The Witch's Daughter (6 page)

He began to feel he had made a fool of himself. ‘It was just bad luck I twisted my ankle,’ he said. ‘T’wasn’t a difficult climb—I’ve done lots of climbs that are much more difficult than
that.
Why, Dad and I climbed down the big waterfall to Carlin’s Cave. That’s terrible dangerous. It’s so dangerous I shouldn’t think anyone else has ever been there …’

There was a surprised look in her green eyes. ‘I’ve often been,’ she said simply. ‘It’s a bit hard, the waterfall way, though it’s the quickest way home, but you can go round the headland, that’s not hard at all. It doesn’t take long, from the bay. Will Campbell beaches his boat there when he goes lobster fishing and sometimes Mr Smith meets him there, and they go lobster fishing together. I think it’s a bit silly, really, because Mr Smith never eats lobsters, but Annie says he just catches them for sport, and for sending to his friends.’

Tim was too occupied, getting down off the rock, to pay much attention to her.

*

‘She knew you’d hurt yourself,’ Janey said. ‘We were writing in the sand and then she stopped and said you were hurt.’

Tim, resting on the beach and nursing his aching foot, looked at Perdita curiously. He thought her a very odd girl. ‘How’d you know?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t call or anything.’

‘I just knew,’ Perdita said, hanging her head and speaking
very low. ‘I got this feeling …’ She stopped. She couldn’t explain it. ‘Annie says it’s the Second Sight,’ she said.

Tim stared at her blankly. He looked pale and very tired, and because this was something that always made Mr Smith laugh and cheer up when
he
was tired, Perdita said, ‘She says I’ve got the Second Sight because I’m a witch’s daughter.’

But Tim didn’t laugh. He frowned. ‘There’s no such things as witches.’

Janey said, crossly, ‘You don’t
know
that, do you?’ She caught her breath. ‘Witches can fly. Can
you
fly, Perdita?’

Perdita hesitated. She wasn’t certain. When she was alone sometimes and shut her eyes, she thought she could. She remembered the feeling but now it seemed unreal, like a dream.

‘I’d like to fly,’ Janey said. She stood up and spread out her arms like wings. They were sitting in the lee of the great rock, but once Janey moved out of its shelter, the wind was so strong she could almost lean against it. It blew her hair and snatched her clothes. She danced, whirling her arms, staggering against the wind. ‘The wind makes you fly,’ she cried. ‘I’m flying now, in the wind. Is this how you fly, Perdita?’

‘It’s just an illusion,’ Tim said.

Janey collapsed on the ground. ‘I
did
fly,’ she cried. ‘I felt myself flying—over the land and over the sea.’

‘It feels like that,’ Tim explained. ‘But it’s an illusion, like I said. Like … like when you look up at a mountain and it seems to move because the clouds are going so fast.’

Janey, who had never seen mountains or clouds, could not understand this. But Perdita did. She looked thoughtful,
suddenly
, and then she stood up as Janey had done, and spread out her arms to the buffeting wind. She remembered what flying was like, or thought she remembered: sitting on the rock in the bay, she had flown with the gulls in the air. Now, though she tried hard, the feeling was slipping away from her. ‘It’s just the wind blowing,’ she said.

She opened her eyes and sat down. Tim was smiling at her, and she said, rather crossly, ‘I can see through walls, though, and round corners.’

‘Not really,’ Tim said. ‘I mean, scientifically speaking, that’s nonsense. It’s a sort of
guessing.
’

‘Second Sight’s knowing, not guessing.’ Perdita looked
obstinate
. ‘You don’t see with your eyes.’

‘I know what’s happening and I can’t see at all,’ Janey said triumphantly. ‘So I’ve got Second Sight, too. Only not as good as Perdita. I didn’t know something had happened to you, and
she
did.’

Tim drew a deep breath. ‘There’s a scientific explanation for everything,’ he said, and wondered what the explanation could be. ‘She knew the rock is dangerous,’ he said. ‘She knew I’d been gone a long time …’

‘I wasn’t thinking about you. Not for
one
minute.
’
Perdita sat bolt upright, her green eyes bright and angry. She was angry, because, in spite of being underfed and badly dressed she was, in a way, extremely spoiled: no one in her whole life had ever contradicted or disbelieved her as Tim was doing now. There had been no one to do so, except old Annie MacLaren and she believed in witches herself.

