Mr Drake and My Lady Silver

by Charlotte E. English

  Mr. Drake and My Lady Silver

  (Tales of Aylfenhame, 4)

  by

  Charlotte E. English

  Copyright © 2018 by Charlotte E. English

  Cover art © 2018 by Elsa Kroese

  Illustrations © 2018 by The PicSees

  All rights reserved.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold.

  Chapter One

  Woah there, hold yer horses! Literal-like, I ain’t using a figure o’ speech. There, thas better, now we can have a comfortable coze for a minute or two. I won’t invite ye t’ get out o’ yer carriage, not in weather like this! Has it been snowin’ all yer journey through? Yer brave, t’ make it all the way t’ Tilby in this muck. Oh yes, I do live under the bridge. All the way under! Aye, I thank ye, it’s cosier than ye might expect. Mayhap I’ll show it to you, sometime.

  Seein’ as the weather’s so foul, I won’t charge me usual toll t’ pass the bridge. Nay, don’t thank me. I may look fearsome, but there’s nowt t’ fear from this old troll. Ask anybody in these parts, they’ll tell you right enough. Old Mister Balligumph, ye’ve no cause t’ be scared-like o’ him.

  I do talk on a bit, though, no denyin’ that. But what’s better than a tale t’ liven up a chilly winter’s afternoon? Comin’ from Lincoln-way, are ye? I know a fine tale from them parts. Took place not so long ago, in point o’ fact. Care t’ hear it? It won’t take long, an’ with just a little magic — there! — ye’ll find yer carriage plenty warm an’ snug fer the duration. Nay, don’t thank me.

  All right, then. This tale is about a young chap wi’ the fine name of Phineas Drake. He worked in his father’s bakery-shop, and ‘twas on a day rather like this one tha’ some strange events came t’ pass. Come to think of it, ‘twas Winter Solstice, an’ very almost Christmas…

  ***

  The cathedral bells chimed the fourth hour of the morning, and before the ringing sound had died away, Phineas Drake was out of bed and shivering in the piercing cold. He washed with haste, breaking the ice which coated the surface of his washbasin to reach the frigid water beneath, and dressed as quickly as he could with fingers that shook with cold.

  He crept onto the landing and down the stairs, mindful not to incur his father’s wrath by waking him at such an hour, and hastened into the kitchens at the rear of the building. Everything was already laid out for him: bags of flour, pungent yeast, great basins to mix the dough in, and ewers of water. He had only to begin, and this he did with all possible dispatch, for while the shop would not open for a few hours yet, he would need every minute of that time to prepare the day’s wares.

  He set the great stone ovens afire first and stoked them well, for one long counter-top was crowded with wads of dough left to rise overnight, and ready now to be shaped and baked. These would make the morning meal for many of the workers of Lincoln, whose labours brought them out of bed at an early hour, and whose morning could be a little brightened by a fresh loaf.

  Two hours flew by as Phineas formed loaves and rolls, mixed dough and ferried bread into the ovens. Then came the difficult part. While the final batch of the morning’s wares was in the oven, he would have to leave the bakery in order to make his first deliveries: sugared plum-cakes and mince pies for those already living in happy anticipation of the season’s festivities, and inclined to begin a little early. Phineas spared a thought to wish, as he frantically packed cakes and pies into boxes, that his father might spare the coin to hire a delivery boy. Phineas might then be able to resign the freezing duty, and properly tend to the ovens instead. Wishes proving as futile as ever, he abandoned the dream and set out into the snow.

  Darkness still shrouded the city, and few were yet stirring abroad; he had a quiet, cold walk up to the top of the hill and into the Bail. The black skies were empty of snow, but a great deal had fallen overnight. It soon saturated the thick leather of his boots, and the wet cold seeped through to his toes.

