Witch from the Sea

THE UNKNOWN SAILOR’S GRAVE

CHRISTMAS IS NEVER A happy time for me. I can never forget that it was at Christmas that my mother died, and although it happened six years ago I remember it as vividly now as I did the first Christmas after.

I was ten years old at the time. It had been quite a merry Christmas day. We had done a miracle play, the mummers had been to the castle and we had danced, sung and played our musical instruments.

I often thought that if I had been with her on that night, it wouldn’t have happened. For several nights before I had slept in her bed; and then Senara had been ill and I had stayed with her.

I would often think of those nights when my mother had been so pleased to have me with her. I was very young then and children don’t always see things clearly. I had imagined that she clung to me and that it seemed so important that I should be there.

And the next morning she was dead.

Jennet found her. I often go over it all. How I had heard Jennet scream and come running to me and I couldn’t get a coherent sentence out of her. I went to my mother’s room and there she was lying in her bed. She looked unlike herself—so still and cold when I touched her cheek.

The strange thing was that there was nothing to indicate how she had died.

My father’s physician came and said that her heart had failed her. He could find no other reason why she should have died.

She had been ailing for some weeks, my father said, and he had been very anxious about her. We all confirmed that.

I felt sick with anger against myself. I had the notion that had I been with her this would never have happened. I had sensed in those days before her death that she was afraid. Then I wondered whether I had imagined it. At ten years old one is not very wise.

There was a great deal of whispering in the castle among the servants but whenever I appeared they stopped and said something quite banal so that I was well aware that they had changed the subject.

My grandmother arrived from Lyon Court. She was stunned. She looked so bewildered, just as I felt, and she took me in her arms and we cried together. “Not Linnet,” she kept saying. “She was too young. How could it have been?”

No one knew. People’s hearts sometimes failed them, said the physician. Their time had come. God had seen fit to take them and so they went.

My grandfather was away at sea; so were my uncles Carlos, Jacko and Penn. Edwina came though. She seemed so strained and frightened. She broke down and said that she ought to have done something, that she had seen it coming. She wouldn’t explain and we didn’t quite know what she meant and she was too distressed and hysterical to say more. But I felt drawn towards her, because she blamed herself in much the same way as I did, for I continued to feel that had I been with her it wouldn’t have happened.

There was a service in the old Norman chapel and she was buried in our burial grounds close by Ysella’s Tower. She was put next to the grave of the unknown man who had been washed ashore when there was a wreck at sea earlier that year. On the other side of the unknown man’s grave was my father’s first wife.

More than anyone—even Senara—I had loved my mother. This was the great tragedy of my life. I told my grandmother that I would never get over it.

She stroked my hair and said, “The pain will grow less for you, Tamsyn, even as it will for me, but it is hard for either of us to believe that yet.”

She said she would take me back to Lyon Court with her. It would be easier for me there, she said. I longed to go with her. I kept thinking of my mother and the last time I had seen her. I should never forget it. She was in her bedroom and when I came she was standing up and looked as though she had hidden something. But perhaps I imagined that.

I felt more and more uneasy about not being with her. I felt she needed me so. Perhaps I did not feel that at the time but imagined it afterwards.

There was Senara though, who had drunk too much mulled wine and was very ill. So I had stayed with her. If I had not I should have been with my mother.

Senara said I should not reproach myself. She had been so sick and naturally I stayed with her. My mother had not exactly been ill, or if she had no one had known it.

“Besides,” said Senara, “what could you have done?” She was only eight years old then and I couldn’t explain to her this uncanny feeling I had. It was because my mother and I were so much in harmony. I felt she knew something that she hadn’t told me. If she had, I might have understood. I remember how angry I was with myself for being so young.

When my grandmother suggested I go back with her I said that I couldn’t leave Senara, so she immediately said that Senara must come too. I told Senara and she was pleased; she wanted to get away from the castle and my father raised no objection to our going. I had never known my father so quiet before.

I felt a little comforted to be at Lyon Court. I had always enjoyed my visits there. Lyon Court was a young house compared with the castle. It seemed open, frank, candid … which doesn’t seem the right word with which to describe a house, but I use it in comparison with the castle—which was sly, in a way, full of secrets—having stood so long, I suppose. There had been a castle there in Norman days and of course it had been improved on over the Plantagenet years. My grandmother said that Lyon Court was ostentatious and that the Pennlyons wanted everyone to know that they had made a fortune. It was the sort of house which was proud of itself, if you can think of houses having personalities, which I do; and as a proud house it was a happy one.

The gardens were famous in the neighbourhood for their beauty and my grandfather liked that to be kept up. At this time of year there was not much blooming, naturally, but there was that air of promise of spring and summer glory.

We could see across Plymouth Hoe and out to the Sound with the ships coming and going. Senara loved it and as she had not suffered as much as I had over my mother’s death—although she had loved her too—she began to be excited about being at Lyon Court. Sometimes she would laugh aloud and then look at me in dismay. I would tell her she was not to worry if she forgot now and then because that would please my mother if she were aware of what was happening here. She would not wish us to mourn more than we could help.

My Aunt Damask who was fifteen—young for an aunt—was told by her mother to look after us and she did; but she was unhappy for she had loved my mother dearly, as all seemed to who had known her.

Looking back at that visit I think of sadness. We could not escape our sorrow by leaving the castle. This was my mother’s old home. At the great table in the lofty hall she had sat; she had climbed the staircases, walked along the gallery, ate here, slept here, laughed here. The memory of her was as strong here as it was at the castle.

But it was not unrelieved gloom because of the Landors. They had been staying with my grandmother for Christmas, and when she had heard of my mother’s death and had come at once to the castle, they had left Lyon Court and gone to visit other members of the trading company and were calling back for another brief stay on their way to their home at Trystan Priory. I had heard the name Landor now and then and I knew that this family was connected with my grandfather’s business, a great trading concern which was often spoken of with a kind of awe. I had gathered that my father was a little sceptical of it, for I had seen his lips curl when it was mentioned.

Senara and I were in the gardens with Damask, who was playing a song she had learned. I knew her mother had told her that she must try to take my mind off my mother’s death and this was what she was attempting to do. There was a clatter of horses’ hoofs and the sound of voices, all of which I connected with arrivals. Damask stopped playing and said: “Someone has come. I wonder who?”

Senara jumped up and was ready to go and see who it was. She was volatile and impulsive. I continually had to curb her.

I said, “We ought to wait until we are sent for, shouldn’t we, Damask?”

Damask agreed with me. “People often come,” she said. “Do you have many visitors at Castle Paling?”

I thought of the visitors—the squires of the neighbourhood who came when invited for Christmas and such festivities; we had always known when to expect them. There were others though who came unexpectedly. They weren’t ordinary visitors. They came to talk business with my father and I remember that my mother always seemed uneasy when they were in the house.

“We have a few,” I said.

“We have lots,” said Senara, who liked everything of hers to be bigger and better than anyone else’s. She had a habit of deceiving herself into thinking that it was. I checked her when I could.

“When your grandfather is here the house is often full,” said Damask.

I was glad he was not there. I knew his grief would be loud and vociferous. He would be angry because my mother had died and seek to blame someone. He always looked round for a culprit when anything went wrong. He would demand why doctors had not been called and blame my father. I knew he would. I did not want my father to be blamed.

“We shall soon know who it is,” I said.

And so we did.

I believe now that meeting Fenn Landor at that time helped me far more than anything else could. He too was ten years old—a few months older than I was. A good-looking boy with deep blue eyes; he was very serious. Perhaps because we were of an age, he singled me out for a special companion—Senara was too young, Damask too old, and through him I began to be interested in life again as, in my ten-year-old ignorance, I had thought I never could be.

He liked us to be alone so that he could talk. He chafed against his youth and longed to be a man. We would go off together and lie on the cliffs looking over the sea; or sometimes we would ride together. My grandmother, watching us closely, allowed this. I realized that she thought that Fenn could do more for me than perhaps anyone. He was not part of my old life as the rest of them were. He was someone entirely new and when I was with him I could cease to think of my tragedy for half an hour at a time.

He told me about his father, who according to him had been the finest man in the world. “He wasn’t rough and swaggering as so many men are,” he told me. “He was good and noble. He hated killing people. He never killed a man in his life. He wanted to bring good into people’s lives.”

“When did he die?”

“People say he is lost but I don’t believe it. He’ll come back one day. He was due to come home. We watched for him every day. Every morning when I wake up I say to myself: ‘This will be the day.’ And it goes on and on …”

I could see a look of blank despair in his face and I longed to comfort him. I knew that although he said he believed his father was alive, he feared that he was not.

“His ship was the Landor Lion. It was a joint venture—the Pennlyons and the Landors, you see. My family and your grandfather’s.”

“Ships are often delayed for months.”

“Yes, but you see this one was sighted off the coast in October and there was a great storm.”

“I remember the great storm.”

“So you see …”

“Go on hoping,” I said. “Strange things happen to ships. It might not have been his ship that was sighted. You can’t be sure.”

“No,” he said firmly. “You can’t be sure.”

Then he told me about the new East India Company which had been founded and he talked glowingly of the progress it had made, and how his father had been instrumental in making it great.

“It was his idea really, you see. It started long ago before I was born. It was after the defeat of the Armada. My father believed that peaceful trading was the answer to our problems.” I noticed with a touch of sorrow that he talked of his father in the past tense and I knew that in his heart he could not help thinking he was dead.

“How old will you have to be before you join your father?” I said deliberately, to restore his belief.

He smiled suddenly, dazzlingly; he had a beautiful face when he was happy.

“Sixteen perhaps. Six whole years.”

I was able to tell him about my mother’s death and that was the reason I was at Lyon Court with my grandmother. I found I could talk to him of that sad event more calmly than with anyone else. It was because he too had lost a deeply loved one. The bond was instantly formed between us. I knew he had loved and admired his father more than anyone, just as I had loved and admired my mother.

Thus we could comfort each other.

I made him tell me about ships and the company. His father had talked a great deal to him. I could imagine the sort of father he had been—a father of whom his children need never be afraid and for whom they had the utmost love and affection and above all respect. An ideal father. To have had such a father was a great blessing, but alas, to lose him must be the greatest tragedy.

Once he said to me: “Why is it that we have never met before? We often come here. You must do too, for this is the home of your grandparents.”

I admitted it was strange, for we had come frequently.

“We must just have missed each other.”

There was no doubt that Fenn and I did a great deal for each other and my grandmother was pleased about this.

There was one strange incident which happened during that visit and which I could never forget.

Senara, Damask and I shared a room at Lyon Court. It was a big room and there were three beds in it. One night I lay sleepless, for I had not slept well since my mother’s death. I dreamed a good deal about her and I would wake up suddenly and imagine she was calling to me to come to her for she was afraid of something. This dream was a recurring one. In it I was always fighting to get to her and was unable to reach her. I would call out in my despair and then I was awake.

This is what happened on that particular night. I woke up wretched and sat up in bed, being unable for the moment to realize where I was. Then out of the gloom the familiar objects took shape—the planked hutch, the table with the carved panels and the two other pallets on which lay Damask and Senara.

I could hear the sound of someone’s crying. I got out of bed, wrapped a robe about me and opened the door. I went into the corridor. The crying was coming from the room next to ours.

I knocked lightly on the door and as there was no answer I opened it gently. In the window seat, sitting very still, the tears falling unheeded down her cheeks, was Fenn’s grandmother.

She started up as I entered. I said quickly: “I’m sorry. I heard your crying. Is there anything I can do?”

“It is Tamsyn,” she said. “Did I awaken you?”

“I was not sleeping very well.”

“You too are grieving,” she said. “My poor child, you have lost your mother. I have lost my daughter and my son.”

“Perhaps he did not drown.”

“Yes, he did. He comes to me in dreams. His eyes are empty sockets and the fishes swim round him; the sea has him; he lies deep on the sea bed and I shall never see my beloved son again.”

There was something alarming about the wildness in her eyes and I could see that her grief was an illness and that she was deeply stricken by it.

“Both my son … and my daughter,” she said.

“Your daughter too?”

“My daughter was murdered,” she said.

“Murdered!” I whispered.

She caught her breath in a gasp of horror and then she said: “You are little Tamsyn Casvellyn. I must not talk to you of my daughter.”

“You may talk to me of anything if it comforts you to do so.”

“My dear child,” she said. “My poor dear child.”

I cried a little because, as Fenn helped me to forget my grief, she brought it back in all its vividness. I was right back in that dreadful morning when I had gone into my mother’s bedroom and seen her lying there. I could hear Jennet babbling of what she had found and all my misery swept over me afresh.

She rocked me to and fro. “Life has been cruel to us both, my child, cruel … cruel …”

“When did your daughter die?”

“Before you were born … It had to be before you were born.” I did not understand that, but I had already discovered that she was incoherent.

“She was murdered by her husband. He is a murderer. One day fate will catch up with him. You’ll see. It will be so. I am sure of it. And now my beautiful boy is taken from me by the sea. He was so young to die. Why did it have to happen to him? Within a few miles of the coast he was …”

“Perhaps he will come back.”

“Never,” she said. “I shall never see his face again.”

“At least,” I said, “You have hope.”

And I thought: I have no hope. I have seen my mother laid in her grave. Vividly into my mind there flashed the picture of the family burial ground—the grave of my father’s first wife and that of the unknown sailor and my mother’s.

She started to talk then, of her son Fennimore and his ambitions. “No mother ever had a better son. He was noble, he was good. He was a great man. And my daughter … my little girl. She was frail. She should never have married. But it seemed natural and there was that … that”—her voice sank to a whisper—“that monster!”

I tried to soothe her. I said she must go back to bed. But she would not be soothed; she started to lament loudly and I could not calm her.

I did not know what to do because she was becoming hysterical and I thought she must be ill. She clung to me, but I managed to disengage myself and I went along to my grandmother’s room.

I wakened her and told her what had happened.

“Poor woman,” she said, “she is in a sorry state. This terrible disappearance of her son has brought back the tragic loss of her daughter. She gives way to her grief and I fear it will unhinge her mind.”

We went back to her. She was sitting there, her hands covering her face while she rocked back and forth in her misery.

My grandmother said to me: “You should go to bed, my child.”

I did not take any notice. I felt there was something I could do.

“Come, Janet,” said my grandmother, “you should go to bed. I will bring you something to make you sleep.” She took Janet Landor’s arm and I took the other. We led her to her bed.

“Lie still,” soothed my grandmother. “Try to sleep. Don’t brood, it can do no good. We can best help ourselves and others by stifling our grief.”

I was proud of her because I knew how she suffered from my mother’s death and I wanted to be like her.

“That child’s mother,” whispered Janet, “was she murdered too?”

My grandmother had taken me by the arm.

“She is rambling,” she whispered to me. “Now, Tamsyn, go back to your bed. Try not to disturb the others. I will look after this lady. Good night, my child.”

I went away wondering about poor Janet Landor; and there was one phrase which kept ringing in my head: “That poor child’s mother … was she murdered too?”

She must have been referring to my mother, and what did she mean?

My grandmother had said she was rambling and she was certainly hysterical. She could not have been referring to my mother!

I did not see Janet Landor for several days and when I did she was quiet again and although I forgot that nightly disturbance the memory of it was to return to me with some force later.

Senara and I stayed with my grandmother until the spring. It was May when we went back to the castle.

A surprise awaited us. Our father had married again. Senara’s mother was to be my stepmother.

After coming back from Lyon Court, Castle Paling seemed an alien place, which was strange for it had always been my home. Everything seemed to have changed since we had been away. My mother’s influence had been eliminated entirely and in its place was something new—intangible; it was hard to say what.

Some of the furnishings had been changed—the bedchamber which my mother and father had shared was entirely different. There were rich velvet hangings about the bed and at the windows. There was a foreign look about it. I looked into the Red Room. That had been left exactly as it always had been. I remembered all the stories I had heard about its being haunted. My mother’s sitting-room which she had used so much was also left untouched. There was her carved wooden chair and the table on which stood the rather large sandalwood writing-desk of which she had always been fond.

Senara was secretly proud that her mother instead of being a rather mysterious guest in the castle was now the undisputed mistress of it. She had previously, I think, felt something of an outsider and that was why I constantly tried to remind her that I thought of her as my sister.

The servants had changed. They whispered a lot; they were constantly crossing themselves as though for protection against the evil eye. I knew that they were afraid of my stepmother Maria; sometimes I thought even my father was a little.

I could not suppress a certain resentment. In the first place I hated to see someone in my mother’s place; in the second, I thought it had happened too quickly. Three months after she had died my father had married my stepmother; and the fact that she had been living in the castle was somehow even more shocking.

