Death in the aviary, p.9
Death in the Aviary, page 9
Bottle parties, cocktails at The 43, cabarets at Café de Paris, all required “the look.” And Charlotte had it. Or, at least, she knew how to look like she still did with the help of Mrs C. But her facade was wearing as thin as her shoes. Everything was. Not just the chiffon and silk; the appetite was waning as well.
There were fewer revellers at each party now. The guest lists were dwindling, the tables shrinking. She wasn’t the only one in a reworked dress with paste jewellery. Some of the gang had gone back to crumbling houses in the country, some had to stay, their homes sold to pay groaning tax bills.
The public were growing a little tired of their antics. Car races through Piccadilly at dawn, shooting parties and oblivion, it had all been gloriously scandalous for a time, the names infamous. Now, the lens had refocused. She sensed the shift. Almost imperceptible at first. But there were more letters to Nosferatu now. More criticism of their wanton excess. Hadn’t he – they always assumed the column was written by a man – looked out of his window recently? People were hungry. People were losing their jobs. What she was writing about was detached from reality, out of touch, alienated from the real world. Nosferatu was running out of time. Charlotte could see that.
Some of the old gang would always be there doing the same thing. They were estranged enough from the real world to remain indifferent. The likes of Jonty Merrybright and Lady Withers would carry on partying to the bitter end. But most had become exiles in their own country. They weren’t leading the way anymore. They’d been left behind. It wasn’t just the decade that was ending, it was their era.
And it was a relief. Even when Charlotte started as Nosferatu, she knew it wouldn’t last forever, nor did she particularly want it to. She’d always dreamed of being a real journalist. The same round of parties and faces couldn’t go on forever. She was in her own little locked room just living the same life over and over again. This job here at Ravenswick had to work. It was definitely time to find a new, more serious persona than a fictitious vampire who liked cocktail parties.
Charlotte carefully rolled on her last smart stockings, combed down her hair and slowly teased out some more of the old Max Factor lipstick and powder. Another disguise. Another person to be, to find out secrets and tell the world. But now it was more serious. Now it mattered.
She watched herself in the mirror with an absent air of distraction, trying to recapture that bored, decadent look. The hair was the same, the make-up similar. She could almost be that It girl again. Almost. She had to play the part well tonight.
Heskins was waiting to serve cocktails in the sitting room. It felt strange to Charlotte having him mix her drink when she’d emerged from the same door as him earlier tonight. He studiously avoided any form of pleasantries.
Most of the diners were already there, although Lady Ravenswick had sent word that she’d been delayed with her husband but would be joining them for dinner later. They were to start without her.
Heskins handed Charlotte a gin and Dubonnet without looking at her.
“Thank you so much. It looks positively lethal. I’ll have to make sure I don’t get too splifficated!” She gave her usual coquettish, nightclub look and injected a false note of fun. Heskins paid her no attention but the disdain was clear on his face. She began to think her efforts would be wasted here.
However, the man to her side laughed a little. “Is that ornithology speak or flapper girl?”
Charlotte sipped on the drink and eyed the man over the rim of her glass. “I suppose one can be both.” His fine-drawn features were instantly recognisable from the photographs she’d seen in the newspaper reports.
“Edward. Edward Ravenswick.”
She held the drink in her mouth for a moment and tried not to look too interested in the man whose testimony about his brother’s death she’d just been poring over.
He turned to Heskins. “I’ll take one of those too if you don’t mind. I’m sure being splifficated with Miss Blood will be very interesting.”
Edward Ravenswick’s voice had a lazy elegance to it that lingered on every word just a little too long to be polite. There was admittedly an easy manner about him, a kind of languid, relaxed nature that should have put Charlotte at her ease. But men like him never put Charlotte at her ease. That indolent air he’d so meticulously cultivated was designed to be challenging.
There was an unwelcome proximity to his presence. He was only a few inches too close, but it made all the difference to her comfort.
The scent of cologne and cigarettes hung around him in a way that hinted he was a man who liked to do things to excess. She’d met a hundred Edward Ravenswicks in her time and hadn’t liked one of them. Archie used to call them icebergs – there was only a tiny little glimpse on the surface of the kind of man, but beneath, there was a whole lot more going on. And generally, it wasn’t good for anyone else sailing by. Archie was always a good judge of character. He knew the cut of a man in seconds.
He would have known the exact calibre of the man in front of Charlotte now. Edward Ravenswick drank heavily on the cocktail as though he was inhaling it. But she could not square the image of this man with the man in a lift standing over his dead brother, or the man in a courtroom recalling those terrible wide eyes. He was everything he should be, but there was definitely a lot more beneath the gloss of that suave surface, as if more than one man looked out from the same face.
Of course, he was dressed impeccably in white tie with immaculately shined shoes. Everything about him had an icy shine, his skin, those black eyes and his smoothed-down hair. Under the lights, he had a kind of rich glaze to him.
There was a theatre to all this. If she was honest, Charlotte had always loved the extravagant dressing for dinner. There was something faintly childish about it. Uncomplicated. Playing dress-up with adults. But in her experience, when it got to the dinners themselves, that was when they tended to lose their simple fun.
