Saraband for Two Sisters (27 page)

Then one day a messenger came. He was in the uniform of the King’s Guard and he had a letter for Richard.

This captain and Richard were closeted in the library for a long time and then Richard sent one of the servants for me.

I went down to the library and Richard smiled at me rather sternly, I thought.

He presented the captain to me and said:

‘I shall be leaving tomorrow, Angelet. It is necessary for me to go north for a brief spell. Trouble is expected on the border.’

I knew I must not show my disappointment. He had told me that a soldier’s wife must be prepared for sudden calls such as this, so I tried to be the wife he would have wished me to and said, ‘What would you like me to tell the servants to prepare?’ My voice was a little tremulous, but I was rewarded with a look of approval.

The next day he left Far Flamstead.

The house seemed different without him. I had the sudden odd feeling that it was secretly amused because I was now at its mercy. I had always been fanciful; I lacked that logical mind which Richard had cultivated. He had left in the afternoon and I went right up to the roof and watched him until I could see him no more. Then I descended the newel staircase, and as I came down I paused at the door of the Castle Room. My hand was on the latch but I hesitated. He had not wanted me to go into that room for some reason. What would he think of me if I went in within half an hour of his departure? Resolutely I went back to our bedroom.

I stood at the window and looked out. I could just see the pseudo battlements of the castle, and I wondered why he had looked so stern when he had told me I was not to go there. I turned my back on the view and, sitting on the window-seat, looked at the four-poster bed. I should sleep there alone tonight, and it was no use my telling myself I was not relieved, because my feelings were too strong to be denied.

I shall get used to that, I told myself. And I thought of the lessons of the trees and the laws of nature, and I fell to wondering if soon I would know that I was to have a child. There was no doubt of my feelings about that. I imagined the letters I would write home.

It was strange eating alone, but I felt that the attitude of the servants had changed and that I was not served with the same military precision. Another facet of Richard’s character was that he could not endure unpunctuality. He would arrive exactly at the appointed time, and on one or two occasions when I had been a few minutes late his expression had shown his disapproval, although he had said nothing.

After supper the evening seemed long. I went to the library. Most of the volumes dealt with military matters. I smiled wryly. ‘Well,’ I told myself, ‘you did marry a soldier.’

Then to bed.

How big the bed seemed—how luxurious and comforting. I slept soundly, and when I awoke in the morning I felt a sense of desolation because he was not there.

Life, I assured myself, was full of contrasts, light and shadow, pleasure and endurance. During the day I would miss him so much, but I had to admit I was relieved at night.

I spent the morning in the garden as I always did, ate a solitary dinner, and the afternoon stretched out long before me. Should I ride? If I went far I must take a groom with me just as we always had to at home, so I had no great desire to go.

I found myself climbing the newel staircase to look at the view from the roof, but as I came to the Castle Room the urge came to me to go in and it was so strong that I couldn’t resist it. Even as I stood on the threshold I felt uneasy, I suppose because I was doing something of which my husband would not approve.

It was an ordinary room. Table, chairs, little writing table and court cupboard. What was unusual about it? Only the fact that from it there was a good view of the castle.

The castle! This room! Forbidden territory. I wondered why. As the castle was unsafe, the stone was crumbling, why not remove it? It seemed to be of no use, but it had been put there by an ancestor. But why should this most logical man care about that? I could hear his voice as he bent over his toy soldiers. ‘The infantry here were useless … quite useless. If they had been here, now … they could have done very good work and that might have been another story.’

The site of the castle could be used for another building. Something useful. Or gardens perhaps.

I went to the window-seat and, kneeling there, looked out. It really was rather absurd. Just a modest little house, really, with grinning gargoyles on its turrets and tiny machicolations from which no boiling oil or hot tar had ever been thrown down on intruders.

I turned back to the room. ‘Homely,’ I murmured. Yes, it did look as though it had been lived in. I wondered by whom. I tried to open the doors of the court cupboard. They were locked, but one drawer opened and in it was a key. It was that to the cupboard, so I was able to open the doors. It was full of canvases.

