Saraband for Two Sisters

Visitors from the Past

YESTERDAY, THE TWELFTH DAY of June in the year sixteen hundred and thirty-nine, was our seventeenth birthday—mine and Bersaba’s. It was fitting that we should be born in June, the birth sign of which is Gemini, for we are twins. In our family birthdays are always celebrated as joyous occasions. Our mother is responsible for that. There are certain women in our family who are born to be mothers and she is one of them. I don’t think I am; I’m certain Bersaba isn’t. But perhaps I am mistaken, because it can be a quality which is only discovered when one reaches the state of motherhood, and one thing I have learned is that one can be mistaken about a great deal, which is one of the less gratifying experiences of growing up. I once remarked to Bersaba that every birthday our mother thanked God for giving us to her and Bersaba answered that she did it every day. My mother, Tamsyn Landor, was married five years before our brother Fennimore was born and then another seven years elapsed before she gave birth to us—her twins. I believe she had wanted a large family, but now she would say she had just what she wanted, for she is a woman who can adjust existing conditions to her dreams of contentment which I am old enough to know is a rare gift.

We had the usual birthday celebrations. June is a lovely month for a birthday because so much of it can be celebrated out of doors. On our birthday it became a ritual that if the day was fine we rode out into the meadows and there we would feast off cold poultry and what we called West Country Tarts, pastry cases with the fruit of the season—strawberries for our birthday—in them and custard or clouted cream on the top, which were a very special delicacy. Of course there had been rainy birthdays and on these occasions the friends and neighbours who joined us would come to the house, where we would play games such as blindman’s buff or hunt the slipper and then we would dress up and act charades or produce the plays which we had seen the mummers do at Christmas time. Whatever the weather, birthdays were days to be looked forward to and I had said every year to Bersaba that as ours was two in one it should be extra special.

On this particular birthday the weather had been fine and we had been out into the meadows and the young people from Kroll Manor and Trent Park had joined us. We had played ball games and kayles—which consisted of knocking down pins with a stick or a ball—and after that hide-and-seek, during which Bersaba had not been found and caused a certain anxiety because our mother was always afraid that something terrible would happen to us. We were an hour searching for Bersaba and finally she gave herself up. She looked hurt when she saw how worried our mother had been, but I who knew her so well guessed that she was gratified to be so worried about. Bersaba often seemed as though she wanted to assure herself that she was important to us.

We all went back to Trystan Priory, our home, and there were more games and feasting, and just before dark servants came from Kroll Manor and Trent Park to take our friends home and that was the end of another birthday we thought. But it was not so.

Our mother came to our room. We had always shared a room and sometimes I thought that now we were growing up we should have separate apartments—there were plenty of rooms in the Priory—but I waited for Bersaba to suggest it and I think perhaps she was waiting for me to do so, and as neither of us did we went on in the old way.

Our mother looked rather solemn.

She sat down on the big carved chair which Bersaba and I used to fight over when we were young. It was a wonderful chair with griffins at the end of the arms and I always felt I had the advantage when I sat in that chair, and as Bersaba felt the same there was competition to get there first. Now our mother sat there and looked at us with that benign affection which I took for granted then and remembered with nostalgia later on.

‘Seventeen,’ she said. ‘It’s a turning point. You’re no longer children, you know.’

Bersaba sat quietly, her hands in her lap. Bersaba was a quiet person. I was scarcely that. I often wondered why people said they couldn’t tell us apart. Although we looked identical, our natures were so different that that should have been an indication.

‘Next year,’ went on our mother, ‘you’ll be eighteen. There’ll be a different birthday party for you. It will be more grown up and there won’t be games such as you’ve been playing today.’

‘I suppose we shall have a ball,’ I said, and I could not keep the excitement out of my voice, for I loved dancing and I excelled at it.

‘Yes, and you will be meeting more people. I was talking to your father about it last time he was home, and he agreed with me.’

I wondered idly if they had ever disagreed about anything. I couldn’t believe they ever had.

‘But that is a year ahead,’ she went on, as though she were pleased that it could be postponed. ‘There is something else. It’s a tradition in our family that the women of the household keep journals. It’s a strange one, because it has been carried on in an unbroken line since your great-great-grandmother Damask Farland began it. It is possible to follow our family history in these journals. Now that you are growing up you may read that of Damask and of your great-grandmother Catherine. You will find it of the utmost interest.’

‘And Grandmother Linnet’s and yours?’ asked Bersaba.

‘They are not yet for reading.’

‘Oh, what a pity,’ I cried, but Bersaba was looking thoughtful, and she said gravely, ‘If people knew that what they wrote would be read by those living round them they wouldn’t tell the truth … not the whole truth.’

Our mother nodded, slowly smiling at Bersaba. Bersaba had a certain wisdom which I lacked. I said whatever came into my head, just allowing it to flow out without thinking very much about it. Bersaba often thought carefully before she spoke.

‘Why should they not?’ I demanded. ‘What is the point of keeping a diary if you don’t tell the truth?’

‘Some people see the truth as they want to,’ said Bersaba.

‘Then how can it be the truth?’

‘It’s truth to them because that’s what they believe, and if they are writing for people to read who might have been there when whatever they are writing about was happening they would tell their version of it.’

‘There’s some truth in that,’ said my mother. ‘So, your journal is your own secret. It must be so. It is only years later that it becomes the property of the family.’

‘When we are dead,’ I said with a shiver, but I was fascinated by it. I thought of the generations to come reading all about my life. I hoped it would be worth reading.

My mother went on: ‘So now that you are growing up I am going to suggest that you keep your journals. I am giving you one each tomorrow and a desk in which you can lock them up when you have written in them. They will be your very own private property.’

‘Do you still write in yours, Mother?’ asked Bersaba.

She smiled gently. ‘I still write now and then. Once I wrote a good deal. That was in the days before I married your father. I had a great deal to write about then.’ Her expression clouded. I knew she was thinking of the dreadful mystery of her mother’s death. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I hardly ever write. There is nothing dramatic to record. Life has been happy and peaceful for these last years, and happiness and a peaceful existence have one failing only—they give little to write about. I hope, my darlings, that you will find only happy events to record in your books. But write all the same … write of the ordinary happy things of life.’

I cried: ‘I’m longing to begin. I shall start tomorrow. I shall tell about today … our seventeenth birthday.’

‘And what of you, Bersaba?’ asked my mother.

‘I shall write when I have something interesting to write about,’ answered my sister.

My mother nodded. ‘Oh, and by the way, I think it is time we visited your grandfather. We shall leave next week. You’ll have plenty of time to prepare.’

Then she kissed us and left us.

And then next day we received our desks and journals, and I started mine by writing the above.

There was nothing unusual about visiting our grandfather in Castle Paling. We did it several times a year. The Castle is not far from us—a few miles along the coast only, but going there always excited me. Castle Paling was in itself a ghostly place; terrible things had happened there not so very long ago. My mother had hinted at them and she should know, for she had spent her childhood there. Her mother—our grandmother Linnet Casvellyn—had died there in a mysterious fashion (she had, I believed, been murdered, although this had never been admitted) and now our grandfather Colum Casvellyn lived a strange and solitary life in the Seaward Tower, a trial to all around him and especially to himself. My Uncle Connell and Aunt Melanie lived in another part of the castle with their four children; they were a very normal family, but extreme contrasts like the placidity of my Aunt Melanie and the wildness of my grandfather create an atmosphere which is more sinister because of this very contrast.

As Trystan Priory was five miles from the sea, one of the attractions of the castle was its closeness to it, for even within its thick walls one was aware of its murmur, especially when it was rough. In comparison our house seemed very peaceful, and to a girl of seventeen who was longing for adventure peace could appear dull.

Ours was a fine house really, though I never realized this until I left it. The old priory had been destroyed when the monasteries were dissolved and the house had been built on the site with many of the original stones. As it had been constructed in the days of Elizabeth it was built in the shape of an E out of compliment to the Queen, as so many houses were at that time. It was full of exciting nooks and crannies, and it had its butteries, pantries and fine old kitchen. The grounds were beautiful. There were rose, pond, kitchen and herb gardens and some in the Italian style but mostly English; our mother took a great interest in them as she did about anything in the house, because it was the home which sheltered her precious family. This impressed itself on me after visiting Castle Paling, where in spite of Melanie—who was not dissimilar to my mother—one had the impression of something forbidding and menacing.

Bersaba felt it as I did and it was indicative of our characters that it affected us differently.

The day after our seventeenth birthday I asked Bersaba whether she was pleased we were going to Castle Paling the following week. We were in the schoolroom, where we had been left by our governess for what was called ‘private study’.

She shrugged her shoulders and lowered her eyes and I saw her teeth come out over her lower lip. I knew her habits so well that I understood she was faintly disturbed. But her feelings could be mixed. There was a good deal she hated about Castle Paling but there was one thing she loved. That was our cousin Bastian.

‘I wonder how long we shall stay?’ I went on.

‘Not more than a week, I expect,’ she answered. ‘You know Mother hates to be away too long for fear Father should return in her absence and she will not be there to welcome him.’

Our father was often away from home for months at a stretch because he was deeply involved with the East India Company which had been founded by his father—amongst others—and which for a time had prospered. In this year of sixteen hundred and thirty-nine it was less successful than it had been, but to a man like my father that was a challenge. Many people connected with the Company visited us at Trystan Priory and there always seemed something exhilarating to discuss about it. For instance, at this time there was a great deal of talk about the new factory they were planning to build on the banks of the Hooghly River in India.

‘Fennimore will be primed to send a message if the ship is sighted,’ I reminded her.

‘Oh yes, but she likes to be here.’

‘I shall take my new muff,’ I announced.

‘A muff in summer! You are crazy,’ said Bersaba.

I was crestfallen. My muff had been a birthday present. I had wanted it because I had heard they were now worn a great deal by the ladies of King Charles’s court, which meant that they were the height of fashion.

