Текст книги "Witch from the Sea"
Автор книги: Philippa Carr
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He shrugged his shoulders. “I had business to transact so I thought, why should I not do it at The Traveller’s Rest? I will take my wife with me and we will share the Oak Room, for it will bring home to her the fact that she has a husband who will have his way sooner or later.”
“I can never understand why a man who is acknowledged as the king of his castle should have to go to such lengths continually to stress the fact that he is.”
“Because he is not sure that one person fully realizes it, and to tell you the truth, it is that person he is most anxious should.”
I laid my head against his chest and put my arms about him.
“I am content with life as I have found it, Colum. You are a strong man. I should be the last to deny it, but whatever I was made to accept I should always have my own views … you appreciate that.”
“I would not want a foolish simpering creature … like …”
I was glad he stopped, but I knew of course that he was referring to Melanie.
To change the subject I said: “You say you have come here to do business. Do tell me, Colum, I am most eager to know.”
I saw a shadow pass over his face. He went to the window and looked out; then he turned his head and said to me: “What do you know of my business?”
“Nothing much at the moment but I should like to learn.”
“There is nothing to learn,” he said. “I have some merchandise I wish to show to a merchant. We are meeting at this inn.”
“So it was because it is business, not because of that night?”
“Shall we say a little of each.”
“What merchandise have you to dispose of, Colum? Where does it come from?”
He did not answer that question.
He said: “Ere long two of my men will arrive with pack-horses. They will bring the merchandise.”
“What merchandise is this?” I persisted.
“It varies.”
He drew me to the bed and removed my cloak.
“Colum, there is much I wish to know. When I come to think of it there is so little I do know. You are my husband. There is nothing I want so much as to share my life with you and if I do so I must know …”
“Know what?” he said, loosening my hair from the net which held it. “What should you, a good and obedient wife, wish to know but that you please me?”
“I want to please you, yes. In every way I want to please you. But I want to help you too.”
He kissed me with more gentleness than I was accustomed to. “You please me and you please me most when you wait for me to tell you what I will.”
“You mean this business of yours is a secret?”
“Who talks of secrets? What a woman you are for creating drama from ordinary events. You store up ghosts in the Red Room.”
“You were secretive about that.”
“Secretive! I! Because I forgot something in the past which it can do no one good to remember. You should be grateful that my first marriage was a failure. It makes me more than ever contented with my second.”
“I know you are content, Colum, but I want to help you. I want to understand … everything.”
He laughed and pressed me back on the bed. He kissed my throat. Then he said: “Nay, the host’s table is awaiting our attention. We will eat and then mayhap I will attend to my business and when that is finished you and I will be together here in this Oak Room as I yearned to be when I first saw you here.”
He rose and pulled me to my feet.
“But, Colum …” I began.
“You have a hungry husband, Madam,” he told me. “He must needs eat before he can answer more questions.”
We went to the dining-room. Memories came back. I pictured his sitting there eating with gusto, catching my skirt as I passed. How I had hated him then! It was incredible that in so short a time that hatred could have turned to this passionate love.
He ate heartily, doing full justice to the muggety pie made of sheeps’ entrails, and taken with cream—a Cornish custom which we of Devon had never indulged in, although we were as famous for our clotted cream as the Cornish were. He drank the metheglin but rather sparingly, I thought, and while we were eating two men put their heads into the dining-room.
He acknowledged them but he did not introduce me. They did not remain in the dining-room but went away—I believed to wait until Colum was ready, and had come in either to see that he was there or assure him that they had arrived. They looked like merchants in their best clothes. One wore a russet jacket with camblet sleeves and there were pewter buttons on it. The other was in brown with grey kersey hose and they both wore steeple-crowned hats.
“They are friends of yours, Colum?” I asked.
“They are the men whom I have come to see.”
“On business,” I said.
“Aye, business.”
“I had thought you a man of means, not a merchant.”
“Merchants are men of means, wife. I have rich lands, a castle and many servants. To keep up such an establishment and maintain a wife is costly in these days. So now and then when the mood is on me I am a merchant.”