  Quite the largest plum cake he had ever made went to the Porters’ household on Newport, and three boxes of mince-pies to smaller houses along the way. By the time he had retraced his steps and passed back towards the Cathedral, he had only one box left: a meagre parcel with a small cake, two pies and a fresh loaf for the Trent sisters on Pottergate. Miss Trent would be waiting to accept it in person, however early the hour, and Phineas hastened along, mindful both of Miss Trent’s eager anticipation and of the bread still baking at home. The cathedral loomed to his left, dark and silent, its spires glinting with the soft light of a moon not quite set. There was no sound save the crunching of fresh snow underfoot and therefore, Phineas was doubly surprised to discover that he was not, after all, alone.

  A woman hurried through the darkness some little way ahead of him. She was almost running, splendidly oblivious to the inclement weather, except to keep pushing her wind-tossed hair out of her pale face. That hair was beautiful, but strange: a tangled cloud, too pallid for her apparent youth, for her frame was lithe and her movements sprightly; this was no elderly lady. She wore only a thin gown of some gauzy substance, its style not at all after the fashions of the day, and an airy cloak which streamed uselessly from her shoulders. How she had not already frozen to death was the thought uppermost in Phineas’s mind, until she swept past him — without seeming to notice him — and he saw that her ears were curled at their tips.

  ‘Wait!’ she called.

  ‘I—’ said Phineas, but she had not been addressing him, for she ran on, heedless.

  ‘Please, wait!’ she cried again.

  Phineas wondered if he had, perhaps, fallen asleep over the warmth of the ovens and merely dreamed his expedition abroad; it would not be the first time if he had. He opened the lid of the Misses Trents’ box of cakes and inhaled, filling his nose with the scents of brandy-soaked fruit, and sugar, and bread. Too rich to be dreamt, all that, and oh dear, that meant the lady was real, too, however peculiar her ears, or her attire, or for that matter her conduct. ‘Madam?’ he blurted, and set off after her. ‘M’lady? Pray, pay some heed to the weather! You will catch your death of cold!’ He was half-frozen himself in spite of his sturdier garments, and his lips were numb; the words emerged in stammers, half-garbled, and the winds perhaps stole whatever coherence was left, for the lady did not stop.

  Clutching his box to his chest, Phineas followed, uncertain how he was to help but unable to abandon her to the merciless cold. She flitted through the silent streets, always ahead of him no matter how fast he moved, and darted into the sloping mouth of the Greestone Stairs.

  By the time Phineas arrived at the top of the hill, she was already halfway down it, almost beyond his sight. He frowned, bemused, for there came a flicker of movement which did not seem to belong to the lady, and even in the pale moonlight he could discern traces of richer colours which made no part of her attire: crimson, perhaps, or purple. It was a mantle of some sort, he would have said, worn by a man of stooped posture, for he was remarkably small. But it could not be another person, for the shape abruptly vanished, as though the mantle and its wearer had turned a corner, or passed through a door.

  The street was lined on either side by impassable walls, and there were no doors there.

  ‘M’lady?’ he called again, desperate now, for a light snow was once again drifting serenely out of the leaden skies and her arms were bare from elbow to wrist. Had she come, perhaps, from some dinner engagement, and forgotten to collect her warm cloak and bonnet as she left? ‘If you are in need of aid, please consider me your servant!’

  And, at last, she heard him, for she came to an abrupt halt upon the hill and turned. She stared at Phineas, eyes wide and surprised, as
though it were he and not she whose behaviour might be considered bizarre.

  ‘I am sure I can help,’ he said, approaching more slowly, for her manner held something of the startled deer, and he did not wish to frighten her. ‘Perhaps I might offer you my—’

  He broke off, for though her gaze had met his for a mesmerising instant, and held, she had not spoken so much as a syllable in reply. She had turned her back on him again, and taken a step, and… she was gone, just like that, as though she, too, had stepped through a door.

  Phineas approached with caution, step by step, until he stood in the very spot the lady had occupied moments before. There was no sign of her, and no apparent means of exit; the icy slope rose behind him and fell away ahead, empty. Naught remained of her save a set of small, narrow footprints in the snow… and something else. There came a glitter near his right boot, and a blush of soft colour.

  Phineas stooped, and found a rose. It was in full bloom, somehow, defying winter with the same insouciance as its mistress. Its petals were lavenderish, though so thickly crusted with frost that little of the hue still showed.