My father had never taken much notice of me. Connell was his favourite. He had little regard for girls—at least, not for his own daughter. He kept out of my way after my return almost as though my presence embarrassed him. He knew how very devoted my mother and I had been to each other.

At first Senara gave herself airs but that was very soon at an end. The friendship between us was too firm for anything to harm it. The fact that her mother had taken my mother’s place might have caused a rift in some cases, not with us. My father engaged a tutor to give us lessons because my mother had done so in the past, and he was already installed at the castle—a Master Eller—he seemed aged, but I doubt he was much more than forty-five. He was strict and serious and even Connell had to pay attention, although he hated lessons and at twelve years old thought he should have been beyond them.

Jennet had scarcely changed except that she had aged a little. I think my mother’s death had shocked her deeply. She was only a year younger than my grandmother and I knew she had regarded my mother as her own daughter. She used to go about muttering to herself and she harboured a dislike for my stepmother which she was afraid to show.

So many people were afraid of my stepmother. It was because she had come on Hallowe’en and that was the time for witches. That she was different from other people was clear. She never appeared to be angry, but if she were displeased there would be a strange glitter in her eyes which was as frightening as my father’s loud displays of temper. Everyone and everything was different. The castle seemed full of shadows. Servants were afraid when the darkness fell. Jennet, who had been so talkative and pleased with life, was no longer so. On her face was a perpetual expression of bewilderment. Once she broke down and wept. “I knew your mother when she was a baby,” she told me. “I held her in my arms when she was but a day old. Your grandmother was good to me but sharp. She lifted her hand against me more than once, but Miss Linnet …” She broke down and we cried together.

Then Jennet crossed herself suddenly and said in a hollow voice: “God help us all. That good lady’s place … my little Mistress Linnet’s place … be took by …” Then she looked over her shoulder and after a long pause she murmured, “by … by another.”

Like everyone else, Jennet was afraid of my stepmother. I wondered about my father. His eyes followed her wherever she was. I heard one of the servants say: “He be spellbound.”

Now and then I found her dark eyes fixed on me. I don’t think she understood me. She was expecting me to be resentful towards her for taking my mother’s place; stepmothers were not generally liked by the children of their predecessors. But I knew that hating her could not bring my mother back. She was Senara’s mother and Senara thought her wonderful. My misery did not take the form of wanting to blame someone. When she understood this she ignored me, and I was glad of that. She was such a strange woman. Although she had never shown affection for Senara, she was anxious for her future. She made sure that Master Eller made an educated lady of her; and she engaged a young man to teach us dancing and singing. His name was Richard Gravel and we called him Dickon. He played the lute and the virginals in such a manner as to raise the spirits or bring tears and make the heart melt; and he could dance so beautifully that when he performed it was impossible to take one’s eyes from him. Senara was enraptured by him and was eager to excel at both music and dancing. We learned country dances, morris dancing, but chiefly those which would be performed at balls and banquets. It occurred to me that my stepmother wished to make a great lady of her daughter and because I was her companion I shared in the tuition too. It vaguely entered my mind that she did not believe Senara would be in the country all her life. This training was to make a court lady of her.

But we were far from the court. Deep in my mind was the knowledge that if my stepmother desired it, so would it be. I had heard one of the servants mention that she had “The Powers”. I had never heard the expression before but I understood immediately what she meant.

But it is surprising how very quickly young people can adjust themselves to situations. Before the year was out my home no longer seemed a strange place; the extraordinary had become commonplace. It was not that I forgot my mother; I should never do that. I used to go to the burial ground and put flowers on her grave; and because it seemed unfair to leave out those other two, I put flowers on them.

There were of course several long-dead Casvellyns in the burial grounds, but these three graves were together and I was sorry for my father’s first wife, Melanie, and the unknown sailor. To set my mother’s apart I planted a rosemary bush on hers, because rosemary is for remembrance. When I planted that tree the notion came to me that my mother was not completely lost to me; she was close to me at all times and particularly so when I needed her help. Whatever the delights of heaven, she would never leave me entirely alone. I sensed her presence watching over me, guarding me from evil. It was a comforting thought and once it had come to me, it stayed with me and I began to be happy again.

Life settled down to a new pattern. Lessons with Master Eller and singing and dancing with Dickon took up a great deal of our time. We rode with the grooms; we visited Lyon Court although my grandmother never came to us, and she was never pressed to do so. I believed that she did not want to be in a household where my mother had lived, nor did she wish to see my father’s third wife. But I was encouraged to go to her whenever I wished and when I went Senara accompanied me. It was inconceivable to either of us that we should be parted. We quarrelled occasionally but we both knew that those differences would be quickly settled. We were very different in temperament. I was quiet, rather serious, not easily roused to anger and enjoyed looking after people. Senara was impatient with me sometimes, although she liked me to look after her. She was full of life, she hated lessons. Master Eller despaired of her; but she played the virginals and the lute with passion and flair; she could sing prettily and she danced so gracefully that it was a great joy to watch her. I was serious and loved books; and she would be jealous of my reading. Is that more interesting than talking to me? she would demand. I would truthfully answer that it was, whereupon she would endeavour to tear the book from my hands. Then I would try to interest her in what I read but her attention soon strayed. In spite of these differences we were very happy in each other’s company.

And so the time passed.

When I was thirteen years old the Queen died. I was staying with my grandparents at the time. It was March of the year 1603. I remember feeling depressed, not so much because the Queen was dead but because the realization was brought home to me that my grandparents were old and if the Queen who had seemed immortal should die, so could they. My great-grandmother Damask, who was named after the rose, had died at a great age just after my mother had. It was a double blow for my poor grandmother, for although she saw little of her own mother, she being in London, there were the same kind of ties between them as there had been between my mother and hers.

Death was in the air. “’Tis something as don’t come singly,” said Jennet prophetically.

My grandfather, the once lusty sea captain, no longer went to sea. He must have been over seventy years old, for my grandmother was sixty-three. He used to sit on the Hoe for hours looking out to sea, I suppose dreaming of the days of adventure. He walked with a stick because one of his legs was stiffening and gave him a certain amount of pain. He still roared about the house and my grandmother still berated him, but I felt they behaved as they did not because they felt any animosity towards each other but because they wanted to go on as they always had. Uncles Carlos and Jacko were at Lyon Court often when they were not at sea and they would sit with their father and talk of their latest exploits. They were devoted to him. Edwina was often at Lyon Court too; and her sons with her. Damask was going to marry one of the captains in the Trading Company. It was with a certain sadness that I realized how everything was changing—a little here, a little there, until the entire picture was different.

On the day the Queen died we sat at table in the great hall because there were guests in the house. There were the parents of the young man Damask was to marry and he was there too, and there were several others who worked for the Trading Company.

The talk was naturally all of the Queen: what a great reign it had been and that her death was sure to mean changes. She had been ailing for some time and we should have been prepared, but we had all thought she would continue to reign over us for ever. All my life people had talked of the Queen as they might have talked of the Earth. It was impossible to imagine England without her.

My grandfather adored her. To him she was the symbol of England. She had once sent for him to go to London and he had sailed up the Thames and had gone to Greenwich where she most graciously received him. It was before the defeat of the Armada and she had been fully aware of how useful men such as Jake Pennlyon could be to her. She had complimented him on his exploits and had hinted that she looked to him to go on robbing Spaniards of their treasure and bringing it home and making sure that a goodly proportion of it made its way into the nation’s purse, while at the same time she let the Spaniards believe that she was admonishing her pirate seamen. That had appealed to my grandfather. He had constantly declared he would serve her with his life.

Now she was dead. That proud spirit was no more. We had always listened avidly to the stories about her; how she was so vain that with her painted cheeks and wigs she had believed the courtiers who had told her she was the most beautiful woman on earth (had she really, or had she appeared to in order to attempt to convince them that she was?); how she had loved the Earl of Essex yet had agreed to his execution; how right to the very end she had expected men to fall in love with her and thought them traitors if they did not, how furious she had always been when they married or took mistresses although she had no intention of giving up one small bit of her sovereignty by marriage; how she had three hundred dresses in her wardrobe, how choleric she was, how calm and shrewd, how cruel, how kind she could be. Whatever she was, she was a great Queen.

“We shall never see her like again,” mourned my grandfather.

She had gone to Richmond when she had become so ill, for she believed the quiet and the air would help her to recover; for a while she had seemed better there but then she had fallen into a state of stupor. She had had a notion that if she went to bed she would never rise again so she commanded her servants to bring cushions and she lay on them on the floor.

Captain Stacy, the father of Damask’s betrothed, had recently come from London and he had special information. He had heard from some present at the time that she had named her successor. She had said to Cecil, her Secretary of State: “My seat has been the seat of Kings and I shall have no rascal to succeed me.”

“By rascal,” said Captain Stacy, “Her Majesty meant none who was not a King, for she went on: ‘Who should succeed me but a King.’”

“She was referring to King James of Scotland, the son of her old enemy the Queen of Scots,” said my grandmother. “I doubt not that is a most excellent choice for he is indeed the true heir.”

“And a good Protestant,” said my grandfather, “in spite of his Papist mother.”

So died our great Queen, she was seventy years of age and had reigned for forty-five years.

We had a new monarch. King James I who had been the James VI of Scotland.

“I wish my mother had lived to see this day,” said my grandmother. “This union between England and Scotland is bound to bring peace. Peace was what she wanted all her life—and although she came to find it in her own household, all through her life there was conflict throughout the country—religious conflict.”

“Do you think that is over now, Grandmother?” I asked.

She looked at me and a sad look came into her eyes.

She shook her head slowly.

There was a great deal of talk about our new King and Queen. At the beginning of a new reign everyone was full of hope. They believed that the old evils would disappear and be replaced by blessings. The news we heard regarding our new King was mixed. He was said to be very clever and wise—and was known as the British Solomon; it was believed that the harsh laws against Catholics would be modified. After all, had not his mother been one of the greatest Catholics of them all? We had to learn what manner of King we had but when he came to England with his Queen there was a great revival of the scare of witches.

Although it had happened some thirteen years before when the King’s Queen, Anne of Denmark, had come to England from her native land, the story was recalled.

She had been married by proxy to King James of Scotland (as he was then) and a great fleet had been prepared to take her to her husband. In September of the year 1589 she set out with the Earl Marshal and eleven ships to accompany her. As they neared the coast of Scotland such a storm arose that they could make no progress against it and were very soon in danger of drowning. There was nothing to be done but to allow themselves to be blown on to the coast of Norway. Oddly enough, although they waited there until the storms had abated, when they set out again, no sooner had they sighted the coast of Scotland than the storms arose once more and drove them back.

Peter Munch, the Danish admiral, had no doubt that the repetition of this disaster was due to witchcraft. He took Queen Anne back to Denmark and there began to cast about in his mind for anyone who might bear him a grudge. There were several people he suspected. As these were men and witchcraft was usually attributed to women, he arrested the wives of these men, put them to such torture that they broke down and confessed and they were then burned alive.

The party then set out once again for Scotland, and again no sooner had the coast of the Queen’s new country been sighted than the storms blew up again and they were driven back to Norway. By this time winter had set in and the admiral dared not undertake the journey yet a fourth time.

Another incident occurred. Jane Kennedy, who had served Mary Queen of Scots with great devotion, married Sir Andrew Melville, another loyal supporter of the late Queen, and these two were greatly favoured by James. He immediately appointed Jane chief lady of the Queen’s bedchamber in readiness for her arrival. The new Lady Melville made her way immediately to the palace, but in doing so she had to cross Leith Ferry. No sooner had she begun this brief journey than a storm arose and the boat in which she sailed was crushed by another and she drowned.

This was considered to be too much of a coincidence to be natural and witchcraft was again blamed. There was a hunt, in Scotland this time, which resulted in the torture and burning of old women. The King in due course had gone to fetch his bride and did succeed in bringing her to Scotland; but that period had become known as The Time of the Witches; and now that James had become King of England and travelled south with his bride, it was remembered that they had been the victims of witchcraft, and the interest in and persecution of witches was revived.

Although I was young at the time I was struck forcibly and with a kind of horror at the manner in which ugly rumour can arise, seek its victims and destroy them. In that year when our Queen died and we had a new King on the throne I saw my first witch. It was horrible, a poor old woman hanging grotesquely on a tree in a country lane. Senara and I were riding with Damask, her betrothed and his father when we came into a lane.

I stood and stared. At first I did not know what it was. Then I felt a horrible revulsion sweeping over me. I could not believe that poor revolting creature had ever really harmed anyone.

None of us spoke about it; we turned our horses and rode as quickly as we could away from that horrible sight.

Senara had a nightmare that night. She crept on to my pallet. We still shared a room with Damask. She was fast asleep.

“What is it?” I said.

“I dreamed of that witch, Tamsyn.”

“It was horrible.”

“Not just of her.”

“What then?”

“I dreamed it was my mother.”

“It was only a dream.”

“I have heard the servants whispering about my mother.”

“Servants always whisper about the families they serve.”

“There is something strange about my mother.”

“She is the most beautiful woman I ever saw.”

“I’ve heard them say beauty like that comes from the Devil. I used to be proud of her but this afternoon …”

“People will always be envious of those who have what they have not.”

“It was so clear. We were riding … just as we were this day and I felt myself forced to go and look at her … and when I got close it was my mother.”

“It could never be.”

“But it could, Tamsyn.”

“Nay, nay, she is much too clever ever to be caught …” I was amazed by what I had said and added quickly, “Even if she were a witch. But how could your mother be that?”

Senara said: “She’s your stepmother, Tamsyn.”

“And my father’s wife, so you see …”

“It’s just servants’ talk. It is because she is so much more beautiful than anyone else.”

We were silent for a while. Then Senara said: “Tamsyn, even if she were … it wouldn’t make any difference to us, would it? We’d still be as now.”

“Nothing would ever make any difference to us,” I promised her.

That seemed to satisfy her. But she was shaken and would not go back to her own pallet.

When I was fifteen there was a great scare throughout the country concerning Catholics. The new King had been on the throne for two years and to us far from the Court the new reign had brought little change in our daily life. There was perhaps one difference. We had always been conscious of the existence of witchcraft and at Hallowe’en a special atmosphere seemed to pervade the castle. Everyone would seem to be very much aware of my stepmother then. She knew this and I imagined she was secretly amused by it.

But I was not really thinking of what was happening in our castle but outside. More witches seemed to be discovered; there were constant rumours of old women being taken and put to the tests and having been examined, their bodies revealed certain marks which proved they had intercourse with the Devil and because of this acquired special powers for evil. Sometimes when riding we would come upon a group of shouting people. I always turned and went off as quickly as I could because I knew that somewhere in their midst would be a poor old woman; and I could not rid myself of the thought that she had only to be old, ugly, squint or have a humped back to be accused, and once named as a witch it was almost impossible to prove this untrue. The new King had a special abhorrence for witches and this sharpened everyone’s interest in them.

When I watched my stepmother—and it was a pleasure always to watch her because she moved with a grace I never saw in any other person—I used to think how different she was from the old women who were suspected, tortured and killed.

But witchcraft was a subject which always made me uneasy which might have been due to the effect I knew it had on Senara. She could be really frightened by it. I would see the shadow pass across her face and then she would get out her lute and play a gay song and ask Dickon if we could practise some new dance. I knew her better than anyone else did and that her nature was—as it had always been—to thrust aside unpleasant things and behave as though they had never happened.

I thought afterwards how like the coming of a storm it was because there is so often a first faint rumble of thunder in the distance and you scarcely notice it. Perhaps you say: “Oh there is thunder about.”

So at this time when I was fifteen years old, there was Witchcraft “about”.

The Catholics seemed a greater menace and when a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament was discovered, the whole country was agog.

I was allowed to sup in the great hall when there were guests coming, and because I was given this privilege so was Senara. We used to enjoy these occasions. We would listen avidly to the conversation and afterwards watch the dancers. Dickon was brought in to give displays which were always highly applauded and several times Senara had danced with him for the company. She loved these occasions for she yearned for admiration; she had to be continually assured that she was beautiful, attractive and desirable. I who was given to looking for a reason for everything, had convinced myself that she had become like this during the years when her mother had not been at the castle. But now of course, her mother was the Châtelaine and it was I who was often set aside for her. I didn’t mind this; I saw that it was natural for a mother to love her own daughter more than a stepdaughter, and I often wondered whether I was a constant reminder of my mother.

I remember at this time how the conspiracy which was called the Gunpowder Plot was discussed.

