The Witch from the Sea (59 page)

‘Well, Mr Gast,’ I said mischievously, ‘so many of us are. You seem to be the only one who is without sin. You’ll be very lonely when you get to Heaven.’

‘Don’t ’ee joke about matters as is sacred, Mistress Bersaba,’ he said sternly. ‘You be watched and all your sins be noted. Never forget that. All your jesting mockery will be recorded and one day you’ll answer for it.’

I thought then of lying in the woods with Bastian, and I knew that Thomas Gast would consider this a cardinal sin which could only earn eternal damnation, and for a moment I trembled, for there was something about Thomas Gast which made one believe, while one was in his company, that there might be something in his doctrines.

I watched him, his strong face flushed by the furnace, his gentleness with the horse—the only time he was ever gentle was with horses—and he began to declaim as though he were addressing an audience in the barn. The day of judgment was coming. Then those who now strutted in their finery would be cast into utter despair. The torments of hell were beyond human imagination. He licked his lips.

I think he saw himself as one of God’s executioners—a role, I decided, which would suit him very well.

I grew weary of his diatribe, and interrupting it I said I would stroll off and return when the horse was shod.

So I left the smithy and looked at the gardens in the little row of cottages. There were six of them—all built of the grey Cornish stone which was a feature of the countryside; they had long gardens in front and a patch behind in which most of them grew vegetables or kept a goat or a pig. But the front gardens were full of flowers, with the exception of the blacksmith’s. He grew vegetables in his, and at the back, pigs were kept. I had been inside the cottage once when the latest Gast was born and my mother had sent Angelet and me over with a basket of good things. Everything in the house was plain and for use, not for ornament. The girls of the household—there were four of them—always wore black garments with collars tight at the neck; so did their mother. Their hair was hidden by caps so that it was not easy to tell which was which. Angelet and I were always sorry for the Gast children.

As I came round by the cottages I saw one of the girls in the garden; she was weeding. I had heard that they all had their tasks and if these were not done to their father’s satisfaction they were severely beaten.

As I approached I called good morning and the Gast girl straightened up and spoke to me. I looked at her steadily and guessed her to be the eldest girl. She was about seventeen—my age. I noticed how she took in my riding-habit, which must have seemed as elegant to her as Carlotta’s did to me.

‘Good day, mistress,’ said the girl.

I was very curious to know what life was like lived in the blacksmith’s house. I could of course imagine to a certain extent, and I pictured myself in such a position. If I had been his daughter I would have defied him, I was sure.

‘You work very hard,’ I said. ‘Which one are you?’

‘I’m Phoebe, mistress, the eldest.’ Her eyes filled with tears, and I said suddenly: ‘You’re unhappy, aren’t you?’

She nodded, and I went on: ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Oh, don’t ’ee ask me, mistress,’ she said. ‘Please don’t ’ee ask me!’

‘Perhaps there’s something we could do.’

‘Ain’t nothing you could do, mistress. ‘Tis done, more’s the pity.’

‘What is it, Phoebe?’

‘I dursen’t say.’

Strangely enough, as I stood there looking at her I was aware of some understanding between us. And I thought: It’s a man.

Then I thought of Bastian, and all my bitterness came back to me and a bond between this girl and myself was forged in that moment.

‘Of course,’ I said, ‘your father sees sin where others see ordinary pleasure.’

‘This be true sin.’

‘What is sin?’ I said. ‘I suppose if it’s hurting other people … that’s sin.’ I thought of myself leading Carlotta to her death. That was the blackest sin of all. ‘But if no one is hurt … that isn’t sin.’

She wasn’t listening to me; she was caught up in her own drama.

I said gently: ‘Phoebe, are you … in trouble?’

She lifted woebegone eyes to my face, but she did not answer and the fear in her face reminded me of Jenny Keys.

‘I would help you if I could,’ I said rashly.

‘Thank you, mistress.’ She bent down over the earth and went on weeding.

There was nothing I could say to her. If what I guessed might be true then Phoebe was indeed in trouble. I had seen that in her face which I believe Grandfather Casvellyn had seen in me. Did girls change when they took a lover? Was the loss of virginity apparent in their faces, I wondered, for I was absolutely certain that Phoebe had had a lover and that now she was faced with the consequences.

