The Witch's Daughter (13 page)

W
ITHIN ABOUT TEN
minutes, it seemed, the little town was alive, the jetty crowded with people—men, women, children, even babies-in-arms, their faces still round and solemn with sleep. A few men were fully dressed in oilskins and sea boots but most people wore only a coat, hastily thrown over their
night-clothes
. In the hotel, only Mrs Hoggart stayed indoors,
watching
from her bedroom window, because Janey still slept, in spite of the commotion. Mrs Hoggart would have kept Tim with her but, guessing this, he had wisely gone before she could tell him to stay.

At first Tim could see nothing—nor could anyone else. A heavy mass of black cloud obscured the sea and harbour. For a little it was all Tim could do to stand against the wind which rushed like something solid into his mouth and up his nostrils. His eyes streamed with water—his own, salty tears mingling with the spray that dashed up against the sides of the jetty. Then, suddenly, the horizon began to clear. The furious wind seemed to sweep the sky, driving the black mass of cloud before it as if rolling up a curtain. Almost at once, a cry went up. The boat—clearly seen now, in the greying light—was caught on the rocks beyond the harbour. The heavy sea seemed to lift it
rhythmically
: each time the great waves receded, they left the little boat smashed further and further on its side.

After the first two flares there had been no more. There was no sign of life on the boat, which was not identified at first. Then, ‘It’s the
Asti
’,
a
man shouted. ‘Mr Smith’s boat.’

‘Madness,’ another said.
‘Madness.
’
Terrified and excited at
the same time, Tim pushed his way among the crowd and heard them conjecture that Mr Smith must have left the bay where he kept his boat—the next round the coast—and, discovering that he couldn’t handle her, had tried to run into Skuaphort for
shelter
instead of making for the open sea where he would, at least, have had ‘sea room’ and a chance of survival. ‘What was the fool thinking of?’ one old fisherman said. To enter Skuaphort from the far side of the loch was dangerous in any weather: with this sea and wind driving any boat onto the partly submerged rocks, it was utter folly.

A boat was manned but it was impossible to get it out of the harbour: beyond the sheltering arm of the jetty, the sea rose up like a wall. Since rescue from the sea was clearly impossible, the people left the jetty and made their way round Loch Kinnit to the point on the opposite side from the town, where a small group of men had already gathered on the beach. From this point, the wicked line of rocks ran out, jagged and black. The sea cracked against them with a sound like cannon fire and from time to time they disappeared completely, under a level surface of yellow froth.

The townspeople gathered on a little bluff and watched the men on the beach. Ropes had been brought. One fisherman waded into the black water which was, at one second, only ankle deep, and the next rose chest high as a wave swelled in. He made for the rocks. The distance was nothing, but the terrible sea made it a desperate journey, and, though he struggled hard, he had to be dragged back, face and hands cut and bleeding, before he had managed to get even a third of the way to the wrecked boat. Another man volunteered at once, and his wife, a plump woman who wore an old army greatcoat over her nightdress, jumped down off the bluff and clung to him, weeping and shouting. He was not to go. He was not to leave her. He would be drowned as her father had been. The tears streamed down her face. Tim felt that he ought not to watch her and was
ashamed because he could not tear his eyes away. In the end, others intervened and said the woman was right. ‘There’s not a thing anyone can do,’ one man said.

The words were ominous, like a tolling bell. People fell silent, huddling together in the dawn light. The boat was lower in the water now and could only be seen occasionally. The mast, its stays long since parted, had snapped in two, like a twig.

‘Wheelhouse gone,’ someone said, and a kind of corporate sigh, or groan, ran through the group of watchers.

For a little while, no one moved, or spoke, except in
undertones
. Even the littlest children were silent now, huddling beside their parents or staring round-eyed, from the shelter of their arms.

‘Is there any chance?’ a low voice said. Tim turned. The policeman was standing behind him, his red and white pyjama jacket visible under his overcoat. He had spoken to Mr Tarbutt, who was shaking his head.

‘He’s gone now, for certain, Cabin’ll be full of water.’