‘I’ve got Powers,’ Perdita said. ‘Annie says so. She says my mother was a witch.’

‘S
HE WAS DROWNED
in the loch, the poor, dear soul,’ Annie MacLaren said. ‘Such a young, pretty thing, and the poor bairn only a few weeks old and not even christened. It was the minister named her. Call her Perdita, he said. An outlandish name, I thought.’

‘Pretty, though,’ Mr Smith said. ‘And her father?’

Sitting back in her chair and smoothing the rheumaticky knobs on her hands, Annie MacLaren looked into the fire. ‘Drowned, too. He was a fisherman, his boat went down and his poor young wife never got over it. My brother found her, wandering in the bog with the baby, and we took her in. No one else would. Of course, she was a foreigner …’

‘You mean she came from another island?’ Mr Smith hid a smile: old Annie was not often in a talkative mood, and he didn’t want to offend her.

‘No. She was Spanish or Italian—one of those people. She’d been a waitress in Glasgow and never got used to our ways. She kept away from people and they kept away from
her.
They said,’—she gave Mr Smith a suddenly sharp look—‘they said she was a witch.’

‘Kept herself to herself,’ Mr Smith said. ‘You don’t have to be a witch to do that.’

‘Maybe not. But they said she turned the milk sour. People kept their children away. Not that I listened to their talk, but she was strange, there’s no doubt. Never talked, walked the hills alone … It was grief, my brother said, but women have lost husbands before and not acted like that.’

‘A foreign girl, in a strange land?’ Mr Smith said softly, but Annie, who was a little deaf, did not hear him.

‘She went into the loch one night in the mist,’ she said. ‘People say the Lake Horse took her.’

‘The Lake Horse?’

‘It’s a story.’ The old woman spoke with some restraint, and then added, ‘Though some have seen it, mind. A great horse, galloping on the water.’

‘A story to frighten children.’ Mr Smith laughed. ‘Or to keep them away from the loch?’

‘Maybe,’ Annie said, very dryly. ‘And maybe not. Who’s to know?’

He felt her sudden antagonism: to win her back, he said, ‘Anyway, you kept the child. That was good of you, Annie.’

‘We’d no choice,’ Annie said. ‘Who else would take her? Not that I regret it. She’s like my own bairn, even if she is a bit …’ She drew breath and spoke firmly. ‘Whatever her mother was, or was not, the child has gifts.’

‘She’s sharp as a needle. Keeps her ears and eyes open. Isn’t that all, Annie?’

‘Not all, no. She saved my life once. And in such a way—oh, I daresay you’ll not believe it.’

She spoke irritably, as if she found him unbearably foolish.

‘Try me,’ Mr Smith said.

‘It isn’t fancy.’ Annie’s voice held a warning and Mr Smith composed his face so that whatever she said, he wouldn’t smile. ‘Outside our croft, we had this big tree. One end of the washing line was tied to it. I was out one evening, taking the line down, when she came out. She’d been fast asleep only a minute before—she was only little, then, and I’d tucked her up in bed—but there she was in her nightgown, calling me. She said
Come
away,
come
away
Annie.
I ran, thinking she was frightened, and just as I got to her there was a great
crack
,
and the tree fell, where I’d been standing. I picked her up and took her in,
thinking it was my good luck she had had a bad dream and woken, and I asked what had frightened her. She looked up and smiled and said,
I
wasn’t
frightened,
Annie,
I
just
didn’t
want
the
old
tree
to
hurt
you.’

The kettle hissed on the fire and a clinker dropped. Mr Smith sat silent. Of course it could be explained away, nothing easier. Old Annie would not deliberately lie, but fright could have distorted her memory—even put words into a child’s mouth that had never been spoken.
I’m
glad
the
old
tree
didn’t
hurt
you,
Annie.
That was the only change needed to turn the story into a simple tale of coincidence and good luck. On the other hand, the child—the little witch, he thought with a sudden grin—
was
disconcerting. She had a way of looking at you with that wide, green stare … It wasn’t surprising that a foolish old woman should believe she had special ‘powers’. He might, if he stayed here much longer on this lonely island, come to believe it himself …

He brushed the back of his hand across his eyes.
Of
course
it
wasn’t
true.
The child was sharp, as he had said to Annie, she used her wits, that was all. If she seemed strange, sometimes, it was because she was too much alone.

