The Witch from the Sea (21 page)

I made my way across the hall, stepping carefully round the objects which littered the floor. There were goods of all descriptions. What on earth could it mean? I could not understand it. How long had these things been here and whence had they come?

I went up the stairs. Along the gallery everywhere was permeated by this damp sea smell.

I pushed open a door and went in. I saw a wooden case. I went over it and looked inside. Some trinkets lay in it. They looked like gold and silver. I lifted one. It was a long gold chain. The workmanship reminded me of the chain Colum had given me with the ruby-studded locket.

As I stood there I heard a noise. I felt the hair on my head rise a little. I remembered suddenly that I was in Ysella’s tower, the haunted tower, the tower where Ysella had lived all those years ago in secret.

Almost immediately I overcame my fear. Someone was in the hall below. The door had been opened. Someone must have come in to get something.

I started along the gallery and reached the staircase. There was no one in the hall. Hastily I descended the stairs. A sudden feeling of panic had come over me. It was because the hall seemed darker than it had when I had entered. I saw why. The great iron-studded door which had been open and which I had left open was closed.

I hurried to it. I could not open it. Then I realized that it was locked.

I pulled at the enormous handle, but of course it would not move. The answer was simple. Someone had come in here, had either been in here when I entered and not seen me, or gone out for a while leaving the door unlocked and then returned, and locked the door.

Whatever had happened the fact remained. I was locked in Ysella’s tower.

I banged on the door with my fists. Whoever had locked the door could not be far away. But I realized quickly that this could do little but bruise my hands. I shouted, but my voice could not penetrate those thick walls.

I was faced with the alarming fact that I was locked in Ysella’s Tower.

What could I do? Was there possibly some other outlet? I must not panic. I must explore. There might well be another door. I knew the layout of the tower because it was similar to the others. I wished I could escape that horrible musty odour which seemed to grow stronger every minute. I found my way into what in Ysella’s day must have been the kitchens. There were the great oven, the fireplace and the roasting spits. There were a few cauldrons. They were filled with objects. There were some coins in one. I looked at them; they were not English coins. In another pot there was some more jewellery.

I thought then: When Colum wishes to give a gift to his wife he comes down here and selects it.

There was a door in a small passage close to the kitchens. I tried it; it was securely locked. There was no way out there.

I made my way back to the hall. The horrible realization came to me that it would soon be dark but I consoled myself that I should be missed and they would come in search of me. But would they think of looking in Ysella’s Tower?

I came into the hall, tried the door again, banged my fists against the stubborn wood, and called at the top of my voice. Then I made my way up the stairs again. Perhaps I could find my way to the ramparts. If I could and made some sign up there it might be possible that someone would see it.

The spiral staircases were like those in the other towers—the stairs narrow at one end and wide at the other, demanding care in mounting and descending and there was a rope banister to help one up or down. They wound round and round so that I had the sudden fear that as I turned a bend I might come face to face with some terrifying sight.

The tower was haunted it was said, haunted by Nonna’s ghost, because Nonna had discovered Ysella here and soon afterwards she had died.

She should not have been so curious, Colum had said lightly. And if I had not been so curious
I
would not now be in this predicament.

I looked into several of the rooms with their long narrow windows cut out of the thick walls. It was chilly and the odour was even up here.

The door on to the ramparts was not locked, I was delighted to see. I pushed it open and was in the fresh air. For a few seconds I could think of nothing but taking in great gulps of it. I looked through the battlements. There was the Seaward Tower looming up before me. I leaned over and looked down. I shivered. Far below was the courtyard where I had found the amulet. I knew now that the amulet, had it not been dropped in the courtyard, would doubtless now be in the wooden box or in one of the cauldrons with the other trinkets.

I looked up at the sky. Clouds were being hustled across it by a tetchy wind. I called out: “I’m here. In Ysella’s Tower. Somebody come and get me out.”

My voice was lost in the wind. There was in any case no one down there.

I took off my petticoat and waved it between the battlements. I was hoping someone would see it. There was no response.

I called again. Who could possibly hear? Gulls were circling overhead. They were coming inland which was said to mean that the wind was rising and there could be a storm at sea. They made their melancholy cries as they circled overhead.

What am I going to do? I thought. They’ll miss me. But will they think of looking in Ysella’s Tower?

I shouted again. I waved my petticoat. I was beginning to get a little frightened because it was growing dark rapidly and I had an uneasy feeling that no one was coming back into Ysella’s Tower and that no one could see me from the ramparts.

There was a chill in the air. I missed my petticoat. I thought: I can’t stay up here until someone finds where I am. On the other hand the thought of going back into the tower repelled me.

It was quickly growing dark. How stupid I had been to come so far inside. I should have stood at the door and looked about me and then when someone came along—as someone must have—I could have insisted that whoever it was accompanied me on my tour.

I had been foolish and what could I do now?

I walked farther along the ramparts. Here the battlements were fairly low. I leaned over. It made me feel dizzy. Nonna had died after she had found Ysella. She should not have been so curious. It was as though the evil-looking faces carved out of stone up there on the battlements were laughing at me.

Suddenly I heard a shrill piercing scream and looking down I saw one of the women servants running through the archway which led from Ysella’s courtyard to another.

I shouted but I was too late for she had disappeared and again my voice was carried away by the wind.

She must have seen me up here on the ramparts. She would think I was the ghost. But she would tell someone and perhaps they would come. I waited expectantly.

But no one came. It was almost dark now. I could not spend the night up here. It was better to go into the castle.

On impulse I threw my petticoat over the ramparts. They would search for me and that would let them know that they had to come here. They would open the door then and come and find me, for the garment would surely give them a clue as to my whereabouts.

I watched it flutter to the ground. It was uncanny. It looked as though it were a woman falling down. What had Nonna felt when she discovered her husband had been unfaithful to her? Life was no longer good for her and she had decided to take her life.

It was the fading light; it was the tension which I must necessarily feel in this situation which had made me fanciful; but it did seem as though that was a human being falling. There was a screech as she fell, but it was the gulls, startled perhaps by what would seem to them a gigantic bird floating down. Several of them rose overhead calling protestingly.

I stood there shivering.

Someone will find the petticoat soon and come for me, I promised myself.

I found my way down the spiral staircase, not so easy to manage in the gloom. I reached the gallery and went down to the hall.

It looked different now. There was very little light coming through the windows, which were few and so narrow. The Tower was built for defence and the lower windows were meant to supply the minimum light and air, for in a fortress the lower part was the most vulnerable.

I picked my way between bales of cloth that had been sodden and were drying out, garments, spices, goods which had been carried from one place to another—gold, silver, ivory; the kind of commodities which my father and the Landors were dealing in. Trade.

So much slipped into place. Colum going out on the nights of storm. His clothes soaked with rain and sea water. The Ysella tower to be locked and intrusion into the courtyard discouraged. Jennet dismissed from the Seaward Tower on the nights when Colum and some of his men were going on a journey. The men who inhabited the Seaward Tower who were not quite the same as the other servants. “They are fishermen, they catch our fish and I am very fond of fish,” he had said. They were men of the sea, those who inhabited the Seaward Tower. There were boats there, there were horses and donkeys, pack-horses.

I felt sick. I did not know whether it was the smell of these sea-saturated goods or the knowledge which had come to me or the thought of Colum’s anger if he ever knew that I had intruded into his tower. And he would know. Even now he would be looking for me. He would search for me and they would find my petticoat in the courtyard. That would surely lead them to Ysella’s Tower.

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.