The policeman swore softly. He must have gone very pale, Tim thought, because the dark mole on his cheek seemed to stand out more than before. Then he said, ‘I never thought he’d be such a fool—on a night like this …’

‘She’s breaking up,’ someone shouted, and the whole crowd seemed to surge forward in unison, like a wave.

There was no sign of the broken mast now. A bigger wave than any that had gone before, had turned the boat completely over, exposing her white hull.

It was then that Tim saw Perdita. She was down on the beach, standing some way away from a group of fishermen. The
instant
he set eyes upon her, she began to run. Tim slipped over the side of the bluff, landing on the rocky beach with a jar that sent an arrow of pain shooting through his sprained ankle. He shouted her name with all his strength, but she didn’t turn.

She was making straight for the rocks. All eyes were fixed on the foundering ship and no one had noticed her except Tim. She
was waist deep in water before Tim could get to the nearest man and grab his sleeve. ‘She’ll drown,’ he shouted. ‘Oh look—she’ll drown …’

The man looked bewildered and then let out a hoarse cry as he saw where Tim was pointing. She was clinging to a rock—clinging for her life as a green wave curled over her. She
disappeared
, and then, as the sea sucked back, they saw she was still there, small, hunched, the pale blur of her face turned
towards
the shore. The fisherman shook Tim from his arm and ran. He was in the sea and almost at the rocks by the time the next wave came and the rest of the watchers had seen the danger. ‘Rope—get a rope,’ someone shouted. Then a woman screamed—a high, level sound like a train whistle.

The second wave had swept the child off the rock. There was no sign of her.

Tim felt deathly sick. The beach was a pandemonium of cries and running men. Bulky figures rushed past him, shutting off his view of the sea: one knocked him flying. He fell on the beach and lay there, sand and salt in his mouth and terrible thoughts in his mind.
This
was
all
his
fault.
If he had not talked to the policeman, if he had not talked to
her,
last night …

Someone took hold of his arm, and jerked him to his feet. He looked up, saw the policeman, and then felt as if something had exploded in his head. He thumped the policeman in the stomach with his free hand and shouted, ‘Get away, get away, I
hate
you …’

‘Steady on, old chap,’ the policeman said. And then, ‘It’s all
right,
boy, it’s all right …’

He held Tim’s shoulders and twisted him roughly so that he could see the fisherman stumbling in the water, holding her in his arms. Willing hands helped them ashore and laid the child on the beach.

Her hair streamed on the pebbles like dark seaweed. She lay on her face and Mr Tarbutt knelt beside her. Tim would have
run to them but the policeman took his hand and held him back, while a knot of people gathered round, obscuring his view. The policeman held Tim’s hand very tight and it seemed to the boy that ages passed. His first rush of glad relief when he had seen she was safe had subsided, leaving him in the grip of a bleak and terrible despair. She was dead—dead, and it was his fault. He was quite convinced that she was drowned, that they would never revive her, when a woman cried out that she was breathing.

Instantly, a wave of relief swept through the crowd,
spreading
in ripples of movement, even of half-hysterical laughter as the people shouted the good news to each other. Someone brought blankets and she was lifted, rolled up like a cocoon with her head against Mr Tarbutt’s broad shoulder.

‘Don’t cry,’ the policeman said to Tim. ‘She’s all right now.’

Tim had not realised he was crying until he lifted his hand and felt his face was wet. By the time the policeman had produced a handkerchief to dry his eyes, Tim had recovered sufficiently from his despair to be ashamed of his babyish behaviour and to insist that he wasn’t crying, it was just that his face was wet with spray.

‘Nothing to be ashamed of if you were,’ the policeman said.

*

The people of Skuaphort straggled back home. The morning light reddened their faces, which were strained and grave. A life had been saved, but another had almost certainly been lost, and, thinking of Mr Smith, they thought of others, too: of fathers, husbands, brothers, sons. There were few families on Skua that had not lost someone to the sea.

