Witch from the Sea

It came from Jennet. She was the sort of woman who could be taken from one place and planted with the greatest ease in another, like some plant that yearns so much to grow that it will flourish in any soil. In the short time she had been at Castle Paling she had not only acquired a lover but had struck up friendships with other servants and behaved as though she had lived at the castle all her life.

She was warm-hearted, generous in all things, not only her favours, and there was something endearing about her in spite of a certain incompetence. My mother was often impatient with her. I think in her heart she never forgave her for betraying her with my father. After all, it must have been a strain to have one’s husband’s bastard in the house and his mother too. It was the same with Romilly. My mother was an extraordinary woman. I wondered what I would feel like if Colum brought his mistresses into the house with their offspring. However to get back to Jennet, she it was who brought this shattering knowledge into my life.

She was now Connell’s nurse. After all, I trusted her more than I did anyone else; I knew too of her love for children. She was inclined to spoil the boy of course but I suppose we all were.

There she was clucking over him one day and chattering away to him and she said: “I reckon your father thinks the world of you, my little man. Oh, he does and all. And that’s clear to see. And you know it. Yes, you do.”

I smiled at them and I thought of her as a young woman when Jacko had been born and how she must have loved him.

Then she said: “Boys! They always want boys. The Captain was the same. Show him a boy and he was that pleased. Nothing too good for his boys. It’s the same with this master. It must have been a terrible disappointment to him …”

“What, Jennet?”

“Well, when he couldn’t get one with that first wife of his. Well, ’twasn’t for want of trying. Time after time he were disappointed.”

“You seem to know a great deal about the master’s affairs,” I said.

“’Tis common talk in the kitchens, Mistress.”

“What do they say down there, Jennet?”

“Oh, that she was a poor sick creature and the master wasn’t with her as he is with you.”

“They’re impertinent,” I said, but I couldn’t quite suppress the glow of triumph.

Jennet did not notice the reproof and I was glad. I thought: I may find out through Jennet and the servants more than I can from Colum. It was only natural that I should feel a great curiosity about my predecessor and I could see no harm in doing a little innocent ferreting.

Seeing my interest Jennet warmed to her subject. There was little she liked so much as gossip.

“Oh yes,” said Jennet, “a poor timid thing, she were. Frightened of her own shadow. The master, they say, do want someone as can stand up to him as you do, Mistress. They say you be just the one for him and he knows it. This poor lady, frightened she were, frightened of the castle and ghosts and things and most of all of him.”

“Poor child,” I said.

“Oh yes, Mistress, and the master he did want a son and it seemed she could not give him one. There was lots of tries, as you might say. She’d be so and then she’d lose it, and then so again. Only once did she stay her full time … and that was the last. Once she went seven months though. The others … they were all quick, as you might say.”

“She must have had a very uncomfortable time.”

“She did. And the master he were mad, like. Shouted he did … called her a useless stock. That’s what he called her. They’d hear him shouting and his rage was terrible. Woe betide any who went near him when he was in these rages. They used to be frightened that he’d do away with her. And she was afraid too. She told her maid … Mary Anne, it were. She’s with one of the Seaward men now and works over there. She told Mary Anne that sometimes she feared he’d do away with her.”

I felt I had had enough and wanted to hear no more. Of course I liked to have confirmation that he was content with our marriage and that he found his second wife more attractive than his first, but I could not bear this talk about his cruelty to her.

“All right, Jennet,” I said. “That’s enough. Servants exaggerate.”

“Not this time, Mistress, for Mary Anne did say she was real terrified. And when she was so again she was so frantic she did not know what to do. You see she believed she’d never have the child and she was so sick and ill every time. She thought she would die, and she told Mary Anne that she ought never to try for children. The doctor was against it. She ought never to have married because she knew it would kill her sooner or later. She said she had pleaded with him and he had said that if she could not give him children what good was she to him …”

“I don’t want to hear any more servant’s gossip, Jennet,” I said.

“No, Mistress, no more you do. But they did wonder why she didn’t run away and go home to her family. ’Twas not all that far.”

“Oh?” I said.