Saraband for Two Sisters (24 page)

‘We want a quiet wedding.’

‘Of course. I think you’re wise … in the circumstances.’ She stood up and regarded me almost superciliously. ‘I just thought I ought to warn you.’

‘That’s so kind,’ I murmured.

And she was gone. Was it true? I wondered. No, it couldn’t be. He wanted this marriage. Why should he have suggested it otherwise? Carlotta was just piqued because he had preferred marriage with me to a flirtation with her. To be ignored was something she could not tolerate and she persisted in denigrating anyone who did that.

But I was uneasy, for I had to admit that the nearer I came to marriage the more did I realize that Richard was by no means the conventional bridegroom.

Mab was a little envious of Ana. She found fault with her needlework and grumbled that she could have done it so much better herself. She was disappointed because I did not make a confidante of her. Mab, I was coming to the conclusion, was really rather a silly girl. She was constantly trying to turn the conversation to babies.

‘Oh Mistress Angelet,’ she would murmur, ‘I can’t wait for the first little baby. I do hope you won’t have to wait so long as your poor mother did.’

Then she talked about her sister Emily who had had a child out of wedlock.

‘Emily was like that,’ she said. ‘She couldn’t leave the men alone and nor could they leave her. She got caught she did … caught good and proper. And me mother says that if she don’t take care she’ll have another to feed before long. I said to her once, “Em, you are silly. You’ll get caught again.” And she said that she couldn’t help it if she did. It was just her way. She couldn’t say no.’

Mab would look at me speculatively and I became angry with her, one of the main reasons being that I was so ignorant of that side of marriage and indeed a little fearful of it.

Richard returned and came at once to Pondersby Hall to see me.

I went down to the parlour. He took my hands and kissed them, and as soon as I saw him I was happy, for my doubts vanished and I realized how uneasy Carlotta had made me with her hints that I might be treated as someone else had been and the marriage cancelled at the last moment.

I said, ‘You still want to marry me, Richard, don’t you?’

He looked at me in astonishment. ‘Why on earth do you say that?’

I laid my face against his coat. ‘I don’t know. I’m just so happy I’m afraid it’s too good to be true.’

He lifted my face and looked at me intently.

‘You are a dear good child,’ he said. ‘It is small wonder that I love you.’

‘And we’ll be happy, won’t we?’

‘We must make sure that we are.’

‘I will make sure.’

‘Do you doubt that I will?’

‘No, no. Not when you are here.’

‘You must never doubt me … particularly when I am not there. You do understand, don’t you, that I shall be away from home for long periods?’

‘I do understand it. It was something my mother had to endure.’

‘So you are prepared for it?’

‘Yes, and … perhaps we shall have some children so that I shan’t be lonely.’

There was a silence, and looking up into his face I saw a strange expression there which I could not understand. But then he took my hand and gripped it hard.

‘It is what I want,’ he said. ‘Yes, I do want that very much.’

‘I hope … I shall please you,’ I said.

He put me from him suddenly, and going to the door, opened it abruptly.

Mab fell into the room.

I felt very angry with her, for she had clearly been listening at the keyhole.

‘What are you doing, Mab?’ I demanded.

She rose awkwardly to her feet and stood there not knowing what to do, and I saw that her eyes, which had been alight with curiosity a moment before, were now apprehensive.

I said: ‘Go away. I will speak to you later.’

She ran out, shutting the door after her. I looked at Richard in dismay, for I saw that he was very angry.

‘That girl will have to go,’ he said. ‘We will not have her at Far Flamstead.’

‘Go?’ I stammered.

‘Yes. Send her back to your home. I’ll not have her prying … listening at keyholes.’

‘She’s a silly girl. I’ll give her a good scolding and warn her.’

‘No, Angelet,’ he said sternly. ‘That is not enough. I will not have her in Far Flamstead. She is to be dismissed.’

‘She will be heartbroken. I know her well. She has been with my family since she was about eleven. My mother thought she was the most suitable one to send with me.’

‘She is most unsuitable and I will not have her in my house.’

