Death in the Aviary, page 13
Maybe Charlotte had been initially unfair on Lady Ravenswick. Perhaps the reason she did not attend court that day was that it was simply too overwhelming for her.
Charlotte was very familiar with the life of caring for a sick husband. Love becomes devotion as everything is eroded except for the need to see it through to the end. Every other emotion is consumed. It is existence that takes over, grinding out everything other than the here and now. Past and futures become irrelevant, lost in a sea of days that join up into the end of a life.
For Lady Ravenswick, when her husband died, it would be the demise of an era. The house should have passed to Charles, her son. Now, another of her boys would step into that place along with his wife, Elizabeth, or perhaps the duplicitous Rachel. What then for Lady Ravenswick? No longer in control of the domain she had sat at the head of with her husband, it would dissolve into a life in the shadows. Her husband’s life spent, so too was hers. Charlotte knew that only too well. She knew what it was to be left alone without her husband, to be vulnerable.
Archie had been the biggest, boldest part of Charlotte’s life until he was gone. She was a widow at twenty-two. One of many in the army of desperately young widows these days, consigned to those half-lives or to the indignity of finding a new husband. She wanted neither of those options. But as soon as he died, Charlotte was looking over the edge again, down into the life she’d escaped once before.
This time she was alone. In the aftermath of his death, she couldn’t think, couldn’t settle her mind to anything. The days were just unravelling. Mrs C had drifted around the edges with food, cups of tea and stronger. She even left out some books. They were the usual selection of detective stories. But in the days after his death, Charlotte hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything at all, let alone read. She just distractedly flicked through the pages of The Mystery of the Yellow Room, turning the pages in a blur of meaningless words.
But her fingers stopped instantly when the letter fluttered out silently onto her lap as if that was its intended destination. She stared at it incomprehensibly, before picking it up like an unfamiliar object.
It was addressed to Archie at Mecklenburgh Square. But the name was not the only thing she recognised. It was the familiar slant of the black, sharp handwriting that spoke to her with a voice she’d be able to pick out in any room. Her father’s.
Charlotte turned the slim letter over in her hand, a bemused expression on her face as if questioning its very existence. The envelope was as incongruous in that room as the man himself would have been, standing over her, staring back with that fierce, confrontational look he always had. She opened it warily, as though there might be more than words waiting inside. It was not a long letter. There was no space for pleasantries here. The tone was set from the beginning.
Colonel Blood,
Your continual insistence on a speedy marriage to my daughter remains a source of great frustration to me. You are fully aware of the very imminent announcement of her engagement to Lord Naseby and yet you refuse to desist. It is shameful and dishonourable.
However, in light of our recent meeting and the information you have somehow come into possession of regarding my private business, I find I am left with no option but to acquiesce to your demands. But let me be very clear, I will not suffer you in my home again. Be under no illusions, I am not accustomed to defeat. You’re a dying man, Blood. I will wait and bide my time. But make no mistake, I will retrieve what is mine.
Sir Richard de Burgh.
Charlotte lingered over every word in turn as if each one was being branded into her eyes. She turned the paper over and back again, searching for more, her father’s name glaring up, resolute and furious. The inner sanctum of his business had never been open to Charlotte but that wasn’t something that ever struck her as unusual. He had a lot of money and he wielded it like a hammer over everyone. That’s all she knew. But Archie knew more. And somehow, he’d used it.
Yet, he was aware he was dying as well. Charlotte’s face wrinkled. How could Archie have expected he’d achieve anything more than a temporary reprieve for her? Perhaps he didn’t see any reason to think beyond his own imminent death. No, that wasn’t Archie. Surely he would never have just abandoned her to this fate. Charlotte put that thought away before it had too long to settle and cast its shadow over her mind.
Whatever Archie knew, whatever his motivation, he couldn’t help her now. It all died with him. She’d been granted a glimpse of freedom, but her parole was over the moment he died. One thing was certain, he’d left her a lot more questions than answers.