‘Besides,’ went on Bersaba, ‘where would you wear a muff at Castle Paling? I shall take my sketch book,’ she added.

Bersaba had drawn a piece of paper towards her and was sketching on it. She was very good and could, in a few lines, create an impression. There was the sea with the Devil’s Teeth, those terrifying rocks, and I could almost feel that I was at Castle Paling looking out from one of the turret windows.

She started to sketch Grandfather Casvellyn. What a terrifying man he must have been when he could walk about. Now there was something pathetic about him because he looked so frighteningly fierce while at the same time he was so crippled that he could not walk and had to spend most of his time lying on a couch or being wheeled about in a chair. He had been thus for many years—since more than twelve years before we were born. It seemed to us that he had been there for always and always would be there. He was like the Flying Dutchman, but instead of sailing the seas he had been doomed to sit in his chair in expiation of some terrible sin.

‘Well,’ I said slyly, ‘it will be good to see our cousins.’

Bersaba went on sketching and I knew she was thinking of Bastian. He was twenty-three years old and resembled Aunt Melanie; kind and gentle, he had never taken up the patronizing attitude which older people give to the young. Nor did our brother Fennimore, for that matter. Our mother would not have allowed it in our house but Castle Paling was different. I think that at some time Bastian must have shown some preference for Bersaba which won her immediate devotion, for she reacted quickly to any form of appreciation.

There were three girl cousins. Melder, the eldest, was twenty-six and disinclined to marry; she loved housekeeping and coped with Grandfather Casvellyn better than anyone else, partly because she remained impassive when he swore and cursed her and everything round him, and quietly went on with what she had come to do. Then there was Rozen, aged nineteen, and Gwenifer, seventeen.

As Aunt Melanie, my father’s sister, had married my mother’s brother Connell there was a double relationship between us all. It seemed to bind us very closely together, but perhaps that had come about because Aunt Melanie was the homemaking family-conscious type of woman—just as my mother was—and they believed in welding families together.

Bersaba had started to sketch Bastian.

‘He’s not as handsome as that,’ I protested.

She flushed and tore the paper in halves.

I thought to myself: She really loves Bastian. But the next moment I had forgotten it.

A week later we set out for Castle Paling, Bersaba and I, our mother, three grooms and two maidservants. We really did not need servants, for there were plenty at Paling, but the roads were not altogether safe and the servants were a protection. My father had made my mother promise never to ride out without making sure that she was adequately guarded against attack, and although the roads between Trystan Priory and Castle Paling were well known to us she would never go against his wishes.

Bersaba looked pretty on that morning. June is such a lovely month, when the hedges are gay with wild roses and lacey chervil while great clumps of yellow gorse brighten the downs and the red sorrel shows itself in the fields. She was wearing her dark red outer petticoats which we called safeguards and which we always wore for riding. I had put on my blue ones. Although we sometimes dressed alike we did not always wear identical clothes. There were occasions when we liked to because we took a mischievous delight in puzzling people. I could put on a good impersonation of Bersaba and she could of me. We used to practise sometimes, and one of the great jokes of our childhood had been to deceive people in this way. We would laugh until we were hysterical when someone said to her: ‘Now, Miss Angelet, it’s no use your pretending to be Miss Bersaba. I’d know you anywhere.’ It gave us a kind of power, as I pointed out to Bersaba. We could put it to good use on certain occasions. Well, on this day she wore her red so I wore my blue; our cloaks matched our safeguards and we each had brown soft boots. So there would be no danger in our being mistaken for each other on that journey. But when we were at Paling I knew we would wear identical clothes at times and enjoy deceiving them.

We rode one on either side of our mother. She was a little pensive. No doubt she would be thinking of our father and wondering where he was at that moment. There was always anxiety in her mind because so many dangers lurked on the high seas and she could never be sure whether he would come back.

Once I mentioned this to her, and she said that if she did not suffer these anxieties she could not be so happy when he did come home. We must always remember that life was made up of light and shadow and the light was the brighter because of the contrasting shadow. She was a philosopher, my mother; and she was always trying to teach us to understand and accept life as it was, because she felt such an attitude would be a cushion if ever misfortunes came to us.

If my father and brother had been riding to Castle Paling with us she would have been completely happy. I loved her intensely as we rode along and I started to sing in sheer thankfulness to God who gave her to me:

‘And therefore take the present time With a hey and a ho and a hey nonny-no

For love is crowned with the prime

In spring time …’

My mother smiled at me as though she shared my thoughts and she joined in the song and told the servants to do the same. Then we all took turns to sing the first line of a song of our choice and the rest of us would come in, but when it was Bersaba’s turn she sang alone because no one joined in with her. It was Ophelia’s song:

‘How should I your true love know From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff

And his sandal shoon

He is dead and gone, lady

He is dead and gone;

At his head a grass green turf,

At his heels a stone.’

Bersaba had a strange haunting voice, and when she sang those words I imagined her lying in the stream with her long dark hair floating round her and her face white and dead. There was something strange about Bersaba, something I didn’t understand, for all that she was said to be part of me. She had that quiet personality which seems not to intrude and yet can change the mood of all those around her.

She had made us forget the June morning, the sun, the flowers and the joys of living because she had reminded us of death. We stopped singing then and silently we rode on until the towers of the castle came into view.

The sun picked out the sharp points in the granite and made them glisten like little diamonds. It was indeed an impressive sight which never failed to thrill me. Defiant, bold, arrogant, the castle always seemed like a living thing to me, and I never failed to feel proud to be connected with it. Our house was mellow in a way, although its stones might well be as old as those of the castle—or almost; but Trystan seemed gentle, homely, when compared with Castle Paling. Its four battlemented towers proclaimed it for what it was, a fortress which had remained impregnable for six hundred years, for it had been built in the days of the Conqueror although it had been added to over the passing centuries. My imagination went into action every time I beheld it, and I could picture the defenders of the castle pouring boiling oil and arrows down on those who would assail it. There were marks on a heavy oaken door with its iron bands—the one which was below the gatehouse—which I was sure had been made by battering rams.

Approaching from the west, two of the towers were hidden from us—Ysella’s, which used to be said to be haunted, and Seaward, which was now haunted by Grandfather Casvellyn. I glanced at my mother. She had grown serious and I wondered what pictures the sight of that castle conjured up in her mind. One day I would read of her life there, which must have been very adventurous and unhappy too, for this must be the reason why she was so contented with the present.

Bersaba’s expression had changed too. Her profile was clear-cut; she had high cheek-bones and long eyes with golden lashes tipped with dark brown at the edges. I often looked at her and thought: in describing her I am describing myself, for I look the same—or almost. It was only our expressions which could change our faces, for the bone structure and the shape of our features were identical. Our mother had once said: ‘As you grow older you will look less alike. Experience changes faces and it is hardly likely that you will share the same.’

Now, I thought, we may be looking different because she changes when we are at Castle Paling. She is more remote and I almost feel she has succeeded in doing what she is always trying to—move away from me. There used to be times when I had known what she was thinking, but now she could shut me out, and when we went to Castle Paling it was almost as though she let down some sort of shutter. I often wondered what it was at Castle Paling that made her do that.

As we were riding under the portcullis and into the courtyard I heard Rozen’s voice shouting: ‘They’re here!’

And then there was Aunt Melanie with Melder and Gwenifer coming out of a side door of the castle. There followed the usual bustle while our horses were taken by the grooms and the maids took our baggage and we were embraced by everybody.

Then we went through the guardroom to the great hall on the stone walls of which were crossed halberds and pikes and several suits of armour which had been worn by our ancestors.

‘Come first into my parlour,’ said Melanie, ‘and then when you are refreshed you can go to your rooms. It is good to see you all. The twins look well.’ She smiled at us and I could see she did not know which of us was which.

Wine and cakes were already there in that chamber which she had made like the one at Trystan. I was always intrigued when I saw her and my mother together to contemplate that Aunt Melanie’s present home was my mother’s old one and vice versa.

We all seemed to talk at once and it was just like any other reunion.

We went to our rooms—Bersaba and I sharing as we always did, and Rozen and Gwenifer coming to help us unpack. Gwenifer talked a great deal about the balls that she had attended last season, for although she had not yet reached eighteen, as her elder sister was ‘out’ it was decided that she should join her. Rozen believed that George Kroll was going to speak for her, and although it was not a grand match it was one well worth considering.

‘There are so few people here,’ pouted Rozen. ‘How I wish we could go to Court!’

Court! The very word set us all dreaming of balls and banquets or glittering state occasions and elaborate costumes trimmed with exquisite lace.

Rozen had dressed her hair with a curled fringe which we all admired, and she told us that she had heard it was a fashion set by Queen Henrietta Maria. Rozen was very gay and she quite liked George Kroll, although he was not the gallant she had hoped for.

‘There’s a lot of trouble brewing in Court circles,’ said Bersaba.

Everyone looked at her. How like Bersaba to say something serious when we all wanted to be frivolous.

She went on: ‘Father is disturbed about the ship money.’

‘Ship money!’ cried Rozen in dismay. ‘We are talking about fashions!’

‘My dear cousin,’ said Bersaba in one of her superior moods, ‘if there is trouble between the King and his Parliament there could be no more fashions.’

‘Which one are you?’ said Rozen quite angrily. ‘Bersaba, I’m sure.’

‘Of course,’ I answered for her.

‘Oh, Angel, do make her shut up,’ said Rozen.

I folded my arms and smiled at my twin. ‘I have no control over her,’ I reminded them.

‘It’s silly not to face up to what’s happening,’ said Bersaba crossly. ‘You know very well, Angel, that the people who come to see Father are very anxious.’

‘They’re always anxious,’ said Gwenifer. ‘The East India men have always complained about something.’

‘They’re doing wonderful work for the country,’ I supported my twin.

‘Oh, you two and your saintly parents,’ said Gwenifer. ‘Let’s talk about something interesting.’

‘So George Kroll is going to speak for Rozen?’ I asked.

