Philippa Carr - Witch from the Sea

I liked to go there at dusk, at that time of day when the daylight is fast fading and it is not quite time to light the candles. Then the room was at its most ghostly.

It was November, the anniversary of that day when Colum had brought me here. He remembered it and had said: “You and I will sup alone together as we did on that day. It is a day I regard as one of the luckiest in my life.”

I had dressed myself in a russet velvet gown, and wore my hair loose about my shoulders—quite unfashionable but the style most becoming to me; and on that very day I could not resist going along to the Red Room at dusk.

I stood there. There were dark shadows in the room. Soon the light would be gone altogether.

“Melanie,” I whispered, “are you there?”

And as I stood there, I felt the hair rise from my scalp for the door was slowly opening.

I stood watching it. Then it was flung back and there stood Colum.

“In God’s name,” he cried, “what are you doing here?”

For a moment I could not speak. He came to me and taking my by the shoulders shook me.

“What ails you? What is wrong?”

“I thought you were a ghost.”

He caught my hair in his hands and tugged it hard. Colum liked to mingle a little pain with his caresses.

“Who has been talking to you?” he demanded.

“I pick up bits of gossip here and there.”

“I’ll have any whipped who have been pouring poison into your ear.”

“You will do no such thing,” I said, “or I shall tell you nothing.”

“You will tell me what I ask,” he said.

“Not here in this room.”

“Yes,” he said. “Here in this room, with your ghost smirking in the shadows.”

There was something grand about him. He was not afraid of anything or anyone. One of the Seaward men had told Jennet that the master feared neither God nor man—and it was true. He would be defiant no matter what he faced. So he could not be expected to fear poor Melanie’s ghost—if the idea should occur to him that it existed, which I doubted.

“I know that this was the room in which your first wife died.”

“Well, she had to die somewhere.”

“You never told me that she was a Landor.”

“She had to be someone.”

“But the Landors … Fennimore Landor’s sister!”

“Of course. At one time you had plans to marry that man.”

“How strange that you should have married his sister.”

“Not strange at all. It was a suitable marriage in some ways. The girl was of good family and brought a good dowry with her.”

“And you took the dowry and cared nothing for her.”

“I had no reason to care for her.”

“She was your wife.”

He grasped me firmly and pressing me backwards kissed me firmly on the mouth.

“There is only one wife for me,” he said. “Praise God I have her.”

“I wish you had told me that she was a Landor.”

“Why? It meant nothing to me that you once had a fancy for that lily-livered boy.”

“You malign Fennimore. He was not that. He is brave and dedicated to his work. He has ideals.”

“Much good will they do him.”

“There speaks the buccaneer.”

“This is a buccaneer’s world.”

“It is changing,” I said. “Trade will take the place of war and those who persist in making war will suffer and those who live peacefully will prosper.”

“By God,” he said, “you repeat your lessons well. I will have no more of Fennimore Landor in this house. You are well rid of him. I do not wish to hear his name mentioned again.”

“Why? Does your conscience fret you?”

“My conscience?”

“Yes, for what you did to the Landors.”

“You are mad, wife. What I did to the Landors was to marry their daughter. She died in childbirth as others have done before her.”

“But she was sick and ill and you persisted that she should give you a son.”

“God’s teeth, girl! Has a man no right to a son?”

“Not if he must kill his wife to get one.”

There was a brief silence; the ghostly shadows had crept farther into the room. For a few seconds—and a few only—Colum was shaken. I knew then that he had ignored Melanie’s pleas, that he had forced her as in the beginning he had forced me. His will was law in Castle Paling and if he had to trample over the heart and body of any who stood in his way he would do so.

In those seconds I seemed to have a vision of the future. It was as though Melanie was warning me. He wants you now. You are important to him, but for how long?

Just that and no more. The moment passed.

He was laughing. “I can see someone has been talking too much.”

“Nay,” I said quickly, fearing his wrath for the servants. “I have worked this out for myself. This was the room where she suffered. This was the room where she died. Do you not feel that she is still here?”

“You have gone mad,” he said. “She lies in her grave. She is no more here than your pretty Fennimore is.”

“She is dead, Colum, and the dead sometimes return.”

“Nonsense,” he shouted. “Nonsense.”

I saw his eyes look about that room. It would be full of memories for him. His step in the corridor, Melanie shrinking in her curtained bed; the onslaught that she feared—cruel and crude to such a defenceless creature, asking herself what she feared most, his intrusion into her privacy or that pregnancy which kept him away and could bring death closer.

I was full of pity for her.

“You are morbid,” he accused.

“I feel drawn towards this room.”

“On this night of all nights!”

“Yes, because it is this night.”

“You want me to stand in this room and ask forgiveness of her. For what? Because I asked that she should perform her duties as a wife? Because I wanted sons? In God’s name, for what other reason should I have married a silly simpering girl who brought me no pleasure?”

“You made a mistake in marrying her. We have to abide by mistakes.”

“Nay,” he said. “If we take a false step we right ourselves and go in another direction. Enough of this.” There was a satanic gleam in his eyes. He pulled me towards the bed.

I said: “No, Colum, please, not here …”

But he would not heed me. He said: “Yes. Yes. I say yes and by God and all his angels I will have my way.”

Later we supped in that room where we had on the first night I came to Castle Paling.

When I was in my chair he came round to me and in his hands was a solid chain set with diamonds on which hung a locket of rubies and diamonds. He put it about my neck.

“There,” he said, “it becomes you well. It is my gift to you, my love. It is my thanks for my son and for giving me that which I have looked for in my wife.”

I touched his hands and looked up at him. I had been shocked by what had happened in the Red Room. He had meant to lay the ghost, to superimpose on my fantastic imaginings a memory of our own. I think he was right in believing that I would not want to go there for some time. I would not want to think of us—which I must—on the bed on which Melanie had died.

How characteristic of him thus to defy the enemy which in this case was the memory of Melanie.

“You like this trinket?” he asked me.

“It is beautiful.”

He kissed me then with that tenderness which always moved me deeply.

“You are glad of that night? Glad a brigand saw you in an inn and decided that you should be his.”

“Yes, glad.”

I took his hand and kissed it.

“I will tell you something,” he said. “There was never a woman who pleased me as you do.”

“I hope I shall always do so.”

He laughed lightly. “You must make sure that you do.”