Saraband for Two Sisters

My mother-usually so meek-became like a general gathering her forces about her, going into the attack determined to defeat the enemy -in this case a disease which could kill.

She sent for me and I was immediately aware of her purpose. “You will no longer sleep in Bersaba’s room,” she told me. “Your things are being moved to a little room on the east side.”

This room was about the farthest from the one I shared with Bersaba.

“I don’t want you to see your sister until I say you may.” I was horrified. Not see Bersaba! I who had been with her almost every hour of my life! I felt as though part of myself was being taken away. “We must be sensible,” said my mother the next day, very calm in spite of the anxiety she was suffering. “The fact is that Bersaba has been in contact with a woman who has the smallpox. She had a chill at the time so may well be in a receptive state. We shall know in a week or two at most whether she has contracted the disease. If she has then I want you to go away.”

“To go away ... from Bersaba when she is ill!”

“My dear child, this is a dangerous sickness which can result in death. We must be brave and we shall not be that if we shut our eyes to the truth. I am going to send you to London... if this develops.”

“To London ... without Bersaba?”

“I want you to be far away. This is going to be distressing and if Bersaba really has contracted the disease we are going to need all our skills in nursing her. »

“I should be here to help, then.”

“No. I would not let you run the risk.”

“But what of you, Mother?”

“I am her mother. You don’t think I would allow anyone else to nurse her?”

“What if you caught it?” My eyes were round with horror.

“I shall not,” she said confidently. “I must not, for I intend to nurse Bersaba. But as yet we are unsure. I want you to stay away from her. That is why I have changed your room. Promise me that you will not see her.”

“But what will she think?”

“Bersaba is sensible. She knows what has happened. She understands the danger. Therefore she will agree that we are right.”

“Mother, how could I go to London when she may be ill?”

“You can because I say you must. You are so close ... so accustomed to being together, that I fear it might not be possible to keep you apart»

“But to go to London... without Bersaba!”

“I have been awake all night thinking of the best course to take and I have come to the conclusion that this is it. If you were at Castle Paling you would be too near ... and I think it would be good for you to have a change of scene. In London everything will be fresh for you. You won’t fret so much. »

“Mother, you think she may die....”

“She is going to live. But we have to face the facts, Angel. She is already weak.

She has seemed in a highly strung state these last weeks ... and then the chill. But I shall nurse her through it. I have sent a message to London telling Senara that in all probability you will be leaving in two weeks unless she hears to the contrary. Make your preparations. I’m afraid you will only be able to take what you have and there will be no time for making new garments. Be of good cheer, Angelet. It may not come to this.”

I was bewildered. I had so longed to go to London but I had never for a moment thought of doing so without Bersaba. I just could not visualize a life she did not share. Those two weeks passed somehow. Every morning I would look into my mother’s face to read what I dared not ask. The whole household seemed to be plunged into melancholy. Bersaba stayed in her room and only my mother went to her. She told me that Bersaba understood and realized that it must be so.

Then came the morning when I read the terrible truth in my mother’s eyes. The first dread symptoms had shown themselves.

That was why on that October morning I was traveling to London. I had Mab with me to act as my maid and six grooms to protect me and to look after the baggage. And as I rode along I was thinking of my sister and wondering whether I should ever see her again.

I remember very little of the journey because all the time my thoughts were occupied with Bersaba. We stayed the first night at Castle Paling, and that was a somber occasion because everyone was so shocked by the thought of what might be happening at the Priory.

I could see that they didn’t have much hope of Bersaba’s recovery and their assurances that it would certainly be a mild attack and that she would have the best attention and that so much had been learned about the disease now that many people were cured, lacked conviction.