“What is your merchandise?”
“Whatever comes my way.”
“So it is no particular commodity?”
“Enough of questions. Your curiosity will make a scold of you yet.”
“It is only because I would serve my husband that I wish to learn his habits.”
“He will keep you acquainted of the best way to serve him. Now I must leave you for a while so I will take you to the Oak Room and then you will go to bed. You may be sure that the moment I have completed my business I will be with you.”
He took me to the Oak Room and left me there. I sat on the bed and thought of him down there transacting his business. What business? The men had arrived with the pack-horses. I wondered what they had brought. It was strange for the squire who owned a castle and was the lord of his neighbourhood to barter over merchandise. I wondered again what it was, and why he should be so reluctant to discuss this with me. There could be two reasons. The first was that wives were not supposed to share in their husband’s business affairs. They were not supposed to understand them. That was something I would not accept, as my mother would not either. I knew that Colum, while delighting in my spirited nature, was also determined to subdue it. He wanted me relegated to what he would call a wife’s place. He seemed to ignore the fact that if he ever did he would lose interest in me. Perhaps deep down in his heart he wanted to. Perhaps he wanted to keep me as the mother of his children and go off in search of erotic adventures with other women, I was sure that was what he did before we had married. In a way he chafed against this passion between us. Once he had said with a sort of exasperated anger: “None will satisfy me now save you.” He was a strange man. He hated above all things to be shackled. It might well be that he wished to keep his business apart from me because he did not want to share everything. He wanted to exclude me because he feared I was becoming too important to him. The other reason was, of course, that it was something of which he was ashamed. Ashamed! He would never be ashamed. Something that must be kept secret perhaps.
So I pondered and I longed to creep down the stairs and into the room which the host would have set aside for them and listen at the door.
Instead I went to the window and sat there, and thought over every detail of what had happened on that other occasion at the inn. It had been the most important of my life in a way, for had I not come here I should never have met Colum. How easy it would have been for us to have taken another road, to have stayed at another inn. It seemed incredible that life could be affected by so flimsy a chance.
I sat at that window for a long time thinking of this and I was still there when I heard a bustle below. Looking down, I saw the two men who had looked in at the dining-room. A groom was leading two pack-horses. They were not ours. Then came Colum with the two men. I drew back but not so far that I could not see them.
They talked together. Then the men mounted their horses and rode away.
I knew that Colum was coming up now so I left the window and sat on the bed.
In a few minutes he was in the room.
“What!” he cried. “Still up! What do you here? ’Tis time we were abed.”
I could not sleep well that night. I had bad dreams. I was not sure of what for in them events were jumbled, but Colum was there and so were the merchants and the pack-horses, and Melanie too … for my dream had shifted to the Red Room. Melanie was warning me: “Don’t be too curious. If you are, you could uncover something you would rather not know.”
In the morning we rode back to Castle Paling. It was a beautiful morning. There is nothing like sunlight for washing away the fears which come by night. They are exposed as nothing but vague shadows conjured up out of the darkness. I revelled in the green of the conifers and the call of the cuckoo, though he was beginning to stammer now. All was well. In six months’ time my child would be born and now I was going to my home where my son would be waiting for me.
It was August. I could no longer ride and the days seemed long and tedious. One night there was a violent storm and I awoke to find that Colum was hastily dressing.
I sat up in bed, and he told me to lie down and keep the curtains drawn. He was going out because he thought there might be a ship out there in distress.
I said should I not be up in case there was something I could do? He said no, he would forbid it. I had to think of the child I carried.
Nevertheless, I rose and went to look in at the room adjoining ours where Connell slept. He was a year old now. I thought the thunder and lightning might frighten him. Nothing of the sort. He shouted with delight as the flash lit up the room and he clearly thought the violent thunder was part of a game which had been devised for his benefit.
I laughed with him, glad that he was not frightened and because I did not wish him to see that I had expected him to be afraid I left him.
I went back to my bed and drew the curtains around me, and I thought of that other night when there had been a storm and Colum had gone out to see what could be done.