‘It’s almost certain,’ replied Rozen. ‘And Father will say yes because the Krolls are a good family and Mother will say yes because she thinks George will be a good husband.’

‘That’s one ticked off the list,’ said Bersaba.

‘What a way to look at it,’ I cried.

‘Well, that’s what it is,’ insisted Bersaba. ‘Our turns will come.’

‘I shall choose my husband,’ I said firmly.

‘And so shall I,’ answered Bersaba equally so.

So we talked of balls and our cousins examined our clothes and the conversation was on a frivolous level, which pleased me, but I was aware that Bersaba thought it rather foolish. She retired into one of her silences which were so maddening because it seemed as though she were despising us all.

We dined in the great hall because we were quite a large party—nine in all, for Bastian and Uncle Connell, who had been out on the estate, came home in the late afternoon.

While we were dressing I said to Bersaba, ‘Let’s wear our blues tonight.’

She hesitated and a slight smile touched her lips. ‘All right,’ she said.

‘We could have some fun,’ I said, ‘pretending I’m you and you’re me.’

‘There are some who’ll know the difference.’

‘Who?’

‘Well, Mother for instance.’

‘Mother always knows.’

So we wore our blue silk gowns with their boned bodices caught at the waist with sashes of a toning shade of blue, and skirts open to our feet showing satin petticoats; they had lovely long hanging sleeves. We had had them last year, and although they had not been in the height of fashion even then they were becoming.

‘We’ll wear our hair piled high,’ said Bersaba.

‘They say it is no longer worn like that.’

‘It suits our high foreheads,’ she answered, and she was right.

So we stood side by side laughing at our reflections. Even though we were so accustomed to the likeness it sometimes amused us.

In the hall Uncle Connell kissed us heartily. He was the sort of man who liked women—all kinds, all ages, all sizes. He was big and blustering, not unlike Grandfather Casvellyn—at least seeing him gave one an idea of what Grandfather Casvellyn must have been like in his youth. Even he, though, sometimes seemed afraid of Grandfather Casvellyn and that made a difference because our grandfather would never have been afraid of anyone. He held us tightly against him and kissed us heartily and he put his hands under my chin and said: ‘Which one are you?’

I said, ‘I’m Angelet.’

He answered: ‘Not such an angel if I know anything about it.’

And everyone laughed.

‘And Bersaba, eh? Well, come here, my girl, and give your uncle a kiss.’

Bersaba went reluctantly, which made Uncle Connell give her two kisses as though repetition could make her like it better.

I had heard it said that Connell was a true Casvellyn and that he had several mistresses scattered around the countryside and more than one of the bastards in the servants’ hall had been sired by him.

I often wondered what Aunt Melanie thought about that, but she never gave any sign that she minded. I had discussed it with Bersaba, who had said that she took it as a way of life and that as long as it didn’t interfere with her household and family she turned a blind eye to it.

‘I should have something to say,’ I declared, ‘if I were in her place, wouldn’t you?’

‘I should find something to do about it,’ answered Bersaba.

Bastian came too. I thought he was as handsome as Bersaba drew him—or nearly. He was as tall as his father, and the fact that he had inherited his father’s looks and his mother’s nature made him interesting.

He looked from Bersaba to me and back again.

Bersaba laughed then and he said: ‘Ah, Bersaba.’ And he kissed her first and then me.

Uncle Connell bade us be seated and we obeyed him. He sat at the head of the long refectory table with my mother on one side of him and Melder on the other. Bersaba and I were on either side of Aunt Melanie and Bastian had seated himself next to Bersaba.

They talked mostly about the affairs of the countryside—all that had to be done on the estate; my mother mentioned the growing difficulties the East India Company were having to face and which she hoped would be a little eased if they could build their new Indian factory.

Bastian said: ‘There’s trouble everywhere. People don’t seem to realize it. They shut their eyes to it but one day it will creep up on us.’

‘Bastian’s a proper Jeremiah,’ commented Rozen.

‘There’s nothing so stupid as shutting your eyes to facts simply because they’re unpleasant,’ put in Bersaba, placing herself firmly on Bastian’s side. He smiled at her—a very special smile, and she glowed with pleasure.

‘The King is in disagreement with his ministers,’ began Bastian.

‘My dear boy,’ put in his father, ‘kings have been in disagreement with their ministers ever since there have been kings and ministers.’

‘What other king ever dismissed his parliament and governed—or made some semblance of it—without one for how many years is it? Ten?’

‘We haven’t noticed the change,’ said Uncle Connell, laughing.

‘It’s coming,’ replied Bastian. ‘The King believes he governs by God’s right and there will be people in the country to disagree with that.’

‘Kings … parliaments,’ said Uncle Connell, ‘they seem to have one motive, and that is to pile tax upon tax so that the people can pay for their fancies.’

‘I thought that when Buckingham was murdered that would have changed the situation,’ said my mother.

‘No,’ said Bastian. ‘It is the King himself who must change.’

‘And will he?’ asked Bersaba.

‘He will … or be deposed,’ Bastian replied. ‘No king can continue to reign for long without the goodwill of his people.’

‘Poor man,’ said my mother. ‘How sad his life must be.’

Uncle Connell laughed. ‘My dear Tamsyn,’ he said, ‘the King cares little for the approval of the people. He cares little for the approval of his ministers. He is so sure that he is right, guided by God. Who knows, perhaps he is.’

‘At least his home life is happier now,’ said Aunt Melanie. ‘I believe it was far from that in the beginning. He is a good man and a good father whatever kind of king he is.’

‘It might be more important for him to be a good king,’ murmured Bastian.

Rozen said: ‘They say the Queen is very lively. She loves dancing and fashions.’

‘And meddling,’ added Bastian.

‘She is after all the Queen,’ I said.

‘Poor child,’ put in my mother. ‘It must be a terrible ordeal to be sent away from home at sixteen—younger than you twins.’ She smiled at us. ‘Imagine it … sent to a foreign land to a strange husband … and she a Catholic and he King of a Protestant country. No wonder there was discord and misunderstanding between them. If they have at last come to understand each other, let us be thankful and wish them happiness.’

‘I do with all my heart,’ Melanie supported her.

‘They won’t find it until the King listens to his ministers and we have a parliament to make our laws,’ said Bastian.

‘We are so far from the Court,’ said Melanie, ‘that what happens there hardly touches us. Why, we don’t even hear of it until months after it has happened!’

‘Like the ripples on a pool, in due course they reach its edge,’ Bastian reminded us.

‘How is Grandfather Casvellyn?’ asked my mother, changing the subject.

‘As usual,’ answered Melanie. ‘He knows you are coming, so I suggest when we have finished at the table you go to see him. Otherwise he will complain that you have slighted him.’

My mother nodded and smiled.

‘Melder will go up with you and she will see that you don’t stay too long.’

‘He has been rather fractious today,’ said Melder.

‘Isn’t he always?’ asked Connell.

‘More so than usual,’ answered Melder. ‘But he will be pleased to see you.’

I smiled faintly and saw that Bersaba was doing the same. Neither of us could recall any occasion when our grandfather had shown his pleasure in our presence.

Bersaba and my mother and I went out with Melder, and as we passed through the narrow corridor to the door which led from Nonna’s Tower to Seaward, my hand was gripped in a firm grasp and my fingers pressed warmly. I turned. Bastian was beside me. There was some meaning in the pressure of his fingers.

Grandfather Casvellyn glowered at us as we entered. Although I was prepared for him and knew what he looked like, I always experienced a slight shock when I came face to face with him. His legs were always covered with a rug and I imagined that they would be terrible to behold, mangled as they had been. His shoulders were so broad and from his waist up he looked so powerful, which made it more of a tragedy. I often thought that if he had been a little man it wouldn’t have seemed so bad. He had the fiercest eyes I had ever seen. They seemed to start out of his head and the whites all round the pupil were visible. When he turned them upon me I felt as though I were facing Medusa and should not have been surprised to feel my limbs turning to stone. I would always think of the night he had gone out in a boat—strong and well—and been caught in those cruel Devil’s Teeth which had made of him the man he was.

He turned his chair and wheeled it towards us.

‘So you’re here,’ he said, looking at my mother.

‘Yes, Father,’ she answered. She did not seem in the least afraid of him, which always surprised me in someone so mild and peace-loving. The thought occurred to me that she knew something … something he would rather she did not know and that gave her power over him. Being our mother she would only use that power not to be afraid.

‘And these are your girls. Where’s the boy?’

‘He has work at home. His father may be arriving home and someone must be there to greet him.’

A sneer curved Grandfather’s lips. ‘On East India business is it?’

‘But of course,’ said my mother placidly.

‘And these are the girls … two of them … like as two peas in a pod. It was like you to get two girls. We need boys. There’s your brother with all those girls and only one boy to show for years of marriage.’

‘It’s a custom in the family. You had but one, Father, so you can’t complain of Connell.’

‘We’re let down by our wives. We can get boys but not on them.’

‘You have little to complain of. Melanie has been a good daughter to you and Melder looks after you well.’

‘Oh yes, I must count my blessings in my own home. I must be grateful because I am allowed to live under my own roof. What do those girls think they’re doing standing there like dummies? Come here and let me look at you.’

Our mother drew us forward.

‘Do they need you to hold their hands while they beard the old lion in his den?’ shouted Grandfather. ‘Don’t get too near, my children. I might eat you.’

He was terrifying close. His brows grew thick and bushy and under them his eyes were piercing. He stretched out a hand and gripped my arm.

‘Which one are you?’

‘Angelet,’ I answered.

‘And this one?’

‘Bersaba.’

‘Outlandish names,’ he said.

‘Good Cornish names,’ answered my mother.

‘One named for the Angels and one after a woman who was not such an angel. Bathsheba, that’s the origin.’ He was very interested in origins of words and old customs of the countryside. Linnet, his wife, had been from Devon, but he was proud of his Cornish blood. He peered at Bersaba and his eyes travelled all over her as though he were assessing her capabilities. She returned his gaze fearlessly. Then he gave my sister a little push. ‘Growing up,’ he said. ‘Marry well and get sons.’

