Текст книги "Witch from the Sea"

Автор книги: Philippa Carr

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I rose and she studied me anxiously.

“You’re not ill, are you? You look scared.”

“I’m all right. It was just …”

“I know. Cold shiver. Someone walking over your grave, as they say.”

I pulled myself sharply together.

“Yes, something like that,” I said.

I was obsessed by memories of my mother. I had loved her dearly and she had rarely been far from my thoughts, but now the memories were with me all the time. I wished that I had taken more notice at the time. I had only been ten years old then and there was so much I had not understood. If only I had been older. If only my mother had been able to talk to me.

I remembered something Senara had said about our servants knowing so much about us and that led me to think of Jennet who was still in our household. She was getting old now; she was nearly as old as my grandmother and there had been talk of her going back to Grandmother when my mother died but she had wanted to stay.

She and my grandmother had been through many adventures together, and because my grandfather had given Jennet a child there was always a touch of asperity in my grandmother’s attitude towards her. They were fond of each other in a way but I think Jennet preferred to be with me.

When my mother had died she had said: “There’s young Tamsyn. I know Mistress Linnet would have wanted me to keep an eye on her.”

And in a way she had kept her eyes on me. In the last year she had become resigned to age as she had through her life become resigned to everything that had befallen her. The prospect of a baby in the house—we were all expecting every day to hear that Melanie was pregnant—revived old Jennet a little. If that baby came she would want to be in the nursery.

She said to me once: “Men! I’ve known scores of them and very good company too and from that company comes the best of all things—little babies, dear little babies.”

Now I wanted to talk to her about my mother. Jennet was easy to talk to; reminiscences flowed from her.

“Mistress Linnet,” she said, “she were a wild one at one time. Stood up to her father, she did. But she never had quite the fight in her that her mother had. Cat they called her and Wild Cat I’d heard the master say more than once—that was the Captain—a regular one he was. I reckon there wasn’t another like him. You see, your mother wasn’t wanted by him. He was mad for a boy and it seemed your grandmother couldn’t give him one. He let her see it, and Mistress Linnet she let him see that she knew it, and then sudden like they understood each other, and then—my dear life—there was something between them. He was proud of her. My girl Linnet’s as good as a son, he said. Then she met your father. And when she came here I came with her.”

“She was happy here, wasn’t she, Jennet?”

“Happy … what’s being happy? Most people are happy one minute and sad the next.”

“You’re not, Jennet. You’ve been as happy as anyone I ever knew.”

“I had a knack of it. Good things happened to me. I’ve had a good life, I have.”

I smiled at her fondly. I was not surprised that my mother had been fond of her.

“You were my mother’s personal maid, weren’t you?”

“Oh yes, I was. I was sent over here to be that. Your grandmother trusted me for all she could be sharp with me. She knew that I was the best one to look after her daughter.”

“Why did she think my mother needed looking after?”

“Oh, you know how it is … a young girl bride. She wants some of the old familiar faces round her.”

“How was she … towards the end, I mean.”

Jennet looked back into the past and frowned.

“She got a bit quiet, like … as though there was something …”

“Yes, Jennet, go on. As though there was something?”

“Something she wasn’t sure of.”

“Did she ever say anything?”

“Not to me. I reckon there was one person she would have told and that was your grandmother.”

“Why not … my father …”

“Well, what if it should have concerned him?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know. Just that if she was worried about him she wouldn’t have him to talk to, would she?”

“Do you know why she should worry about him?”

“Wives do worry about husbands, you know. There’s reasons. Why, your grandmother …”

But I was not going to be side-tracked.

“How did she seem during those last weeks, Jennet? I felt there was something.”

“She was always writing … I caught her at it more than once.”

“Caught her at it!”

“Well, that’s how it seemed. She’d be there at her table writing away and if I came in she would cover up what she was writing, and I never saw where it went in the end.”

“She must have been writing letters.”

“I don’t think so. She never sent so many letters away. But when I came back to her room it would all be put out of sight. I never saw any sign of it then, which was strange. I often wondered where she kept it.”

“I wonder what she was writing.”