Only the young children were not oppressed by the general feeling of sadness and mourning. Earlier, they had been
frightened
and clung to their parents: now the drama was over, some five or six of them gathered together and began to whisper and giggle. No one took any notice of them, and, by the time the
procession had reached the town, their voices became louder and less restrained.

‘She’s a witch for certain,’ said one fat little seven year old. ‘
I’m
not scared, though …’

‘You’d better be, Will McBaine,’ his sister said. ‘Or she’ll turn you into a toad.’

‘Or a crow. A big, black, flappy crow …’

The little boy’s face went red. ‘She will
not,
then. Alistair Campbell threw a stone at her, and she didn’t turn him into anything at all.’

His voice piped up clear in the morning. Several women turned to look at the children. Suddenly one of them turned very red and said in a loud voice, ‘That’s enough!’ She rushed at her own small daughter and gave her a hearty smack. For a moment the child was silent, dumb with astonishment. Then she opened her mouth and bawled like a calf. ‘And that’s what the rest should be getting,’ her mother cried, looking defiantly and angrily round her.

The other women glanced at each other. None of them really believed the little girl from Luinpool was a witch, but they had let their children say so, not bothering to correct them, either out of idleness, or because the superstitious nonsense amused them. Now, shame stirred in them, and, before they could take to their heels, the astonished children found themselves seized, and shaken or spanked—not very hard, perhaps, because their mothers were uncomfortably aware that they were as much at fault as their children—but hard enough to make them cry. Their wailing rose to the pink, morning sky, and Mr Tarbutt, entering the hotel with his burden, smiled to himself, rather grimly.

*

Perdita was put to bed. Mrs Tarbutt, who had been waiting with hot water bottles and warm milk, came downstairs a little later and said the lassie was sleeping now and that Mr Tarbutt had better go up to Luinpool for Annie MacLaren.

Tim and the policeman got the remains of the hot milk which had sugar and brandy in it.

They drank in silence. Then the policeman cleared his throat. ‘Don’t blame yourself, Tim,’ he said.

Tim put his empty cup down on the table and stared at it.

The policeman said, ‘You did your best. It was you saw the fire and sounded the alarm. No one could have done anything in that sea.’

Tim remained obstinately silent. But, as he sat there glumly staring into space, he remembered what he had been thinking about before he saw the first flare go up from the boat. For a moment he struggled with himself. He didn’t want to talk to the policeman anymore, but he couldn’t bear to keep this
interesting
piece of deduction to himself, either.

In the end he said, very grudgingly, ‘I think I know where Mr Smith kept his jewels. In the cave.’ The policeman smiled, and Tim went a little red. ‘It’s not just a guess. You see, he didn’t like lobsters.’

The policeman raised one eyebrow.

Tim said, ‘He went lobster fishing, and there’s no real sport in that, not like trout or salmon, so there must have been some other reason. I think it was because he wanted an excuse to go down to the cave whenever he wanted, and if he was going fishing, no one would think it funny.’

The policeman was stroking his stubbly chin with the palm of his hand. ‘It’s an interesting theory. Quite a likely one, perhaps, though I don’t see that we can ever prove it. Never mind.’ He smiled, and his eyes were amused and friendly. ‘You know, young man, if it should ever take your fancy, you’d make a very useful detective, some day.’

Though this was something Tim had always longed to hear, for some reason it gave him no particular pleasure now.

He said, rather coldly, ‘I think I’d rather be a botanist, like my father. Not so many people get hurt.’

T
IM HAD HONESTLY
believed, when his mother sent him to bed that morning, that he would never sleep again. But he slept all day and woke in the evening too drowsy to swallow more than half a glass of milk and a digestive biscuit before his eyes closed and Mrs Hoggart put out the light. When he finally woke up properly, halfway through the following afternoon, the policeman had left and his father had arrived on a hired motor boat.

Mr Hoggart had been allowed out of hospital that morning and was pale, but recovered. He was gently humble with his son and did not once comment on Tim’s romantic imagination. Instead, he encouraged Tim to tell him all that had happened and even speculated himself upon where Mr Jones’s share of the loot might be. ‘The most likely thing, I would think, is that he gave the jewels to Mr Campbell—and there’s no sign of him yet. I’m afraid the chances are no one will ever find them.’