‘It was just a moment’s folly, I know. She is a silly frivolous girl and so interested in us …’

He said: ‘Angelet, you will dismiss that girl. Let her go back when the next messengers come with letters.’

He was adamant. It was in the nature of a command, and although I knew it was rather harsh treatment for poor silly Mab, I knew I must do as he wished, for I greatly feared to displease him.

I said: ‘All right. She shall go, but it will be hard for her … and I have grown used to her. She was just beginning to know how to do my hair.’

He stroked my hair gently. ‘We will find you a maid who is better at it. Tell her that she must prepare to go at once.’

I said I would and tried to dismiss the matter. But it had made me uneasy. I wondered why he should have been so insistent about a rather trivial matter.

Then the thought flashed into my head. Listening at doors! Prying! It almost seemed as though he were afraid Mab might discover something.

Could it be that there was something to hide at Far Flamstead?

Poor Mab was indeed heartbroken. She sobbed bitterly when I told her she was to go back. At first she stared at me in astonishment.

‘But, Mistress Angelet, I’ve always been with you. You couldn’t send me away now.’

I said: ‘You’ll have to go back to what you were doing before I left. My mother will allow you to do that.’

‘But what have I
done,
mistress?’

I tried to whip myself to an anger which matched that of Richard.

‘You were caught listening at the keyhole. It was a foolish, wicked thing to do.’

‘I didn’t mean no harm. I just wanted to know that it was all right for you. He seems so … so …’

I shook her a little. ‘So, so what?’ I demanded.

‘He seemed so cold like … not like a husband. I was just worried about you and wanted to be sure …’

‘Don’t make excuses, Mab,’ I told her. ‘You were caught and now you must pay for your folly.’

I wanted so much to forgive her. To tell her not to be silly and not listen at doors again. That was what my mother would have done.

I even tried to speak to Richard again about it, but I saw his face harden when I mentioned her name, and I dared go no farther.

When the next batch of letters arrived I read them avidly and poor Mab left for Cornwall when the messengers returned there.

S
O ON THE TENTH
of May of the year sixteen hundred and forty I was married to Richard Tolworthy. As he had wished—and so had I—it was a quiet wedding. Sir Gervaise gave me away, Carlotta attended, and it took place in the small church at Pondersby. Several of the servants sat at the back of the church and after the ceremony we went back to the Hall for a meal.

It was not elaborate, for Richard had insisted on this, and when it was over in the early afternoon he wanted us to set out for Far Flamstead.

It did occur to me that it was rather unusual that I should never have seen my new home, which was not after all so very far distant from Pondersby Hall. I had suggested that I should visit it and Richard had been in agreement, but looking back I now realized that always something had happened to prevent the visit.

At first he had said he was having a certain amount of renovation done for me and he did not wish me to see it in an unfinished state; and on the other occasion when I had been going, he had been called away and there was a postponement.

‘Never mind,’ he had said, ‘if there is something you don’t like you can alter it afterwards.’

I was beginning to see that my husband had a gift for making the unusual seem normal. It was something to do with the manner in which he dealt with it. I had learned through Mab that he did not like emotional scenes, and I was doing my best to be the sort of wife he wished me to be, which I suppose was a very good resolution to have made at the beginning of one’s married life.

It was early afternoon when we left Pondersby, and we took with us two grooms with saddle-horses containing certain things I should need. The rest of my baggage—the wardrobe I had been gathering together and which formed my trousseau—would arrive within the next few days.

Richard did not speak very much as we rode along, but I sensed in him a certain contentment, as though something which had caused him apprehension was now settled satisfactorily. I felt very tender towards him and I was happy because I knew that whatever awaited me in my new home, of one thing I was certain, and that was that I loved my husband.

As the afternoon wore on and we had left the familiar countryside behind us, the scenery seemed to change—but perhaps that was my mood; I noticed wild roses in the hedgerows, and the purple loosestrife growing by a stream reminded me of the days when Bersaba and I used to go out and pick armfuls of it.

We walked our horses, for the road was rough and stony, and my husband said to me: ‘How quiet you are, Angelet. It is not like you.’

