Mr Drake and My Lady Silver, Page 2

  Phineas did not feel comfortable again for some time.

  The eve before Christmas dawned, and still the rose lay untouched upon its chilly windowsill. It had not withered, to Phineas’s interest, nor had it deteriorated any further at all. An intriguing puzzle, but Phineas had little time to think of it — or of the lady who had dropped it — for his father had driven him through a host of tasks with unusual urgency. He spent a whole afternoon cutting sprigs of holly and ivy, branches of laurel and hawthorn, and delicate boughs of evergreen; these he dispersed artfully about the bakery-shop until it looked properly festive. It took him another two hours in the freezing wind to find a sprig of mistletoe with which to fashion a kissing-bough, and by the time all these preparations were complete he was blue with cold. He had still, then, to stack the windows with sugared cakes — which, unusually, his father had permitted him to decorate as intricately as he chose; to set the wassail-bowl in pride-of-place, with bowls of apples to float in the punch come Christmas Day; to wrap plum-puddings in cloth, and prepare the great basins of water to cook them in.

  Samuel Drake surveyed all this with a critical eye late in the evening, and by the light of the flickering lamps. Phineas expected some comment upon his profligacy, as might be usual. Instead, his father said, upon a moment’s thought: ‘It must be more inviting, Phineas. More…’

  ‘More…?’ Phineas ventured, when his father did not complete the sentence.

  ‘I want no one to pass the door without coming inside.’

  Phineas looked at everything he had done, and wondered. The room bristled with festive greenery; it was packed with sumptuous food, with decorations, with gaieties implied; it had not looked so delightful in years. ‘How?’ he said. ‘What more can be done?’

  ‘You have your mother’s way with such things,’ said Samuel simply.

  Phineas did not try to point out that everything had been different in his mother’s time. There had been both money and merriment, more than enough of both to fit the demands of the season. He merely went into the spice-jars, and took precious nutmegs and cinnamon sticks to add to the array — carefully, leaving them intact, so that they might later be reclaimed for use. He fetched his old, red shirt, the cloth worn but sound, that he had intended to wear through the days of Christmas, and cut it up for ribbons. And, heart heavy with regret, he pawned his mother’s silver ring and used the money to buy an array of fine, beeswax candles, with which to deck the windows.

  When all was done, Phineas fell exhausted into bed and slept the night away, his dreams a confused flurry of kissing-boughs and wine, cold sleet and wind, and his mother’s reproachful face when she learned what he had done with her ring.

  The rose lay forgotten, half-hidden beneath a spray of evergreen.

  Chapter Three

  Phineas’s work achieved its desired effects, at least for a time. The new candles blazed cheerfully in the windows, their bright flames beckoning chilled passers-by inside during the cold, dark hours; the vibrant greens, the crimson berries and ribbons, and the glimpse of the apple-laden wassail bowl performed the same work during the daylight hours, and Phineas knew that the heady aromas upon entry — the scents of bread and fruit, of meat and wine, and the spices he had hung all about — would keep his father’s customers spellbound until they had partaken of some one or other of his wares.

  Only, there were not enough of them. Whether it were the desultory flurries of snow that drifted at intervals out of the cold, grey skies, or merely the warmth and companionship to be found at home, something kept the revellers of Lincoln off the streets, and away from the bakery. Not even the prospect of an extra sugared cake, or the need for a new, last-minute batch of mince-pies, could draw them in.

  In better years, the Drakes, too, would have been too busy enjoying the season to keep open the shop. But such times were long gone, and Phineas kept his station by the counter all the long, empty day through, surrounded by the semblance of high good cheer yet feeling none of it himself.

  About three o’ clock, in walked Mrs. Batts.

  ‘Phineas,’ she said, surveying first the room in all its splendour, and then him in all his gloom. ‘Your mother would have been proud, wouldn’t she? Where is your father?’ She was wearing a green gown, and had sprigs of holly tucked into her stout pelisse. Positioned before the doorway, with her cold-reddened cheeks and dark hair, she looked almost a part of the decorations herself.

