I asked her what her name was, but she could not remember that either.

During the first week in November when the sea was as calm as a lake I made one of the men row me out to the Devil’s Teeth. It was perfectly safe, for those men knew every inch of that stretch of sea; they knew exactly where the treacherous rocks lay hidden beneath the water.

I saw the ship caught there on the rocks, a pitiful sight. She was broken in half; the sharp rocks must have been driven right through her; and I read on her side the words Santa Maria.

I wondered why that woman had been on the ship. She must have been travelling with her husband; perhaps he was the captain of the vessel. How strange it was that she could remember nothing. She would in time. Such a shock as she had experienced could rob a woman of her memory.

Perhaps, poor soul, it was as well that she could not remember; perhaps it would stop her grieving too much until she recovered a little.

Her child was due towards the end of December, the midwife told me. I think that perhaps the fact that she was pregnant was the reason for her serenity. I imagined that the greatest importance to her was the welfare of her child, and I determined to make her as comfortable as I could for I felt a great responsibility towards her. There was one picture which kept coming into my mind and which I could not dismiss. It was that of the men returning to the Seaward Tower with their donkeys and lanterns. Where had they been? I had an idea but I would not face it. I could not bear to because I thought that if I did I could not stay here.

The woman had to have a name and because the name of the ship was Santa Maria I called her Maria. I asked if she would mind if I called her by that name.

“Maria,” she said slowly and shook her head. I did not know whether she meant we could call her by that name but we did. And very soon she was known throughout the household as Maria.

By December it was clear that the birth of her child was imminent. My mother came to spend the Christmas with us and Edwina and Romilly accompanied her. Penn had gone to sea. He had been so excited to be allowed to join one of the ships. The cargoes that had been brought back after the first voyage had proved valuable and they were eager to repeat their success, although not their losses.

We did not talk very much about the voyage because it always meant a certain anxiety; and I wanted them to enjoy the festivities.

It was a week before Christmas and I was expecting Maria’s child to be born any day. I had insisted that the midwife stay at the castle, for I still feared that Maria’s adventure when she was so advanced in pregnancy might have had some effect which was not apparent. I was frantically anxious that nothing should go wrong. It was not that I had any great affection for Maria. She was not an easy person to know. Her aloofness might have been due to her ignorance of our language, but it was certainly there. She accepted our concern and help as though it were her right and she never seemed over grateful for it. I felt however that her child must be born and live. The uneasy thoughts which had come into my mind on the night when the Santa Maria had sunk, persisted, and I could not dismiss them.

When my mother was introduced to Maria she was clearly surprised. I had mentioned her in a letter but only briefly; and I had discovered that everyone who met Maria was astonished by her. It was something more than mere beauty but I could not yet quite understand what.

“What a beautiful woman,” said my mother when we were alone. “So she is the lady of the shipwreck. And she cannot remember who she is. One thing is certain. She is of high birth, patrician to the fingertips. Where will she go when the child is born?”

“I don’t know. She cannot remember whence she came.”

“And she was on the ship. How very strange.”

“I think she must have been the wife of the captain, and I think too that after the child is born her memory may return.”

“Then she will wish to go to her family, I doubt not.”

“If she is Spanish that could be difficult.”

“There is no doubt that she is Spanish,” said my mother. “I could speak with her a little in her native tongue if I remember it. My first husband was a Spaniard as you know and during my life with him I learned a little.”

“She would be glad if you did,” I replied warmly. “It must be difficult for her with no one to talk to.”

“I will see what I can discover,” replied my mother.

Later she talked to Maria, but although Maria was clearly glad to converse with someone who could speak her native tongue a little she could not or would not tell her anything about herself. She seemed to remember, she told my mother, that she was on a ship though she couldn’t recall for what reason. She vaguely remembered the storm and the ship’s trying to come into port. Why she was on the ship was still as much a mystery to her as it had been on her arrival here.

My mother shared the opinion that after the child was born her memory might return.

In the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Maria’s pains started. Jennet brought me the news of this and I immediately summoned the midwife. The child was born without her though. She went into the room and found a beautifully formed little girl.

She was astounded.

“All is well?” I asked urgently.

“I was never in attendance on such an easy birth.”

Maria lay calm and beautiful, the red curtains drawn back from her bed and I thought: On that bed poor Melanie must have suffered her many miscarriages and finally she died there trying to give Colum the son he wanted. Now a child has been born there—a strong healthy child.

It was a strange Christmas day. We had the usual rejoicing but it was not the same as usual. I could not forget—nor could my mother and Edwina—that a child had been born under our roof.

There was feasting and singing and the games we played at Christmas time but my thoughts were in the Red Room where Maria lay in the bed with her child beside her. I had had brought in the cot which I had used for my children when they were babies. Now that lovely little girl lay in it.

It was the day after Christmas that Edwina passed me on the stairs.

She looked strained, I thought. I said: “Edwina, is anything wrong? You look … worried.”

“Oh it’s nothing, Linnet. My fancy, nothing more.”

“But there is something, Edwina.”

“It’s just that I feel that something has changed here … that there is something …”

I stared at her. My mother had once said: “Edwina has fancies. It is because one of her ancestors was a witch. Sometimes she has a special power.”

I was suddenly nervous, although before I had been inclined to shrug aside Edwina’s fancies.

She gripped my arm suddenly. “Take care, Linnet,” she said. “There is something evil in this house.”

“What on earth do you mean?” I demanded.

“Oh, nothing. I shouldn’t have said that. Forget it. It was just a thought that came into my mind.”

“Ah,” I said, “one of the fancies. I know what it is. It’s the cry of the gulls. They do sound as though they are warning us.”

But she lived by the sea. She was accustomed to the cry of the gulls. She was used to the weird sound the sea sometimes made when it thundered into the caves or over the rocks.

No, she had sensed something evil. Oh yes, there was evil in this house. I had long suspected it … long before the coming of Maria and that night when I had seen the men returning to Seaward Tower with their donkeys.

But I hid my fear from Edwina. She had this gift and, like many people who possessed it and did not understand it, she was a little afraid of it. She was always ready to believe it was merely a fancy because she found it comforting to do so.

So we laughed together and pretended to forget, but what she had said lingered in my mind.