Saraband for Two Sisters (34 page)

‘I had expert nursing. My mother was determined that I should get well and so was my maid.’

‘Angelet has told me.’

‘She must have told you a good deal about me.’ I suddenly began to wonder how I appeared to Angelet, how much she knew of me. I believed I understood her through and through. Did she understand me? No, Angelet would never probe into the secret minds of those about her. She saw everything black and white, good and bad. Did she adore her General? I wondered. I thought of them together, making love.

‘She told me about your illness and how you contracted it.’

I thought: She would make me appear a heroine. I wondered if he thought me so. He would not for long. I could see that he was a man it would not be easy to deceive.

‘I am so pleased that you have come. Angelet is a little depressed at this time.’

‘Yes, the miscarriage. How ill was she?’

‘Not seriously, but of course she was disappointed.’

‘As you too must have been.’

‘She will soon be well again. We are living quietly at the moment. My duties have taken me up to the north. The times are somewhat unsettled.’

I did know that. I had always been more interested in political matters than Angelet had.

‘Yes, I understand that there are elements in the country who are not pleased with the manner in which its affairs are being conducted.’

‘Scotland is the trouble at the moment.’

I was glad I had been reading a great deal during my illness. ‘Is the King wrong, do you think, to enforce the use of the prayerbook?’

‘The King is the King,’ he said. ‘He is the ruler and it is the duty of his subjects to accept him as such.’

‘It seems strange,’ I said, ‘that there should be revolt in the very country which nurtured his father.’

‘The Stuarts are Scottish and therefore there are some English who do not care for them. And the Scots complain that the King has become too English. There have been riots up there, and the fact is we do not have enough money to equip the kind of army we need to subdue Scotland.’

‘And this of course gives you great concern and, I doubt not, takes you frequently from home.’

‘Of course a soldier must always be prepared to leave his home.’

‘It seems a pity to quarrel over religion.’

‘Many of the wars in history have been connected with it.’

I tried to talk intelligently about the affairs of the country and managed tolerably well by subtly leaving him to do the talking. All the time I was learning about him. He was not a man given to light conversation, but he was soon telling me about his campaigns in Spain and France, and I listened avidly, not so much because I was interested in the manner in which battles were fought, but because I wanted to know more of him.

We talked for an hour—or rather he did and I listened; and I knew that I had made an impression, for he seemed a little surprised by himself.

He said: ‘How knowledgeable you are of these matters. One rarely meets a woman who is.’

‘I have become knowledgeable tonight,’ I answered; and I did not mean only of the wars in France and Spain.

‘I came to welcome you,’ he said, ‘and to conduct you to Far Flamstead tomorrow. I had no idea that I should pass such an interesting evening. I have enjoyed it.’

‘It is because you find me so much like your wife.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I find you very different. The only real likeness is in your looks.’

‘We can be told apart … now,’ I said, touching the scar on my cheek.

‘You have honourable battle scars,’ he said. ‘You must wear them boldly.’

‘How can I do otherwise?’

He leaned forward suddenly and said: ‘Let me tell you. They add an interest to your face. I am so pleased that you have come to stay with us and I hope your visit will be of long duration.’

‘You should reserve judgment until you know me better. Sometimes guests in the house can be quite tiresome.’

‘My wife’s sister is not a guest. She is a member of the family and will always be welcome however long she wishes to stay.’

‘That, General, is a rash statement and I should never have believed you guilty of rashness.’

‘How can you know? We have only just met.’

‘But this is no ordinary meeting.’

For a moment we looked full at each other. I believed my eyes were glowing warmly. His were cold. To him I was merely his wife’s sister and he was pleased that I was not unintelligent. That was as far as his cautious mind would take him. But it was not all. No. Perhaps I was more knowledgeable than he was in spite of the difference in our ages. Sometimes I believe that women such as I am are born with knowledge in the matter of this attraction between the sexes. I knew that somewhere, latent perhaps beneath that glacial exterior, there could be passion.

I thought of how I had teased Bastian, how I had withstood temptation with him; and now I knew of course that Bastian had meant nothing to me. I had merely penetrated briefly the edge of discovery.

I said: ‘I have known you through my sister, for you appeared frequently in her letters, so you see you are not a stranger to me. Moreover, my sister and I are twins … identical twins. There is a bond so strong between us that the experiences of one are felt by the other.’

I stood up. He took my hand in his and said earnestly: ‘I hope that you enjoy your stay with us.’

‘I know I shall,’ I assured him.

He conducted me to my room where Phoebe was waiting. She swept a curtsey to the General and I left him at my bedroom door.

I went to the bed and sat down. Phoebe came and unbuttoned my gown.

‘You like the gentleman.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘I like the gentleman.’

‘He was down there alone with you …’

‘And you think that was wrong, do you, Phoebe?’

‘Mistress, ’tis not for me …’

I laughed at her. ‘You concern yourself unduly, Phoebe. The gentleman in question is General Tolworthy, my sister’s husband and therefore my brother-in-law.’

Phoebe looked at me with wide eyes for a few seconds, then she lowered them quickly, but not before I had seen the apprehension there.

I was sure that Phoebe knew that I had had adventures. As a girl who had had her own, she would have noticed that strange elation in me; moreover, she would know what it meant. She may have felt it herself when she lingered in the cornfields with the man who had fathered the child who had been her disgrace and her salvation.

I could not sleep that night. I kept going over our conversation in my mind. His face haunted me: the outline of his features, the fine but well-marked brows, the cold glitter of the blue eyes, the correct manner, the absence of any awareness that I was a woman; and yet … there was something … some little spark of understanding, some rapport that flashed between us.