  ‘I do not know,’ answered Phineas, a little glumly, and wished Mrs. Batts the joys of the season by way of changing the subject.

  These she returned, but she was not to be distracted. ‘I come with an invitation,’ said she. ‘There’s me and my daughter sittin’ at home with more than enough to share, and you and your father…’ She paused, and went on: ‘Well, I’ve a good fire, and there’s to be bob-apple later, and a game of Hoodman Blind, and I know not what else. Just with one or two of our neighbours — pleasant folk, you’ll like them. You’re welcome to join us, Phineas, and your father, too.’

  Phineas had no power but to thank her sincerely and explain that his father gave no thought to festivities nowadays, even if he could be found — which, just at present, he could not.

  ‘He’s worritin’ himself about that pastry-shop, is that it? I never would ha’ mentioned it, only I thought as he must’ve heard on it already.’

  Phineas tried to convince her that his father had no such concerns, and hoped that the bright array in the shop might serve to give weight to his argument, and preserve the Drake family’s dignity. But his words sounded weak even to him, and Mrs. Batts raised a sceptical brow.

  ‘Well,’ she said, when he had exhausted his stock of lies and fallen silent. ‘Remember my invitation, Phineas. You’re welcome to join us at any time today, or tomorrow, or the day after.’

  After which she went away, leaving Phineas to wish, secretly, that he might accept. Miss Batts was a merry girl, and her mother good-hearted; he would like to join them. But there was no one save himself to mind the shop.

  Later, when darkness once again shrouded the streets and he had lit all his cheerful candles afresh, he had reason to feel glad that he had declined, and stayed where he was. For the door opened, and in swept a flurry of wind and snow and cold air — and in its midst, the lady of the rose.

  She stood framed in the doorway for some time, her eyes eagerly scanning the contents of the room. Those eyes were odd, Phineas noted with dazed interest: hazy silver shaded with grey. Her dress was purple today; some draped velvet confection with a great deal in the way of skirt and sleeve, but not much in the way of warmth. She did not look cold, however, even though snowflakes glittered in the pale mass of her hair. She looked a little flushed, heightened colour blooming in her cheeks. Had she been running again, or was it the eager way in which she surveyed all of Phineas’s decorations that brought the pink glow to her face?

  She was beautiful. The word flitted uselessly across Phineas’s thoughts, insufficient to describe the perfect coils of her pale hair; the exquisite features of her pale, perfect face; and those eyes… A glow seemed to hang about her, an air of vibrancy, of energy, of — of — Phineas could not describe it.

  He thought, briefly, of the girls he had previously considered comely. Lizzie Batts, and little Jenny Worther… they withered in his imagination, mere weeds to this woman’s glory. Phineas stood with weakened knees, words fleeing from his lips as quickly as he strove to muster them, and said nothing.

  Did he flatter himself that she looked upon him with approval? No. Her hopeful air faded, dashing Phineas’s private, half-felt wish that she might find something in his work, or in himself, to admire.

  ‘I do not understand,’ she announced in a clear, ringing voice, advancing further into the room. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Phineas Drake, ma’am,’ he managed to answer. ‘You — you may remember that we met, a few days ago? After — after a fashion, that is.’

  She looked at him strangely, head t
ilted, as though he were some manner of creature she had never before encountered, and was not certain that she liked.

  She didn’t remember.

  One long stride (for she was tall) carried her to the window, and she snatched the rose from beneath its evergreen bough and brandished it at Phineas. ‘Where did you get this, Phineas Drake?’

  He gaped. ‘You dropped it. A few mornings ago, on the Greestone Stairs, when you — when you, um.’ He wanted to say “vanished”, but could not make the word come out of his mouth; not when she stood there, so undeniably solid before him.

  Realisation dawned in her, and with it came dismay. She gave a great, weary sigh, and drifted listlessly in the direction of the counter, towards Phineas himself. ‘You were the boy who was chasing me.’

  Phineas did not much relish the word “boy”, for he was three-and-twenty, and had therefore been a man for some years already. But he let this pass, instead saying apologetically, ‘I did not mean to chase you. I was only afraid that you would catch cold.’

