Miss Ellerby and the Ferryman Read Online Free PDF Page A

niece’s silence. ‘Ayliri! In England! But how came they to
be there?’
    Isabel set down her tea cup and took a calming breath. ‘I do
not know,’ she said gravely. ‘No explanation for their presence has
been discovered. They were not expected, of course, and how they
came to be aware that such an assembly was planned, or to feel the
smallest interest in attending so modest an affair, is beyond
anybody’s power to account for.’
    Mrs.
Grey leaned forward a little. ‘My dear Isabel. I will not keep you
to this topic for very long, if it troubles you, but I must ask you
to tell me just one thing more.’
    Isabel nodded
once.
    Mrs.
Grey took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as though she were
trying to calm some tumult of spirit. At last she said: ‘What were
they like?’
    Isabel blinked, a little surprised. This had not been the
question she might have expected. ‘Like?’ she repeated. ‘Why, they
were wild and strange, as you may imagine.’
    Mrs.
Grey nodded impatiently. ‘That much I do imagine, indeed. It is
details I require. Humour me in this one request, my dear, if you
please.’
    Isabel could not resist such an entreaty. With a silent
apology to her mother, she recounted everything that had occurred
at the assembly, from the moment that the music had changed. She
described those melodies as best she could, though words failed her
in the attempt, for it was far too wild and strange to admit of
easy representation in words. Her accounts of the dancers were more
successful, for their curious appearances, the magnificent and
beauteous oddity of their garb and the dizzying strangeness of
their behaviour had lodged themselves in her memory with peculiar
exactness. Mrs. Grey listened to all of these particularities with
breathless eagerness, and did not interrupt by so much as a
syllable while Isabel spoke.
    Then
she came to the piper, and that moment when he had seemed to see
Isabel, and she alone, out of all the company. Her voice softened
near to a whisper as she recounted this, for she had been tempted
to omit the incident altogether. But the intensity of her aunt’s
interest urged her on to greater confidences than she might
otherwise have been inclined to offer. She could not begin to
imagine the source of Mrs. Grey’s eagerness to hear of the affair,
but it was evident that it mattered greatly to her. This being the
case, having once begun her account, Isabel could not bring herself
to leave out anything of note.
    ‘A
piper,’ mused Mrs. Grey, when Isabel at last fell silent. She had
ended with her confusion at waking up at home on the following
morning, with no recollection of having travelled there. But Mrs.
Grey’s thoughts seemed to be fixed upon the piper.
    ‘He
was the leader, we must assume,’ Mrs. Grey continued. ‘He brought
the dancers to the assembly. The lady with the butterflies. His
consort, perhaps?’
    Mrs.
Grey paused, her eyebrows raised. Isabel realised this was a
question, not mere musing on her aunt’s part, but she could only
shake her head. ‘I do not know. I detected no symptom of particular
regard for her, but I cannot say that I received more than
occasional glimpses of either of them during the
evening.’
    Mrs.
Grey was silent for some time. Isabel returned to the quiet
contemplation of her tea, allowing her aunt time to indulge in her
reflections. At length, Mrs. Grey opened her lips to say, in a tone
of deep reverie, ‘I once knew a piper.’
    Isabel set down her cup. ‘In England, you mean,
aunt?’
    Mrs.
Grey’s only response was a considering look which swept over Isabel
from her curled hair to the tips of her shoes. ‘Hmm,’ she said
impenetrably, and sat back in her chair. ‘I thought we might pay a
visit to the library this afternoon. You will wish for some
reading, perhaps, to while away those hours we are not spending in
pursuit of Mr. Thompson.’
    Isabel cast a shocked look at her aunt, whose blue eyes
twinkled back at her with irrepressible