Archie had always looked very handsome in his finery. It was the only part of his wardrobe she’d kept, apart from the socks. The rest had been sold.
“So, how do you like our little Abbey?” Edward looked at Charlotte teasingly.
“It’s very beautiful. I saw your aviary this morning.”
“Oh, so you are interested in all the birds here.” He laughed again with that mocking sound.
“Of course I am. That’s why I’m here, Mr Ravenswick.”
“Edward, please. You can definitely call me Edward. We’re all terribly informal here, as you can see.” He gave a sarcastic little smile that, as with everything else about him, had an almost cruel edge to it. “Now, come on. Let me introduce you to the rest of the flock. You can tell everyone what you think about the birds.”
He guided her towards two women who were sitting as far away as possible from one another on the long sofa, resolutely not speaking. One of the women Charlotte instantly recognised as the youngest sibling. She had the look of a woman who’d had a difficult time emerging from the shell of childhood and had not managed to unfurl quite as effortlessly as the rest of them. It was not only bewildering to her but evidently the source of considerable frustration. Everything about her was awkward and ungainly. In spite of her severe look, adolescence seeped out of her like she was suffering from an illness.
“Miss Blood, meet Mary, my little sister.”
Charlotte knew this patronising introduction all too well. Either Randolph or Bertie would always set her up to be inconsequential and ignored every time with a line like this.
“Hello.” The word sounded very dry. Mary didn’t offer anything else.
“And, the grieving widow,” Edward winked at the woman perched on the other end of the sofa. “Rachel Ravenswick.” Her dress fell in waves of silk shining crow-black under the glittering light. She clicked her long nails against her pearls restlessly. When she looked up from beneath feathery lashes, it was only directly at him. Her eyes didn’t stray anywhere else. Clearly, Charlotte had not mastered widowhood quite as successfully as this lady had.
“This is Miss Blood. The ornithologist flapper.”
The woman cast her a dismissive glance. “Pleased to meet you.” She clearly wasn’t. There was a lithe grace about her. Her limbs liquid as if she could just slip through a person’s fingers. She was elegant but in a self-aware way. This was a woman who wanted people to notice. Most of all, she wanted Edward Ravenswick to notice, and she didn’t care who saw.
There was no subterfuge here. These two were conducting a silent conversation with their eyes, but it was very obvious to Charlotte what they were saying.
“How do you do?” Charlotte used a meek voice. She was an ornithologist after all. “What a delightful gown.” She sipped on her cocktail, attempting to look as demure as possible.
Rachel smirked. “Well, aren’t you just adorable?” She held out a cigarette in a short holder and Edward leaned in to light it. Neither of them looked at the cigarette or the lighter.
They held each other’s gaze until a sharper voice cut in. “I’m his wife, Elizabeth, although you wouldn’t think it.”
Charlotte refocused on the slightly more ruffled-looking woman sitting rigidly in a soft chair beside the sofa. She looked more careworn than the photograph Charlotte had seen of her. Elizabeth’s eyes were ringed with the sort of puce, swollen skin that usually accompanied hours of crying. Maybe that was true, but she didn’t look like the kind of woman to cry easily.
Edward immediately straightened as if called to attention. Rachel blew out a thin stream of blue-grey smoke before nonchalantly tapping the cigarette ash over the back of the sofa.
“Mummy says you’re here to look at our ravens.” The girl, Mary, had an unsteady voice, the kind that seemed to enter every conversation unsure whether it should be heard. It always sounded odd to Charlotte when people the size of adults used the word “Mummy.” It gave the impression of an overgrown child still being squeezed into little girl words and clothes.
“I am, yes.” Charlotte took another drink and tried to ignore the fact that even she didn’t think she sounded convincing.
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Well –” Charlotte took a preparatory breath “– they’re just such fascinating creatures. Did you know they can speak?”
“Of course I do. We all do. We speak to them.”
Edward cleared his throat in embarrassment at the girl’s sudden directness. “Now, Mary, play nicely.” He turned to Charlotte. “You must ignore our baby sis. She doesn’t get out much or have any company… or friends.”
The girl tutted and turned her head away, closing her eyes.
“We used to think it was quite fun to teach the ravens little things,” Edward continued, “you know, silly things to say or rude comments about each other. It’s great fun to watch people’s reactions when they hear Aunt Mildred has a purple bottom.”
“Really, Edward!” Mary exclaimed.
“Mary was too young to play with us.” He sounded suddenly petulant. Even the adults were child-like here. It was as though they’d never been given the chance to grow up and had simply remained in this charmless stasis. Whether that was a choice or not was a different question.
Living together as they always had done with Mummy and Daddy still at the helm was a world Charlotte had found suffocating and could not escape from quickly enough. All those sons and daughters she knew living together in their vast mansions with Mama and Papa never giving them the chance to be anything other than children. All decisions and responsibilities were removed. Life just continued as it always had. Sometimes a spouse would be added into the house, like a playmate coming over for tea who just never left.
It was the same at Bladesworth. First, her brother Bertie arrived home with Hen who was aptly named due to her constant pecking at her new husband. Then Randolph, her other brother, brought Blythe over the threshold and she just drifted around looking pale and miserable all the time.