‘I shall do my best,’ said Bersaba.

I could see that he liked her and that she interested him more than I did, which was strange because he seemed to sense some difference in us which others couldn’t see.

‘And don’t take long about it. Let me see my great-grandchildren before I die.’

‘The twins are only seventeen, Father,’ said my mother.

He gave a long throaty chuckle and stretching out a hand gave Bersaba a push.

‘They’re ready,’ he said. ‘Ripe and ready.’

Bersaba blushed bright red.

My mother said: ‘We’re staying here for a few days, Father. We’ll come and see you again.’

‘One of the penalties of calling here,’ said our grandfather. ‘You’re expected to take in the old ogre while you enjoy yourselves with the rest of the family.’

‘Why, you know one of our reasons for coming is to see you,’ protested our mother.

‘Your mother was always one for observing the conventions,’ said my grandfather, ‘but I doubt you’ll follow in her footsteps.’ He was looking at Bersaba.

Melder said: ‘Well, we’ll go down now.’

‘Oh yes,’ cried Grandfather. ‘The watchdog thinks it time you left before I show my fangs. She’d draw them if she could. She’s the worst sort of female, your cousin Melder. Don’t grow up like her. A shrew, she is. She’s a woman who takes sides against a man. She’s got a grudge against us because no man wants her as a wife.’

‘Now, Father,’ protested my mother, ‘I am sure …’

‘You are sure … There’s one thing I can be sure of where you’re concerned. You’re going to say what you think is the right thing no matter if it means turning your back on the truth. That creature there is scarce a woman, for woman was brought into the world to please man and be fruitful …’

Melder showed no sign that she was hurt by this tirade, and indeed he was not looking at her; his eyes were on us and particularly, I fancied, Bersaba.

He started to laugh suddenly and his laughter was as frightening as his anger.

Melder had opened the door.

‘Well, we’ll be along to see you tomorrow,’ my mother said as though it had been the most pleasant of visits.

He was still laughing when the door shut on him.

‘In one of his bad moods today,’ commented my mother.

‘He’s in them every day,’ answered Melder in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘The sight of some young girls sets him off on those lines. He seems to find some consolation for his immobility in abusing me. It’s of no account … if it eases him.’

‘There’s no need for you to take us in tomorrow,’ said my mother.

I smiled inwardly. I knew she did not like us to hear that talk about women’s function in life which the sight of Melder seemed to arouse in him.

She wanted to protect us from the world for as long as she could, but as for us, like most children, we were far more knowledgeable of such things than our mother realized. How could we help it? We had heard the servants talk; we had seen them go off into the woods together; we knew that Bessie Camus had become pregnant and our mother had arranged for her to marry one of the grooms. We knew that babies were not born under gooseberry bushes.

Our own home, where life ran smoothly and there was complete accord between our parents, was different even from life at Castle Paling. Our cousins should be more knowledgeable in this matter of the relationship between men and women than we were. Rozen had said: ‘Father has been unfaithful all his married life. Whenever a new servant comes he assesses her. He thinks he has a right to her as he is lord of the castle. Grandfather was like that. Of course, if he is first he finds a husband for the girl after, and he’ll give them a cottage so she gets a sort of dowry. That’s why so many of the children around are our half-brothers and sisters.’

It was hard for us to reconcile this way of life with that lived by our own parents; but we were aware that it happened, which brings me back to the fact that we were not as innocent as our mother believed us to be.

Lying in bed that night I tried to talk to Bersaba about all this.

‘He said we were ripe and ready,’ I announced with a giggle.

‘Grandfather is the sort of man who sees all women as possible bedfellows for some man or other.’

‘You’d think he would have lost interest in all that now.’

‘I don’t suppose people like that ever do.’

‘He was looking at you all the time,’ I reminded her.

‘What nonsense.’

‘Oh yes, he was. It was almost as though he knew something.’

‘I’m going to sleep,’ said Bersaba.

‘I wonder why he looked at you like that?’

‘What …?’ she said sleepily.

‘I said I wondered why he looked at you like that.’

‘He didn’t. Good night.’

And although I wanted to go on talking she pretended to be asleep.

Two days passed. We went for rides with our cousins and sometimes we explored the castle. I went down to the sea and looked for seashells and pieces of semi-precious stones on the beaches. We had quite a collection of raw amethyst, topaz and interesting quartzes which we had found from time to time. I used to love to stand on the beach while the waves thundered round me and sent their spray over me, and I would shriek with delight as I stepped back just in time to avoid getting drenched.

I liked to lean against the castle walls and marvel at their strength. They and the sea were like two mighty opponents—the work of man and the work of nature. Of course the sea was the more powerful; it could encroach on the land and sweep over that mighty edifice; but even then it would not completely destroy it. Grandfather Casvellyn had defied the sea and the sea had won that battle—but not completely, for he still lived in the Seaward Tower to shake his fist at the mighty monster.

Bersaba had once loved to collect stones on the beach, but now she had lost interest in that and said it was childish. She liked to ride—so did I. On our first day we went off with the cousins and it was not long before we noticed that Bersaba was not with us. She had a passion for getting lost. Rozen and Gwenifer had come with us and there were two grooms.

I said: ‘She will join us or go back to the castle. She likes to be alone sometimes.’

We didn’t worry about her as my mother would have done.

I was right. She did come back to the castle. She said she had lost us but had no intention of curtailing her ride just because of that. She knew the countryside well and was not afraid of meeting brigands, for she reckoned she could gallop faster than they could.

‘You know Mother doesn’t like us to ride alone.’

‘My dear Angel,’ she answered, ‘we are growing up. There may be lots of things we do of which Mother would not approve.’

I knew that she was slipping away from me then and the invisible cord which bound us together was stretching. She had become a stranger with secrets. One day, I thought, it will break, and then we shall be as ordinary sisters.

The next day when I was going to ride again I picked up her safeguards in mistake for my own and I saw that there was bracken clinging to them and mud on the edge of the skirt.

‘She must have fallen,’ I thought.

She came upon me staring at her skirts.

‘Look!’ I cried. ‘What happened? Did you take a toss?’

‘What nonsense!’ she said, snatching the garments from me. ‘Of course I didn’t.’

‘These skirts have been in contact with earth, sister. That’s clear enough.’

She was thoughtful for less than a second, then she said: ‘Oh, I know. It was when I was out yesterday. There was a lovely pool and it was so peaceful I had the urge to sit by it for a while, so I dismounted and sat there.’

‘You ought not to have done that … and alone. Suppose someone … some man … ?’

She laughed at me and turned away.

‘We’ve got to grow up one day, Angelet,’ she said, brushing the skirt. ‘That’s what it was,’ she went on, and hung the skirts in a cupboard. ‘And what are you doing examining my things?’

‘I wasn’t examining them. I thought they were mine.’

‘Well, now you know they’re not.’

She turned away and I was puzzled.

The following day a strange thing happened. It was midday and we were at dinner in the great hall, for Aunt Melanie said that as there were so many of us it was better to take our meals there rather than in the dining-parlour which was used for a smaller company.

There had always been a big table at Castle Paling. Grandfather Casvellyn had set the custom for hearty eating and Connell had followed it. In our house my father’s family had been more abstemious, and although there had been plenty of food in our larders should visitors call unexpectedly, we did not consume the large meals which they did at Castle Paling. Aunt Melanie took great pride in her stillroom and she had Melder to help her and was constantly urging us to try some delicacy or other which she or Melder had concocted from old recipes with little additions of their own.

My mother and Aunt Melanie were discussing the rival properties of the herbs they both grew with such assiduous care, and Aunt Melanie was saying how she had discovered that a solution acquired from the juice of buttercups gave Rozen such a fit of sneezing that it had cleared her head of a very unpleasant cold from which she was suffering, when we heard sound of arrival from without.

‘Visitors—’ said Uncle Connell, looking along the table from his end to where Aunt Melanie was seated.

‘I wonder who,’ she answered.

One of the servants came running in. ‘Travellers from afar, my lady,’ said the man.

Aunt Melanie rose and hurried out of the hall, Uncle Connell following her.

We at the table heard cries of amazement, and in a short time my uncle and aunt reappeared and with them were two women—and in that first moment I was aware of their unusual appearance. I often think, looking back, that life should prepare us in some way, that when events occur which are the forerunner of great changes which will affect our lives we should be given a little nudge, some warning, some premonition.

But it rarely happens so, and as I sat at that table and looked at the newcomers—one a woman of my mother’s age and with her another of my own, or a little older—I was quite unaware that their coming was going to prove one of the most momentous events of our lives.

Aunt Melanie was crying out: ‘Tamsyn. You know who this is. Senara!’

My mother stood up; she turned first pale and then rosy red. She stared for a few minutes before she and the elder of the two women rushed towards each other and embraced.

They were laughing and I could see that my mother was near to tears. She gripped the stranger’s shoulders and they looked searchingly at each other.

‘Senara!’ cried my mother. ‘What happened?’

‘Too much to tell yet,’ answered the woman. ‘Oh, it is good to see you … good to be here …’ She threw back her hood and shook out magnificent black hair. ‘It’s not changed … not one little bit. And you … you’re still the old Tamsyn.’

‘And this …’

‘This is my daughter. Carlotta, come and meet Tamsyn … the dearest sister of my childhood.’

Then the girl called Carlotta came to my mother, who was about to embrace her when the girl held back and swept a low curtsey. Even then I was struck by her infinite grace. She was very foreign-looking—with hair as dark as her mother’s and long oval eyes so heavily fringed with black lashes that even in that moment I couldn’t help noticing them. Her face was very pale except for vividly red lips and the blackness of her eyes.

‘Your daughter … My dear Senara. Oh, this is wonderful. You must have so much to tell.’ She looked round at us. ‘My girls are here too …’

‘So you married Fennimore.’

‘Yes, I married Fennimore.’

‘And lived happy ever after.’

