory of Lady Silver.
And if he was severed from it forever, it was his own doing.
There had not been a doubt in his mind or heart, when he had sent Ilsevel away. He had looked at her and seen only an impossible dream, but he had not looked closely enough. Wrapped up in his own misery, too shattered to reflect clearly, it had not occurred to him — not until it was far too late — that she had not asked him out of guilt, or pity. She had looked upon him with a genuine concern, which owed nothing to remorse. She had pleaded — might have done more so, if he had let her. She had looked on him with… with love. Had he imagined it? No.
And he had sent her away.
Perhaps he had not known his place, once removed from the familiar patterns of English life; but, perhaps he had not needed one. Perhaps he could make a space for himself, somewhere in between the kitchens and the palace. What might not be possible, in Aylfenhame?
But it was too late. He had closed those doors forever, too consumed with his own inferiority to give it a chance. And for what? His shop was lost, his family destroyed, and the few prospects left to him brought him no joy.
He suffered under these mortifying realisations for some four or five days, and then he made up his mind. That even
ing, when Mr. Waller’s pastry-shop closed up for the night and its employees scattered to the winds, Phineas packed up his few possessions, donned Mr. Dapper’s delicious coat (which he had not dared to do since his return from Mirramay), and set out for the coaching-inn upon the hill. He waited all night for the stage to leave, and when at last it did he was on it.
By the middle of the following morning, he arrived in Tilby; on foot, weary, cold and terribly hungry, but alive with anticipation and hope — and fear.
The bridge was as he remembered, arching over the icy river on the outskirts of the town. He walked into the centre of it, cleared his chilled throat, and called tentatively: ‘Mr. Balligumph?’
‘Aye!’ came the troll’s deep voice at once, and the toll-keeper himself immediately appeared. He grinned cheerfully at sight of Phineas, which had a heartening effect upon his spirits. Phineas smiled back.
‘Good morning, sir,’ he said. ‘I, um, came in hopes that you might… help me.’
‘Is it My Lady Silver?’ said the troll.
Uncomfortably aware of the flush that spread over his cheeks, Phineas nodded. ‘She — she came back for me, you see, but — well, she had forgotten me, before that, and I was — that is — I sent her away,’ he finished miserably.
If he had feared to receive an uncongenial response from Mr. Balligumph, he need not have wasted his cares, for the troll nodded sympathetically and fell into a brief rumination. ‘It is difficult, when ye first visit Aylfenhame,’ he said, seating himself comfortably upon the bridge. ‘An’ ye have had the fortune an’ misfortune t’ find yerself in mighty high company! I don’t wonder that it knocked ye fer six.’
‘That’s it, sir, indeed,’ said Phineas.
‘Is it that ye want t’ go after Her Ladyship?’
Though he had journeyed to Tilby with no other purpose, Phineas felt consumed with shyness, and studiously eyed the floor. ‘Would it be so absurd?’
‘She invited ye, did she not?’
‘Y-yes, she did, but what if she…’ He paused, and thought. ‘Can she truly want me?’
‘Why should she not? Now—’ Mr. Balligumph held up a great, blue hand to forestall Phineas’s immediate response. ‘Give me no guff about yer status an’ hers. There may be fine lords aplenty at the Court, an’ there’ll be more t’ come — but she didn’t ask any of them, did she? An’ she never has. Did ye know that My Lady Silver’s unassailability was once legend at Mirramay?’
Dumbfounded, Phineas could only shake his head.
Balligumph chuckled. ‘Oh, aye. Courted time and again, she was, an’ never so much as a flicker of interest did she show. I’ve a sense she has no taste fer grandeur, Mr. Drake, an’ the high an’ mighty ideas tha’ so often come with it. What she wants is a fellow wi’ a good heart on ‘im, and thas you.’
‘I’m a baker’s boy,’ said Phineas softly.
