Saraband for Two Sisters (63 page)

She would not let me go, though I was longing to be with Edwin, and at length when I did get away from her, I heard that Edwin had gone riding with several others it seemed. I went to my room. Harriet’s riding clothes were missing so she must have been one of the party.

It was late when they came back. Harriet seemed in very good spirits.

Several of the guests were still staying on, and that night in the great hall the talk was all of the previous night’s entertainment and the betrothal announcement at the end of it.

The musicians played and we sang. Harriet enchanted everyone with her singing. Then we danced. Edwin and I led off the dancing together, and people watching us, I heard afterwards, said that they could have believed they were back at home and the trouble was over, the spoilers of our country vanquished and good King Charles upon the throne.

“Did you enjoy your ride today?” I asked.

He hesitated only briefly. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “You were not with us,” he said. He said the most delightful things.

“So you missed me.”

“That, my dear Arabella, is what I would call an unnecessary question.”

“I should just like to know the answer.”

“I should miss you whenever you were not with me. I know you were with my mother and how much she wanted to talk to you, so I was self-sacrificing. I shall have you for the rest of our lives.”

“I didn’t know you were going riding or …”

“You would have wanted to come. I knew, so I left you with my mother.”

“I didn’t hear you all leave. I knew afterwards that Harriet had gone.”

“Oh, yes, Harriet,” he said.

“Poor Harriet. It was a blow to her not to play Juliet. She would have been perfect.”

“Different, yes,” he said. “But now we are together, let’s think of what’s to come.”

“I have thought of nothing else.”

“When we get back to England … that will be the time! Then we can live naturally … just as though that ridiculous war never happened. That’s what I am waiting for.”

“First, though, we have to get there. You have to go away soon.”

“That will not be for long. And then I shall come back and ever after we shall be together.”

One of the reasons I most enjoyed being with Edwin—apart from the fact that I was deeply in love with him—was that he carried one along on his ever-present optimism so that one believed in it as wholeheartedly as he did.

How happy I was during the days that followed.

Then something disturbing happened.

Charles Condey left. He pleaded urgent business, but I knew the real reason. The night before he left, Harriet told me that he had asked her to marry him.

She watched me closely as she told me this.

“Harriet!” I cried. “Did you say yes?” And even as I spoke I was thinking, Poor Charlotte.

She shook her head slowly.

“Of course,” I said. “I knew you didn’t love him.”

How wise I felt myself to be in my own exalted experience. I was so happy that I wanted everyone to share my happiness, particularly Harriet. I would have felt it to be wonderful if she could have become betrothed at the same time.

“It would not have been suitable,” she said.

“But, Harriet …”

She turned on me suddenly. “Good enough for me, you are thinking. A strolling player’s bastard. Is that it?”

“Harriet, how can you say that!”

“You are to marry the scion of an ancient house. Money and title in due course. Lady Eversleigh! That is well. You are the daughter of a great general. But anything is good enough for me.”

“But, Harriet, Charles is of good family. He is young and charming.”

“A third son … without means.”

“Well, the Eversleighs apparently thought him good enough for Charlotte.”

She was venomous suddenly. “They were hard put to it to find anyone to take Charlotte. There would have been a big dowry along with her. Once they were back in England … Charles Condey would have done very well for himself.”

“It shows how noble he was in giving it up. I mean it shows he was really in love.”

“Dear Arabella, we are not discussing his feelings, but mine. When I marry it must be someone equal to your gallant bridegroom.”

“Harriet, there are times when I don’t understand you.”

“Which is just as well,” she muttered.

Then she was subdued and would say no more, but she had made me uneasy and I could not recapture that first bright flush of happiness.

I noticed too that, though Charlotte tried to be bright, there was a sadness beneath her efforts. My own happiness was clouded. I wanted to show friendliness towards her but it was not easy. Charlotte had encased herself behind a defensive wall.

Two days after Charles had left, when the guests were gradually departing, I went up to the turret to the lookout tower. I was expecting letters from my parents, and from there I could see right out to the horizon.

Perhaps it was too early yet to receive replies, but I wanted to look just in case.