When my father talked his voice boomed down the table and most people stopped their private conversations to listen. My stepmother sat beside him and on either side of them were the important guests. The servants no longer sat below the salt—that was an outmoded custom.

My father said: “Guy Fawkes talked when racked. He has betrayed the whole party of them and they will lose their heads for this.”

Senara listened, eyes wide. It seemed that a William Catesby with his accomplices Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham were the leaders. They were joined by a relative of the great Percys of Northumberland and a soldier of fortune, Guy Fawkes. Tresham, whose brother-in-law was Lord Monteagle, wrote to Monteagle and warned him against going to the Houses of Parliament on a certain day. The letter was shown by Monteagle to Lord Cecil who had the vaults searched and there were found two hogsheads and barrels of gunpowder. This was at two in the morning. The man Guy Fawkes was discovered when he arrived to ignite the gunpowder. He was seized, and only after severe torture did he betray his accomplices. However, the Houses of Parliament were saved and throughout the country the people marvelled at the miraculous chance which had led to the discovery.

Everywhere throughout the country people discussed the Gunpowder Plot. It was something which must never be forgotten.

And so at our table the Catholic menace was discussed.

“We’ll never have papists here,” cried Squire Horgan, one of our neighbours, his face flushed with wine and fury. “Depend upon it.”

My stepmother smiled in her strange mysterious way and I wondered whither she had come when the sea had thrown her up that night long ago before Senara was born. There was an aloofness about her as though she were despising these people at her board. She was, it was said, from Spain. She certainly had Spanish looks. My grandmother said there was no doubt of her origins and she would know because before she had married my grandfather she had been married to a Spaniard on the island of Teneriffe. Spaniards were Catholics, very staunch ones. But I suppose witches had an entirely different religion.

I pulled myself up sharply. I must not think of her as a witch. She never practised religion, I believe. She was never in the chapel, though Connell, Senara and I went regularly I rarely saw my father there either.

The Gunpowder Plot was to have its effect on our family. Very soon after that night when I had sat at table and listened to the talk about it, a messenger came to us from Lyon Court with very sad news. My grandfather had died. My grandmother wished Connell and me to go over to her for the burial.

My father raised no objection and when Senara heard that we were going she wanted to go too. I was always flattered and touched by her devotion to me. It really seemed as though she was unhappy without me, and as her mother seemed indifferent as to what she did, she was allowed to come.

How sad Lyon Court was without my grandfather! I knew it would never be the same again. He had been such a big man—I mean in more than size. Lyon Court was always different when he was there. He was constantly shouting about the place; often abusing either the servants or my grandmother or any member of the family. It all seemed so quiet and silent.

My grandmother looked old suddenly. She seemed to have shrunk. After all, she was sixty-five years of age.

Three deaths of people she loved most dearly—her mother, my mother and now my grandfather—had left her frail, bewildered, as though she were wondering what she was doing on the Earth without them.

I had an uneasy feeling that it would not be long before she followed them.

Connell was very upset because he had been my grandfather’s favourite. The old man had loved boys; but of course his love of women had been one of the pillars of his nature. Perhaps I should say he had needed women. Young boys, members of his family, had pleased him as girls never could. His mistresses had been numerous; yet it was my grandmother whom he had loved. She had been so suited to him—so fiery, such a fighter, far more so than my mother had been or I could ever be.

She used to say that I took after her mother.

She took me into the chapel at Lyon Court where his coffin had been set up. Candles burned at either end of it.

She said: “I cannot believe that he has gone, Tamsyn. It seems so empty without him. There doesn’t seem to be much meaning in anything any more.”

Then she told me how he had died. “If there had been no Gunpowder Plot I am sure he would be with us today. His rages could be terrible. He never tried to control them. I was always warning him. I used to say, ‘One day you’ll drop down dead when you let your passions get the better of you.’ And that was what happened, after all.

“He heard of the plot. ‘Papists!’ he said. ‘That’s who it is. The Spaniards are behind this. We defeated them in fair battle and they’ll come back by foul means. God damn them all.’

“Then he fell down and that was the end. The Spaniards killed him in the end, you see, Tamsyn.”

She found great comfort in talking to me about him. She told me how they had met, how she had hated him, how he had pursued her and of the adventures she had had before she finally married him.

“Somewhere in my heart, Tamsyn, I always knew that he was the one for me. Always, when I was far away from him, I remembered that he was there in my life. And now he is there no more.”

I tried to comfort her. I told her I felt that my mother was not really gone. “I seem to feel her there close to me,” I said. “When I am unhappy or frightened I call to her. Then I’m not afraid any more.”

“May God bless you, little granddaughter,” she said.

Fenn Landor came to be with us on the day of the burial. He had grown up and was different from the boy I had met before. He would soon be sixteen—and so should I. We were no longer children.

My grandfather was buried in the Pennlyon burial grounds. They were not as large as ours at Paling, for the Pennlyons had only been in the house for a few generations.

Connell, Senara, Fenn and I used to go out riding together and Fenn and I always seemed to find ourselves together. He liked that because he wanted to talk to me about the Trading Company of which he was now a member. He was going to take his father’s place, he said. He still talked a great deal about his father.

“One of these days,” he said, “I shall find out what happened to him.”

I remembered his grandmother who thought he was at the bottom of the sea. We could talk together about our parents, both being in the same position, and we were very happy together.

Senara grumbled. “You and Fenn Landor are always going off together.”

“Why should we not?”

“I think he’s a bore.”

“You may think what you please. That does not affect my opinion.”

She stamped her foot. “If I were a witch,” she said, “I’d put a spell on him.”

“Don’t dare say such things, Senara,” I retorted angrily.

She looked a little frightened.

“I would though,” she went on. Then she was soft and clinging. I never knew anyone to change moods more quickly than Senara. “Don’t like him better than you like me, will you, Tamsyn?”

“As if I could.”

But she set me wondering.

I did like Fenn. I liked him very much indeed and I hated saying goodbye to him when it was time to return to Castle Paling.

“We shall meet again soon,” he said. “I will call at the castle and you must come and visit us.”

When we went home Fenn rode with us. It was on the way to his home of Trystan Priory, he said.

My grandmother was a little dubious when she heard that he proposed accompanying us; then she lifted her shoulders. “Why not?” she said. “He will protect you from the dangers of the road.”

Later when we were alone, just before I left, she said: “The two families have never met since the death of your father’s first wife. It used to be rather awkward when your mother was alive. We saw so much of the Landors, being involved in business together, and Fenn’s grandmother could not be induced to see anyone connected with your father.”

“Why ever not?”

“Your father’s first wife was her daughter.”

“Her daughter. The one she said was …”

She stopped me before I could finish. “She was hysterical with grief. She refused to see things as they really were. She wanted to blame someone for her daughter’s death so she blamed the daughter’s husband. What happened was that your father’s first wife died in childbed.”

“And she blamed my father for that?”

“She was of the opinion that her daughter was too frail to bear children and should never have been allowed to try to do so.”

“That seems unreasonable of her.”

“People are not always reasonable in their grief.”

“And for that reason she would not meet my father!”

“That’s true, Tamsyn.”

“She made a strange remark about my mother. Do you remember when I went into her room on that night and found her crying?”

“I remember it well. It was just after the disappearance of young Fenn’s father. Poor soul! I think the loss of her children unhinged her mind.”

“But what she said about my mother …”

“I cannot bear to think of it, Tamsyn. My daughter … she was so young. And to die in her bed.”

“Her heart failed, they said.”

“And she had been unwell and had not told me. The greatest regret of my life is that I was not there to nurse her.”

“She did not appear to need nursing. I was with her on the nights preceding that one. But on her last night I was not there.”

My grandmother covered my hand with hers.

“My dearest, we must try not to grieve. So Fenn is going to ride back with you. He will stay a night or two at the castle, I dare say, for I am sure your father will not object. You like Fenn, do you not?”

“Oh, I do. He is so interesting and so … good.”

She smiled. “At one time I thought his father might have married your mother. The son is so like the father that sometimes I could believe it is Fennimore who is here and the girl who likes him so much my own Linnet.”

“Did you want her to marry that Fennimore?” I asked.

She turned her head away and did not answer. Then she said suddenly: “She wanted your father. In the end it was her choice.”

I did not quite know what she meant by that but I believed the subject was painful to her and I did not want to make her more unhappy than she already was.

I forgot a little of the sorrow I had left behind me at Lyon Court when I was riding along with Fenn. He talked a great deal about the trading company and how they would miss my grandfather. “But it is some years since he went to sea. He was a great sailor. I don’t think he ever quite got over the loss of the Landor Lion. It seemed so strange to disappear like that … after it had been sighted quite near the Sound.”

I was afraid he was going to talk about his father, and although I was very interested I knew it was a depressing subject and I wanted to get away from depression. I kept thinking about my mother who might have married his father and if she had how different everything would be.

It had put an idea into my head which might have been there before. What I mean was that I recognized it was a possibility and it was one which gave me a great deal of pleasure.

What if I should marry Fenn?

I was sure my mother, if she could do so, would approve of this. She had been very fond of Fenn’s father. He must have been very like Fenn; then why had she married my father?

During that ride home I thought now and then of my father. I seemed to see him for the first time. I did not love him in truth, although I had always thought I had, simply because it was the dutiful thing to love one’s father. I was happier when he was away; I kept out of his range as much as possible. He had very little interest in me, I was sure. Connell had always been his favourite. I wondered then why my mother had loved him more than Fenn’s father. He had probably decided that she should. He was the sort of man who made people’s decisions for them. He was hard and cruel, I knew. I had seen men after they had been whipped because they disobeyed him. There was a whipping-post in the courtyard before the Seaward Tower. The servants were terrified of him.

I wondered what Fenn would think of him, Fenn who was kind. That was what I liked about him. He was so kind and gentle too. If he had boys and girls he would never allow the girls to see that he preferred the boys, even if he did. Yet in a way I suppose I was glad my father was not as interested in me as he was in Connell. Connell had had many a beating because he had failed to please my father. I was never beaten because I neither pleased nor displeased.

I was suddenly looking at my home with a new clarity because I was wondering what Fenn would think of it.

My father was at home when we arrived and he and my stepmother came down to greet our guest. I saw the curl of my father’s lip as he studied Fenn, which meant that he did not think very highly of him.

My stepmother smiled a welcome. Even Fenn was startled by her. I tried to look at her afresh. I could not understand quite what that magnetic charm was. She was very beautiful, it was true, but it was not only beauty. There was a sheen about her; it was in everything she did, in her smile and her gestures.

“Welcome to Castle Paling,” she said. “It is good of you to go out of your way to look after my daughters on the road.”

Fenn stammered that it had been his pleasure and was by no means out of his way.

“It’s rarely that we see a Landor within these walls,” said my father. “The last one was my first wife. She would be your aunt, would she not?”

“That’s so,” Fenn replied.

He seemed to shrink before my father, and I felt that old protective instinct, which had amused my mother, rising within me.

I wondered whether my father was going to make sport with him, to trick him into betraying his enthusiasm for the trading company and then show his contempt for it.

My father shouted to one of the servants to prepare a room for our guest and to send another with wine that he might welcome him on his first visit to the castle.

The wine was brought. We drank it and we talked of the death of Captain Pennlyon and the sadness it had caused at Lyon Court.

“A great sailor, my father-in-law,” said my father. “One of the old buccaneers. I’d like to have as many golden crowns as Spaniards he has put to the sword.”

“It was a cruel world in those days,” said Fenn.

“And has it changed? Why, young sir, whether men go in trade or war ’tis all the same. Booty is what they are after and blood and booty go together.”

“We aim to trade through peace.”

My father was laughing to himself. “Aye, ’tis a noble sentiment.”

I was glad when the servants came down to tell us that the room was ready.

“I have ordered that it shall be one of our best rooms,” said my father. “Some of the serving-women will tell you it’s haunted but that will not affect you, I know.”

Fenn laughed. “I’ll swear you have ghosts and to spare in a castle such as this.”

“Ghosts!” said my father. “On the stairways, in the corridors. I’ll tell you, you would be hard pressed to find a room that couldn’t boast of one. This is a castle of legends, sir. A haunted castle. Dark deeds have been done here and some say they leave their mark.”

“I promise you, sir, I fear them not.”

“I knew you would have a bold spirit. Your profession demands it. Though they tell me that sailors are the most superstitious men on the Earth. You tell me, is that true?”

“When they go to sea it is. There are so many evil things that can befall a ship. But those sailors who fear that which is not natural at sea, are bold on land.”

“We are on land but the sea laps at our walls and it would sometimes seem that we are on neither one nor the other. Come, you will wish to go to your room. ’Tis but an hour or so to supper.”

He signed to the serving-girl to show him where he would sleep.

I knew he was being taken to the Red Room.

Supper was a merry meal. My father was in good spirits. My stepmother decided to charm him. She did a little, I noticed with some dismay. She sang a song—in Spanish, I suppose it was. I could not understand the words but it throbbed with tenderness. My father watched her as she sang as though he were bewitched. In fact I think every man present was. I wondered, as I had on many other occasions, what she was thinking.

That night I could not sleep. I kept thinking about Fenn and my grandmother’s hints that I might marry him. I knew that I wanted to. I realized that I loved Fenn and I was the sort of person who would not change. It seemed to me like a pattern. My mother and her Fennimore, both marrying other people to make the way clear for their children.

I was seeing everything with that new clarity which had come to me through the ride from Lyon Court. My home was indeed a strange one. My father accused by his mother-in-law of causing the death of his first wife; his second wife dying mysteriously in her bed; and his third wife a witch.

And the castle—it was a haunted castle, haunted by spectres of the past. There were strange happenings at night. One awoke and was aware of things going on; one had grown accustomed to them and accepted them without asking what they meant. The servants were often uneasy; they were frightened of my father, and those in the Seaward Tower were different from those who attended to our needs in the castle. There were strange comings and goings. I had grown up with these things and had accepted them … until now.

Strangest of all was my stepmother—that foreign woman who spoke so little, who could enchant all men at will—be they young or old; there were strange rumours about her. I knew my own mother had saved her from the sea on Hallowe’en, which, said my practical grandmother, was why the rumour had started.

Perhaps that was so, but it was brought home afresh to me that my mother had been dead but three months when he had married her.

“Tamsyn, are you awake?”

It was Senara. We had continued to share a room. We could have had one each for there were plenty in the castle, but Senara was against it. She liked the room, she said; and she might want to talk in the night. It was like many other rooms in the castle, big and lofty, but it did have one unique feature. One of my ancestors had put in what was called a ruelle. He had lived in France and liked the idea. It was a sort of alcove which was curtained off by a heavy red curtain. Senara had always been fond of hiding behind it and springing out on me in the hope of frightening me.

Now I said: “Yes, I’m awake.”

“You’re thinking about him.” She said it accusingly.

“Whom do you mean?” I asked, knowing full well.

“Fenn Landor.”

“Well, he is our guest.”

“You think he is a special guest, don’t you?”

“The guest of the moment should always be a special guest.”

“Don’t elude me, Tamsyn. You know what I mean. You like him too much.”

“I just like him.”

“Too much,” she insisted.

I was silent.

She got off her pallet and knelt by mine.

“Tamsyn,” she said very seriously, “no one is going to take you away from me. No one.”

“No one shall,” I said. “You and I will always be as sisters.”

“I would hate anyone you liked more than you liked me.”

I thought: She is very young. She’ll grow up.

“Go back to bed, Senara. You’ll catch cold.”

“Remember it,” she said.

The next day when I was showing Fenn round the castle we came to the burial ground near the old Norman chapel. I showed him my mother’s grave in that spot with the other two so that they were a little apart.

“Why,” he said, “that is my aunt’s grave.” He went to it and knelt beside it. “My aunt and your mother. Who is the other?”

I said: “It was a sailor. He was drowned and washed up on our coast. We buried him here.”

“I wonder who he is,” said Fenn.

“I wish I knew. I dare say he has those to mourn for him.”

Fenn was sad and I knew that he was thinking of his father.

“There must be many sailors,” he said, “who are lying in graves unknown to their families.”

“Few are washed up on the shore.”

“No,” he said, “the ocean bed is the graveyard of many, I’ll swear.”

“Do you still think so much of your father?”

“It is six years since we lost him but he is as vivid in my mind as he ever was. You would understand if you had known him. He was a kind, good man in a world that is far from good and kind. That was what made him so outstanding. My mother says he was born before his time. He belonged to a different age, when men had become wiser and kinder because of it.”