‘Because there weren’t any? That’s what you really think isn’t it?’ Tim’s voice was too indifferent to be rude. It sounded simply as if he no longer cared much, one way or the other. He was quiet for a minute, leaning back listlessly against the
pillows
and staring out of the window, and then he said, ‘What happened about the wreck?’

His father hesitated. Then he told Tim that salvage
operations
had begun on the boat, but so far they had yielded nothing. Tim’s face remained calm. Mr Hoggart cleared his throat and said that Mr Smith’s body had not yet been recovered, and, if he had had any jewels with him, they had almost certainly gone
to the bottom of the sea. As for Perdita’s diamond, Mr Hoggart went on, she had it no longer. The words,
if
she
ever
did
have
it,
trembled on the tip of his tongue but he refrained from speaking them aloud, saying only, ‘I expect she lost it in the sea, poor child.’

Then he fell silent, thinking not about the diamond but about the little girl who had not, Mrs Hoggart had told him, spoken once since her rescue, only clung dumbly to Annie MacLaren until the old woman had asked Mr Tarbutt to take them back to Luinpool and to leave them there in peace.

‘Will they be able to stay there?’ Tim asked suddenly. ‘I mean it was …’ He swallowed and turned pale. ‘It was
his
house, wasn’t it?’

Mr Hoggart pushed his glasses up on his nose and looked at his son anxiously. He had tried to talk about the wreck in an ordinary, matter-of-fact way, because it had seemed better to talk and to accept what had happened than to pretend nothing had. Now he wondered if he had been wrong. Tim was not to blame for what had happened to Mr Smith—or only in such a roundabout way that no sensible person would count it as blame. But was Tim sensible? Mr Hoggart reminded himself that he had often thought he was not, and been impatient with him because of it. Remembering this made him nervous. He wanted to talk to Tim about Mr Smith but did not know how to begin. So instead, he smiled brightly and said in an
unnaturally
cheery voice, ‘We thought we might go on a picnic tomorrow. Janey wants to go back to Carlin’s Cave—to show us the scene of her triumph! We’ve got a day before the steamer comes and Mr Tarbutt says he’ll take us in a boat. Would you like that?’

‘I don’t mind.’ Tim spoke about as enthusiastically as if his father had suggested a trip to the natural history museum. Then he looked at him. ‘You don’t have to cheer me up. I mean, I know it wasn’t really my fault about Mr Smith—at least, I
know it in my head. What you call
sensibly.
But it doesn’t feel like that in my … my
inside,
and I don’t suppose it ever will. Not for a long time, anyway.’ He paused. ‘But what I asked you—I mean, I really wanted to
know.
What’ll happen to Perdita, if he’s dead?’

Mr Hoggart took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. He said—it seemed for no particular reason—‘I’m sorry, Tim.’ And then, ‘She’ll be all right. At least, from what Mr Tarbutt says, she’ll have a roof over her head.’

*

‘Mr Smith left a will,’ Annie MacLaren said. She sat in the kitchen at Luinpool and Perdita lay on the settle opposite her. ‘That policeman found it yesterday when he was up here
turning
everything upside down and higgledy-piggledy. It seems the house is your’s, lady.’

Perdita did not appear to have heard. She was staring into the fire.

Annie MacLaren sighed. ‘At least we’ll have a roof over our heads, even if it leaks in places. And we’ve got my pension and the little bit I’ve put by.’

There was silence except for the hiss of the fire and the tick of the clock in the corner.

‘I had a long talk with Mrs Hoggart,’ Annie said. ‘She’s a nice woman and very well educated. She says you should go to school. Here first, and then the big school on Trull. Will you like that?’

A faint interest stirred in the child’s eyes, but vanished almost at once.

