Chapter 7
7
The first thing that struck Luna as her sleeping brain floated back to consciousness the following morning was that, even though her eyes remained closed, she was being watched. The second thing was how much her ankle still hurt.
As she scanned the room, the concerned face of Marcus Greybourne, who had pulled up a chair at the bottom of the bed, was indeed entirely focused on her.
They had spent the previous afternoon drinking tea, until Mr Webber had returned from Manbury with the eagerly awaited rose bushes. She had then watched Marcus through the window for quite some time as he busied himself planting the shrubs and tidying the front gardens beyond the meadow. So driven was he by his tasks that he’d excused himself from dinner and it was Mr Webber who returned her to the bedrooms at nightfall, and his kindly wife who had helped her undress.
‘Good morning,’ Marcus said. His tone was brisk but not unfriendly. ‘Mr Meyer has already sent a letter in the first post assuring me all is well so I’m leaving shortly for London, but didn’t want to go without saying goodbye and passing on a few instructions.’
‘Because you’re worried what I might get up to whilst you’re away?’ She shuffled up the bed.
Her pretend husband’s sleeves were rolled to the elbows again and his forehead was damp with sweat. He was certainly not a man afraid to get his hands dirty and had clearly been busy already that morning. She looked to the bedside clock and was chastised by its vertical hands for sleeping until almost midday. Not used to such decadence, she could only assume the laudanum was making her drowsy.
‘Believe me,’ he said, wiping his face with a large handkerchief from his pocket, ‘if you had lived my life for the last few years you would realise that there is very little left in this world that would distress me.’
‘Because I’ve been such a handful since our marriage?’ she asked, remembering her role as his wife of nearly ten years, and knowing that she could remain at Ravenswood, safe from inquisitive officers of the law, as long as she perpetuated this myth.
‘My marriage has certainly seen some difficult times but an opportunity to make a potentially lucrative investment has been presented to me and I have to at least try to head off what I sadly believe is inevitable.’
She nodded her understanding and settled herself against the pillows, the pentagram once again catching her eye.
‘Should I be concerned by these markings?’ she asked, pointing to the scratches in the wood, and he ducked his head under the canopy of the four-poster.
‘I’d forgotten about those but pay them no heed. Sometimes, when you live with things for long enough you don’t see them any more. I’ll instruct Mr Webber to deal with them later today. You will, at least, find the staircase much improved. I have washed the walls and Mrs Webber has been airing the upstairs rooms to rid them of some of the more fetid odours.’
Luna shivered. What had gone on in this house before her arrival?
Marcus noticed her worried expression. ‘I hope you are sensible enough to know that superstition and dark magic are silly nonsense. It is only real – only has power over you – when you believe it. The marks mean nothing. A scratched shape in a panel can’t harm you.’
She frowned but nodded mutely, certain there was more to this world than the tangible. She had witnessed inexplicable and other-worldly phenomena with her own eyes at the Branchester music hall: an Indian princess levitating above a chair as a hoop was passed over her body, and a woman in a wooden box sawn in half. She also knew people who had successfully spoken to long-dead relatives with the assistance of a medium, and these spiritualists had provided information that only the deceased could possibly know. Even the cook at Lowbridge was convinced her nephew had been born with webbed feet after his father had been cursed by a gypsy. Would Marcus think her silly for admitting such? Mrs Webber clearly believed in the forces of good and evil. Her gift of the rowan cross proved that.
‘On to practical matters,’ Marcus said, ‘and the reason I am rather inappropriately loitering at the foot of your bed?—’
‘You are the master of the house. I think you are entitled to loiter wherever you so wish.’
She had merely stated a fact but his eyes dipped and the merest hint of pink swept across his cheeks as he considered that there were other implications attached to her words.
He cleared his throat.
‘As I said previously, you must run the household whilst I’m absent, particularly as we’ve established that you are not in a position to leave. There is no one else and it would be odd for the mistress of the house to take orders from the servants. You have given me no trouble thus far and were extremely helpful yesterday, so I shall send you back some money as soon as I can to this end.’
