Witch from the Sea

I laughed, recalling them all. They seemed far away from me now and I was ashamed that I had missed them so little.

My mother mentioned that the Landors had visited Lyon Court again. Business plans were going ahead. Very soon they would be sending out their ships. My father was very busy and that involved everyone else. There was a great deal of activity and it was decided that Plymouth should be their headquarters, as was to be expected.

There was something else she had to tell me. Fennimore had ridden over to hear from her the story of my marriage. She said he had seemed quite bewildered. So must he have been for, according to what we had allowed people to believe, when he had asked me to marry him I had already been married to Colum.

He had not shown any anger, said my mother, just amazement. “I had to tell him the truth,” she went on. “I knew I could trust him. I could not have him believe you to be perfidious. He was very, very sad. He said you should have told him. He would have understood. I begged of him to forget what had happened if he could. I told him that I had spoken to him in the utmost confidence and that what was done was done. He saw the point of it. You were married now. Oh, Linnet, he would have understood. He would have married you. Perhaps we should have told him.”

“It is better as it is,” I insisted.

“You are happy. You would not have it otherwise.”

She smiled at me, understanding perfectly I knew.

She went on: “Soon after I heard he was to be betrothed to a girl he had known all his life. Her family are neighbours of the Landors. It will be a most suitable union.”

“He quickly consoled himself,” was my comment.

“We should be glad of that,” replied my mother.

I said: “He would face up to the situation calmly, accepting the fact that he and I were not for each other.”

I thought how different he was from Colum and I was glad that everything had turned out as it had. In these short months my emotions had been revolutionized. I could imagine no man my husband but Colum Casvellyn.

My mother, being aware of this, was delighted. I was pleased too to notice that Colum had an admiration for her. She would always be a very attractive woman, not so much because of her features and figure which were still quite good, but because of that spirit in her, that vitality which I was sure had attracted my father in the first place and still did.

My mother told Colum that she and my father thought it would be an excellent plan if they took me to Lyon Court a little later so that she herself could care for me at the end of my pregnancy.

“You cannot imagine that I will relinquish my wife, even to her parents,” cried Colum. “No, Madam, my son is to be born in Castle Paling. That is where he shall first see the light of the day in the walls of that castle which will one day be his.”

“I want her to have the best care.”

“Think you that I cannot give her that?” They faced each other squarely, my mother ready to do battle with him as she had so often with my father, and he amused, liking her for it.

They compromised and it was arranged that in August, that month when my baby was due, my mother should come to Castle Paling. It was the only way, for she was determined to be with me when my child was born and Colum was equally determined that the birth should take place in Castle Paling.

It was mid-May when my mother went home promising to return at the beginning of August. Colum and I rode some of the way back with her, and when she had left us Colum told me that I should not be allowed to ride much longer; he was not risking my losing the child. I was happy enough to be so cherished.

The weeks began to pass very quickly. I was preparing for my child and my mother sent Jennet over to be with me. I might wish to keep Jennet, she said; she was an excellent nurse and had a way with children.

I had always been fond of Jennet. I found her a great comfort and it was rather pleasant to have a reminder of my old home in Castle Paling.

Jennet was delighted to come, although she missed seeing her son Jacko, but of course now that he was a man he did not need to be tied to his mother’s apron-strings and for several years he had been away at sea for long stretches of time and she was used to being without him. “As long as he be well and happy, that’s all I ask,” she said. “The Captain will see to him for the Captain looks after his own.” She was proud because he was courting a girl in Plymouth who, she whispered to me, was a very fine lady.

It was not long before she had made friends with one of the serving-men. She talked about him a great deal. His name was Tobias and the manner in which she spoke of him would have led one to believe that she had never known another man.

“He be in Seaward,” she told me, so I knew that he was one of those men I had seen going in and out of that tower and about whose occupation I had wondered.