Cora Ravenwing (4 page)

Then she turned her bright, black eyes on me and reached out a hand, perhaps to comfort me, I don’t know. Her
outstretched
arm was silhouetted against the sun like a black stick with five bony prongs on the end. It seemed to be coming for me. “Don’t touch me!” I screamed. I leapt up and ran for my life, helter-skelter over all the graves, through the gate and off down the lane to the village. I didn’t stop till I burst in through our own back door.

“Becky! Becky! What’s happened?” gasped Mother,
folding her big warm arms round me. But I couldn’t speak for panting and trembling. She sat me down and made sweet tea. As I sipped it and began to recover, she said: “Did someone hurt you, darling?”

“No, no,” I said, seeing the extent of her anxiety. “It was Cora.”

“Cora!” she exclaimed. “What on earth’s Cora done?”

“Nothing really, I don’t think,” I said. “I just felt scared out of my wits—I thought she was a witch or a skeleton raised from the dead.” Just talking about it brought the scene vividly back to me and I quaked with fright again.

Joseph looked up from his building-set on the floor. “Is Cora a witch?” he asked. “A real witch? Can she do spells?”

“Be quiet, Jo, and don’t talk rubbish,” snapped Mother. Then she turned to me again. “Now look, Becky,” she said. “You’re just letting your imagination run wild. Cora is a perfectly ordinary, rather lonely, child. She’s got quite enough to contend with without you using her tragic little life to frighten yourself to death with. Where is she now? Have you just run off and left her somewhere?”

“She’s in the graveyard,” I said, “talking to the spirit of her mother who’s buried there, if you want to know.” I said all this in a rush of hatred for Mother because she was scolding me and blaming me and accusing me of somehow exploiting Cora’s misfortune for the sake of morbid
titillation
. Then I started to sob and I told Mother all about our visits to the graveside and Cora’s odd behaviour there and how it had always given me the shivers despite my efforts to view it calmly and rationally.

From time to time Mother glanced at Jo to see if he was listening, but he was absorbed in an attempt to construct a crane. Dory was upstairs in his cot, having an afternoon
rest. “I’m sorry I was sharp with you, darling,” she said when I’d finished. “Really I was just relieved that it was only Cora who’d frightened you. When you came rushing in I didn’t know what had happened. But I do think you’ve been seeing rather a lot of Cora recently and it seems to be getting you down. It’s sad when we meet people who’re lonely and friendless, and we want to make it up to them somehow. But we can’t always. Just be a normal friend to her, Becky. Don’t try to make her happy overnight; don’t take her over; don’t think you can compensate for
everything
she’s missed. Just see her now and then. By all means be open and friendly but make an effort to make other friends too.”

I could see that she was right. I had been thinking I could organize Cora, change her ways, help her to be happier. But during the graveyard visits she almost seemed to be taking me over, compelling me to spectate her strange transformation and become a witness to her
communications
with her dead mother. It had finally preyed on my mind to the extent that I was just about ready to believe she was in touch with the supernatural, with her black, piercing eyes, her bony, skeletal arms and legs and her weird, gleeful dancing there amongst the dead.

I
T WAS ALL TO THE GOOD
,
THEREFORE, THAT A DAY OR TWO
after that Mother went to her first meeting of the Mothers’ Union in the church hall and met Hermione Phillips’s mother. She came home brimming with satisfaction and told me she’d solved my problems already. “I’ve had a really good afternoon,” she said, taking Dory on her knee and sitting down on the wicker chair in the kitchen to tell Jo and me her news. “First we had a pleasant talk about flower arrangement and then we sat at tables for afternoon tea. The vicar’s wife made a point of introducing me to several people and I finally shared a table with a Mrs. Phillips …”

“Were there cakes?” asked Jo.

“Er—yes, a few, and biscuits. Now, this Mrs….”

“What kind?” asked Jo.

