Witch from the Sea

by Philippa Carr

  Senara said I should not reproach myself. She had been so sick and naturally I stayed with her. My mother had not exactly been ill, or if she had no one had known it.

  “Besides,” said Senara, “what could you have done?” She was only eight years old then and I couldn’t explain to her this uncanny feeling I had. It was because my mother and I were so much in harmony. I felt she knew something that she hadn’t told me. If she had, I might have understood. I remember how angry I was with myself for being so young.

  When my grandmother suggested I go back with her I said that I couldn’t leave Senara, so she immediately said that Senara must come too. I told Senara and she was pleased; she wanted to get away from the castle and my father raised no objection to our going. I had never known my father so quiet before.

  I felt a little comforted to be at Lyon Court. I had always enjoyed my visits there. Lyon Court was a young house compared with the castle. It seemed open, frank, candid … which doesn’t seem the right word with which to describe a house, but I use it in comparison with the castle—which was sly, in a way, full of secrets—having stood so long, I suppose. There had been a castle there in Norman days and of course it had been improved on over the Plantagenet years. My grandmother said that Lyon Court was ostentatious and that the Pennlyons wanted everyone to know that they had made a fortune. It was the sort of house which was proud of itself, if you can think of houses having personalities, which I do; and as a proud house it was a happy one.

  The gardens were famous in the neighbourhood for their beauty and my grandfather liked that to be kept up. At this time of year there was not much blooming, naturally, but there was that air of promise of spring and summer glory.

  We could see across Plymouth Hoe and out to the Sound with the ships coming and going. Senara loved it and as she had not suffered as much as I had over my mother’s death—although she had loved her too—she began to be excited about being at Lyon Court. Sometimes she would laugh aloud and then look at me in dismay. I would tell her she was not to worry if she forgot now and then because that would please my mother if she were aware of what was happening here. She would not wish us to mourn more than we could help.

  My Aunt Damask who was fifteen—young for an aunt—was told by her mother to look after us and she did; but she was unhappy for she had loved my mother dearly, as all seemed to who had known her.

  Looking back at that visit I think of sadness. We could not escape our sorrow by leaving the castle. This was my mother’s old home. At the great table in the lofty hall she had sat; she had climbed the staircases, walked along the gallery, ate here, slept here, laughed here. The memory of her was as strong here as it was at the castle.

  But it was not unrelieved gloom because of the Landors. They had been staying with my grandmother for Christmas, and when she had heard of my mother’s death and had come at once to the castle, they had left Lyon Court and gone to visit other members of the trading company and were calling back for another brief stay on their way to their home at Trystan Priory. I had heard the name Landor now and then and I knew that this family was connected with my grandfather’s business, a great trading concern which was often spoken of with a kind of awe. I had gathered that my father was a little sceptical of it, for I had seen his lips curl when it was mentioned.

  Senara and I were in the gardens with Damask, who was playing a song she had learned. I knew her mother had told her that she must try to take my mind off my mother’s death and this was what she was attempting to do. There was a clatter of horses’ hoofs and the sound of voices, all of which I connected with arrivals. Damask stopped playing and said: “Someone has come. I wonder who?”

  Senara jumped up and was ready to go and see who it was. She was volatile and impulsive. I continually had to curb her.

  I said, “We ought to wait until we are sent for, shouldn’t we, Damask?”

  Damask agreed with me. “People often come,” she said. “Do you have many visitors at Castle Paling?”

  I thought of the visitors—the squires of the neighbourhood who came when invited for Christmas and such festivities; we had always known when to expect them. There were others though who came unexpectedly. They weren’t ordinary visitors. They came to talk business with my father and I remember that my mother always seemed uneasy when they were in the house.

  “We have a few,” I said.

  “We have lots,” said Senara, who liked everything of hers to be bigger and better than anyone else’s. She had a habit of deceiving herself into thinking that it was. I checked her when I could.

  “When your grandfather is here the house is often full,” said Damask.

  I was glad he was not there. I knew his grief would be loud and vociferous. He would be angry because my mother had died and seek to blame someone. He always looked round for a culprit when anything went wrong. He would demand why doctors had not been called and blame my father. I knew he would. I did not want my father to be blamed.

  “We shall soon know who it is,” I said.

  And so we did.

  I believe now that meeting Fenn Landor at that time helped me far more than anything else could. He too was ten years old—a few months older than I was. A good-looking boy with deep blue eyes; he was very serious. Perhaps because we were of an age, he singled me out for a special companion—Senara was too young, Damask too old, and through him I began to be interested in life again as, in my ten-year-old ignorance, I had thought I never could be.

  He liked us to be alone so that he could talk. He chafed against his youth and longed to be a man. We would go off together and lie on the cliffs looking over the sea; or sometimes we would ride together. My grandmother, watching us closely, allowed this. I realized that she thought that Fenn could do more for me than perhaps anyone. He was not part of my old life as the rest of them were. He was someone entirely new and when I was with him I could cease to think of my tragedy for half an hour at a time.