He had told me that on dark nights he caused a lantern to be put in the turret rooms of the towers facing the sea as a warning to sailors that they were close to the Devil’s Teeth.
He said: “It has been the custom of our house to give this service. When sailors see the lights, if they know they are on the Cornish Coast, they will realize that they are near the Devil’s Teeth and keep away—so in the Nonna and Seaward Towers these lanterns shone on all dark nights.”
So I lay in bed and prayed that if any ship was being buffeted by the violent winds it would come safely through.
The storm died down and I slept. It was light when I awoke and Colum had awakened me by coming into the room.
His clothes were sodden with the rain and there was a hot colour in his cheeks.
“Was a ship in distress?”
He nodded. “She’s broken on the rocks.”
“She couldn’t have seen the lights in the tower.”
“She was blown on to the rocks. We did what we could.”
“You are soaked.” I rose and started to dress.
“There is nothing you can do,” he said. “It is over. You’ll see her when it’s thoroughly light. It’s a sorry sight.”
I did see her—poor sad vessel that had once been so proud. I could not stop myself looking at her and I thought of my father who had gone off on a trading expedition to the East Indies. Fennimore had gone with another ship and Carlos was captaining another. This could happen to any of them. It was terrible to contemplate the hazards of the sea.
As I stood by the window Colum came beside me and put an arm about me.
“Do not go out today,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Why must you always question?” he demanded with a touch of irritation. “Why cannot you obey me like a good wife?”
“But why should I not go out?”
“The ground is slippery. I’d never forgive you if aught happened to the child.”
That afternoon Colum went away for a day or two. I watched him go and then because the sun was shining and the sea was calm—only a slightly muddy colour to suggest last night’s trouble—I felt the urge to go out was irresistible.
I would walk with care but I must go out into the sunshine. I would not take the cliff path which could be treacherous but I would just walk in the precincts of the castle.
Thus I came to the cobbled courtyard before Ysella’s Tower. I looked up at it remembering the story and asking myself how it was possible for a man to keep two women in the same dwelling and one not know the other was there. “Preposterous!” I said aloud. But if they were meek women who obeyed without question the husband they shared, it might have been managed. No, I could not believe it. Although with the forceful Casvellyns perhaps anything was possible. Colum would like me to be as docile as Ysella and Nonna must have been.
Then I noticed the sand among the cobbles. There was a good deal of it. I wondered idly how it could have got there. Could it have been blown up in the storm? Impossible. It would have to come right over the top of the tower to get there. The only answer was that people who had been on the beach had been walking here. Strangely enough, I had been here the day before and not noticed it.
I was there on the stone step close to the iron-studded door, so whoever had brought it in had stood on that stone step.
As I stood there I saw a glittering object and stooping to pick it up I saw that it was an amulet. It glittered like gold.
I examined it. It was oval in shape, about an inch wide and two inches long. It was beautifully engraved and what was depicted fascinated me. It was the figure of a beautiful youth about whose head was a halo, and at his feet lay a horned goat; one of the youth’s feet was resting on the goat as though he had vanquished it. There was a name engraved on it in very small letters so that I could scarcely read it: I took it to my room and examined it and at last I made out the name to be VALDEZ. So it was Spanish. Someone must have dropped it. Someone who had been on the shore and brought the sand up on his boots.
I put the amulet in the drawer.
Colum returned two days later. I saw him riding towards the castle with the men and the pack-horses. They were unladen.
I went to the kitchen and ordered that the joints should be set on the spits immediately and that one of his favourite pies should be made without delay—squab perhaps as there was plenty of bacon and mutton and Colum had the Cornishman’s love of pastry.
We dined alone in the little room where we had our first meal together. Colum always wanted us to be there alone on occasions like this. It showed an unsuspected sentimentality.
I put on the diamond chain with the ruby locket and it was a very happy evening. It was when I put the chain and locket away that I opened it and looking at the space for a miniature inside it decided that I should like to have a picture of my son there after the custom.