She let the letter fall and held her head in her hands. With every breath she could feel herself being dragged back there. It was hopeless.
The distant tapping at the door pulled her thoughts back. She quickly wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“Just thought I’d bring another tea, Duckie. That one on the landing looks a bit cold. How you getting on with The Mystery of the Yellow Room?” Mrs C looked at where the open book had been discarded on the floor and frowned.
“Oh, Mrs C.” Charlotte let the tears fall freely.
“Come on, girl. He wouldn’t want to see…”
“He knew he wouldn’t have to see any of it!”
Mrs C sighed and put the tea tray down.
The anguish cut deep into Charlotte’s face, her voice desperate and breaking. “I can’t… how can I… I can’t even pay you…”
“Oh, let’s leave that this month, eh. ’Til you get back on your feet.”
Whether Charlotte could be described as on her feet now or not, the years had just rolled on, and they’d resolved into a vaguely comfortable pattern, a way of life. The column paid some bills but there were more missed months than paid. Charlotte’s choices had cost her dear so far. Going back behind the bars of Bladesworth and being condemned to a marriage of her father’s making was a poisonous thought but it was never far from her. If she wasn’t going to fall back into those dark waters, she needed this job to work. She had to start finding things out here. She threw the folder on the bed. It was going to take a lot more than some meaningless, pre-prepared statement.
Someone stood alongside Lady Ravenswick, guiding her. The self-appointed guardian of Lady Ravenswick’s soul seemed like a good place to start. Nicodemus Bligh was waiting.
The library had the impressive kind of dignified quiet that immediately inspired respect. It was grave in an old statesman way but still with the comfortable air of a place where the artifice and ambition of the outside world could be left behind. At least that was, until Charlotte heard the dry voice of Nicodemus Bligh.
Her eyes scaled the towering shelves of books and ran along until she saw him perched, bird-like, on a long ladder, his ivory robes falling behind him and covering his feet, giving the impression that he was just floating up there, spirit like, flying beside the books.
“Ah, Miss Blood! So good of you to come.” The smile threaded its way along his face. “You find me climbing the mountain of my endeavours again! But we must conquer these vast edifices if we are to dig for such well-hidden treasures.” He pulled out a large, leather-bound book from the shelf, looked it over and held it close to his chest. He began the descent with the sure-footed awareness of a well-trodden path.
A slant of cool morning light cut across the room, letting the years of dust tumble through it, every grain another second from the room’s past. Nicodemus Bligh seemed to bring his own flurry of particles with him, disrupting the rhythm of the air.
“Well, well, Miss Blood, what an honour.” Everything he said had a tone of mockery about it. He placed the book down deliberately and drifted towards her, picking up another, newer book on the way. There was a very contrived nature about this man. He’d spent a lot of time perfecting who he wanted to be or, at least, what he wanted people to see. It was flawless.
“I couldn’t miss your magnificent library. I’ve heard so much about it recently.” She added the last word purposefully.
He paused before laughing. “Dear girl, it’s not my library! Oh no, no, no. Not at all. It’s the Ravenswick Abbey library, that is, if anyone ever really owns a library. It is also a much older source of knowledge than that. We are merely the custodians for the next generation of this great wealth of knowledge. We simply borrow it for a while.”
She felt as if she was being sold something. There was a very compelling way this man had of manipulating his words. His movements mirrored the preciseness of what he said. Each step was carefully timed, each hand gesture calculated. He let his fingers slip through his finely combed black hair, grooming himself. In the sharp rays of morning light, there was a vaguely metallic sheen to him. She noticed how his yellowish fingernails were just a little longer than she would have expected, although they were immaculately filed into small, horned shapes.
“Unless, of course, you sell the books.” Charlotte watched him closely.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “That is not my decision. I merely curate the treasures.”
He waved the book that he’d picked up as he walked towards her, a prop carefully placed. “Tell me, Miss Blood, are you aware of the works of Mr Aleister Crowley?”