‘I am very happy. Angelet, Bersaba …’

We rose from the table and went to our mother.

‘Twins!’ said Senara. There was a lilt of laughter in her voice which I had noticed from the first. ‘Oh Tamsyn, you with twins!’

‘I have a son too. He is seven years older than the twins.’

Senara took my left hand and Bersaba’s right and studied us intently.

‘Your mother and I were as sisters … all our childhood until we were parted. Carlotta, come and meet these two children who are already dear to me because of their mother.’

Carlotta’s gaze was appraising, I thought. She bowed gracefully to us.

‘You have ridden far,’ said Melanie.

‘Yes, we have come from Plymouth. Last night we rested at a most indifferent inn. The beds were hard and the pork too salt, but I scarcely noticed, so eager was I to come to Castle Paling.’

‘What great good fortune that you found us here. We are on a visit.’

‘Of course. Your home would be at Trystan Priory. How is the good Fennimore?’

‘At sea at the moment. We expect him home before long.’

‘How I shall enjoy seeing you all again!’

‘Tell us what has happened.’

Melanie was smiling. ‘I know how you are feeling seeing each other after all these years, but, Senara, you must be weary. I will have a room made ready for you and your daughter, and you are hungry, I’ll dareswear.’

‘Oh Melanie, you were always so good, so practical … And, Connell, I am forgetting you and the dear children … But I am hungry and so, I know, is my daughter. If we could wash the stains of travel from our hands and faces and if we could eat some of this delicious-smelling food … and then perhaps talk and talk of old times and the future …’

Connell came to stand beside his wife. He said: ‘Call the servants. Let them make ready for our guests.’

Melder, good housewife that she was, was already leaving us to issue orders.

‘We’ll hold back the meal,’ said Melanie. ‘In the meantime come to my room and you can wash there. Your rooms will not be ready yet.’

She and my mother went out with the newcomers and silence fell on the table.

‘Who are these people?’ asked Rozen. ‘Mother and Aunt Tamsyn seem to know them well.’

‘The elder one was born here at Castle Paling,’ said Uncle Connell. ‘Her mother was the victim of a wreck and was washed up on the coast. Senara was born about three months after. She lived here all her childhood and when our mother died our father married Senara’s mother.’

‘So this was her home.’

‘Yes, it was her home.’

‘And she went away and hasn’t been heard of until now?’

‘It’s a long story,’ said Connell. ‘She went away to marry one of the Puritans and I think she went to Holland. No doubt we’ll hear.’

‘And she’s come back after all these years! How long is it since she went away?’

Connell was thoughtful. ‘Why,’ he said, calculating, ‘it must be nearly thirty years.’

‘She must be old … this Senara.’

‘She would have been no more than seventeen when she went.’

‘That would make her forty-seven. It cannot be so.’

‘She would doubtless have means of keeping herself young.’

‘How, Father?’ asked Rozen.

‘Senara was always a sly one. The servants used to think that she was a witch.’

‘How exciting,’ cried Gwenifer.

‘There was a lot of talk at the time about witches,’ said Connell. ‘You know how now and then there seems to be a fashion for it. The late King was a bit of a fanatic about them. People round here were certain that Senara’s mother was a witch and that can be dangerous. She went away.’

‘What became of her?’

‘It was never known. But after she’d gone they came to the castle to take Senara. You see, her mother had been washed up by the sea on Hallowe’en; she’d disappeared on Hallowe’en. Everything seemed to point to the fact that she was a witch and the people came to take her. When they found she wasn’t there they said Senara would do, so Senara fled for her life and that was the last we saw of her until now.’

‘And you and our mother helped her?’

‘Naturally we all helped her. She had been as a sister to us.’

‘And now she has come back,’ murmured Bersaba.

And we were silent. I was picturing it all so clearly. Senara’s mother being washed up by the sea, being a witch, and after Grandmother Linnet died marrying that fearful old man in the Seaward Tower and then running away from him—which didn’t surprise me. And the mob’s coming for Senara … who had been young then, with eyes like those of her daughter Carlotta. And who had been Carlotta’s father? We should hear, I was sure.

They came back into the hall accompanied by my mother and Aunt Melanie. My mother was flushed and excited and quite clearly very happy because of the arrivals.

I could not take my eyes from the girl Carlotta. She was the most arresting creature I had ever seen. It was something more than beauty, although, of course, she was beautiful. In the candlelight her black hair had a bluish tinge; and there was a mysterious look in her enormous almond-shaped eyes. Her skin was very delicately tinged, which prevented its being dead white; it was petal smooth and her nose was long, patrician and beautifully moulded. There was something exotic about her which added to her attraction. My cousins could not take their eyes from her any more than Bersaba and I could. Her mother was a beautiful woman still, but even though she must have shown considerable defiance to the years she could not completely elude their ravages, and I guessed that when she had been Carlotta’s age she would have been almost as attractive.

They had brought mystery and excitement into the castle. I kept thinking of the mob’s marching up the slight incline to the portcullis and storming their way into the castle. They would be carrying torches and shouting what they would do to the witch when they found her.

‘Sit beside me, Senara,’ cried my mother. ‘How wonderful it is to have you here. I could almost believe we are young again. You must tell us all that has happened.’

‘But first allow them to eat,’ begged Melanie with a smile.

Hot soup was brought; Senara declared it was delicious and it was of the kind she remembered Melanie’s preparing before she left the castle.

‘We add different herbs from time to time,’ said Melanie. ‘We try to improve on it.’

‘It was always too good to be improved,’ said Senara. ‘And see how impatient Tamsyn is. She is really chiding us for talking of soup when there is so much to tell.’

My mother said: ‘Eat, Senara. You must be famished. There is plenty of time to talk afterwards.’

They ate heartily of the soup, which was followed by lamby pie, and then there were strawberries with clouted cream.

‘I have indeed come home,’ said Senara. ‘Is it not exactly as I told you it would be, Carlotta?’

Carlotta replied: ‘Madre, you have talked of nothing else but Castle Paling and your sister Tamsyn ever since you made up your mind to come here.’

We were all waiting eagerly for the last of the strawberries to be consumed, and when the servants had removed the platters Senara said: ‘Now you are impatient to hear what happened. I shall give you a rough outline, for I cannot explain all the little happenings that made up a lifetime over a dinner table. But you will learn in due time. You young people may have heard of me. There was a great talk hereabouts when I was here … but that was long ago and when faces are no longer around they are forgotten. Yet my mother was different … She came mysteriously, thrown up from the sea. She was a noble lady, the wife of a count and bearing his child … which was myself. I was born here … in the Red Room. Is the Red Room still here?’

‘Why, it’s the haunted room,’ cried Rozen.

‘That’s right,’ went on Senara. ‘The haunted room. But it was haunted before my mother came to it. Colum Casvellyn’s first wife died there bearing a stillborn child. That was before he married Tamsyn’s mother. Yes, it was haunted then and my mother added another ghost to the Red Room.’

‘The servants won’t go there after dark,’ said Gwenifer excitedly.

‘It’s nonsense,’ retorted Melanie. ‘The room is not haunted. One of these days I intend to change all the furnishings.’

‘Several had that idea,’ said Senara. ‘Wasn’t it odd that no one ever did?’

‘Please go on,’ pleaded Bersaba.

‘My mother came and I was born and then she went away, but I grew up with Tamsyn and when her mother died, my mother came back and she married Colum Casvellyn. We were always together, weren’t we, Tamsyn? I used to shock you, but you thought of me as your sister.’

‘Always,’ said my mother.

‘Then came the day when my mother went away again and Colum Casvellyn had had his accident and was in his chair. The witch-hunters came for my mother and they were ready to take me in her place, so Tamsyn and Connell here got me out of the castle. I was very friendly with my old music master who had become a Puritan and was living in Leyden Hall. You know it of course.’

‘The Lamptons live there now,’ said Rozen. ‘We know them well.’

‘They bought it after the Deemsters left,’ added Aunt Melanie.

‘I fled there,’ went on Senara, ‘and the Deemsters took me in. I was married in the simple Puritan fashion to Richard Gravel—Dickon, my old music master—and we went to Holland together. Amsterdam was the refuge then for those who wished to worship as they pleased, so it was believed; but we began to discover that that freedom was to worship only in a manner approved by the Puritans. I was never really a Puritan at heart. I just changed when I met Dickon. I had brought with me some pieces of jewellery and to wear jewellery in our sect was considered sinful. At first I wore it in secret and Dickon was so besotted with me that he daren’t offend me by forbidding me to wear it.’

‘I never thought you could be a Puritan, Senara,’ said my mother with an affectionate smile.

‘You knew me well,’ answered Senara. ‘We left Amsterdam for Leyden, after which city the Deemsters had named their home. And here we spent eleven years while we made our plans to leave for America. Eleven years! How did I endure them!’

‘You had your love for Dickon.’

Senara laughed. ‘My dear Tamsyn,’ she replied, ‘you think we are all like you … good faithful docile wives. Far from it. I was soon out of love with Dickon and out of love with religion. There was little that was holy about me. All through those eleven years I longed to be back at Paling. I wanted to be young again. I knew that I had wanted Dickon mainly because he was forbidden to me. I knew that I had been wrong to marry a Puritan … not that he was always a Puritan. He could forget his religion on occasions.’

‘They provided an escape for you when you were in danger,’ my mother reminded her.

‘That’s true,’ agreed Senara. ‘But for them I might have had nowhere to go when I was in danger and that could have been an end to me.’ She grimaced. ‘All those years ago I might have been a corpse on that tree in Hangman’s Lane where they used to hang witches. Remember, Tamsyn?’

My mother looked uncomfortable.

‘They still hang witches there,’ said Rozen.

‘Are they searching them out as madly as they were when I left?’

‘Every now and then there is a revival,’ said my mother. ‘Thank God, we have heard nothing for these last few years. I won’t have the servants speaking of witches. It revives interest and that is bad. Why, a poor old woman has only to stoop or develop a mole on her cheek or have some spot which can be said to have been made by the Devil and they will take her to Hangman’s Lane. Many an innocent woman has been treated thus and I want to see it stopped.’

