by Jill Harris
His brows creased. "Can you see who it is?"
A figure of a woman appeared in front of the tiny glass-bound Captain Hughes. She threw her arms around the Captain's neck, and he bent down, brushing his lips against hers. Not far from them, a child paddled at the edge of the sea, and Adeline heard the distinctive sound of childish laughter. She watched the dance of sunlight on the waves, and was acutely aware of the taste of him in her mouth.
Adeline gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth. For there was no mistaking it. The woman in the glass was her. She looked up at the Captain, feeling a spark of annoyance at his trickery. "I don't know how you did that. But I'm not a fool," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"We'll never be lovers, Captain Hughes."
His brow furrowed even deeper. "Is that what you saw?"
"I'm sure you know exactly what I saw. I'm not a simpleton or one of your Haymarket skirts. I know smoke and mirrors when I see them. If you weren't one of the bravest men in England I would leave now."
The Captain grinned. "Am I really one of the bravest men in England?"
"I'm beginning to doubt that."
His face fell when his eyes met her cold stare. "I'm so sorry. Really I am. I didn't mean to insult you. But it's as you say, just a parlour trick. And if my sources are correct, you're stuck here with me if I agree to keep you on. You can't go home. Am I right?"
She scraped back her chair and stood. The truth was, her Aunt"s new husband had taken it upon himself to become an upstanding member of the community. He'd forbidden her to come home until she had restored her reputation.
That process couldn't even begin to happen unless Adeline made a success of her nursing post with Captain Hughes. A man her Uncle admired passionately, presumably because Captain Hughes was a war hero, and one of the wealthiest men in England. "It's true. My uncle doesn't approve of me."
"What did he say when you told him you were coming to work for me?"
"At first? He wasn't happy. He thought I'd make a mess of it and bring him shame."
Albert Finnegan was man who showed his disapproval by breaking things. When Adeline announced her plans to become the private nurse of Captain Branwell Hughes, Albert broke almost an entire set of Staffordshire pottery figurines, Aunt Theodora's prize collection. Afterwards he grudgingly admitted it was a good position. Captain Hughes was richer than most, and he'd fought with the Light Brigade. One of the few to return from their charge into the valley of death. Uncle Albert had made Adeline promise she would make a good impression. If she did well, she might even restore the tatters of her social reputation enough to procure further gainful employment. Of course, no man would ever marry her, she'd fallen too low for that.
The Captain fixed her with a curious gaze. "And then?"
"Uncle Albert was glad to make a family connection with a man such as yourself."
"Yet, as I've already told you, I'm not sure this arrangement is going to work. I need time to think about it, about whether you're the person I need here. There are so many things for me to consider."
Adeline bit her lip. "I assure you, I'm good at my job."
"Look. My needs are simple, Miss Winslow. Once or twice a week I'm plagued with a fever which spreads upwards from my wound. No doctor can find a cure for it. The headaches leave me in a state of semi-consciousness. I become incapacitated. Unable to leave my bed. During such moments, I expect you do whatever you can to stop me from dying."
"You think the fever might be fatal?"
"Not at all," he said, pushing back his chair and getting to his feet with the aid of his cane. "But during those times I think I am dead. Are you sure you still want to work for me?"
She watched him make his way over to the windows, throw the latch and open one of them wide. A rush of air accompanied by the sound of distant thunder. He stood in the half light leaning to the left, supported by the cane, his imposing frame outlined by the glow of all those candles, and a flash of lightening. A distorted kind of shadow seemed to hover next to his own, more grey than black, it appeared to have a long snout, and a tail.
The effects of all the warnings about demons appeared to have affected her eyesight. She blinked, and it was gone.
"Go to bed," he said. "You need to rest and so do I. I hope you don't find the storm keeps you awake."
"Not at all. I'm a good sleeper."
"Of course you are," he said turning, and stalking from the room.
