Witch from the Sea

“It must have been someone’s ghost,” she said. “We’ve lots of ghosts. Melanie, do you like ghosts? You’ll get to know them when you come to live here.”

Melanie smiled serenely and said that she would have to wait until she had made their acquaintance until she could tell Senara whether she liked them.

It was a beautiful moonlight night. “We should have had the musicians out here,” said Senara; “we could have danced in one of the courtyards.”

“The cobbles would have been hard on our feet,” I answered.

Senara came and walked on the other side of Fenn as we came into the burial ground.

“Why did the ghost need the flickering light?” someone asked. “He could see well enough in the moonlight.”

Fenn and I with Senara had walked over to the spot we knew so well. Senara gave a cry and said: “Look.”

There was a stone on the grave of the unknown sailor. On it had been printed in large black letters:

Murdered October 1600

Everyone crowded round to look.

I saw my father clench his hands; he cried: “Good God! Look at that.”

My stepmother came forward and stared at it. “Murdered,” she repeated. “What does it mean?”

“Some joker. By God, a poor joke. He’ll be flayed for this,” cried my father.

He pulled it from the earth and in an excess of anger threw it from him. It landed with a thud among some brambles.

He turned to the company and said: “This is the grave of a sailor who was washed up on our shores. My wife was anxious that he should be given decent burial. Some foolish joker put that stone there, hoping to frighten the maids. Come, we will go back to the hall. Those stupid girls will wish they had not disturbed us, I promise you.”

In the hall he commanded the musicians to play; but some of the gaiety had vanished. I noticed that Fenn was particularly affected.

We sat together on a window seat, neither being in the mood for dancing. I had imagined our sitting thus while he asked me to marry him; but after what we had seen in the burial ground, I realized that Fennimore could think of nothing else. He had so identified that unknown sailor with his father that he was shocked to see that inscription on his grave and he could not get it out of his mind.

The next day, we talked of it.

“You see, Tamsyn,” he said, “it was in October 1600 that my father disappeared.”

“That was the year the sailor was buried. It was the year my mother died. It was on Christmas Day.”

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” said Fenn. “Every time I closed my eyes I could see that stone with those words on it. Who put it there, Tamsyn? Who could have done such a thing?”

“Perhaps we shall discover,” I said.

He was shaken. So was I. I could see that the discovery of that strange stone had made it impossible for him to think of anything else.

He did not mention our betrothal.

And he rode back to Trystan Priory still not having spoken of it.

Yet the wedding was to be in a few weeks’ time and we should all travel to Trystan Priory to celebrate it.

AT HALLOWE’EN

THERE WAS GREAT EXCITEMENT in the preparations for the wedding. Connell was pleased to be the centre of attraction. I was certain that he was not in love with Melanie. Senara said: “How could he be? He’s in love with himself. People can only be in love with one person at a time, and one thing I am certain of, Connell will always be faithful … to himself.”

Whatever his emotions, he liked the thought of getting married.

We did not discover who had put the stone on the unknown sailor’s grave. Strangely enough, my father had not pursued the inquiry as fully as I expected him to. The two hysterical serving girls who had interrupted the company’s entertainment were questioned, but all they would say was that they had seen lights in the burial ground, had been wagered they wouldn’t go and look, and then had gone out and seen the stone.

My father shrugged his shoulders and said it was someone’s idea of a joke and if he discovered who the culprit was he would discover it was something quite different.

Perhaps it was the excitement of the wedding which made people forget, but now the burial ground was included as yet another part of the castle in which ghosts lurked.

Senara, Merry, the seamstress and I were once more busy with our gowns. I was very excited at the prospect of seeing Fenn again. Senara knew. She taunted me when we were in our bedroom at night.

“I know what you’re thinking, Tamsyn,” she said. “You’re thinking he’s going to ask you this time. Perhaps he will. It will be so neat, won’t it? Melanie comes here and you go to Trystan. What an excellent arrangement, they will think. I shan’t. I don’t want that silly dull creature here.”

“I thought you considered me rather dull.”

“In a different way. A foil to my liveliness. She’s different. I don’t want her. Just think when we come back, she will be with us.”

“I believe she will be a very pleasant addition to the household.”

“I shall ignore her.”

“Poor girl, how upset she will be!”