Chapter 8
8
During the night, Luna was woken by the sound of footsteps. At first, she thought they were from the corridor, but they were followed by a thump on the ceiling and she realised that there was a person in the attic rooms above. Mr and Mrs Webber had quarters off the kitchens, and would be tucked up in their beds by now. There were no other servants. Or so she’d thought.
Did Ravenswood have another inhabitant? Surely the housekeeper would have mentioned it. Either Mrs Webber didn’t know there was someone up there, or didn’t want Luna to know. She couldn’t even get out of bed to investigate. It made her realise how vulnerable she was – an injured girl in an unsettling house in the middle of nowhere, unable to flee if she was attacked.
Then she rationalised the noises. The Webbers were likely looking for something – they had mentioned Marcus was bringing valuables down, possibly items kept out of the way of his destructive wife. It was a strange activity to be undertaking in the middle of the night though, and she decided to question them about it in the morning.
She leaned over to check the bird in the crate, strangely comforted that there was another living soul in the room with her. He was still alive but moving very little. The attic was now silent and she began to wonder if she’d imagined the sounds. As she struggled to get back to sleep, she played a hundred things over in her head: from the awfulness of recent events at Lowbridge, to the secrets of this place and her desperate hope that the injured creature was on the mend.
Amongst these troubled thoughts, she remembered that the city of Branchester had got its name from the Celtic word for raven. Indeed, there had been an alarming proliferation of them in this part of the country during medieval times. Once viewed as a pest, and blamed for killing livestock and spreading the plague, they had been ruthlessly persecuted and numbers had declined in recent times. But through the city name, the river and even the house she now found herself in, their legacy remained. It struck her as a perfect name for her charge and so, like the river that flowed forty miles from the once raven-troubled city and out to the sea, she called him Bran.
The next morning, Luna was delighted to find the bird upright in the crate and encouraged when he began to take small morsels of hard-boiled egg from the tongs. Like her, he could not bear weight on his broken leg, but he seemed brighter and she had every reason to hope that he might make a full recovery. She was content chattering away to him, convinced he was listening as he tipped his lustrous head to one side, until Mrs Webber arrived with her cheery, toothless smile to help her dress.
‘Is there someone sleeping in the attics?’ she asked. ‘I heard noises during the night.’
The housekeeper shook her head. ‘I can assure you that it’s only the three of us here, now that the master no longer has dogs, so I’m reckoning it was squirrels or rats.’ She seemed definite in her assertion .
‘But I heard footsteps,’ Luna persisted and the older woman frowned and clutched at a small crucifix she had about her neck.
‘The spirits have many ways of making their presence known. I’ve heard tell of knocking, vivid smells, the caress of a hand or even objects flying across a room. Perhaps she’s up there, searching for something, unable to move on.’ Mrs Webber didn’t need to specify who she was referring to, and her comments suggested she thought her former mistress was dead – which was not a pleasant notion.
They were interrupted by a knock at the bedroom door and Mr Webber appeared. He informed Luna that she had a visitor and immediately her chest flooded with panic. Had someone from Lowbridge tracked her down? Or was the constable back to arrest her for murder and cart her to Branchester gaol?
‘Don’t look so alarmed. I’ve asked my good friend Mr Findlay to call, but it’s imperative that the master doesn’t hear of this visit,’ Mrs Webber said, straightening the bedcovers and folding up the borrowed nightgown. Luna was back in the dress she had arrived in, now washed and pressed by the housekeeper. ‘Whilst my loyalty to Mr Greybourne is absolute, he has funny ideas about the poor chap. He refuses to have him in the house because his ways aren’t the ways of science, but I can assure you, he is a wonder. Cured a young boy of his strange fits. Helps me with headaches and even pulled out several of my teeth when they were… damaged. I’ve been taking the mistress to visit him in secret since he moved into Honeysuckle Cottage, and he can help that ankle of yours to heal faster – I just know he can.’
Luna’s unease was apparent on her face. Marcus had expressly asked her to have nothing to do with the man, and he would immediately know her as the fraud she was, but the housekeeper put a hand on her arm to offer reassurance .
‘He knows the situation. Don’t worry, Mrs Greybourne , our secrets are safe with him.’