“Swiss rolls. Now, Jo, let me tell Becky something …” Jo slid off his chair and wandered off into the garden. Mother looked guilty. “Has he been all right while I’ve
been away? Do you need a baby-sitter, Becky, or can you really manage the boys?”

“Course I can. Not at night—but I can during the day. Dory’s only just woken up, anyway. Jo’s fine—he’s just bored. What were you going to tell me?”

“Well, Mrs. Phillips has a daughter, Hermione, at
Okington
School and she’s your age, so you’ll probably be in the same class. She’s suggested that you go there for tea tomorrow so the two of you can meet.”

“Just me? Or all of us?” I felt nervous of going by myself.

“She asked us all but I thought it’d be silly to take the boys. There’s nothing there for them and they’d just
interrupt
and probably spoil things. So I said you’d go on your own.”

“Oh, Mummy! What if she doesn’t like me? Oh, I really think it’d be better if we all went …”

“Well, I don’t. Honestly, Becky, I was thinking of you. I’d quite like to see Sylvia Phillips again, but I just thought we’d all cramp your style. Now, it really is time you began to stand on your own feet a bit. It’ll only be a couple of hours or so. And I’m sure Hermione will be awfully nice—her mother is.”

The next afternoon it was sunny again; we were having a beautiful summer that year. I put on one of my two non-school summer dresses and hoped that Hermione and her mother would like me in it. Mother said she thought it’d be more suitable than shorts for meeting them the first time. It was Saturday and she said she’d walk the boys round to the Phillipses’ with me just to show me the way. Father would stay behind to tidy up the garden. I said I thought I’d look a bit babyish being delivered at the door but Mother said there wouldn’t be a chance of them being
seen. I saw what she meant when we arrived. The Phillipses’ house, which was actually quite near ours, was out of sight from the village street, up a private drive bordered by rhododendrons. There were huge stone gateposts on either side, though the gates had long since been taken away, and a discreet wooden sign to one side bore the inscription: “Stansfield House.”

“Mummy! You didn’t say they were grand …”

Mother smiled. She had known I’d falter at this point and that’s why she’d come. “They’re not that grand,” she said, laughing at my dismay. “They’ve just got a bit of money, that’s all. Now, in you go, love, and have a good time. You look very nice.”

She gave me a prod and I started off up the sandy drive, which curved away to the right so that Mother and the boys couldn’t stare after me for long. I was glad; I felt very awkward and shy and didn’t want to be watched. I half expected an irate gardener to step out of the bushes and order me off the premises. Instead, a girl on a red bicycle suddenly wobbled into sight along the bumpy track. I stopped and she stopped and said: “Are you Rebecca Stokes?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Hermione Phillips.” She got off the bike and turned it round and we carried on up the drive together in silence.

“What a lovely house!” I said when it came into view. It was enormous—three storeys high, with an arched front door and huge windows on either side. To right and left were low outhouses—stables, garages, greenhouses, As we got nearer, the rhododendron drive gave way to a stony forecourt where a land rover and a sports car were parked.

“Are you one of a very huge family?” I asked.

“Five children.” She parked her bicycle and pushed the
heavy oak door open with her shoulder. “I’ve got four brothers. I’m the youngest.”

I followed her into a small lobby and we were instantly confronted by an inner door which she pushed open, using most of the strength of her small frame. She was very slender and fair, with masses of tight curls all over her head. I didn’t feel very pretty in comparison and thought I should be doing all the pushing and shoving at these massive doors. She led me across a big panelled hall with a polished floor dotted with foreign-looking rugs; the stairs, with their carved banisters, ran diagonally up the far wall.

“Mummy, I’ve got Rebecca,” she called, and took me into a wide, bright kitchen. Mrs. Phillips was reaching tea things down from the Welsh dresser and laying the table for quite a number. I was horrified. This was all going to be a tremendous ordeal—four big brothers and Hermione and her mother and father all at once.

“Hello, Rebecca,” said Mrs. Phillips. “How nice to meet you, dear. Sit down for a minute till you feel more at home. How are you liking life in our little village?”

