Текст книги "Witch from the Sea"

Автор книги: Philippa Carr

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

“I shall send a message to ask him to come to see me,” she said.

“If you do,” I retorted, “it will be necessary for me to go back to the castle before he arrives here.”

She could see I meant that. So we sat and talked of old times. She spoke of my mother when she was a little girl, and when she was very tired she would doze off. She liked me to sit beside her so that I was there when she woke up and often in those first moments when she was coming out of her sleep I knew that she confused me with my mother.

I think during my stay she tried to make me interested in other young people. She gave several dinner parties to which she invited eligible young men. One or two of them were engaged in the Trading Company and knew Fenn. His name was mentioned more than once. It was very clear to me that he was a highly respected member of the company, as I would expect him to be.

There were several older men there, seamen mostly who had worked for my grandfather in his various ships in the days before he had become a trader.

I was amazed how these people enjoyed talking of the old days.

“Life has become tame,” said one of them who was seated next to me at dinner. “The days of the old Queen was the time to be alive.”

Another of his age put in: “And that was the days before the Defeat of the Armada.”

“We were in a very dangerous position then.”

“That was good for us. Every man ready to do his best to ward off the foe. People are not like that now. They’re selfish, looking for their own gain.”

I could not help commenting that they had always been like that.

They talked with great affection of the old Queen, of her vanities, her temper, her injustice and her greatness.

“There has never been so shrewd a monarch and there never will be,” was the verdict.

It was true that they had not the same respect for our reigning king. He was dirty in his habits; unkempt in his appearance and ill-mannered at the table. He had the disadvantage of having been brought up by Scotsmen, they said.

“Though his mother,” said my old gentleman, “was said to be one of the most elegant and beautiful women the world has ever known.”

Then they started to talk of old times and how the Queen of Scotland had been the centre of plots to put her on the throne and our Queen had always been one step ahead of the scheming Mary.

“Mary was an adulteress,” said one.

“And a murderess,” said the other.

They discussed the murder of her second husband, Lord Darnley.

“He was to have been blown up in Kirk o’ Fields, and we know who planned that. But it went wrong, and he was found in the grounds … dead … but without a sign on his body of how he died.”

I found I was suddenly listening attentively.

“There was nothing to show …”

I felt my heart begin to beat faster and I said: “How could that be possible?”

“Oh, it is possible,” was the answer. “There is a method and these villains knew it.”

“What method?” I asked earnestly.

“I believe that if a wet cloth is placed over the mouth and held firmly there until the victim is suffocated, there will be no signs of violence on his skin.”

I felt it hard to concentrate after that. Those words kept dancing about in my brain.

There had been no signs of violence on my mother’s body. Nor had there been on Lord Darnley’s.

I would have liked to talk to my grandmother but I dared not. She looked so old and fragile that I did not want to upset her.

I said nothing. I wanted to go back to the castle. I was certain now that my mother had feared something. On the night I had left her alone she had died … and there were no marks of violence on her body.

Someone had killed her. Moreover she had an inkling that someone was trying to.

If she was writing down the events of her days she must have written something which she considered secret since she had wanted to hide it.

I had to find those papers.

It was April when I arrived back at the castle. When I went up to our bedchamber, I found that Senara’s things were gone.

She came hurrying in and hugged me.

“So you are back. I’ll admit it doesn’t seem the same without you.”

“Where are your things?”

She put her head on one side and regarded me with a smile. “I thought it was time you and I had separate rooms. There are enough and to spare in the castle. It was all very well when we were little and afraid of the dark.”

I was a little hurt. I thought of the pleasant manner in which we had always chatted before we slept; and how she had clearly not been pleased if I was ever not there, as for instance when I visited my grandmother.

“I’ve gone into the Red Room,” she said.

“Why that room? There are others.”

“I had a fancy for it.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“You’re not angry, are you?” she asked.

“No, but I wonder why you felt it necessary.”

She smiled secretly. I knew there was a reason. And why had she chosen the Red Room? I knew how daring and reckless she was. A thought had come into my mind. She was in love with Dickon. I was certain of that. The very fact that marriage with him would be so highly unsuitable would make it attractive to her. And he was going away soon, for when the Deemsters left he was going with them. He was one of them now. He would go first to Holland and join in that greater project to settle in America if it ever came to pass.