But nothing was ever really that serious. All those important matters like money, jobs and the business of a home were dealt with elsewhere, with the dirty laundry. She and her brothers were doled out allowances like pocket money and, in turn, had to abide by the rules, forever dependent.
However small their little Bloomsbury flat was, Charlotte had relished being master of her own domain with Archie. In spite of everything, he’d taught her how to spread her wings and be free. She would never let that go.
Charlotte looked at the figures arrayed around the Ravenswick drawing room drama that was being put on for her. They were still children who’d never left the nest. Still with their playroom squabbles and pop guns, only this time the gun was real. And from what she’d seen so far, any one of these people could have pulled the trigger and then hurried off for tea-time.
A gong sounded somewhere outside the room, interrupting her assessment of them.
“Ah, dinner. I’m fam!” Edward announced before reaching down for Rachel’s hand.
She slipped her fingers between his and looked at him coyly. They smiled indulgently. The whole little scene was saccharine and, like everything else here, it had the decided air of being performed for someone else’s benefit.
It was just as they stepped through into the large, ornate dining room that the lights glimmering from the large chandelier flickered then failed. It was nothing dramatic. They just petered out then died as if from old age. The reaction from the assembled party was similarly unimpressed.
“Oh, for God’s sake, it’s every other night now.” Rachel sounded bored with the tediousness of it all.
But Charlotte’s mind instantly leapt to the night of the lift. She couldn’t make out any of the faces or even place them in the room. In that perfect, smothering darkness with no glimmer of light, the confusion and disorientation were easy to envisage. No one would have been clear who or where anyone really was and what they were doing.
The darkness here was immediate and absolute. There were power cuts in the flat in London regularly, but it was nothing like this. In the city, there was always some form of ambient light creeping in through windows or bleeding under doors. Out here, the world instantly reverted to another time, a darker time.
“Don’t move around,” Edward instructed, “you’ll fall over something. I’ve got a lighter. Heskins, have you got matches?” He was efficient and perfectly calm, taking control immediately. The louche, sarcastic man she’d seen earlier was suddenly very much in charge, as if it came naturally to him.
“Yes, sir. I’m lighting up now. The footmen are here too.”
It was all very routine and matter of fact. There seemed to be no urgency, but Charlotte could feel the steady rise of her pulse and the skin stretch tighter at the sides of her eyes as they widened.
“I do wish you’d get this fixed, Edward. Honestly, it’s every time it goes dark now. Only yesterday –”
“Do be quiet, Elizabeth.” His voice was commanding. “No one wants to know what you get up to in the dark.”
“If they weren’t so penny-pinching about staff for the turbine –”
“Be quiet!” Edward barked. As the match lit, his face grew out of the black, the hollows set in deep shadow, each contour darkly defined. Charlotte immediately saw that his eyes were set in an expression of fierce anger. This was not the easy-going fop he’d presented earlier. Another man was looking out from that face again.
He glanced around the semi-lit assembly, suddenly aware of the new light on him. His face changed in an instant and the mocking, supercilious version of him returned. “Aha! Let there be light!”
A sequence of lights were lit in turn like stars growing out of the night sky. First one, then more, each illuminating a new face until the room was glowing in candle flames.
“Apologies for the minor delay, sir,” Heskins said calmly.
“Not at all, Heskins. Marvellous as ever! You’ve saved the day – or night, as it were.” Edward gave a nod and a smile. Any trace of his earlier anger had effortlessly evaporated. “Now, let’s all sit down to dinner by candlelight.”
“I prefer it,” Rachel hummed. “Very romantic.”
“And much more forgiving on an older woman’s features, wouldn’t you say, Rachel?” Elizabeth pushed past her.
“Well, I hate it.” Mary stomped to her place and sat with a petulant look. “It’s very stupid and it needs fixing. Old Jeffers never does it and I don’t understand why we haven’t got the men anymore who used to work there.”
“Because they’re dead, Mary, dear girl,” Edward sneered. “There was a war, if you recall.”
Charlotte looked down quickly but Edward saw it. From his face, he understood immediately, everyone did. Every table in England had seen this look at some point in the last few years.
“Oh, Miss Blood, I do apologise…”
“There’s no need.” She kept her voice under control. She was used to it.
The familiar hole in the conversation opened up. They were less frequent these days but they still left some traces of pain. Not a lot. More a vague remembrance from a scar. It used to explode inside her when anyone clumsily mentioned the war deaths. The fire used to be almost unbearable that anyone could be so thoughtless with his memory, kicking it around like a deflated football in the mud. But now it was awkwardness that nestled into place as if a shameful secret had been exposed. She was a reminder of something it was time to forget. It had been over a decade but the world couldn’t move on from its loss if there was always a grieving widow at the table.
“My brother and I both served, Miss Blood,” Edward added with a new note of sincerity in his voice. It was surprising how seamlessly this man moved from fripperies to serious matters, as if he could see no difference between them. “We were fortunate to survive combat.”
No one spoke, but behind every face the same thought was playing. Charles Ravenswick had survived the horrors of war only to be gunned down in his own home.
