Chapter 36
36
Great-Aunt Elspeth was not present at breakfast, even though Hattie had been up to attend to her on a couple of occasions. The meal had been a muted affair, with Marcus now downstairs but being fussed over by Mrs Webber, like a mother hen. Luna was sure their housekeeper felt guilty by association, as his injury had been the fault of her husband, accidental or not. It was likely she had a degree of sympathy with her master, having suffered herself at Webber’s hand – the loss of her teeth, Luna had subsequently learned, testament to this.
With no sign of their house guest by midmorning, Luna took it upon herself to visit her bedchamber. The feisty woman appeared even smaller and frailer in the huge bed than she did with her great-nephew towering over her. Without a garland of silk flowers on her head and a colourful smock she looked like any other elderly person. With them, she was a magical woodland imp: mischievous and powerful.
Luna sat on the edge of the bed not sure what to say. All the fight seemed to have evaporated from the older woman overnight and she looked quite pale .
‘The thing of it is, I’m dying,’ Elspeth said. Again, there was no greeting or preamble to her words. When she had something to say, she simply came out and said it.
‘I’m so very sorry,’ Luna said, realising this was the reason behind her visit and overwhelming concern for her great-nephew. She would want to know that he was happy before she took her last breath.
‘I don’t see why. It’s not your fault.’ Her lips were pinched and her eyes narrow.
‘Marcus will be bereft.’
‘But not you.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘You will be pleased to be rid of the judgemental and interfering old woman.’
‘Not at all. You say what you think, instead of hiding behind pleasantries and good manners. Most of all, I understand that whatever you say or do is because you love my husband and want the best for him.’
This was the conclusion she had come to the previous night, tossing and turning in bed, gazing at the sleeping man she would happily lay down her life for. This was the nub, after all: loving someone so much that you would defy God Himself to see them happy.
‘And that is why I asked for your honesty,’ the old woman said. ‘I know that you are not who you claim and I have come to a decision.’
Luna prepared herself for a request to summon the constable.
‘As I made perfectly clear to you yesterday, I did not like Luna Greybourne and, much to my surprise, I find that I rather like you. Of course, I have questions: what has happened to her? And who exactly you might be, not to be missed in your previous life and prepared to live this frankly outrageous lie with my great-nephew. But I will likely be dead within the month, and probing around in your lives to extract these answers will not prolong my time on this earth or bring me any comfort – in fact, I rather suspect it will do exactly the opposite. What will be of comfort to me in my final days, however, is that Marcus is finally happy after a decade of misery. He is in love with you and I am persuaded that you are in love with him, too. That is enough for me.’
Luna stared at the woman in disbelief. So, that was it? No announcement to the world that she was a fraud? No insistence that she reveal her true identity? And no inquisition into the whereabouts of his real wife?
Tears began to build in Luna’s eyes, as she struggled to reply. Despite her resolution never to stray from their fantasy, this dying woman deserved the truth, or what little of the truth she knew. She reached out for the old woman’s hands and met her equally watery eyes. ‘You may be surprised to learn that I have very few of those answers myself. I turned up at Ravenswood, lost and alone, and your great-nephew took me in for reasons that I still don’t understand to this day. He does not talk of her, nor does he complain about what she put him through, but instead looks to the future with a determined defiance that I rather admire. We may yet be undone, but I have left my past behind and will happily take on anyone who tries to prevent him from being my future.’
‘Thank you for sharing that.’ There was a reciprocal squeeze from Elspeth’s surprisingly strong bony fingers. ‘And know that I shall not be the one to unravel your life. I may not approve of the deception but then I will not be the one answering to God for my actions. To see my great-nephew laugh, and talk again of flowers and replanting, and hear his plans for the future, is everything to me.’ She patted Luna’s hand. ‘And now, would you ask that rather jumpy young maid of yours to fetch me a jug of warm water? I will heave my failing body from this bed and spend some time with my great-nephew before I leave. ’
Their shared love of the same man, and Luna and Marcus’s obvious affection, had averted disaster.
The three of them had an enjoyable luncheon, followed by a gentle turn about the grounds. Great-Aunt Elspeth delighted in hearing of Marcus’s planting plans, and offered suggestions of her own. If he was aware that the two ladies had somehow reached a truce, he made no comment. Instead, Luna caught him looking adoringly between her face and his great-aunt’s when he thought she wasn’t looking, as possibly the two people he loved most in the world.
Later that afternoon, they saw Elspeth off in her open carriage, watching in silence as she disappeared into the distance with the widest smile across her thin, pale face, clutching a huge bouquet of slightly wilted marigolds, and with a crown of freshly picked white asters threaded through her long grey hair.