An idea came to me then. Could she have chosen the Red Room because if the servants heard strange noises there they would say it was a ghost and be afraid to enter?

Did Dickon really come to the castle to visit her at night? Not the puritan surely. But how sincere were they … either of them? And I believed that they were passionately in love.

It was a very uneasy situation. I wondered what would happen to Dickon if he were really visiting Senara and if my father or her mother discovered this.

Lord Cartonel was still paying his visits. Senara and her mother took wine with him. I was certain that he was going to ask for Senara’s hand; and if he did then I was sure that she would be obliged to take this very grand gentleman. He was just what I believed her mother had always wanted for her.

As for myself, I started my search for the papers again. But where could I look that I had not looked before?

My thoughts were diverted by the talk of witchcraft which had become rife since my departure. Merry was excited by it.

“They do say, Mistress,” she told me, “that there be a coven of ’em and ’tis not so far away. Some says some place, some another. Terrible things do happen there. ’Tis anti-Christian. There they do worship the Devil himself and he sits there in their midst in the form of a horned goat.”

“It’s a lot of nonsense, Merry,” I told her.

“’Tis not so thought to be, Mistress, pardon the contradiction. There be terrible goings on. One serving-girl were out late and she saw them there. She peeped and there they was mother-naked, dancing, wild, like … as though they was inciting each other to be criminal, like.”

“How did the serving-girl know they were acting in criminal manner?”

“Oh ’twere clear to see.”

“If she were innocent how would she recognize these criminal acts?”

“Well, ’twas moonlight and they threw off their clothes and danced together; and then when they be exhausted they lie down together and that’s the worst of it.”

“I would like to question that serving-girl.”

“Oh, she wouldn’t mind that, Mistress, only she bain’t one of ours. She be terrible upset about it for she do think they knew she was watching. They would, like, wouldn’t ’em, seeing they’m sold to the Devil and they say he be powerful … like God really but on the other side.”

“Merry,” I said severely, “you know that no good can come of this gossip.”

“’Tis saying that only good will come when every witch be hanging from a gibbet.”

I wanted to leave her, but I felt it was imperative that I knew the truth.

I said: “I think the girl imagined she saw this. What was she doing out at night in any case?”

“She’d been to visit her mother who’d been took ill and she had to wait with her till help come. She did see familiar faces there in the coven, Mistress. She knows now that some be the Devil’s own.”

“Has she said who?”

“No, she be feared to. Every time she do open her mouth to say she be took with trembling. But they be going to make her say. They be meeting … all them that is going to put a stop to witches will take her and make her talk. It must be so, Mistress. Mistress Jelling have lost her baby … stillborn it were, and a terrible disease have broke out among her husband’s cows.”

I knew that whatever I said would do no good. It frightened me. I could feel the tension rising.

I knew that the servants were watching my stepmother. In their hearts they believed that she had brought witchcraft into the castle. It was some years now since she had come but the nature of her coming would never be forgotten.

A terrible thought had struck me. If the people were aroused to look for witches, as I believed they had done in other parts of the country, the first place they would look would be in the castle.

Senara seemed to be possessed by a recklessness. I sensed that she was unhappy and that it was because Dickon was going away.

Surely she could never have imagined there would be a marriage between them. She might have done so, being Senara.

Once she had said: “With me all things are possible,” and she had meant it.

She was quieter than usual. I knew that she went often to Leyden Hall; and I was almost certain that Dickon crept into the castle at night.

I overheard the servants talking about familiars. “Could be a cat or a mouse most likely. It is really the Devil in that form. He talks to the one he comes to and tells her what evil she can do.”

I wondered whether they had heard voices in the Red Room.

I loved Senara, maddening as she was at times. I did not understand her but the bond between us was there.

I deplored this recklessness in her. I wanted to implore her to take care.

That was the last thing she would do. She knew there were whisperings. She knew that as her mother’s daughter she was suspected. Yet she seemed to take a delight in whipping up their fears and suspicions.

Once she came in late. I knew she had been to Leyden Hall for she had about her that look of exultation which was often there after her visits.

I said to her: “You have just ridden in on Betsy.”