I was interested. Richard had said that he wanted me to start a tapestry and I thought it was just what I needed to fill the hours while he was away, and here were the canvases. I took them out and examined them. They were of varying sizes. I opened another drawer and found a quantity of beautiful coloured embroidering silks.

I took out the canvases, spread them out on the table, and as I did so a small worked piece fell out. I picked it up. It was one of those samplers which most children were expected to make at some time as a lesson in patience and diligence. This one was neatly worked and the cross stitches were minute. I had worked one myself, but Bersaba had cobbled hers and had asked my mother what useful purpose it served to have to sit there making neat little stitches—though Bersaba’s were never neat—in the form of the alphabet, numbers one to nine, and a verse from the Bible—‘Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the Earth’ or something like that—followed by one’s name and the date. My mother had seen Bersaba’s point and she did not have to pursue hers. I finished mine and my mother showed it to my father with great pride.

This was similar.

The letters of the alphabet, the numbers and:

‘My lips shall not speak wickedness neither shall my tongue utter deceit.’

‘The price of wisdom is above rubies.’

And underneath that ‘M. Herriot in the year of our Lord 1619’.

Magdalen, I thought. She lived here. This was her room. It was for that reason that Richard had not wished me to come here.

Now that Richard was not here, the servants’ attitude definitely changed towards me. Mrs Cherry liked to talk to me, and when I went to the kitchen my stays were longer than they had been.

Richard had wanted me to learn the duties of the mistress of the house and this was something in which I did not need a great deal of tuition, for my mother had always been a woman deeply concerned with domestic matters and she had brought us up to feel the same. It was one of the areas in which I did better than Bersaba, and I was often in our kitchen at Trystan when my mother gave the orders for the day.

So I had no difficulty with Mrs Cherry, who sensed this and respected me for it.

I made a point of going down to the kitchen each morning to tell her what I would have for dinner and supper. She would sit down with me, purring slightly. She seemed a very contented woman, I thought.

She called me ‘my lady’ as all the servants did, and she spoke of the General in hushed whispers which implied great respect.

I asked her if she had done a lot of cooking at any time and she answered yes, she had, for there were occasions when the household was full of guests. ‘Military gentlemen,’ she said. ‘They’d come here and stay for a few days. The General would ride out from Whitehall with them. Big appetites they had and good drinkers most of them. That’s why the General keeps a good cellar. Cherry says we’ve got some of the finest malmseys and muscadels in England.’

‘You must tell me what happens on these occasions, Mrs Cherry. I shall want to make sure that they are a success.’

‘You can rely on me … and Cherry, as well as Mr Jesson, and we see that the rest of them behaves, if you know what I mean. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for the General.’

‘It must have been difficult for him without a hostess all these years.’

‘Well, I reckon you’ll be a help, my lady, but I can tell you that these military gentlemen like to eat and drink and fight their wars on the table and they’re content. I remember one night when we went in to clear away after supper and there they were … my best game pie was some fort or other and my boar’s head was the enemy’s cavalry, if you please. There they were arranged there all over the table … you never saw the like … and one of them started making pellets of bread and throwing them around. Shot and shell they was.’

I laughed. I could well imagine that.

‘Their profession is fighting, Mrs Cherry, and preserving the country from our enemies.’

‘I don’t doubt that, my lady. But as I was saying … give them a good sirloin of beef and a leg of mutton and plenty of pies and plover and partridge and hare or peacock and something good to wash it down with, and they’re content.’

‘I am sure everything will work splendidly.’

‘Oh, you can rely on me, my lady … and Cherry. And the rest of them too.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And there’s one thing we have to be ready for. At any time the General can arrive. You can be sure that he’ll be back here as fast as he can … he being such a newly married man.’

‘Mrs Cherry,’ I said, ‘how long have you been here?’