I smiled, thinking of suggesting this to Colum and that he might be a little disappointed because I did not choose to have his picture. But would he ever allow himself to be painted? Then of course I might have other children and I should want pictures of them all. While I was thus idly thinking I was stroking the edge of the locket and to my amazement the layer in which was a space for a picture sprang up and I was looking into a woman’s face. She was beautiful, with clouds of dark hair, an olive skin and languorous dark eyes. So cleverly had it been painted that in spite of the fact that it was so small all this was apparent.
How strange that an unknown woman’s face should be depicted in a locket which was given to me by my husband. It could only mean that the locket had belonged to someone else before me.
Colum came into the room while I sat there holding it in my hand.
“Look at this, Colum,” I said, and I gave it to him.
He took it and looked down at the woman’s face.
I could see that he was taken aback.
“This is very strange,” he said.
“Clearly it once belonged to someone else. Where did you get it?”
I saw that for the moment he was nonplussed. Then he recovered himself.
“It could not have been the one I wished made for you. The goldsmith has lied to me. People dispose of their valuables and articles of gold, silver and precious stones are sold as new, for how could one be sure whether such articles had been freshly wrought or not?”
“So the goldsmith sold you the locket as new.”
“And,” said Colum, “it was not. I must take the fellow to task. How do you feel about it now; Can you wear something that was not made especially for you?”
I said: “I don’t want to part with the locket. Perhaps some day I might meet this mysterious lady. It is exquisitely done. The painter must have been a man of talent.”
“Give it to me,” said Colum. “The miniature shall be removed. You can put in something of your own family. I shall have your initials engraved on it. That goldsmith must do this, since he has sold me a secondhand article for a new one.”
Later on I said: “I’ll keep it as it is. Perhaps I could have pictures of my babies in it. That reminds me.” I opened a drawer and took out the amulet. “I found this, Colum,” I told him.
He frowned and almost snatched it from me.
“Where?”
“In the courtyard.”
He examined it in silence and I wondered whether he was as interested in the article or just trying to control his annoyance.
“Which courtyard?” he snapped.
“The one before Ysella.”
“I told you not to go there.”
“It was perfectly safe and I must walk somewhere since I can’t ride. What is it? I thought it looked like an amulet.”
“It is an amulet. I’d say this belonged to a Catharist. I have seen them before.”
“What sort of people are they?”
“It is a sect that has been in existence for many years, and has its roots in pre-Christian times. These people, though, profess to believe in two gods, the good one and the evil one.”
“As Christians do.”
“It is so. But the general belief is that these people serve the Devil. They profess they do not and this is the kind of amulet they carry with them to prove it. But they meet at midnight in what are called covens and they worship the Horned Goat. This shows the good triumphant. I have seen this kind of thing before.”
“I wonder whose it is. Do you think we have one of the Catharists in the castle?”
“I will discover,” he said, holding out his hand for it.
“It is beautifully engraved,” I pointed out. “See, there is a name on it. Valdez. That’s Spanish, is it not?”
“By God, so it is. Who could have come by it? A case of another second-hand article I’ll swear.”
“I like it,” I said. “It conveys the idea of virtue prevailing over evil.”
“I must find who owns it.”
He put it into his pocket.
“Let me know when you do find the owner,” I said. “I should like to know who would have such a thing.”
I sensed he was faintly disturbed.
Later that afternoon I went down to the shore. It was warm and there was a faint mist in the air. I could see the sorry sight of a vessel caught on the rocks, toppling drunkenly as the waves washed over her. I thought of the people who had confidently set out from some place on their way to a destination which they had never reached and wondered how many had perished in the storm.
Parts of the vessel still floated on the water, useless pieces of wood—the remains of what had once been a stalwart ship; and again I thought of my father, sailing on the treacherous waters which could be so calm and smiling and in a brief hour so cruel. All people who went to sea did so at their own risk, of course. They all knew that they needed good fortune as well as skill to come safely to land. All his life my father had been a sailor and he had come safely through. Men such as he was thought themselves invincible. Even the sea could not tame them.
A piece of wood was being brought in by the tide—in it came and was carried back, in and back, each time a little nearer. I watched it feeling a great desire to hold it in my hands.
