She loved to be alone up there, to roam free over her kingdom with the wind tearing at her hair. She resented any intrusion – they had no right to be there, it was her place. Leaving the hoof-marked track behind her she would hurdle through the rough heather and clamber over the rocks until her legs would carry her no further. Then she would lie down on the soft spongy grass under the lee of a great boulder and close her eyes and listen to the secret sounds of the moor that spoke only to her – the distant cry of the gulls at sea, the bark of a wandering vixen and the mewing of the pair of buzzards that circled above her.
There was a part of Kate Trelochie that was indeed romantic and dreamy, but the other part was fiercely practical. She came to the high moor by the Eagle’s Nest for a specific purpose as well, to hunt and capture specimens for her collection. When she had first come home some years before with a slow-worm wrapped around her wrist, her mother had screamed hysterically and banished all ‘creepy-crawlies’ from the house. But Kate wanted her slow-worm to be warm, and so she kept it secretly down at the bottom of her bed. Other creatures soon joined it in her bedroom: lizards, frogs, toads and even a grass snake. But when the grass snake escaped from his box and ate the frogs, she finally decided that her bedroom was not the place for her collection. So she took over the disused greenhouse at the bottom of the garden and set up her ‘creepy-crawly’ collection and opened it up to her friends – for a price. It was two pence a visit and an extra penny if you wanted to handle the grass snake. She made enough money from the proceeds to buy the nails and the wood and the glass she needed to repair the cages and the greenhouse itself. And she would keep her regular customers happy by bringing back new exhibits from her expeditions on the moor – anything from a mammoth stag beetle to a baby rabbit. The greenhouse came to be known to all the other children as Kate Trelochie’s Zoo.
Her mother and father were quite happy about it for it kept her busy and out of mischief, or so they thought. Anyway they admired the entrepreneur in her, setting up on her own like that. They had only one repeated warning, that she was never to go near the lost house on the moor and she was never to talk to Mad Miss Marney.
‘She’s a strange one,’ Kate’s mother always said. ‘Just like her mother was, from what they say. And of course you never know with people like that. It runs in the family. You never know. Just keep away from her, that’s all.’
Kate had always been intrigued by the lost house and she longed to catch just a glimpse of Mad Miss Marney. Every time she passed the house she would pause and look for signs of life, but the place always looked deserted and empty. She thought often enough about climbing over the fence and snooping around the back of the house, but she thought that that would be wrong – it was private after all. What she needed was an excuse to go and knock on the door; so when just such a chance presented itself, she took it eagerly.
She had spent a long summer’s afternoon on the moor trying to catch lizards as they basked on the rocks, but with no success for they were always too quick for her. So she was down-hearted and cross with herself as she began the long walk home down across the moor. She was crossing the track just below the lost house when she noticed something shiny on the dry black soil of the track. As she looked it moved and flapped to life. She froze where she stood and then crept closer. Whether it was a rook or a crow or a raven she was not sure; but it was lying on its side and trying desperately to move away from her using its wings as legs. But the effort of it was too much and the bird keeled over and lay still. It struggled only feebly as Kate picked it up and cradled it to her chest. Angry black eyes glared up at her as she stroked the glistening feathers on the top of its head. She stood for a moment wondering what she should do; and then she felt the blood sticky on her hand. Mad Miss Marney’s house was close by and she had the perfect reason to knock on the door – she knew she had to find help if the bird was to live.
The door of the house opened before she had time to knock and standing in front of her was Mad Miss Marney, and at once Kate regretted her boldness for Miss Marney looked anything but pleased to see her.
‘What do you want?’ she said in a rasping voice. ‘I’ve had children up here before coming knocking on my door and running away before I even get there. But I saw you coming up the path, so you haven’t got time to run, have you? What d’you want?’
Taken aback, Kate held out the bird almost in self-defence.
‘I found this,’ she said. ‘And I don’t know what to do because it’s bleeding. I think it’s been shot or something. It can hardly move, but I thought you might be able to help. Sorry if I bothered you.’
