The Witch from the Sea (25 page)

All through the month of January when it was cold—exceptionally for us, for there was snow—she scarcely moved from the Red Room. She ordered that a great fire should burn there throughout the day and most of the night and I did not countermand this order. When I felt inclined to, I remembered her lying there in the water so near to death and the men coming in with their donkeys, and I could do nothing.

My mother stayed until mid-February because the weather was too bad for travelling and while she was there I did not notice the change so much. It was after she had gone that it seemed more apparent.

I gathered from Jennet’s conversation that the servants were aware of it.

“They don’t like going to the Red Room,” she told me. “They’m in and out quick as can be. They say they’ll look up, like, and see her eyes on them. ’Tis like she be fixing a spell on them.”

“A spell, Jennet!” I said sharply. “What nonsense!”

“Well, she did come on Hallowe’en, Mistress.”

That alarmed me faintly. They were going to fasten the name “witch” on Maria.

I knew that she would be able to look after herself, but it was dangerous. Witches were taken and hanged or even burned to death on the flimsiest suspicion. I did not want the shadow of witchcraft to touch our household.

“It just happened that she was on the wrecked ship,” I said sharply.

“That’s what ’twould seem, Mistress.”

“That’s what it
was
, Jennet.”

“Well, they be saying that if she be a witch she’d make her coming seem natural. She could stir up a storm at sea if need be.”

“This is dangerous talk,” I said.

“And she pretends not to speak so’s we can understand.”

“She is a foreigner so of course her language is different from ours.”

“You can’t be sure, Mistress, with foreigners.”

I could see that Jennet, too, was tainted with this belief.

I said: “If they accused her of being a witch, what of Senara?”

Jennet then did look alarmed.

“They would soon be accusing the daughter of a witch,” I went on.

“She be but a babe.”

“Would they care for that? If they took one they’d take the other too.”

Jennet’s face was as resolute as it could only be when there was a child to be protected.

“’Tis all a parcel of nonsense,” she said hotly. “There were a wreck and she were from that broken ship. And just because it happen to be Hallowe’en.”

I could see that I had said the right thing.

I was sure Jennet would have some effect on the others but she could not eradicate suspicion altogether. Maria had come at the time of Hallowe’en, and to a community which was beginning to be more and more obsessed by witchcraft that was significant.

March was unusually mild and the spring feeling came early that year. There appeared to be a bigger crop of daisies and dandelions making the meadows a mass of white and gold. I had inherited a love of flowers from my grandmother and I always took special delight in their coming. At this time of the year I would ride out and search for the wild daffodils and wood anemones and the purplish-blue flowers of the ground ivy which I called gill-go-by-the-ground, a name I must have heard from my mother who got it from hers. This year was different. When I rode out I would be thinking about Maria and wondering what was going to happen to her and Senara, for they could not stay indefinitely at Castle Paling.

Where could they go? I wondered. I guessed Maria was Spanish but how could she leave for Spain? Perhaps I thought one of my father’s ships could take her, but in view of the animosity between our countries that could not very easily be arranged.

In time, I suppose, Maria would tell us. She had been in the house five months. Of course if there had not been the child she could not have remained so long.

I wondered why Colum ignored her presence. She was living as our guest and I had to admit that at times she behaved almost like the mistress of the house. Colum was not of a temper to tolerate such an invasion into his household, yet he had raised no objection after the first outburst. I could not get Edwina’s warning out of my mind, for Edwina’s prognostications had so many times proved to have some substance.

Returning from one of my rides on a lovely day in March, I left my horse in the stables and as I was coming into the courtyard through the narrow arch I heard voices.

I paused, for I recognized those of Colum and Maria, and it so surprised me that without realizing I stopped short. From where I stood they could not see me, nor I them, but Colum’s voice with its deep timbre was one which carried easily on the air.

They were quarrelling and I sensed the suppressed fury in him.

“Get out,” he said. “I will not have you under my roof. Get out and take your brat with you.”

I heard her laugh. It was a deep laugh, full of malice and hatred.

She spoke haltingly but there was no doubt of the gist of her remarks. “This you owe me. As long as I wish. You destroy our ship … You …
you
. Murderer. You take our goods … you take our lives … I live … my child live … and because this is so you owe us all we take.”

“I owe you nothing.”

“Think, lord of the castle. I go from here. I tell …”

“You tell … tell what?”

“How you become rich …”

I drew back into the shadows. I felt sick with fear. I thought of those stormy nights and the men coming back to the Seaward Tower with their donkeys.

“Some things I remember,” she said. “The ship … the lights … The big rocks are there … in the sea. There were lights to warn us … But the lights were not where the rocks were … I know what you do. You lure the ship to the rocks and you plunder us.”

“Who will believe this nonsense?” he cried.

She laughed again.

I could not stand there. At any moment Colum could come striding from the courtyard and find me there, listening.

I turned and fled. I went up to my bedchamber. I could not say that I had had a shock. For some time the thought had been in my mind … ever since I had seen the men on the donkeys … and perhaps before.

So this was what he did. He sent his men out on the donkeys with their lanterns and they would stand some miles away with their lights to indicate that that spot was Castle Paling and the Devil’s Teeth were just before it, and thinking to avoid the treacherous rocks the ships would come straight on to them.

It was diabolical.

And this he did that he might salvage the cargoes and sell them. How many ships had suffered in this way? I could remember five storms and the nightly activities of the men. They might not have succeeded in every instance, but that he could do this horrified me and changed my feelings towards him.

I did not know what to do. He was my husband, the father of my beloved children; and his profession—if such it could be called—horrified me.

It was a mistake to have come to the bedchamber for within a short time the door was open and there he stood, flushed with rage after his encounter with Maria.