Nearer and farther, tossed hither and thither on the waves. Now a big one brought it right to my feet.
I picked it up and I saw that it had letters on it. There they were: San Pedro.
So the ship out there was a Spaniard. A thought flashed into my head then—the amulet which I had found in the courtyard was also Spanish.
There seemed some strange significance in this but I was not sure what.
My time was fast approaching and my mother had come with Damask to stay with us. She brought Edwina and her little boy with her for it was almost Christmas. My father was on the high seas, so were Carlos and Jacko, who was now married.
They had not returned from the East Indies and my mother told me that so much would depend on the success of that first enterprise.
I was always happy to have her with me. I had been so immersed in preparations for the coming of my child that I had not thought very much about the amulet and the locket. Colum said no more to me about the amulet then and I thought he had forgotten them. He went away from time to time on his business and I did not accompany him.
So it was Christmas again and our thoughts were with the men on the high seas. Edwina I could see was anxious; my mother seemed to have a placid belief in my father’s survival through all conflicts.
She did tell me during her stay that Fennimore’s wife had that September given birth to a son who was named after his father.
My mother and Edwina decorated the castle hall. I was too cumbersome, my confinement being hourly expected.
And on Christmas Day of that year 1590 my child was born.
This time I had a daughter. I think Colum was a little disappointed for he would have preferred another son, but it was only a fleeting displeasure. I was twenty years old and already the mother of two healthy children.
My mother was delighted with the child.
“Daughters can be such a comfort,” she told me and kissed me.
Damask loved the baby and in fact when my mother went back to Lyon Court wanted to stay with us. However that was not possible and they left after the New Year.
For some time I was absorbed in my children. Connell was a lively child. I used to tell myself that this was just how Colum must have been at his age. He was going to be tall and strong, I was sure, and fond of his own way. Colum doted on him and was impatient for him to grow up; and sometimes it seemed that the boy was too, for to us in the castle he appeared to be far in advance of his years.
Mothers I know are supposed to love their children equally but I loved my little daughter with a single-mindedness which I believed I could never feel towards any other child I might have. Perhaps it was because her father showed less interest in her than he did in the boy. Perhaps she seemed more vulnerable than Connell ever had. He had appeared to be born with that self-confidence which he had inherited from his father. We called her Tamsyn, the feminine form of Thomas, the name of Colum’s father, and I added Catherine to that for my mother.
Through the rest of the winter, the spring and the summer I felt cut off from the outside world, so completely absorbed was I in my nursery.
Jennet adored the baby and she and I became more friendly than we had ever been and I was glad my mother had sent her to me.
In the August of that year my mother came to stay with us. She was eager to see the children. Tamsyn was now nearly eight months old and showing a decided character of her own. She was going to be a spirited girl. She had lost that air of helplessness which she had had as a little baby and was beginning to show a lively interest in everything around her.
My mother’s news was a little disturbing. My father with Fennimore and his father, Carlos and Jacko had all returned safely from the expedition to the East Indies. They had brought back rich goods and had started to trade with that part of the world. Alas, the journey had been a hazardous one and not all the ships which had set out had returned. They had mustered a fleet of fifteen vessels. Some had foundered and gone down with all hands; two had been captured by pirates; three had been engaged in an action against foreign ships the identity of which was unknown but clearly they had been some sort of traders. Out of the fifteen only eight had come into harbour, but they had been richly laden with spices, ivory and gold. Therefore the venture could be said to have been profitable.
“I thank God that our men returned safely,” said my mother, “but I pray for those poor souls who have not been so fortunate.”
I nodded and the memory of the San Pedro smashed on the rocks came back to me.
“I sometimes wish,” I said, “that my father and the rest were not seafaring folk. How much better if they pursued a profession ashore.”
“You are fortunate,” replied my mother, “in that Colum is occupied with his lands. I am glad for you, Linnet, that he does not make these long and hazardous journeyings.”
I nodded, and I thought of Colum who left mysteriously now and then and did not tell me where he had been.