She was a tiny bent old lady, hardly taller than Kate herself. She leant heavily on her stick and Kate noticed that her finger joints were all swollen and twisted. Her hair, a whispy silvery-white was pulled up in a bun on her head and the skin around her lips was puckered with age.
‘People are always shooting,’ said Miss Marney. ‘The things people do for a bit of fun. Don’t understand people. Never have done. Come on in child. Bring it in, bring it in. Don’t just stand there. I’m not about to turn you into gingerbread. I would but I don’t like it – can’t take sweet things any more.’
Kate followed her into the house, looking around her as she went. There were books everywhere. The very walls seemed to be made of books. They stood now in the kitchen, and here too there were books instead of plates on the Welsh dresser.
‘Well, what did you expect child, cauldrons and black cats, pointed hats and broomsticks?’
‘No Miss Marney, honest,’ Kate lied, and then she changed the subject quickly. ‘It’s bigger than I thought it would be inside, the house I mean. And I’ve never seen so many books in all my life.’
Miss Marney put the bird down on its back on the kitchen table. She spread the wings open.
‘It’s one of my ravens,’ she said, almost in a whisper. There was a tremor in her voice. ‘Jasper I think it is. Yes it is Jasper, full of gunshot – poor old thing.’
‘Jasper?’ Kate said.
‘I give them all names,’ Miss Marney said, walking slowly past her to put the kettle on the stove. She rolled back her sleeves and washed her hands carefully. ‘Every bird, every creature on the moor. They are all my friends. I know every one of them – even the ones you take away.’
‘You’ve seen me?’ Kate was angry at the thought of it. ‘You’ve been watching me?’
Miss Marney smiled for the first time – she had very few teeth.
‘An old lady can look out of her window, can’t she?’ she said. ‘Course I’ve been watching you, been watching you for years. After all you come up here more than anyone else and you always have a good look at my house, don’t you?’
‘But I don’t hurt them,’ Kate protested. ‘I don’t hurt the animals, I just keep them at home and look after them. They’re for my collection, for my zoo that I’ve got in my greenhouse. D’you mind, Miss Marney?’
‘No, not if you look after them,’ Miss Marney said. ‘Is Jasper for your collection as well, or did you just want to get a look inside the house and see if the old witch is as mad as everyone says?’
Kate was not quick enough to deny it. Miss Marney always seemed to be one step ahead of her and Kate was not used to that.
‘I’ll look after Jasper,’ said Miss Marney. ‘He’ll be fine with me. You can come back tomorrow to pick him up if he’s well enough and then you can look after him until he gets better. Would you like to do that? It’ll be a month or two before he’s fit to fly again. But you must let him go when he’s better. He won’t want to be shut up in a cage for the rest of his life.’
‘Do you think he’ll live?’ Kate asked. ‘He looks so weak, and he must have lost a lot of blood.’
‘Oh he’ll live, child,’ Miss Marney said bustling her towards the door. ‘Jasper will live. I have my ways you know. There’s not a lot I can’t cure if I put my mind to it. Now off you go Kate, and come back tomorrow.’
‘But
how do you know my name, Miss Marney?’ Kate asked, turning by the front door and facing the old lady.
Mad Miss Marney began to chortle and then broke into her witchy cackle.
‘Thought you’d want to know that,’ she said. ‘I’m not the only one that talks to herself around here. I’ve heard you talking to yourself up here in the mist. You should be more careful. Voices carry a long way up on the moor. “Kate Trelochie,” you said one day, only a few weeks back I remember. “Kate Trelochie, you’re a genius, a genuine genius. Who else do you know who is only ten years old and has a zoo of her very own?” So you see we are two of a kind you and I. We are mad as hatters Kate. We love all God’s creatures and we love this place with a passion no-one else would understand. You are the first person I’ve had in my house for fifty years and more.’ She seemed anxious all of a sudden and leant closer to Kate. ‘You won’t tell anyone you’ve met me will you?’ Kate shook her head vigorously. ‘I don’t like people. Don’t understand them, and they don’t understand me. It’s our secret then, just between the two of us.’