  He told me about his father, who according to him had been the finest man in the world. “He wasn’t rough and swaggering as so many men are,” he told me. “He was good and noble. He hated killing people. He never killed a man in his life. He wanted to bring good into people’s lives.”

  “When did he die?”

  “People say he is lost but I don’t believe it. He’ll come back one day. He was due to come home. We watched for him every day. Every morning when I wake up I say to myself: ‘This will be the day.’ And it goes on and on …”

  I could see a look of blank despair in his face and I longed to comfort him. I knew that although he said he believed his father was alive, he feared that he was not.

  “His ship was the Landor Lion. It was a joint venture—the Pennlyons and the Landors, you see. My family and your grandfather’s.”

  “Ships are often delayed for months.”

  “Yes, but you see this one was sighted off the coast in October and there was a great storm.”

  “I remember the great storm.”

  “So you see …”

  “Go on hoping,” I said. “Strange things happen to ships. It might not have been his ship that was sighted. You can’t be sure.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “You can’t be sure.”

  Then he told me about the new East India Company which had been founded and he talked glowingly of the progress it had made, and how his father had been instrumental in making it great.

  “It was his idea really, you see. It started long ago before I was born. It was after the defeat of the Armada. My father believed that peaceful trading was the answer to our problems.” I noticed with a touch of sorrow that he talked of his father in the past tense and I knew that in his heart he could not help thinking he was dead.

  “How old will you have to be before you join your father?” I said deliberately, to restore his belief.

  He smiled suddenly, dazzlingly; he had a beautiful face when he was happy.

  “Sixteen perhaps. Six whole years.”

&
nbsp; I was able to tell him about my mother’s death and that was the reason I was at Lyon Court with my grandmother. I found I could talk to him of that sad event more calmly than with anyone else. It was because he too had lost a deeply loved one. The bond was instantly formed between us. I knew he had loved and admired his father more than anyone, just as I had loved and admired my mother.

  Thus we could comfort each other.

  I made him tell me about ships and the company. His father had talked a great deal to him. I could imagine the sort of father he had been—a father of whom his children need never be afraid and for whom they had the utmost love and affection and above all respect. An ideal father. To have had such a father was a great blessing, but alas, to lose him must be the greatest tragedy.

  Once he said to me: “Why is it that we have never met before? We often come here. You must do too, for this is the home of your grandparents.”

  I admitted it was strange, for we had come frequently.

  “We must just have missed each other.”

  There was no doubt that Fenn and I did a great deal for each other and my grandmother was pleased about this.

  There was one strange incident which happened during that visit and which I could never forget.

  Senara, Damask and I shared a room at Lyon Court. It was a big room and there were three beds in it. One night I lay sleepless, for I had not slept well since my mother’s death. I dreamed a good deal about her and I would wake up suddenly and imagine she was calling to me to come to her for she was afraid of something. This dream was a recurring one. In it I was always fighting to get to her and was unable to reach her. I would call out in my despair and then I was awake.

  This is what happened on that particular night. I woke up wretched and sat up in bed, being unable for the moment to realize where I was. Then out of the gloom the familiar objects took shape—the planked hutch, the table with the carved panels and the two other pallets on which lay Damask and Senara.

  I could hear the sound of someone’s crying. I got out of bed, wrapped a robe about me and opened the door. I went into the corridor. The crying was coming from the room next to ours.

  I knocked lightly on the door and as there was no answer I opened it gently. In the window seat, sitting very still, the tears falling unheeded down her cheeks, was Fenn’s grandmother.

  She started up as I entered. I said quickly: “I’m sorry. I heard your crying. Is there anything I can do?”

  “It is Tamsyn,” she said. “Did I awaken you?”

  “I was not sleeping very well.”

  “You too are grieving,” she said. “My poor child, you have lost your mother. I have lost my daughter and my son.”

  “Perhaps he did not drown.”

  “Yes, he did. He comes to me in dreams. His eyes are empty sockets and the fishes swim round him; the sea has him; he lies deep on the sea bed and I shall never see my beloved son again.”

  There was something alarming about the wildness in her eyes and I could see that her grief was an illness and that she was deeply stricken by it.

  “Both my son … and my daughter,” she said.

  “Your daughter too?”

  “My daughter was murdered,” she said.

  “Murdered!” I whispered.

  She caught her breath in a gasp of horror and then she said: “You are little Tamsyn Casvellyn. I must not talk to you of my daughter.”

  “You may talk to me of anything if it comforts you to do so.”

  “My dear child,” she said. “My poor dear child.”

  I cried a little because, as Fenn helped me to forget my grief, she brought it back in all its vividness. I was right back in that dreadful morning when I had gone into my mother’s bedroom and seen her lying there. I could hear Jennet babbling of what she had found and all my misery swept over me afresh.

  She rocked me to and fro. “Life has been cruel to us both, my child, cruel … cruel …”

  “When did your daughter die?”

  “Before you were born … It had to be before you were born.” I did not understand that, but I had already discovered that she was incoherent.

