Saraband for Two Sisters (18 page)

A few days passed during which I did not go far afield. Carlotta was anxious that I should not until I was adequately dressed and, as she said, had cast off some of my country manners, which she made me feel would be despised in London. I must learn to walk with more dignity, hold my head high, to move with grace, to bow, to curtsey and to overcome a certain accent which would not be acceptable in London society.

I allowed myself to be primed and took an interest in it, largely because it turned my mind from brooding on what was happening at home. I had to shut out the thought of Bersaba’s face on the pillow—fevered, her eyes wild, and the horrible signs of her illness upon her. I kept telling myself that I could do no good by dwelling on it, so I meekly allowed myself to be turned into a copy of a town-bred girl.

Carlotta was certainly enjoying the operation. I wondered whether she enjoyed scoring over us for some reason. Although I was parted from Bersaba I still thought of us together, and I asked myself now whether Carlotta had taken up Bastian as she did because she knew of Bersaba’s fondness for him. It seemed that that might be characteristic of her.

On the third day after my arrival Senara returned. She embraced me warmly and seemed really pleased to see me, and asked a good many questions about Bersaba. I had the impression that she really cared about my mother.

‘Poor Tamsyn,’ she said. ‘I can picture her distress. She was always more like a mother to me than a sister, though she was but a year older. She mothered everyone … even her own mother. I know she will be in great distress. I am glad to have you here with us and I shall write to your mother and tell her so.’

She was more sympathetic and understanding than her daughter, and I was able to talk to her and tell her how homesick I was and how I was wondering whether I ought to go home as Carlotta did not seem to think I fitted into the London scene.

She shook her head. ‘You have a certain charm, Angelet, which is appealing and I am sure many people here will appreciate it. Your fresh country innocence will seem charming to people who are weary of the society ways which are often false.’

‘Carlotta wants to change me.’

‘We must see that she doesn’t succeed too well.’

Senara certainly comforted me, particularly when she talked about her childhood and how she and my mother had been as close as sisters. ‘I know how you feel about Bersaba,’ she said. ‘Of course your mother and I were not twins, but the manner in which I came to the castle made her feel she had to protect me, and I always enjoyed that motherly security she threw around me. She does it to many. It’s her way.’

So I felt better when Senara returned, and when I went riding with her and we passed along by the river I was temporarily forgetful of everything but the wonder of it, for as we approached the city the boats on the river were so numerous that they almost touched each other.

Senara was pleased at my wonder. She told me that I was in the greatest port in the world and that ships came here from every place I could imagine. I was excited and comforted to see some of the ships from my father’s East India Company because that made me feel that I was not so very far away. How wonderful they looked! How powerfully built! They were equipped to face the storms they would meet at sea as well as armed against pirates! Then I began to wonder what my father was doing now—and Fennimore and Bastian—and fear touched me that some ill might befall them and if Bersaba were to die …

Senara, glancing at me, saw the misery in my face and she said kindly: ‘Everything will come out well, I promise you.’

‘How can you know?’ I asked.

‘I know these things,’ she told me. I thought: She
is
a witch, and I wanted to believe she was so that I could assure myself that she was right.

She showed me the wharves where goods were being unloaded—some by the Company’s ships and others from Amsterdam, Germany, Italy and France. I could not help being enthralled, and after that a little of the burden of fear lightened. Senara had said that all would be well and that meant that my family would be safe. I believed Senara. As a witch she could have special knowledge of these matters.

The days which had seemed endless by the end of the first week began to fly past. I had a new wardrobe now and I was pleased that my clothes were looser than those we had worn in the country. Ana, who was a good seamstress, told me that the stiff fashions which had once come from Spain were quite outmoded now. Farthingales were never worn and one did not put stiffening under skirts to make them stand out. Ruffs were completely of the past, so were high collars, and it was smart and becoming to wear low-cut dresses. The wrists and arms were often shown and some of my new gowns had sleeves which came only to the elbow. When I wore these I had long gloves and a great deal of attention was paid to getting the right ones.