There was a door which led onto a stone parapet and below this was a sheer drop to the ground. I don’t know what it was that sent me there at that time. I liked to think it was some instinct, but I thanked God that I went.

Charlotte was there, her hands on the stone parapet. And the horrible realization struck me that she was poised to jump.

“Charlotte!” I called, my voice shrill with terror.

She started and hesitated. I froze with horror, for I thought she was going to throw herself over before I could reach her. “No, Charlotte.
No
!” I cried.

Then to my relief she turned and looked at me.

I have never seen such misery as I saw in her face, and I felt a deep pity that was tinged with remorse because I knew that I was in a way responsible for her unhappiness. It was I who had brought Harriet to Villers Tourron. But for Harriet she would be a happy girl now, betrothed to the man she loved.

I ran to her and caught her arm.

“Oh, Charlotte!” I cried, and she must have seen the depth of my feelings, for they called forth some response in her.

Acting purely on impulse, I put my arms round her and for a few seconds she clung to me. Then she drew quickly away and the habitual coldness had crept over her face.

“I don’t know what you think,” she began.

I shook my head. “Oh, Charlotte!” I cried. “I understand. I
do
understand.”

Her lip trembled slightly. I felt she was going to tell me that she had been admiring the view and ask me why I was behaving so ridiculously. Then her lips tightened and there was contempt in her look … contempt for herself. Charlotte was of a nature that would despise hypocrisy. She could not pretend.

“Yes,” she said, “I was going to jump over.”

“Thank God I came.”

“You sound as though you really care.”

“Of course I care,” I said. “I’m going to be your sister, Charlotte.”

“You know why?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Charles has gone. He did not love me after all.”

“He did perhaps, but he was … bemused.”

“Why did she have to come here?”

“I brought her. If I had known …”

“Perhaps it’s as well. If he is so easily … bemused … he might not have been a good husband, do you think?”

“I think he will come back.”

“And you think I would take him then?”

“It depends how much you love him. If you loved him enough to do that …” I looked towards the parapet … “perhaps you would love him enough to take him back.”

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“Come away from there. Let us go somewhere where we can talk.”

“What is there to say?”

“It is often helpful to talk to someone. Oh, Charlotte, it will not seem so cruel later on. I am sure of it.”

She shook her head and I slipped my arm tentatively through hers. I was waiting to be repulsed, but she accepted the gesture and I fancied was somewhat comforted by it.

She stood still, misery in her eyes.

“He was the first who ever looked at me,” she said. “I thought he loved me. But … as soon as she came …”

“There is something about her,” I assured her. “I daresay most men would be attracted … temporarily.”

“What do you know of her?”

“Please come away from here. Let us go where we can talk.”

“Come to my room,” she said.

I felt a wave of exultation. I knew I had come just in time and had averted a tragedy. I felt flushed with triumph and sure that I could talk to her, reason with her, turn her away from this dreadful thing she had been about to do.

She took me to her bedroom. It was smaller than the one I shared with Harriet. It had the remains of some grandeur, though like the rest of the
château
it showed signs of shabbiness.

She sat down and looked at me helplessly. “You must think me mad,” she said.

“Of course not.” How should I have acted if I had found that Edwin loved someone else?

“But it is so weak, isn’t it? To find life so intolerable that one is ready to give it up.”

“One should consider those left behind,” I pointed out. “Think of the effect it would have on your mother, on Edwin … and Charles … He would never forgive himself.”

“You’re right,” she said. “It’s a selfish gesture … when there are those who would suffer. It’s a sort of revenge, I suppose. One is so hurt one looks about to hurt others … or at least one doesn’t greatly care if they are hurt.”

“I am sure when all these things are considered, you would not take that sort of action. It was something you contemplated on the spur of the moment.”

“If it hadn’t been for you I should be lying down there on the stones … dead.”

I shuddered.

“I suppose I should say thank you for saving me from that. I should feel grateful, but I am not sure that I do.”

“I don’t want you to feel grateful. I only want you not to do it again. If the impulse came to you and if you stopped awhile to consider …”

“What it would do to others …”

“Yes,” I said, “just that.”