  “She was murdered by her husband. He is a murderer. One day fate will catch up with him. You’ll see. It will be so. I am sure of it. And now my beautiful boy is taken from me by the sea. He was so young to die. Why did it have to happen to him? Within a few miles of the coast he was …”

  “Perhaps he will come back.”

  “Never,” she said. “I shall never see his face again.”

  “At least,” I said, “You have hope.”

  And I thought: I have no hope. I have seen my mother laid in her grave. Vividly into my mind there flashed the picture of the family burial ground—the grave of my father’s first wife and that of the unknown sailor and my mother’s.

  She started to talk then, of her son Fennimore and his ambitions. “No mother ever had a better son. He was noble, he was good. He was a great man. And my daughter … my little girl. She was frail. She should never have married. But it seemed natural and there was that … that”—her voice sank to a whisper—“that monster!”

  I tried to soothe her. I said she must go back to bed. But she would not be soothed; she started to lament loudly and I could not calm her.

  I did not know what to do because she was becoming hysterical and I thought she must be ill. She clung to me, but I managed to disengage myself and I went along to my grandmother’s room.

  I wakened her and told her what had happened.

  “Poor woman,” she said, “she is in a sorry state. This terrible disappearance of her son has brought back the tragic loss of her daughter. She gives way to her grief and I fear it will unhinge her mind.”

  We went back to her. She was sitting there, her hands covering her face while she rocked back and forth in her misery.

  My grandmother said to me: “You should go to bed, my child.”

  I did not take any notice. I felt there was something I could do.

  “Come, Janet,” said my grandmother, “you should go to bed. I will bring you something to make you sleep.” She took Janet Landor’s arm and I took the other. We led her to her bed.

  “Lie still,” soothed my grandmother. “Try to sleep. Don’t brood, it can do no good. We can best help ourselves and others by stifling our grief.”

  I was proud of her because I knew how she suffered from my mother’s death and I wanted to be like her.

  “That child’s mother,” whispered Janet, “was she murdered too?”

  My grandmother had taken me by the arm.

  “She is rambling,” she whispered to me. “Now, Tamsyn, go back to your bed. Try not to disturb the others. I will look after this lady. Good night, my child.”

  I went away wondering about poor Janet Landor; and there was one phrase which kept ringing in my head: “That poor child’s mother … was she murdered too?”

  She must have been referring to my mother, and what did she mean?

  My grandmother had said she was rambling and she was certainly hysterical. She could not have been referring to my mother!

  I did not see Janet Landor for several days and when I did she was quiet again and although I forgot that nightly disturbance the memory of it was to return to me with some force later.

  Senara and I stayed with my grandmother until the spring. It was May when we went back to the castle.

  A surprise awaited us. Our father had married again. Senara’s mother was to be my stepmother.

  After coming back from Lyon Court, Castle Paling seemed an alien place, which was strange for it had always been my home. Everything seemed to have changed since we had been away. My mother’s influence had been eliminated entirely and in its place was something new—intangible; it was hard to say what.

  Some of the furnishings had been changed—the bedchamber which my mother and father had shared was entirely different. There were rich velvet hangings about the bed and at the windows. There was a foreign look a
bout it. I looked into the Red Room. That had been left exactly as it always had been. I remembered all the stories I had heard about its being haunted. My mother’s sitting-room which she had used so much was also left untouched. There was her carved wooden chair and the table on which stood the rather large sandalwood writing-desk of which she had always been fond.

  Senara was secretly proud that her mother instead of being a rather mysterious guest in the castle was now the undisputed mistress of it. She had previously, I think, felt something of an outsider and that was why I constantly tried to remind her that I thought of her as my sister.

  The servants had changed. They whispered a lot; they were constantly crossing themselves as though for protection against the evil eye. I knew that they were afraid of my stepmother Maria; sometimes I thought even my father was a little.

  I could not suppress a certain resentment. In the first place I hated to see someone in my mother’s place; in the second, I thought it had happened too quickly. Three months after she had died my father had married my stepmother; and the fact that she had been living in the castle was somehow even more shocking.

  My father had never taken much notice of me. Connell was his favourite. He had little regard for girls—at least, not for his own daughter. He kept out of my way after my return almost as though my presence embarrassed him. He knew how very devoted my mother and I had been to each other.

  At first Senara gave herself airs but that was very soon at an end. The friendship between us was too firm for anything to harm it. The fact that her mother had taken my mother’s place might have caused a rift in some cases, not with us. My father engaged a tutor to give us lessons because my mother had done so in the past, and he was already installed at the castle—a Master Eller—he seemed aged, but I doubt he was much more than forty-five. He was strict and serious and even Connell had to pay attention, although he hated lessons and at twelve years old thought he should have been beyond them.

  Jennet had scarcely changed except that she had aged a little. I think my mother’s death had shocked her deeply. She was only a year younger than my grandmother and I knew she had regarded my mother as her own daughter. She used to go about muttering to herself and she harboured a dislike for my stepmother which she was afraid to show.