‘There will always be witches,’ said Uncle Connell, ‘and ’tis well that they should be dispatched to their masters,’

‘I shall always do all I can to save the innocent,’ said my mother, fierce when there was someone who needed her protection. ‘And,’ she added, ‘I should like to know more of witches and what made them give their souls to the Devil in the first place.’

‘Don’t attempt to dabble in witchcraft, sister,’ warned Uncle Connell.

‘Dabble!’ cried my mother. ‘I only want to know.’

‘That’s what many would say. They only wanted to know.’

‘Tamsyn, you are just the same,’ cried Senara. ‘You always wanted to look after anyone if you thought they needed your care.’

‘Do tell us what happened when you reached Holland,’ begged Bersaba.

‘Well, for those eleven years I lived as a Puritan. I would attend their meetings and listen to their plans. They were going to return to England and sail to America from there. I knew they had bought a ship called the Speedwell which they sent to Delftshaven. It was to go to America by way of Southampton. I did not relish the long sea voyage. Months on the ocean … prayers … endless prayers. My knees grew rough with kneeling. I hated the plain grey gowns I was expected to wear. I learned very quickly that I was not meant to be a Puritan.’

‘Did you and Dickon have no children?’

‘Yes, I had a boy. I called him Richard after his father. He grew up to be a little Puritan. From the age of five he was watching me to curb my vanities. I was stifled. I couldn’t endure it. Sometimes I thought that Dickon wouldn’t either. I used to think it was a sham, but he was deeper in his Puritanism than I knew. It might have been that he could have escaped at first, but it was like an octopus which twined its tentacles about him. When they left for England I did not go with them.’

‘You let your son go?’ cried my mother.

‘He was more Dickon’s son than mine. He had been brought up in the Puritan manner; he was burning with enthusiasm for the new life in America.’

‘So you were alone.’

‘I heard later that Dickon died before they sailed. He was in a tavern in Southampton and there he fell into an argument with sailors about religion. He defended the Puritans and was stabbed. He died of his wounds.’

‘What a terrible thing to have happened,’ cried Melanie.

‘Yes, I wished I’d stayed with him. Had I known it would be but a few weeks more … I was fond of Dickon. It was just his fanatical beliefs which came between us. They had alienated the boy, who stayed with them after his father died. And then I was alone.’

‘Alone in Holland!’ cried my mother. ‘You should have come home then.’

‘I had friends. One of these was a Spaniard. He took me with him to Madrid and I lived there for some years in fine style. When I lost him I set out to look for my mother because I knew that she was there. I found her. She was married to a gentleman of high nobility, a friend of King Philip … You remember him, Tamsyn. He was here as Lord Cartonel. You thought he came courting me.’

‘I remember him well,’ said my mother soberly.

‘My mother had never been what you would call maternal. She never wanted me. I was an embarrassment … no, not even an embarrassment … an encumbrance, shall we say, right from the first. I should never have been born. It was a miracle that I was and that was due to your mother, Tamsyn, who found mine on the shore half dead and to her own detriment brought us both into this castle.’

‘It was long ago,’ said my mother, ‘and you were brought up here as my sister, Senara. There are unbreakable ties between us and I am glad that you have come back to us.’

‘Do tell us what happened,’ begged Rozen.

‘I went to Court. I married a gentleman of rank. We had a child, Carlotta. I had always wanted to see you, but of late the urge became irresistible. I must see you and Castle Paling before I was too old to travel. My husband agreed that I should pay a visit. He could not accompany us. He has a post at Court. So we set out. We arrived in London … and we travelled here by stages. That is all and now we are here and right glad to see you.’

‘You will stay with us for a long while, I hope,’ said my mother.

‘I have a feeling that I shall not be eager to leave this place. I must go back to Spain in due course, but to me Castle Paling is what I think of when I say home.’

My mother was deeply moved; so was Aunt Melanie.

Uncle Connell said that we must all drink to the return of Senara with her daughter and she must regard Castle Paling as her home for as long as she wished to, to which my mother replied with some firmness: ‘Senara was my sister. There is a home for her at Trystan Priory if she so wishes it.’

Senara held out one hand to my mother and one to Aunt Melanie.

‘God’s blessings on you both,’ she cried, ‘and right glad I am to be here. I long to be once more in the Castle, but when I lived here Tamsyn was my sister. We shared a bedroom at one time, do you remember, Tamsyn?’

‘Until you went to the Red Room.’

Senara closed her eyes and laughed, and I knew that she and Mother exchanged some memory.

‘You were my sister and it was to be with you that I came here. Yet the castle was my home … all the time I lived here. I will go with you, Tamsyn, for a while and then I will come back and stay at Castle Paling. How’s that? Of course it may well be that you will not want me here …’

‘Not want you!’ cried Melanie. ‘Why, it was your home.’

‘We change in … how many years is it, Tamsyn? Nearly thirty. What time has done to us. You do not look the age I know you must be. You live again in these delightful twins.’

‘As you do in your Carlotta. Women stay young when they think young and feel young and look young,’ said my mother.

Senara touched her plentiful black hair in which there did not appear to be one grey strand. ‘I have always cared what I look like. As did my mother. She has many secrets.’

‘She lives still?’ asked my mother.

‘In Madrid in grand style. It is how she always wanted to live. She resented it here.’

‘And she has remained young and beautiful?’

‘Not young—even she could not manage that. But she still is beautiful. She rules her household like a queen and it is said that she is more royal than royalty.’

‘Yes, I can believe it. What did she think of your coming to England?’

‘She scarcely gave the matter a thought. Perhaps she considered me a little mad. But she knew that I had been brought up by your mother and your influence was strong with me. You had made me sentimental, affectionate … a little like yourselves … Therefore I had these odd notions.’

Uncle Connell said: ‘I have a very special black cherry brandy. I shall send to the wine cellars for it. We will all drink to celebrate your return.’

‘You are good to me, Connell,’ said Senara. ‘Never shall I forget how you helped me escape from this house.’

‘Do you think I would have allowed the mob to lay hands on you?’

‘You became master of the castle on that night. Everyone knew then that though the old master lay crippled in his chair there was a new one as strong to take his place.’

I was fascinated. As they talked I was trying to piece the story together. One day I should read it all in the diaries of my mother and her mother Linnet, who had been the one who had rescued the witch from the sea, that witch who was this Senara’s mother.

We sat at the table. No one wished to move. They went on talking and we of the younger generation listened avidly, and as they talked a storm began to rise. The sky grew dark and we could hear the wind rousing the sea.

Melanie called for more candles to be lighted and the servants tiptoed around lighting them while the storm outside seemed to be increasing.

Still we sat on. It was as though no one wanted to leave that table; and Aunt Melanie, my mother, Senara and Uncle Connell talked of the old days and the picture of their lives began to take shape.

Then suddenly the door was flung open. We heard the roar of a voice which there was no mistaking. It belonged to Grandfather Casvellyn.

He propelled himself into the hall, his eyes looking wilder than ever as they raked the table and came to rest on Senara.

Melanie had risen to her feet.

‘Father … how did you come here? How did you leave the Seaward Tower?’

He glared at her. ‘No matter,’ he shouted. ‘I did. They brought me down. They carried me and brought me here. I insisted. If I want to come into any part of my castle I’ll do so. She’s here, they tell me. She’s come again … as they did all those years ago … the witch’s girl.’

‘Father,’ said Connell, ‘it’s Senara. Your own wife’s daughter.’

‘I know who it is. I was told and I knew they dared not lie to me. What do you want here?’ he demanded, glaring at Senara.

She rose and went to him. She was smiling in a way I didn’t understand. She knelt before him and lifted her face. In the candlelight it looked young and very beautiful.

‘I came back to my old home,’ she said. ‘I came to see you all.’

‘Go back where you came from. You and your kind bring no good to this house.’

Melanie cried: ‘Father, how can you!’

‘Don’t call me “father”. You’ve no right … just because my son married you. She’ll bring no good here. She’s her mother all over again.’

‘I’m not,’ cried Senara. ‘I’m different.’

‘Send her away. I won’t have her here. She’s … disaster. I’ll not have her here reminding me of her mother.’

Tamsyn said: ‘Father, you are cruel. Senara has travelled far to see us, and if you’ll not have her here she knows she will always find a home with us.’

‘Fool!’ cried my grandfather. ‘You were always a fool.’

‘Was I?’ said my mother with spirit. ‘If I am a fool then I do not know the meaning of wisdom. For I have found happiness in my home and my husband and my children which wise men like yourself—or so you think—ever failed to do.’

He glared at her, but I could see the admiration for her in his face. He was proud of her and I think it was not the first time he had been.

‘Then,’ he said, ‘you should have more sense than place them in jeopardy.’ He pointed to Senara. ‘That one … comes of evil stock. Her mother came here and bewitched us all. She’ll do the same. She should never have been born. I warn you, daughter. Be wise. Listen to me. I know. I lived it all.’ His voice broke suddenly. ‘By God,’ he cried, ‘don’t you think I live it all again up in that tower when I look out at the waves and the Devil’s Teeth out there. And I say to myself everything would have been different if the sea had not thrown up Maria the witch on my coast. Your mother was a fool like you. She brought in the witch who spoiled her life. It’s like a pattern, you fool, girl. Don’t you see it? The Devil has sent her to take your happiness from you.’

‘Father,’ said my mother, ‘you have suffered so much, you are sick …’

‘Yes, an old fool of a man, that’s what you say. By God, I’d lay a whip about your shoulders, old as you are, if I was not, confined to this chair. I’ve lost the power of my legs but I’ve a mind that I command still. I’ll tell you this, if you take that woman into your house you’ll rue the day, and you’ll remember this moment and what I’ve said to you.’ He began to laugh and it was unpleasant laughter. ‘All right. I’ll not forbid it. I’ll watch. I’ll see my words come true. I’ll look out on you from my tower and I’ll prove my words come true. Bring the witch’s daughter here … into my castle. Let me show you that I’m right.’

