The Witch from the Sea (36 page)

What if I should marry Fenn?

I was sure my mother, if she could do so, would approve of this. She had been very fond of Fenn’s father. He must have been very like Fenn; then why had she married my father?

During that ride home I thought now and then of my father. I seemed to see him for the first time. I did not love him in truth, although I had always thought I had, simply because it was the dutiful thing to love one’s father. I was happier when he was away; I kept out of his range as much as possible. He had very little interest in me, I was sure. Connell had always been his favourite. I wondered then why my mother had loved him more than Fenn’s father. He had probably decided that she should. He was the sort of man who made people’s decisions for them. He was hard and cruel, I knew. I had seen men after they had been whipped because they disobeyed him. There was a whipping-post in the courtyard before the Seaward Tower. The servants were terrified of him.

I wondered what Fenn would think of him, Fenn who was kind. That was what I liked about him. He was so
kind
and gentle too. If he had boys and girls he would never allow the girls to see that he preferred the boys, even if he did. Yet in a way I suppose I was glad my father was not as interested in me as he was in Connell. Connell had had many a beating because he had failed to please my father. I was never beaten because I neither pleased nor displeased.

I was suddenly looking at my home with a new clarity because I was wondering what Fenn would think of it.

My father was at home when we arrived and he and my stepmother came down to greet our guest. I saw the curl of my father’s lip as he studied Fenn, which meant that he did not think very highly of him.

My stepmother smiled a welcome. Even Fenn was startled by her. I tried to look at her afresh. I could not understand quite what that magnetic charm was. She was very beautiful, it was true, but it was not only beauty. There was a sheen about her; it was in everything she did, in her smile and her gestures.

“Welcome to Castle Paling,” she said. “It is good of you to go out of your way to look after my daughters on the road.”

Fenn stammered that it had been his pleasure and was by no means out of his way.

“It’s rarely that we see a Landor within these walls,” said my father. “The last one was my first wife. She would be your aunt, would she not?”

“That’s so,” Fenn replied.

He seemed to shrink before my father, and I felt that old protective instinct, which had amused my mother, rising within me.

I wondered whether my father was going to make sport with him, to trick him into betraying his enthusiasm for the trading company and then show his contempt for it.

My father shouted to one of the servants to prepare a room for our guest and to send another with wine that he might welcome him on his first visit to the castle.

The wine was brought. We drank it and we talked of the death of Captain Pennlyon and the sadness it had caused at Lyon Court.

“A great sailor, my father-in-law,” said my father. “One of the old buccaneers. I’d like to have as many golden crowns as Spaniards he has put to the sword.”

“It was a cruel world in those days,” said Fenn.

“And has it changed? Why, young sir, whether men go in trade or war ’tis all the same. Booty is what they are after and blood and booty go together.”

“We aim to trade through peace.”

My father was laughing to himself. “Aye, ’tis a noble sentiment.”

I was glad when the servants came down to tell us that the room was ready.

“I have ordered that it shall be one of our best rooms,” said my father. “Some of the serving-women will tell you it’s haunted but that will not affect you, I know.”

Fenn laughed. “I’ll swear you have ghosts and to spare in a castle such as this.”

“Ghosts!” said my father. “On the stairways, in the corridors. I’ll tell you, you would be hard pressed to find a room that couldn’t boast of one. This is a castle of legends, sir. A haunted castle. Dark deeds have been done here and some say they leave their mark.”

“I promise you, sir, I fear them not.”

“I knew you would have a bold spirit. Your profession demands it. Though they tell me that sailors are the most superstitious men on the Earth. You tell me, is that true?”

“When they go to sea it is. There are so many evil things that can befall a ship. But those sailors who fear that which is not natural at sea, are bold on land.”

“We are on land but the sea laps at our walls and it would sometimes seem that we are on neither one nor the other. Come, you will wish to go to your room. ’Tis but an hour or so to supper.”

He signed to the serving-girl to show him where he would sleep.

I knew he was being taken to the Red Room.