“That’s a wonderful thing for a wife to say about her husband.”

“He was a wonderful husband.” He clenched his fists suddenly. “I know I shall find out one day what happened to him.”

“Isn’t it obvious? His ship must have been lost at sea.”

“I suppose you are right, but I have a feeling that some day I shall hear.”

“How wonderful if he came back to her. My grandfather was away for years—captured and made a slave and my grandmother never gave up hope. And he did come back. Poor Grandmother, she feels his loss sadly.”

He was very thoughtful and I longed to share his thoughts.

Then he said suddenly, “Tamsyn, would you do something if I asked you?”

“I am sure I shall. What is it?”

“You have planted rosemary on your mother’s grave.”

“She loved it and so did I and it’s for remembrance.”

“Will you plant a bush on his grave?”

“Of course.”

“An unknown sailor. Who knows where his family is? Plant the rosemary and it will be as though you plant it for my father. Will you do that for me, Tamsyn?”

“You may trust me to.”

He stood up and took my hands in his. Then he kissed me lightly on the forehead.

I was blissfully happy because that kiss while he stood close to my mother’s and the unknown sailor’s grave was a symbol. It was like plighting my troth. I knew that I loved Fenn. I was not sure whether he loved me but I thought he did.

Fenn left next day but not before I had planted my rosemary bush. I saw how pleased he was.

“I know you are the sort of girl who would keep her promises,” he told me.

Before he left he said that he wanted me to come and stay with his parents. He would arrange that they should soon invite me.

I waved farewell to him and then went right up to the ramparts so that I should see the last of him.

Senara came and stood beside me.

“You’re madly in love with him,” she accused me.

“I like him,” I admitted.

“You show it. You shouldn’t do that. You should be aloof; it is for him to fall madly in love with you. Now I suppose he will ask for your hand in marriage and then you will go away to that place of his and I shan’t see you any more.”

“What nonsense!”

“It’s not nonsense. I shall be left here and I don’t like it.”

“When I marry—if I do—you shall come and stay with me.”

“What’s the use of that? We’ve always been together. We’ve shared a room. You’ve been my sister ever since I could remember.”

She was pouting and sullen. Then her eyes were suddenly mischievous. “What if I made an image of him and stuck pins in it? Then he’d die because I’d pierce his heart. No one would know how he died … except me.”

“Senara, I hate to hear you talk like that. It’s all such nonsense.”

“People do die … cows die, sheep die … as well as people. No one knows what killed them. There is no sign at all … They just die. It’s the evil eye. What if I put it on your precious lover?”

“You couldn’t and you wouldn’t … even if he were my lover, which he is not. He is merely a good friend. And, Senara, I beg of you do not say such things. It is dangerous to talk so. People hear it and take it seriously. You mustn’t say it.”

She dodged back from me and put out her tongue. A favourite gesture of hers which was meant to irritate.

“You are no longer a child, Senara,” I said. “You must be sensible.”

She stood still, her arms folded, mocking me.

“I am sensible. They are always saying my mother is a witch. Well, I’m a witch too. Nobody knows where we came from, do they? How do I know, how do you know, who my father is?”

“Senara, you are talking dangerously. Your mother had the misfortune to be wrecked at sea. My mother saved her life. You were about to be born. It is all easy to understand.”

“Is it, Tamsyn? Is that what you really think?”

“Yes, it is,” I said firmly.

“You always believe what you want to. Everything is good and nice, according to you. Other people don’t always think so. And one thing, don’t imagine you are the only one who has a lover.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, wouldn’t you like to know?”

I very soon did know. It suddenly occurred to me that Senara had inherited that indefinable quality from her mother. In the days which followed she seemed to grow more beautiful; she was passing out of her childhood and she was of a type to mature early. Her body had become rounded, her long eyes languorous and full of mystery—so like her mother’s. When she danced with Dickon she was so lovely that it was impossible to take one’s eyes from her.

Dickon adored her. When he danced with her there was such happiness in his movements that it was a joy to watch them. He would sit and play the lute to her and sing songs of his own composing. They seemed all to be about the charms of a dark-eyed maiden, who tantalized him and tormented him while she enchanted him.

Enchantment! Bewitchment! These were words which occurred again and again in his song. She beguiled his senses; she had this elusive quality which he could not define.

One day in the music-room Maria discovered her daughter in the arms of Dickon, the music teacher. Senara told me about it afterwards. She was hysterical, half defiant, half fearful.

“Dickon always wants to make love to me,” she had said. “He has a passionate nature and so have I. You wouldn’t understand, Tamsyn. You are so calm and dull about these things. I love Dickon. He is beautiful, do you not think so? And the feeling he puts into his songs … and when we dance together, I seem to melt in his arms. I am ready to grant any request he might make of me. That’s how Dickon affects me, Tamsyn.”

“It sounds a very dangerous state of affairs,” I had replied with trepidation.

“Dangerous? Of course it’s dangerous. That’s why it’s exciting. When I am going for my lesson I make Merry curl my hair and I choose my ribbons very carefully to match my gown. Merry laughs. She knows.”

Merry was the maid who had been given us now that we were growing up. She worked for us personally, looked after our clothes, did our hair and was in fact a lady’s maid whom we shared. She was youngish—a little older than I was in fact, and she was in love with Jan Leward, one of the menservants who lived in the Seaward Tower. They were going to marry one day, she had confided in us, and she was very pleased with life because of this. Senara tricked her into giving confidences about the progress of her love-affair with Jan.

“Oh Senara, take care,” I had begged.

“That is something I prefer to leave to others,” she had retorted. “Care! It’s dull, and I hate dull things. No, I shall never take care. I shall be bold and reckless. That is how I intend to live my life. I think Dickon is handsome. More so than your Fenn Landor and I tell you this, Tamsyn, you are not going to be the only one with a lover.”

“What other people have has nothing to do with loving.”

“So wise,” she had mocked me. Then came this indiscretion. She told me about it. “The door of the music-room opened and my mother stood there. We were seated at the table. My lute lay on it and Dickon had his arms about me. He was kissing me and suddenly we knew that we were not alone. You know how silently my mother comes into a room. She stood there and looked at us. She said nothing. It would have been better if she had. Dickon started to tremble. You know how they can all be so afraid of her. Then she walked to the table. We both stood up. Dickon’s face was scarlet. He has such beautiful fair skin. Mine doesn’t change colour like that. But I was as frightened as he was. She picked up my lute and gave it to me. ‘Play,’ she said. ‘Play a love song, a sad one, for love songs are often sad.’ I took the lute and she said ‘Play “My love has gone and forever more I mourn”.’ I did and she sat there listening. Then she looked at Dickon and said; ‘How well have you taught my daughter?’ He stammered that he had done his best and that I was an apt pupil. She sat there for a while. Then she got up and went out. We don’t know what will happen but Dickon is afraid.”

We soon discovered what had happened.

Dickon did not appear in the music-room again. He had been sent away.

Senara was violently angry and quietly sad in turns. She used to cry at night and talked constantly about Dickon. I had thought her feeling for him superficial, but this did not seem to be so, for as time went on she continued to remember him and speak of him with bitter and sorrowing regret.

Senara changed after that incident. She seemed always to be trying to score over me. I think there was a streak of envy in her nature and particularly where I was concerned. I used to remind myself that in the early days of her life she had been the waif about whom so little was known. Her very name betrayed that. The admiration she had had from Dickon had softened her considerably and when it was snatched from her she had really suffered.

At first she had confided more in Merry than in me. She insisted that I had my Fenn Landor and she spoke of him as though we were betrothed. I must confess I did not stop her as I should. I was, I suppose, so enamoured of the idea of being betrothed to Fenn that I couldn’t resist deluding myself into thinking that it was so.

Then my stepmother—no doubt influenced by the Dickon affair—said that now we were all growing up there should be more entertaining at the castle. She would invite the best of the neighbouring families. Some of them had eligible young men who might be interested in us, and there was Connell also to be considered.

My father evidently agreed. He seemed always to agree with my stepmother. At least I never saw any conflict between them. When I compared them with my late grandfather and grandmother I thought how different their relationship was and that there was something more normal in the bickering of my grandparents than in the quietness I observed between my parents—my father being the man he was. I sensed that when they were alone they were far from quiet; and sometimes the thought came into my mind that my stepmother was indeed a witch and even my father was in thrall to her.

“The young man who brought you from your grandmother’s,” she said, “was very charming. I believe he has a sister. Perhaps we should invite them both to stay here.”

I was delighted. I said I thought they would be pleased to come.

“We shall see,” said my stepmother.

The seamstress was working hard making new gowns for us. When we entered into a new reign fashions always seemed to change. In the country as we were, we were always a year or so behind but even so we were now getting what was called the short Dutch waist and the full farthingale. We had cartoose collars and tight sleeves under long sleeves hanging from the elbow. We had dresses with divided skirts to show barred petticoats usually much finer than the gown itself. Ruffs had disappeared—for which I was thankful—and in their place we had stand up collars. The sewing-room was littered with cloth of all kinds, taffeta and damask, some silk and velvet and a mixture of silk and some other thicker material called crash and mockado which was mock velvet.

The sewing-room was a symbol of the fact that there were three marriageable young people in the castle and weddings were to be expected. It was strange how gay that made everyone feel.

Merry was no ordinary maid, for we were both fond of her and she was very pretty too and full of life. She talked a great deal—particularly to Senara—of Jan her lover and how one day they were going to get married. There was great excitement when she was wearing a ring. It looked like gold—a thick band.

“It be my token ring from Jan,” Merry told us solemnly.

Alas, her triumph was short lived, for it seemed Jan had stolen the ring. He had taken it from my father’s possessions and when it was discovered there was a great upheaval in the castle.

Merry quickly lost her token ring and wept for it, but even more bitterly did she weep when Jan received his punishment. We three shut ourselves away so that we could hear nothing of it, but quite a number of the servants gathered in the Seaward courtyard. Jan was tied to the whipping-post and given ten lashes.

“’Twill be the shame of his life,” sobbed Merry. “He be such a proud man. He only took to give to me.”

Senara’s eyes flashed with anger. “A curse on those who are beating Jan,” she cried. “May their arms rot and …”

I silenced her. “Whoever lifts the whip against him does so on orders,” I said. “And, Senara, please do not say such things.”

“I mean them,” she cried.

I knew who had given the order for punishment. It was my father.

We comforted Merry as best we could. Senara prepared an ointment for she was interested in such things, and we sent it over for Jan’s back.

“It will let him know that we are thinking of him,” said Senara, “as well as help to cure him.”

The atmosphere of the castle had changed. An air of melancholy had descended on us.

There was a letter from my grandmother.

She was glad to hear that Fenn and his sister were coming to stay with us.

I’m afraid this could never have happened while his grandmother was alive (she wrote). Now, poor soul, she is at rest and perhaps the feud between the two families will be over. I could understand, of course, her bitter sorrow when her daughter died and some people must lay the blame for their sorrow on other shoulders. It’s a great mistake. You will see Fenn again and I am sure you will enjoy his company. I believe his sister Melanie is a charming girl.

My dearest Tamsyn, how I should love to join you, but I fear the journey would be too much for me. Perhaps later you would come to me. I have not been very well. Edwina is often here. I shall look forward to your being here soon, my dear child. Let me know about Fenn’s visit.

It was high summer when they came—Fenn, his sister Melanie, his mother and their servants. They were to stay for a week and my stepmother had made great preparations for them. She had evidently taken a fancy to the family; I was worldly enough to know that it was because they were rich. They had large estates about Trystan Priory and although in the beginning they had lost money in the trading venture there were rumours that that was now proving very successful.

When they arrived a warm welcome was given them. My stepmother was gracious and charming and my father too received them with a show of pleasure. Fenn looked pleased to be back and I was thrilled to see that when his eyes alighted on me they showed clearly his pleasure. There was something open and candid about him; he was the sort of man who would never be able to hide his feelings even if he wanted to. His sister Melanie was rather like him in appearance; she was quiet and gentle in manners; and their mother was a very gracious lady. I couldn’t help thinking that Trystan Priory must be a very pleasant, comfortable household.

Fenn was put into the Red Room once more; and Melanie and her mother shared a room close by.

Supper that night was taken in one of the smaller rooms—so that we could talk together, said my stepmother, before other guests arrived. So there were my father, my stepmother, Fenn, his sister and mother, and Connell, Senara and myself. Conversation was of the estates and of the trading company of which Fenn spoke with such enthusiasm and how pleasant it was for families like ours to get to know each other.

I could scarcely sleep that night; nor could Senara. We lay awake on our pallets talking about the evening.

“What mild people they are,” commented Senara. “They look as if nothing could arouse them. I have a good mind to set fire to their bedchamber. I daresay that girl Melanie would sit up in bed and say: ‘How strange. I believe the room is on fire,’ and then calmly walk out as though nothing had happened. Shall I set fire to it just to see if I’m right?”

“What a horrible idea! You do think of the strangest things.”

“One day I shall do them.”

“Please, Senara, you know I hate you to talk like that.”

“Why should I care what you hate? I hate to see you looking at that Fenn as though he’s Sir Lancelot or one of those knights who were irresistible to the ladies. You don’t care about that.”

“You have a very jealous nature.”

“Anyone who feels anything is jealous. It is only people like you and your silly Landors who don’t. They’re calm because they don’t feel anything. I think you’re all made of straw.”

I laughed at her, which infuriated her.

“Don’t think you are the only one who knows about love.” Her voice broke and there was a sob in it. “I wonder what is happening to Dickon now.”

“I dare say he found another post teaching music and dancing to a susceptible young girl. They now gaze at each other over the table and he sings songs to her as he plays his lute.”

“Don’t talk so,” cried Senara.

“I’m sorry. Do you still care about him?”

“Of course I don’t, but I don’t want him laughed at.”

“I’m not laughing at him. I’m sorry for him. I hope he found a good post quickly.”

She changed the subject. “That Melanie will soon be living here. They’ve chosen her for Connell.”

“What!”

“It’s true. Merry heard them talking about it and she told me. It’s more or less arranged. They only have to like each other. Connell will, I dare say. His father wants him to, so he has to; and as long as he can frolic with the serving wenches he’s ready to marry whoever is chosen for him.”

“Where do you get such ideas?”

“I keep my eyes open. Servants talk to me more than they do to you. They’d be afraid to tell you. You’re so proper.”

“Connell and Melanie,” I said.

“Don’t sound so surprised. Is it not obvious? It’s time Connell married … you know, get sons to carry on the line. Connell will be rich—he’ll inherit all this … and she will have a good dowry, you can be sure. Just imagine, in a little while I’ll warrant we have dear prim little Melanie installed as our sister.”

“Well, I think Connell will be lucky.”

“You would! And Connell, what of him? He won’t get much fun with her, I’ll swear. Well, the serving girls are always willing when it is the master of the house, which he will be in time.”

“You talk too freely, Senara.”

“What should I do? Cloak my thoughts as you do … or try to. Don’t think I don’t know you, Tamsyn Casvellyn. I see clearly what is in your mind. You betray it and if you did not I have means …”

I laughed aloud. “Oh, I see, this is the witch’s daughter speaking.”

“Never underestimate a witch, Tamsyn.”

“How many more times do I have to tell you not to speak of yourself as a witch. It’s dangerous and growing more so.”

“This is only in the four walls of our bedchamber. I trust you, Tamsyn, not to betray me. You would never betray anyone. Least of all your sister, Senara. We are sisters, Tamsyn. Do you remember when I made you cut your wrist and I cut mine and we mingled our blood and swore that we would come to the aid of the other when that one was in danger?”

I laughed. “How you loved those dramatic gestures when you were a child.”

“I love them still. It’s part of my witch’s nature.”

“Hush!”

“What! Do you think the witchfinders are lurking in the court cupboard? Do you think they are going to spring out and search my body for the marks? There are no marks on my body, Tamsyn, not yet.”

“Go to sleep,” I said.

“I can’t sleep. I’m thinking of the future. Of Melanie coming here and your going away. An exchange, that’s what they want—you will go to Trystan Priory as the bride of holy Fenn and Melanie comes here to take your place. I won’t have it. I won’t have her in place of you. You are my blood-sister and where you go I shall go.”

“I could take you with me.”

“See, you have already made up your mind to go. Do not think that I shall allow you to go to your lover. I must have a lover; or I must be with you. Perhaps I will take your lover and I will be the one to go to Trystan Priory as the bride and you will come there and stay with me. That would be a complete turn about.”

“I never heard such nonsense. I am going to sleep now if you won’t.”

“Tamsyn,” she wailed.

