Saraband for Two Sisters (35 page)

She took me into a charming bedchamber which she called the Lavender Room and which was to be mine. The curtains about the bed were embroidered with sprigs of lavender, as were the curtains, and the rugs were of a delicate shade of mauve.

Next to it was the Blue Room, which she used as a bedroom often.

‘Not always?’

‘No.’ She was faintly embarrassed. ‘I have slept in it … since … Not always, of course. But after my miscarriage I had to rest a good deal, and it was decided that I ought to have a bedroom of my own.’

‘Apart,’ I said, ‘from the connubial chamber.’

‘Well … yes. It’s a very restful room.’

There was that about my sister which was still virginal, and it was hard to believe that she had been married and but for an accident might have been about to become a mother.

The Blue Room was charming—very much like the Lavender Room. I wondered whether it had been Richard Tolworthy’s idea that she should have this retreat.

She talked about the events which led up to her miscarriage and how she had heard it said that the castle was haunted, and one night seeing a light there she had gone up to the Castle Room to look. She had seen … something … she was not quite sure what. A face, she had thought, and oddly enough she believed she had seen the face before. The servants were convinced that she had had a nightmare, but she didn’t really think that was so. In any case she had had a fright and they said that had brought on her miscarriage.

I remembered the strange look in Richard Tolworthy’s face when he had talked of the castle, and I longed to know more about it, because I felt that in learning that I would know more about him.

Those first days were full of vivid impressions. I rode out with my sister and she showed me the Longridge Farmhouse.

Richard had ridden over, she told me, to thank them for what they had done for her, although relations were strained between them. She told me how Richard had once challenged Luke Longridge to a duel.

‘A duel,’ I cried, because this seemed to shed a new light on his character. I could not imagine his being romantically rash. ‘What? Was it over a woman?’

Angelet laughed. ‘Certainly not. Luke Longridge was disloyal to the King.’

‘I see your husband is an ardent Royalist,’ I commented.

She was thoughtful. ‘He is a soldier and his duty is to be loyal to the King.’

Yes, I thought. He was a man who would always act conventionally. He might not admire the King but he served him and therefore would defend him to the death if need be.

He was the sort of man who would adhere strictly to the conventions.

So I rode and walked and talked with Angelet. Sometimes when the evenings were drawing in I would see a certain apprehension in her eyes. Sometimes I would go quietly to the door of her room and peep inside. If she were not there I would know that she was in what I called the connubial bed with him.

Once he spent a night away and I was struck with her relief. Yet when she talked of him her eyes glowed with such admiration that anyone would have said that she was deeply in love with him.

I tried to sound her about that side of her relationship with him.

‘Soon,’ I said, ‘we shall be hearing you are with child again.’

I saw the shiver pass through her.

‘What’s the matter, Angelet? You want children, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘And he … your husband?’

‘Yes, naturally he wants children.’

‘Well then, since you both do …’

She turned away from me, but I caught her arm. ‘Are you happy, Angel?’

‘Of course.’

‘Marriage is everything you want …
everything
…’

I made her look at me, for she had never been able to lie to me. Now I could see that blankness in her eyes which showed me she was trying to hide something.

‘There are things about marriage,’ she said, ‘of which you would be ignorant.’

I felt laughter bubbling up inside me.

‘Such as?’ I asked.

‘I can’t explain. You will have to wait until you have a husband yourself.’

I knew then what I had suspected. These urgent passions which had overcome me were something of which she had no conception. Perhaps when we had been born nature had divided certain qualities and had robbed one to give the other the lion’s share.

From that moment the situation became clear to me. I knew that my sister had endured with stoicism those occasions which her contract had forced her to spend in the marriage bed. I wondered what effect her attitude had on him. He must be aware of it and it would give little comfort to him.

I looked forward to the evenings when he was with us. I played chess with him and now and then beat him. That surprised him a little but at the same time he was pleased.