Annie looked at her, her heart wrung. ‘There’s been a lot of things sent. Mr Duncan sent up a nice chicken, and butter, and a pound of tea. And the Findlay boy came up this morning with a packet of chocolate.’ There had been other gifts too, left secretly at the back door or sent in the back of Duncan’s van, when he delivered the chicken. Perdita had shown no interest
in any of them. She had eaten nothing, seemed to want nothing, except that Annie should stay with her. The old woman had sat up all night, sleepless on a chair, while Perdita had moaned and tossed in her narrow bed. Tired now, and distressed by the child’s lack of response, tears welled up in the old woman’s eyes and slipped down her soft, pouchy cheeks.

For a moment Perdita stayed where she was, looking away and frowning as if pretending to herself there was nothing wrong. Then she gave a little sigh, slipped off the settle and went over to Annie. She put her arms round her—or, rather, round as much of her as she could manage, since Annie was a big woman—and whispered in her ear. ‘Will I make you a cup of tea, Annie? And a nice bit of toast, at the fire?’

*

Mrs Hoggart and Janey arrived just as Perdita had finished making the tea and setting out cups on a tray. Annie’s hands flew to untie her apron while Perdita went to the door. She went reluctantly, only because Annie had told her to, and stood with her eyes on the ground while Mrs Hoggart asked her how she was, and told her that she and Janey had come to see if she would like to go on a picnic tomorrow. Would she like that? Perdita did not answer and Mrs Hoggart went on
encouragingly
. If she would like to come, they had thought of doing something rather especially exciting …

Perdita shuffled her feet and scowled. For Annie’s sake, she had made an effort to talk and make tea, but she still felt very stiff and strange, rather as if she had a lump of ice inside her
instead
of a heart. And she was not used to loud, cheerful people like Mrs Hoggart with bright, bustling voices—though, in fact, poor Mrs Hoggart’s voice became a good deal less bright as she looked at this unwelcoming little girl who scowled and scowled and said nothing. She was about to say, ‘Well, dear, another day, then?’ and beat a hasty retreat, when Janey spoke.

‘Aren’t you going to ask us in? It’s absolutely horribly rude,
when visitors come, to keep them waiting on the doorstep.’

‘Oh Janey, you mustn’t …’ Mrs Hoggart began, and then stopped, because Perdita was smiling.

It was a shy, lop-sided smile and it vanished almost at once, but it was still a smile. She said, ‘If you like, you can come in and have a cup of tea.’

After that it was all right—or almost all right. They had tea and Annie made toast by the range fire and spread it generously with Mr Duncan’s butter while they talked. At least, while Janey talked. She ate more toast than anyone else and still had time to talk much more. She told Annie how they had been left in the cave and how they would almost certainly have died, if she had not been clever enough to find the way out. ‘It was terribly clever of me,’ she said admiringly, after she had told the story for the second time. ‘If it hadn’t been for me, we would have been skeletons by now, I expect, just our poor bones lying there, like the sheep skulls. I was a heroine, wasn’t I, Perdita?’

Directly addressed, Perdita seemed to shrink into herself. She had not spoken since she had invited them in, Mrs Hoggart realised, just crouched still and quiet on a footstool beside Annie MacLaren’s chair. Now she glanced nervously in Mrs Hoggart’s direction and whispered, very low, ‘It was magic, Annie. I couldn’t see, it was pitch, but
she
could. She has the Second Sight.’

‘Not as good as you,’ Janey said. ‘I told my Dad about you and I told him Tim said it wasn’t true about second sight, and I asked Dad if it
was,
and he said, well, perhaps it was, in a way. He said he didn’t believe in witches himself, but he was sure some people were special, all the same. Blind ones like me and girls who’ve been alone a lot, like you. He said we’ve learned to see and hear things other people don’t have time to, because they’re always too busy just looking and playing. Dad says people like you and me—well—it’s as if we’d grown an extra piece of ourselves that other people don’t have …’ She
swallowed 
her last piece of toast and added, kindly, ‘I expect, if you’d really tried, Perdita, you could have found your way out of the cave by yourself.’ She did not really believe this, but it brought the conversation back to her own stupendous
achievement
. ‘That’s where we’re going tomorrow, to the cave. So Mum and Dad can see just what I did and how hard it was. You will come, won’t you? We’re going to take an extra special picnic.’

