Witch from the Sea

“There is no doubt that she is Spanish,” said my mother. “I could speak with her a little in her native tongue if I remember it. My first husband was a Spaniard as you know and during my life with him I learned a little.”

“She would be glad if you did,” I replied warmly. “It must be difficult for her with no one to talk to.”

“I will see what I can discover,” replied my mother.

Later she talked to Maria, but although Maria was clearly glad to converse with someone who could speak her native tongue a little she could not or would not tell her anything about herself. She seemed to remember, she told my mother, that she was on a ship though she couldn’t recall for what reason. She vaguely remembered the storm and the ship’s trying to come into port. Why she was on the ship was still as much a mystery to her as it had been on her arrival here.

My mother shared the opinion that after the child was born her memory might return.

In the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Maria’s pains started. Jennet brought me the news of this and I immediately summoned the midwife. The child was born without her though. She went into the room and found a beautifully formed little girl.

She was astounded.

“All is well?” I asked urgently.

“I was never in attendance on such an easy birth.”

Maria lay calm and beautiful, the red curtains drawn back from her bed and I thought: On that bed poor Melanie must have suffered her many miscarriages and finally she died there trying to give Colum the son he wanted. Now a child has been born there—a strong healthy child.

It was a strange Christmas day. We had the usual rejoicing but it was not the same as usual. I could not forget—nor could my mother and Edwina—that a child had been born under our roof.

There was feasting and singing and the games we played at Christmas time but my thoughts were in the Red Room where Maria lay in the bed with her child beside her. I had had brought in the cot which I had used for my children when they were babies. Now that lovely little girl lay in it.

It was the day after Christmas that Edwina passed me on the stairs.

She looked strained, I thought. I said: “Edwina, is anything wrong? You look … worried.”

“Oh it’s nothing, Linnet. My fancy, nothing more.”

“But there is something, Edwina.”

“It’s just that I feel that something has changed here … that there is something …”

I stared at her. My mother had once said: “Edwina has fancies. It is because one of her ancestors was a witch. Sometimes she has a special power.”

I was suddenly nervous, although before I had been inclined to shrug aside Edwina’s fancies.

She gripped my arm suddenly. “Take care, Linnet,” she said. “There is something evil in this house.”

“What on earth do you mean?” I demanded.

“Oh, nothing. I shouldn’t have said that. Forget it. It was just a thought that came into my mind.”

“Ah,” I said, “one of the fancies. I know what it is. It’s the cry of the gulls. They do sound as though they are warning us.”

But she lived by the sea. She was accustomed to the cry of the gulls. She was used to the weird sound the sea sometimes made when it thundered into the caves or over the rocks.

No, she had sensed something evil. Oh yes, there was evil in this house. I had long suspected it … long before the coming of Maria and that night when I had seen the men returning to Seaward Tower with their donkeys.

But I hid my fear from Edwina. She had this gift and, like many people who possessed it and did not understand it, she was a little afraid of it. She was always ready to believe it was merely a fancy because she found it comforting to do so.

So we laughed together and pretended to forget, but what she had said lingered in my mind.

Maria was up almost immediately. She surprised me not only by her quick recovery but by her lack of interest in her child.

Jennet snatched up the baby and cared for her, taking her to her mother only when she was to be fed, and Jennet saw that this happened as regularly as it should.

“Completely unnatural,” grumbled Jennet. “Foreigners, that’s what.”

The child was well formed and clearly healthy. I felt sorry for her and I took her to my nursery and showed her to my children. Connell was not very interested, but my little Tamsyn, who was just two years old, was enchanted by her. She followed Jennet about when she held the baby and liked to look at her. She was far more interested in the baby than any plaything.

I talked to Maria. “What plans have you?” I asked.

She looked vague and either did not or pretended not to understand.

“You must recover from your confinement first,” I said. “We can decide when you are completely recovered.”

She did not seem in the least anxious about her future.

“The child must be named,” I said. “What would you choose for her?”

“Name?” she said and shrugged her shoulders.

I waited for her to decide but she did not and I asked if she would like to give the baby one of our Cornish names.