Ana dressed my hair too. She gave me a fringe of curls on my forehead which had to be crimped each day.

Mab, like myself, had to go through a certain tuition. I think she enjoyed it, for she started to give herself airs and talk disparagingly of the poor maids at Trystan who had no idea what fashion meant.

I was beginning to feel that but for the anxieties about what was happening at home and if Bersaba could have been with me, my trip to London would have been a great adventure.

Sir Gervaise appeared a few days after my arrival. He was kind and asked solicitously after my family. He was quite clearly concerned and I thought he was much more kindly than his wife and I wondered if he was happy in his marriage. I believed that Carlotta would be a demanding and not very affectionate wife. Of course he admired her beauty, which was something one could not help but be aware of. When I looked at myself in the mirror with my fashionable fringe and my rather bony wrists I often thought what a contrast I made to the elegant magnificance of Carlotta. She seemed to be aware of it too, for she viewed me with great complacency.

So I began to feel a little happier, for Senara’s certainty that all would be well and Sir Gervaise’s gentleness were of great help to me.

Every day I would hope for a message from home, but Senara said: ‘It is as yet too early. Your mother would wait to tell you until she was certain that the crisis was over. I promise you it will be, but remember it will take a little time for the messenger to get here.’

Sir Gervaise told me that he knew several people who had suffered from the smallpox and survived. Careful nursing, the sickness taken in time … these things worked wonders!

They did all they could to sustain me, and I began to accept their conviction. All will be well, I told myself. It must be. There could not be a world without Bersaba.

I dreamed of her; it was as though she were with me, laughing at my fringe and my shyness with Carlotta. It was almost as though she injected some of her qualities into me. Sometimes I used to think: We are really one person, and I believed she was thinking of me at that moment as she lay on her sick-bed, just as I was thinking of her, so that part of me seemed in that bed of fever and part of her was here in this elegant house learning something of fashions and ways of London society.

I liked to listen to Sir Gervaise talking. He knew that I was interested and seemed to enjoy it when I listened so intently.

He told me that he was rather concerned about the way in which the country was moving. The King could not be aware of his growing unpopularity and the Queen did nothing to help.

‘The people here are suspicious of her,’ he said, ‘because she is a Catholic and she will do all she can to bring Catholicism into England. Not that she could ever succeed. The people here will never have it. Ever since Bloody Mary’s reign they have set their hearts against it.’

I asked about the King and he told me: ‘A man of great charm, of good looks—for all he is of small stature—and perfect manners. But he will never win the popularity of the people. He is too aloof. They do not understand him nor he them. He is proud, with a firm belief that God set the King on the throne and that his right to be there is unquestioned. I fear it will bring trouble … to him and the country.’ He looked at me and smiled. ‘I am wearying you. Forgive me.’

‘Indeed you are not,’ I assured him. ‘I long to learn something of what is happening at Court.’

‘I fear,’ he said ominously, ‘that before long the whole country will be aware of what is happening at Court.’

I gradually began to understand what he meant, and my education began the next day when Carlotta took me into London to buy lace and other materials such as ribbons, gloves and a fan or two. We went in style, for Sir Gervaise, being a rich and important gentleman, was the owner of a coach, and because Carlotta had the ability to wheedle anything out of him, she persuaded him to allow her to use it. It was grand, like a padded box with seats for two at the back and front and a window with velvet drapes which could be pulled if one wished to shut out the street scene. Sir Gervaise’s family crest was emblazoned on the side and it was drawn by two magnificent white horses. The driver was resplendent in the Pondersby livery and so was the footman mounted at the back.

