Changeless

“Alexia and I are taking a trip to Scotland this afternoon.”

The feather duster trembled in confusion. “You are?” Ivy looked rather hurt that Alexia would not see fit to inform her of such a trip. And that Alexia would choose Felicity as a companion, when Ivy knew how much Alexia loathed her sister.

“By dirigible.”

Miss Hisselpenny nodded sagely. “So much more sensible. Rail is such an undignified way to travel. All that rapid racing about. Floating has so much more gravitas.”

“It was decided at the last minute,” said Lady Maccon, “both the trip and Felicity joining me. There has been some domestic difficulty at the Loontwills’. Frankly, Felicity is jealous that Evy is getting married.” There was no way Lady Maccon would allow her sister to seize control of a conversation at the expense of her dear friend’s feelings. It was one thing to put up with Felicity’s jibes herself and another to witness them turned upon defenseless Miss Hisselpenny.

“What a lovely hat,” Felicity said to Ivy snidely.

Lady Maccon ignored her sister. “I am sorry, Ivy. I would have invited you. You know I would, but my mother insisted, and you know how utterly impossible she can be.”

Miss Hisselpenny nodded, looking gloomy. She came fully into the room and sat down. Her dress was subdued for Ivy: a simple walking gown of white with red polka dots, boasting only one row of red ruffles and fewer than six bows—although the ruffles were very puffy, and the bows were very large.

“I am assured floating is terribly unsafe, even so,” added Felicity, “Us two women traveling alone. Don’t you think you should ask several members of the regiment to accompany—?”

“No, I most certainly should not!” replied Lady Maccon sharply. “But I do believe Professor Lyall will insist upon Tunstell joining us as escort.”

Felicity pouted. “Not that horrible redheaded thespian chap? He is so fearfully jolly. Must he come? Could we not get some nice soldier instead?”

Miss Hisselpenny quite bristled upon hearing Tunstell disparaged. “Why, Miss Loontwill, how bold you are with your opinions of young men you should know nothing of. I’ll thank you not to cast windles and dispersions about like that.”

“At least I am smart enough to have an opinion,” snapped Felicity back.

Oh dear, thought Alexia, here we go. She wondered what a “windle” was.

“Oh,” Miss Hisselpenny gasped. “I certainly do have an opinion about Mr. Tunstell. He is a brave and kindly gentleman in every way.”

Felicity gave Ivy an assessing look. “And now here I sit, Miss Hisselpenny, thinking it is you who is probably overly familiar with the gentleman in question.”

Ivy blushed as red as her hat.

Alexia cleared her throat. Ivy should not have been so bold as to reveal her feelings openly to one such as Felicity, but Felicity was behaving like a veritable harpy. If this was a window into her behavior of late, no wonder Mrs. Loontwill wanted her out of the house.

“Stop it, both of you.”

Miss Hisselpenny turned big, beseeching eyes upon her friend. “Alexia, are you certain you cannot see your way to allowing me to accompany you as well? I have never been in a dirigible, and I should so very much like to see Scotland.”

In truth, Ivy was vastly afraid of floating and had never before showed any interest in geography outside of London. Even inside London, her geographic concerns centered heavily on Bond Street and Oxford Circus, for obvious pecuniary reasons. Alexia Maccon would have to be a fool not to realize that Ivy’s interest lay in Tunstell’s presence.

“Only if you believe your mother and your fiancé can spare you,” said Lady Maccon, emphasizing that last in the hopes that it might remind Ivy of her prior commitment and force her to see reason.

Miss Hisselpenny’s eyes shone. “Oh, thank you, Alexia!”

And there went the reason. Felicity looked as though she had just been forced to swallow a live eel.

Lady Maccon sighed. Well, if she must have Felicity as companion, she could do worse than to have Miss Hisselpenny along as well. “Oh dear,” she said. “Am I suddenly organizing the Lady’s Dirigible Invitational?”

Felicity gave her an inscrutable look and Ivy beamed.

“I shall just head back to town to obtain Mama’s permission and to pack. What time do we float?”

Lady Maccon told her. And Ivy was off and out the front door, never having told Alexia why she had jaunted all the way out to Woolsey Castle in the first place.

“I shudder to think what that woman will choose as headgear for floating,” said Felicity.

CHAPTER SIX The Lady’s Dirigible Invitational

Alexia could see it all in the society papers:

Lady Maccon boarded the Giffard Long-Distance Airship, Standard Passenger Class Transport Model, accompanied by an unusually large entourage. She was followed up the gangplank by her sister, Felicity Loontwill, dressed in a pink traveling dress with white ruffled sleeves, and Miss Ivy Hisselpenny, in a yellow carriage dress with matching hat. The hat had an excessive veil, such as those sported by adventurers entering bug-infested jungles, but otherwise the two young ladies made for perfectly appropriate companions. The party was outfitted with the latest in air-travel goggles, earmuffs, and several other fashionable mechanical accessories designed to facilitate the most pleasant of dirigible experiences.

Lady Maccon was also accompanied by her French maid and a gentleman escort. There was some question as to the appropriateness of the gentleman, a ginger fellow who might have trod the boards on more than one occasion. It was thought odd that Lady Maccon was seen off by her personal secretary, a former butler, but the presence of her mother more than made up for this gaffe. Lady Maccon is one of London’s premiere eccentrics; these things must be taken in stride.

The lady herself wore a floating dress of the latest design, with tape-down skirt straps, weighted hem, a bustle of alternating ruffles of teal and black designed to flutter becomingly in the aether breezes, and a tightly fitted bodice. There were teal-velvet-trimmed goggles about her neck and a matching top hat with an appropriately modest veil and drop-down teal velvet earmuffs tied securely to her head. More than a few of the ladies walking through Hyde Park that afternoon stopped to wonder as to the maker of her dress, and a certain matron of low scruples plotted openly to hire away Lady Maccon’s excellent maid. True, Lady Maccon carried a garish foreign-looking parasol in one hand and a red leather dispatch case in the other, neither of which matched her outfit, but one must be excused one’s luggage when traveling. All in all, Hyde Park’s afternoon perambulators reported favorably on the elegant departure of one of the season’s most talked-about brides.

Lady Maccon thought they must look like a parade of stuffed pigeons and found it typical of London society that what pleased them annoyed her. Ivy and Felicity would not leave off bickering, Tunstell was revoltingly bouncy, and Floote had refused to accompany them to Scotland on the grounds that he might be suffocated by an overabundance of bustle. Alexia was just thinking it was going to be a long and tedious journey when an impeccably dressed young gentleman hove into view. The leader of their procession, a frazzled ship’s steward trying to steer them to their respective rooms, paused in the narrow passageway to allow the gentleman to pass.

Instead, the gentleman stopped and doffed his hat at the parade of newcomers. The smell of vanilla and mechanical oil tickled Lady Maccon’s nose.

“Why,” said Alexia in startlement, “Madame Lefoux! What on Earth are you doing here?”

Just then, the dirigible jerked against its tethers as the massive steam engine that drove it through the aether rumbled into life. Madame Lefoux stumbled forward against Lady Maccon and then righted herself. Alexia felt that the Frenchwoman had taken a good deal longer to do so than was necessary.