Then he turned and wheeled his chair away. He was calling, ‘Binder. Binder,’ and the terrified manservant came to take the chair and push it out of the hall.

There was silence.

It was Carlotta who spoke first. ‘What a terrible old man,’ she said.

‘He married your grandmother,’ said Senara. ‘It was your grandmother of whom he spoke with such venom.’

‘He must have hated her.’

‘He was bewitched by her.’

‘He’s mad, isn’t he?’

‘Who would not be mad?’ asked Senara. ‘Such a man as he was to be kept a prisoner in a chair!’

My mother said: ‘You will come with us, Senara, to Trystan Priory when we leave. You would not want to stay here now.’

Senara laughed. ‘I’ll not allow him to decide my plans,’ she said. ‘Connell is the master now. If he wanted me to stay … and Melanie wanted it … I would not care for that madman’s words. I shall come to Trystan to be with you—depend upon it, Tamsyn—but I want to be in the castle for a while first.’

Melanie rose. She was clearly shaken by the scene my grandfather had made.

‘It seems as though the storm will not abate for a while,’ she said. ‘But there is no reason why we should sit over the table waiting for it. I will take you to the room which will now be ready. You may want to rest.’

‘I could talk and talk,’ said Senara. ‘Tamsyn, come with me to my room. Let us pretend it is years ago and we are young again.’

My mother went to Senara and they embraced warmly. Everyone began to talk as though nothing had happened. After all, we were accustomed to Grandfather’s outbursts, but I could not forget the wildness of his eyes, and the words he had spoken kept ringing in my ears.

News from the Castle

THE CHANGE WAS APPARENT in the first day. This visit was like no other. Before we had rarely made plans for the days. We would come down to breakfast, which was a tankard of ale and bread with cold bacon, and we helped ourselves to this. Then we would go our separate ways. There had been a free and easy atmosphere about the castle. Sometimes I would ride with my sister and any of the girls who liked to accompany us; or I would go to the sea-shore and add to my collection of shells and semi-precious stones, or I would simply explore the castle. There was so much to do. When we had been young we had been allowed to play all sorts of games in the various towers as long as we did not penetrate Grandfather Casvellyn’s Seaward; and the castle had seemed to us an enchanted place.

It was still that in a way, but it was different.

Senara, my mother and Aunt Melanie seemed to want to talk all the time about the old days; Senara must go round the castle exclaiming: ‘I remember this well,’ or ‘Oh, look at that. Fancy its still being here.’ That left Carlotta to us.

We were wary of each other—particularly was Bersaba wary. Carlotta talked in that half foreign way which was attractive; her clothes were different; they, with her voice, her manners and her incomparable beauty, set her apart. It would have been different if she had not been aware of this, but she was.

Bersaba and I with Rozen and Gwenifer took her on a tour of the castle.

‘Is it very different from what your mother told you?’ asked Rozen.

‘Very different.’

‘And we are different too?’ I asked.

She laughed, shaking her head. ‘I did not know of you, therefore I could not picture you. You are different from the people I know.’

‘What? Girls like us?’

‘Oh, it is different in Spain. Young girls do not run wild, as here. They practise decorum and have a duenna.’

‘Who is yours?’

‘I have none now. I am here, and here I shall live as girls live here.’

‘Do you prefer it?’ asked Bersaba.

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I cannot say. It is not a gracious way to live. Yet one has freedom, and that is good.’

‘We could do with more freedom,’ said Gwenifer. ‘We are not allowed to ride out without grooms, are we?’

‘Sometimes we get lost,’ said Bersaba.

Carlotta turned her full-lidded eyes on my sister. ‘For a purpose?’ she asked.

My sister shrugged her shoulders, and Gwenifer said: ‘You came back with Bastian the other day, Bersaba.’

‘Yes,’ said Bersaba, ‘I lost you, and so did Bastian, and then … we found each other.’

It seemed a long and unnecessary explanation. I knew Bersaba had deliberately lost herself. I wondered whether Bastian had too.

‘Ah, Bastian, the brother,’ said Carlotta. ‘He is a very pleasant young gentleman. I shall miss Spain where life is so much more gracious, but I think I shall like being here … for a while.’

‘Shall you go back to Spain?’

‘Of course.’

‘Are you betrothed?’ asked Rozen.

Carlotta shook her head. ‘No, I could have been but he was not to my liking. He was old, a great nobleman with large estates and a great title, but I said, No, I am too young yet for such a union. I will wait a little while. There might be someone to my liking.’

We all regarded her with awe.

When we came to the Seaward Tower, she said: ‘Why do we not enter here?’

‘We rarely go in there,’ said Rozen. ‘That’s where our grandfather lives with his servants. There has to be a special reason for going … for instance, when my aunt arrives with the twins. She is expected to call on the first day of her arrival and after that wait for an invitation.’

‘That mad old man!’ said Carlotta. ‘What a scene he made! He did not like my mother nor me. He does not want us here.’

‘He gets very angry. For so many years he has been crippled. At first they thought he would kill himself, but he didn’t; and now he goes on making everyone’s life unbearable, but somehow the servants who look after him admire him. I can’t think why?’

‘It is time he is dead,’ said Carlotta, blowing her lips in an odd gesture as though he were so much dust and she were blowing him away.

We were all a little shocked. Perhaps it had occurred to us that Grandfather Casvellyn’s life must be a burden to him and others, but while he had life in his body that life was sacred. Our parents had taught us that.

Carlotta sensed our thoughts. There was something uncanny about her. Perhaps she was indeed a witch or had such experience of life that she understood how the minds of simple country girls worked. She cried out: ‘Oh, you don’t talk of such matters, do you? You all pretend you’re fond of him because he’s your grandfather. How could anyone be fond of such a horrible old man? He wanted us turned away. Did my grandmother really marry him? She is so beautiful … the most beautiful woman I ever saw … and she married him!’

‘He was no doubt very handsome in those days.’

She was thoughtful. ‘Tall and strong and powerful … the lord of the castle … perhaps. Well, how I say it is time he was dead and I shall say what I think.’

‘Don’t let anyone hear you,’ I said.

‘I shall not care who does, little twin. Which one are you? How can people tell you from your sister? What fun you must have.’

‘Yes,’ said Bersaba, ‘we do.’

‘I do not think I should care to have someone so like myself,’ said Carlotta. ‘I like to be different … no one like me … all by myself … unique.’

‘We have our differences,’ I said. ‘It is in our natures.’

‘One is the saint and one the sinner, I believe,’ said Carlotta.

‘That could be true,’ said Bersaba.

‘And which is which?’

‘Our mother says that no person is all bad, none all good. So we shouldn’t be so neatly divided,’ I said.

‘How you quote your mother!’ said Carlotta contemptuously. ‘You will have to learn your own lessons from life, won’t you? Is the old man watching us now, do you think?’

‘It may be,’ said Bersaba. ‘I have sometimes seen him at a window watching.’

Carlotta turned and looked up at the Seaward Tower. She clenched her fist and shook it.

Again we were horrified, and seeing this she laughed at us.

‘Let us ride,’ she said. ‘I have a fancy to see the countryside.’

‘We are not allowed to ride alone,’ said Rozen.

‘We shall not be alone. There are five of us.’

‘We are girls, so we have to take some grooms with us.’

‘What could happen to us?’

‘We could be set upon by robbers.’

‘Who would take our purses,’ said Gwenifer.

‘Or worse,’ added Rozen.

‘Rape?’ said Carlotta with that strange laughter in her voice.

‘I think that is what they fear.’

‘We could elude them,’ said Carlotta. ‘Come, we are taking no grooms with us.’

‘And if we are robbed or …’ began Rozen.

‘Then we shall have gained in experience,’ answered Carlotta. ‘Let us change into our riding-habits.’

‘You have yours with you?’ asked Rozen.

‘My dear cousin … for I suppose we are related in a way, since your grandfather was my grandmother’s husband, and “cousin” covers these complicated relationships. So, dear cousin, let me tell you that the pack horses brought our clothes and there are plenty of them, for my mother said the fashions here at Castle Paling will not be of the latest and your English ones of course could not compare with those of Spain.’

‘I believe the fashions at Court are quite splendid,’ said Rozen warmly.

‘Gaudy, no doubt,’ said Carlotta, ‘and I suppose that could be called splendid here. But let us change and then you can show me the countryside.’

As we went to our rooms to change Bersaba said to me: ‘I don’t like her, Angelet. I wish they hadn’t come.’

‘You don’t know her,’ I insisted.

‘I know enough.’

‘How can you in such a short time? You’re thinking of Grandfather and what he said.’

‘He’s right. She’s going to bring trouble … they both are.’

When we met in the stables Carlotta looked at us somewhat scornfully. I supposed our riding-habits with their safeguards were not very attractive. Her outfit was beautifully cut to enhance her tall willowy figure and the black riding-hat became her well.

She mounted the horse she had arrived on and she stood out among us all. As we were preparing to ride out Bastian rode in.

He smiled and his eyes came to rest on Carlotta.

‘Are you going riding?’ he asked. ‘Take two of the grooms with you.’

‘We are not taking grooms,’ retorted Carlotta.

‘Oh but …’

‘There are five of us,’ said Carlotta.

‘But you should …’

She shook her head, still smiling at him, and he could not take his eyes from her face.

‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.

‘It is as you wish,’ she answered.

And we all rode out together.

Bersaba brought her horse up and rode beside Bastian. Then Carlotta was there and Bastian was between them.

Carlotta talked about the countryside and Bastian told her of the quaint customs of the people and the crops that were grown.

I did not think she was very interested in that, but she was in Bastian. So it seemed was he in her, for he never left her side during the whole of the morning.

He had said that we must keep together and we did. I was surprised that Carlotta obeyed this because I thought that the very fact that she was asked not to wander off would make her do so. But she seemed content to ride with Bastian and she kept beside him.