“It was some sort of diary, I always thought. People do that. They like to write things down.”

“That’s interesting,” I said. “I wonder where she put her diary.”

“’Tis my belief she hid it away.”

I thought to myself: If she did that she must have felt there was something she must hide.

I didn’t want to discuss her any more. I started Jennet talking about the old days at Lyon Court and Captain Jake, my grandfather. That was a subject for which she would turn away from any other.

I was excited though. If my mother had written a diary and if she had recorded everything that happened to her as it did, surely there would be some clue in it as to what she had been feeling during those last weeks of her life.

I was determined to find my mother’s journal or diary, whatever it was. I could not forget that moment when I had seen the stone on her grave. Why had it been put there? Because someone knew that her death had not been natural?

Perhaps I thought the mischief-maker had meant to put it on her grave in the first place and had in mistake put in on the unknown sailor’s. I went down to the shore where I could be quiet to think of what had happened. I found the rhythm of the waves soothing. I looked up at the straight grey walls of the castle and I said to myself: Someone in there knows what happened to my mother.

My father. He had married within three months of her death. It was very soon, too soon, said some. But my father was a law unto himself and he did not consider convention.

He had married a strange woman: a witch. On Hallowe’en, the one before my mother died, she had returned to the castle. Could it really be true that she was a witch and that she had willed my mother to die? There were no marks on her body. How could she have died? “A failure of the heart.” But did not hearts always fail in death, no matter how it came?

Did my father wish to be rid of her that he might marry my stepmother? Did my stepmother wish her dead that she might marry my father? Had my mother discovered a secret which someone in the castle wished to hide?

If she had kept her journal faithfully—and what was the point of keeping it if not faithfully—she would have written it there. She must have done so, for she was so anxious to keep it hidden where no one could see it. What had happened on that last night of her life? Had she written in her journal and then gone to that bed from which she had never risen?

I must find the journal. I would have no rest until I did.

Where would it be most likely to be? In the bedroom she had shared with my father and which he now shared with my stepmother?

No, I did not think so, for she would surely not wish my father to see it. There was her sitting-room in which she had spent a great deal of time. No one used it now. I would begin my search there.

It was a small room and not very light—no room in the castle was, for the long narrow slits of windows had originally been built more for defence than to let in air and sunlight.

As I entered the room I felt deeply moved. I remembered so well her sitting there. She liked to sit in the window seat with me beside her, or at her feet while she talked to me.

There was the chair on which she sat and there was the table. On it was a book and her sandalwood box, a kind of desk. I went to it and opened it. That part on which one wrote lifted up to disclose a cavity in it. There was nothing there but some sheets of blank paper.

It was the obvious place in which to put one’s journal though she would hardly keep it there if she wished to hide it.

Where then? I looked round the room, at the chair with the panelled back decorated with inlay and carving; it was one which my grandmother had had made for my mother and of a modern design. Not so the old settle. That had been in the castle for as long as I could remember. My mother said it was there when she came and it had probably been built in the middle of the previous century, long before the defeat of the Armada. It was really a chest with the back and arms put on it, the top of the chest making the seat and the extensions the back and the arms. I went to it and lifted the seat. I pulled out some old garments. There was a hat with a feather which I remembered seeing my mother wear. I was excited. This was her room and it had not been changed since her death. I was certain that somewhere here I would find her journal.

In chests such as this there were often secret compartments. What more likely than that she should have hidden her papers in this very chest?

I took out the clothes to examine it better. On either side the wood appeared to be thicker and I felt that this could quite easily conceal a cavity. I tapped gently on the wood. It seemed hollow. I was certain that somewhere there was a secret spring.

And as I knelt before the chest I heard a noise. What was it? Only a footstep in the corridor. Only someone passing the door. Keeping my kneeling position I stared at the door. My heart started to beat wildly as the latch of the door moved and the door was silently and slowly opening.

My stepmother was standing on the threshold of the room.

