Witch from the Sea

“I can’t sleep. I’m thinking of the future. Of Melanie coming here and your going away. An exchange, that’s what they want—you will go to Trystan Priory as the bride of holy Fenn and Melanie comes here to take your place. I won’t have it. I won’t have her in place of you. You are my blood-sister and where you go I shall go.”

“I could take you with me.”

“See, you have already made up your mind to go. Do not think that I shall allow you to go to your lover. I must have a lover; or I must be with you. Perhaps I will take your lover and I will be the one to go to Trystan Priory as the bride and you will come there and stay with me. That would be a complete turn about.”

“I never heard such nonsense. I am going to sleep now if you won’t.”

“Tamsyn,” she wailed.

But I did not answer her. I lay still pretending to sleep but of course I could not. I kept thinking about Connell’s marrying Melanie. I did not think she would be very happy. Then I thought of my marrying Fenn and going to Trystan Priory which would be my home for ever after.

The next morning Fenn asked me if I would take a ride with him. I was very happy to agree to this and I wondered whether during the ride he would ask me to marry him.

Before we went to the stables he said he would like to visit the burial grounds and we did. The rosemary bush was flourishing.

“I watched over it,” I said. “See this creeper. It is going from my mother’s to the grave of the unknown sailor.”

“In time,” he said, “it will cover them both.”

He stood up and took my hands in his.

“Thank you for caring for this grave, Tamsyn. I dare say you will think I am fanciful. You see, I don’t know where my father lies and in a way this is a sort of substitute.”

“I understand absolutely. I should feel the same. Rest assured that I will always care for the grave.”

He looked at me very solemnly and I thought: This is the moment. But then I heard someone calling my name. “Tamsyn. Tamsyn, where are you?”

It was Senara.

She was at the edge of the burial ground, dressed in her riding habit. It was of mulberry-coloured velvet and she had a riding hat, rather like a man’s, with a band about it and feather at the back. She seemed to grow more beautiful every day; she was beginning to look very like her mother, but the mysterious look of her mother in her was a vitality which made her more human than her mother could ever be.

She studied us rather mockingly. “Why,” she said, “you are about to ride too. Why should we not all go together?”

Other guests arrived at the castle. When we rode out it was in a large company. My father hunted the deer some miles inland and made up a party. Fenn was in this and they were away two whole days, for the forest was so far that it took them some hours to get there and they were staying the night at a hunting lodge which belonged to a friend of my father’s who was entertaining the party there.

That meant that Melanie and her mother were left for us to look after. Melanie was very interested in the domestic side of the castle. She met some of the servants. Merry said afterwards that she was a very gracious lady and she hoped Master Connell would not be another such as his father.

I was very drawn to Melanie—perhaps because she was Fenn’s sister. Senara dismissed her as spiritless; but then Senara judged everyone by herself.

When the men returned they brought some fine deer with them and these were to be roasted for the grand banquet which would be given on the night before the Landors returned.

In the afternoon of that day Connell and Melanie went riding together. I went with Senara because she was determined to come. I knew that she was not going to leave me alone with Fenn. I could not help smiling, because I was sure that if Fennimore intended to ask me to marry him he would not be deterred by Senara. I was amazed too by the force of Senara’s affection for me, if it was affection. Or was it perhaps the determination that I should not have what she could not?

There was a great deal of chatter in our bedchamber as we prepared for the banquet. Senara’s gown was of red silk and her petticoat of embroidered damask, and the silk divided in the skirt to give an ample view of this magnificent petticoat; her bodice was tightly laced with gold thread; on her head she wore a jewelled ornament which her mother had given her. When she was dressed she studied me. “You look quite beautiful in your blue velvet,” she told me, her head on one side. “Now, Merry, who is the more beautiful do you think?”

Merry looked embarrassed and said “Do not ask such questions.”

“You discomfort poor Merry,” I said. “You know you are so why do you wish to make her say it?”

“It is always good to speak the truth,” said Senara demurely.