Changeless

Miss Hisselpenny and the claviger jumped apart. Both turned red with mortification, though it must be admitted that Tunstell, being a redhead, was far more efficient at this.

“Oh dear, Alexia,” exclaimed Ivy, leaping back. She made for the door as rapidly as the strapped-down floating skirts of her travel dress would allow.

“Oh no, Miss Hisselpenny, please, come back!” Tunstell cried, and then, shockingly, “Ivy!”

But the lady in question was gone.

Alexia gave the ginger-haired young man a hard look. “What are you up to, Tunstell?”

“Oh, Lady Maccon, I am unreservedly in love with her. That black hair, that sweet disposition, those capital hats.”

Well goodness, thought Alexia, he really must be in love if he likes the hats. She sighed and said, “But, really, Tunstell, be serious. Miss Hisselpenny cannot possibly have a future with you. Even if you were not up for metamorphosis presently, you are an actor, with no substantial prospects of any kind.”

Tunstell donned a tragic-hero expression, one she had seen more than once in his portrayal of Porccigliano in the West End production of Death in a Bathtub. “True love will overcome all obstacles.”

“Oh bosh. Be reasonable, Tunstell. This is no Shakespearian melodrama; this is the 1870s. Marriage is a practical matter. It must be treated as such.”

“But you and Lord Maccon married for love.”

Lady Maccon sighed. “And how do you figure that?”

“No one else would put up with him.”

Alexia grinned. “By which you mean that no one else would put up with me.”

Tunstell judiciously ignored that statement.

Lady Maccon explained. “Conall is the Earl of Woolsey and as such is permitted the eccentricity of a highly inappropriate wife. You are not. And that is a situation unlikely to alter in the future.”

Tunstell still looked starry-eyed and unrelenting.

Lady Maccon sighed. “Very well, I see you are unmoved. I shall go determine how Ivy is coping.”

Miss Hisselpenny was coping by engaging in a protracted bout of hysteria in one corner of the observation deck.

“Oh, Alexia, what am I to do? I am overcome with the injustice of it all.”

Lady Maccon replied with a suggestion. “Seek the assistance of an ugly-hat-addiction specialist this very instant?”

“You are horrible. Be serious, Alexia. You must recognize that this is a travesty of unfairness!”

“How is that?” Lady Maccon did not follow.

“I love him so very much. As Romeo did Jugurtha, as Pyramid did Thirsty, as—”

“Oh, please, no need to elaborate further,” interjected Alexia, wincing.

“But what would my family say to such a union?”

“They would say that your hats had leaked into you head,” muttered Alexia, unheard under her breath.

Ivy continued wailing. “What would they do? I should have to break off my engagement with Captain Featherstonehaugh. He would be so very upset.” She paused, and then gasped in horror. “There would have to be a printed retraction!”

“Ivy, I do not think that is the best course of action, throwing Captain Featherstonehaugh over. Not that I have met the man, mind you. But to go from a sensible, income-earning military man to an actor? I am very much afraid, Ivy, that it would be generally regarded as reprehensible and even indicative of”—she paused for dramatic effect—“loose morals.”

Miss Hisselpenny let out an audible gasp and stopped crying. “You truly believe so?”

Lady Maccon went in for the kill. “Even, dare I say it, fastness?”

Ivy gasped again. “Oh no, Alexia, say not so. Truly? To be thought such a thing. How absolutely grisly. Oh what a pickle I am in. I suppose I shall have to throw over Mr. Tunstell.”

“To be fair,” admitted Lady Maccon, “Tunstell has confessed openly to appreciating your choice of headgear. You may very well be giving up on true love.”

“I know. Is that not simply the worst thing you have ever heard, ever?”

Lady Maccon nodded, all seriousness. “Yes.”

Ivy sighed, looking forlorn. To distract her, Alexia asked casually, “You did not perchance hear anything unusual last night after supper, did you?”

“No, I did not.”

Alexia was relieved. She did not want to explain to Ivy the fight on the observation deck.

“Wait, come to think on it, yes,” Ivy corrected herself, twisting a coil of black hair about one finger.

Uh-oh. “What was that?”

“You know, it was a most peculiar thing—just before I drifted off to sleep, I heard someone yelling in French.”

Now that was interesting, “What did they say?”

“Do not be absurd, Alexia. You know perfectly well I do not speak French. Such a nasty slippery sort of language.”

Lady Maccon considered.

“It could have been Madame Lefoux talking in her sleep,” Ivy suggested. “You know she has the cabin next to mine?”

“I suppose that is possible.” Alexia was not convinced.

Ivy took a deep breath. “Well, I should get on with it, then.”

“On with what?”

“Throwing over poor Mr. Tunstell, possibly the love of my life.” Ivy was looking nearly as tragic as the young man had moments earlier.

Alexia nodded. “Yes, I think you better had.”

Tunstell, in grand thespian fashion, did not take Miss Hisselpenny’s rejection well. He staged a spectacular bout of depression and then sank into a deep sulk for the rest of the day. Overwrought, Ivy came pleading to Alexia. “But he has been so very dour. And for a whole three hours. Could I not relent, just a little? He may never recover from this kind of heartache.”

To which Alexia replied, “Give it more time, my dear Ivy. I think you will find he may recuperate eventually.”

Madame Lefoux came up at that moment. Seeing Miss Hisselpenny’s crestfallen face, she inquired, “Has something untoward occurred?”

Ivy let out a pathetic little sob and buried her face in a rose-silk handkerchief.

Alexia said in a hushed voice, “Miss Hisselpenny has had to reject Mr. Tunstell. She is most overwrought.”

Madame Lefoux’s face took on an appropriately somber cast. “Oh, Miss Hisselpenny, I am sorry. How ghastly for you.”

Ivy waved the wet handkerchief, as much as to say, words cannot possibly articulate my profound distress. Then, because Ivy never settled for meaningful gestures when verbal embellishments could compound the effect, she said, “Words cannot possibly articulate my profound distress.”

Alexia patted her friend’s shoulder. Then she turned to the Frenchwoman. “Madame Lefoux, might I beg a small word in private?”

“I am always at your disposal, Lady Maccon. For anything.” Alexia failed to examine the possible meaning of that “anything.”

The two women moved out of Miss Hisselpenny’s earshot over to a secluded corner of the relaxation deck, out of the ever-present aether breezes. To Alexia, these felt faintly tingly, almost like charged particles, but friendlier. She imagined the aether gasses as a cloud of fireflies swarming close to her skin and then flitting off as the dirigible rode one strong current and passed through others. It was not unpleasant but could be