Supper was a merry meal. My father was in good spirits. My stepmother decided to charm him. She did a little, I noticed with some dismay. She sang a song—in Spanish, I suppose it was. I could not understand the words but it throbbed with tenderness. My father watched her as she sang as though he were bewitched. In fact I think every man present was. I wondered, as I had on many other occasions, what she was thinking.

That night I could not sleep. I kept thinking about Fenn and my grandmother’s hints that I might marry him. I knew that I wanted to. I realized that I loved Fenn and I was the sort of person who would not change. It seemed to me like a pattern. My mother and her Fennimore, both marrying other people to make the way clear for their children.

I was seeing everything with that new clarity which had come to me through the ride from Lyon Court. My home was indeed a strange one. My father accused by his mother-in-law of causing the death of his first wife; his second wife dying mysteriously in her bed; and his third wife a witch.

And the castle—it was a haunted castle, haunted by spectres of the past. There were strange happenings at night. One awoke and was aware of things going on; one had grown accustomed to them and accepted them without asking what they meant. The servants were often uneasy; they were frightened of my father, and those in the Seaward Tower were different from those who attended to our needs in the castle. There were strange comings and goings. I had grown up with these things and had accepted them … until now.

Strangest of all was my stepmother—that foreign woman who spoke so little, who could enchant all men at will—be they young or old; there were strange rumours about her. I knew my own mother had saved her from the sea on Hallowe’en, which, said my practical grandmother, was why the rumour had started.

Perhaps that was so, but it was brought home afresh to me that my mother had been dead but three months when he had married her.

“Tamsyn, are you awake?”

It was Senara. We had continued to share a room. We could have had one each for there were plenty in the castle, but Senara was against it. She liked the room, she said; and she might want to talk in the night. It was like many other rooms in the castle, big and lofty, but it did have one unique feature. One of my ancestors had put in what was called a ruelle. He had lived in France and liked the idea. It was a sort of alcove which was curtained off by a heavy red curtain. Senara had always been fond of hiding behind it and springing out on me in the hope of frightening me.

Now I said: “Yes, I’m awake.”

“You’re thinking about
him
.” She said it accusingly.

“Whom do you mean?” I asked, knowing full well.

“Fenn Landor.”

“Well, he is our guest.”

“You think he is a
special
guest, don’t you?”

“The guest of the moment should always be a special guest.”

“Don’t elude me, Tamsyn. You know what I mean. You like him too much.”

“I just like him.”

“Too much,” she insisted.

I was silent.

She got off her pallet and knelt by mine.

“Tamsyn,” she said very seriously, “no one is going to take you away from me. No one.”

“No one shall,” I said. “You and I will always be as sisters.”

“I would
hate
anyone you liked more than you liked me.”

I thought: She is very young. She’ll grow up.

“Go back to bed, Senara. You’ll catch cold.”

“Remember it,” she said.

The next day when I was showing Fenn round the castle we came to the burial ground near the old Norman chapel. I showed him my mother’s grave in that spot with the other two so that they were a little apart.

“Why,” he said, “that is my aunt’s grave.” He went to it and knelt beside it. “My aunt and your mother. Who is the other?”

I said: “It was a sailor. He was drowned and washed up on our coast. We buried him here.”

“I wonder who he is,” said Fenn.

“I wish I knew. I dare say he has those to mourn for him.”

Fenn was sad and I knew that he was thinking of his father.

“There must be many sailors,” he said, “who are lying in graves unknown to their families.”

“Few are washed up on the shore.”

“No,” he said, “the ocean bed is the graveyard of many, I’ll swear.”

“Do you still think so much of your father?”

“It is six years since we lost him but he is as vivid in my mind as he ever was. You would understand if you had known him. He was a kind, good man in a world that is far from good and kind. That was what made him so outstanding. My mother says he was born before his time. He belonged to a different age, when men had become wiser and kinder because of it.”

“That’s a wonderful thing for a wife to say about her husband.”

“He was a wonderful husband.” He clenched his fists suddenly. “I know I shall find out one day what happened to him.”