The consequences. A child! Then I was overwhelmed by the thought that it might have happened to me. ‘I will marry you when you are old enough or before if necessary,’ Bastian had said.

There had been a certain recklessness in our loving, for we had not to consider the consequences too seriously. I knew that my parents, shocked as they might have been, would have given me love and understanding. So would Aunt Melanie, and Uncle Connell being the man he was would laugh and say Bastian was a chip off the old block.

How different for poor Phoebe Gast. To wear a ribbon, to undo a button at the neck on a hot day, to wear a belt which might hold in the waist of those shapeless black smocks they wore—that would be sinful. But to have lain in the fields or the woods with a man …

I went back to the smithy. The mare was waiting for me. Thomas Gast looked more like one of Satan’s henchmen than ever and I could not stop thinking of poor Phoebe Gast.

Yesterday I overheard two servants talking. I had come in from the stables and they were dusting in one of the rooms which led out of the hall. They could not see me so I sat down and listened because what they were saying interested me. One of them was Ginny and the other Mab, a girl in her middle teens who had a reputation among the servants as one who was ready for adventure, and had an eye for the men.

As soon as I caught the name Jenny Keys I had to listen.

‘She truly were,’ Ginny was saying. ‘White she was but white can turn to black … and it could have been that was what happened to her.’

‘What did she do, Ginny?’

‘Her did lots of good. Why, if I could have gone earlier to her I’d have been spared my shame.’

‘But you wouldn’t have been without young Jeff for the world.’

‘Not now. But then I would.’

‘How was Jenny Keys brought out, Ginny?’

‘You mean how was it known what she were. I’ll tell you something. One day two of the servants from the Priory went down to see her. ’Twas just a love draught they wanted. There was this stable man who wouldn’t look at one of them and all she wanted was to turn his eyes to her. And what did they see? Right there in Jenny Keys’s lap was a toad … a horrible slimy toad … but ’twas no ordinary toad, they did say. There looked out of his eyes something as told them he were the Devil in toad form. They shook with trembling both of them and then they turned on their heels and ran for their lives. ’Twasn’t long after that one of them took sick and she swore ’twas some- thing that toad had sent out to her—for he weren’t no ordinary toad. He were what they do call her familiar, and that showed Jenny Keys was a witch.’

‘How would you know when a toad was a familiar? There’s lots of them round the ponds. I’ve heard ’em croaking at night in the spring when they come out looking for a mate and then they go down to the ponds to lay their eggs.’

‘They’re just ordinary toads … they ain’t familiars.’

‘But toads is nasty things. I suppose it’s because they come out at night.’

‘’Tis so, but don’t do to mistake them all. There’s some as just goes about their business … same as any other creature might. ’Tis only when a witch do take one up and to her bed maybe and in him comes the spawn of the Devil who lives and shelters in the toad.’

‘Like in the toad they saw with Jenny Keys?’

‘Maybe so, and when it was known that Jenny Keys harboured a toad and took him to her close like, the trouble started. They said she carried him in her bosom and that he crawled over her body and was familiar like.’

Mab burst into giggles and Ginny reproved her. ‘You laugh now but you wouldn’t be laughing if witches heard you.’

‘Jenny Keys be dead, though.’

‘Jenny Keys ain’t the only witch, remember.’

‘Who else is?’

‘You don’t have to look far.’

There was an awed silence.

‘You mean …
her … ’

‘Why not? Her grandmother were. Powers be passed down, I reckon.’

‘I reckon we ought to keep our eyes open.’

I rose, and went swiftly and silently up the staircase to my room.

Angelet—with that special feeling that was between us—began to sense that I wanted to be alone. She had guessed of course that this was concerned with Bastian, and I had seen her look at Carlotta with something like distaste, for she was very loyal to me.

When we lay in bed at night, it was our custom to talk over the events of the day, and although since I had heard of Bastian’s perfidy I had had no wish to talk to her, I could not suddenly break the habit.