My mother stayed until the end of September. I missed her very much after she had gone and a certain restlessness came over me. It was in this mood that the certainty that a great deal went on in Castle Paling of which I was ignorant persisted.
It was October. The evenings were fast drawing in and there was more than a touch of autumn in the air. Soon, I thought, the gales will be with us and my thoughts again went to the San Pedro which I had never quite been able to get out of my mind.
I found myself in the courtyard facing Ysella where I had discovered the amulet, and as I approached the iron-studded door I was aware of something different about it.
Then I realized what it was. The door moved. It was swinging ajar on its hinges.
The impulse was irresistible. I pushed it open and went in.
The first thing that struck me was the smell. It was strange and yet familiar. The place was close of course—little air came in. Then I realized what it was. It was the odour of sea water, seaweed, and a sort of musty dampness.
The door opened on to the hall which was very similar to that of the other towers. It was dark not only because little light came in but because this hall was full of articles. There were great boxes and piled objects of all kinds strewn about the floor. My foot touched something which made me cry out. I thought it was a man lying there trussed up. It was a bale of cloth. I bent over it. The sea smell was strong. It was slightly damp.
I made my way across the hall, stepping carefully round the objects which littered the floor. There were goods of all descriptions. What on earth could it mean? I could not understand it. How long had these things been here and whence had they come?
I went up the stairs. Along the gallery everywhere was permeated by this damp sea smell.
I pushed open a door and went in. I saw a wooden case. I went over it and looked inside. Some trinkets lay in it. They looked like gold and silver. I lifted one. It was a long gold chain. The workmanship reminded me of the chain Colum had given me with the ruby-studded locket.
As I stood there I heard a noise. I felt the hair on my head rise a little. I remembered suddenly that I was in Ysella’s tower, the haunted tower, the tower where Ysella had lived all those years ago in secret.
Almost immediately I overcame my fear. Someone was in the hall below. The door had been opened. Someone must have come in to get something.
I started along the gallery and reached the staircase. There was no one in the hall. Hastily I descended the stairs. A sudden feeling of panic had come over me. It was because the hall seemed darker than it had when I had entered. I saw why. The great iron-studded door which had been open and which I had left open was closed.
I hurried to it. I could not open it. Then I realized that it was locked.
I pulled at the enormous handle, but of course it would not move. The answer was simple. Someone had come in here, had either been in here when I entered and not seen me, or gone out for a while leaving the door unlocked and then returned, and locked the door.
Whatever had happened the fact remained. I was locked in Ysella’s tower.
I banged on the door with my fists. Whoever had locked the door could not be far away. But I realized quickly that this could do little but bruise my hands. I shouted, but my voice could not penetrate those thick walls.
I was faced with the alarming fact that I was locked in Ysella’s Tower.
What could I do? Was there possibly some other outlet? I must not panic. I must explore. There might well be another door. I knew the layout of the tower because it was similar to the others. I wished I could escape that horrible musty odour which seemed to grow stronger every minute. I found my way into what in Ysella’s day must have been the kitchens. There were the great oven, the fireplace and the roasting spits. There were a few cauldrons. They were filled with objects. There were some coins in one. I looked at them; they were not English coins. In another pot there was some more jewellery.
I thought then: When Colum wishes to give a gift to his wife he comes down here and selects it.
There was a door in a small passage close to the kitchens. I tried it; it was securely locked. There was no way out there.
I made my way back to the hall. The horrible realization came to me that it would soon be dark but I consoled myself that I should be missed and they would come in search of me. But would they think of looking in Ysella’s Tower?
I came into the hall, tried the door again, banged my fists against the stubborn wood, and called at the top of my voice. Then I made my way up the stairs again. Perhaps I could find my way to the ramparts. If I could and made some sign up there it might be possible that someone would see it.
The spiral staircases were like those in the other towers—the stairs narrow at one end and wide at the other, demanding care in mounting and descending and there was a rope banister to help one up or down. They wound round and round so that I had the sudden fear that as I turned a bend I might come face to face with some terrifying sight.