She was always mysterious; I knew the servants feared her, and at that moment so did I. She remained silent for what seemed a long time but could only have been a few seconds. What was it that was so frightening about this moment? I realized suddenly that her face did not move or change very much. When she smiled her mouth turned up a little at the corners—that was all. I suddenly felt that I was in the presence of evil. This is what the servants felt. But who could say whether it was because of the reputation she had of being a witch or whether there really was something satanic within her.

Her lips moved slightly in her immobile face.

“Are you clearing out your mother’s clothes?”

She had walked in; the door shut behind her. I felt a great desire to dash past her out of this room. I was deeply conscious that I was here with her … alone.

“Why … yes,” I said. “All these years these things have been here.”

“Did you find anything that you were looking for … particularly?”

“There are only her clothes.”

I stood up.

“Nothing else there?” she said.

“Nothing,” I answered.

She picked up a shoe, cork-soled, high-heeled and round-toed.

“Hideous!” she said. “Fashions are better now, are they not? Look at this ruff. The lace is beautiful. But an ugly fashion, do you not think? It is well that it is no longer the mode. It had one virtue though. It made the ladies hold their heads high.”

I picked up the things and put them back into the chest.

“Do you propose to leave them there?” she asked.

“I do not know what else to do with them.”

“I thought perhaps you had some purpose in gathering them together. The servants perhaps would like them. But even they are conscious of the fashion.”

I picked up the things and put them in the chest. Then I shut down the lid and it was turned into a settle.

“It is not an unpleasant room,” she said. “We should use it. Or did you feel that since it was your mother’s …”

“Yes, I do feel I should like it to remain just as it is.”

“It shall be,” she said, and went out.

I wondered if she had been aware of the tension I was feeling.

I went to my bedchamber. I was glad Senara was not there. After a while I felt better. Then I asked myself what had come over me to make me feel so disturbed because my stepmother had discovered me looking into the chest.

Jennet had been gossiping. Poor Jennet, she could never resist it. I heard through Senara.

“Your mother was always writing,” she said. “She wrote in a book she had every day. Did you know?”

“Jennet mentioned it the other day. So she told you too?”

“Not exactly. Merry said she was talking about it in the kitchens. It all sounded rather mysterious.”

“Why should the fact that she was keeping a diary be mysterious? Many people do, I believe.”

“Well, she hid this away, apparently.”

“Who said so?”

“Well, where is it? Have you got it? I believe you have.”

“I haven’t.”

Senara looked at me intently. “If you had it, would you read it?”

“Why do you ask that question?”

“For the reason people usually ask questions. I should like an answer.”

I hesitated and she went on. “People put their secret thoughts into diaries. If she had wanted you to read it she would have shown you, wouldn’t she?”

I was still silent. I was thinking of Jennet’s spreading the news that my mother had written down what happened to her every day and had been so anxious that someone should not see what she had written that she had been very careful to put her writings in some secret place.

I thought of the diary I had once kept when I was a child. It read something like this: “Rained today.” “There were visitors at the castle for my father.” “Hotter today.” And so on, except at Christmas time when there would be a description of the festivities. Nothing to be hidden away there.

Then I thought of my mother stealthily writing and finding some spot where she could secrete her journal for fear it should be read by someone in the castle.

Senara went on: “There was something strange about her, wasn’t there … just before she died?”

“What do you mean … strange?”

“You used to go and sleep with her every night. Why?”

“I just had a feeling that I wanted to.”

“What a baby! Who wanted to be with her mother!”

“Perhaps I did.”

“It wasn’t that. You were playing the mother. You always seem to like it when there’s someone who wants to be looked after. You’re always finding animals to nurse. Dogs and birds, that sort of thing. Do you remember that gull you brought home with the broken leg? The others were pecking him to death and you found him there, making horrid squawking noises. I remember how you brought him home and nursed him but it didn’t do any good, did it? He died in the courtyard. ‘Miss Tamsyn at it again,’ they said. And look how you’re always clucking over the peacocks at Lyon Court. So you went to look after your mother. Why? You would have been there the night she died if I hadn’t been sick. Oh, Tamsyn, do you blame me for that?”

“Don’t be silly. Of course I don’t.”

“I did drink too much mulled wine. It was horrid. I shall never forget the feeling. I’ll never do it again. But I wonder why your mother hid away her diary. Wouldn’t it be fun if we found it?”