“Very much, thank you, Mrs. Phillips,” I said, all pink with confusion. I sat down on one of the pine chairs as she’d said, but wished I hadn’t as Hermione wandered round the room restlessly and seemed to want to be elsewhere.

“When’s tea, Mummy?”

“Another half hour or so, dear. Daddy’s taken the car in for a service and he’s walking back with Hector and James. Shall we wait till they get back?”

“All right.” But Hermione tossed her head as if that idea didn’t suit her at all. Then she began to bite a thumb nail.

“What is it, sweetheart?” said Mrs. Phillips gently. “Do you want to show Rebecca the garden?”

“Mmmm. I was just thinking it’d be difficult for us to talk with the boys and Daddy milling round cracking jokes. Couldn’t we have tea on our own?”

Mrs. Phillips was so understanding then. She didn’t insist on our fitting in with her arrangements but suggested making us a little picnic tea and, in no time, Hermione and I were out through the back door with sandwiches and orange juice and meringues in a basket. I thought disloyally of how my own mother would have put her foot down and made us wait in the kitchen. “Your mother’s really nice,” I said to Hermione.

“I know,” she said. She looked at me intently and paused in the middle of the lawn. “Do you think I’m spoiled?”

“Oh, I’ve no idea,” I said. “I suppose you might be—being the youngest and the only girl. But I didn’t mean that. I just thought it was kind of her to make us a picnic.”

“Yes, it was,” agreed Hermione, “but I didn’t really think twice about it till you mentioned it.”

We walked across the grass towards some big trees at the end of the garden. A swing and a rope ladder hung from the thick branches of one of them. The sun shone down on us. I felt warm and happy in my light cotton frock with my new friend. “It’s perfect here, Hermione.”

“Do you think so?” she said. “I’m glad. I love it too. We’re so lucky. Do let me show you the whole garden—it’s really beautiful.”

It was—big and beautiful. Beyond the trees there was a sunken rose garden with crazy-paving pathways running between the beds. Then there was a spinney of silver birch trees and finally a paddock where two horses were grazing. We sat on the gate watching them and trying to tempt them over with bunches of grass, but they were content to stay
where they were, eating the grass at their feet and flicking the flies away with their long tails.

“They’re not ours,” said Hermione. “Someone from the village rents the paddock and stables from Daddy. He says he’s pleased to have them in use.”

We sat in the sunshine and began to talk about schools—the one I’d just left and Okington, where it seemed more than likely we would be form-mates next term. She told me about her two friends and the teacher we would be having and rules that were strictly upheld and
lunch-time
arrangements and the school uniform. She seemed to enjoy the school very much and I became quite excited at the prospect of starting there.

“It all sounds very nice,” I said. “Actually I’ve already met someone who’s probably in the same class.”

“Who’s that?”

“A girl called Cora Ravenwing.”

“Oh
her
!” said Hermione. I waited for her to say something else but she didn’t.

“She seems quite nice,” I persisted, “but difficult to get to know and a bit odd in some ways.”

“Mmmm,” said Hermione. “Well, I don’t know her really. She is in our class but … Are you
very
friendly with her?”

“Not very,” I said. “We haven’t been here all that long, so I couldn’t know her very well yet. But she’s always coming round for me. Actually, she seems a bit lonely. She says she hasn’t got any friends at all—is that right?”

“I suppose it is,” said Hermione.

“Why not?”

Hermione didn’t seem to want to answer. She shrugged and screwed up her eyes as if it was a terribly difficult question. Then she jumped down from the gate and said:
“Look. I want to show you something else, something very special. It’s a secret place of my own. Let’s have our tea there. And I’ll tell you a bit about Cora Raven wing, though I don’t really know if I should.”