She flashed at me, “Of course. What did you expect me to ride in on? My broomstick?”

And there were servants listening.

THE DEVIL’S TEETH

IT WAS STRANGE THAT when I was not looking for them I should find my mother’s papers. I had intended to write a letter to my grandmother and in my mother’s sitting-room where I did my writing at that time I opened the sandalwood desk box which I often used. There was paper wedged into the side of the box-like cavity and as I tried to dislodge it I touched a spring. A flap of wood fell down and the papers started to spill out.

I looked at them in disbelief. I glanced at a page. I could not believe it. My heart began to thud with excitement. That for which I had searched so earnestly had fallen into my hands.

I sorted the papers; there were far more than I would have believed possible in that secret compartment of the sandalwood desk box.

I started to read. There it was—my mother’s meeting with Fenn’s father, the possibility of their marriage and then with my father at the inn and the consequences. Knowing them, it was so vivid to me and yet I said to myself as I read on, did I know them? I suppose people are different beings to different people. They change their personalities to suit their background like a chameleon on his tree.

There was the coming of my stepmother. That I knew already. She had come on Hallowe’en and been found by my mother. It was a story which had often been told.

And then … my mother’s discovery of my father’s profession.

I could not bear that. I wished I had never found the papers. So on those nights of storm he lured ships on to the rocks. A flash of understanding came to me. The night I had lighted the lanterns in the tower they had been deliberately put out. It was for that reason that there had been a whipping in the Seaward courtyard. Someone had been blamed for lighting them on that night. Someone who should have seen that they were put out.

What can I do? I asked myself. I cannot stay here. I won’t stay here. I must get away. I must put a stop to my father’s hideous trade.

How?

I could betray him. To whom? I was so ignorant of what should be done. What if I told Fenn? I could go to him and tell him what was happening and he would stop it. And Fenn’s father was in that grave. Murdered 1600 and by my own father!

I felt inadequate, alone.

To whom could I turn?

There was my grandmother. I could go to her. She was a wise woman. She would tell me what to do.

Then I thought of her, frail and failing, and I asked myself how could I burden her with this?

I must find a way. I would make sure that always the lanterns shone out their beams on the water. They might turn them out but I would see that they were lighted. At least I could do that. I had saved a ship once. I would do it again.

They would discover, of course. What would they do to me? What would my father do if he knew that I was aware of his trade? He was a violent man; and if he was capable of letting hundreds drown for the sake of the cargo they carried, what else was he capable of?

Murdered 1600! I kept seeing that stone on my mother’s grave. I read on in fascinated horror.

She had been afraid. She had suspected something. She had been comforted by my presence and on the night I was not there she had died.

I had learned so much through those papers but not what I had set out to know.

How did my mother die?

In view of all I now knew I was convinced that she had been murdered.

My knowledge had changed me. Senara noticed it.

“What’s happened?” she demanded. “Something has.”

I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

“I can see it,” she insisted. “I’ve spoken to you twice and you haven’t answered. You’re dreaming half the time. And you’re worried, Tamsyn. What is it?”

“You’re imagining things,” I said.

But she didn’t believe me and she wasn’t going to let it rest.

“I believe you’ve discovered something. What is it? Is it why Fenn doesn’t come to see you?”

“I don’t need to discover that. Why should he come to see me more than anyone else?”

“Because there was some special understanding between you.”

“In other people’s imaginations,” I said.

“Well, if it’s not Fenn, what is it? I know. You’ve found those papers you were looking for.”

I started. I must have betrayed myself.

“So you have,” she declared.

“The papers are still in their secret hiding-place.” This was true. I had put them back in the sandalwood desk. I would keep the desk in the old place so that none might find anything different. That was the safest way.

“I believe you have seen them,” said Senara. “You’ve been reading the revelations and it has made you very thoughtful. You can’t keep secrets, Tamsyn. You never could.”

“You’d be surprised,” I said, “what secrets I can keep.”

“If you’ve found those papers and won’t show them to me I’ll never forgive you.”

“I dare say I shall get through life without your forgiveness.”

“So you have found them.”

“I said I could do without your forgiveness.”

“You are maddening. But you’ve found them, I know. Don’t imagine that I’m not going to pester you till you tell me where they are.”