“Isn’t it obvious? His ship must have been lost at sea.”

“I suppose you are right, but I have a feeling that some day I shall hear.”

“How wonderful if he came back to her. My grandfather was away for years—captured and made a slave and my grandmother never gave up hope. And he did come back. Poor Grandmother, she feels his loss sadly.”

He was very thoughtful and I longed to share his thoughts.

Then he said suddenly, “Tamsyn, would you do something if I asked you?”

“I am sure I shall. What is it?”

“You have planted rosemary on your mother’s grave.”

“She loved it and so did I and it’s for remembrance.”

“Will you plant a bush on his grave?”

“Of course.”

“An unknown sailor. Who knows where
his
family is? Plant the rosemary and it will be as though you plant it for my father. Will you do that for me, Tamsyn?”

“You may trust me to.”

He stood up and took my hands in his. Then he kissed me lightly on the forehead.

I was blissfully happy because that kiss while he stood close to my mother’s and the unknown sailor’s grave was a symbol. It was like plighting my troth. I knew that I loved Fenn. I was not sure whether he loved me but I thought he did.

Fenn left next day but not before I had planted my rosemary bush. I saw how pleased he was.

“I know you are the sort of girl who would keep her promises,” he told me.

Before he left he said that he wanted me to come and stay with his parents. He would arrange that they should soon invite me.

I waved farewell to him and then went right up to the ramparts so that I should see the last of him.

Senara came and stood beside me.

“You’re madly in love with him,” she accused me.

“I like him,” I admitted.

“You show it. You shouldn’t do that. You should be aloof; it is for him to fall madly in love with
you
. Now I suppose he will ask for your hand in marriage and then you will go away to that place of his and I shan’t see you any more.”

“What nonsense!”

“It’s not nonsense. I shall be left here and I don’t like it.”

“When I marry—if I do—you shall come and stay with me.”

“What’s the use of that? We’ve always been together. We’ve shared a room. You’ve been my sister ever since I could remember.”

She was pouting and sullen. Then her eyes were suddenly mischievous. “What if I made an image of him and stuck pins in it? Then he’d die because I’d pierce his heart. No one would know how he died … except me.”

“Senara, I hate to hear you talk like that. It’s all such nonsense.”

“People do die … cows die, sheep die … as well as people. No one knows what killed them. There is no sign at all … They just die. It’s the evil eye. What if I put it on your precious lover?”

“You couldn’t and you wouldn’t … even if he were my lover, which he is not. He is merely a good friend. And, Senara, I beg of you do not say such things. It is dangerous to talk so. People hear it and take it seriously. You mustn’t say it.”

She dodged back from me and put out her tongue. A favourite gesture of hers which was meant to irritate.

“You are no longer a child, Senara,” I said. “You must be sensible.”

She stood still, her arms folded, mocking me.

“I
am
sensible. They are always saying my mother is a witch. Well, I’m a witch too. Nobody knows where we came from, do they? How do I know, how do you know, who my father is?”

“Senara, you are talking dangerously. Your mother had the misfortune to be wrecked at sea. My mother saved her life. You were about to be born. It is all easy to understand.”

“Is it, Tamsyn? Is that what you really think?”

“Yes, it is,” I said firmly.

“You always believe what you want to. Everything is good and nice, according to you. Other people don’t always think so. And one thing, don’t imagine you are the only one who has a lover.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, wouldn’t you like to know?”

I very soon did know. It suddenly occurred to me that Senara had inherited that indefinable quality from her mother. In the days which followed she seemed to grow more beautiful; she was passing out of her childhood and she was of a type to mature early. Her body had become rounded, her long eyes languorous and full of mystery—so like her mother’s. When she danced with Dickon she was so lovely that it was impossible to take one’s eyes from her.

Dickon adored her. When he danced with her there was such happiness in his movements that it was a joy to watch them. He would sit and play the lute to her and sing songs of his own composing. They seemed all to be about the charms of a dark-eyed maiden, who tantalized him and tormented him while she enchanted him.