I faced him. I could not keep silent.

I said: “I have just come up. I was in the courtyard. I overheard what Maria was saying to you.”

He looked at me in astonishment, his eyes narrowed suddenly. “Well?” he said.

“I know it’s true. Oh Colum, it’s horrible.”

“You too,” he said. “Have done. I am in a mood to do you a mischief … both of you.”

“She was right. You lured the ship in which she was sailing on to the rocks, for the sake of its cargo. By chance she managed to survive. I …”

“And you, by God, brought her here. Had I known what you were doing …”

“Yes, you would have thrown her back into the sea, for that is the kind of man you are. You care nothing for human life. You dispense with it if it is in your way. It sickens me to think of it.”

“Then, Madam, you had best prepare yourself for this state of sickness. If I have married a lily-livered woman, God help her, for I will have her obey me and keep her mouth shut when I command it.”

“I have suspected this.”

He came towards me suddenly and caught my arm. “You have mentioned this to any?”

“To whom should I mention it?”

“To your mother perhaps.”

“How could I? She would be disgusted. She would insist that I return to my home with her.”

He released his grip on my arm. “This is your home,” he said, “and by God, you shall stay in it as long as I wish to keep you. As for your mother’s disgust, I do not believe your father is so nice in his ways. I wonder how many Spaniards he has killed.”

“We were always at war with Spain.”

“Was it for war that they met their deaths or because they had gold and treasure? Answer me that.”

I could not. I knew what he said was true. And I knew that my mother, who was honourable and good, remained with my father and loved him in her way, in spite of his bloodstained hands.

I wanted to go away, to be by myself, to think. To ask myself what I wanted to do, for I could not be sure. I wanted to be with Colum. I had to admit it, he satisfied my senses. When we were together I could forget everything. The strength of him, the power he wielded over everything and everyone in the castle. At such times I felt I wanted to be subdued; I welcomed his rough love-making; it satisfied a part of my nature; but when he was not there, when I thought about him I felt repulsed and wanted very much to go back to Lyon Court. I wanted to talk to someone, to understand myself. I could not talk to my mother because what I had to tell I believed would cause her great concern. She would not want me to go on living with a man who lured people to their deaths for the sake of profit. Yet she had lived with my father.

It was a cruel world. Once my mother had said: “Was it so vicious in the past? Will it be so in the future? I find it hard to reconcile myself to the fury of the times. Perhaps I was born into the wrong world.”

I remembered that now and asked myself: Was I?

Colum was watching me; his black eyes alight with a passion that I had seen in the early days of our acquaintance.

He shouted: “Answer me. Answer me!”

“What other men did has no bearing on this,” I said.

“Has it not? You have a fine opinion of your father. I shall insist that you have as fine a one of your husband.”

“You cannot force people to have opinions.”

“We shall see,” he said. Then he came close to me and took me by the shoulders. “Now you know the nature of my business,” he said, “what do you propose to do about it?” I was silent and he went on: “I will tell you. You will accept it. You will help me in all I do, as a good wife should.”

“I would never help you to … murder.”

He shook me violently. “Have done,” he said. “A ship founders. I have as much right to its cargo as any.”

“A ship that has been
helped
to founder?”

“Should I be blamed because a captain does not know how to navigate?”

“If you lead him astray with false information, yes, you are to blame. You have caused the death of countless people … so that you could grow rich on their possessions.”

“Have done, you fool. Why did you have to save that woman from the sea?”

“Because I am not like you … a murderer.”

“You have brought her into this house with her brat. What good will that do us?”

“At least it has saved two lives to set against all those you have taken.”

“You have the tongue of a shrew.”

“As you have long discovered.”

“And you are too virtuous, are you, to stay under this roof?”

“I … think I would like to go to stay with my mother.”

“And leave your husband … and your children?”

“I could take the children with me.”

He laughed. “Never,” he said. “Do you think I would allow them to leave this roof? Or you either? They shall be brought up as I wish.”

“You would make a murderer of my son.”

“I would make a man of mine.”

“I will take my daughter and go.”

“You will leave your daughter and stay.”

“I have to think about what I have discovered.”

“There is one lesson you must learn and I had hoped you had learned it by now. I am the master here and of you and my children. You disobeyed me when you brought that woman here.”

“You had given no order that she should not be brought …
Master
,” I added with sarcasm.

“Because I had not seen her. She will bring no good to you. Rest assured of that.”

“I was not thinking of the good that might come my way. She was in distress, and as any normal human being would, I saved her.”

“You are a fool, wife, and I doubt not will live to regret your folly.”

“Why am I foolish?”

“Because she is as she is …”

“I understand not.”

“You must not think you are the fount of wisdom.”

“I must be alone. I want to think.”

“To plan your departure. You will stay here. I will not let you go. Take off your riding habit.”

“I am not yet ready to.”

“I am.” He snatched my riding hat from my head and threw it on to the floor. He caught my hair in his hands and pulled it in the rough manner with which I was familiar. I could sense the rising passion in him and although I thought of this later, there was something different in it. He wanted to teach me a lesson. I had to learn that I was his … to give way to him when and where he pleased; and these encounters often took place after I had shown some resistance to him. It was his way of subduing me; and it was effective, because he had aroused in me a desire which matched his own, revealing to him a sensuality in my nature which I had not known existed until he found it.

Now, I had talked of going away; and he would show me that I wanted him as he wanted me. I could not do without him just as he was pleased with me, in this respect.

It was as before—but there was this difference. Perhaps I should have known. But like so many significant things in life it only occurred to me later.

Maria stayed with us. Her status in the household had changed, and she behaved like a guest. She joined us at meals and her daughter was cared for in our nursery with our own children.