‘Course, Miss Marney,’ said Kate, and the old lady patted her on the head and went indoors.
It was a difficult promise to keep that evening with the zoo open as usual and all her friends around her. She longed to tell them all about Miss Marney and her amazing house of books, and she would have done but for a powerful feeling of affection for the old lady. She had been welcomed into a house where no other person had gone in fifty years, and she had been trusted by the old lady to keep their meeting a secret. Tempted as she was she could not and would not tell anyone, but she did go so far as to promise that tomorrow she might have a very special new attraction in the zoo.
‘Where will you get it from?’ they asked.
‘What is it?’
‘Can we pick it up like the grass snake?’
‘Aha,’ she said mysteriously to everyone. She knew she had said enough to bring them all back the next day with money in their pockets and so she said no more.
‘I saw you up on the moor again this afternoon,’ said her father that evening after supper. ‘See you a mile off clambering around in that yellow shirt of yours. Find what you were looking for?’
‘Sort of, Father,’ she said and she smiled to herself.
‘Nowhere near that house was she?’ her mother asked sharply.
But to Kate’s great relief no reply came from her father who was hidden again behind his newspaper.
‘You keep away from there like I told you,’ said her mother. ‘From what I hear, and I wouldn’t be surprised, there’s some people say she’s a witch.’
‘I don’t believe in witches,’ said Kate.
‘Never you mind what you believe in,’ said her mother. ‘You just mind what I say. There’s things I could tell you my girl.’
The next morning she was up at first light to prepare a home for Jasper in the old stable that no one used any more. The greenhouse was already over-crowded and anyway she knew enough to know that Jasper and her creepy crawlies would not get on together. She cleared out the old rusty chains and plough shares, the rotten corn sacks and fertiliser bags, and swept it all clean. The hay-rack would make a perfect perch for Jasper when he was better and he would have room to spread his wings. Meanwhile she made a mattress of soft hay for Jasper to lie on.
The mist had come down again as she climbed up into the clouds towards the lost house. Even before she knocked on the front door she heard the old lady talking and laughing to herself at the back of the house.
‘Come in, Kate,’ she heard, and so she pushed open the door and went through into the kitchen.
Miss Marney was sitting in her rocking chair by the stove and sitting on her shoulder was Jasper who cawed unpleasantly at Kate as she came closer. Kate stood astonished. She could see no trace of his wounds. He seemed totally recovered.
‘Don’t mind him Kate, it’s only talk. Come in, come in – he won’t hurt. You didn’t tell anyone you’d been up here did you?’
‘No, Miss Marney,’ Kate said quite unable to take her eyes off Jasper. ‘But I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘He was almost dead yesterday. How do you do it?’
‘Almost dead, but not quite,’ said the old lady. ‘He’ll need some care, some rest and some good food – meat mind you. He likes his meat, don’t you Jasper? Then he’ll be righter than rain in a few weeks.’
‘But how did you do it, Miss Marney?’ Kate asked reaching out cautiously to smooth Jasper on the head.
‘Oh, I have my ways,’ Miss Marney said chortling. ‘I have my ways. I’m quite pleased with him really. To be honest with you I was quite worried when you brought him in, but there’s not a lot I can’t do if I put my mind to it. Would you have a cup of tea, child? I’ve only one cup. I’ve only ever had need for one cup, you understand. But I’ve had mine so I’ll wash it up and let you have a fresh cup. Jasper will go to you, won’t you Jasper? He can’t fly yet, so come a little closer so that he can hop onto your shoulder. That’s right.’ The raven put its head on one side and looked warily at Kate, who looked back just as warily. ‘Go on Jasper, don’t be silly,’ said the old lady and she jerked her shoulder to get him to move, and Jasper hopped obediently across onto Kate’s shoulder. ‘Quite a weight, isn’t he?’ said Miss Marney. Tea won’t be long. I’ve got the kettle on the boil.’