She was horrified. ‘What am I to do with this money?’
‘Don’t look so alarmed. I will send detailed instructions regarding how it is to be spent, as the Webbers cannot read or write; but I don’t want you exerting yourself. You’ve clearly suffered quite the ordeal and are still lacking colour.’
She nodded her understanding, even though she was bewildered by this sudden responsibility. He must truly have no other options.
‘I should also like you to oversee the manservant as he continues to repair some of the damage that the house has suffered in recent years. I’ll engage some tradesmen to undertake the tasks Mr Webber cannot manage alone, and you may set about making whatever small improvements you wish, as I’m certain you have a far better eye for fabrics and furnishings than I do. I can even arrange for some catalogues to be sent to the house.’ He paused and narrowed his eyes. ‘I can trust you, can’t I?’
The question was not whether she would select curtains that wouldn’t clash with the wallpapers, or fritter away the money on exorbitant and unnecessary luxuries; he was asking whether he could trust her, full stop. He’d heard the older police officer say she was wanted for murder and she’d seen his brief but shocked reaction at the time. And yet, he was prepared to leave her in sole charge of his household. His need for money must be very great, as must his certainty that his real wife would not return to expose them both.
She nodded.
‘I only ask two things of you: that you are to have nothing to do with the local folk healer – a Mr Findlay, who peddles nonsense and fear – and that you stay away from the attics. They are out of bounds for everyone but me, as the items I have stored up there are of an intensely personal nature – not that you are sufficiently mobile to climb the steep stairs. Other than that, you may treat Ravenswood as your home. I shall ask Mrs Webber to focus on feeding you up and getting your strength back, as you won’t be putting weight on that foot for some time. Her husband may be somewhat taciturn but he is tall and wiry, and can easily carry you downstairs each morning so you are not shut in this gloomy bedroom.’
If he recognised it was gloomy, she wondered why he hadn’t moved the bed to the other side of the house, with the brighter southern view.
‘May I be allowed to sit outside, if the weather is pleasant?’ Spring was in full swing and she wished to be part of the wide-open spaces, glorious scents, vivid colours and clean air.
‘Naturally, my wife should not have to ask my permission for such a thing. Embrace your role as mistress whilst I am gone and try not to behave like a timid mouse, afraid of her own shadow. There are sadly an awful lot of shadows at Ravenswood so you will have to be strong.’
Becoming his wife meant more responsibility than she’d anticipated, but in for a penny… She’d made her comfortable bed and must now lie in it.
‘You can rely on Mrs Webber…’ Was the implication that Mr Webber was not so favoured? ‘…but do not get drawn into her superstitious nonsense. I shall be gone for four or five weeks and we can assess our… domestic arrangement upon my return.’
He was reminding her that when her ankle had healed, she must be on her way. Her stay at Ravenswood was merely a temporary respite, but she was grateful. In the meantime, she would do her best not to let him down, whether there were evil spirits lurking and witchy goings-on or not.
Mrs Webber came to her room a little while later with a breakfast of devilled kidneys. She informed her that Marcus had now left for the Manbury ferry, and was then hoping to catch the train to London, much as Luna herself had been planning to before the unfortunate collision.
‘He looked every inch the gentleman in his freshly pressed suit, but I watched him walk through the meadow, shoulders stooped and head hung low,’ she said. ‘Poor man. Breaks my heart to see him so downcast. You’d better not cause him no trouble – he’s had a lifetime of that.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t deny I find it odd that he left a stranger in charge. Sometimes I wonder if he’s as mad as his wife.’
‘I am his wife,’ Luna gently corrected. ‘And I will do my very best to run Ravenswood in his absence.’ The older woman nodded and kept her tongue. ‘You have all been very kind to me and I intend to repay that kindness. With your guidance and expertise, between us I’m certain we can manage.’
