Witch from the Sea

“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?”