Merry had come into the room.

I wondered how much she had overheard.

It was amazing how difficult it was to keep a secret in a household of many people. I was well aware that several people believed with Senara that I had found the papers.

During that day the uneasiness came to me.

I was possessed of dangerous knowledge. There were several people involved—my father who gave the orders, all the men of the Seaward Tower who were his helpers in his work of destruction, my stepmother who might have been my father’s mistress while my mother was alive and who married him three months after her death.

The biggest guilt rested with my father. It was this thought which horrified me. I could not bear that he should be the murderer of my mother. He was the one with the motive. She had known of his trade, but then she had accepted it. I was surprised that she had, but perhaps I did not understand. She had needed him in her life. Whether she had loved him or not I could not know. I was not sufficiently experienced. I was too young, too idealistic. I knew my grandmother had deplored my grandfather’s buccaneering ways. He had often boasted of the Spaniards he had killed. Yet she had loved him and when he had died it had seemed that her life had finished with his. How was I to understand the complex emotions between men and women. I had a kind of idealistic love for Fenn Landor, but I was shrewd enough to know that I was only on the threshold of love. He had rejected me and it might be that one day I would love as my grandmother had loved my grandfather and my mother my father. I could not blame her for turning away from that terrible question. He was her husband and she had promised to obey him.

I was certain though that my mother had been murdered. I was equally certain of the method. A famous person died in a certain way and a method was used. That method would be remembered. I thought of Lord Darnley in that house at Kirk o’ Fields and how he had escaped when the gunpowder was about to blow it up, how his murderers had caught up with him in the garden and there suffocated him with the damp cloth—not in his bed as they had planned but in the garden to which he had escaped. And because of this and because his body was found unmarked by violence, people talked of how he had died and that method would be remembered and repeated. In a way all our lives were linked with one another.

One thing was clear. There was a murderer in the castle and I was possessed of dangerous knowledge—how dangerous that person was not sure.

The simplest thing to be done would be to get me out of the way.

That was why I felt this fear. It was as though my mother was warning me. I had this strong feeling that she was watching over me.

By a coincidence I had overheard that conversation at my grandmother’s house and it had alerted my senses. It was a possible method … in fact the only method; and it had proved so effective. Would it be repeated?

I could picture it all so clearly. Merry would come in the morning. She would see me lying there cold and still as my mother had lain all those years ago.

There would be no marks on my body, no indication of how I had died. They would say: It was a mysterious disease which she must have inherited from her mother for this is exactly how she died. I knew my danger was at night.

How had I lived through that day, I wondered. If only there was someone to whom I could turn. Should I go to my grandmother after all?

Evening shadows fell across the castle. I sat at my window and looked out at the Devil’s Teeth. There the masts of broken ships were visible. Was it true that on some nights the ghostly voices of the dead were heard coming from the rocks?

I went up to the tower room to make sure the lanterns were lighted. They weren’t. Perhaps it wasn’t dark enough. So I lighted them.

Jan Leward came up while I was on the ladder.

I started when I heard a noise in the room.

“What be doing, Mistress?” he said. “I come to light the lanterns.”

“I thought it had been forgotten,” I said.

He looked at me oddly. “Nay, Mistress, ’twas early yet.”

I wondered whether he was thinking that I was the one who had lighted them before and earned a whipping for one of his friends.

I went down to my bedchamber. I had not joined them for supper. I felt I could not sit at the table with my father and stepmother and not betray my feelings. I had pleaded a headache.

Jennet came up with one of her possets. I took it uncomplainingly to get rid of her. And when she had gone I thought how foolish it was of me to have pleaded indisposition. Wasn’t that setting the stage for someone to despatch me in the same way as my mother had been?

I thought: If it is going to happen to me it will happen soon, and it will be while I am asleep in my bedchamber. I should have been wise and calm. I should have behaved as though nothing unusual had happened. I should have made it seem that that talk of the papers being discovered was mere servants’ gossip.

But I had not been strong enough.

I undressed and went to my bed. I had no intention of sleeping. I could not in any case. I was wide awake. It could be tonight, I thought, for if someone is trying to be rid of me it will have to be done soon, for every minute I live I could divulge something I have discovered in my mother’s papers.

