Words beginning [a]

[Emma May Smith]

Emma May Smith - please don't leave us ever again 

Any chance of [y] just being an ornate version of [a] in some cases - like an a with a flourish?

- this would explain why the scribe is allowed to put it at the beginning of a line without changing anything.

I'm pretty convinced that [y] and [a] are either versions of the same character or closely linked characters. But the difference is not ornamental. They have complementary distribution and are seldom seen in the same environments.