‘It is a solemn occasion,’ I reminded him.

‘A happy one, I trust, for you.’

‘I have never been happier.’

‘Is there nothing more you would ask for?’

‘Oh yes. I should have liked to see my mother and my sister and for you to know them.’

‘As I shall in time, I trust.’

We had come to the village of Hampton, and we stopped there at an inn where Richard said we would refresh ourselves. We were immediately offered a private room and served with ale and partridge pie, which looked delicious, but I was not hungry and I don’t think Richard was either.

‘We are not far off now,’ he told me, and I wondered why if that were so we had stopped, and it suddenly occurred to me that he was in no hurry for us to reach our home.

It was evening when Far Flamstead came into sight.

‘There,’ said Richard. ‘Your home, my dear.’

I could only stare at it. It was large—larger than Pondersby Hall—red brick and E-shaped with its central part and east and west wings. I saw several outbuildings and the green sward all around it.

‘It’s beautiful,’ I said.

He was pleased.

‘I hope you will grow to love it. My brother lives in Flamstead Castle in Cumberland where my family have lived for generations. This was built later and we called it Far Flamstead because so many miles separated it from the old home.’

‘That’s interesting,’ I said. ‘So your younger brother took the castle and you Far Flamstead.’

‘As a soldier I needed to be in the south. It works very well.’

As we came nearer the house I noticed that it was surrounded by a shallow moat which was crossed by a bridge. Looking up, I saw how impressive was the central block; above the gateway was a window with eight-light windows—a sort of look-out, because from those windows one would be able to see a party approaching for some distance. I wondered if we had been watched. On either side of the central tower were the projecting octagonal towers of the east and west wings.

We passed through the gateway and were in a courtyard bounded on three sides by brick walls with two corner turrets.

As we entered the courtyard a man appeared. He bowed to us and Richard said, ‘This is Jesson. Jesson, your mistress.’

‘Welcome to Far Flamstead, my lady,’ said the man; he had a sharp clipped voice and there was something in his bearing which told me that he was an old soldier.

‘Are they prepared?’ asked Richard, dismounting and helping me to do the same.

‘Yes, sir,’ answered Jesson. ‘We have been awaiting your arrival since late afternoon.’

Richard took me by the arm and we went through a door into a hall. The first thing I noticed were the people there, standing in a line waiting to receive us and give the traditional greeting of the household to the new mistress.

There were eight of them—not so many for such a large house, I supposed—three women, I noticed, and five men.

‘We have ridden far and are tired,’ said Richard, ‘but I must first present you to my wife.’ He turned to me. ‘Jesson you have already met. Mrs Cherry.’

A plump woman came forward and curtsied. I thought her name suited her, for she was somewhat rotund and her cheeks had the reddish tinge of a ripe cherry.

‘Mrs Cherry is the housekeeper, and Cherry her husband.’ A man came forward.

‘Cherry served with me at one time before he received a wound in his leg. He now serves me here at Far Flamstead.’

There were two women in their thirties. They were Meg and Grace Jesson, daughters of the man who had been in the courtyard.

The others were brought forward and presented to me, but I forgot their names. I could not help feeling that I was inspecting an army parade. It was faintly amusing.

‘Now,’ said Richard, ‘you have met them all. We will go to our rooms and then we will eat, for you must be hungry.’

I was very much aware of eight pairs of eyes studying me intently, which was natural. They must all have been agog with curiosity to see whom their master had married. They seemed relieved, I fancied, and that would no doubt be because of my youth.

The hall was lofty, some fifty feet in length with the hammer-beam kind of roof that was at Pondersby; the floor consisted of marble slabs; the walls were whitewashed, and an array of banners and trophies hung there with a suit of armour at either end. A large refectory table stood in the centre, and of the same oak were the companion benches on either side. Pewter implements had been placed on the table, and I was immediately aware of the high polish on tables and benches and how the armoury shone.

The servants had fallen back, their eyes following me as Richard led me along the hall to a staircase. We mounted this and came to a gallery, along which we passed, and mounting yet another staircase we came to what was to be our bedchamber.