  It was only after Phineas had made his belated delivery to the Trents, and retraced his steps home, that he discovered just how unusual the rose was. For, when left safely upon the windowsill in his own small room — a chamber by no means warm, but much milder in temperature than the freezing winter outside — it lost none of its coating of frost. It glittered on, white and crystalline; and when, wondering, he picked it up again, a faint, sweet fragrance teased his senses.

  ‘Sugar?’ he breathed, unbelieving. But this surmise he discarded, for when he touched the tip of his tongue to one delicate petal, the frost was icily cold, and the flavour that filled his mouth was not sugar at all.

  He set the rose carefully down and stood a moment in thought, as though a prolonged scrutiny of the mysterious flower might persuade it to surrender its secrets. But no answer could he find to the puzzle of the vanishing lady, or to the frosted rose, or to the door that wasn’t there.

  Chapter Two

  If ye’ve heard any of me tales afore — or, for that matter, even if ye haven’t — ye might have a guess as t’ where that lady came from, or went to. An Aylir out of Aylfenhame! Though what one o’ the Aylf-folk was doin’ roamin’ the streets o’ Lincoln at that hour, wi’ snow all about and not a hat t’ her name, well… listen on, an’ I’ll tell ye.

  Despite the delay, Phineas returned in time to save the batch of loaves he had left in the oven. They were a fraction browner on the top than was typically considered ideal, but they were not burned. They would do.

  He was mixing up a great bowl of fruit and meat for more pies when his father emerged, at last, from slumber. Phineas was adding spices, his favourite part of the process, for the aromas of nutmeg and cloves and mace filled the room, exotic and warming, and he had already the smells of citrus peel and apples and brandy to enjoy…

  ‘You are adding too much,’ said Samuel Drake, shattering Phineas’s culinary reverie by appearing suddenly at the door. ‘I should make you keep the books, Phineas. If you knew the price of nutmeg, perhaps you would not waste it.’ He took a mouthful of fresh bread, one of those Phineas had just baked, and added with a sigh, ‘You have burnt these.’

  Phineas knew better than to hazard any answer, much less a defence of his conduct. He waited in silence, eyes lowered, as his father made a perfunctory effort to neaten his sleep-disordered hair, straightened his shirt and apron, and went forward to open the shop.

  Once the kitchen was empty again save only for himself, Phineas quietly stored away the spices and went to work on the pastry. He heard his fathers’ voice greeting the first of the day’s customers; gruff and sour moments before, now it was raised in jovial good cheer. Samuel Drake had a reputation for a certain glib charm; it was one reason why their little shop had never yet failed.

  The forceful accents of Mrs. Batts followed; as always, Phineas heard every word. ‘… that fine son of yours?’ she was saying. ‘You’re a fine family, Mr. Drake. I fancy the young ladies would welcome a glimpse o’ young Phineas a bit more often. And you’ll want every advantage you can get what with — thank you, yes, one plum-cake, and just the two mince pies — what with that fine, new place openin’ any day now.’

  ‘One cake and the pies, then, Mrs. Batts, and a good white loaf — just taken out of the oven with my own hands!’ There came the clink of coin, and only then did Samuel say, with studied casualness, ‘What place might that be?’

  ‘Why, fancy you not knowin’! There’s to be a new pastry-shop up in the Bail. I had it from my sister’s girl, whose young man is hired as baker’s boy, soon as it opens. It’s to be a grand place, so they say, though not so grand that folk like me ain’t lookin’ forward to a peep. We all like a little bit of the best now an’ then, don’t we? Thank you, Mr. Drake, that’ll be all for now. Wishin’ you good day.’

  Mrs. Batts’ voice faded, and it was some half an hour before the rush of customers ebbed enough to liberate the elder Mr. Drake from the shop. Phineas was amusing himself shaping roses from pastry, to adorn the new pies, but he hastily abandoned this at his father’s reappearance, and returned to rolling out tops.

  ‘Mind the shop,’ Samuel said gruffly, and tore off his apron. This he threw in Phineas’s general direction, and left the kitchen in three quick strides.