Adeline felt as though she had crossed over some invisible line. Her desire to work with the Captain was even greater than it had been before, now that she had seen the depths of his confusion and foul temper. She stood up and went to the door. Well, she had dealt with many men who had been wounded on the inside, men who had seen too much of the horrors of war until the horror had turned their minds.
If Captain Hughes was prepared to give her time, she was determined to help him.
If.
Chapter 19
With a great sigh of relief, Adeline retired to her room, exhausted after the long day. The storm had subsided somewhat apart from the occasional blast of thunder, and the odd white flare of lightening.
She sighed with relief as she dispersed with her overdress and corset, pulling her long, white nightgown over her head. Over that she shucked on a green woollen evening robe embroidered with leaves at the cuffs, a throwaway from Aunt Theodora. She tied it with a soft golden rope beneath the breast, grateful that she had thought to bring warm clothing. The gown smelled of home and Adeline flopped onto the bed feeling as if she would do anything to be at home right now.
And for a moment she allowed herself to think of London.
Ah! The city. The neat, white fronted house in Bloomsbury Square. The bowl of fresh roses on the hall table, and the sound of laughter during the gatherings of artists, writers, and journalists at her Aunt's salon. Adeline missed the sound of Theodora playing the harpsichord, the conversation and general gaiety. She sighed as she recalled the leafy pocket park where she would take picnics on warm summer days as carriages rushed past, and she would discuss the latest exhibitions at the art galleries and museums.
Naturally, Adeline didn't miss the stink of the streets, where piles of manure were daily shovelled into the gutters. She sighed. Nowhere was perfect.
At least here on the South Coast of England, the air smelled fresh.
Outside the wind continued to howl, and beat at the windows, and Adeline frowned. It sounded as if someone was knocking on the glass, but that was simply a trick of the imagination.
She got up and slowly made her way over to the window. Parting the heavy drapes, she peered out into the night. Dark clouds scudded over the waning moon. The rolling waters of the channel stretched to the black line of of the horizon, and the cliffs to the west of Sea Witch Cove ran out into the sea in a jagged line, ending in one tall, crooked column rather like a finger pointing to the sky.
Another fork of lightening lit up Sea Witch cove. Huge waves broke on its shores and the sand was white with sea foam. Rain splattered on the glass pane, blurring the undulating landscape of rocks and water. When the darkness returned, out of the corner of her eye she saw something flutter across the pale moon. It seemed as though she heard the beating rhythm of giant wings, and the very sound filled her with a kind of dark fear. An owl perhaps?
Gripped by a sinister premonition, Adeline moved her attention away from the roiling skies, to the heaving waters.
She wondered about the sunken temple hidden below the waves to the east of the sandy cove. Looking down, she felt light-headed, adrift. Vertigo took hold of her, and she sank to the floor.
After living in London among the bricks, smoke and clamour for so long, she knew she had to adjust. There was much to be gained, she told herself, from the raw sights and sounds of the natural world.
As a child, she would walk for miles over the moors. She stood up. Her legs were unsteady. Shivering, she hugged the gown around her, turned away from the window, went over
to the jug of water and poured a glass, her hand trembling with an emotion she dared not name. Adeline drank it all. Then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Raven's Nest was indeed a hard place to be in the winter. The fire burning in the grate didn't seem to touch the frost in the room.
Whenever she was cold, she imagined it was summer in the West Country. She closed her eyes, and was once again a carefree girl. Adeline would lie on the scrubby grass watching buzzards wheeling overhead, high up in the pure blue skies. A local farm boy had taught her how to mimic birds.
She had mastered the melancholic mewing of the buzzard. Latin name buteo buteo. To the crashing of another burst of thunder, Adeline made that sound once more. If truth be told, she probably did prefer the countryside.
And storms had never bothered her, she reminded herself of that. Not as a child. Quite the opposite, she'd always found them exhilarating.