He would show us how he had fought and won battles by bringing out his miniature soldiers and placing them on a mock battlefield.

I watched intently, determined to gain his attention. I would ask questions about the tactics and once expressed doubts as to the wisdom of employing them. Those well-marked eyebrows would shoot up as he talked to me, as though amazed at my temerity in questioning a professional soldier.

Once I took the infantry and placed it in another position. Instead of reproving me or trying to stop me, he said: ‘Then in that case I should have brought the cavalry over here.’

‘The infantry is behind this ridge of hills,’ I pointed out. ‘Your cavalry would not have been aware that they had changed position.’

‘They would have seen.’

‘No, they moved by night.’

‘My spies would have informed me.’

‘Ah, but my spies recognized your spies. You have used the same men too often. They misled you and you are under the impression that they are concealed by
this
ridge. They moved silently on to another.’

I saw the glint in his eyes as mine met his and held them.

‘What do you know of battle?’ he demanded.

‘Battle is strategy and tactics. A woman, you know, is rather skilled in these arts.’

He was amused and, I knew, excited; and we played out our mock battles.

Angelet sat in her chair watching us.

Afterwards she said to me, ‘You shouldn’t have talked like that to Richard. It was rather arrogant, wasn’t it? As though you know as much about fighting battles as he does.’

‘They are only battles with toy soldiers.’

‘They are real to him. He is reconstructing battles he has fought and won.’

‘Then it is well for him to have an opposing general to outwit him.’

‘You … Bersaba!’

‘Yes,’ I retorted, ‘why not?’

‘I don’t think he was very pleased.’

But of course he was, and we went on playing our games on the mock battlefields and the chessboard. I looked forward to those evenings when I would be so aware of him and try to make him aware of me. Then when I was alone at night I would think of him, and I knew that that terrible fascination which I had felt when we had first met had by no means diminished. In fact it grew every day.

Once Angelet said to me: ‘Richard was talking of you last night.’

‘Yes?’ I asked eagerly. ‘What did he say?’

‘He said that we must entertain. He would rather we did it in London, though. He said that would be more interesting.’

‘But you said he was talking of me.’

‘It was of you. He said we should find a husband for you.’

I felt angry with him and I said: ‘Does he want me out of the house?’

‘Oh no, Bersaba. You mustn’t think that. He likes to have you here because he knows I do. He said you are amusing and attractive and ought to be married. Just for now he wants us to stay here because of my health. He doesn’t think I’m well enough yet for anything but the quiet life.’

He had said I was amusing and attractive, but he wanted to find a husband for me.

I felt half pleased yet half angry and frustrated.

I was uneasy about this household of servants. Had I been mistress of Far Flamstead I should have wanted to know more of them. The chief ones, of course, were the Cherrys and the man Jesson. The latter was a silent-footed, self-effacing yet efficient man of whom one saw so little that one was inclined to forget he existed. He was a sort of grey eminence, I imagined, for the servants spoke of him with awe. His daughters were very much in evidence. Meg was Angelet’s personal maid and her sister Grace was a sort of part-time midwife, according to Angelet. Her services would not be in great demand in the house as most of the servants were men, but she would be useful if Angelet ever needed her. She had a great belief in Grace’s wisdom, for it seemed the woman had known she was pregnant before Angelet had been sure of it herself.

I thought how like Richard it was to have a house managed by his own sex. All these men had served under him at some time, I gathered, and had left the army for some reason. He would be their benefactor and would reason, in his cold analytical way, that they would doubtless give him better service because of this.

Mrs Cherry and her husband seemed a conventional couple enough—she in charge of the kitchens and he acting with Jesson as a general factotum. I had to admit the house was run smoothly. Every clock kept exact time and meals were served precisely on the stroke of the intended hour. It was amusing. Angelet scarcely behaved like the mistress of the house, for she had made no changes. I thought I should have done so just to show these people that I was the mistress.

