Saraband for Two Sisters

For two weeks we lived to a sort of pattern. Each morning he worked in the library and I was left to myself, when I would wander through the gardens, which consisted of ten acres, so there was plenty for me to see. There was a walled rose garden and a pond garden, a kitchen garden and an herb garden. I wrote letters to my mother and to Bersaba telling the former the details of the flowers we grew here and how the colder drier climate seemed to affect certain things. It was easy writing to her. It was less so writing to Bersaba. I used to think often of her lying in bed, where she still had to spend a certain amount of time, regaining her strength, my mother called it, so I was afraid to write too glowingly of my happiness, which was certainly there, but it is the nature of happiness to be elusive. I had discovered that it stayed usually for a few fleeting moments and, if it remained for a day, that was rare. The nights hung over me not exactly frightening but bewildering. I had never thought about this side to marriage, and it always seemed to me that the man I met behind the red curtains of the four-poster bed was a stranger-not the one who was so noble, dignified, and commanding by day. I loved him dearly. I never had any doubt of that, and the fact that at times he seemed rather remote in his daytime personality made him more than ever attractive to me. I used to fancy I could hear my mother’s explaining, “You were very young to marry. Had you been at home I should have talked to you and warned you of what you must expect. You would have been prepared. But as it happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly, you are groping in the dark a little. Have no fear. You love him and he loves you. You are a little in awe of him because he holds a high position in the country. Well, it is a good thing to respect your husband.” I used to wonder if she had felt thus with my father.

I thought if Bersaba were here I could talk to her. But I could not bring myself to write my innermost thoughts even to her.

In the afternoons, when Richard’s work was done, we would ride together. He delighted in showing me the countryside. He had a great feeling for nature and he loved trees. He would point them out to me and tell me about them; and there were a great variety round Flamstead. It was like a lesson in botany to ride with Richard. He would pause by a stream where the willow trees grew. “See how they love the moist damp earth,” he pointed out. “Look, their roots are almost in the water. This is a male tree, for the flowers of the male and female are on separate trees. You should see the furry silvery tufts breaking out in the spring and the males have golden-tipped stamens and the females green. When they’re in full seed they look as though they are covered in tufts of white wool.”

He would point out the Scotch pines and the yews.

“Look at that yew. It has been there for over a hundred years. Doesn’t that give you pause to think? Imagine what changes it has seen. It was there when Queen Elizabeth first came to the throne and before that when her father was dissolving the monasteries and cutting us off from Rome.”

“There is something rather sinister about yews,” I said.

“Well, they are poisonous to cattle.”

“There’s something witchlike about them. One could imagine their having secret knowledge.

But the berries are not poisonous, are they? The birds eat them.”

“My dear little Angelet, you see good everywhere. I hope you always will.” He talked at length about the yews; how they grew very slowly and could live for over a thousand years, and the flowers were of distinct sexes and grew on different trees-the male flowers small, round, and yellow, their stamens producing a considerable amount of pollen, the female flowers small green ovoids which grew on the under part of the twigs.

I felt that he was explaining that there was a similarity between nature’s laws with flowers and with people. He knew that I was uneasy and he was telling me that I would grow accustomed to what seemed a little strange and alarming to me at first. Hadn’t it been happening throughout the world since the Creation, because it was nature’s way of replenishing the earth?

I listened avidly and tried to convey to him that I understood and would in time accept life as it was.

He had interesting stories to tell of the trees and said that they were the most beautiful of all nature’s creations. There was no time of the year when a tree was not beautiful. In the spring it was a joy with its buds and promise; in the summer it was rich and full; in the autumn the turning color of its leaves was an inspiration to the artist. Best of all was the winter, when its denuded branches could be seen against a winter sky.

“I had not thought you could be so lyrical,” I told him.

“I am usually afraid of mockery,” he said.

“Not with me.”

“Never with you.”

I felt happy then.