But I did not answer her. I lay still pretending to sleep but of course I could not. I kept thinking about Connell’s marrying Melanie. I did not think she would be very happy. Then I thought of my marrying Fenn and going to Trystan Priory which would be my home for ever after.

The next morning Fenn asked me if I would take a ride with him. I was very happy to agree to this and I wondered whether during the ride he would ask me to marry him.

Before we went to the stables he said he would like to visit the burial grounds and we did. The rosemary bush was flourishing.

“I watched over it,” I said. “See this creeper. It is going from my mother’s to the grave of the unknown sailor.”

“In time,” he said, “it will cover them both.”

He stood up and took my hands in his.

“Thank you for caring for this grave, Tamsyn. I dare say you will think I am fanciful. You see, I don’t know where my father lies and in a way this is a sort of substitute.”

“I understand absolutely. I should feel the same. Rest assured that I will always care for the grave.”

He looked at me very solemnly and I thought: This is the moment. But then I heard someone calling my name. “Tamsyn. Tamsyn, where are you?”

It was Senara.

She was at the edge of the burial ground, dressed in her riding habit. It was of mulberry-coloured velvet and she had a riding hat, rather like a man’s, with a band about it and feather at the back. She seemed to grow more beautiful every day; she was beginning to look very like her mother, but the mysterious look of her mother in her was a vitality which made her more human than her mother could ever be.

She studied us rather mockingly. “Why,” she said, “you are about to ride too. Why should we not all go together?”

Other guests arrived at the castle. When we rode out it was in a large company. My father hunted the deer some miles inland and made up a party. Fenn was in this and they were away two whole days, for the forest was so far that it took them some hours to get there and they were staying the night at a hunting lodge which belonged to a friend of my father’s who was entertaining the party there.

That meant that Melanie and her mother were left for us to look after. Melanie was very interested in the domestic side of the castle. She met some of the servants. Merry said afterwards that she was a very gracious lady and she hoped Master Connell would not be another such as his father.

I was very drawn to Melanie—perhaps because she was Fenn’s sister. Senara dismissed her as spiritless; but then Senara judged everyone by herself.

When the men returned they brought some fine deer with them and these were to be roasted for the grand banquet which would be given on the night before the Landors returned.

In the afternoon of that day Connell and Melanie went riding together. I went with Senara because she was determined to come. I knew that she was not going to leave me alone with Fenn. I could not help smiling, because I was sure that if Fennimore intended to ask me to marry him he would not be deterred by Senara. I was amazed too by the force of Senara’s affection for me, if it was affection. Or was it perhaps the determination that I should not have what she could not?

There was a great deal of chatter in our bedchamber as we prepared for the banquet. Senara’s gown was of red silk and her petticoat of embroidered damask, and the silk divided in the skirt to give an ample view of this magnificent petticoat; her bodice was tightly laced with gold thread; on her head she wore a jewelled ornament which her mother had given her. When she was dressed she studied me. “You look quite beautiful in your blue velvet,” she told me, her head on one side. “Now, Merry, who is the more beautiful do you think?”

Merry looked embarrassed and said “Do not ask such questions.”

“You discomfort poor Merry,” I said. “You know you are so why do you wish to make her say it?”

“It is always good to speak the truth,” said Senara demurely.

What a night that was. The smell of roasting venison filled the castle; the great table in the hall was laden with food of all descriptions; there was beef and mutton besides the venison; and all manner of pies and pastries of which the people of our part of the country were especially fond. Squab and lammy and taddage all served with clotted cream which made them over rich for my liking; I preferred those savoured with herbs and some of the flowers like marigolds and primroses when they were in season. Before the banquet began dash-an-darras, the stirrup cup, was lavishly taken which meant that the company was in high spirits before it reached the table.

There mead and metheglin were freely served, with sloe gin and wines made from cowslips, and gillyflowers. When the company had eaten its fill and the musicians were about to play, my father stood up and said he had news to impart which gave him great pleasure.

“My friends,” he said, “you are this day celebrating the betrothal of my son Connell and Melanie, whose mother and brother are here with us. Alas, that her father could not be here also, but I promise her she will find in me one who is willing and eager to take his place.”

There was a filling of goblets and glasses and toasts were drunk and Connell and Melanie rose and stood beside my father holding hands in the traditional way.

I caught Fenn’s eye and I could see that he was pleased. Indeed everyone seemed to think the betrothal highly suitable.

Then my father called to the musicians to play and he rose from the table and, taking Melanie by the hand, he opened the dance with her. Connell took Melanie’s mother as his partner and Fenn took me. Others of the company fell in behind us and we danced round the hall. Some of our guests remained at the table drinking and watching us as we danced.

I said to Fenn: “This betrothal pleases you.”

“I like well,” he replied, with a pressure on my hand, “that our families should be united. If your brother makes my sister happy I shall be well content.”

“I trust he will,” I answered fervently.

“There has been a restraint between our families because of my aunt’s marriage to your father. It was wrong of my grandmother to blame him for her death. She was somewhat unbalanced and became very strange before she died. But that is over now. Now there will be friendship between us.”

I was happy dancing with Fenn. I felt certain that our families were going to be united by more than that marriage tie.

Then the happiness of the evening disintegrated. Above the sound of the music came the sound of piercing screams. The dancers stopped; so did the musicians. My father cried angrily: “What means this?” But the screaming went on.

The door at one end of the hall opened into the kitchens and it was from this direction that the screaming came. Senara and I were close behind my father as he flung open the door.

Two of the serving-girls were being held up by others and they were the ones who were making the noise.

“Silence,” cried my father.

So great was their fear of him that he could silence them whatever the state of their minds.

I saw that Merry was there. She curtsied and said: “Master, these two girls have seen something terrible.”

All the guests were crowding round the door and my father said: “You’ll be whipped for this. What think you you are doing, disturbing my guests in this way?”

My stepmother had taken charge. She said: “The girls are beside themselves with fear. You had better tell me what has happened.”

“’Twas what they did see, Mistress,” said Merry.

“Let them speak for themselves,” said my stepmother. “Jane. Bet. What was it?”

The two who had been screaming stared at my stepmother with round frightened eyes. But they had recovered their senses. They were as frightened of her as they were of my father—though for different reasons and I had at times wondered which they feared most, the whipping which he would order or the vague terror which the thought of witchcraft could inspire.

“We did see a light, Mistress.”

“A light! What light?”

“’Twas in the burial ground … ’Twas moving hither and thither, like … a ghostly light. ’Twere not natural.”

“Is that all? You saw a light and you make this noise?”

“Bet, she said to me she’d wager I wouldn’t go with her … and I said I would and then we wished we hadn’t, but we went and … oh, Mistress, I dursen’t speak of it.”

My father said: “A pack of silly girls. Their foolishness will be beaten out of them. What did they see?”

The girls looked at each other; they seemed as though they tried to find their voices and could not and were going off into hysterics again.

I said: “We’ll search the burial ground and see who’s there. It must be someone playing tricks.”

“Let’s go now,” cried Senara, her eyes alight with excitement. “Let’s go and see what it was that frightened those silly girls.”

Our guests were quite clearly amused by what was happening. Senara was chatting gaily to Squire Horgan’s son who was very taken with her.

“It must have been someone’s ghost,” she said. “We’ve lots of ghosts. Melanie, do you like ghosts? You’ll get to know them when you come to live here.”

Melanie smiled serenely and said that she would have to wait until she had made their acquaintance until she could tell Senara whether she liked them.

It was a beautiful moonlight night. “We should have had the musicians out here,” said Senara; “we could have danced in one of the courtyards.”

“The cobbles would have been hard on our feet,” I answered.

Senara came and walked on the other side of Fenn as we came into the burial ground.

“Why did the ghost need the flickering light?” someone asked. “He could see well enough in the moonlight.”

Fenn and I with Senara had walked over to the spot we knew so well. Senara gave a cry and said: “Look.”

There was a stone on the grave of the unknown sailor. On it had been printed in large black letters:

Murdered October 1600

Everyone crowded round to look.

I saw my father clench his hands; he cried: “Good God! Look at that.”

My stepmother came forward and stared at it. “Murdered,” she repeated. “What does it mean?”

“Some joker. By God, a poor joke. He’ll be flayed for this,” cried my father.

He pulled it from the earth and in an excess of anger threw it from him. It landed with a thud among some brambles.

He turned to the company and said: “This is the grave of a sailor who was washed up on our shores. My wife was anxious that he should be given decent burial. Some foolish joker put that stone there, hoping to frighten the maids. Come, we will go back to the hall. Those stupid girls will wish they had not disturbed us, I promise you.”

In the hall he commanded the musicians to play; but some of the gaiety had vanished. I noticed that Fenn was particularly affected.

We sat together on a window seat, neither being in the mood for dancing. I had imagined our sitting thus while he asked me to marry him; but after what we had seen in the burial ground, I realized that Fennimore could think of nothing else. He had so identified that unknown sailor with his father that he was shocked to see that inscription on his grave and he could not get it out of his mind.

The next day, we talked of it.

“You see, Tamsyn,” he said, “it was in October 1600 that my father disappeared.”

“That was the year the sailor was buried. It was the year my mother died. It was on Christmas Day.”

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” said Fenn. “Every time I closed my eyes I could see that stone with those words on it. Who put it there, Tamsyn? Who could have done such a thing?”

“Perhaps we shall discover,” I said.

He was shaken. So was I. I could see that the discovery of that strange stone had made it impossible for him to think of anything else.

He did not mention our betrothal.

And he rode back to Trystan Priory still not having spoken of it.

Yet the wedding was to be in a few weeks’ time and we should all travel to Trystan Priory to celebrate it.

AT HALLOWE’EN

THERE WAS GREAT EXCITEMENT in the preparations for the wedding. Connell was pleased to be the centre of attraction. I was certain that he was not in love with Melanie. Senara said: “How could he be? He’s in love with himself. People can only be in love with one person at a time, and one thing I am certain of, Connell will always be faithful … to himself.”

Whatever his emotions, he liked the thought of getting married.

We did not discover who had put the stone on the unknown sailor’s grave. Strangely enough, my father had not pursued the inquiry as fully as I expected him to. The two hysterical serving girls who had interrupted the company’s entertainment were questioned, but all they would say was that they had seen lights in the burial ground, had been wagered they wouldn’t go and look, and then had gone out and seen the stone.

My father shrugged his shoulders and said it was someone’s idea of a joke and if he discovered who the culprit was he would discover it was something quite different.

Perhaps it was the excitement of the wedding which made people forget, but now the burial ground was included as yet another part of the castle in which ghosts lurked.

Senara, Merry, the seamstress and I were once more busy with our gowns. I was very excited at the prospect of seeing Fenn again. Senara knew. She taunted me when we were in our bedroom at night.

“I know what you’re thinking, Tamsyn,” she said. “You’re thinking he’s going to ask you this time. Perhaps he will. It will be so neat, won’t it? Melanie comes here and you go to Trystan. What an excellent arrangement, they will think. I shan’t. I don’t want that silly dull creature here.”

“I thought you considered me rather dull.”

“In a different way. A foil to my liveliness. She’s different. I don’t want her. Just think when we come back, she will be with us.”

“I believe she will be a very pleasant addition to the household.”

“I shall ignore her.”

“Poor girl, how upset she will be!”

“Don’t mock. What really concerns me is that the laggardly Fenn might at last find the spirit to ask you. You’ll accept him. I know that full well. I never knew any girl throw herself at a young man as you have thrown yourself at him.”

“That’s not true.”

“You can’t see yourself. All adoration and submissiveness! Asking him all the time to marry you.”

“I’m going to sleep.”

“You’re not,” she said.

“If we are to be fresh tomorrow we must sleep. It’s a long way to Trystan.”

“There’s a change in your voice when you mention the house, even. Confess, you are longing to be mistress of it.”

“I refuse to discuss such nonsense.”

“Nonsense it is. Listen to me, Tamsyn Casvellyn. You are not going to marry him. I’ll marry him myself rather. That would be fun, wouldn’t it? Suppose I married him instead of you? I will go to Trystan Priory. I will be the mistress there and poor Tamsyn will stay behind in Castle Paling until she is old and crabbed and filled with bitter envy because her blood-sister Senara married the hero of her dreams and lives happily ever after at Trystan Priory with her ten children and her handsome husband whom she has turned into the most attractive man on earth, for she is a witch, remember.”

“Good night, Senara.”

“I will not be dismissed.”

“Will you not? Then go rambling on for I intend to sleep.”

She went on talking and I pretended not to listen, and after a while she was quiet.

The next morning early the pack-horses were loaded with our baggage which contained our wedding finery, and in a big party at the head of which rode my father and my stepmother we set out for Trystan Priory.

What sad news awaited me there! Fenn had been called to Plymouth where he must join his ship. He had wanted to remain to see his sister married but that was not possible. He had to take his ship on a venture from which he hoped to return in six months’ time.

Senara looked at me mischievously.

“I arranged it,” she whispered.

I turned away impatiently.

“When our Queen came from Denmark,” she went on, “the witches of Scotland and Norway raised storms so that she was almost lost at sea. If they could do that why should not someone be sent to sea?”

“You talk such nonsense,” I said shortly.

“You call it that because you don’t understand. Is witchcraft nonsense?”

“Why will you continually harp on witchcraft, Senara? Don’t you see it’s playing with fire.”

“One of the most exciting things in the world, my good blood-sister, is playing with fire.”

“If you don’t get burned,” I snapped, my disappointment over Fenn’s absence robbing me of my usual easy temper.

“Nay, ’tis others who will get burned,” she said enigmatically.

I was uneasy about her, but she had always loved to tease people. She teased Merry about Jan Leward and Jennet about her lovers; but this attitude towards me and Fenn was beginning to upset me.

The wedding was celebrated two days after our arrival. Melanie made a beautiful bride with her blonde hair falling about her shoulders and her gown of fine silk and her kirtle decorated with threads of gold; two of her boy cousins led her to the church; they looked very charming with bride laces and rosemary tied to their sleeves. Connell was already there, led in by two young men who must be unmarried to perform this duty and each of these had bride lace on branches of broom tied to his arms. Carried before Melanie was the bride cup on which was more rosemary, gilded and tied with ribbons of many colours. The Priory musicians followed them into the chapel and all the young girls including myself and Senara followed. Senara and I being closely related to the bridegroom carried big bride cakes.

It was impressive as such ceremonies always were and Melanie looked radiantly happy and Connell well pleased. It would have been a wonderful day for me if only Fenn had been there.

Senara whispered to me as the pair were repeating their vows: “Whose turn next. Yours? Don’t be too sure of that, Tamsyn Casvellyn. It might be mine.”

I ignored her.

The ceremony over, the feasting began; it went on during the day and then we put the couple to bed with a certain amount of ribaldry. My father cried that he hoped they would give him grandsons and “without delay”, he added.

Connell looked a little sheepish and I was amazed by Melanie’s tranquility.

Senara said afterwards that she had come to the marriage bed in absolute ignorance. Within three days we were riding back to Castle Paling, my father, stepmother, my brother and his new bride at the head of the party.

Having Melanie in the house made very little difference. She was so quiet no one noticed her very much. A nonentity was Senara’s verdict. Connell took very little notice of her. He scarcely saw her during the day but shared her bed every night.

“Once she is pregnant,” commented Senara, “he will find his pleasure elsewhere.”

“You are coarse,” I told her.

“My dear Tamsyn, I am not as innocent as you.”

“I trust you are innocent.”

Senara shrieked with laughter. “You would like to know, would you not?”

“I do know.”

“You know nothing. You are blind to what is going on. You are another Melanie. You don’t gossip enough, that’s your trouble. Servants are the best informants. They rarely fail. Then of course I have my special powers.”

“I don’t want to hear about them,” I said, “because I know they do not exist.”

“One of these days the truth will be brought home to you.” She looked mysterious. “Now I am going to brew a spell. Your Fenn is on the sea somewhere. What if I brew up a storm as the witches of Scotland did? What then, eh?”

I felt sick with fear suddenly and Senara went off into peals of laughter.

“You see, you do believe. It’s all very well to pretend you don’t when the result doesn’t matter.”

“Please, Senara, stop this talk of spells and suchlike. Servants overhear. I tell you it is dangerous.” I took her by the shoulders suddenly. She had really frightened me when she had talked of Fenn. “If there should be a scare throughout the neighbourhood, if there should be such a noise about witches and witchfinders came down here, do you not see that you would be suspected … you and …”

She finished for me. “My mother.” She smiled then and her mood changed suddenly. It was soft and loving. “You do care for me, don’t you Tamsyn?”

