Philippa Carr - Witch from the Sea

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.