Philippa Carr - Saraband for Two Sisters

I knew our mother was very sad at the suggestion—sad because she knew how much we wanted to go and equally sad because she could not bear to let us.

We paid our visit to Grandfather Casvellyn, who glared at us in the way to which we had become accustomed and shouted at us because we did not speak and roared to us to say something sensible when we did.

I noticed that his eyes were on me. He singled me out, and I was sure he knew which one I was.

‘Come here,’ he said, and he drew me to him so that I was touching the rug which covered his mangled legs. Then he gripped my chin in those bony fingers and made me look at him. ‘What have you been doing?’ he asked.

I said: ‘I have been helping Aunt Melanie to gather the flowers.’

He laughed. ‘I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t. You’re a sly one, I fancy.’

He gave me a little push.

My mother was watching and smiling as though she were delighted that one of her children pleased her father. She was a very innocent woman, my mother; it came of believing the best of everybody. Grandfather Casvellyn had been a great rake in his day; there were dark stories about him and his activities; they concerned women too. He was telling me that he believed there was something of him in me.

Perhaps there was.

He made me feel a little uneasy, though, because I wondered if sometimes he had seen me coming in with Bastian and knew what had happened between us.

Gwenifer and Rozen discussed the invitation at length and were envious because they had not received one.

‘I expect,’ said Angelet, ‘she wants to thank Bersaba for saving her. There was a plot to take her, you know. Bersaba heard of it and stopped it.’

They were very interested. It was amazing how excited people became whenever witches and witchcraft were mentioned.

We stayed at the Castle for a week. During the journey back it rained all through the day and we arrived home soaked to the skin. Mother insisted on our putting our feet in bowls of hot water into which was added some herb which was supposed to ward off chills.

However, I caught one and it seemed to hang about for quite a time.

Phoebe by now was getting near her time. She was large and the baby was supposed to be due in mid-September. The time came and passed and still it was not born.

I was very interested in Phoebe’s baby. So was Angelet, but to me there was something special about it. I wanted her to have a healthy child to whom in due course she would tell the story of my bringing her to the Priory and the child would realize that it owed its existence to me.

September was almost over. Each morning I would look anxiously at Phoebe, who seemed to be getting larger and larger, but the baby gave no sign of wanting to be born.

Ginny said: ‘Oh, that Phoebe, she’s misjudged the time, I reckon. That father of hers scared her out of her wits.’

The last day of September came and still the baby was not born. It was a dark morning with a heavy mist in the air when I said to Angelet: ‘I reckon the baby will be born today.’

‘It must be,’ she answered. ‘It’s already three weeks late.’

Phoebe was beginning to look frightened.

‘I feel something awful be happening to me, Mistress Bersaba,’ she said. ‘Do ’ee think the Lord be punishing me for being wanton like?’

‘No,’ I said sharply. ‘If He’s going to punish people for being like that He shouldn’t have made them that way.’

Phoebe looked frightened. I think she expected the wrath of Heaven to descend upon me to punish me for my blasphemy. It was to be expected. Hadn’t she been brought up in the smithy?

In the afternoon it started to rain, great heavy drops that fell steadily down. At four o’clock I thought Phoebe looked ill and she said she was in pain, so I went down to the stables and told one of the grooms to ride over to the midwife and tell her to come without delay. She lived some two miles away in a little group of cottages just outside our estate.

He went off and I went back to Phoebe. I made her go to bed and I stood at the window watching for the midwife.

Phoebe looked very ill and I wasn’t sure whether it was the pain she was suffering or the fear which had returned now her time had come. For seventeen years she had listened to her father’s ranting about the vengeance of God, so it was small wonder that she was reminded of it now.

I kept telling her that there was nothing to fear. A great many girls had been in her position and come happily through. I was almost on the point of telling her my own experiences just to comfort her, but I stopped short of that in time.

I was at the window when I heard the sound of horses hoofs in the stables so, thinking it was the groom returned with the midwife, I ran down.

It was the groom, but the midwife was not with him.

‘Where is Mother Gantry?’ I demanded.