I reversed our positions. Suppose I had been the one who had come to Carlotta, suppose Angelet had been the one who had caught smallpox. I would have been his wife. Or should I? Why had he chosen her? She told me about her adventure in the streets of London. I could imagine that when he rescued and protected her, her helplessness would have appealed to him. I suppose had my purse been snatched I should have attempted to retrieve it. Suppose then that I had been Angelet and his wife. Angelet would be lying in this bed now coming to stay with me.

I had to know what it was like between them. Was he in love with her and she with him?

I should soon discover when I lived in that house with them. And what would be the result of my living there?

I tried to talk to myself secretly: You know your nature. You need to be married. Phoebe knows it. Perhaps she does also. Should I try to find a husband for her … someone who will adore me for giving him the opportunity of marrying Phoebe and coming into my service? Why did I always want people to admire me? Why couldn’t I be simple and uncomplicated like Angelet? But perhaps she was no longer so simple. She had married; she had slept in this man’s bed; she would have born his child if something had not gone wrong. She must have changed.

Did I not know myself? I had been ill for so long and I was suddenly awakened to life. I had flirted with Bastian again, and although my pride would not let me take him as a lover, I had wanted to. But then it was not necessarily Bastian I had wanted. Now I met this man and he was different from anyone I had known. He was not like the Kroll boys and the Lamptons with whom I had grown up. There was a remoteness about him which intrigued me; he was worldly; he had lived; he had fought battles and faced death. He fascinated me, therefore. And he was my sister’s husband, and because of this strange relationship between us which I do not altogether understand I must have this feeling for him.

At last I slept and I was awakened by Phoebe in the early morning because we were to leave the inn precisely at seven of the clock.

We breakfasted together, and talked easily as we had before.

He told me of his home in the north, and I told him I could imagine his ancestors defending their homes against the Picts. He had a look of the Dane about him, and I said that his ancestors must have come in their long ships and ravaged our coasts.

He said that may have been but they claimed to have come with William the Conqueror, and we talked about war and how it had always existed in the world. I said how much better it might be if these matters could be settled in other ways.

As a soldier he could not see how else they could be settled because there would always be people who would not keep their word and the only real way of enforcing law and order was by force.

‘It’s strange,’ I said, ‘that to produce peace one must go to war.’

‘Antidotes are often like that,’ he told me. ‘I have learned something of the use of herbs, and you find that the effects of one poison are often nullified by the action of another.’

Then he talked about herbs and how he had often used them after battles, and so the breakfast hour passed quickly.

We were to leave at seven and we did—on the stroke. I was amused at his precision. I guessed that unpunctuality was something which would seem almost a crime to him, and I wondered how Angelet fared because punctuality had never been one of her virtues.

I rode beside him, and I thanked him for the courtesy of coming to the Bald-Faced Stag to escort me to his home. He waved that aside and said that of course he would come to meet his new sister and it had been a thoroughly enjoyable experience. His face was very earnest as he said: ‘I hope you will not find it too quiet at Far Flamstead. Later we shall go to my residence in Whitehall and there of course you will meet people from the Court. At this time I feel that Angelet needs to regain her strength and I wish her to live quietly.’

‘Of course. I live in the country, which I imagine is far quieter than Far Flamstead, so you need have no fears on that score.’

‘I am sure your coming is going to be of great benefit to us both.’

He pointed out the features of the landscape as we passed along, and I was struck by the difference in the country from that to which I was accustomed. Our trees bore the marks of their battles with the south-west gales; here in the south east of England, the trees—lime, plane, horsechestnut—seemed stately; there was a neatness about them, as though their branches had been trimmed, and although the grass might seem of less verdant green than ours—but only slightly so—fields often gave the impression that the grass had just been cut. There was almost an elegance about it which our rougher Cornish landscape lacked.

And finally we came to Far Flamstead, I noticed his pride when he pointed it out … a gracious house, clearly built during the early years of the great Queen—red brick, half timbered with latticed windows, surrounded by pleasant gardens.

I caught a glimpse of a grey tower and I cried: ‘That must be the castle of which Angelet told me.’

Because I was so much aware of him and had become most susceptible to his changing moods, I knew he was sorry I had mentioned the castle. There was something about it which disturbed him.

‘It’s a ruin, isn’t it?’

‘Hardly that. A folly is a better description.’

‘Which means something that is useless.’

‘Oh … er … yes, of course.’

‘Doesn’t it take up space which could be used for other purposes?’

‘My ancestor built it and there is a legend about it. It is not to be disturbed.’

‘Because if it were it would bring ill luck to the family or something like that?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘Are you superstitious?’

‘We all are at times. Those who declare they are not are often proved to be more so than the rest of us. It is a natural instinct for mankind to be superstitious. Imagine him when understanding first began to dawn on him. He was afraid … afraid of the moon, afraid of the sun, afraid of the wild beasts which roamed the land, and out of fear superstition grew. It’s a natural instinct.’

‘So you believe that while we have something to fear we shall be superstitious about it. I know. There is a legend that while the castle remains all will go well with the house.’

He was silent; and I longed to know the real truth about the castle.

But now we were riding into the courtyard and there was my sister.

‘Bersaba,’ she called. I dismounted and she flung herself into my arms.

We talked. How we talked! There was so much to say. She must know what had happened at home since she had left, but she was not more anxious than I to hear what had happened to her.

Life at home had gone on much as usual, I told her. I had been sick and spent a great deal of my time in my bedchamber, as she knew. Our father had come home and with him Fennimore and Bastian, and neither of the younger men would go to sea again.

She told me of her arrival at Carlotta’s house, of her adventure in the streets when she had been rescued by Richard; she spoke of his courtship and their marriage and how she had come to Far Flamstead to be mistress of it.

But although she talked incessantly and described in detail, she told me nothing of her relationship with her husband. In fact I noticed a certain reluctance in her to do so.