Diane Setterfield - The Thirteenth Tale

One of the young men, the boldest, with fair hair and a loud laugh, kicked off his shoes, removed his tie and leapt into the lake with her. A trio of his friends followed. In no time at all, the young men were all in the water, diving, calling, shouting and outdoing one another in athleticism and splash.

Thinking quickly, the girls saw there was only one way to go. They hung their sandals in the branches, put on their most excited faces and splashed into the water, uttering cries that they hoped would sound abandoned, while doing their utmost to prevent any excessive dampening of their hair.

Their efforts were in vain. The men had eyes only for Isabelle.

Charlie did not follow his sister into the water. He stood, a little farther off, and watched. With his red hair and his pallor, he was a man made for rain and indoor pursuits. His face had gone pink in the sun, and his eyes stung as the sweat from his brow ran into them. But he hardly blinked. He could not bear to take his eyes off Isabelle.

How many hours later was it that he found himself with her again? It seemed an eternity. Enlivened by Isabelle 's presence the picnic went on much longer than anybody had expected, and yet it seemed to the other guests to have passed in a flash, and they would all have stayed longer if they could. The party broke up with consoling thoughts of other picnics to come, a round of promised invitations and damp kisses.

When Charlie approached her, Isabelle had a young man's jacket arranged around her shoulders and the young man himself in the palm of her hand. Not far off a girl loitered, uncertain whether her presence was wanted. Though she was plump, plain and female, the resemblance she nonetheless bore to the young man made it clear she was his sister.

"Come on," Charlie said roughly to his sister.

"So soon? I thought we might go for a walk. With Roland and Sybilla." She smiled graciously at Roland's sister, and Sybilla, surprised at the unexpected kindness, beamed back.

Charlie could get his own way with Isabelle at home-sometimes- by hurting her, but in public he didn't dare, and so he buckled under.

What happened during that walk? There were no witnesses to the events that took place in the forest. For want of witnesses there was no gossip. At least not at first. But one does not have to be a genius to deduce from later events what took place under the canopy of summer foliage that evening.

It would have been something like this:

Isabelle would have found some pretext for sending the men away.

"My shoes! I left them in the tree!" And she'd have sent Roland to fetch them, and Charlie, too, for a shawl of Sybilla's or some other item.

The girls settled themselves on a patch of soft ground. In the men's absence they waited in the growing darkness, drowsy from champagne, breathing in the remains of the sun's heat and with it the beginning of something darker, the forest and the night. The warmth of their bodies began to drive the moisture from their dresses, and as the folds of fabric dried, they detached themselves from the flesh beneath and tickled.

Isabelle knew what she wanted. Time alone with Roland. But to get it, she had to be rid of her brother. She began to talk while they lolled back against a tree. "So which is your beau, then?"

"I don't really have a beau," Sybilla admitted.

"But you should." Isabelle rolled on her side, took the feathery leaf of a fern and let it run over her lips. Then she let it run over the lips of her companion.

"That tickles," Sybilla murmured.

Isabelle did it again. Sybilla smiled, eyes half shut, and did not stop her when Isabelle ran the soft leaf down her neck and around the neckline of her dress, paying special attention to the swell of the breasts. Sybilla emitted a semi-nasal giggle.

When the leaf ran down to her waist and beyond, Sybilla opened her eyes.

"You've stopped," she complained.

"I haven't," said Isabelle. "It's just that you can't feel it through your dress." And she pulled up the hem of Sybilla's dress and played the fronds along her ankles. "Better?"

Sybilla reclosed her eyes.

From the somewhat thick ankle the green plume found its way to a distinctly chunky knee. An adenoidal murmur escaped from between Sybilla's lips, though she did not stir until the fronds came to the very top of her legs, and she did not sigh until Isabelle replaced the greenery with her own tender fingers.

Isabelle 's sharp eyes did not once leave the face of the older girl, and the moment the girl's eyelids gave the first hint of a flicker, she drew her hand away.

"Of course," she said, very matter-of-fact, "it's a beau you need really."

Sybilla, roused unwillingly from her incomplete rapture, was slow to catch on. "For the tickling," Isabelle had to explain. "It's much better with a beau."

And when Sybilla asked her newfound friend, "How do you know?" Isabelle had the answer all ready: "Charlie." By the time the boys returned, shoes and shawl in hand, Isabelle had achieved her purpose. Sybilla, a certain dishevelment apparent in her skirt and petticoat, regarded Charlie with an expression of warm interest.

Charlie, indifferent to the scrutiny, was looking at Isabelle.

"Have you thought how similar Isabelle and Sybilla are?" Isabelle said carelessly. Charlie glared. "The sounds of the names, I mean. Almost interchangeable, wouldn't you say?" She sent a sharp glance at her brother, forcing him to understand. "Roland and I are going to walk a bit farther. But Sybilla's tired. You stay with her." Isabelle took Roland's arm.

Charlie looked coldly at Sybilla, registered the disarrangement of her dress. She stared back at him, eyes wide, mouth slightly open.

When he turned back to where Isabelle had been, she was already gone. Only her laughter came back to him from the darkness, her laughter and the low rumble of Roland's voice. He would get his own back later. He would. Time and time again she would pay for this.

In the meantime he had to vent his feelings somehow.

He turned to Sybilla.

The summer was full of picnics. And for Charlie, it was full of Sybillas. But for Isabelle there was only one Roland. Every day she slipped out of Charlie's sight, escaped his grasp and disappeared on her bicycle. Charlie could never find out where the pair met, was too slow to follow her as she took flight, the bicycle wheels spinning beneath her, hair flying behind. Sometimes she would not return until darkness had fallen, sometimes not even then. When he scolded her, she laughed at him and turned her back as though he simply wasn't there. He tried to hurt her, to maim her, but as she eluded him time after time, slipping through his fingers like water, he realized how much their games had been dependent on her willingness. However great his strength, her quickness and cleverness meant she got away from him every time. Like a boar enraged by a bee, he was powerless.

Once in a while, placatory, she gave in to his entreaties. For an hour or two she lent herself to his will, allowing him to enjoy the illusion that she was back for good and that everything between them was as it always had been. But it was an illusion, as Charlie soon learned, and her renewed absence after these interludes was all the more agonizing.

Charlie forgot his pain only momentarily with the Sybillas. For a time his sister prepared the way for him, then as she became more and more delighted with Roland, Charlie was left to make his own arrangements. He lacked his sister's subtlety; there was an incident that could have been a scandal, and a vexed Isabelle told him that if that was how he intended to go about things then he would have to choose a different sort of woman. He turned from the daughters of minor aristocrats to those of farriers, farmers and foresters. Personally he couldn't tell the difference, yet the world seemed to mind less.