Part 35 (2/2)

”You are as my sister.”

”No matter what I do.”

”It would appear so,” I said.

Then she threw her arms about me in the impulsive, lovable manner which I knew so well.

”I taunt you because we belong together. I could never endure to lose you, Tamsyn.”

”Nor shall you,” I promised.

After that she was gentle for a while and when she was in that mood no one could be more charming or loving than Senara. If only she would always be so. She told me once: ”There are two sides to my nature, Tamsyn, and on one of them is the witch.”

We had been back from the wedding for a week or so. The sun had shone almost unceasingly for four weeks without a drop of rain, which was unusual for Cornwall. I decided that I would water the plants on the graves for the earth was so dry it was cracking in places.

Since that night when the stone had been found few people went near the burial ground. They were certain that that stone had been placed there by some ghostly hand. Sailors who were drowned at sea often could not rest. It was said that at night one could hear cries coming from the Devil's Teeth where many a s.h.i.+p had foundered. The fishermen coming in at dusk always avoided that stretch of water, not only because it was dangerous-they did not fear this because they knew those rocks so well-but because they believed it to be haunted.

I took my watering-can and, entering the graveyard, went to that spot where the three graves were. I saw it immediately. I stared and knelt by my mother's grave. The stone which my father had hurled into the bushes on that night had been discovered. It had now been planted on my mother's grave.

I stared at it; the words danced before my eyes. ”Murdered 1600.”

I pulled at the stone. It came away easily in my hands. I touched the black letters. I knelt by that grave and I thought back to the day when I had gone into my mother's room and seen her lying there quiet and still.

Pictures flashed in and out of my mind. Had she been afraid before she died? I had slept with her, because my presence had given her comfort. I remembered the occasion I went to her and stood by her bed. She had awakened in fright. Why? Had she been expecting someone else? Did she know someone was planning to murder her?

Murder her! I looked back at the stone. Who had put it there? Why? And after all this time. It was seven years since my mother had been buried here. Why only now should someone put that stone on the unknown sailor's grave and then on hers?

When I considered that, I was comforted. It was some practical joker with a distorted idea of humour. How could a sailor who was drowned at sea and washed up on our coast have been murdered!

I remember my father's anger when he had seen it that night. Naturally he was angry because his guests had been disturbed. He had flung the stone into the bushes. Who then had found it and put it on my mother's grave?

I stared down at it. What could I do with it? Mechanically I laid it on the ground and watered the graves.

I would not leave the stone there. I picked it up and carried it into the house. I put away my watering-can and took the stone up to my room.

I hid it at the back of the court cupboard, first wrapping it up in an old petticoat.

For the rest of the day I kept thinking about it and trying to remember the last months of my mother's life. How could she have been murdered? Who would have murdered her? And if so, how? There was no sign on her body that she had suffered violence.

Next day I would take the stone with me when I rode out and I would go alone. I would take it far away. I would bury it in a wood and try to think no more of the matter.

What was the use of deluding myself? I knew that I should go on thinking of it.

I sat at my window and looked out to sea. There were the Devil's Teeth crudely protruding from the water. Someone had once said, when the tide is neither high nor low it looks as though the Devil is smiling. It would be a wicked smile, a satisfied smile, the smile of one who knows that men will be lured to disaster.

I did not throw the stone away because when I came to take it next day it was missing.

I opened the door of the court cupboard and felt for the petticoat. There it was, rolled as I had left it. But it was light and the stone was not there.

I could not believe it. I had wrapped it so that it was hidden. No one could have known it was there. I knelt with the petticoat in my hand and a terrible apprehension crept over me. Could it really be that some other force-not human-had placed that stone first on the sailor's grave and then on my mother's? Was it really true that the ghosts of the castle were manifesting their existence in this way?

Hands caught at my throat and I screamed out in terror. My head was jerked back and I was looking up into Senara's laughing face.

”What are you doing caressing that old petticoat? And I frightened you, did I not? Did you think it was an enemy? Have you such a bad conscience?”

”You ... you did startle me.”

”I wondered what you were doing on your knees. I watched for minutes ... well, a few seconds ... I couldn't make out why you kept looking at that old petticoat.”

She s.n.a.t.c.hed it from me and unfurled it.

”Look, it's torn. What possible good is it? That ribbon on it is rather pretty though ...”

I rose and she studied me anxiously.

”You're not ill, are you? You look scared.”

”I'm all right. It was just ...”

”I know. Cold s.h.i.+ver. Someone walking over your grave, as they say.”

I pulled myself sharply together.

”Yes, something like that,” I said.

I was obsessed by memories of my mother. I had loved her dearly and she had rarely been far from my thoughts, but now the memories were with me all the time. I wished that I had taken more notice at the time. I had only been ten years old then and there was so much I had not understood. If only I had been older. If only my mother had been able to talk to me.

I remembered something Senara had said about our servants knowing so much about us and that led me to think of Jennet who was still in our household. She was getting old now; she was nearly as old as my grandmother and there had been talk of her going back to Grandmother when my mother died but she had wanted to stay.

She and my grandmother had been through many adventures together, and because my grandfather had given Jennet a child there was always a touch of asperity in my grandmother's att.i.tude towards her. They were fond of each other in a way but I think Jennet preferred to be with me.

When my mother had died she had said: ”There's young Tamsyn. I know Mistress Linnet would have wanted me to keep an eye on her.”

And in a way she had kept her eyes on me. In the last year she had become resigned to age as she had through her life become resigned to everything that had befallen her. The prospect of a baby in the house-we were all expecting every day to hear that Melanie was pregnant-revived old Jennet a little. If that baby came she would want to be in the nursery.

She said to me once: ”Men! I've known scores of them and very good company too and from that company comes the best of all things-little babies, dear little babies.”

Now I wanted to talk to her about my mother. Jennet was easy to talk to; reminiscences flowed from her.

”Mistress Linnet,” she said, ”she were a wild one at one time. Stood up to her father, she did. But she never had quite the fight in her that her mother had. Cat they called her and Wild Cat I'd heard the master say more than once-that was the Captain-a regular one he was. I reckon there wasn't another like him. You see, your mother wasn't wanted by him. He was mad for a boy and it seemed your grandmother couldn't give him one. He let her see it, and Mistress Linnet she let him see that she knew it, and then sudden like they understood each other, and then-my dear life-there was something between them. He was proud of her. My girl Linnet's as good as a son, he said. Then she met your father. And when she came here I came with her.”

”She was happy here, wasn't she, Jennet?”

”Happy ... what's being happy? Most people are happy one minute and sad the next.”

”You're not, Jennet. You've been as happy as anyone I ever knew.”

<script>