“You are as my sister.”

“No matter what I do.”

“It would appear so,” I said.

Then she threw her arms about me in the impulsive, lovable manner which I knew so well.

“I taunt you because we belong together. I could never endure to lose you, Tamsyn.”

“Nor shall you,” I promised.

After that she was gentle for a while and when she was in that mood no one could be more charming or loving than Senara. If only she would always be so. She told me once: “There are two sides to my nature, Tamsyn, and on one of them is the witch.”

We had been back from the wedding for a week or so. The sun had shone almost unceasingly for four weeks without a drop of rain, which was unusual for Cornwall. I decided that I would water the plants on the graves for the earth was so dry it was cracking in places.

Since that night when the stone had been found few people went near the burial ground. They were certain that that stone had been placed there by some ghostly hand. Sailors who were drowned at sea often could not rest. It was said that at night one could hear cries coming from the Devil’s Teeth where many a ship had foundered. The fishermen coming in at dusk always avoided that stretch of water, not only because it was dangerous—they did not fear this because they knew those rocks so well—but because they believed it to be haunted.

I took my watering-can and, entering the graveyard, went to that spot where the three graves were. I saw it immediately. I stared and knelt by my mother’s grave. The stone which my father had hurled into the bushes on that night had been discovered. It had now been planted on my mother’s grave.

I stared at it; the words danced before my eyes. “Murdered 1600.”

I pulled at the stone. It came away easily in my hands. I touched the black letters. I knelt by that grave and I thought back to the day when I had gone into my mother’s room and seen her lying there quiet and still.

Pictures flashed in and out of my mind. Had she been afraid before she died? I had slept with her, because my presence had given her comfort. I remembered the occasion I went to her and stood by her bed. She had awakened in fright. Why? Had she been expecting someone else? Did she know someone was planning to murder her?

Murder her! I looked back at the stone. Who had put it there? Why? And after all this time. It was seven years since my mother had been buried here. Why only now should someone put that stone on the unknown sailor’s grave and then on hers?

When I considered that, I was comforted. It was some practical joker with a distorted idea of humour. How could a sailor who was drowned at sea and washed up on our coast have been murdered!

I remember my father’s anger when he had seen it that night. Naturally he was angry because his guests had been disturbed. He had flung the stone into the bushes. Who then had found it and put it on my mother’s grave?

I stared down at it. What could I do with it? Mechanically I laid it on the ground and watered the graves.

I would not leave the stone there. I picked it up and carried it into the house. I put away my watering-can and took the stone up to my room.

I hid it at the back of the court cupboard, first wrapping it up in an old petticoat.

For the rest of the day I kept thinking about it and trying to remember the last months of my mother’s life. How could she have been murdered? Who would have murdered her? And if so, how? There was no sign on her body that she had suffered violence.

Next day I would take the stone with me when I rode out and I would go alone. I would take it far away. I would bury it in a wood and try to think no more of the matter.

What was the use of deluding myself? I knew that I should go on thinking of it.

I sat at my window and looked out to sea. There were the Devil’s Teeth crudely protruding from the water. Someone had once said, when the tide is neither high nor low it looks as though the Devil is smiling. It would be a wicked smile, a satisfied smile, the smile of one who knows that men will be lured to disaster.

I did not throw the stone away because when I came to take it next day it was missing.

I opened the door of the court cupboard and felt for the petticoat. There it was, rolled as I had left it. But it was light and the stone was not there.

I could not believe it. I had wrapped it so that it was hidden. No one could have known it was there. I knelt with the petticoat in my hand and a terrible apprehension crept over me. Could it really be that some other force—not human—had placed that stone first on the sailor’s grave and then on my mother’s? Was it really true that the ghosts of the castle were manifesting their existence in this way?

Hands caught at my throat and I screamed out in terror. My head was jerked back and I was looking up into Senara’s laughing face.

“What are you doing caressing that old petticoat? And I frightened you, did I not? Did you think it was an enemy? Have you such a bad conscience?”

“You … you did startle me.”

“I wondered what you were doing on your knees. I watched for minutes … well, a few seconds … I couldn’t make out why you kept looking at that old petticoat.”

She snatched it from me and unfurled it.

“Look, it’s torn. What possible good is it? That ribbon on it is rather pretty though …”

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.”

“I could change,” she said, “perhaps. He talked to me about it. It is inspiring … in a way.”

“Inspiring to you! I never knew anyone who loved finery as you do. One day you want to be a witch. The next a puritan!”

“Dickon talked to me about the sect. They are very noble. The Deemsters are fond of him. They love converts. You see, when he went there he was such a beautiful young man, with his feet firmly planted on the road to hell. They have saved his soul. You know how attractive anything that you have saved is.”

She had learned something about the puritans. The Deemsters came from Lincolnshire. Master Deemster’s mother had been Dutch and they had ties with Holland. “They believe that life should be simplicity,” she said, “and abhor all papist idols.”

“As we do.”

“For the puritans their religion is the most important event in their lives. They care for nothing but their simple goodness. They do not believe in the riches of this life. They believe we should live humbly, simply, and that all vanity is an offence to God. They would die for their beliefs.”

“I pray God they do not have to. The King is against them and has sworn to harm them.”

“They know that well.”

“He believes that they are as the Scottish Presbytery, of which he has had some experience, and he has said that that agrees as well with a monarchy as God with the Devil.”

Senara laughed as though this pleased her. I think she was enamoured of the puritans because by pursuing their brand of religion they courted danger.

“Moreover,” I went on warningly, “the King has said at the Hampton Court Conference that he will harry the puritans out of land or else do worse. They must either conform or take the consequences.”

“Oh yes, they know this and they care not for his threats. They are planning action. One thing they will never do is give up their religion.”

I could see she was excited by her adventure and that this was in some measure due to the fact that the puritans were in danger.

I was very disturbed indeed when I discovered that she had known Dickon was at Leyden Hall. One of the servants had found out that he was there and told her. She had staged her little adventure for Hallowe’en—what a fearless reckless girl she was!—and had pretended to be lost that she might see Dickon and talk with him.

From then on she talked of him a good deal and often called at Leyden Hall. She began to learn a great deal about the puritans and their beliefs and aims, which was strange considering she was Senara.

THE TURRET LIGHTS

IT WAS CHRISTMAS DAY, my eighteenth birthday and Senara’s sixteenth. My stepmother had invited people to the castle. She seemed eager to find husbands for us both, and particularly for me perhaps because I was two years older.

During the last weeks Senara liked to go off alone. I believed that she was riding to Leyden Hall. She was becoming more and more interested in the new sect who were called the puritans. It amused me because there could be no one less like a puritan than Senara.

She had taken the feather out of her riding hat and wore it plain. She would put on a demure expression which ill-matched her brilliant long eyes with the mischief in them. Of course I had never been absolutely sure of Senara.

She talked to me about the puritans and often she would become quite earnest.

“They want to make it all as simple as possible, Tamsyn,” she said. “And religion should be simple, shouldn’t it? Do you think God wants all that ceremony? Of course He doesn’t. One should worship Him in the simplest possible way. The church is always ready to persecute those who don’t conform.”

“You are really interested, Senara,” I said. “You’ve changed since you arranged to get lost near Leyden Hall.”

“I arranged it, as you know,” she said. “I couldn’t believe Dickon had become a puritan. I had to go and see.”

“Surely he is not making one of you?”

“Can you imagine me … a puritan!”

“That is something beyond my powers of imagination.”

“No, I should never be a puritan at heart, but I admire them in a way. Think of Dickon.”

“It seems to me you think of him a good deal.”

“He is so beautiful … even now in his plain clothes and his curls pressed out he is still more handsome than any other man … even your Fenn—who has gone away without declaring his feelings—even he looks quite ugly compared with Dickon.”

“You are bewitched by him.”

“You forget I am the one who does the bewitching.”

“So it is he who is bewitched by you.”

“I think that in spite of his new puritan ideas, he is a little. For I am a very bewitching person, Tamsyn.”

“In your own opinion, certainly.”

“It is so interesting,” she said, “and so dangerous. It has been since the Hampton Court Conference.”

“Keep away from religion that is dangerous.”

“What a thing to say! Surely that is quite cynical. How can people help what they believe, and if you believe, shouldn’t you defend that belief with your life if need be?”

“Our country and my family have been torn by religious beliefs. One of my ancestors lost his head in the reign of Henry VIII, another was burned at the stake in the reign of Mary. We don’t want any more religious conflict in the family.”

“You’re a coward, Tamsyn.”

“That may be but that is how I want it.”

“They are talking of going away.”

“Who, Dickon and the Deemsters?”

“Yes, to Holland. They can worship there as they wish. Perhaps one day they will go far away and make a land of their own. They talk about it a good deal.”

I laughed.

“What amuses you?”

“That you, Senara, of all people, should be caught up with puritans. Of course it is not the puritans, I know. Can it really be Dickon?”

“How could it be? I would never be allowed to marry a man who was our music master and now grows vegetables and works for a family like the Deemsters.”

“I cannot see you in the humble role of wife to a man in such a lowly position.”

“Nay, nor could I. For I came from such nobility that is far beyond anything I have had here.”

“Oh, how do you know this?”

“My mother has told me. In Spain she moved in very noble circles—royal, in fact. So you are right when you say I could not marry Dickon.”

“Don’t look sad. It’s the first day of Christmas. We shall make merry this night. You will dance and sing for the company and no one will be merrier than you.”

“It will be a very different Christmas at Leyden Hall,” she said.

“I can picture it. They will make of it a purely religious occasion. There will be no feasting, dancing and making merry, as we do, no King for the Night, no blessing on the hall, no mummers, no carol singers. This is more to your taste, Senara.”

“It is!” she cried; and that night she was beautiful in a blue velvet gown, her dark hair caught back in a gold band,

I was not the only one who thought her the loveliest of all present. There were several young men who did and would doubtless in due course ask for her hand, which was what her mother wanted.

There was Thomas Grenoble for one, who came from London and was connected with the Court. He was young, rich and good-looking. I knew he was one my stepmother had chosen for Senara. He could do the latest dances which she quickly mastered and I wondered whether as she danced with Thomas Grenoble she thought of Dickon. If she did she gave no sign of it.

Melanie had been brought up by her mother to be a good housewife and I don’t think our household matters ever went so smoothly as they did that Christmas. Melanie was quite unobtrusive and gentle; Connell was inclined to ignore her and flirt with some of the young women guests, but Melanie remained unruffled. She reminded me very much of Fenn and how I wished that he were with us!

I mentioned him to her and asked if she had heard from her mother when he was expected back.

“It was not to be a long voyage,” she answered. “My mother thinks he will be back by the spring.”

That gave me new hope. I was just waiting for the spring.

I was still looking for my mother’s diary and when it seemed that I had looked in every possible place I began to think that it had never existed. Jennet was known to exaggerate, to romanticize, particularly now that she was getting older. Had she seen my mother writing once or twice and imagined she had been writing something which she wanted to hide? That seemed very likely.

And my mother’s death? People did die suddenly when they were not very old. One heard of them now and then and no one was skilled enough in medicine to know the cause. If one was in Court circles and known to have enemies people thought of poison. I wondered how many men and women had been believed to be poisoned when they had died of natural causes.

Then on some days my feelings would change and I would be certain that my mother had not died naturally. I could not forget the stone I had found on her grave. And who could have removed it from the cupboard in which I had placed it?

That was what had started my speculations. It was certainly mysterious. My mood fluctuated. At times I would think it was nonsense; then at others the certainty that my mother had not died naturally would be with me. Then I would start to look again for the journal, for if there was a secret would it not be in that? But if she had not known she was about to die how could it have been! But had she known? Why should she have been afraid during those last days of her life?

It would be in the book and if that book existed it must be in the castle.

I could think of nowhere in her sitting-room where it could be. I had searched that and the settle had yielded nothing. In the bedroom which she had shared with my father and was now that of him and stepmother? That had been refurbished after my mother’s death. Surely if the book had come to light it would have been mentioned—or destroyed perhaps.

It was all mysterious and long ago. Yet at times the urge to discover that book came back strongly to me.

There were turret rooms in the towers of both Nonna and Crow where perhaps something could be hidden. In one of my exploratory moods I decided to look.

In those rooms there were some very old pieces of furniture, among them several stools and a table and a pallet or two. The stools were interesting because they were made like boxes and articles could be stored under where one sat.

When I was in the turrets with their long narrow windows I was always fascinated to look out to sea and my eyes invariably came to rest on the jagged rocks of the Devil’s Teeth. A gruesome sight! I was not surprised that they were said to be haunted.

These rooms were used fairly frequently, for high in the walls of those facing the sea were windows in which lanterns hung. They were reached by step-ladders which were kept in each room so that they could be easily reached. The lanterns had been hanging there for many years and had been placed there by one of my ancestors. He was known as Good Casvellyn in contrast, I had heard, to so many of the family who were far from good. The Devil’s Teeth had always been responsible for a good share of wrecks along our coast and Good Casvellyn had had the idea that if he carefully placed lighted lanterns in the top of his towers of Nonna and Seaward, it was possible that they could be seen some way out to sea and the sailors who saw them would know they were close to the treacherous Devil’s Teeth. Therefore they would steer clear of them.

I liked to think that the kindly action started by Good Casvellyn had saved the lives of sailors. Of course it often happened that in spite of the lights there were disasters on the rocks.

I was always anxious when I heard the wind rising and the spring tides were up and there was a storm at sea. How many ships had foundered on that grinning mouth? I imagined that many a sailor who was unsure of his whereabouts and saw the lights in Nonna and Seaward Towers blessed Good Casvellyn for his lights.

It was the duty of one of the men from Seaward to make sure that each night they were shining out to sea.

I had searched everywhere in the tower rooms at Nonna’s. I examined the stools with the greatest care because I suspected that in one of them there must be a secret compartment.

It was soon after Christmas that I started to search again, and the more I thought of the matter, the more certain I became that one of the stools up there could be a hiding-place for those papers. I examined them all. There was indeed a secret compartment in one of them which made my heart beat fast but there was nothing in it when I finally succeeded in opening it.

I sat on the floor feeling exasperated. There is nothing so maddening as to search for something when you are not even sure of its existence.

Then suddenly as I sat there I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I sensed rather than heard that someone was close watching. I stood up. There was no one in the room.

“Who’s there?” I said in a sharp aggressive voice which betrayed my fear.

There was no answer. I hurried to the door and threw it open. I was looking straight at the spiral staircase which wound a few steps from the top so that if someone were just a dozen steps down one would not see that person. But I did hear a light footstep and I knew that someone had been watching me.

Why had he or she not answered when I called? Why was it necessary to watch me unobserved?

There came to me then the thought that someone knew what I was looking for, and that that someone was very anxious to know if I had found it.

The light was beginning to fade. I looked round the room. Soon the man who was in charge of the lantern would arrive to light it. I did not want him to find me here. Nor did I wish to stay here. That step on the stairs had unnerved me. For if someone was eager to know whether I had found the papers, why should this be so?

Was someone afraid that I would find them? Was someone else looking for them even more fervently than I was? If so, there could be but one reason for this. That person might be afraid of what was in them.

Who would be? The one who had killed my mother.

Thomas Grenoble called often. Senara would play the lute to him and sing languorous songs of love.

She had another suitor too. He was a young man with hair and eyes as dark as her own. He was a visitor at Squire Marden’s house. Some years older than Senara, he was intense and passionate I should imagine. He was not English though his name was not really foreign. He was Lord Cartonel. He spoke with a rather careful accent and some of his expressions were un-English.

He told us that he had been in several embassies for the late Queen and that he had lived abroad for many years, which was why there appeared to be something a little foreign about him.

There was no doubt that my stepmother admired him and I guessed that she had chosen either him or Thomas Grenoble as Senara’s husband.

Senara was delighted to have these two admirers.

“It is always good,” she said, “to have a choice.”

“And what of Dickon?” I asked.

“Dickon! You can’t seriously think that I am considering him.”

“If he were of noble birth …”

Her face flushed with sudden anger. “But he is not!” she said sharply and changed the subject.

It was late February when Melanie said to me one day: “My brother is home. I have a letter here from my mother. She says he will be staying for a while before his next voyage.”

“I wonder if he will call here.”

“I think he will want to,” she answered, smiling her gentle smile.

I used to wake up every morning after that saying to myself: “Perhaps he’ll come today.” Whenever I heard arrivals I would dash to my window and look down longing to see him.

February was out. He had been home three weeks and he had not come to the castle.

