Chapter 13
13
Despite Mr Findlay’s shocking assertion that Marcus’s wife had been killed, Luna began to embrace her role as mistress of Ravenswood. Previously, she had merely observed the running of Church View, aware that she would only be in charge of a household should she marry. Was it really just one month ago that she’d left that life behind?
Marcus wrote to her again and reported that his investments were proving more fruitful than he’d anticipated. He included further instructions for the Webbers and requested that she undertook the less physical tasks, such as choosing which rooms to place the salvageable furniture in, and ordering essential missing crockery and glassware through the enclosed catalogues. She was only too happy to oblige, recognising that it would be nice for him to return and find the place more homely, even if she had gone by that point. Luna still felt uneasy at the house, and often sensed she was being watched, even though all traces of the evil eyes had been removed. Could there possibly be someone else at Ravenswood? The noises in the attic had never been satisfactorily resolved, and the smoking bedspread incident preyed on her mind. A fire did not start by itself.
Her suspicions were further aroused when Mrs Webber asked for the grocery allowance to be raised. Luna had questioned this, as she doubted that she ate as much as Marcus, so couldn’t understand why they were getting through more food. But the housekeeper claimed that it was Bran – a creature with a veritable bottomless pit for a stomach – who was to blame. Knowing that he often stole from her own plate, she acknowledged that he did always seem to be eating and paid the grocer’s increased bill.
One night, she had quite the fright when she was woken by a clear voice proclaiming, ‘Go away.’ Scrabbling for a weapon to defend herself with, and panicking that someone had entered her bedroom, she was relieved to see Bran perched on the open window ledge. Realising this sound had got her attention, he woke her up with the same cry three nights running, but by the third, she just rolled over and muttered, ‘No, you go away,’ back to him, as she stuffed her head deep into her feather pillows.
Further to Marcus’s written request, and with the grunting help of Mr Webber, who’d made enquiries in the village, a Mr Kelling and his son were employed to rehang wallpapers in the entrance hall and up the stairs. It required particularly long ladders and two persons, whereas the other rooms, Marcus felt he might tackle himself upon his return.
The Kellings duly arrived early one morning, a large number of pale blue floral William Morris rolls that Luna had selected having been delivered directly. Mr Webber had spent a day preparing the walls to a height he could manage, so the Kellings’ first task was to strip the remaining papers from the ceilings down, before they could begin to hang the new. They shuffled in with buckets, brushes and scrapers, but the way the adolescent lad behaved when Luna was in their vicinity was disconcerting: his eyes fixed on her face, and his body facing her at all times, as though he expected her to cast an evil spell or summon the Devil at any moment.
‘You are going to pay me proper at the end of this, right?’ Mr Kelling asked, as a brush clunked into the tin bucket at his feet. Bran had swooped in from the drawing room and landed on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, ever curious as to what was going on.
‘Of course.’
‘Coz I need the money.’
‘Rest assured, my husband has sent me the agreed sum.’
The man shuffled from foot to foot, building up to something.
‘And get rid of the bird. I don’t like it. Its beady little eyes are following me, like it knows stuff I don’t want it knowing.’
Truth be told, she often felt the same. Bran’s eyes would look deep into her own, his head tipped to one side as if to indicate he was waiting for further elucidation, and she wondered if he knew what she had done in her most desperate moments. If so, did he judge her actions?
‘It should be in the woods,’ the older man mumbled. ‘Ain’t right, flapping about the house, trailing around after you like a dog.’
‘We have tried.’ Luna was indignant. ‘He’s free to come and go.’
‘Well, maybe if you didn’t spoil him with treats an’ such he wouldn’t be so inclined to linger.’
It was true that she now kept a small pot of dried fruit near her chair for her feathered friend, but it was not the hope of a sugary morsel that bound Bran to her. It was something deeper. Besides, Mr Webber had told her that the ravens had never strayed from the grounds in all his fifty-two years of living in Little Doubton. They were on the Greybourne coat of arms, he pointed out, and showed Luna a small yellow shield with three black ravens and a circle of oak leaves above the doorway in the entrance hall. These magnificent corvids were a fundamental part of the Ravenswood estate, and not just because they were part of the name.
She left Mr Kelling to his work and asked her housekeeper to keep the men supplied with mugs of tea. To give them their due, the pair worked quickly and efficiently, but she suspected this was because the faster they worked, the sooner they could leave the unsettling house, and by nightfall of the third day they were finished. The hall looked so much brighter and more welcoming, and she was pleased that her choice of colour had lifted the gloomy space.
She handed over payment, which was almost snatched from her hand to be counted.
‘You’re not like I thought you’d be.’ He looked up from the handful of coins.
‘What do you mean?’
‘’Spected you to be more wild and crazy. No offence, Mrs Greybourne, but there’s a reason you don’t get many visitors and the villagers steer clear.’
She rolled out the story that Marcus had fed the young clerk. ‘I’ve been unwell. A malady of the mind. But I can assure you I am much improved.’
The young lad skipped down the staircase with the last of their tools. From nowhere, Bran appeared and began to flap around him, squawking, and trying to peck at his top pocket.
‘Get ’im off me,’ he cried, waving his arms about and trying to swipe the enormous raven away, but both bird and boy were becoming increasingly agitated.
‘Don’t hurt him.’ Luna was quick to put herself between Mr Kelling’s son and her beloved raven, fearing Bran might be injured by the bucket Kelling junior was now brandishing.
‘Curse you! Curse you!’ Bran screeched and started pecking violently at his clothing .
The boy immediately fell to his knees, arms raised to shield his face, and head turned away.
‘Here, have it back. It’s just a stupid spoon. You’ve got loads.’ He pulled a silver spoon from his jacket and threw it across the floor. ‘Undo the raven’s curse, you evil witch. Undo it. You don’t want two deaths on your hands. Was Mother Selwood not enough for you?’
‘What have you done, son?’ his father asked, shock across his face, as the offending item clattered into the skirting board.
‘I’m not a witch,’ Luna tried to explain. ‘I do not cast ill-wishes.’
But, having clambered to his feet, the boy was gone from the house faster than a rabbit bolting for its burrow. Mr Kelling gathered up the last of his brushes and left almost as promptly.
‘Witch,’ he mumbled under his breath as he threw his tools on the back of his cart. ‘You and your familiar need locking up.’