Saraband for Two Sisters

“It’s strange, Bersaba,” she said, “there’s only going to be one of us.”

“No, no. That’s not so.”

“It is. I know it Now I want to talk to you seriously, Bersaba. Care for Dickon.”

«I promise.

“Marry Richard ... if he comes back. You can make him happy. I never could. I’m not clever enough. You amused him and were what he needed. Do you think I didn’t know? I think I saw it when you were in the library playing your games. He came alive with you. You’ll be happy. There’s no secret now, is there? No ghosts ... no specter ... no living skeletons of the past. It’s all clear now. So please, Bersaba, do this.”

I kept saying, “You are going to get well. How could life be the same for me without you? Haven’t there always been two of us?”

“It’s better for there to be one sometimes. I’m happy that we are together now ... in understanding. I have been so foolish. When I knew about you and Richard I thought you were trying to kill me. I deserve to die for that.”

“I never heard such nonsense. Richard loves you. I am going away ... I am going to leave you to be happy. You have your beautiful son. And I have my children.»

“We both have his children, Bersaba. It seems that was meant. Of course we both loved the same man. We were as one person. I can be happy, Bersaba, if I think you are going to be and there is some purpose in my going.”

I tried to reason with her, for I could not bear to hear her talk like that. I blamed myself for so much that had happened and there was small comfort in the knowledge that she did not blame me.

I sat by her bed through the night and in the early hours of the morning, she died.

I had never felt so alone in all my life.

Beyond the sea

I stayed at Far Flamstead for three months until I considered young Richard was old enough to travel; then I set out for Trystan Priory with my children, Angelet’s son, and Phoebe and her child.

Traveling at such times was hazardous but it seemed hardly likely that either side would attack two women and a band of children. We took two of the young boys from the stable who were too young to be in either army and we set out. It took us many weeks to travel, for we had to make many detours. Many of the inns we had known were no longer there. Sometimes we would sleep in the shell of a building to protect us from the night air. But it was by that time May and the weather was good. There was spring in the air and my spirits rose a little as I listened to the sound of the sedge warblers in the reeds and the call of the peewits and whitethroats. The hawthorns were weighed down with bud and blossom as I smelled their scent on the air and it was like a promise that life was ready to burst into flower again. We had not been able to warn my parents of our coming and I shall never forget the moment when we rode into the courtyard. There was shouting and tumult throughout the house. There were my mother and father embracing first me and then the children; and that agonizing moment when they looked around for Angelet. It was terrible to have to tell them. I feared my mother would never get over it. Secretly I believed that the balance of her affection had always tipped in Angelet’s favor but that was because she was the complete mother and her concern went to the one she instinctively knew was in greater need of her protection. I signed to Phoebe and she came forward and put young Dickon into my mother’s arms; and I believe then that something happened to soothe the pain. The child was hers from that moment. She was going to rear him, nurture him, make him strong and healthy, and she declared that he Jiad a look of her beloved Angelet.

So I returned to Trystan Priory.

What happened is common knowledge.

There was the defeat at Naseby when the King lost half his army. The news came slowly to Cornwall, but we knew in spite of our loyalty the Royalist cause was lost. The Parliament was demanding the control of the militia and the establishment of Presbyterianism throughout England and when this was refused the King became a fugitive and took refuge in the Isle of Wight. He was seized at Carisbrooke and brought to London.

There came that sad January day in the year 1649 when our King was executed on the scaffold in front of the Banqueting House in Whitehall.

“Nothing will ever be the same again,” said my father.

Indeed, everything was different. We must dress with somber propriety; we must go regularly to church; we must all conform to the standard set to us. Grandfather Casvellyn, who was a very old man, had shouted his wrath with such vehemence that he had been seized with apoplexy and died. So life at Castle Paling was very different too. The girls had married, but Bastian had not. As soon as he had known that I was home he had come riding to Trystan. Since then he has asked me to marry him on three occasions. On each one I have refused, but I have a notion that one day I might accept.