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Saraband for Two Sisters

I felt the tears coming to my eyes and I knew that if I could have cried I should have felt relieved to some extent. But I would not cry. Instead I nursed my anger. I thought of the insult to my pride and I knew that I had loved Bastian because he had noticed me more and liked me better than my sister and that it was my pride which had made me love him; now he had wounded that pride he had taken away my reason for loving him and I hated him. I wanted to hurt him as he had hurt me.

I heard a small voice within me saying, “You never loved Bastian. You loved only yourself.”

And I knew it was true and I wished that I were like Angelet, who never prohed her own secret mind as I did.

I went down the old pack horse track where the flowers on the blackberry bushes were out in abundance, and where we came with our dishes at the end of summer and gathered them so that they could make preserves in the stillroom. I started to gallop past the fields of deep green wheat and I came to the woods-the woods where I had lain with Bastian when he visited us at Trystan Priory. The foxgloves were flowering there. Angelet and I once gathered them and took them into the house and old Sarah who worked in the kitchens said they were poison flowers and witches knew how to brew a potion from them to make you sleep forever.

I would like to make Carlotta sleep forever.

I was wrong to have come to the woods where there were too many memories. I thought of the last time we had been here together. It was six months ago-in January and the trees were bare-lacy branches seen against a gray sky. How beautiful they had been; more beautiful, I had said to Bastian, than they were in summer. “I’d rather have the leaves to shelter us,” he had said. “It’s dangerous here.”

“Nonsense,” I had replied. “Who’d come to the woods in winter?”

«We did.”

It was cold, I remember-the wind was chill-but I said to him, “While our love is warm what matters it?”

And we laughed and were happy and he said, “This time next winter we shall announce our betrothal.” And it was an enchanted afternoon.

When we rode back I pointed out the points of yellow in the jasmine which climbed over one of the cottages we passed.

“Promise of spring,” said Bastian. It seemed significant. The future was full of promise for us.

Why did I want to come here to revive memories? Better to have stayed in the house. Then I saw a man riding toward me and I felt a sudden quiver of alarm because I was doing what was forbidden-riding out alone. I spurred up my horse and, turning off the road, broke into a canter across the meadow. My alarm intensified, for the man who had been on the road was coming across the meadow in my direction. “There is nothing to fear,” I admonished myself. ‘Why should he not come this way?” I seemed to hear my mother’s voice. “I never want you girls to go out alone. It is all right if Fennimore or Bastian is with you. But always make sure that there are two grooms at least.”

He had ridden past me and was pulling up his horse. Strangely enough my fear had left me; excitement took its place, for the rider was no ruffian. Far from it. He was elegant in the extreme and a stranger, for we did not often see such gentlemen in the country.

I noticed his hat first because he swept it off and turned to me, waved it in his hand as he bowed his head; it was of black felt, broadbrimmed and adorned with a beautiful white feather which trailed over the brim. His hair-light brown, almost golden, curled at the tips-fell to his shoulders. We did not wear our hair like that in the country, yet I had heard that it was the latest fashion. Fennimore had laughed at the time and said he would never wear his hair like a girl. But I had to admit that if the face it framed was manly enough the effect was not effeminate. His doublet was black, with wide sleeves caught in at a cuff with lace edges; his breeches were of black material that had a look of satin; and he wore square-toed boots fitting up his leg to just below his knees. I suppose I noticed his appearance so minutely because I had never seen anyone like him before.

‘Tour pardon, mistress,” he said. “I would ask your help. Do you live hereabouts and know the country?”

“I do,” I answered.

“I am looking for Trystan Priory, which I believe is in this neighborhood.”

‘Then you are fortunate to have met me, for I live there and am returning there now.”

“Is that truly so, then this is indeed a happy meeting.”

“If you ride beside me I will take you there,” I said.

“That is kind of you.”

Our horses walked side by side as we crossed the meadow to the road.

“I think you may wish to see my father,” I said.

“I have business with Captain Fennimore Landor,” he answered.

“He is away at this time.”

“But I had heard his voyage was ended.”