“One of these days,” he said, “I shall find out what happened to him.”
I remembered his grandmother who thought he was at the bottom of the sea. We could talk together about our parents, both being in the same position, and we were very happy together.
Senara grumbled. “You and Fenn Landor are always going off together.”
“Why should we not?”
“I think he’s a bore.”
“You may think what you please. That does not affect my opinion.”
She stamped her foot. “If I were a witch,” she said, “I’d put a spell on him.”
“Don’t dare say such things, Senara,” I retorted angrily.
She looked a little frightened.
“I would though,” she went on. Then she was soft and clinging. I never knew anyone to change moods more quickly than Senara. “Don’t like him better than you like me, will you, Tamsyn?”
“As if I could.”
But she set me wondering.
I did like Fenn. I liked him very much indeed and I hated saying goodbye to him when it was time to return to Castle Paling.
“We shall meet again soon,” he said. “I will call at the castle and you must come and visit us.”
When we went home Fenn rode with us. It was on the way to his home of Trystan Priory, he said.
My grandmother was a little dubious when she heard that he proposed accompanying us; then she lifted her shoulders. “Why not?” she said. “He will protect you from the dangers of the road.”
Later when we were alone, just before I left, she said: “The two families have never met since the death of your father’s first wife. It used to be rather awkward when your mother was alive. We saw so much of the Landors, being involved in business together, and Fenn’s grandmother could not be induced to see anyone connected with your father.”
“Why ever not?”
“Your father’s first wife was her daughter.”
“Her daughter. The one she said was …”
She stopped me before I could finish. “She was hysterical with grief. She refused to see things as they really were. She wanted to blame someone for her daughter’s death so she blamed the daughter’s husband. What happened was that your father’s first wife died in childbed.”
“And she blamed my father for that?”
“She was of the opinion that her daughter was too frail to bear children and should never have been allowed to try to do so.”
“That seems unreasonable of her.”
“People are not always reasonable in their grief.”
“And for that reason she would not meet my father!”
“That’s true, Tamsyn.”
“She made a strange remark about my mother. Do you remember when I went into her room on that night and found her crying?”
“I remember it well. It was just after the disappearance of young Fenn’s father. Poor soul! I think the loss of her children unhinged her mind.”
“But what she said about my mother …”
“I cannot bear to think of it, Tamsyn. My daughter … she was so young. And to die in her bed.”
“Her heart failed, they said.”
“And she had been unwell and had not told me. The greatest regret of my life is that I was not there to nurse her.”
“She did not appear to need nursing. I was with her on the nights preceding that one. But on her last night I was not there.”
My grandmother covered my hand with hers.
“My dearest, we must try not to grieve. So Fenn is going to ride back with you. He will stay a night or two at the castle, I dare say, for I am sure your father will not object. You like Fenn, do you not?”
“Oh, I do. He is so interesting and so … good.”
She smiled. “At one time I thought his father might have married your mother. The son is so like the father that sometimes I could believe it is Fennimore who is here and the girl who likes him so much my own Linnet.”
“Did you want her to marry that Fennimore?” I asked.
She turned her head away and did not answer. Then she said suddenly: “She wanted your father. In the end it was her choice.”
I did not quite know what she meant by that but I believed the subject was painful to her and I did not want to make her more unhappy than she already was.
I forgot a little of the sorrow I had left behind me at Lyon Court when I was riding along with Fenn. He talked a great deal about the trading company and how they would miss my grandfather. “But it is some years since he went to sea. He was a great sailor. I don’t think he ever quite got over the loss of the Landor Lion. It seemed so strange to disappear like that … after it had been sighted quite near the Sound.”
I was afraid he was going to talk about his father, and although I was very interested I knew it was a depressing subject and I wanted to get away from depression. I kept thinking about my mother who might have married his father and if she had how different everything would be.
It had put an idea into my head which might have been there before. What I mean was that I recognized it was a possibility and it was one which gave me a great deal of pleasure.
What if I should marry Fenn?
I was sure my mother, if she could do so, would approve of this. She had been very fond of Fenn’s father. He must have been very like Fenn; then why had she married my father?
During that ride home I thought now and then of my father. I seemed to see him for the first time. I did not love him in truth, although I had always thought I had, simply because it was the dutiful thing to love one’s father. I was happier when he was away; I kept out of his range as much as possible. He had very little interest in me, I was sure. Connell had always been his favourite. I wondered then why my mother had loved him more than Fenn’s father. He had probably decided that she should. He was the sort of man who made people’s decisions for them. He was hard and cruel, I knew. I had seen men after they had been whipped because they disobeyed him. There was a whipping-post in the courtyard before the Seaward Tower. The servants were terrified of him.
I wondered what Fenn would think of him, Fenn who was kind. That was what I liked about him. He was so kind and gentle too. If he had boys and girls he would never allow the girls to see that he preferred the boys, even if he did. Yet in a way I suppose I was glad my father was not as interested in me as he was in Connell. Connell had had many a beating because he had failed to please my father. I was never beaten because I neither pleased nor displeased.
I was suddenly looking at my home with a new clarity because I was wondering what Fenn would think of it.
My father was at home when we arrived and he and my stepmother came down to greet our guest. I saw the curl of my father’s lip as he studied Fenn, which meant that he did not think very highly of him.
My stepmother smiled a welcome. Even Fenn was startled by her. I tried to look at her afresh. I could not understand quite what that magnetic charm was. She was very beautiful, it was true, but it was not only beauty. There was a sheen about her; it was in everything she did, in her smile and her gestures.
“Welcome to Castle Paling,” she said. “It is good of you to go out of your way to look after my daughters on the road.”
Fenn stammered that it had been his pleasure and was by no means out of his way.
“It’s rarely that we see a Landor within these walls,” said my father. “The last one was my first wife. She would be your aunt, would she not?”
“That’s so,” Fenn replied.
He seemed to shrink before my father, and I felt that old protective instinct, which had amused my mother, rising within me.