‘She should go to school,’ he said, aloud.

Annie MacLaren looked at him in surprise. ‘I thought you didn’t want her mixing.’

‘Well …’ Mr Smith hesitated. There was something he had to tell Annie sometime, he might as well tell her now. Even if she gossiped, which was unlikely, it hardly mattered now he would soon be gone. And he had to go. He had lived on Skua for three years without anyone suspecting he had any particular purpose here. He had been safe, but he was no longer as safe as he had been. The islanders were simple, unsuspicious people, but there were other people not so simple, Mr Smith did not underestimate the police. Once their attention had been drawn to Skua by Mr Jones’s foolish behaviour, they would be curious.
They might even be curious about Mr Smith, that quiet, country gentleman living a retired life beside a loch …

‘I shall be leaving, Annie,’ Mr Smith said. ‘Quite soon. And when I go, I want you to send her to school.’

He looked at the old woman. The things that family man, Mr Jones, had said, had pricked his rather sluggish conscience. ‘She should have a proper chance, Annie,’ he said. ‘She’s
undersized
for her age, she should have more milk and orange juice and she shouldn’t run wild. But school’s the main thing.’ He felt, suddenly, generous and full of sentiment. ‘I’ll see you’re all right, Annie, there’ll be money, don’t worry about that. Just see she gets to school and has a chance to grow up like other children. Not too full of superstitious ideas—not thinking she’s different …’

*

‘Annie says I’m different,’ Perdita said. It was all she would say. She had gone sullen and obstinate with Tim, the way Janey did sometimes, he thought.
Girls.
They were all the same. Whenever you disagreed with them and tried to put them right, they were inclined to get cross and sulk.

The swelling in his foot had subsided a little, but it still ached enough to make him feel irritable and moody. He sat
deliberately
apart and ate sandwiches while Perdita and Janey whispered and giggled together. Perdita was showing Janey something that she was wearing round her neck on a piece of string. She had been wearing it when she found him, he remembered, but he had not noticed it since: perhaps she had tucked it inside the neck of her dress.

‘What is it?’ he asked, idly interested.

Perdita turned, pulling away from Janey and clutching her hand across her flat little chest.

‘It’s a lucky stone she’s got,’ Janey said.

‘Show me,’ he coaxed Perdita, less because he really wanted to see it than because he felt he had been unkind: witches
were nonsense, of course, but it had been mean to laugh at her.

But she shook her head, her mouth pursed and stubborn. ‘T’won’t stay lucky, if I show you.’

‘You showed Janey.’

Perdita frowned. Showing Janey the stone was all right. Mr Jones had talked about
showing
people: he had said nothing about letting someone
feel
it.

Tim edged nearer, a glint in his eye. ‘Please …’ he said, giving her a chance, but when she shook her head again, he laughed and grabbed at her. He had only meant to tease, not to force her to show her secret, but, taken by surprise, she over-balanced and thrust both hands behind her to steady herself.

Netted like a lobster float, but in thinner string, the lucky stone winked and flashed on her chest. Tim stared at it in wonder. There might be doubt about his ruby, but there was none about
this.
It was like the central stone in his mother’s engagement ring, but much larger, much brighter …

Perdita was astonished. She was not used to boys who teased and grabbed her. Alistair Campbell might throw a stone, but he was too scared to lay a finger on her: he would be afraid she might put a spell on him.

But this boy wasn’t afraid. There was only awestruck wonder in his face as he stared at the stone. ‘It’s a
diamond
,’
he said in a high, squeaky voice.

Perdita picked the stone up from her chest and squinted down at it. ‘What’s a diamond?’ she asked.

‘What’s a …’

Tim transferred his gaze to her face, which was innocently enquiring.

‘Don’t you
know
?’
It seemed incredible to him, though of course it wasn’t really: Annie MacLaren had no engagement ring, and so the word had never entered Perdita’s vocabulary.

‘Well …’ Tim expelled his breath slowly. ‘A diamond’s a … a … valuable thing. Like emeralds or rubies or gold. It’s … well … treasure …’

Perdita’s expression remained puzzled.

Tim sighed. ‘You’ve heard about treasure trove, haven’t you? I mean, you must have read about it in books?’

‘She can’t read,’ Janey said.