‘No. Ye’re Mr. Drake, a fine young man as happens t’ have a talent fer confectionery. What else ye may choose t’ be in Aylfenhame, well, thas up to you.’
These words filled Phineas with such hope, he could almost have embraced the troll. But the happy feelings were gone again almost at once, for had he not destroyed his chances with Ilsevel? Nothing could have been colder than his manner of parting with her! He had not even said goodbye.
He said some of this.
But Mr. Balligumph waved it away. ‘Here,’ he said, and pulled something glittering from a pocket in his brown woollen waistcoat. It was a whistle. He held it out to Phineas, who took it in wonder and surprise. ‘Lady Silver — Ilsevel, as we shall call her, fer it’s a less imposin’ name — well, she left that wi’ me. She said as how she hoped ye might change yer mind, an’ she wanted you t’ have a way back.’
Phineas clutched the whistle in a hand that shook, unable, for a moment, to speak. ‘She left this for me?’
‘Aye, an’ mighty cast down she was by yer rejection, I can tell you.’ The kindly troll’s tusks spread wide as he smiled upon Phineas, a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Go on wi’ ye, now. She’s waitin’.’
Phineas, a stream of disjointed thanks pouring from his lips, embraced the troll after all, and ran out into the bare earthen field beyond the bridge. Raising the whistle to his lips, he blew hard, and a fierce wind at once blew up to swirl around his feet.
‘Mind ye come back t’ visit now an’ then!’ called the bridge-keeper, and Phineas turned to wave his assent.
Then he lifted his face to the skies, and awaited the arrival of the ferry to Aylfenhame, bringing his future with it.
There, now! A fine, happy endin’ after all, which is as I like. I can tell ye tha’ My Lady Silver and her Mr. Drake had some trouble at first, fer no doubt there’s a gulf between them. But thas as may be. They’re happy as can be, last I heard. Phineas has got a house in Mirramay, somethin’ less splendid than the palace — though far finer than the shabby place as he was used to. Her Ladyship spends half her time there wi’ him, and the rest at the palace wi’ her sisters. It’s a fine arrangement. An’ if Phineas is sometimes called in t’ share his expertise wi’ the bakers at the palace kitchens, well, no one minds that at all — least of all Phineas. I’m persuaded nothin’ will ever convince that young man t’ give up bakin’ altogether.
As fer Anthelaena, she’s goin’ on splendidly — fer now. There’s rumblin’s of trouble on the horizon — but then, when ever is there not? It’s certain there was some as witnessed her return that weren’t so happy about it as you or I. His Majesty Grunewald has given her half his guard, until she should set her own Court fully to rights, an’ ye may imagine that Ilsevel an’ Tyllanthine is keepin’ a close watch over her.
As fer the identity of Ilsevel’s tormentor, well. Thas another question. Who was it that removed My Lady Silver from the Court? After all, anybody may wear a white cloak…
I’m minded t’ think, though, tha’ mayhap it ain’t always the hand of the enemy at work. This white-mantled fellow might ha’ done a deal o’ harm — but ultimately a deal o’ good, also. A tricky business, ain’t it? We shall see. I’ll be keepin’ a close watch on things, as I always do.
Watch yerself on yer way out o’ town, now. There’s snow comin’ in. If ye should fancy another tale, why, come back! Any day! Though mayhap in better weather, no?
***
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When the centuries-barren orchards of Berrie-on-the-Wyn suddenly bear fruit, it is clear that something strange is afoot — and something fey, for this is no ordinary harvest. To partake of the fruits of Faerie is to be changed for good, but not necessarily for the better.
From whence come the golden apples, the moonlit silver pears? Who is the motley piper who walks the streets of Berrie, drawing forth magic and mayhem with his music? And how can half of the town vanish into thin air?
There may be chaos aplenty in Berrie, but all that's needed to set things straight is a touch of the right light — and maybe just the right pair of Boots…
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Mr Drake and My Lady Silver Page 27