“Is he local?” Charlotte, along with anyone who’d read a newspaper in the last few years, knew very well the name of this charlatan with his latest breed of religion that lured in the desperate and lost.
Bligh looked exasperated and waved the book again with an evangelical zeal. “His work is the most important that men can contemplate.”
“Fortunately, then I do not need to worry about it.”
She read the title and smirked. “Magick in Theory and Practice. No, I’m afraid I don’t enjoy sideshows and circuses anymore, Mr Bligh. I’ve put away childish things.”
His jaw clenched as tight as a fist. “I can assure you, Miss Blood, there is nothing childish about Mr Crowley’s work.”
There was a deep look of conviction forming on his face. A devotional look. An obsessional one. Charlotte had seen this before, the people between sandwich boards caught in the grip of religious fervour all professing a way to save everyone. Salvation itself was the new religion, by any means possible, and it seemed that Mr Bligh had found a fairly extreme one. One that he would defend with all his soul, if that didn’t defeat the object entirely.
“Thelema is the answer!” he announced, his eyes as intense as a preacher’s. He leaned closer to her face and she could smell the strange heady mix of spice and earth. There was a hypnotic, old quality to the scent, with remembrances of incense in church on a cold Sunday. It lifted from him in layers of wood and flowers, a cinnamon bark flavour to it that she could almost taste.
“It is the perfect magico-religious doctrine.” His voice was low, conspiratorial. There was a forbidden note there that dropped into a whisper. “We have entered the Aeon of Horus, Miss Blood.”
“That sounds painful.”
His eyes flared. “You may scoff, Miss Blood, but there is a greater power on this earth. Modern paganism folds together all the ancient knowledge and power, its magick and alchemy, with Western esotericism and scientific naturalism.”
“A lot of isms, Mr Bligh.”
With his finger and thumb, he pinched together the skin between his carefully manicured eyebrows, giving him a pained look. “You will see, Miss Blood. Our arcane knowledge was understood by the ancients. All the way back to the Druids, who knew the soul was immortal and passed from one person to another. You have known death, Miss Blood, have you not? You have sat close to it and wondered at its work.” His smile was rich with clandestine excitement, as if he had opened up a little dark secret. Her secret.
Charlotte knew this conjuror’s trick all too well. She’d fallen down that dark rabbit hole before. Seances and table turning, Ouija boards and tarot, they came and leeched off her desperation with every form of little sorcerer’s game to bring back her husband’s beautiful smile. “Speak to us, Archie. Speak to us!” She’d willed his voice to break from one of their leering mouths. But their shrill demanding voices were nothing like how her Archie sounded. The sound of him had gone.
Archie would never have spoken to those fraudsters and, when the fog began to lift, neither did Charlotte, and she vowed never to let the deceiving parasites back in. The world was suddenly full of inscrutable, cryptic people who could speak to the air. But there were even more desperate people who wanted the air to answer back.
“I think in these last years we’ve all seen death up close, haven’t we, Mr Bligh? And my wedding ring most definitely gives that away. Keen observation of the individual you’re dealing with, put together with lucky guesses based on high probabilities and an air of mysticism, or whatever ism you choose, can be quite compelling, can it not Mr Bligh?” She folded her arms and didn’t break with his gaze. “Particularly for the grief-stricken and bereft.”
He drew back his head. “There are always the unbelievers. The blind who have no eyes for augury.”
“What utter nonsense.”
“Well, you may not believe there is a science to augury. But I warn you, Miss Blood –” he leaned closer again and lowered his voice “– look to the birds.”
She let out a single, dismissive laugh. “Have you any idea how this sounds?”
“All you need to do, Miss Blood, is open your mind. Amongst these shelves is the answer. The truth that has been known for centuries. Hidden away from those who would burn it, desecrate it and destroy it.”