‘It was before the General … er … before his first marriage. Cherry got a wound in his leg, and the General thinking highly of him, and Cherry being unfit for service, he says … the General I mean … well, come along and be my general factotum … that’s what he said, and Mrs Cherry can be the housekeeper and cook for me. Cherry jumped at it, and so did I. Always a high regard Cherry had for the General … who wasn’t a General then … that came after.’

‘So you were here at the time of his first marriage.’

‘Oh yes. I remember the day he brought her here. We talked of it here in the kitchens only the other day … your coming reminded us … those of us who were here, of course. I said: “He’s not made a mistake this time,” and Cherry agreed with me.’

‘A mistake?’

‘Oh, I’m speaking out of turn again. Cherry’s always telling me I talk too much. Well, it’s good to be sociable. Well, since you ask, my lady and it’s as well to know what’s gone before, I reckon, she was a delicate little thing. Too young she was.’

‘How young?’

‘Seventeen … going on for eighteen.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘I know you’re a young lady yourself, but she seemed younger, if you know what I mean. One of the Herriots. Thought a good deal of themselves, the Herriots did … one of the finest families in the north. The families were in favour and I think that had to be the reason for it. So they were married, and the General … only he wasn’t a General then … brought her home. She knew nothing about housekeeping. She was frightened of her own shadow.’

‘She liked needlework.’

‘Yes, indeed, my lady. She’d sit up there in the Castle Room and she’d have her tapestry set up there and she’d work away and sometimes you’d hear her singing. She had a pretty voice … oh, a very pretty voice … but not strong, and she’d play the spinet and sing as she played. It was very pretty to hear her. There was one song she used to sing … ’

‘Yes, Mrs Cherry?’ I prompted.

‘We were trying to remember the other day because Grace was saying it was funny in a way … oh, not to make you laugh. I don’t mean that … queer, if you like. The song was about her being laid in her grave and she hoped her wrongs wouldn’t be held against her. The last line used to go “Remember me, but forget what brought me to this state”, which was very odd in a way.’

‘You mean because she died so young … and unexpectedly.’

‘Oh, it was expected. She’d been ailing all the time … The midwife—Mrs Jesson that was. She was here then and died a few years later—spoke to me a few days before and said she didn’t think her ladyship could survive.’

‘She was very ill then?’

‘Every woman must be a bit afraid of her first. It’s natural, and there’s many who give their lives for the sake of the child. It’s nature’s way … but it ain’t natural for anyone to be quite so frightened. That’s what I reckon.’

‘And so she and her baby died.’

‘It was a sad time, I can tell you. The General he just went away, and the house was quiet and dead like for more than a year.’

‘How very sad.’

‘Oh well, things are different now. You’re a strong healthy young lady, if you’ll forgive me the liberty of remarking on it. I reckon when your time comes …’

She looked at me intently, and for the first time I noticed an alertness in her eyes which did not quite accord with her placid rotundity. I supposed that she was naturally interested to know if I had already conceived. Women like her would like to have children in the house.

I stood up suddenly. I felt I had talked enough, and I had a sudden notion that Richard would not approve of this chattering with the servants.

So I said: ‘There is no need to cook a great deal, Mrs Cherry, as I shall be alone.’

‘Well, of course not, my lady. You just tell me what you want and I promise you it will be just to your liking.’

I had always had a strong curiosity about what was going on around me, and I thought a great deal about Richard’s life with Magdalen and wondered whether he had fought out old battles with her and admonished her about her lack of concentrated effort over the chessboard.

I smiled indulgently. Well, he wouldn’t have wanted a wife who could beat him, would he? I was not sure. There was a great deal about him that I did not understand. I was glad of it, for it made our future life full of interest and discovery.

I feared I was much more easy to read.

I was longing to work on a canvas. I did wish Bersaba were here. She used to draw my pictures for me, making the finished work a joint affair. When people complimented me on the finesse of my stitches I would always draw attention to the design. ‘That is my sister’s work,’ I would say.