3.1 Mrs Sinclair and The Feather Haa

In which the ladies reach Naples.

Aug 16, 2024

Two weeks later, Mrs Sinclair was gazing at the sea from the bows of a small sailing packet. Miss Warner and the reliable Aitken were standing beside the baggage. Mrs Sinclair did not feel on edge; she was aware that the Compulsion had been lifted temporarily, as if it were useless while their travelling was at the mercy of wind and tide.

‘It is an unexpectedly considerate spell,’ she had remarked to Miss Warner. ‘I also wonder if our sufferings on the first sea-journey were noticed, and perhaps some influence has been laid on the weather?’

Miss Warner thought the distance too great for such a spell’s efficacy to be sustained, but Mrs Sinclair was beginning to have serious thoughts, when she was permitted to think at all, about Lady Brae’s powers.

‘She is not an ordinary witch. We can be sure of that.’ She frowned, looking out at the approaching coast of France.

Miss Warner agreed.

Mrs Sinclair folded her black silk shawl more closely around her shoulders. ‘I wish I knew more about her. But I cannot recall Gilbert saying anything of any use. He disliked her extremely, but that was all he ever saw fit to say about her.’

Mrs Sinclair was also glad that their comfort had been assured by the complete indifference of the other passengers to their presence on the boat. The five other passengers, lugubrious French merchants and a fat priest in tidy black robes, had not glanced once at them and the sailors had left them strictly alone.

‘I have an unaccountable reassurance that somehow we will not receive unwelcome attentions despite being two ladies travelling alone.’

‘I hope you are right, Madam. Though of course Aitken does attend us.’

‘Not in the dining-room and sitting-room.’

A call from the upper deck brought sailors swarming over the deck as the ship prepared to dock. Mrs Sinclair stood out of the way to wait until the gangplank was in place for disembarking. She noticed that far behind them out to sea in the Channel, the thwarted grey clouds and rain of winter were gathering, and the waves were rising now that they had reached the land. She hoped that other sailors, more experienced than her, would not come to harm.

But once they had disembarked, Mrs Sinclair’s Compulsion returned with force. She had arranged their passage to Paris in less than an hour. Aitken loaded their baggage onto the carriage with calm competence, and climbed up to travel beside the coachman.

After Paris, they travelled to Dijon. After Dijon, they took a coach for Lyons. On the third day of travelling in swaying public diligences, Miss Warner leaned forward, to speak as privately to her employer as she could.

‘Madam, we must stay two nights in Lyons. There is the laundry to be seen to, and I must write letters. We need exercise, and hot food. Your other travelling dress has a rent in it that I must mend.’

‘No.’

‘Madam.’ Miss Warner’s voice was calm, but it was backed with steel.

Mrs Sinclair struggled, and then to her surprise she felt a release from the fog that had clouded her volition for so long.

‘Yes! Yes, you are right. We will stop. Three nights, if we need to. Oh thank god, I had forgotten what it was like to be my own mistress.’

Mrs Sinclair looked blindly out the window, her eyes filling with tears. Miss Warner closed her eyes with relief. None of the other passengers in the carriage seemed to notice.

Miss Warner’s unexpected firmness seemed to have an effect on Lady Brae’s Compulsion. Designed as it seemed to be to enforce a sustained and relentless passage across the continent, Mrs Sinclair felt deeply grateful that Miss Warner was able to enforce some stops for rest and recovery.

‘Or else I might,’ she said with a bitter laugh, pinning up wet undergarments to dry in her room, ‘have travelled without stopping for food or sleep for weeks.’

France, and then Italy swept past if she were merely a spectator of a vast unfolding panorama. Glimpses of the mountains and the picturesque colours and sounds of the Mediterranean in winter made no impact on her senses: it was all a picture to be viewed, not experienced. But she could see that Miss Warner watched the vistas come and go during the passing hours with regret. As different smells and unexpected colours washed over them, she breathed more deeply, gazing avidly from the coach’s narrow windows. Mrs Sinclair observed the change in her companion with an unexplained sadness, dimly aware that she was missing something that the older woman was feeling strongly. Even Aitken was changing. He smiled more, though he still maintained the stern vigilance over the ladies that he had since their first setting out together. Occasionally, in the evenings when they were settling into the next inn or bergère on their route, Mrs Sinclair heard him whistle in the stableyard. Over the weeks the tunes changed, as if he were collecting new music. The whistling comforted her.

As they approached their final destination, through noisy and bewildering streets in Naples, the fog in Mrs Sinclair’s mind lifted, unexpectedly. She began to look about her with proper curiosity, admiring the colours and sights she could see from the carriage with appreciation. The carriage wound through extraordinarily tight and crowded streets, which she enjoyed until the smells of unwashed bodies and pungent cooking grew too insistent. Miss Warner was greatly relieved at the renewal of vigour in Mrs Sinclair’s demeanour, and asked her mistress quietly about her plans. But the next stage in their journey was a complete blank in Mrs Sinclair’s mind and there was nothing further in Miss Warner’s careful notes to advise them. There were no more instructions.

But somebody was there at the Naples inn to meet them. A fat little man in a colourful military uniform was waiting impatiently beside a smart carriage in the inn yard, a pale blue equipage drawn by a pair of greys who were munching from a manger in the inn courtyard, attended by a coachman. The little man leapt forward to assist the ladies to descend from the public coach, which they were greatly relieved to quit. Aitken extracted their baggage from the tightly bound mound on the roof with a competence borne of long practice. Mrs Sinclair looked at the little man with curiosity.

The Shetland Witch

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