Witch from the Sea

I forgot a little of the sorrow I had left behind me at Lyon Court when I was riding along with Fenn. He talked a great deal about the trading company and how they would miss my grandfather. “But it is some years since he went to sea. He was a great sailor. I don’t think he ever quite got over the loss of the Landor Lion. It seemed so strange to disappear like that … after it had been sighted quite near the Sound.”

I was afraid he was going to talk about his father, and although I was very interested I knew it was a depressing subject and I wanted to get away from depression. I kept thinking about my mother who might have married his father and if she had how different everything would be.

It had put an idea into my head which might have been there before. What I mean was that I recognized it was a possibility and it was one which gave me a great deal of pleasure.

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.”