Philippa Carr: Saraband for Two Sisters

Melder had opened the door.

‘Well, we’ll be along to see you tomorrow,’ my mother said as though it had been the most pleasant of visits.

He was still laughing when the door shut on him.

‘In one of his bad moods today,’ commented my mother.

‘He’s in them every day,’ answered Melder in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘The sight of some young girls sets him off on those lines. He seems to find some consolation for his immobility in abusing me. It’s of no account … if it eases him.’

‘There’s no need for you to take us in tomorrow,’ said my mother.

I smiled inwardly. I knew she did not like us to hear that talk about women’s function in life which the sight of Melder seemed to arouse in him.

She wanted to protect us from the world for as long as she could, but as for us, like most children, we were far more knowledgeable of such things than our mother realized. How could we help it? We had heard the servants talk; we had seen them go off into the woods together; we knew that Bessie Camus had become pregnant and our mother had arranged for her to marry one of the grooms. We knew that babies were not born under gooseberry bushes.

Our own home, where life ran smoothly and there was complete accord between our parents, was different even from life at Castle Paling. Our cousins should be more knowledgeable in this matter of the relationship between men and women than we were. Rozen had said: ‘Father has been unfaithful all his married life. Whenever a new servant comes he assesses her. He thinks he has a right to her as he is lord of the castle. Grandfather was like that. Of course, if he is first he finds a husband for the girl after, and he’ll give them a cottage so she gets a sort of dowry. That’s why so many of the children around are our half-brothers and sisters.’

It was hard for us to reconcile this way of life with that lived by our own parents; but we were aware that it happened, which brings me back to the fact that we were not as innocent as our mother believed us to be.

Lying in bed that night I tried to talk to Bersaba about all this.

‘He said we were ripe and ready,’ I announced with a giggle.

‘Grandfather is the sort of man who sees all women as possible bedfellows for some man or other.’

‘You’d think he would have lost interest in all that now.’

‘I don’t suppose people like that ever do.’

‘He was looking at you all the time,’ I reminded her.

‘What nonsense.’

‘Oh yes, he was. It was almost as though he knew something.’

‘I’m going to sleep,’ said Bersaba.

‘I wonder why he looked at you like that?’

‘What …?’ she said sleepily.

‘I said I wondered why he looked at you like that.’

‘He didn’t. Good night.’

And although I wanted to go on talking she pretended to be asleep.

Two days passed. We went for rides with our cousins and sometimes we explored the castle. I went down to the sea and looked for seashells and pieces of semi-precious stones on the beaches. We had quite a collection of raw amethyst, topaz and interesting quartzes which we had found from time to time. I used to love to stand on the beach while the waves thundered round me and sent their spray over me, and I would shriek with delight as I stepped back just in time to avoid getting drenched.

I liked to lean against the castle walls and marvel at their strength. They and the sea were like two mighty opponents—the work of man and the work of nature. Of course the sea was the more powerful; it could encroach on the land and sweep over that mighty edifice; but even then it would not completely destroy it. Grandfather Casvellyn had defied the sea and the sea had won that battle—but not completely, for he still lived in the Seaward Tower to shake his fist at the mighty monster.

Bersaba had once loved to collect stones on the beach, but now she had lost interest in that and said it was childish. She liked to ride—so did I. On our first day we went off with the cousins and it was not long before we noticed that Bersaba was not with us. She had a passion for getting lost. Rozen and Gwenifer had come with us and there were two grooms.

I said: ‘She will join us or go back to the castle. She likes to be alone sometimes.’

We didn’t worry about her as my mother would have done.

I was right. She did come back to the castle. She said she had lost us but had no intention of curtailing her ride just because of that. She knew the countryside well and was not afraid of meeting brigands, for she reckoned she could gallop faster than they could.

‘You know Mother doesn’t like us to ride alone.’

‘My dear Angel,’ she answered, ‘we are growing up. There may be lots of things we do of which Mother would not approve.’

I knew that she was slipping away from me then and the invisible cord which bound us together was stretching. She had become a stranger with secrets. One day, I thought, it will break, and then we shall be as ordinary sisters.

The next day when I was going to ride again I picked up her safeguards in mistake for my own and I saw that there was bracken clinging to them and mud on the edge of the skirt.

‘She must have fallen,’ I thought.

She came upon me staring at her skirts.

‘Look!’ I cried. ‘What happened? Did you take a toss?’

‘What nonsense!’ she said, snatching the garments from me. ‘Of course I didn’t.’

‘These skirts have been in contact with earth, sister. That’s clear enough.’

She was thoughtful for less than a second, then she said: ‘Oh, I know. It was when I was out yesterday. There was a lovely pool and it was so peaceful I had the urge to sit by it for a while, so I dismounted and sat there.’

‘You ought not to have done that … and alone. Suppose someone … some man … ?’

She laughed at me and turned away.

‘We’ve got to grow up one day, Angelet,’ she said, brushing the skirt. ‘That’s what it was,’ she went on, and hung the skirts in a cupboard. ‘And what are you doing examining my things?’

‘I wasn’t examining them. I thought they were mine.’

‘Well, now you know they’re not.’

She turned away and I was puzzled.

The following day a strange thing happened. It was midday and we were at dinner in the great hall, for Aunt Melanie said that as there were so many of us it was better to take our meals there rather than in the dining-parlour which was used for a smaller company.

There had always been a big table at Castle Paling. Grandfather Casvellyn had set the custom for hearty eating and Connell had followed it. In our house my father’s family had been more abstemious, and although there had been plenty of food in our larders should visitors call unexpectedly, we did not consume the large meals which they did at Castle Paling. Aunt Melanie took great pride in her stillroom and she had Melder to help her and was constantly urging us to try some delicacy or other which she or Melder had concocted from old recipes with little additions of their own.

My mother and Aunt Melanie were discussing the rival properties of the herbs they both grew with such assiduous care, and Aunt Melanie was saying how she had discovered that a solution acquired from the juice of buttercups gave Rozen such a fit of sneezing that it had cleared her head of a very unpleasant cold from which she was suffering, when we heard sound of arrival from without.

‘Visitors—’ said Uncle Connell, looking along the table from his end to where Aunt Melanie was seated.

‘I wonder who,’ she answered.

One of the servants came running in. ‘Travellers from afar, my lady,’ said the man.

Aunt Melanie rose and hurried out of the hall, Uncle Connell following her.