She said to me one night after the conversation at the dinner-table had been particularly sparkling and Carlotta with Senara and Gervaise had discussed the Courts of Spain and England at great length—thus making it very difficult for the rest of us to participate: ‘Has it occurred to you, Bersaba, that Sir Gervaise and Carlotta are getting very friendly?’

‘I think Carlotta is of a nature to pay attention always to the male members of the company.’

‘You are right. Of course she is beautiful. One has to grant her that, and having been at Court, I suppose does something to one. I wonder if we shall ever go to Court?’

‘Do you want to?’ I asked.

‘It would be amusing. Besides, we shall have to marry some time, shan’t we? Mother obviously meant something like that when she said our next birthday party would be different.’

I yawned. ‘It’s a long way away.’

‘There are the Trent men and the Krolls and the Lamp tons. One of them, I suppose. Oh, isn’t it dull living in the country! I would like never to have known my husband and then the next day he is there. Do you feel like that?’

I felt the anger surge up in me. No, I had expected Bastian to be my husband and I’ve known him all my life … and yet I never really knew him. I used to think he was quiet and steady and that I could tease him about this. Then I found that that wasn’t true at all. He had only to see Carlotta and he forgot all his vows to me. How little we knew people whom we thought we understood so well.

‘Do you?’ urged Angelet. ‘You’re not asleep, are you?’

‘What’s that?’ I cried, pretending to be starting out of a doze.

‘Oh, go to sleep,’ she said. ‘You never want to talk these days.’

It was better to be alone, for if I talked to Angelet I might betray something of my feelings. I was afraid that I might let fall some little comment which would betray me when the time came.

So I rode out alone doing the forbidden thing. Down the blackberry track, past the smithy. I glanced in the direction of the cottages and thought of poor Phoebe, wondering how she was faring. I could visualize clearly the misery she must be enduring with a heavy burden of guilt upon her. I wondered what Thomas Gast would do if my surmise was correct.

It was a misty evening and darker than usual when I took my mare to the stables. I wandered down by the garden to the pond on which the water-lilies were growing, and as I did so I heard the croaking of a toad and as I came nearer I saw him.

He was seated there by the pool—drowsy, I imagine, after a good feed of insects, and I suddenly felt my heart begin to beat wildly as memories of the conversation I had heard between the servants came back to me.

On impulse I took a large kerchief from my pocket and, stooping, wrapped it round the toad and carried him into the Priory. I went straight up to our room and was thankful that Angelet was not there.

I was excited. I knew what I was going to do with the toad. It was part of my plan, and seeing him there, waiting for me, as it were, had forced me to act before I had meant to.

But why not? There was no point in delay.

In the evening the servants went into the bedrooms to prepare the beds for the night, to turn back the quilt and, if it were cold, put in hot bricks wrapped up in flannel.

Ana did not turn down the beds for Carlotta and Senara any more than she cleaned their rooms. That was a housemaid’s task and Ana, as lady’s maid, would consider it beneath her. It was Mab who did the beds and I was particularly amused because she was the one whom I had heard talking to Ginny. When I considered that it seemed as though I was being guided by fate, for I knew what Mab would find when she turned down Carlotta’s bed. There was a tall livery chest in the corridor outside the bedroom door, and when I heard Mab going up to the rooms I followed at a discreet distance and hid myself behind the chest.

It happened just as I knew it would. It was not long before I heard Mab’s piercing scream and she came running out of the bedroom, her face white as a lily petal. She didn’t see me because her one thought was to get away from that room as fast as she could.

I slipped out and went into Carlotta’s room. There on the pillow was the toad. He seemed to glare at me with baleful eyes, so I smothered him in the kerchief and hurried from the room. As I did so I felt my blood run cold, and my heart began to beat so wildly that it was like a drum beating against my bodice. I was standing there by the bed when I had a strange feeling that I was not alone. I looked round the room. No one was there. The door of the communicating room where Senara slept was open a little but I could see no one.

What was it—this sudden fear? It had seemed so easy. All I had to do was put the toad in her bed, leave it there for Mab to find when she came to do the beds, then when she ran out, as I was sure she would, I was to go in and remove the toad so that when she brought the others to see it, it would have disappeared, which I felt was just the sort of thing a familiar would do.