Whatever nonsense pseudo-religion those books contained, they didn’t need to be the scientific truth to be worth a fortune. Charlotte tried not to let her new interest show. She raised a sceptical eyebrow in an effort to tease out more. It worked.
“You will see, Miss Blood. You will understand. There is treasure beyond belief amongst these books. Pages handed down and concealed through the ages. The truth of man. The truth of existence. What they don’t want people like you knowing. A fortune in –”
“Nicodemus?” It was Lady Ravenswick, her voice thin but clear. Although she sounded faded, there was still a dignified authority ingrained in her.
“Your Ladyship.” It was the first time Charlotte had seen Bligh waver. “I didn’t know you were coming down today. Is His Lordship resting?”
Lady Ravenswick had entered unseen and studied him. There was a brief clarity to her eyes but it quickly passed. “Nurse Sidmouth is with him at the moment. He’s sleeping. I thought I might come and see how work is going in the library, but I see you have a guest.” She nodded towards Charlotte in acknowledgement. “Miss Blood.”
“Lady Ravenswick.” Charlotte bowed her head in response.
“I hope you are finding your stay with us rewarding.”
“Yes, Your Ladyship. Very much so.”
Lady Ravenswick paused to look at Nicodemus. “Do we have any books on ravens?”
“I’m sure there will be something, Your Ladyship.”
She gave a pallid smile. “I’m assuming it is ravens you are researching in here.”
Charlotte pressed her lips tight together.
“Are you supposed to be over at the aviary, Miss Blood?”
“I went this morning.”
Lady Ravenswick nodded slowly. “And have you everything you need?”
“I have, Your Ladyship, yes.”
“Oh, so we will be saying goodbye to you soon, will we?”
Charlotte’s mind stumbled.
“I…”
“You have everything. I assume Bartram has been his usual helpful self.”
“I’m sorry, Your Ladyship, I thought you meant in terms of comfort. I have been very well accommodated. In terms of the ravens, however, there is much more research to be done, I’m afraid.”
Lady Ravenswick gave a forced look of astonishment but her eyes didn’t flicker. “Well, Miss Blood, who would have thought there would be so much to discover about our little family of birds? Perhaps we should not detain you further.”
Nicodemus Bligh was staring at Charlotte intently as though he was memorising every feature.
The atmosphere had grown distinctly unenthusiastic for her presence.
Charlotte tried to smile. “I should be going. Thank you, Mr Bligh. It’s been very enlightening.”
There was too long a pause.
“It has been my pleasure, Miss Blood. Please feel free to visit again.” It had the ring of insincerity.
As Charlotte left, their eyes followed her through the room, the only sound, the heels of her little one-bar shoes still ticking the parquet floor with that multitude of tiny cobblers’ nails. The door closed heavily behind her.
Charlotte paused outside the door, her heart fluttering fast against her ribcage. Something held this house in a constant state of anxiety, and she was being drawn down into that with the slow certainty of quicksand. There was an unspoken language to everything as if secrets were being passed under the conversation like notes under a school desk. But there was nothing fun or mischievous about this. It was a dark, serious game they were playing here.
How long had Lady Ravenswick allowed Charlotte’s meeting with Nicodemus Bligh to continue before she’d decided to put a stop to it? How long had the old crow stood in this corridor, listening? Waiting.
For such a large house, there was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to think. It was a crowded emptiness. There was always somebody there, and it wasn’t just the family either. Her room seemed like it was open to everyone, furniture moved frequently and someone was going through her things.
She’d tried a few times to find a quiet room in the servants’ area but that was a crowded nest. Every time she thought she’d found a moment of solitude, there was someone busying themselves, with the fire, cleaning or simply rearranging objects. Most of the time, it seemed they were finding things to do, aware that they should look occupied at all times to justify their place. The butler, Heskins, was all pervasive, his glowering presence in every corner, at every door. Mrs Thornycroft was endlessly bustling through rooms inspecting them. Maids performing various functions ran around the hive, in and out of spaces, when one departed a room, another came in to commence a new activity.