Her husband grunted again before scooping his temporary mistress up, ignoring the flapping wings and squawks from Bran, and carrying her from the room. The bird clearly didn’t like the manservant, but then, as Webber lumped her down the stairs, she acknowledged she didn’t much like him either.
Mr Findlay was quite the sight to behold. Although his hair was almost white, the face beneath was not that of an old man – quite the opposite. He was, she thought, perhaps fifty, or a little younger. He was small of stature and dressed in a rainbow of colours: a silk cravat of tangerine, bright-green trousers, and a brocade waistcoat of lemon yellow, with a sprig of dried lavender in his buttonhole. His face was round and cheerful, and a small black leather medicine bag sat by his feet.
He stood up as she entered and introduced himself, informing her that he lived just upriver of Ravenswood, beyond the ferry, barely five minutes from them. Luna was comforted to know the house was not as isolated as she’d first thought. He told her that he was what people called a cunning man, or folk healer, and that he had kept Mr and Mrs Webber safe with an array of charms and potions when Luna had been lost to her own mind. Marcus, she knew, didn’t hold with anything magical or not of this world, although she wasn’t quite sure where she stood on such matters herself. She had a tendency to be too trusting – her willingness to throw herself into this whole charade had demonstrated that. If someone stated a thing as fact and had an earnest look about their face, she was inclined to believe them.
Her guest leaned forward for a slice of fruit loaf, took a small bite and wrinkled up his nose. The cake and the plate were discreetly placed on the floor just as a terrible rumpus drifted down the stairs. It was Bran, cawing and calling, and Mr Webber’s agitated tones could be heard chastising the creature. He must have managed to flap himself out of the crate.
‘What on earth is that hullabaloo?’ Mr Findlay asked, nodding a grateful thanks as his teacup was topped up, and then chuckling to himself. ‘Are you shortly to open a zoo here at Ravenswood?’
‘I’ll see what the fuss is about, madam, and shut the bird in your room,’ the older lady said, and bobbed her head before departing.
‘It’s a raven from the woods,’ Luna explained as Mrs Webber scuttled away. ‘He is recuperating in a crate upstairs and I suspect his agitation is because Mr Webber is painting one of the bedrooms. The bird has not taken to him.’ Despite the manservant splinting Bran’s broken leg, it was almost as if he knew Mr Webber’s initial suggestion had been to wring his neck.
The surprise on Mr Findlay’s face was immediate. ‘That one should have survived!’ He put his teacup down and clasped his hands together in delight. The apples of his cheeks flushed pink with joy, and then he leaned forward with an earnest look about his bright-blue eyes. ‘Mrs Webber told me about the despicable slaughter of the birds after a particularly distressing period of melancholy that Luna… you suffered. It is imperative that your husband ensures a colony of ravens remains to protect the woods, despite his failure to recognise the danger of the black arts.’
The cook had obviously filled their visitor in on all the goings-on at Ravenswood and, though he might address her as such, he knew perfectly well she was not who she claimed to be. If he’d been attending to Mrs Greybourne in private, he would be one of the very few people who had seen her close up in recent years.
‘However,’ he said, ‘I am here to assist with your broken ankle and do not wish to outstay my welcome.’ He reached for his bag and produced a small ceramic pot with a square of cloth secured around the rim with string. ‘I have prepared for you a healing ointment that will speed up the knitting of the bone. Apply it twice a day, morning and evening, gently over the damaged area.’
Luna took the offered item and lifted it to her nose. She couldn’t bring herself to criticise the gift but it had the faint smell of dung. Mr Findlay noticed her expression.
‘Ah, yes, the comfrey has a very distinctive odour.’ He grinned. ‘This preparation also includes the bark of white oak, ground black walnut leaf, wormwood and lobelia… amongst other things. And I passed some freshly picked comfrey leaves to your housekeeper upon my arrival with detailed instructions for a tea that will also aid your recovery.’
He reached out for her elevated leg, meeting her eye and asking, ‘May I?’
She nodded as he laid his hands gently on her swollen ankle, mumbling soft words under his breath. The heat from his touch was immediately soothing.