There was no doubt that I was regarded with some interest and, I imagined, mild suspicion. I would often find Mrs Cherry’s eyes watching me with a wary look in them as though she were pondering on what I would do next.

I had been fascinated by the castle from the first and became more so when Angelet told me not to approach it as it was a ruin in danger of collapse and Richard had given firm orders that no one was to go near it. She told me she believed he would be very angry if any of us disobeyed his orders.

She took me up to the Castle Room which had been used by his first wife. A brief marriage that had only lasted a year before she died in childbirth.

What did she know of the wife? I asked. Had she learned anything about her?

Very little, she answered. People didn’t talk about her. She had died more than ten years ago.

‘And Richard? Don’t you ask him?’

‘I don’t think he would like that.’

‘You are a very good wife, I’m sure, Angelet. Do you always do as he wishes?’

‘Of course. Why does that amuse you?’

‘I was just thinking that were I in your place I would at times be a little rebellious.’

‘You would not. You have not been married and know nothing of the relationship between a man and his wife. Naturally I wish to please him in all things …’

Her voice faltered. Oh yes, little sister, I thought. You want to serve him in all things, even though it is so distressing for you to submit to his embraces.

The situation amused and intrigued me; and there was the perpetual excitement of his presence. I found that all through the day I was waiting for the evening—those seemingly quiet evenings when Angelet sat at her embroidery and he and I talked or played out our battles on the chessboard or paper battleground.

I read some of the books I found in his library. He discovered me there one day, coming upon me rather silently and looking over my shoulder.

‘What are you reading, Bersaba?’ he asked.

I showed him.

‘And it interests you?’

‘Enormously.’

‘You should have been a soldier.’

‘They do not recruit women, I believe.’

‘There is certainly one woman I know who would be as efficient as any man.’

‘I might not excel on the battleground but I should like to plan the battles.’

‘You would be a general without delay.’

The faint lift of the lips was gratifying, for he was a man who did not smile very much. I wondered why. Was it because life had been difficult for him? I longed to know. I was not sure whether I was in love with him. I knew that I wanted to be with him, that I wanted him to make love to me so fervently that this obscured all other feelings. It had not been like this with Bastian. There had been no mystery about my cousin. I knew everything of importance that had happened throughout his life. But here was my sister’s husband with that immense physical attraction which had overwhelmed me from the moment I had seen him and was growing every day. It was enhanced by that cool exterior, but being the woman I was I knew that was but a covering—a protective one perhaps—a disguise such as he would employ in battle tactics. Every day I learned something of him because I made him the subject of my main interest. He was conventional in the extreme; he had been brought up to believe in certain ideals and he would never swerve from them, although he was extremely logical in all other matters. Loyalty to the King and the family would remain. I admired him for this and yet I felt a perverse desire to break through them. Something had happened to him—something tragic, I knew that. Often I fancied that the secret was in this house. These servants of his—the Cherrys and the Jessons—did they know anything? They had been in his service for a long time. His young wife had died in childbed. Had he loved her tenderly, passionately? What a tragedy to lose both his wife and the child he had longed for … for he was the sort of man who would want sons. It would certainly be a tradition of the family to carry on the line. There was a younger brother in the north at Flamstead Castle, I gathered. I suppose he visited him there when he went on his travels. Why had he waited ten years after his first wife’s death before he had married? And why Angelet? Was she pretty? It was hard to say when you are judging a face so like your own. She had an innocence which I lacked. She would always have it. It went with her virginal nature. She was loving, emotional, romantic—and passionless. Once again I pictured nature neatly dividing our characteristics. ‘That one for you, Angelet, that for Bersaba.’ Gentleness, mildness, simplicity for Angelet. And for Bersaba an overwhelming sensuality which when at its pitch blindly demanded satisfaction without thought of consequences. That comes first and that force will govern her life. For the rest she is selfish; she is proud; she is arrogant. But she has a lively mind and an ability to learn and perhaps—but she is not yet sure of this—an ability to get what she wants.