Then I knew that my stepmother had known for what I was looking when she had seen me at the chest.

We were approaching Hallowe’en, always remembered at the castle with a certain awe because it was on Hallowe’en fifteen years ago that my stepmother had come to us. Jennet remembered it well and while Jennet had a tongue in her head it would not be allowed to be forgotten.

There is something about the autumn which has always fascinated me. Spring was the season my mother had loved because of all the wild flowers she found in the hedgerows. She knew the names of most of them and tried to teach me, but I was not a very apt pupil and tried to learn to please her more than for any special interest. For me the special time of year was autumn when—a little inland—the trees sported their bronzed and golden leaves and there were carpets of them in fields and lanes and the spider’s webs were draped over the hedges. I liked the mists of the mornings and evenings and even the chill in the air. I used to think before my mother died: Soon it will be Christmas, the time of holly and ivy and yule logs, and families being together and forgetting their differences. It was a time to look forward to. Autumn was the looking forward time, and so often anticipation is better than realization.

Jennet told me that in the days before that Hallowe’en when my mother brought the woman who was to replace her into the house, the servants used to make a large bonfire which was said to keep off witches; and when it was burnt out they would scramble for the ashes which they would preserve to keep off the evil eye.

The castle was filled with the autumnal shadows; when I awoke in the morning and looked out to sea there would often be nothing but a wall of grey mist. I pitied sailors in such weather and I thought often of Fenn and wondered when he would be home.

I used to make sure that the lanterns in the Seaward and Nonna Towers were always alight.

The day came bringing with it an air of excitement. My stepmother seemed to glide rather than walk about the castle. There was a secret smile on her face as though she knew everyone was expecting something to happen and she was at the heart of it.

The drama came at supper. Senara was missing. When she failed to appear at the supper table I began to be alarmed. She was often late; but never for meals where my father would be. Unpunctuality infuriated him and anyone who could not be at the table was sent away without food and often cuffed for it.

My father noticed her absence but did not comment. If she failed to put in an appearance she would go without her supper. My stepmother showed no anxiety but then she never did show very much.

After the meal she was still missing and I began to be frightened.

I went up to our bedchamber.

“Have you seen Mistress Senara?” I asked Merry.

She shook her head. “She went off early in the afternoon.”

“Went off,” I said. “Where?”

“She were on her horse, Mistress Tamsyn, Jan saw her riding away from the castle as though she were possessed.”

I wished they would not use such expressions and on Hallowe’en of all times. It was easy to see how their minds worked. For them my stepmother was still the witch to be placated and feared; and Senara was her daughter.

“When was this?” I demanded.

“Early this afternoon.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“No, Mistress. She just put on her riding clothes and her best hat with the blue feathers and went off.”

“Which of the grooms were with her?”

“Well, Mistress, I did see none of they.”

I thought: She has gone off alone!

Although we knew most of the neighbouring squires, their families and retainers, robbers lurked on the roads and we were forbidden to ride without at least two grooms.

Yet she had gone off alone and on Hallowe’en.

I went up to the ramparts of Nonna’s Tower and looked out. If it had been daylight or a clear moonlit night I might have been able to see something. On such a night as this I could see very little but the four towers of the castle.

I went down, very anxious. She had gone riding alone that afternoon. Anything could have happened to her.

I went to find my father and stepmother. I must tell them that Senara had not merely missed her supper but that she was not in her bedchamber either and something must be done about it.

As I came down to the hall I heard arrivals in the courtyard. With great relief I hurried out. One of the grooms was holding a lantern and I saw a strange man on a horse.

My father was greeting him and my stepmother was with them.

“Come into the castle,” said my father. “You must be weary.”

I said: “Father, Senara is not in the castle.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “This good gentleman has ridden here to tell us she is safe. Tell the servants to bring mulled wine and refreshment for he needs to revive himself.”

Relief filled me as I ran off to do his bidding.