‘Do not mind me, Mrs Greybourne.’ He looked up to meet her eye and smiled. ‘A simple charm as old as the chalk in the nearby hills. My magic, such as it is, is benevolent. A counter to the maleficence of others. I appreciate that your husband does not take kindly to me and gives no credence to the supernatural, but please trust me.’
‘I’m not quite sure what to think.’ She hesitated. ‘My husband said that magic is only real if you believe in it.’
‘He’s wrong. There are many dark forces at work within our world and to dismiss them is foolhardy. When evil triumphs over good, it is not because the good has failed, but that the evil was stronger. And that is often down to calling on powers that are not of this realm.’ He reached for her hand. ‘I have been working hard to thwart your magic for a long time.’
She was momentarily thrown by his words until she realised he was talking of Marcus’s wife. By being this woman, she had to accept the previous actions of the Ravenswood Witch would now be attributed to her.
‘The people of the village often come to me after your careless curses and vindictive actions: failed harvests, sick livestock and babies born with deformities because you held grudges against the families. I could not save Mother Selwood, but I have kept the Webbers safe. There are undoubtedly wicked things going on hereabouts and those you think you can trust are the most likely to betray you.’
This struck a chord with Luna, who had been too trusting before. Ultimately, it had been her undoing. She nodded.
‘Be warned, my dear, we often decide someone is wholesome and good because this is how they present themselves to the outside world. The benevolent vicar, who gives of his time to minister to the needs of his congregation, but who hides disturbing secrets… Or the innately good people forced to do wicked things. Maybe, a man who has care of someone who is unspeakably cruel to him, for example, who might be driven to commit a crime deserving of the noose.’
He paused to let his words sink in and she wondered if he was referring to Marcus. Did Mr Findlay know what had happened to the real Luna? And if so, was he suggesting her husband had done away with her in his desperation? Even though she barely knew Marcus, she couldn’t believe that he was capable of such an act.
‘Many people in this world have two faces. Perhaps even you?’ Her visitor raised both eyebrows and lowered his voice, before gently patting her knee. ‘We both know that you are not Luna, but rest assured that I will happily play along. Evil things happened around your predecessor and she was not kind to her husband. He strikes me as a good man who needs someone to love, and to love him in return, and I think that someone might be you.’
Uncomfortable at the romantic advice being offered by a stranger, she shook her head. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr Findlay. You have tended to me in the past, and I appreciate that you are taking the time to help with my broken ankle now. I love my husband and I regret my previous unacceptable behaviour.’
He gave a slow nod of resignation.
‘I see you are set on this pantomime, yet you hardly know the man that you claim you are married to. My divination cards foretold of your arrival, and they also tell me that you will have an important role to play in Mr Greybourne’s life for many years to come. No matter, stick to your story, but be assured that love will find you. I know these things.’
He patted her knee a second time, in the way an adult might patronise a child’s stories of make-believe. Love had already found her and then she’d lost it. Her heart was not ready to be given to another.
Humming a merry tune to himself, Mr Findlay offered to pour her a further cup of tea but she shook her head, so he filled his own cup, not offended by her play-acting, and settling back in the chair with a smile.
‘You must come and visit me at Honeysuckle Cottage when your ankle is better. Eventually Mr Greybourne will realise I am not the enemy that he supposes but, until that day, I should like to see you from time to time to reassure myself that you are safe. I am usually to be found at home preparing my medicines and you would be most welcome.’
‘Could you not come again whilst my husband is still away?’ She liked this friendly but curious man, and it had been refreshing to talk to someone other than the housekeeper and the grunting manservant.
‘I have been forbidden to step on Greybourne lands and I should not have come this time, but Mrs Webber was insistent. In his ignorance, your husband has taken against me, but I respect him for all that. He did his best for his wife, never leaving her to the care of others, often shadowing her day and night to keep her from harm, and even following her into the woods. But everyone has their breaking point and I suspect she pushed him to his. I understand she has not been seen for days and yet he hastily instates a replacement. I can only hope that wherever she is now, she has found peace.’
As if in answer to his speculating, the low flames in the grate surged forward and there was a roar as they lurched into the room. If Luna had been killed, she reflected, it seemed most unlikely that she would contentedly move on. Not when there was an imposter living her life, and she had her own death yet to avenge.