Saraband for Two Sisters

He looked at me desperately. “We might... think of some way.” I shook my head. “I am not a good woman, Richard, as you have discovered, but this is my sister ... my twin sister. This must be an end. I must make some excuse to go.”

“You will break her heart and mine.”

“Hearts mend quickly when there is someone to apply the healing. You will heal each other.”

“I cannot let you go,” he said simply.

“And I cannot stay,” I answered.

“Please, Bersaba, promise me this. Do not go yet. Wait awhile. Let us think how best to handle this.”

“If I stay... this can happen again.”

There was silence and I knew that he was trying to calm his rising emotions, as I was. I had to be calm. I had to think of Angelet.

“I don’t think I could bear to lose you now. You know what my marriage has been like.

When you came life changed ... it became exciting. I was lifted out of my despondency.”

“I understand that,” I answered. “But now we are overwrought. I must go now.”

I saw his face in the candlelight-desperate, yearning, so that he seemed younger and so vulnerable. I longed to comfort him, to make promises which I knew would be a betrayal of Angelet. God knows I had done her enough injury already. I must stop thinking of myself and Richard. “Promise you will not go yet,” he insisted.

And I gave him my promise. Then I pulled myself away. I almost ran from the room and hastened to my own bedchamber. I looked in at Angelet. She was sleeping peacefully, with a look of satisfaction and relief on her innocent face. It was not easy to be natural toward Angelet, but I managed better than he did, and when a messenger came that very afternoon with dispatches from the camp he seemed relieved to go.

I saw him alone before he went. He said, “We will work out a solution.” But I knew there was no solution.

Angelet waved farewell and, turning to me, said in a voice glowing with pride, “He is in such an important position. He is in constant consultation with the King.” As for myself, I wanted to be alone to think and I walked in the grounds and sat in the pond garden from which I could get a glimpse of the castle wall. I thought of his anguish and that monster child who was incarcerated there, and I wondered what would become of us.

We were in December and Angelet talked a great deal about the coming Christmas and Christmases at home. Our father was still there. Our mother wrote that the setting up of the company offices in Plymouth demanded a great deal of their time and she would be happy to have them with her for Christmas. All that she regretted was the absence of her daughters. I thought of them bringing in the Yule log and the carollers and mummers coming and performing. The family were going to Castle Paling for a week or two. Grandfather Casvellyn was ailing. He was always excited at the end of October because Halloween brought back memories and he used to get so excited about witches and wanted to go out himself to find them and hang them, that he was always weak for some time afterward.

“You see, my darlings,” wrote our mother, “nothing is changed. I am so glad that you are together. Angelet must persuade Richard to bring you all here. Of course I know the times are bad and that a soldier has to hold himself in readiness. I do hope all these troubles will dissolve and life be peaceful. We shall be thinking of you on Christmas day.”

We should certainly be thinking of them.

I It was mid-December when a suspicion which had come to me some time before was confirmed.

I should perhaps not be surprised that I was going to have a child. I came to the conclusion calmly enough and with a sort of exultation. That was before I would allow myself to contemplate all the difficulties involved. What was I thinking of? I was happy because I was to have Richard’s child. But in what position was I to bear it?

Phoebe was watching me closely. I believe she knew more than I realized. She had always watched over me and I had suspected that she was aware that I had not returned to my bed in the early hours of morning on more than one night. As I lay in my bed I faced the truth. I asked myself what I was going to do. I would tell him and what would his reaction be? In a way he would be delighted, but then the enormity of the difficulties which were before us would rise up and he would, as I was now, search wildly for some way of dealing with the matter. I could go to my sister and say, “I am to bear your husband’s child. You did not want him so I took him and this is the result.”

Even for myself, who knew her so well, it was difficult to imagine what Angelet would do.

I knew the solution Richard would offer. He would want to take me away. We would have to think up some reason for my going. He would want me to bear my child in secret and he would come and visit us sometimes.

But how? That would have to be decided.

Why had I not thought of this before? Why had not he? Our passion seemed to have blinded us to everything but the need to satisfy it.