In those rooms there were some very old pieces of furniture, among them several stools and a table and a pallet or two. The stools were interesting because they were made like boxes and articles could be stored under where one sat.
When I was in the turrets with their long narrow windows I was always fascinated to look out to sea and my eyes invariably came to rest on the jagged rocks of the Devil’s Teeth. A gruesome sight! I was not surprised that they were said to be haunted.
These rooms were used fairly frequently, for high in the walls of those facing the sea were windows in which lanterns hung. They were reached by step-ladders which were kept in each room so that they could be easily reached. The lanterns had been hanging there for many years and had been placed there by one of my ancestors. He was known as Good Casvellyn in contrast, I had heard, to so many of the family who were far from good. The Devil’s Teeth had always been responsible for a good share of wrecks along our coast and Good Casvellyn had had the idea that if he carefully placed lighted lanterns in the top of his towers of Nonna and Seaward, it was possible that they could be seen some way out to sea and the sailors who saw them would know they were close to the treacherous Devil’s Teeth. Therefore they would steer clear of them.
I liked to think that the kindly action started by Good Casvellyn had saved the lives of sailors. Of course it often happened that in spite of the lights there were disasters on the rocks.
I was always anxious when I heard the wind rising and the spring tides were up and there was a storm at sea. How many ships had foundered on that grinning mouth? I imagined that many a sailor who was unsure of his whereabouts and saw the lights in Nonna and Seaward Towers blessed Good Casvellyn for his lights.
It was the duty of one of the men from Seaward to make sure that each night they were shining out to sea.
I had searched everywhere in the tower rooms at Nonna’s. I examined the stools with the greatest care because I suspected that in one of them there must be a secret compartment.
It was soon after Christmas that I started to search again, and the more I thought of the matter, the more certain I became that one of the stools up there could be a hiding-place for those papers. I examined them all. There was indeed a secret compartment in one of them which made my heart beat fast but there was nothing in it when I finally succeeded in opening it.
I sat on the floor feeling exasperated. There is nothing so maddening as to search for something when you are not even sure of its existence.
Then suddenly as I sat there I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I sensed rather than heard that someone was close watching. I stood up. There was no one in the room.
“Who’s there?” I said in a sharp aggressive voice which betrayed my fear.
There was no answer. I hurried to the door and threw it open. I was looking straight at the spiral staircase which wound a few steps from the top so that if someone were just a dozen steps down one would not see that person. But I did hear a light footstep and I knew that someone had been watching me.
Why had he or she not answered when I called? Why was it necessary to watch me unobserved?
There came to me then the thought that someone knew what I was looking for, and that that someone was very anxious to know if I had found it.
The light was beginning to fade. I looked round the room. Soon the man who was in charge of the lantern would arrive to light it. I did not want him to find me here. Nor did I wish to stay here. That step on the stairs had unnerved me. For if someone was eager to know whether I had found the papers, why should this be so?
Was someone afraid that I would find them? Was someone else looking for them even more fervently than I was? If so, there could be but one reason for this. That person might be afraid of what was in them.
Who would be? The one who had killed my mother.
Thomas Grenoble called often. Senara would play the lute to him and sing languorous songs of love.
She had another suitor too. He was a young man with hair and eyes as dark as her own. He was a visitor at Squire Marden’s house. Some years older than Senara, he was intense and passionate I should imagine. He was not English though his name was not really foreign. He was Lord Cartonel. He spoke with a rather careful accent and some of his expressions were un-English.
He told us that he had been in several embassies for the late Queen and that he had lived abroad for many years, which was why there appeared to be something a little foreign about him.
There was no doubt that my stepmother admired him and I guessed that she had chosen either him or Thomas Grenoble as Senara’s husband.
Senara was delighted to have these two admirers.
“It is always good,” she said, “to have a choice.”
“And what of Dickon?” I asked.
“Dickon! You can’t seriously think that I am considering him.”
“If he were of noble birth …”
Her face flushed with sudden anger. “But he is not!” she said sharply and changed the subject.
It was late February when Melanie said to me one day: “My brother is home. I have a letter here from my mother. She says he will be staying for a while before his next voyage.”
“I wonder if he will call here.”
“I think he will want to,” she answered, smiling her gentle smile.
I used to wake up every morning after that saying to myself: “Perhaps he’ll come today.” Whenever I heard arrivals I would dash to my window and look down longing to see him.
February was out. He had been home three weeks and he had not come to the castle.
Why did he not come? Melanie looked puzzled. Surely if he did not want to see me he would wish to see his sister?
Senara was faintly mischievous as she always had been about Fenn.
“I hear the good Fenn Landor has been home some weeks. Yet he does not call here.”
I was too wounded to retort sharply so I shrugged my shoulders.
“He has forgotten all about us,” she went on. “They say sailors are fickle.”
A few days later we heard that Thomas Grenoble had returned to London.
“Without asking for my hand!” said Senara demurely. “What do you make of that, Tamsyn?”
“I thought he was deeply enamoured of you. It seems strange.”
“He was. But I was not going to have him.”
“He has not asked, remember.”
“He was on the point of it. He is a very rich man, Tamsyn. He will have a high-sounding title one day. He is just the man my mother wanted for me.”
“Yet he did not offer.”
“Because I did not want him to.”
“You told him so?”
“That would not have stopped him, but I had to stop him somehow because if he had I am sure the temptation would have been too much for them to resist. So I worked a spell.”
“Oh Senara, do not talk so. I have asked you so many times not to.”
“Nevertheless I stopped him. It was a very natural sort of spell. A man in his position at Court could not have a witch for a wife.”
“Sometimes I think you are mad, Senara.”
“Nay, never that. I am so pleased that my spell worked that I want to tell you about it. Have you ever thought, Tamsyn, how we can make our servants work for us? They can do so much with a little prompting. I have made good use of servants … always. You are not attending. You are wondering whether Fenn will come soon. I will tell you something. He won’t come. He doesn’t want you any more than Thomas Grenoble wants me. Let me tell you about Thomas Grenoble. I made the servants talk … my servants to his servants. It was so easy. I made them tell him of my strangeness, my spells, the manner in which I was born. I wanted him to think that the servants were afraid of me, that I never went to church because I feared to. That strange things happened, that I could whip up a storm at sea, that I could make a man see me as the most beautiful creature he had ever seen … and he believed them. So that is why he went so suddenly to London. He is putting as great a distance between us as he can.”