  ‘Catch cold?’ she repeated, and her odd eyes smiled upon him in some amusement. ‘Do I appear as though that is likely?’

  ‘It — well, no,’ he admitted, though he did not at all see how it was possible that she should be immune to the inclement weather.

  ‘What would you have done, had you caught me?’ She was intrigued, surveying Phineas with a thoughtful air that he could not help but find a trifle intimidating. He felt that there was some expected answer, and that he could very well offer a wrong one.

  ‘I might have given you my coat,’ he offered, ‘or — or brought you here, for it is always warm in the kitchens…’ He said no more, for her attention had wandered back to the rose, which she had set upon the counter before herself, and she was frowning at it.

  ‘How kind of you,’ she murmured abstractedly, and touched a finger to the tip of one blue-frosted petal.

  Phineas’s spirits sank at once. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, seeing dissatisfaction in the crease of her brow. ‘I ought not to have taken such a liberty with your rose, only I hated to see the colour fade so, and I thought—’

  ‘You did this?’ She said the words sharply, and since the question was attended by a narrow-eyed, searching look, Phineas felt very uncomfortable indeed.

  Then again, she did not appear to be angry.

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered.

  ‘How?’

  So Phineas tried to explain, but he had not got much farther than the part about the cabbages and the sugar before he visibly lost her interest.

  ‘Cabbages!’ she repeated in disgust.

  Conscious that he had displeased her, but unsure how, Phineas was silent.

  The lady’s lips tightened, and she drummed her fingers impatiently upon the counter. ‘I did not drop this flower,’ she said crisply. ‘I was following the person who did, but I did not catch him. Again, I could not catch him! When I saw the rose in your window, I thought… but you know nothing of this, your expression proclaims it.’

  Phineas could only give her a wide-eyed stare which said, quite clearly, no.

  ‘You do not know Wodebean?’ she said suddenly. ‘You are quite certain?’

  ‘I know no one of so strange a name.’

  ‘Strange, do you call it?’ That won him a curious look, but she was not long to be diverted from her purpose. ‘Who is the owner of this establishment?’

  ‘My father.’

  ‘Ah! And he is, perhaps, four feet tall? More, if he would not stoop so dreadfully! With an unlovely countenance, and an eccentric mode of dress?’

  ‘No,’ said Phineas, bewildered.

  ‘You would call him by some other name, naturally, but his friends might call him Bean. Or perhaps by some other jauntily abbreviated epithet?’

  ‘No!’ said Phineas again. ‘My father’s name is Samuel Drake, he is taller than me, and I don’t think that Mrs. Batts would say he is at all unlovely. She thinks him quite handsome.’

  ‘I do not know who this Mrs. Batts may be, but since no creature alive could imagine Wodebean to be at all handsome, it is quite evident that we are not speaking of the same person.’ She paused, and her eyes lit up again. ‘Unless, perhaps, he has acquired some manner of Glamour! He has made a human of himself, and set up as a baker in this charming establishment! Indeed, I do not know why he would do anything of the kind, but it is perfectly…’ She looked keenly at Phineas, and added, ‘Only, I do not see how you would fit in.’

  ‘I found the rose,’ said Phineas steadily. ‘I brought it here, since I did not like to leave it to die in the snow. I made it blue when the colour ebbed—’

  ‘With cabbages,’ said the lady, with a hint of scorn.

  ‘With cabbages. And I left it on the sill. That is all I’ve had to do with it.’

  The lady gave up her hopes in a sad rush, and drooped before Phineas’s eyes. ‘It would not matter so, if only it were not so important,’ she said, suddenly forlorn, and Phineas’s feelings of mild indignation melted away.

  ‘I would help you, if I could,’ he said, quite in earnest.

  She looked at him steadily. ‘Would you, Phineas Drake?’

  Phineas swallowed, for under the weight of that stare her words seemed to gather some unspoken but palpable meaning.

  ‘Er,’ he said. ‘Yes, of course.’

  She smiled. It was the first time he had seen her do so, and it transformed her slightly severe features with bright sunshine. ‘I will remember your name,’ she said, and these words, too, rang with something Phineas could not identify.