Thus in state we set off, and as we approached the city I became aware of an atmosphere of bustle and excitement; there were people on horseback and people on foot, all behaving as though their business was of the utmost urgency, matters of life and death. For the first time I saw one of the new hackney coaches which could be hired for short distances; a carrier’s waggon trundled past us and, with a great deal of noise, turned into an inn yard. There were so many barges and other craft on the river that the water was almost invisible; and everywhere people seemed to be shouting, calling to each other, sharing jokes, quarrelling, cajoling, threatening. I saw men and women in the most exaggerated of costumes. The low-cut dresses of the women seemed distinctly immodest to me, but at home we were still in the fashions of twenty years before, I supposed, when even ruffs and certainly the high collars which followed them were still being worn. The men were more surprising than the women, for they wore wide sashes and their garters, just above the knee, were made of ribbon with big bows at the side; and there were rosettes on their shoes.

But this elaborate costume was not general, for there were of course the beggars—ragged, sharp-eyed, darting hither and thither, pleading and threatening, and there was another kind of citizen who by the very sombre nature of their dress called attention to the splendour of others. These were men in cloth doublets and dark-coloured breeches, their collars were plain white and their tall crowned hats were unadorned by feathers; the women who were with them were dressed in plain gowns usually grey in colour, with white aprons protecting their skirts and white caps or plain tall hats similar to those worn by the men. They were like a different race of people; they walked quietly, eyes downcast except when they cast looks of contempt at those who swaggered by in their flamboyant garments.

I asked Carlotta who these people were.

‘Oh, they are the Puritans,’ she said. ‘They believe it is wicked to enjoy life. See how they cut their hair.’

‘I do,’ I said. ‘It’s a great contrast to those who wear theirs long like women.’

‘Long hair is so much more becoming.’

‘The contrast is so great,’ I said. ‘In the country no one looks as grand and no one as sombre.’

‘They will. Fashions arrive in time … even in remote places like Cornwall.’

I disliked the denigration in her voice when she talked of my home, so I said no more and gave my full attention to the scene before me.

I had never seen women such as those I occasionally glimpsed. Their faces were highly coloured in a manner which could never be natural, and many of them had black spots and patches on their faces. I saw two of them in an argument and one started to pull at the other’s hair, but the coach passed on so I did not see the outcome of that affair.

When we stopped, beggars looked in at the window and called a blessing on us if we would give them just a little to buy a crust of bread. Carlotta threw out coins which clattered on to the cobbles, and a ragged boy who could not have been more than five years old darted forward and seized them. The beggars set up a wail but the coach passed on.

We left the coach at St Paul’s and Carlotta told the coachman to wait for us there and guard well the coach while we explored Paul’s Walk for the articles we had come to buy.

My experiences grew more astonishing with every passing minute. There in Paul’s Walk, which was the middle aisle of St Paul’s Cathedral, was a market and a promenade and a meeting place for all kinds of people.

Carlotta bade me keep close and I could see why. We were watched as we passed along, and now and then a lady or a gentleman as grandly dressed as Carlotta would stop and exchange a word with her, when she would present me as ‘a visitor from the country’ at which I could be graciously smiled on and then ignored.

People pressed close against us; cunning faces studied us; it would have been frightening to have been alone; but the promenades were filled mainly with people like ourselves, and as there were stalls containing materials of the finest quality and ribbons, laces, fans, patches, books and ornaments, the vendors were eager for our patronage and frowned on the beggars who lurked around and, I was sure, were intent on picking the pockets of the unwary.

I saw a man with his tailor who was telling him how much material he should buy; there were notices on the pillars offering services of all natures. There was a woman with a young girl and boy who looked downcast and indeed terrified. I guessed she was offering them as servants for some rich household. I saw a woman with an evil face talking earnestly to a young dandy in a cloak of crimson velvet with gold lace on his breeches; a very young girl was with her—and as she was clearly being shown off to the young man even my country innocence could guess the nature of that transaction. It was all rather terrifying and yet exciting. The place seemed to have a life of its own such as no other I had ever known had had.