‘Her couldn’t come, Mistress Bersaba.’

‘What do you mean she couldn’t come? I sent you for her.’

‘I hammered on her door but she wouldn’t answer. I said: “You’m wanted at the Priory. One of the maids is giving birth.” ’

‘What did she say to that?’

‘She just come to the window and shook her head at me. Then she pulled down the blind and said, “Go away, or you’ll be sorry.” So I rode back to tell ’ee, mistress.’

‘You fool,’ I cried. ‘We need a midwife. Why do you think I sent you if it didn’t matter whether she came or not? Saddle my horse.’

‘Mistress Bersaba …’

‘Saddle my horse!’ I shouted, and trembling he obeyed.

‘Mistress Bersaba,’ he repeated, ‘I’ll go back …’

I jumped on my horse and rode out. The rain was teeming down. I was not dressed for the saddle. There was nothing on my head and my hair was soon streaming down behind my back.

I took a certain glory in what I was doing. I had saved Phoebe from her father; I had saved Carlotta from the mob—although I had done my best to throw her to them; and now I was continuing in my heroic role. I was going to arrive just in time with the midwife whom that fool of a groom had not brought back with him simply because the woman was too tired or too lazy to answer a summons for a mere maid.

I came to her cottage. I banged on the door. I heard a feeble voice and I lifted a latch and went in. ‘Mistress Gantry …’ I began.

She was lying back in a chair, and I went to her and shook her before I noticed that her face was fiery red, her eyes glassy.

‘Be gone,’ she cried. ‘Don’t ’ee come near me. Stay away, I tell ’ee.’

‘Mistress Gantry, a baby is about to be born.’

‘Get you gone, mistress,’ cried Mother Gantry. ‘I be sick of a pox.’

I understood why she had not opened the door to the groom and that by coming in I had placed myself in acute danger.

I went out of the cottage and mounted my horse.

It seemed a long time before I got back to the Priory. I went into the stables, where the grooms stared at me. Then, wet and bedraggled as I was, I went up to Phoebe’s room.

My mother was at the door.

‘Bersaba, wherever have you been?’

‘I’ve been to Mother Gantry. She can’t come … She’s sick … she says of a pox.’

‘You saw her …’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I went into her cottage to get her to come to Phoebe.’

‘Oh, my child,’ said my mother. ‘You must get those things off.’

‘Phoebe’s baby?’

‘It is born … dead.’

I stared at her. I could see her concern was all for me.

‘Phoebe?’ I began.

‘She is very ill but she has a chance of recovery. I want you to get those wet clothes off. Come with me.’

She led me away.

I was feeling limp, deflated and exhausted.

I WAS SAD AS I rode along, for this would be the first time in my life that I had been parted from Bersaba. There was a terrible anxiety in my heart too, for this was a turning point in our lives and I instinctively knew that nothing would be the same again.

I had longed to go to London; so often I had visualized the trip, and I had an uncanny feeling that my very longing had made it come about. Once a wise woman—I think she was certainly a white witch—had come to Castle Paling with her husband who was a kind of travelling pedlar. Aunt Melanie had given them shelter for the night and the woman had earned her lodging by telling fortunes, which amused us young ones. I always remember what she said to me. It was something like this: ‘If you want something badly believe you will get it, think of it, see yourself getting it. It is almost certain that if you do this your hopes will come true. But you may have to pay for it in a way you hadn’t expected—and that way may not be pleasant. In fact it could be that you might wish you had never asked for it.’

That was how I felt now on the road to London. I was here because Bersaba was so ill. I had seen the fear in my mother’s eyes and that she wanted to make sure of my safety, for when Phoebe’s baby was born dead Bersaba had caught the smallpox from the midwife. We did not know this immediately, of course. Bersaba rode out to bring the midwife in the teeming rain and actually went in and shook the old woman before she noticed the terrible signs of illness on her face, and thus she had come into physical contact with her.

When she came back and told us what had happened, my mother herself put her to bed and made her stay there. The next day, however, we heard that the midwife had died and that several people in the village were suffering from the smallpox.

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.’