Philippa Carr - Witch from the Sea

It was clear now. These goods which filled the tower had come from shipwrecked ships. On the night of a storm when ships were unable to withstand the fury of the elements, when they broke up on our coast, Colum and his servants were there. They salvaged the goods; they brought them ashore; they stored them in Ysella’s Tower and then he made bargains with men such as those he met in The Traveller’s Rest.

And it was a secret.

Was it against the law then to take goods from the sea? Was this why it must be done in secret? He had been angry when he had discovered my curiosity about the tower. He had told me the story in the hope that I would be afraid to go near it because it was said to be haunted.

He had not wished me to know of this. When I found the amulet, he knew that it had fallen from some goods which had been brought into the tower. The locket he gave to me he knew to have been part of these goods. When he gave me a present of jewellery, and he had given me one or two, he came down here and selected it. Something which looked like new … or would have done if I had not discovered the secret spring and the name in it.

What was this business of his? It seemed that there was something callous about a man who could come by his merchandise through the distress of others.

I shivered. Deep down in my heart I knew that there was something frightening about Colum. I knew that had I married Fennimore Landor I should have lived a peaceful happy life; my only anxiety would be when he took his sea voyages, and that would be for his safety, not for my own.

What a strange thought that was. But my mind felt so lucid now. It was as though a misty mirror had been wiped and I could now see clearly what was reflected.

Colum would be angry. What form would his anger take? If he raged against me, if he struck me—he never had but there were times when I had thought he was about to—I think I should be more at ease than if he silently accepted what I had done.

He would give me some explanation of course. But I did not need an explanation. I knew the answer. This was his profession. He owned much land, it was true, and he was said to be rich. But was he so because he sold jewels and the like which he took from sinking ships?

No wonder he was a little contemptuous of my father’s plan and that of the Landors for trading. Here was an easier way of bringing in merchandise than sailing the seas for it; here it was brought to his own shores.

It was growing darker. There was very little light coming into the hall. I could make out the shapes of the various objects; and I thought of people who had sailed with them. I could see it so clearly, the wind and the storm lashing their useless masts, the creaking of their vessels, the dying cries of the drowning and the cargo breaking free to be flung hither and thither on the frothing waters of the sea until it was picked up by the scavengers.

The scavengers! That was how I thought of them. I knew this much. I hated my husband’s profession. And he must be ashamed of it, or why should he attempt to keep it a secret from me?

I looked about the hall. If I could but find some light, I thought, I would feel better. I hated the gloom of the place. It was eerie, ghostly.

I sat down by a bale of cloth and tried to shut out its musty odour.

“Oh come, someone,” I prayed. “Rescue me. Am I to spend the night here?”

They would miss me of course. They would come to search for me. Perhaps already Jennet was telling Colum that I had not come to the nursery to put my children to bed, for that was a task I insisted on doing myself.

It was dark now. I sat very still listening. A strange scuttle on the stairs. It would be mice perhaps. Or rats. I shivered. Rats who had secreted themselves in some of the bales. They always left the sinking ship though.

One imagines noises. That sounded like a step on the stairs. Could it be the ghost of Nonna? She had given way to her curiosity and died soon after. Died because of it. Nonna had been murdered. She was the unwanted wife. If that long dead Casvellyn had been satisfied with his wife, why should he have set up Ysella in her Tower?

It was a crazy story. It did not make sense. How would it have been possible to keep two wives in the same castle and one not know of the other’s existence?

The wind was rising. How clearly I could hear the sound of the sea. It was washing now about the foundations of the castle; it was completely covering the Devil’s Teeth. Somewhere out to sea a ship might be in distress. And Colum would be watching so that he and his men might go out and profit from it.

I hated this. Yet my father had been a pirate. He had thought it right to rob the Spanish galleons who crossed his path. How many times had he sailed home, the hold of his ship crammed with treasure—filched from the Spaniards.

My mother said it was robbery. “You are a brigand,” she had told him, “a pirate.”

And the answer: “This is an age of pirates.”

How dark it was. How the wind buffeted the great walls of the castle. And then the lull and the silence which was more frightening than the noise of the wind. The sudden noise from above. What was it—some rat or mouse … or the footfall of one who was dead and could not rest?

I am fanciful, I know it. I do imagine things. I kept staring into the gloom expecting at any moment to see the ghostly figure on the stairs. Nonna walking slowly, coming towards me, a terrible coldness enveloping me as I am close to the dead and Nonna whispering: “I warn you. I have come back to warn you.”

It was imagination. There was nothing … only the dark hall with the shapes I could see as my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom.

What time is it? I wondered. How long had I been here?

Long enough for them to miss me.

I am going to spend the night in Ysella’s Tower, I thought. I remembered how many times I had wished to look inside. Well, now I had, and here I was, a prisoner.

I was trembling. I was certain I was not alone in the tower. The thought sent a shiver down my spine. What had Nonna felt when she knew that her husband had a mistress whom he kept in this tower? I could picture her bewildered grief. And then she had died. Had she died of her own will or was she helped to her death?

I wondered how long I had been in the tower. It must be two hours. It had been about three o’clock when I came. Now it must be five. They would have missed me by now. I was sure of it.

If only I had a light. If only I could find a candle. I would set it in one of the windows. What of the serving-girl who had seen me on the ramparts? Had she not gone back to her fellow servants and told them what she had seen? They would laugh at her. How many times had one of the servants sworn she had seen the ghost of Ysella’s Tower?

Perhaps I should go up to the ramparts. Someone might come into the courtyard. If I shouted someone might hear me in time.

I stood up. The fearsome eerieness wrapped itself about me. I almost fell over a bale which I had not noticed. Its sea-damp odour swept up as I touched it.

My footsteps echoed hollowly on the stone flags as I groped my way to the gallery and found the spiral staircase. I could feel the rope and I grasped it.

I really felt terror going up that staircase. I was overcome by an awful presentiment that something malignant was waiting for me at the turn. Still I went on. I had to get out of this place and I had more chance from the ramparts. If I shouted, there was a faint chance that someone might hear me, for they would surely begin to look for me when they found me missing.

I must surely be nearly at the top of the staircase. I seemed to have come a long way. I touched the wall—it was cold and clammy. I turned. The staircase was less curved than it had been. Gingerly I felt my way, taking care not to lift one foot from the stone before I was sure the other was firm.