The gentleman was Carl Deemster and he had recently bought, from Squire Northfield, a mansion some five miles inland. He had come from Lincolnshire with his family two years before. He was rather sombrely but neatly dressed and his accent was unfamiliar to me. He explained that Senara had lost her way and called at his house. The mist had arisen and it was growing dark and his wife had invited her to stay the night while he rode to the Castle to tell us that Senara was safe.

My father was very hospitable. He said that the mist was thick and it would not be an easy journey back. The kind Carl Deemster must spend the night at the castle and supper must be brought for him immediately and a room prepared.

This was agreed upon. Our guest ate very sparingly and drank nothing but he and my father seemed to find a great interest in each other.

Carl Deemster talked about the sea and clearly knew something of ships.

When I went up to my bedchamber the mist had penetrated into the room. It seemed stark and empty without Senara. Merry came in to put my things away.

“So she be safe,” she said. “I thank God for it.”

“Of course Senara is safe,” I cried. “What did you think?”

“It being Hallowe’en I did wonder. And her going off. Jennet said it reminded her …”

“Jennet,” I said, “is always being reminded.”

“She said it was such a day when the mistress went away.”

“You mean …”

Merry crossed herself. “I mean the mistress … she who is mistress now. She came on Hallowe’en and she went on Hallowe’en. You were but a baby at the time as it was years ago. And we thought that Mistress Senara, being her daughter and none knowing where she came from …”

I was always uneasy when the servants talked of Senara’s background. I could never hear the word witchcraft when I did not fear for her. She was in a way to blame. There would always be mystery attached to her mother but Senara nourished it. Even on this occasion she had to get lost on Hallowe’en. It was almost as though she wanted to be accused of witchcraft. Did she not realize how dangerous this could be?

My uneasiness stayed with me. I was longing to get through the night and be united with her. I wanted to hear how it was she had managed to get lost on Hallowe’en.

I was up early in the morning and so was our guest. He had broken his fast with a goblet of home-brewed ale and meat and bread and told me that he wished to leave early. He was sure that his wife would realize that he had spent the night with us on account of the mist, but he would like to return to Leyden Hall as soon as possible for she might be anxious if he were late.

I asked if I might ride with him. We could take two of our grooms and bring Senara back with us.

He said his wife would be delighted and so it was arranged.

It was a beautiful morning when we left. The mist had lifted and the air was balmy. We rode inland through lanes and across meadows and finally we came to Leyden Hall, a charming old house, built I should say at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign—about the same period as Lyon Court and very like it in style, with its vaulted roof and wings on either side.

But how different was Leyden Hall from Lyon Court, with its ornamental gardens where peacocks strutted symbolically. My grandfather and his father had loved ostentation. It always seemed to me that everything at my grandfather’s home was meant to impress. I was immediately struck by the simplicity of Leyden Hall. I had been to this house when it belonged to Squire Northfield. What a different place it had become. There were no pictures on the walls, everything that was decorative had been taken away. I met the mistress of the house, Priscilla Deemster; her gown was of a simple calico material which came from Calicut in India—clean and neat without lace or ribbons. She greeted me with a show of friendship plainly expressed. I felt that I was in the kind of household I had never seen before.

The Deemsters had two sons who were both married and lived with their wives at Leyden Hall. They were all dressed in the same simple manner. Among them Senara looked like one of the peacocks of Lyon Court in her blue riding habit. I had rarely seen her as lovely or as excited as she was then. Her beauty was as breathtaking as that of her mother.

“We were so anxious about you,” I told her.

“It was the mist,” she said and there was a lilt in her voice. “It has been a wonderful experience for me. I have been so comforted in this house.”

Her voice had taken on a tone unusual with it and which somehow belied the sparkle in her eyes.

“I am so sorry to have caused you anxiety,” she said. “Master Deemster out of the goodness of his heart so kindly offered to let you know.”

“It was indeed kind,” I said.

As it was nearly noon I was invited to dine with the family and I gratefully accepted this. I was very interested in this household and I particularly wanted to know why Senara was so pleased with her adventure.

The table was set on trestles in the great hall which I remembered as being so grand in the time of the Northfields. The food on it was simple. It mainly comprised vegetables which were grown in the gardens—and there was salted pig. Here the whole of the household congregated—every man and woman in the household—and then I understood Senara’s elation, for seated at the table was Richard Gravel, Dickon, her one time music master.