Somewhat mollified, Mrs Webber left her to her breakfast, but the overuse of butter and spices quite turned Luna’s stomach. Marcus was correct: cooking was not the woman’s forte. Perhaps one of her first purchases as mistress of the house should be a copy of Beeton’s Household Management ; the recipes were badly needed by her cook, and the information regarding the responsibilities involved in running a large house would be invaluable for herself.
Mr Webber came to fetch Luna downstairs as the clock struck ten. He was a more angular man than his master and not so gentle with his handling of her. There was also an unpleasant smell of stale alcohol and dead animals about him. Because the weather had much improved since the recent storms, she asked to be taken outside, not wanting to remain in that gloomy house for the entirety of the day.
Born a city girl, it was only in the last year that she had come to love and appreciate the countryside. She now knew what it was to spend a glorious summer afternoon sitting in the shade of a large elm, watching twenty-two men play a friendly game of cricket on a village green. There were, of course, parks and bodies of water in the city, but the air never had that fresh grassy smell, and the river Bran, so much closer to the factories, kicked out a foul stench in the warmer weather. You may know your immediate neighbours, but you could walk a hundred yards from your house and, swallowed up by the bustle of a busy city, not recognise a single soul. It was the main reason London had so appealed to her – the anonymity both a blessing and a curse.
Mr Webber grunted his agreement, obviously reluctant to execute the ridiculous pantomime that a complete stranger could step into Luna Greybourne’s shoes. He informed her there was a long wooden bench at the front of the house where she might enjoy looking out across the meadow. He took her out through the kitchens and the contrast in light was almost blinding.
Now that she wasn’t running for her life, she could see that Little Doubton and the Ravenswood estate were set in a shallow valley, with gently sloping chalk hills running up either side of the river. The landscape was largely one of open fields, dotted with clusters of trees, and criss-crossed with verdant hedgerows.
As he lowered Luna onto the bench, Mrs Webber came running towards them.
‘Jedidiah! You’ll never believe it. I got me one still alive! Everything’s gonna be all right, after all.’
Mr Webber, whose Christian name was apparently Jedidiah, looked up as his wife stopped before them both cradling a fair-sized bulge in her pinny, with a wide, mostly toothless grin across her face. There was something concealed in the folds as she held the hem to her waist like a hammock.
‘You never found a raven?’ His face was a mixture of disbelief and curiosity.
‘I took some of them empty wooden crates out to the old Dutch barn, now that the master is starting to get the valuables down from the attics. I was tucking ’em behind them mouldy bales of straw when I saw it. Caught in one of them traps and it must have been there a couple of days. Thought it was dead at first but then I saw it twitch. I used a garden fork and managed to lever open them evil metal jaws and get it out.’
‘Bloody miracle it’s survived, then. If it happened when she did for all the others, it’s been three days.’
‘Language!’ the housekeeper chastised. ‘Not in front of the mistress.’
He rolled his eyes and made no apology. ‘Bring it ’ere then and let me see proper.’
‘She don’t want to see a half-dead bird, but if you come to the kitchens with me, you can give me a hand. Think it’s broke its leg, never mind being half-starved.’
‘No, I want to see,’ Luna said, curious that some poor creature was injured and possibly in pain. There might be something she could do to help.
Mrs Webber pulled back a corner of the apron to reveal the iridescent black feathers and smooth head of the largest member of the corvid family, with that unmistakable bluish sheen to the plumage and the shaggy ruff of feathers around its throat. The pale grey eyelids were closed and the bird wasn’t moving.
‘Looks dead to me.’ Mr Webber was dismissive of his wife’s find. ‘ And if it ain’t, I can easily put it out of its misery.’ He shrugged, clearly not caring either way.
Perhaps aware of its imminent demise, the bird flicked open an eye, but only briefly, as if the exertion was too much.
‘No! Don’t you see? Everything is going to be all right. If we can save the bird, we can save Ravenswood.’