Why did he not come? Melanie looked puzzled. Surely if he did not want to see me he would wish to see his sister?

Senara was faintly mischievous as she always had been about Fenn.

“I hear the good Fenn Landor has been home some weeks. Yet he does not call here.”

I was too wounded to retort sharply so I shrugged my shoulders.

“He has forgotten all about us,” she went on. “They say sailors are fickle.”

A few days later we heard that Thomas Grenoble had returned to London.

“Without asking for my hand!” said Senara demurely. “What do you make of that, Tamsyn?”

“I thought he was deeply enamoured of you. It seems strange.”

“He was. But I was not going to have him.”

“He has not asked, remember.”

“He was on the point of it. He is a very rich man, Tamsyn. He will have a high-sounding title one day. He is just the man my mother wanted for me.”

“Yet he did not offer.”

“Because I did not want him to.”

“You told him so?”

“That would not have stopped him, but I had to stop him somehow because if he had I am sure the temptation would have been too much for them to resist. So I worked a spell.”

“Oh Senara, do not talk so. I have asked you so many times not to.”

“Nevertheless I stopped him. It was a very natural sort of spell. A man in his position at Court could not have a witch for a wife.”

“Sometimes I think you are mad, Senara.”

“Nay, never that. I am so pleased that my spell worked that I want to tell you about it. Have you ever thought, Tamsyn, how we can make our servants work for us? They can do so much with a little prompting. I have made good use of servants … always. You are not attending. You are wondering whether Fenn will come soon. I will tell you something. He won’t come. He doesn’t want you any more than Thomas Grenoble wants me. Let me tell you about Thomas Grenoble. I made the servants talk … my servants to his servants. It was so easy. I made them tell him of my strangeness, my spells, the manner in which I was born. I wanted him to think that the servants were afraid of me, that I never went to church because I feared to. That strange things happened, that I could whip up a storm at sea, that I could make a man see me as the most beautiful creature he had ever seen … and he believed them. So that is why he went so suddenly to London. He is putting as great a distance between us as he can.”

“You did not do this, Senara.”

“I did. I did. I knew they would force me to marry him if he made an offer. And he was on the point of it. He was besottedly in love with me. But his fear of being involved with witchcraft was greater than his love. People are becoming more and more afraid of it, Tamsyn. It’s a growing cult. And the more people fear it, the more they discover it. I am free of Thomas Grenoble.”

I did not entirely believe her. I thought she was piqued because he had gone away.

I accused her of this and she laughed at me.

“His love could not have been very strong,” I said, “if he could so quickly forget it.”

“You should comfort me, Tamsyn. Have we not both lost a lover?”

As I walked away I heard her shrill laughter. And I thought: She is right. I have been foolish to hope for Fenn. I misunderstood his friendship. But if he is a friend why does he stay away?

A little later I saw Senara riding away from the castle.

I thought: She is going to Leyden Hall. She is going to see Dickon.

I remembered then how she had adored him when she was younger and how they had danced and sung together.

Could it really be that she loved Dickon?

Was it really true that she had rid herself of Thomas Grenoble in this way?

One could never be sure with Senara. If she loved Dickon she was heading for sorrow, for she would never be allowed to marry him.

And for myself, I knew I could never love anyone but Fenn Landor.

Senara and I, I thought, we shall have to comfort each other.

March came in like a lion, as they say. The winds were violent and the salt spray dashed itself against the castle walls. The waves were so high that it was dangerous to walk on the sea side of the castle. One could easily have been caught and washed away.

One evening, when a storm was rising, I had an uneasy conviction that the lantern was not alight. There were occasions when it went out but in such weather special attention was supposed to be given to it.

I climbed to the tower carrying a taper with me and sure enough that reassuring glow was not there and the turret rooms were in darkness.

I thought of going to the Seaward Tower to tell them that someone had forgotten to light the lanterns in Nonna’s. Then I thought it was quite a simple matter to light them myself. I could comfortably reach them with the step-ladder. I lighted them and in a few minutes they were throwing their reassuring beam of light out across the sea.

I went down to my bedchamber. Senara was there lying on her pallet with dreams in her eyes.

I was about to mention the lanterns when she said: “They will be going away soon.”

“Who?” I asked.

“The puritans. They want to worship in freedom and they say the only place where they can do so is in Holland.”

“Will Dickon go with them?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You will miss him.”

She did not answer. I had rarely seen her so subdued.

Then she started to talk about the puritans. They were brave people; they hated finery and gaiety and everything that seemed to make life interesting to her. Yet she could not but admire them. They were people who would die for their beliefs. “Imagine that, Tamsyn. It’s noble in its way.” She laughed suddenly. “Dickon is greatly tempted. I can see that. He wants to be a puritan and his whole being cries out against it. As mine would. It is a continual battle for him. Battles are exciting. You want everything to be peaceful. You always did. It’s not that you lack spirit, but you’re not an adventurer, Tamsyn. You’re the mother figure, there to love and protect. I’m not like that. I’m the mistress … to tempt, to snare and to be unpredictable.”

“You are certainly that,” I retorted. “Why do you visit these puritans? I know why. It is because it is dangerous. There are going to be harsher rules against them. They are going to be persecuted. Perhaps people will always want to fight again and kill those who disagree with them. The Catholics on the one hand; the puritans on the other; and they are both supposed to be enemies to the Church!”

“The King hates them. Puritans, witches and Catholics who attempt to blow up his parliament! The King is a strange man. They say he is very clever and that he is renowned for his wit. He loves pleasure as much as the puritans hate it. Thomas Grenoble told me that he spends much time at the cock-fight and pays his master of cocks two hundred pounds a year, which is equal to the salary of his secretaries of state. He is a coward too! His garments are padded to preserve him against the assassin’s knife. He is terrified of being assassinated. They talk of these matters at Leyden Hall and they plan to escape from them. It is not that they are running away exactly … They are brave men and women, for they will face fearful hazards. They care nothing for this. They make wonderful plans. They do not intend to stay in Holland.”

Her eyes were brilliant. I could see that she was following them in her thoughts; she was facing the hazards, and I knew that all the time she was seeing herself side by side with Dickon.

“It is some years since Sir Walter Raleigh found a fair land which he called after Queen Elizabeth—Virginia. It lies a long way across the ocean. They talk of Virginia.”

“It was a colony,” I said, “and is now abandoned.”

“It is a rich land of fruits and plants and trees. Perhaps it will be there that they will settle. They will build a new country where men shall be free to follow their religion.”

“Providing,” I added, “it does not conflict with that laid down by the puritans.”

Senara looked at me seriously for a few minutes and then she burst out laughing.

“Oh, it is not for the religion, Tamsyn. It’s not whether we shall genuflect twenty times a day or make our knees sore by kneeling on a stone floor. What do I care for that! It’s the adventure. It’s glorious. To set out like that … not knowing whether you were going to die on the way. The dangers one would face. That’s what I care about.”

That, I thought, and Dickon. I was very uneasy wondering what would become of her when Dickon went away.

The next day the violent storm of the previous night had abated. Two things happened. There was a whipping in the Seaward courtyard.

Merry told us about it, her face distorted with misery. She would, I knew, be remembering the occasion when her own Jan Leward had been so degraded.

He had offended the master, this last victim. It was a terrible occasion. The men of Seaward had been commanded to assemble in the courtyard to watch. The women would not look. They set about preparing ointments and bandages to deal with the sufferer when he was untied from the post and dragged unconscious into the Tower.

The whippings took place rarely, which no doubt made them more to be feared than if they were a commonplace occurrence. The last one had been Jan Leward. I knew that Merry had never got over it and because of this misdemeanour my father had refused them permission to marry for another year. He had told Jan, so Merry had reported to Senara, that he did not want two disobedient servants and until Jan had proved his loyalty he could not marry.

I had watched Merry’s face sometimes when my father’s name was mentioned and I saw the bitter hatred there.

All that day there was a hush over the castle and everyone was talking about the whipping. A few days later there was good news. We had a visitor. He wanted to see my father and thank him personally. On the night of the storm he had all but been wrecked on the Devil’s Teeth. He had in time seen the warning lights; but for that his ship battered by the devastating weather would undoubtedly have foundered. It was like an act of God. He had been making straight for the rocks and then he saw the warning light in time. He had reason to be grateful to the Casvellyns.

The cargo he carried was one of the richest he had ever handled. Gold, ivory and spices from Africa.

He sat drinking with my father all through the day and he announced that he was sending several barrels of finest Malmsey for the enjoyment of my father’s servants.

When I thought about it I realized that I had been the one to light the lanterns. I couldn’t resist telling Senara about it. Merry came in while we were talking.

“It’s a wonderful feeling,” I said, “to have saved that ship. Someone forgot to light the lanterns that night. I thank God that some instinct sent me up there at the right moment.”

Senara and Merry were looking at me intently.

Merry said: “So it was you.”

“Why,” cried Senara, “the Malmsey should be yours.” She added: “If you mention it there would be trouble.”

I thought I knew what she meant. Of course there would be trouble. The fact that I had found the lanterns unlit meant that someone had failed in his duty. A slip like that could have cost many lives.

We wanted no more whippings in the courtyard.

A week or so later there was news from Lyon Court. My grandmother was ailing and it seemed long to her since she had seen me.

My father said I might go to see her and for once Senara did not insist on accompanying me. I believed this was due to the fact that if she did she would not be able to pay her now regular visits to Leyden House and so miss seeing Dickon.

I found my grandmother frail but she seemed to revive a great deal when she saw me.

Spring often comes early to Devon and we were able to sit in the gardens. I was happy to be with her but sad to remember how my mother had loved to feed the peacocks and how they used to come to her with a sort of disdainful air to take the peas she offered them.

My grandmother wanted to hear about life at the castle and I happily told her of how I had found the lanterns unlit in the tower and my action had saved the ship. She thought that was a wonderful story and made me repeat it many times. She asked about my father and my stepmother and whether they seemed happy together.

I supposed they were. My father was not the kind to suffer in silence and my stepmother was difficult to know but she was as she had always been.

And Senara?

“Senara is interested in a puritan family who have come to live nearby.”

“Senara and puritans! That’s incongruous.”

“Senara is so strange. Sometimes I feel I don’t know her.”

“Yet you are fond of each other.”

“Yes, as sisters.”

“You are closer to her than you are to Connell.”

“I suppose it is because Connell is a boy. He and I have never had anything in common.”

“And Melanie?”

“I am growing fond of her. She is so kind and gentle always. I hope Connell will be good to her.”

“Is he not?”

“They are rarely together. Connell hunts and is with my father a great deal.”

“And is there any sign of a child?”

“I have not heard.”

“I expect Melanie is hoping. And what of Fenn Landor?”

I was silent.

“Has he not been to the castle?”

I looked beyond my grandmother to the tall hedge which shut in her pond garden.

“No,” I said, “he has not been to the castle.”

She was frowning. “There must be a reason.”

“Oh, I think there was some speculation. He did not like it perhaps.”

“Speculation?”

“Yes,” I said boldly, “about me. It seemed to be in everyone’s mind that we should marry … everyone’s except Fenn’s.”

“Something must have happened,” said my grandmother. “I’ll swear he was in love with you.”

I shook my head.

“Let us not speak of it, Grandmother,” I said. “I would rather not.”

“No good comes of brushing something aside because it is hurtful to look at.”

“What is this?” I cried. “It has happened so many times. Two people become friendly and those around them think they must be going to marry.”

“Did you think it, Tamsyn?”

I could not find the words to explain and it was so hard not to betray my emotion.

My grandmother went on: “I wanted it to happen. To me it would have meant such compensation. I wanted your mother to marry his father and when young Fenn appeared and you and he seemed so suited …”

I said in a cool voice, “He went away to sea without letting me know. He has come back without seeing me. It’s clear, is it not?”

“No,” said my grandmother firmly. “There must be a reason.”

“It is all clear to me,” I said. “Fenn has been deterred by all the hints of marriage.”

“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.

I would not have died as my mother had. She had been fast asleep—possibly poppy-juice had been given to her. Because she was unwell possets were continually taken to her. It would not have been so easy had she been awake.

I could not bear to stay in Castle Paling. The whole place had taken on a sinister aspect. I went out and walked away from it. Then I looked back at Ysella’s Tower where the goods had been stored and where my mother had once been locked in and the Seaward Tower where my father’s men lived—those who were party to his guilty secret and took a share, I doubted not, of the profits. Then Crow and Nonna where I had lived my life.

I would leave the castle very soon. If Fenn did not want me—and how could I be sure that he did?—I would go to my grandmother and live with her.

I would not stay in that castle where so many evil deeds had been done.

I thought of my father. Strangely enough, I had a glimmer of affection for him. Why, I could not understand. He had never shown me any. There was about him a strength, a power. He towered above the men I saw around him. He was a leader among them. I knew that he was cruel, that he was capable of evil deeds and yet … I could not entirely hate him. I could not inform against him. I just wanted to get away but if I did I would always be haunted by what was happening at the castle. And oh, how desperately I wanted my father to be innocent of my mother’s death.

Then suddenly I knew that I was going to stay another night in the castle. I was going to discover the truth if I could. The night before I had waited in my bed for someone to come to me, someone with murder in the heart. And Senara had come with her revelations, and because Senara was with me the murderer had gone away.

But tonight I should be alone. I should be prepared.

I did not go down to supper. I said that I was not feeling well. Whoever was afraid of what I had discovered would be able to use that indisposition to good advantage.

In my room I planned what I would do. I would not go to bed. If I did there was a danger of my falling asleep, even in my excited state. I would go into the ruelle and be there. Through the curtains I would watch if someone came into the room. But it must appear as though I were sleeping in my bed.

I took two pillows and laid them longways in the bed. I covered them up. In the darkness it would seem as though I were sleeping there.

How long the night seemed in coming. I was ready waiting behind my curtains of the ruelle. I heard the clock strike eleven.

How quiet the castle was! Did my mother have no premonition on that night? I was more fortunate than she was. I had her journal to warn me. When she was writing was she impelled to do so because it was going to play such an important part in her daughter’s life?

I sat on the pallet and I wondered what the future held. There was a great lifting of my spirits in spite of the dangers I felt all around me. Fenn might love me after all.

Was that a faint sound in the corridor? Had I imagined it. I felt my limbs begin to tremble. I felt courage sapping away.

No, it was nothing, a mouse perhaps? But it was a sound. The latch of my door was being quietly lifted.

Someone was in the room.

I peered through the curtains. The figure was moving stealthily towards my bed.

I drew back the curtains and stepped out.

My stepmother turned sharply to face me. She stared at me blankly. It was the first time I had ever seen her disconcerted.

I took the damp cloth from her hand and said: “You killed my mother.”

She didn’t answer. In the gloom her face seemed impassive. Her surprise had left her. She was calm as she ever was.

She did not speak at all.

She turned away and walked from the room. I stood there, the damp cloth, her murder weapon, in my hands.

I spent a sleepless night. I must make some plans and I was not sure what. In the morning I would speak to my stepmother; I would make her confess how she had killed my mother.

I sat on the chair which the night before Senara had occupied. I tried to sort out my thoughts. I had to take some action. If only I knew what.

During the early morning, the wind had risen. It sent the sea thundering into the caves along the coast and it sounded like voices shouting to each other. The wind whined about the castle walls like the complaining voices of those who had lost their lives on the Devil’s Teeth demanding revenge on the men who had sent them there.

I was up early. I dressed and went down to the hall. I could hear the servants bustling about. There was no sign of my stepmother.

All through the morning I could not find her, but I saw my father. He was alone coming across the courtyard from the Seaward Tower.

I went to him and stood before him, barring his way.

“I have something to say to you,” I said.

He stared at me; this was not the manner in which people were accustomed to address him, but I had lost all fear of him and when he made as though to push me aside, I caught his arm.

“I’ve discovered something … terrible,” I said.

He narrowed his eyes and I thought he was going to strike me. Instead he hesitated and then he said; “Come inside. We can’t talk here.”

I led the way to my bedroom. I wanted to tell him there, in that place where last night I had come near to death.

I faced him fearlessly and perhaps because he had always respected courage his eyes softened slightly. But his expression changed rapidly when I blurted out: “Last night your wife tried to kill me … in the same way as she killed my mother.”

It was horrible, for I saw the look in his eyes before he could veil it. He knew that she had killed my mother.

“I suspected her,” I went on. I pointed to the ruelle. “I was in there watching and waiting. She killed my mother in the same way as Lord Darnley’s murderers killed him. I learned how that was done. A damp cloth pressed over the mouth, leaving no marks … no sign. And so my mother died. And you knew it. Perhaps you helped. Perhaps you planned it together.”