I must not sleep tonight.

I propped myself up with pillows and waited.

There was no moon tonight and it was dark. My eyes were accustomed to the gloom and I could make out the familiar pieces of furniture in the room.

There I waited and I went over in my mind everything I had read in my mother’s papers. I promised myself that if I lived through this I would write my own experiences and add them to hers, that I might as she said look at myself with complete clarity, for that is important. One must see oneself, one must be true to oneself, for it is only then that one can be faithful to others.

And as I waited there in the gloom of my bedchamber, I heard the clock in the courtyard strike midnight.

Now my lids were becoming heavy; part of me wanted to sleep, but the tension within me saved me from that. I was firmly of the belief that if I slept I would never wake up. I would never know who it was who had killed my mother.

I must be ready.

And then it came … It must have been a half-hour past midnight, the steps in the corridor which paused outside my door. The slow lifting of the latch.

Oh God, I thought, it has come. And a fervent prayer escaped me. Not my father, I implored.

The door was opening. Someone was in the room—a shadowy figure, coming closer and closer to the bed.

I cried: “Senara!”

“Yes,” she said, “it is. I couldn’t sleep. I had to come to talk to you.”

She looked round. “Where’s my pallet?”

“It’s been taken away. I think it’s behind the ruelle.”

I was shaking. It must have been with relief.

She went to the wooden chair and pulled it close to the bed.

“I had to talk to you, Tamsyn. It’s easier to talk in the dark.”

“A fine time to come,” I said, returning to normal. And I thought: There will be two of us if the murderer comes.

“Yes,” she said. “It was easier when I slept here, wasn’t it? I’d just wake you and make you talk. Now I have to come to you.”

“Why did you go?”

“You know.”

“Dickon,” I said. “So he comes to visit you.”

“You’re shocked.”

“I’m finding out quite a lot that’s shocking.”

“You mean in the papers …”

I said, “I mean about you.”

“I can’t explain my feelings for Dickon,” she said. “He’s not much more than a servant, is he?”

“Put that down to ill luck. He has some education, as much as you have. He sings beautifully and dances too.”

“He doesn’t now. He’s a puritan.”

“Yet he visits you at night?”

“He’s trying to be a puritan. He wants me to marry him.”

“That’s impossible.”

“They want me for Lord Cartonel.”

“He may not want you after the Dickon adventure.”

She laughed. “Dickon is going away. They’re sailing in a week. Fancy! I shall see him no more. I can’t bear it, Tamsyn.”

“You’ll have to.”

“Not if I went with him.”

“Senara, you’re mad. You’d have to be a puritan.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“As if you ever could!”

“I could try … as Dickon tries. I’d have my lapses … but I suspect they all do.”

“I should put such nonsense out of your mind.”

“I want to be good, Tamsyn.”

“I suppose most people do, but they want other things more.”

“I have to confess to you, Tamsyn. It’s about Fenn Landor.”

“What?” I cried.

“I couldn’t bear that you should marry and go away. It was all so right for you, wasn’t it? He was approved of by the family. And he was so good and noble and you were to live not so far from here and dear Grandmother, and he would be such a good husband. It wasn’t fair.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Senara?”

“You’re such a fool, Tamsyn. Always believing the best of everyone. You just don’t know what life’s about. You’re the eternal mother and we’re all your children. We’re a wicked lot and you think the best of us. Fenn Landor is another like you. You go through life blindly innocent of the world. Look at this place. Look what goes on here.”

“You know,” I said.

“Of course I know. I’ve spied out things. I’ve seen what goes into Ysella’s Tower. I’ve seen the men go out with their donkeys when the lights are out in the tower. I know they lure ships on to the Devil’s Teeth and they don’t save the survivors. I’m going to make a guess. You’ve found those papers and your mother knew about this and she’s written about it and you know now. And you don’t know what to do. That’s it, is it not?”

I was silent. She’s right, I thought, I’m an innocent. I don’t see what is happening about me. I do believe in the goodness of everybody. But not any more. I know someone in this house is going to murder me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said.