Luna looked blankly at the animated housekeeper, who cradled the bundle closer, as her plump cheeks lifted in excitement. ‘Legend says that if the ravens leave the woods, the house of Greybourne will fall,’ she explained. ‘That vile witch of a wife… I mean, the birds were murdered by… erm, we thought they was all dead,’ the older woman said.
Was Marcus’s real wife responsible for the inhumane animal trap? And had she nailed the other raven to the gatepost? Luna shivered. The housekeeper was right; the woman she was claiming to be was an unpleasant and cruel person.
‘I’m in two minds.’ Mr Webber shook his head and rubbed at his unshaven chin. ‘P’raps it might be better if I just wrung its?—’
‘No!’ the women exclaimed, simultaneously.
‘If you would be so kind as to bring me a strip of bandage and a small splint, a dish of water and something I might try to feed it,’ Luna said. ‘Perhaps some bread soaked in milk?’ She shuffled herself more upright on the bench, feeling a renewed energy. She had a purpose, at last.
‘I’ll sort the leg,’ Mr Webber grunted, reluctantly. ‘Done it before with chickens…’ He gave Luna a piercing glare, before dropping his eyes to her own damaged ankle. ‘ And suspicious strangers who happened across our land out of nowhere. I’ll bring it back when I’m done and you can play nursemaid. You’ve got nothing else to fill your time, so you might as well make yourself useful.’
He followed his wife and they disappeared around the back of the house, with Luna acknowledging the gruff manservant didn’t like her very much. If she were a bolder person, she might have reprimanded him for speaking to his mistress with such disrespect, but she was not that brave, and with every day that she remained at this house, her fear was increasing.
Luna’s focus on the half-dead raven over the following couple of hours helped her to forget her pain to some degree. And took her mind off the dark goings-on at Ravenswood.
Mr Webber dealt efficiently with its leg and, using a glass pipette from the medicine chest, Luna was able to get some water into the bird. It remained wrapped in the apron to begin with, and she gently laid it across her lap as she tried to get it to eat a few morsels of food from some tarnished sugar tongs the housekeeper had found, but it wasn’t interested. The water made a difference, however, and she was rewarded by a few more flutterings of the one eye that was visible.
Quietly content, watching the occasional traveller and trader pass along the riverbank and take the ferry over the water, Luna spent a pleasant afternoon talking to the injured bird. It was a one-sided conversation but she prattled on, glad of the company, and occasionally checking her charge hadn’t passed away.
Until the horrific events of that week, her days had always been so busy. A steady stream of callers came and went from Church View and the occasional visits from the young Mr Thornbury had brightened her days. The thought of Daniel made her heart heavy and she blinked away building tears. She mustn’t dwell too much on his death or it would break her completely. It had been such a muddle of misunderstandings, lies and uncontrollable jealousy. An innocent man had died, never part of the plan, and she would have to live with her role in all that had happened for the remainder of her life.
By the afternoon, the bird had opened its eyes and was now upright, even if it was not moving much, and she was cautiously optimistic about its recovery. They had both suffered at the hands of another and it made her sympathy for the creature even greater.
The pair were carried inside by Mr Webber as the temperature began to drop, and he was none too pleased when Luna asked if she might have one of the crates from the barn to keep the bird in her room for the night. He grunted rather than replying but did as he was asked, as well as informing her that the creature was male. Luna consequently decided, should the raven survive until morning, she would give him a name, even if, like hers, it was only a temporary one.
Eventually, the sky outside filled with wide slashes of plum and apricot, and the sun began to sink down to the west, finally dipping below the treetops, which were silhouetted black against the colourful backdrop.
Thankful for any small moments of joy, she reflected that she had never witnessed such a dramatic sunset in the city. She had experienced both rural and urban living in her short life and knew which she preferred. Her plan had been to make for London, but God had other ideas and she must enjoy this period of unexpected respite whilst it lasted. Her stay at Ravenswood may only be for a short while but she was safe for the moment. From the police, if not the Devil.