“No!” he shouted vehemently. I was grateful that I could believe that.

“But you knew she did it,” I insisted; and he was silent in his guilt.

“You,” I went on. “Her husband … my father. Oh God, my own father.”

I had never believed I should see him so shaken, for I had never before seen him anything but in command of a situation. I could see, too, a certain anguish in his eyes and because I had read my mother’s journal and knew of that first meeting between them and the attraction which had sprung up, I was aware of the fact that he was looking back into the past and remembering too. He had not been a happy man since her death—yet I could not pity him.

“I loved her,” I said, my voice trembling.

“I loved her too,” he answered.

“And yet …”

He was himself again, the softness passed. “You wouldn’t understand,” he said roughly. “Maria was irresistible … a witch, if you like. She’d put a spell on me.”

“And even though she had murdered my mother and you knew it, you married her.”

“It’s something you’re too young to understand.”

“I understand there is such a thing as unbridled lust,” I said contemptuously.

“’Twas more than that. Try to understand, Tamsyn.”

“I understand this,” I retorted. “You are a murderer, for I hold you guilty with her.”

“It was done before I knew it. There was nothing I could do to stop it.”

“Only marry her and enjoy the fruits of her infamy.”

“You will never understand.”

“Alas for me. I understand too well.”

“You will cease your insolence, girl, or I’ll take you to the courtyard and lash you there myself.”

“Yes,” I answered, “you are capable of that.”

He did not try to stop me as I pushed past him and left him standing in my room.

I did not know what I was going to do. All through the morning I looked for my stepmother but she was nowhere to be found.

It was afternoon when Fenn rode over.

I heard his voice in the courtyard and my heart started to beat madly.

I ran out to him.

“Fenn,” I said, “at last you have come.”

He dismounted.

He took my hands and looked at me steadily. “I’ve wronged you, Tamsyn,” he said; and my heart leaped and in spite of all my indecisions and the horror which was all about me I was happy.

“I must talk to you,” he said. “Where can we be alone?”

“In the burial ground,” I told him.

We went there together.

There he said, “So it is my father who lies there.”

“You know,” I answered.

He clenched his fists suddenly. “The murderers!” he said. “I shall avenge him.”

“I was hurt when you didn’t come,” I told him.

“I was miserable … most of all to think that you had been a party to this.”

“I never was.”

“I know that now. I know that you saved one of our ships. I have spoken to the captain and he has told me that the Paling Light prevented a disaster. And I know now that it was you who lighted the lanterns after they had been put out.”

“I did not know of this foul trade. Not until I read my mother’s journal. She knew. But he was her husband.”

He nodded.

“I love you, Tamsyn,” he said.

I said: “It’s a strange place in which to be so happy.”

“But before I can speak to you of this I have something to do. Your father is responsible for my father’s death. I have sworn that my father’s murderer shall not go free. I have come here today to speak not of love but of hatred. I shall never forget, Tamsyn. I shall kill him. I am going to make him pay for the lives of my father and those innocent sailors.”

“Let us go away from here. I never want to see this place again. The sound of the wind howling round the walls, the knowledge of what has been done here nauseates me. Let’s go right away from here.”

“And if we go away, what then? Shall they be left to ply their hateful trade. How could we go away knowing that they went on luring ships on to the rocks to destroy them.”

“Then what can we do?”

“I am going to stop this forever. He has plundered his last ship.”

“How can you stop it?”

“What he does is a crime against humanity.”

“He is a powerful man in these parts. I know of none who do not tremble before him. Suppose you inform against him. Where would you inform? What would happen? He is too powerful. You would never stop him. He would have means of evading justice.”

He looked beyond me with a faraway look in his eyes, and he said, “There is only one way of making sure that he never does this again. That is by killing him.”

“But you are a man of peace,” I said.

“This is the way to bring peace. Sometimes it is necessary to remove someone who is corroding the society in which we live. We had to kill Spaniards when we defeated the Armada. I have no remorse for them. We were saving our country from a cruel enemy. We drove off those ships which carried the invader and his instruments of torture. I would fight again and again; I would kill any Spaniard who tried to land in England. This is different. This is a ship full of cargo, a trading ship. The wrecker wants that cargo so he lures the ship on to the rocks; he sends thousands of men and women to their deaths for he must make sure that there are no survivors to carry the tale of villainy where it might be acted on. No, there is only one way, I say.”

I looked at him fearfully. In his eyes there was a fanatical hatred—so alien to him.

“I am going to kill your father,” he said.

“No, Fenn,” I cried; and I put my arms about him.

He put them aside; then he looked at me sadly.

“It would always be between us,” he said. “He killed my father. I can never forget that nor forgive him. And I shall kill yours. You will never forget that either.”

He looked down at his father’s grave; then he turned away and left me there.

I ran after him. I had to stop him, I knew he meant what he said. He had idolized his father; he had gone on doing so after he was dead. He had refused to believe that he was dead and gone on dreaming of his return.

And my father was responsible for his death—he had killed him as certainly as though he had run him through with a cutlass and left him to die.

I heard the shouting voices above the wind.

“He be gone out,” said one.

I saw them in the Seaward courtyard. There were about four of the men who worked with my father.

“He be at the Teeth,” said Jack Emms, a dark-haired man with battered features.

“Why should he go there?” cried Fenn. “There’s no wreck. He’s been merciful of late. There has been no disaster there for the last two months to my knowledge.”

“There he be gone, Master.”

Fenn had the man by the throat. I had not known he was capable of such violence. It was born of anger which came from the love of his father. He could not forget that but for this man, his father would have been alive today.

“Tell me where he is. I will know,” he said, “or it will be the worse for you.”

I saw then that Fenn was a man with the strength of my father. I had thought him gentle and so he would be—gentle and tender; but he was an idealist as his father had been and now he was full of righteous anger.

“He be gone, Master, with Jan Leward. There always be cargo that stays in the foundered ships. We go out now and then to recover it.”

“I am going out there,” said Fenn. “I am going to catch him at his evil trade.”

“Nay, Master.”

“But yes,” cried Fenn. “Yes, yes!”

I was terrified. I pictured my father out there at the Teeth, with the howling wind whipping the waves to fury. And Fenn there … in the midst of his enemies.

I wanted to cry: “Don’t go. Jack Emms is your enemy. All these men are your enemies. They will destroy you because you have come among them like an avenging angel. You are trying to destroy their lucrative business. Fenn, don’t go.”

It would be to plead in vain. He was going to confront my father. He was going to accuse him of the murder of his father; and I knew he planned to kill him. He would not take the cowardly way out, to go away with me and live far away from Castle Paling. He was right, for neither of us could do this. I knew too that when the wind howled and the storms raged we should be thinking of sailors in peril near the Devil’s Teeth; and the cries of drowning men would haunt us through the years.

But if he was going out there, I was going with him. I leaped into the boat.

“No, Tamsyn,” shouted Fenn.

“If you go,” I retorted, “I am coming with you.”

Fenn looked at me and his fear for me overcame his fury against my father.

I said: “My father is a murderer. He has been responsible for the deaths of thousands.” I was thinking of my mother. He had not killed her but he had connived at her murder and married her murderess. And since her death he had not been a happy man. Fenn must not suffer a murderer’s remorse. I must save him from that. “Fenn,” I went on, “I beg of you, do not have his death on your conscience.”

His face hardened. “He killed my father.”

“I know … I know. But it is not for you to kill him. If you do the memory will haunt you all your life. Fenn, we have found each other. Let us think of that.”

But I could see he was remembering the father whom he had loved—gentle Fennimore Landor, who had never sought to harm anyone and who had dreamed idealistic dreams of bringing prosperity to his country.

We had reached the Devil’s Teeth. How malevolent they looked with a tetchy sea swirling threateningly about them!

A wooden chest with iron bands had been caught in the rocks and it was this which my father was trying to salvage.

“Colum Casvellyn,” shouted Fenn. “You killed my father and I’m going to kill you.”

My father turned sharply to look at him and as he did so the boat rocked dangerously. He stared at us for a few seconds in amazement, then he cried: “You fools. Go back. There’s danger here. What do you know of these rocks?”

“I know this,” answered Fenn. “You lured my father to death on them.”

“Go away, you oaf! Take yourself out of my affairs.”

Fenn had stood up and I cried out in fear: “Fenn, be careful.”

I heard my father’s derisive laughter.

“Yes, be careful. Go away, you … trader. You don’t understand this business. It’s too dangerous for you, boy.”

At that moment my father’s boat tipped suddenly and he was pitched forward. The boat turned over and he was in the water. I heard him give a cry of agony as he threw up his hands and sank. He emerged a few seconds later. The water was up to his neck.

“I’ll get him,” cried Fenn.

“It’s too dangerous,” I warned, but Fenn was out of our boat swimming cautiously to that spot where my father was.

“Go away,” shouted my father. “I’m caught. The Teeth have got me. Can’t pull myself free. You’ll kill yourself, you fool.”

Fenn ignored him.

Minutes passed while I watched in terror. The water was stained red and I thought: They will both be lost.

“Fenn, Fenn,” I cried. “It’s no good. There’s nothing you can do.”

But he did not listen to me.

It seemed a long time before I helped him pull my father’s mangled body into the boat.

He lay on his bed, my bold cruel father. The physician had seen him. Both his legs were injured. He had prided himself that he knew the Devil’s Teeth better than any living man, but they had caught him in the end. The eddies about the rocks were notoriously dangerous and when he had fallen into the sea he had been immediately sucked under. Strong swimmer that he was, he could do nothing against such odds, for he had fallen between the two rocks known as the Canines, the most dangerous of them all. And Fenn had saved his life. That is what makes me so proud. He had intended to kill him and in that moment when my father lay helpless and all Fenn would have had to do was leave him to his fate, he had risked his own life to save that which a short while before he had threatened to take.

So Fenn brought home my father’s poor mangled body and we did not need the physician to tell us that he would never walk again.

Melanie was there, cool and efficient. Dear good Melanie, we all had reason to be grateful that she belonged to our family, then—and more so in the years to come.

So my father lived—not the same man. How could he be? He who had been so active would never walk again. This was retribution. The Devil’s Teeth which he had used as his murder weapon on so many were turned against him. And the punishment he must suffer must be greater than death, for he was not a man lightly to endure inactivity.

Fenn came to me when the physician had gone.

We did not speak. We just looked at each other and then he put his arms round me and I knew that we should never leave each other again.

It was the next morning when we found my stepmother’s cloak on the shore. It was in that very spot where my mother had discovered her. There was nothing else but her cloak.

The inference was that she had walked into the sea.

There was a great deal of talk in the castle. The servants whispered together. Change was everywhere. The master had been struck by avenging providence. He would never stalk through the castle again. And the mistress had gone, the way she had come.

They had always known she was a witch.

Fenn wanted me to go to my grandmother until we could be married, but I said I must stay awhile. I must be with Melanie who was now pregnant and had taken my father under her care.

My stepmother had gone; my father was crippled. It was a stricken house; but the danger had disappeared.

Senara came to my room, her eyes wild. “Everything has changed, so quickly,” she said. “You’ve got your Fenn after all. Who would have believed it? He now knows what a fool he was to think that you could ever have stood quietly by and watched your father’s business. And you know what a noble gentleman he is. He sets out to kill and then saves. Now with free conscience and hearts beating as one you can begin to live happily ever after.”

“You may laugh at us, Senara, but we shall be happy.”

“And what of me?”

“Let us hope that you too …”

“Dickon is going to Holland. Shall I be happy without him?”

“When we are married,” I said, “I shall live at Trystan Priory. You must come there too. I don’t think you’ll be happy here in the castle.”

“Would you have me there weaving my spells?”

“Have done with such talk.”

“My mother has gone now.”

“She had to. She killed my mother and would have killed me but I discovered in time.”

“What do you think happened to her?”

“I think she walked into the sea.”

Senara laughed aloud. “Oh Tamsyn, you don’t change. Full of remorse, do you think she was?”

“No, she found the position untenable. She was betrayed as a murderess and my father a cripple for the rest of his life. The weight of her sins must have been heavy.”

“Never. I knew her well, Tamsyn, better than you ever could. She came of a noble Spanish family. She was travelling in the ship with her husband, my father, when it was caught on the Devil’s Teeth. She never forgave that. She told me much. She came here and determined to destroy the household which had changed her life. She ensnared your father. They were lovers from the first. He never tired of her. She left soon after I was born and he bought a house for her some miles from here in the heart of a wood. He used to visit her and there she wove her spells. Then she came back and she sent your mother away so that she could marry your father. And she did. But she was tired of the life. She remembered Spain and the hot sun and the flowers and the gracious manners of courtiers, for she was highly-born. Lord Cartonel didn’t come to see me, Tamsyn. He came to see her. She has gone with him. They will go to Spain and we shall never hear from her again.”

“Is this truly so, or is it one of your dreams?”

“It is a good story, is it not? You will find that Lord Cartonel has disappeared too. He is a spy for the Spaniards, I doubt not. You will never see either of them again.”

“Can she leave you, her daughter, and never see you again?”

“Quite easily. She left me before, did she not? She did not want children. They do not fit into her scheme of things.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It is hard for you to understand … you with your mother and your kind grandmother. We were different. She was a witch in her way as I am in mine. We are not like ordinary folk.”

“Senara, once again I must ask you not to talk so. It is dangerous.”

“Life is dangerous, Tamsyn. Even you should have learned that by now. When you are married to your Fenn and your children are playing at your knee, it will still be dangerous.”

She was right of course, but whatever life held for me I was ready to face it with Fenn.

Melanie wanted me to marry soon although I had said I would stay awhile and help her nurse my father. But she would not hear of it. He was bewildered and could not believe that this had happened to him, to Colum Casvellyn, the man who had always had his own way. Oddly enough Melanie was the one who could soothe him best. It was a remarkable discovery that there was such power in this quiet girl. My brother Connell was changing too. He was the head of the house now, for that poor wreck which my father had become could scarcely be called that any longer. It was as though his new responsibilities gave him sudden strength. He was regarding Melanie in a new light; she was no longer the dull little wife whom he had married for convenience. Once I had thought he was growing more and more like our father but now there was a sudden halt in that progress. It was as though he had had a revelation and was taking stock of himself. I was glad for him … and for Melanie.

It was evening and the light was fading fast. Senara was with me in my bedchamber and as we talked I suddenly saw from my window that lights were approaching. It was a party of people, carrying torches, who were wending their way up the slope towards the castle.

I listened to their chanting voices and what they said sent a cold shiver down my spine.

“Give us the witch.”

Senara stood beside me, her eyes dilated.

“They are intent on murder,” she said, “and they are coming for my mother.”

“Thank God she has gone.”

“Yes, she has cheated them.”

The torches were now lighting up the scene; the chanting voices were growing louder.

Merry came running into the room.

“They’ve come for the witch,” she said, “the witch from the sea.”

“Don’t they know she has gone?” I asked.

“They know, but …” Merry was looking fearfully at Senara. “If they can’t have the witch from the sea they’ll take her daughter. Oh God help us all. They wouldn’t have dared if the master had been himself. But now he be nothing but a wreck broken on the Devil’s Teeth and there be none to stop ’em.”

They had always wanted the witch from the sea. They had watched her and blamed her for their ill fortune. They believed she had bewitched my father but they feared him so much that when he was there to protect her they dared do nothing.

“They will find me, Tamsyn,” said Senara. “They will tie me to a stake and burn me alive. Or they will hang me from a gibbet. Poor Dickon, his heart will break.”

Connell strode in, Melanie with him.

“The mob is at the gate,” he said. “They are calling for the witch.”

“She’s gone.”

He was looking at Senara. “They’re greedy for blood,” he said. “You must get away. You must never come back here. You’ll never be safe. I’ll hold them at bay. I’ll show them who is the master here.”

It might have been my father speaking. I turned to Senara and said: “We’ll go out through the Seaward Tower. They won’t be round that side of the castle. We’ll take two donkeys.”

“Where?” asked Connell.

“To Leyden Hall,” I answered. “They’ll hide her there until she leaves for Holland.”

“Go quickly,” said Connell.

And we went out. The night airs cooled our burning faces as we rode away.

I saw the exultation in Senara’s eyes and I knew it was because she was going to Dickon.

We were on our way to Leyden Hall by the time the torch-lit mob was in the courtyard. Connell would subdue them, I knew. He was now the lord of the castle.

I must say a sad farewell to Senara but I had the future to think of with Fenn.

THE END