  Sweeping up the rose, she turned to leave. She had made it to the door before Phineas managed to blurt, ‘May I know yours?’

  She turned back to regard him, and her smile flickered again. ‘That is fair, is it not?’

  She seemed to require an answer, so Phineas nodded.

  ‘My name is… it is Ilsevel.’ And with a graceful inclination of her head, she passed through the door, and was gone into the night.

  Only then did Phineas realise that the door had stood wide open throughout the odd interview, and he was half-perished with cold.

  Chapter Four

  T’ain’t so very odd t’ see Aylfenhame folk wanderin’ the streets of England on the Solstice days, in the usual way o’ things. Thas when the borders weaken, an’ the gates fly open, an’ anybody may pass back an’ forth quite easy-like, if they happen t’ know the way.

  But Ilsevel, she ain’t quite yer usual visitor. Ain’t yer usual anythin’, come t’ that. There’s her clothes, fer a start. Nowt but the best on her — silks, jewels, everythin’ fine — an’ she’s trampin’ about in ‘em in the snow? An’ the style! Fashions like that, well, I’ve seen nothin’ like it in Aylfenhame fer twenty year at least — an’ never in England at all.

  What, thought I, is such a woman doin’ in England? Especially since she didn’t go back Aylf-side when th’ Solstice was over. Oh, no. Stayed in the city, day after day, always askin’ after this “Wodebean” fellow. Well, now. Thas a name I hadn’t heard in more’n twenty years either…

  Mrs. Yardley’s boarding house was not, Ilsevel soon found, in an especially salubrious part of the city. In fact, the neighbourhood was rather dreary. Narrow, cramped streets, characterless houses, and, at times, a medley of unsavoury aromas. What with the cheerless weather casting a pall of gloom over everything, she soon began to wish herself back home in Aylfenhame.

  But little was left there to welcome her; and Wodebean’s trail had, for some reason, led her to this grey little city. What the elusive wretch could want with such a place she could not imagine, and on this point — as, indeed, on every other — nobody could help her.

  No one had even heard of Wodebean. She asked everybody she met, from Mrs. Yardley herself (‘Mr. Wodebean? I am not acquainted with anybody of that name, dear. It’s to be a bit of mutton for supper, and a bite of apple tart. Shall you be wanting any? And do put a proper gown on. What will people think?’) to Mrs. Yardley’s
household brownie, Pettivree (‘Wodebean? No such person in these parts, miss,) to the odd boy at the bakery (a blank, gaping stare, and some rambling tale about his father). Wodebean must be calling himself by some other name, she supposed, but after three days in Lincoln she was no nearer to discovering what it might be, or where he might be hiding himself either.

  And now they were all caught up with their winter festivals, and everything was Christmas this, Christmas that… Mrs. Yardley could no longer be drawn upon any subject save for mistletoe, and bob-apple, and negus, whatever those things were, and Ilsevel herself was forever being pressed to participate in some noisy festivity with her landlady, and her fellow boarders.

  The latter did not much regret Ilsevel’s absence, at any rate. Lacking Mrs. Yardley’s motive for tolerating Ilsevel’s eccentricity of dress, her ignorance of social customs or her lack of respectable connections (that being monied folk; the good landlady was clearly hard-up;) the boarders made their feelings clear with their chilly, reluctant greetings and their habit of giving her a wide berth whenever they should happen to meet her in the hallway, or over the supper-table.

  Ilsevel barely noticed these incivilities. They could not, or would not, help her upon the only point that mattered; and therefore, she had no use for their friendship. And Mrs. Trott snored so loudly at night, Ilsevel could hear her through the wall.

  The day after Ilsevel’s disappointment at the bakery, she rose early, well before the sun showed its weak winter rays to the world, and sat awhile in bed, thinking. No fire brightened the empty grate — the scant stock of comforts at Mrs. Yardley’s establishment did not include such luxuries as warmth in the mornings. Candles were in short supply, too, and since Ilsevel could not muster any interest in finding her way to a chandler’s shop and haggling with the proprietor over a purchase, she simply bore with the darkness.