Perdita stared in horror—as if, Mrs Hoggart thought, she had been invited to accompany Janey into a lion’s den—before shaking her head violently. Then, remembering Janey could not see her, she said, ‘No thank you,’ and began to blush.

‘She’s not used to a lot of people,’ Annie said.

‘She’s used to me and Tim. And we won’t be a lot. Only five. Our family and Mr Tarbutt.’

‘Five people at once is a lot for her,’ Annie said.

Janey scowled. ‘She’ll have to get used to more people than five when she goes to school. So she might as well start now.’

‘That’s enough, dear,’ her mother said, seeing Perdita’s
miserable
look and the painful colour rising in her cheeks. ‘Perhaps she’ll think it over tonight, and decide to come tomorrow.’

*

But she didn’t come. They waited for nearly an hour after the time Mrs Hoggart had told Annie they would be leaving the hotel, but there was no sign of her. Mr Tarbutt offered to drive up and fetch her but Mrs Hoggart said that would be unkind. ‘If she’d wanted to come, she’d have come. The child’s shy and—well—upset, I imagine. After all, she’s had a terrible time, these last few days.’

Mr Hoggart glanced at Tim and gave his wife a warning frown. Tim gave no sign of having heard, but when they were in the boat and heading seaward, out of Loch Kinnit, he said suddenly, ‘I expect it’s
me
she doesn’t want to see. I expect she thinks it’s all my fault.’

Mr Hoggart put his hand over his son’s and pressed it. Then he said, ‘Maybe she thinks it’s her’s. Have you thought of that?’

The sea was calm and solid. Mr Tarbutt’s boat skimmed over it. The outboard motor spluttered and spray blew in their faces. He let Janey sit in the stern and hold the tiller, explaining how she could steer by the feel of the wind on her cheek. ‘I love the sea, I love the sea,’ she chanted. ‘I’m going to be a sailor when I grow up.’

They rounded the point of Loch Kinnit and crossed the bay where the great rock reared up like a castle. They could see the path round the headland, a hair-thin line against the cliff. Mr
Tarbutt
slowed the motor and put his hand over Janey’s to steer the boat into harbour at Carlin’s Cave. They passed Mr Campbell’s green glass lobster floats, bobbing above his pots.

‘I wonder if they’ll ever find him,’ Tim said, half to himself.

‘Campbell?’ Mr Tarbutt grinned. ‘They’ll have a job—if he doesn’t want to be found. And I’d be surprised if anyone was really bothered to try. Why should they? Unless those jewels of your’s turn up, young man.’

His eyes twinkled at Tim in a friendly, but amused and sceptical way. Tim looked at his mother and father and saw they were smiling too. He turned away and stared moodily at the approaching shore. The outboard motor cut out and the boat slipped quietly into the little harbour. Mr Tarbutt tied up and helped Mrs Hoggart with the picnic basket. Mr Hoggart carried Janey over the rocks to the beach.

Tim followed them slowly. No one believed him, he thought. Janey did, but she was only small, she would believe a lie if he told her. Perhaps his mother did, but she was not really
inter
ested
,
now he and Janey were safe and his father well and they were all together again. Nor was his father: though he had made a show of being interested, to please him, all he really wanted was to forget about the whole business. He had told the police that as far as he was concerned, he would prefer them not
to press the charge against Mr Jones. ‘Give him the benefit of the doubt,’ Tim had heard him say to his mother as he passed their bedroom door that morning. ‘I admit I thought he’d pushed me deliberately, but it’s all so hazy in my mind now—it might well have been an accident, as he says. And, as for the business of the children and the cave …’

He had lowered his voice then, and Tim could not hear what his next words were, but his imagination supplied them.
We’ve
only
Tim’s
word
for
that,
and
you
know
what
he
is.
And then his mother had said, ‘Well, it doesn’t really matter, I suppose. It’s all over now.’

All
over
now.
As they explored the cave, the comforting light of torches and lanterns showing them the dangerous way Janey had led them to safety, the words whispered over and over inside Tim’s head.