“Oh no. I wasn’t going to do that. I used it though … that’s what I’ve got to tell you. You see, when Jan Leward was whipped he hated our father. So did Merry. They were ready to do anything that would bring harm to him. I questioned them about what I suspected and they told me so much. They told me that the grave next to your mother’s was that of Fenn Landor’s father and they told me how his ship was wrecked and he washed up on the coast. We put the stones on the graves—it was my idea. They thought it was revenge on your father, but I wanted it for Fenn Landor. I wanted a big shock for him because I felt in my bones—and I am a bit of a witch, you know—that he was going to ask you to marry him that night. I had to stop it. It was only partly because I didn’t want you to have everything that was right and proper. I didn’t want to lose you either. So that’s what we did. Then we put one on your mother’s grave. And when I found you’d brought the stone in I took it away and threw it in the sea. It had served its purpose. Then I sent Jan to tell Fenn Landor what was going on here. He thinks you know of it.”

“Oh Senara!”

“Yes, he’ll despise you and your father, and he’ll do something about it. I know he will. He’ll be here when there’s a wreck and he’ll catch them at it. Then we’ll see what will happen. But that’s why he’s kept away from you. I’ve sent Jan over to tell him that the grave in the burial ground is that of his father. That’ll bring some action, you see.”

In spite of everything I felt a certain pleasure. There was a reason for Fenn’s absence. I could understand how shocked he must have been by Jan Leward’s revelation. I knew how he would feel because of my own bewilderment. He would be uncertain how to act, as I was.

I could explain to him and I remembered with a sudden stab of joy that I could prove I had not known of the terrible things that were happening. Had I not saved the ship by lighting the lanterns—one of the trading ships of his own company!

“You see,” Senara was going on, “I am a witch. I stir up trouble as the witches stirred up the sea when the Queen was coming from Norway. I am wicked. You could say that I have given my allegiance to Satan. I have renounced God. It’s true Tamsyn.”

“And you are talking of being a puritan?”

“You know I never would be. I talk a great deal of nonsense, Tamsyn. And then tonight … I woke up suddenly in the Red Room and I knew I had to come to you. I had to tell you. I want Fenn Landor to know the truth too.”

“Why this sudden change of front?”

“Because something is going to happen. Nothing is going to be the same again. I am a witch. I know it makes you angry when I say it. I don’t ride on broomsticks. I have no familiar, I haven’t kissed the horned goat, but I stir up the lives of those around me. That’s why I’m a witch. I’m going to give you Fenn Landor, Tamsyn. I’m going to make him believe in you. You’re my blood-sister and I’m going to make you happy for the rest of your life.”

“That’s good of you,” I said.

She laughed. “Now you’re talking to me as you used to. You’ve forgiven me. Of course you have. You always forgive. You think I’m reformed, but I’m not. I’ll be just as wicked tomorrow. It’s only tonight I’m good.”

“You must be cold too.”

“No,” she said, “I’m warm … warm in the glow of my own virtue. Soon I shall have to say goodbye to Dickon. Then I shall marry Lord Cartonel and live dangerously ever after.”

She went on talking of what her life would be like and then she was silent.

Fenn filled my thoughts. I must see him. I thought: He will come to see me and we will go away together. But what of Castle Paling and the evil things which were done there?

And as I sat there I thought I heard a noise in the corridor.

“What’s that?” I asked.

Senara listened.

She said: “It was the wind.”

“I thought I heard footsteps outside.”

Footsteps outside the door! Footsteps retreating!

I shivered a little and was thankful that Senara was with me.

She talked of her love for Dickon and how it amazed her and him; and how she wondered how she could go on living without him.

It was dawn when she went to her bed and the castle was stirring. Only then did I sleep and when I awoke it was late into the morning.

I don’t know how I lived through the next day. There was one thought which superseded all others. There was a reason for Fenn’s absence. If he could be made to see the truth … He should be made to see the truth. What could I do? Could I ride over to him? The distance was too far in one day. I could not just slip away. Or could I? I might go to my grandmother. Then I thought of the shock it would be to her to learn of these things. The terrible trade of her son-in-law, her daughter’s acceptance of it, and finally her murder.

Yes, I was convinced that my mother had been murdered. I believed that the noise in the corridor I had heard the previous night had been the footsteps of the murderer who was coming to my room. Senara had saved me, Senara who had tried to ruin my life had saved it.