With Jasper balanced on her shoulder, Kate sipped her sweet strong tea and listened intently to the old lady as she sat back, rocking gently in her chair and talked and talked. It seemed as if she was making up for all those fifty years in which she had spoken to no-one. She talked of all her animal friends on the moor and of her beloved books. She had read every one of them several times over. She dreaded the cold of the winters she told Kate, for there was never enough money to heat the room and keep the damp away from her bones and the mildew away from her books. Her greatest desire in the world, she said, was for a great warm woolly coat and a hat to cover her ears. Every question that Kate wanted to ask she answered before she could even ask it. Miss Marney was a writer, she said, not a good writer, but not a bad one either. She wrote stories about all the people who lived below the Eagle’s Nest, about all the farms she could see from her house, and about the animals and the birds and of course about her moor. But no one would ever read them, she said, because no one would believe them. ‘They would think they are just made-up stories, but everything I write I have seen with my own eye, my mind’s eye perhaps, but I see it just as clear as day.’
Several cups of tea later Kate felt she knew and loved the old lady better than anyone else in the whole world, but one thing still troubled her about Miss Marney.
‘Miss Marney,’ she said. ‘It’s about the bird . . .?’
‘Jasper,’ said the old lady smiling. ‘Jasper. You must call him by his name – it’s only polite you know. All right Kate, I know what you want to know. And you are my friend so you shall know. But you must never tell anyone what I am about to tell you for it is something that people do not understand, and what people cannot understand they fear, and when they fear they hate.’ She sat back in her rocking chair and sighed sadly. ‘I have a gift,’ she said. ‘I do not know where it comes from, but I have the gift of healing.’
‘You mean,’ said Kate, ‘you mean that you can heal anything you want to? Then what they say is true, you are a kind of witch, a good witch.’
The old lady’s eyes were closed and she nodded.
‘I suppose so,’ she said quietly. ‘If it lives I can heal it, that’s all there is to it. So now you know my secret. Guard it well my little friend, for if anyone were ever to find out that Mad Miss Marney really did have strange powers, then you know what they’d do, don’t you?’
‘No, Miss Marney,’ said Kate.
‘They’d put me away, Kate, like they did to my old mother. She had strange powers and they didn’t like it so they sent her to a home and she never came back to me. That’s why I have never trusted anyone before, why I have n
ever told anyone of my gift, except you. And that’s why no one else must ever know.’
It was a slow walk back over the moor with Jasper perched heavily on her shoulder. The warm sun had dispersed the mist and the sea was there again. As Kate came down the track towards home she could see that her usual customers were already waiting outside the greenhouse. She managed to dodge around the back of the house without being seen and lifted Jasper up onto his perch before going down to the bottom of the garden to face her clamouring friends outside the greenhouse. She took their money and put it in the biscuit-tin she used for a bank and then led them back into the stable-yard.
Once outside the stable with her back to the door she proudly introduced her new exhibit.
‘He’s the biggest bird in the world,’ she said. ‘I found him yesterday, wounded up on the moor, shot to pieces he was – didn’t think he’d survive the night. But I brought him back and I nursed him and now he’s righter than rain. ’Course he can’t fly a lot yet, but he will as soon as he’s strong again. He’s called Jasper and he’s a raven and if you want him on your shoulder it’s a penny extra, like the grass snake.’
And then she let them in. His size and his presence overawed and fascinated them totally. He was an immediate success. They could not take their eyes off the enormous black bird that sat glaring down at them from the high hay-rack; and once they had seen him perching on Kate’s shoulder everyone wanted a turn – at a penny a time.
The biscuit-tin bank weighed a lot heavier that night. Kate knew now exactly what she would do with the money, but wondered how she could ever save enough.
It was little Laura Linnet’s mouse that gave her the idea. The next morning she was taking a handful of purloined minced meat into the stable for Jasper’s breakfast when Laura Linnet came running into the yard, her face red and smudged with tears. She had a box in her hands, a brown cardboard box with holes in the top.
‘It’s my mouse,’ she cried. ‘The cat was playing with it and I shooed it away but it’s hurt and I think maybe it’s dead. It’s not hardly moving but I thought if you could mend that big black bird then you could mend my mouse.’
The White Horse of Zennor: And Other Stories Page 8