The Witch from the Sea (24 page)

“What should I do? Let the sea swallow them?”

“Perhaps they should be salvaged and returned to their owners.”

That brought out a peal of harsh laughter. “I can see my clever wife should indeed be managing my affairs.” The laughter died out suddenly; his mouth was grim. “On the contrary, I can see I shall have to teach her to manage her own. And that is that she interferes not with what she sees and that if she attempts to she will soon be wishing that she had never done so.”

“What will you do then? Strip me naked to the waist and tie me to the whipping-post as though I were a servant who has misbehaved? Will you wield the whip or is that too menial a task for your noble hands?”

He took a step towards me and lifted his hand. He had done it before, and as before the blow did not come.

“Take care,” he said. “You would find that if I were truly angry with you my wrath would be terrible.”

“I know it,” I said looking him in the eyes.

“Yet you provoke it.”

“I will not be your puppet. I would rather be dead.”

He laughed. There was just a hint of tenderness in his face. He seized me and held me tightly against him. “You are my wife,” he said. “You gave me the best son in the world. I am not displeased with you. But know this. I will not be crossed. My will is law. You have my favour. No woman ever pleased me for so long as you do. Let us keep it so.”

“And what of this woman from the sea? Will you turn her away?”

He was thoughtful for a moment. I could see he was thinking deeply. He was angry because there had been a survivor from the ship and because I had brought her into the castle and may well have preserved her life. He would have preferred her to die, so that there were no witnesses. He could send her away, but what if she lived to tell the tale?

“Not yet,” he said. “Let her stay awhile.”

“She is with child.”

He was silent for a few seconds, then he said: “When is the child due?”

“It is difficult to say. I should think the birth may be some two months away.”

He remained thoughtful and then he said: “She may stay at least until the child is born. Have you spoken to her?”

“She is in no condition to speak. She looks … foreign.”

“A Spaniard,” he said, his lips curling.

“It was a Spanish ship?”

He did not answer that.

“Keep her for a while,” he said. “There is no need to decide yet.”

“I am sure she is of noble birth.”

“Then we will make her work in the kitchens to forget that.”

I thought: At least he will not turn her out until her child is born. Poor woman, where would she go then? There were dismal tales of Spanish sailors who had been wrecked on our coasts at the time of the Armada, but they were men. The idea of a woman turned out in an alien land to beg her bread with a small child to care for made me feel sick with horror.

He said: “You say she has a foreign look. Where is she?”

“In the Red Room.”

“My first wife’s room. The one you think is haunted. Well, perhaps the ghost will drive our visitor away. I’ll look at her. Come with me.”

Together we went into the Red Room. He threw open the door and walked to the bed.

She lay there, looking as though she had been carved out of alabaster. Her hair, now dry, lay about her shoulders. The perfect symmetry of her features was more than ever apparent. Her heavy lashes lay against her skin. I wished that she would open her eyes. I was sure that if she did the effect would be dazzling.

Colum stood staring at her.

“By God,” he said, “what a beautiful woman.”

In a few days she was able to get up. It was astonishing how a woman in her condition could have come through such an ordeal. I sent for the midwife who had attended me at the birth of my children and asked her to examine our patient. The verdict was that she was in a good condition and that her ordeal appeared to have had no ill consequences for the child.

She spoke a little halting English. She was Spanish, as I had thought, a fact which would not help her, for the hatred of that race persisted in our country although we had beaten the Armada.

She could tell us little. When I asked questions she shook her head. She could not remember what had happened. She knew that she had been in a ship. She did not know why. She could remember nothing but that she had found herself in Castle Paling.

I asked her what her name was, but she could not remember that either.

During the first week in November when the sea was as calm as a lake I made one of the men row me out to the Devil’s Teeth. It was perfectly safe, for those men knew every inch of that stretch of sea; they knew exactly where the treacherous rocks lay hidden beneath the water.

I saw the ship caught there on the rocks, a pitiful sight. She was broken in half; the sharp rocks must have been driven right through her; and I read on her side the words
Santa Maria
.

I wondered why that woman had been on the ship. She must have been travelling with her husband; perhaps he was the captain of the vessel. How strange it was that she could remember nothing. She would in time. Such a shock as she had experienced could rob a woman of her memory.

Perhaps, poor soul, it was as well that she could not remember; perhaps it would stop her grieving too much until she recovered a little.

Her child was due towards the end of December, the midwife told me. I think that perhaps the fact that she was pregnant was the reason for her serenity. I imagined that the greatest importance to her was the welfare of her child, and I determined to make her as comfortable as I could for I felt a great responsibility towards her. There was one picture which kept coming into my mind and which I could not dismiss. It was that of the men returning to the Seaward Tower with their donkeys and lanterns. Where had they been? I had an idea but I would not face it. I could not bear to because I thought that if I did I could not stay here.

The woman had to have a name and because the name of the ship was
Santa Maria
I called her Maria. I asked if she would mind if I called her by that name.

“Maria,” she said slowly and shook her head. I did not know whether she meant we could call her by that name but we did. And very soon she was known throughout the household as Maria.

By December it was clear that the birth of her child was imminent. My mother came to spend the Christmas with us and Edwina and Romilly accompanied her. Penn had gone to sea. He had been so excited to be allowed to join one of the ships. The cargoes that had been brought back after the first voyage had proved valuable and they were eager to repeat their success, although not their losses.

We did not talk very much about the voyage because it always meant a certain anxiety; and I wanted them to enjoy the festivities.

It was a week before Christmas and I was expecting Maria’s child to be born any day. I had insisted that the midwife stay at the castle, for I still feared that Maria’s adventure when she was so advanced in pregnancy might have had some effect which was not apparent. I was frantically anxious that nothing should go wrong. It was not that I had any great affection for Maria. She was not an easy person to know. Her aloofness might have been due to her ignorance of our language, but it was certainly there. She accepted our concern and help as though it were her right and she never seemed over grateful for it. I felt however that her child must be born and live. The uneasy thoughts which had come into my mind on the night when the
Santa Maria
had sunk, persisted, and I could not dismiss them.

When my mother was introduced to Maria she was clearly surprised. I had mentioned her in a letter but only briefly; and I had discovered that everyone who met Maria was astonished by her. It was something more than mere beauty but I could not yet quite understand what.

“What a beautiful woman,” said my mother when we were alone. “So she is the lady of the shipwreck. And she cannot remember who she is. One thing is certain. She is of high birth, patrician to the fingertips. Where will she go when the child is born?”

“I don’t know. She cannot remember whence she came.”

“And she was on the ship. How very strange.”

“I think she must have been the wife of the captain, and I think too that after the child is born her memory may return.”

“Then she will wish to go to her family, I doubt not.”

“If she is Spanish that could be difficult.”

“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.

She smiled gravely. When she smiled one could not help but gaze at her in amazement. It was like a beautiful statue coming to life; and indeed with the passing of each day she became more beautiful.

But as she said nothing about the baby’s name I asked if I might choose one for her. She nodded and so I began to cast about for something suitable. Thus I hit on the name Senara, the patron saint of Zennor. This seemed very suitable as Senara is one of the saints about whom nothing is known.

And so the child became Senara.

The household had altered subtly. Colum had changed. He hated Maria, I believed, and some of that hatred was directed at me, implying that I should never have saved her and brought her into the house.