Senara looked at me mischievously.

“You remember Dickon.”

He smiled at me. He had changed as much as this house had. He had been rather dandified, delighting as he did in his music and dancing. Now he was dressed in a plain jerkin, short trunks of a brown material and his long hose were of the same shade. His hair which had been wonderfully curling was now cut short and flattened about his head as though he were ashamed of its beauty. He had been fun-loving and bold; now his eyes were downcast and there was an air of modesty about him which I could not entirely believe in.

We sat down and grace was said. It seemed a long time before our host finished his exhortations to us to be grateful.

The pork was not very appetising and I secretly was not all that grateful for it. We ate very well at home and always in the most tasteful manner, and there was invariably a variety of dishes to choose from.

Dickon told me during that meal what he must already have told Senara.

When he had been turned out of our house, “and rightly so,” he said in his new-found humility, “for I ill repaid my master, I knew not where to go. For two days I trudged the countryside and had but a crust all that time. I was wondering where I should find another bite to eat, and feeling faint and hungry I settled into a hedge and there awaited some evil fate to overtake me. As I lay there, unkempt and famished, a man came along the road. He too was without means of sustenance; hungry and footsore. He told me that he was going to call at Leyden Hall for the gentleman and lady who now lived there would never turn any away. I said I would perforce go with him and so I came.”

Senara was watching him with an intentness she rarely displayed.

“When I felt the goodness, the serenity of this household which was unlike anything I ever knew before, I asked if I might stay here in any capacity whatsoever,” went on Dickon.

“You do not teach dancing and singing?”

“Nay, nay. That is over. It is all part of my sinful past life. Such frivolities find no favour in the sight of heaven. I shall never sing and dance again.”

“That’s a pity! You did them so well.”

“Vanities,” he said. “Here I tend the gardens. The vegetables you are eating have been grown by me. I work with my hands for the good of the house.”

“You see,” said Senara, “Dickon has become a good man.”

It came to me to say that although attempting to seduce his master’s daughter might not find favour in the sight of Heaven, I did not believe there was anything wrong in singing and dancing. Did not the angels sing? But I made no comment. We had received excellent hospitality at the hands of this family; and our host had had the courtesy to ride over to us and inform us that Senara was safe with them. I did not wish therefore to say anything which might be hurtful to them.

I could see that they believed firmly in their doctrines and such people could easily be hurt and possibly angered by those who disagreed with them.

When we had eaten, Senara and I prepared to ride back. It was still only one o’clock for they did not sit over their meals as we were inclined to do. I gathered that eating here was not to be regarded as a pleasure but a necessity. Our horses, fresh for the ride back, were brought to us and with many thanks we left them.

Senara and I rode together—two grooms ahead of us and two behind.

“Now,” I said, “I should like an explanation of how that came about.”

Senara opened her eyes very wide and smiled sideways. “I have told you. I was lost in the mist. I came to Leyden Hall and explained my predicament. I was made welcome and as I was not allowed to find my way home alone I stayed here. You know the rest.”

“It seems to me a strange coincidence that you should be lost near the house in which Dickon is a servant.”

“Life,” said Senara demurely, “is full of strange coincidences.”

When we reached the castle the servants looked at Senara with awe. I saw one of them cross herself when she thought we were not looking. This sort of thing disturbed me and filled me with a vague apprehension.

Senara did everything to encourage it which I thought very reckless of her.

“Why,” she cried to one gaping serving-girl, “did you think I’d flown off on my broomstick?” Then she went close to her and narrowed her eyes so that the girl grew pale. “Perhaps next Hallowe’en I might.”

When we were alone in our bedchamber I admonished her, but she laughed at me. She was excited as I had rarely seen her.

“Imagine Dickon a puritan!”

“Is he sincere, do you think?”

“Dickon is always sincere. He believes wholeheartedly in everything he does … at the moment. That is what I like in him. He made me feel that I could be a puritan too.”

“You, Senara! You are a pagan, which is the very opposite.”