Not far from the paddock was a thicket of slender new saplings covered with silky pale green leaves. Hermione dropped to her knees and began to crawl along a little passage. “Isn’t it super?” she said, “I call it Paradise—that’s from
What
Katy
Did.
Have you read it? She had a special place of her own called that.” We crawled along for quite a way and then came out into a tiny, circular
clearing
. “Isn’t it odd,” said Hermione, “how none of the
saplings
have rooted themselves just here? I don’t understand it at all. But it makes a perfect, secluded little den.”

“It’s lovely,” I agreed. Above us the sky was bright blue and all around the saplings encircled us with a fluttering leafy screen.

“I write poetry here,” said Hermione, stroking a leaf between finger and thumb. “I write quite a lot of nature poetry. I love nature. A lot of lines seem to come into my head when I lie in here alone on days like this and listen to the birds and watch the leaves. And, if you really look around you, you see such brilliant details—Look at this moss, for instance. It grows round the roots of nearly all the saplings but you don’t notice it at first.”

I didn’t say that I’d seen it all the way along the
passageway
as we’d crawled in. But I remembered Cora’s scorn of Hermione’s verse. “I’ve tried to write poetry myself,” I said, hesitating to invade her domain.

“How super, Rebecca! I’ve been dying to meet someone who was really interested. My other friends at school think it’s a bit arty-crafty.” She seemed genuinely pleased and wanted me to recite a specimen of my work.

“I’ll let you read some of it next time I see you,” I said, delaying an embarrassing moment. “And I’d like to read some of yours too.”

It was the discovery of this shared interest that seemed to decide Hermione that I was really all right. She’d been tense till then, trying to sum me up, but now she seemed to accept me. We sat up and divided the picnic and, as we ate, she began to tell me about Cora Ravenwing.

“She’s very unpopular at school and in the village
generally
,” she said. “None of the mothers like her, so nobody ever talks to her much or asks her home to tea or
anything
like that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, we’re not supposed to talk about it all really. You won’t say I told you …?”

“No, no. I won’t.”

“Well, there are stories about her. People say she’s peculiar …”

“Peculiar!”

“Well, they say she was born odd.” Hermione was in difficulties, it seemed, not wanting to say more than she had to, but I was insistent.

“What do you mean—‘odd’?”

“Oh, dear,” said Hermione. “I shouldn’t say. I promised Mummy I wouldn’t gossip about her …”

“
Please
tell me,” I pleaded.

“Well, they say she killed her mother,” said Hermione suddenly. And once she’d said this much she just went on and spilled out the whole weird tale in a rush. “Her mother was apparently a very beautiful gypsy sort of woman—very young. She and Mr. Ravenwing came to live in Okefield a year before Cora was born and everyone really took to Mrs. Ravenwing. The husband was a bit quiet and retiring
but people just assumed that went with his job somehow—he’s a grave-digger. And Mrs. Ravenwing always seemed so happy that people were sure he must be very nice really. She used to wander round in all weathers, singing all the time and gathering flowers, which she used to press and paint and make medicines out of and all sorts. She did all the floral decorations in the church and used to do
marvellous
displays for weddings and very pretty funeral wreaths. She used wild flowers nearly all the time and even in winter she managed to find evergreens or attractive twigs—things you wouldn’t usually notice.”

“Cora did tell me she was a great naturalist. Apparently she wrote diaries about plants and things.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Hermione. “But lots of people actually bought her flower paintings. We’ve got two up in the house … Anyway, she seemed to be in perfect health all the time she was expecting Cora, absolutely blossoming and looking forward to having her baby. Then, the next thing that was heard, she was dead—died in childbirth at home—no midwife there or anything—just Mr. Ravenwing and the new baby.”

“Well, that’s very sad—but I can’t see why it’s made all the mothers dislike Cora.”

“I know. It does seem queer, but there’s lots more to it than that. Mummy tried to explain it all to me ages ago, when there were an awful lot of strange rumours
circulating
about how Cora was turning out, and they seemed to fit in with the dreadful things that Mrs. Briggs had said about her when she was a baby.”