Saraband for Two Sisters

THE change was apparent in the first day. This visit was like no other. Before we had rarely made plans for the days. We would come down to breakfast, which was a tankard of ale and bread with cold bacon, and we helped ourselves to this. Then we would go our separate ways. There had been a free and easy atmosphere about the castle. Sometimes I would ride with my sister and any of the girls who like to accompany us or I would go to the seashore and add to my collection of shells and semiprecious stones, or I would simply explore the castle. There was so much to do. When we had been young we had been allowed to play all sorts of games in the various towers as long as we did not penetrate Grandfather Casvellyn’s Seaward; and the castle had seemed to us an enchanted place.

It was still that in a way, but it was different.

Senara, my mother, and Aunt Melanie seemed to want to talk all the time about the old days; Senara must go round the castle exclaiming, “I remember this well.” Or, “Oh, look at that. Fancy its still being here.” That left Carlotta to us. We were wary of each other-particularly was Bersaba wary. Carlotta talked in that half-foreign way which was attractive; her clothes were different; they, with her voice, her manners, and her incomparable beauty, set her apart. It would have been different if she had not been aware of this, but she was.

Bersaba and I with Rozen and Gwenifer took her on a tour of the castle.

“Is it very different from what your mother told you?” asked Rozen.

“Very different.”

“And we are different, too?” I asked.

She laughed, shaking her head. “I did not know of you, therefore I could not picture you. You are different from the people I know.”

‘What? Girls like us?”

“Oh, it is different in Spain. Young girls do not run wild, as here. They practice decorum and have a duenna.”

“Who is yours?”

“I have none now. I am here and here I shall live as girls live here.”

“Do you prefer it?” asked Bersaba.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I cannot say. It is not a gracious way to live. Yet one has freedom, and that is good.”

“We could do with more freedom,” said Gwenifer. “We are not allowed to ride out without grooms, are we?”

“Sometimes we get lost,” said Bersaba.

Carlotta turned her full-lidded eyes on my sister.

“For a purpose?” asked Carlotta.

My sister shrugged her shoulders, and Gwenifer said, “You came back with Bastian the other day, Bersaba.”

“Yes,” said Bersaba, “I lost you, and so did Bastian and then ... we found each other.”

It seemed a long and unnecessary explanation. I knew Bersaba had deliberately lost herself. I wondered whether Bastian had too.

“Ah, Bastian, the brother,” said Carlotta. “He is a very pleasant young gentleman. I shall miss Spain, where life is so much more gracious, but I think I shall like being here... for a while.”

“Shall you go back to Spain?”

“Of course.”

“Are you betrothed?” asked Rozen.

Carlotta shook her head. “No I could have been but he was not to my liking. He was old, a great nobleman with large estates and a great title, but I said no, I am too young yet for such a union. I will wait a little while. There might be someone to my liking.”

We all regarded her with awe.

When we came to the Seaward Tower, she said, “Why do we not enter here? »

“We rarely go in there,” said Rozen. “That’s where our grandfather lives with his servants. There has to be a special reason for going ... for instance, when my aunt arrives with the twins. She is expected to call on the first day of her arrival and after that wait for an invitation.”

“That mad old man!” said Carlotta. “What a scene he made! He did not like my mother nor me. He does not want us here.”

“He gets very angry. For so many years he has been crippled. At first they thought he would kill himself, but he didn’t and now he goes on making everyone’s life unbearable. But somehow the servants who look after him admire him. I can’t think why.”

“It is time he is dead,” said Carlotta, blowing her lips in an odd gesture as though he were so much dust and she were blowing him away.

We were all a little shocked. Perhaps it had occurred to us that Grandfather Casvellyn’s life must be a burden to him and others, but while he had life in his body that life was sacred. Our parents had taught us that, Carlotta sensed our thoughts. There was something uncanny about her. Perhaps she was indeed a witch or had such experience of life that she understood how the minds of simple country girls worked. She cried out, “Oh, you don’t talk of such matters, do you? You all pretend you’re fond of him because he’s your grandfather. How could anyone be fond of such a horrible old man? He wanted us turned away. Did my grandmother really marry him? She is so beautiful ... the most beautiful woman I ever saw... and she married him!”

“He was no doubt very handsome in those days.”

She was thoughtful. “Tall and strong and powerful ... the lord of the castle perhaps. Well, now, I say it is time he was dead and I shall say what I think.”

“Don’t let anyone hear you,” I said.