Adeline had never lived by the sea in all her life, yet the sound of the crashing waves excited, frightened, and soothed her all at once. Its restlessness. Its constant motion. She supposed it echoed something deep inside her. A wildness beneath her sensible exterior.
An image of the Captain came unbidden to mind. His broad back. The sadness in his eyes. The strength of his hands. How had he put the image of them kissing into the crystal? His trickery was outrageous. Yet even the merest thought of him, warmed her in a way nothing else had.
Could she fall in love with a man like that? She untied her hair and shook it out. Perhaps falling in any way was something best avoided.
Her heart thudded once again when she contemplated the drop from her window to the foaming rocks far below. But she knew that with regular exposure to the dizzying height of the house she would grow accustomed to it.
The same might be said of the Captain.
The more she got to know him, the less effect his mesmeric gaze would have on her.
And in time, she assured herself, Raven's Nest would no longer be full of fearful shadows or make her feel as if she was in danger of falling into an abyss.
Chapter 20
Branwell could not sleep. The pain in his leg plagued him, although the demon had not bothered him for an hour or so. He drained his glass of whiskey, and set it down beside the half-empty bottle. There was no sign of She-Who-Dwells and for once he missed her because she'd always alert him when danger was around - and he had the strange sensation that something ominous was moving towards the house.
He sat at his desk unable to keep his good leg still, jiggling it as if he'd lost control of his own limbs.
Over the past hour, Branwell had been brooding on two things.
Firstly, the fact that Adeline had seen them together in the scrying glass.
Afterwards, she was in shock. A square of red had trembled in the air above her. What bothered him most was that he'd never seen anything inside that lump of rock. Neither had his father. His father's friend, an old Egyptian mage who went by the name, Zosar, said once that only a powerful mage would see the future in its crystalline depths. Was Miss Winslow a mage? A woman? A servant? The whole idea was ridiculous. He shook his head.
Yet perhaps she was unaware of her gift. A shock of pain ran through his thigh, and he rubbed the painful wound. In his experience, people were always more than they seemed.
And if Miss Winslow was a witch of some kind, he, Captain Branwell Hughes, would have to treat her with care. As if she was a powder keg waiting to be lit.
He turned to his second problem, rustling through the papers on his desk until he found the letter again. Branwell had read and re-read the infernal thing. It had arrived in the morning post, a message from a man Branwell hadn't seen in two years. A man he hoped was dead.
Lieutenant Stephen Sanderson was a tall, blond haired, blue eyed, Viking of a man. He stood at least five inches taller than Branwell. Which was saying something.
Both men joined the cavalry on the same day. Sanderson was a better horseman than anyone Branwell ever met, and his skills with a sword were legendary. They'd trained together, drunk together, and whored together. As if that wasn't enough, once, they almost killed each other.
Over a woman.
Sanderson became enamoured of a well brought up young lady from a good family, a Miss Jane Farthington. She was graceful, curvaceous, and silly. Sanderson first met her at a ball, and within two weeks was sighing like a poet over her.
What he didn't know at the time was that Jane Farthington had made her way into Branwell's bed. She had plenty of money, having inherited a considerable amount from her mother, and Jane enjoyed playing games almost as much as Branwell. She liked to see Sanderson mooning after her, but she despised him for it too. Branwell never mooned over a woman so Jane must have seen him as a challenge.
One night, she bet him one thousand guineas she could seduce him.
If Branwell hadn't been so drunk, he'd have seen the ruse for what it was. Jane wanted to conquer him, and cause trouble between the two men. In fact, she probably wanted to goad them into fighting as a distraction. A thousand guineas was nothing to her and she didn't care about losing the money. Branwell, naturally, refused her at first on the grounds that she was his best friend's lover. Yet after sharing a bottle of absinthe with her, Branwell lost the bet and awoke to find himself tangled in her sheets - with Anderson standing at the end of the bed, his piercing blue eyes glaring at Branwell as the poor Viking stood crestfallen and heartbroken.