  The shop door slammed behind him.

  Phineas did not suppose that he had been promoted to the shop floor on Mrs. Batts’ advice. More likely, his father had gone after news of the pastry-shop. Was it too much to hope that the report might be mere gossip alone, to be relied upon with as much confidence as the majority of Mrs. Batts’ news? Alas, no. her authority appeared to be too sound to be dismissed, and it was not the sort of nonsense tale that usually got about.

  A whisker of fear uncurled within, and Phineas shuddered. The Drake family bakery had withstood troubles enough; what would such daunting competition do to their business now?

  And what might the prospect do to his father’s temper?

  Phineas tidied his own hair, donned a cleaner apron, and dusted the flour from his shirt. He tried his best to put the matter out of his mind, for the calls from the shop-floor indicated that he was in for a busy morning.

  The morning wore away, and the light faded, until by the stroke of four it was dark once again. Phineas lit the lamps in the shop, and turned them low; his father said this made for a cosy, welcoming atmosphere, or at least that was what he said to the customers. But Phineas knew that it had more to do with the price of oil. For the kitchens and Phineas’s own room there were only candles, all made from cheap, stinking tallow.

  He was not obliged to remain in the shop all the day through, for those who went out to buy plum-cakes at the dawn of the day went home to enjoy them in the afternoon. He spent the quieter hours in the back, turning out pies; and, when he grew wearied of that, tending to the little frosted rose.

  He had brought it into the kitchens with him early in the day, for he loved to look upon it, and it seemed wrong to him to leave so rare and lovely a thing alone and unappreciated upstairs. But it had begun to alter as the hours slipped by. The blush of lavender dimmed, and the glitter faded from its petals. He thought, fancifully, that perhaps it hated the dull glow and reeking stench of tallow-light as much as he did, but when he carried it into the shop it remained as it was; the purer, cleaner light of the oil-lamps could not restore its lustre.

  It ought to be revived, he thought. He had no means of restoring that odd layer of chill frost, at least not by any lasting method. He did have sugar, however.

  And the colour…

  Phineas remembered, then, another such day at the end of autumn, when his father had been gone from the bakery for three days together. With a supply of sugar near at hand, an array of vegetables new-harvested which had been meant for his father’s supper, and a head full of ideas, Phineas had made a joyous mess of the kitchen as he strove to invent
a coarse, glittering sugar with colour enough to adorn some delicate piece of confectionery… he had hidden the results behind the flour-jars in the storeroom, lest his father should discover it and pronounce his efforts as Waste. There the little bags had lain ever since, mere cloth scraps tied tightly with string. The shop was empty and the street was quiet; Phineas hastened down into the cellar.

  The colour had bled a little through the cloth, and the passage of a few weeks had inevitably faded the tints; his vibrant red had become an insipid pink, and his delicate purple a dull, washed-out grey; the latter he instantly threw away. But the blue, though dimmed, retained brilliance enough to please and he seized it, filled with a happy purpose, and returned to the kitchen.

  He did not seek to dip every inch of the rose in the sugar, for he had not enough to coat it all over. The tips only he treated, and when he had finished he carried the rose forward once more to admire it in the lamplight.

  He was pleased with the effect, for the mix of glittering-blue and dusty lavender now appeared elegant rather than lifeless; perhaps even a little magical, once again. Phineas left the rose on the windowsill, where he could see it, and took up his station behind the shop’s counter in much better spirits.

  He wondered whether his father would notice the flower upon his eventual return, and half-hoped, half-feared that he might. But when Samuel at last came home, it was after dark upon the following day, and very late; the shop was closed, and all the lamps were out. He did not greet Phineas, but went in heavy silence into his own bedchamber whereupon he slammed the door, his passage leaving the tiny landing reeking, fleetingly, of stale alcohol.

  Phineas did not dare ask after the news; not then, and not the following morning when his father awoke, and lumbered down into the kitchen. Samuel barely spoke to his son at all, and took no note of his busy labours; his thoughts were elsewhere, and unpleasant they were, judging from the heavy frown which darkened his brow.