“I don’t want to live, Arabella,” she said. “You don’t understand. You are lively, attractive, people like you. I am different. I have always been aware of being unattractive.”

“But that’s nonsense. It is because you retire into yourself and don’t try to make friends that you have this feeling.”

“Edwin is so good looking, isn’t he? I noticed it in the nursery. It was always Edwin people noticed. My parents showed their preference. So did our nurses. Look at my hair … straight as a poker. One of our nurses used to try to make it curl. But half an hour after it emerged from the curl papers, it was as though I had never endured the discomfort of them. How I hated those curl papers. They were significant in a way. They meant that all the efforts in the world couldn’t make me into a beauty.”

“Beauty doesn’t depend on curl papers. It comes from something within.”

“Now you’re talking like the priests.”

“Oh, Charlotte, I think you’ve built up this aura round yourself. You’ve made up your mind you’re not attractive and you tell everybody so. I should be careful. They might believe it.”

“It’s one thing I have been successful in then, for they do.”

“You are wrong.”

“I am right … proved to be by … this.” Her voice broke suddenly. “I thought he really cared for
me
. He seemed so sincere …”

“He did. I know he did.”

“So it seemed. She only had to beckon.”

“She is exceptional. It is unfortunate that we came here. Sometimes I wish …”

“She is evil.” Charlotte was looking at me steadily, and her eyes glowed with prophecy. “She calls herself your friend, but is she? I sensed the evil in her … the moment I saw her. I didn’t know she would take Charles … but I knew she would bring disaster. Why did you bring her here?”

“Oh, Charlotte,” I cried, “how sorry I am. How I wish I hadn’t.”

She softened suddenly and looked at me with real affection. “You must not blame yourself. How could you have known? It is I who must thank you for saving me from that folly.”

“We are to be sisters,” I said. “I’m glad of that. At least this has brought us together. Let us be friends. That is possible, I know.”

“I don’t make friends easily. When I was at parties before we came here, I was always the one in the corner, the one who was only wanted when there was no one else. That seems to be my role in life.”

“It is you who make it so.”

She laughed bitterly. “You are stuffed with homilies, Arabella. I think you have a lot to learn about people. But I am glad you were there tonight.”

“Promise me this,” I said. “If you ever think of such a thing again, you will first talk to me.”

“I promise you,” she said.

Then I rose and went to her. I kissed her cheek. She did not respond but she coloured faintly, and my heart was filled with pity for her.

She said: “It isn’t going to be easy, is it? Everyone will know that he has gone. Poor Mama, he was her hope. A third son, not much prospects, but what can we hope for for poor Charlotte?”

“There,” I said. “Self-pity! It’s not going to be like that in the future, Charlotte.”

She looked at me disbelievingly.

“Don’t forget,” I said. “You promised me.”

When I returned to my room I felt shaken. I was glad Harriet was not there. My happiness with Edwin made me understand Charlotte’s grief. She must have loved Charles as I did Edwin. It was unbearable … Thank God I had been on the spot.

Poor Charlotte! My new sister! I made up my mind I was going to care for her.

I saw very little of Charlotte for the next few days. I had a notion that she was avoiding me. I could understand that. Naturally she would feel embarrassed by what had happened and I would remind her of it. Though when I did see her a warm glance passed between us, and I glowed with pleasure thinking of the good I would bring to Charlotte when I was married to Edwin. I would give parties for her and find a husband who would be so much better than Charles Condey.

Then the letters arrived from Cologne … earlier than we had expected. My parents had written:

Our dearest daughter,

Your news fills us with joy. We have been so anxious about you. Everything is so difficult in view of the times we live in. And now this has come about. Lord Eversleigh shares our joy. He is a charming man and there is no one we would rather have as our son-in-law than Edwin.

Lady Eversleigh will tell you the news and this may mean a change of your plans. Rest assured, dear Arabella, that if Edwin and you agree to the suggestion, you have our blessing. She will explain everything to you. Our love, our congratulations on this wonderful thing that has happened. We are assured of your happiness.

Your loving parents,

Richard and Bersaba Tolworthy.