Sanderson had come to propose marriage to his love, finding instead the man he called friend in her arms. Sanderson threw the first punch and Branwell took it without defending himself. A bloody nose was nothing under the circumstances. The fight was prolonged, with the two men rolling on the floor like savages whilst Jane sat up in bed clapping every time a punch landed.
Branwell had two good legs at the time but he was no match in strength to Sanderson. He was however, very quick, and had learned to box at Cambridge.
The two men would have finished each other off if five of their brothers in arms had not heard the furore, ran into the room, and fallen upon the brawling comrades, forcibly dragging them apart.
It left both men unconscious.
And afterwards, when they were out in the Crimea, Branwell and Sanderson charged side by side into the valley of death, charging straight for the guns in the firm belief this was their last hurrah. When Branwell fell, it was not by gunshot.
For in the bloody confusion, Sanderson had turned on him.
His sword whipped through the air, slicing open Branwell's thigh. The same wound that troubled him so much to this day, and which he felt he deserved. Shame spiralled through him at the thought of his betrayal.
Branwell shoved his hair away from his face. He had no idea why Sanderson had decided to pay a visit to Raven's Nest, although if he'd come to finish Branwell off, then so be it.
Chapter 21
In the dim light of a single candle, Adeline sat at her desk in the gloomy bedroom chewing the end of a quill pen, her forehead creased in concentration. The candle threw its wan light over the stack of papers and notebooks she'd scattered over the wooden desk. A fire sputtered in the grate, and the sound of the rain on the windows was more like fists rapping against the glass than mere droplets of water.
She shivered in the chilly room, stood up and paced over to the fireplace, standing in front of it for a while to soak up the warmth. Aunt Theodora had given her best woollen shawl to Adeline as a parting gift, and Adeline pulled it tight around her to preserve what heat she could within her own body.
It was one thing to fear the workhouse, but quite another to die of consumption brought on by the cold whilst in the employ of a man whose house was as icy as a crypt. When she thought about it, Adeline realised that what she dreaded the most about the workhouse was the notoriously freezing living conditions. She was like a lizard, the kind of person who thrived in the heat.
Tears welled up in her eyes at the thought of becoming yet another young woman blighted wi
th consumption, yet she knew with absolute certainty that she would never let that happen.
At last, when all feeling had returned to her fingers and toes, Adeline went back to the desk to complete the final task of the day, which was writing a detailed report of her own observations on the Captain's state of health.
Added to that, she must write the all important letter to her cousin, Eleonora Hardy. It was imperative that Adeline had a proper place to go if things got out of hand at Raven's Nest.
She knew herself to be a person of great adaptability, however she'd never perceived herself as brave, or indeed, patient, in the face of preternatural goings-on. And even though she thought all mediums were frauds, and ghostly happenings were all in the mind, she found Raven's Nest a place where it might be easy to believe in the supernatural due to all the creaks, bumps and peculiar sounds, smells and howls which pervaded its very brickwork.
If things became too strange in a house already seething with intrigue, mystery and a multitude of Gothic peculiarities, it would be worthwhile for Adeline to take restorative breaks from time to time. If that is, the Captain decided he wanted to extend her employment.
To that end, she would also have to create a path to healing for her challenging patient.
Tomorrow she'd set about introducing the Captain and his wound to the shock box. She smiled, wondering what he'd make of her electro-magnetic machine, and the sensations of healing he'd get from it as soon as she began the treatment. Once he began to trust her, she was in no doubt he'd keep her on.
It even occurred to her that once he started to feel better, she could suggest a few useful changes the Captain could make in his journey towards a healthier life. Ways he could tidy up his house, as well as his person. He needed new clothes, a proper barber to attend to his wild coiffure, and the house needed a jolly good clean as well as work on the outside. A project would do the Captain good, and give him better things do than stomp around the place brooding.