‘Can’t … oh, I see.’ Although this seemed just as
extraordinary
as not knowing what a diamond was, Tim nodded
casually
, the way his father did when he had accepted a point in an argument: he thought Perdita must have been terribly shamed by this revelation and he did not want to embarrass her further. After all, it was only babies or very stupid people who couldn’t read …

He spoke to her slowly, as if she were indeed very stupid.

‘Do you know what “valuable” means?’

‘Worth a lot of money.’ Perdita touched her stone. ‘Is this worth a lot of money, then?’ She thought a minute, and then smiled. ‘I can give it to Annie for her old age. She’s always worrying about that. She says all she wants is a bit of peace and comfort. Would this be enough to buy her a bit of peace and comfort?’

‘I should think so,’ Tim said. But he was not really interested in Annie. Something else was puzzling—and exciting—him. She must have picked up this diamond somewhere. Suppose she had found it in the cave where he had found his ruby—suppose his ruby
was
a ruby, after all—suppose it
was
a
smuggler’s
cave …

‘Where’d you find it?’ he demanded. And then, though anything else seemed unlikely, ‘
Did
you find it?’

Perdita shook her head slowly.
A
piece
of
glass
worth
a
king’s
ransom.
That’s what Mr Jones had said. ‘Mr Jones said it was a piece of glass,’ she said, and paused. ‘What’s a king’s ransom?’ she asked.

‘Just another way of saying a lot of money. D’you mean someone
gave
it to you?’

Perdita nodded. ‘He said he’d got plenty more, so I don’t suppose it mattered giving me one.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘
That’s
what he had in the box! I thought it was toffees!’

Tim noticed nothing. It was Janey who made the connexion. Since she could not look at people’s faces while they talked, she always listened very closely to what they said. ‘Was it our Mr Jones who gave you the stone, then? We call him Toffee Papers.’

She said absently, ‘He did eat a lot of toffees and dropped the paper about. Annie was cross because of the mess. But I call him Frog Face.’

‘He has got a face like a frog,’ Tim said. ‘Sort of bulgy and flat at the same time.’ It struck him that this was not altogether polite, although Perdita had mentioned it first. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

‘Why?’ Perdita asked.

‘Well. It’s a bit rude, my saying that, when he’s a friend of yours.’

‘Oh, he’s not a friend of
mine
,’
Perdita said cheerfully. ‘I just met him once, that’s all.’

Tim’s eyes grew round. This was becoming more and more extraordinary. A witch’s daughter who wore a diamond round her neck—a diamond given her by Mr Jones, whom she had only met once! And yet he was sure she wasn’t lying.

‘Where’d you meet him?’ he asked abruptly.

Perdita said nothing. She had already said too much, she suddenly realised. Mr Smith did not want talk about his visitor. She had promised Annie. She hung her head and began to draw letters in the sand, pretending she had not heard Tim’s question.

But he thought he knew the answer to it. He had found a stone on the beach which looked like a ruby. Suppose there were others—not necessarily a smuggler’s treasure trove, but a
box of jewels, perhaps, washed ashore from a wrecked ship. Suppose Toffee Papers had found it and Perdita had seen him, and he had given her the diamond. Why? Why would he do that? Perhaps—Tim began to feel very excited—perhaps
because
he didn’t want to hand the jewels over to the police and it was a sort of bribe …

‘Did he tell you to keep it secret?’ he asked.

Perdita said nothing.

‘Did he find it on the beach?’ Tim went on. ‘Did he …’

But Perdita stood up. ‘I’m going now,’ she said.

‘Are you going home?’ Janey asked. ‘Where do you live?’

But Perdita did not answer, only ducked her head and ran fast across the sand. They watched her disappear in the dunes and then appear again, climbing up the cropped turf to the dry-stone wall.

‘You shouldn’t have kept on asking things,’ Janey said. ‘She doesn’t like it.’

‘You don’t find out things if you don’t ask,’ Tim said.

*

‘That’ll be Annie MacLaren’s foster daughter,’ Mrs Tarbutt said. ‘Lives up at Luinpool. Annie MacLaren’s housekeeper to Mr Smith. I’m surprised she spoke to you. She’s a shy creature.’

‘Wild,’ Mr Tarbutt said, and grinned at the children, sitting at the table in the hotel kitchen and eating their tea. ‘You ought to watch out, young Tim,’ he said solemnly. ‘The children round here fight shy of her. They say she’s a witch.’