Witch from the Sea

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 Co

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 Co

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.

Co

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 ca

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.

Fe

My grandfather was buried in the Pe

Co

“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 Fe

“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 Fe

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

When we went home Fe

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 Fe

“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 Fe

“But what she said about my mother …”

“I ca

“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 Fe

“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 Fe