Bersaba contrived to keep her place on his other side but I noticed that he gave his attention to Carlotta, which seemed natural as she was the newcomer.

When we returned to the castle there was great excitement. Our mother came running down to the hall as we came in.

‘Your father’s ship has been sighted. Fennimore has sent a servant to tell us. He has ridden with all haste from Trystan. We must prepare to go back at once.’

‘When shall we start?’ I asked.

‘Within an hour. Your Aunt Melanie knows and is helping me make ready. We shall come back as soon as your father goes away again. But now … make ready.’

It was a short visit, I thought, but a significant one.

As we came along the coast we saw the ship riding the water and we knew it for our father’s. My mother’s eyes glistened with joy as she beheld the sight. It was named after her, the Tamsyn, and my father had had it built five years before. I had heard my father extol her and say that since she was named after the best woman in the world she must indeed be the best ship that ever sailed the seas. From her poop lantern to her figurehead she was some two hundred and twenty feet in length and forty feet across the beam. She carried cannon, of course—a necessity when on her journeys she might meet pirates or rivals masquerading as such. It was a source of great anxiety to my mother that on their return voyage the ships were laden with precious cargoes of silks, ivories and spices. The figurehead of the Tamsyn was an exquisite carving of my mother. My father had said that in some ways that made him feel as though she were with him. He was a very sentimental man and theirs was indeed a rare marriage of minds.

We turned away from the coast to take the road to Trystan Priory and our horses could not carry us fast enough. My father was in the courtyard when we arrived, for he had seen our approach from one of the turret windows, knowing that it would be that day for he was well aware that as soon as my mother received news of his arrival she would lose no time in setting out.

His eyes went first to her. He lifted her down from her horse and they embraced there. The servants looked on with a kind of wonder. There was something about this love between our parents which was sacred to us all. Bersaba felt it; we had discussed it; we had once both declared that we would never marry because we couldn’t marry our father and where in the world would we find another husband like him? There flashed into my mind then a vision of Carlotta’s long secretive eyes and I wondered what she would have said had she been here. I was glad she was not. I could not have endured her cynical comments or her looks which would betray her thoughts about my parents, so I was glad that she had stayed behind at Castle Paling, but I knew that she would come here some day. Then something would change to make it different and I did not want it to change.

My father had turned to us. ‘My girls,’ he said, and caught us both up in his arms. ‘You’ve grown,’ he accused us. ‘You’re not my little girls any more.’

Our brother Fennimore was smiling rather sheepishly. He was just as happy as the rest.

‘And you came while I was away …’ my mother was saying. ‘Oh, Fenn, I wish I’d known. We’d only been there a day or so … if only I’d been at home.’

‘Well, you’re here now, my love.’

‘I must see the servants. I must go to the kitchen … Oh, Fenn, when did you come?’

He said: ‘Leave the kitchen. Stay with me. Let us talk and talk …’

So we went into the house, and for a short time we forgot Carlotta and her mother.

We dined in the intimate parlour—just the family—and Father talked of his adventures.

Trade was becoming more prosperous. The great rivals were the Dutch because they were very commercially minded and were seeking maritime expansion. They were good sailors—as much to be feared as the Spaniards had been a few years back. They were as deadly in a way, for while the Spaniards had never lost sight of the desire to bring Catholicism to the entire world, the Dutch had one objective—maritime supremacy, which would make them the biggest and richest traders in the world; and as the very same ambition was possessed by the English in general and in particular those of the East India Company, the rivalry was intense.

‘They want to drive us off the seas,’ Father told us. ‘And we are determined not to be driven. Why people cannot trade in peace has always been a mystery to me. There are riches enough in the world for us all and let the man who finds them first keep them.’

Our mother was in full agreement with my father and I thought that if everyone in the world was like them it would be a happier place.

My father told us stories of his adventures in strange lands. He made us see palm-fringed islands where the people lived in primitive fashion and rarely saw a white man, how they had been overawed by the sight of the big trading ships and were sometimes hostile. But he always implied that there was no real danger and that he would emerge safe from all his adventures, and I fancied that he sometimes coloured the stories to give this effect, for the last thing he wanted was to add to our mother’s anxieties. We basked in this atmosphere of contentment and neither Bersaba nor I thought beyond the present; we shut our eyes to the truth that one day he would sail away again. While he was home there must be perfect contentment.

We none of us asked that first day of reunion when he would be leaving us again, and it was the next day before we mentioned Senara’s return.

Then a faint frown appeared on his face, and I thought uneasily: He doesn’t like Senara.

‘You knew her well, Father?’ I asked.

‘Not well,’ he replied. ‘I knew her. She left before your mother and I married. I had met her when I visited the Castle.’

My mother said: ‘She will come here. She wants to be with me awhile but I think the Castle has some attraction and she will go back there after visits with us. It was her home. Like myself she was born there.’

‘So she will be here,’ said my father slowly.

‘You would not have me not receive her?’ asked my mother, little lights of horror appearing in her eyes. Was it going to be their first disagreement?

‘My love, if you want her here … of course you must have her.’

‘Dearest Fenn,’ said my mother, ‘she is as my sister.’

‘She was not always good to you … to us …’

‘Oh, but she is good at heart. She was wild in those days. She acted without thought. But she was as my sister and I could not turn her away.’

My father nodded, but I could see that he was uneasy and I wondered what had happened to make him say that Senara had not been good to them.

Bersaba asked her when she was alone with her and she told me that my mother replied: ‘Oh, she tried to stop your father and me marrying. She was jealous, that was all. She did not want me to go away from her. She was very fond of me. She confessed and then everything was all right. That was all, but your father has not forgotten.’

My brother Fennimore wanted to go to sea with my father, but my father thought he should stay at home and look after the estates but most of all my mother.

My parents used to talk about it at length. I would see them in the garden, arm in arm, in earnest conversation and I guessed what it was about. My brother Fennimore was like them in that he wanted to do the best for the family, but it is not easy to be denied what you really want to do in life.

My mother knew this and she tried to persuade my father to let him go. She was perfectly safe, she declared; she had good servants and Fennimore’s heart was with the Company just as his was.

While my father was home many people came to visit us. There were men in the Company who never went to sea but took part in its management from their offices in England. Some came from London to see us and those would be days of great excitement. The servants would be busy in the kitchen baking pies of all descriptions—all our old Cornish ones would appear, to the delight and amazement of the visitors who had never heard of taddage pies, which contained prematurely born sucking pig, and muggety, the entrails of sheep and calves. My mother wondered whether such food would appeal to the fine folk from London, but they seemed to eat it with relish and were not told until afterwards what the pies contained. Then, besides our old Cornish dishes there would be beef, mutton, boar’s head, duck and snipe, partridge, pigeon and fish like lampreys, sturgeon and pike, with fruits—mulberries, apricots, medlars and green figs—to follow. My mother was a devoted housewife and herself supervised the making of many of the dishes, so eager was she to welcome all our father’s business colleagues.

There came the day when we heard that our father had relented over our brother Fennimore and he was to go to sea with him when he next sailed. Fennimore was going round in a state of quiet pleasure because of this. He was so like our father and he did not shout with joy or say very much, but we were all aware of his contentment.

A week had passed since our return—a week of meals eaten in the great hall, for there were these constant visitors and we never knew when more would arrive. Most of the rooms in the Priory were now occupied and Bersaba and I recalled that this was how it always had been when our father was home.

‘I wonder what Carlotta is doing at Castle Paling?’ I said one day.

Bersaba answered: ‘They will not come here until Father has gone. I heard Mother say she would ask them not to, making the excuse that every room was occupied by Father’s business associates.’

Bersaba always seemed to get such information. Once I accused her of eavesdropping and she did not deny it. But I have to admit that I was always glad to receive the information she was able to give.

There was a good deal of talk at the table and we learned that these men from London were disturbed by the influences at work in the country. The King’s popularity was fast waning. He had, it seemed, not the gifts to make him a darling of the public. He was a good and faithful husband—rare in kings—but he did not know how to govern, and his wife, Henrietta Maria, frivolous and strictly Catholic, did nothing to endear herself to the people.

That he had dismissed Parliament and governed without one was an indication of the King’s determination to be accepted as the ruler selected by God. He was implying that he did not need a parliament, when he was quite capable of making laws. The people had accepted so much from him, but, it was the general verdict, they were getting restive and they would not go on in this way.

He was alienating the people not only through religion but through irresponsible taxation, which was a direct threat to property.

One of the main topics was, of course, ship money, of which we had heard so much. Fearful of war with the Spaniards or Dutch or both, Charles had commanded that the main ports supply ships for the defence of England. To build these ships money was needed and ship money was invented.

A rumbling protest broke out throughout the land. The Puritans, the Protestants and the Catholics all felt themselves persecuted and stood against the King; Charles had alienated Scotland when he allowed himself to be crowned in Edinburgh by five bishops in white rochets and copes of gold, a ceremony which was attended by much pomp, for this offended the plain Scots and diverted their sympathy from him.

I remembered vividly the conversation at dinner one evening when they talked about the frivolity of the Queen and the King’s growing love for her.

My mother thought that it showed goodness in the King and she said that a monarch’s happy family life would be an inspiration to the families of the country.

My father smiled at her tenderly and replied: ‘There have been happy families before this King came to the throne, my love. To have found the ideal companion, to have learned the true secret of living, which is to give happiness to others when happiness will come to the giver unasked, is something which we all may have if we are determined to get it.’

‘But it is so easy to lose the opportunity to gain that happiness. What if I had lost you?’

There was a sudden shadow between them and I knew instinctively that it was the return of Senara which had reminded them that their happiness might not be secure.

One of the gentlemen from London said: ‘It would be well for the country if the King were less under the influence of his wife. It was the greatest mistake to deal with William Prynne as they did.’

‘What happened to William Prynne?’ asked Bersaba.

‘I forget that remote in the country as you are you miss these things,’ replied the gentleman. ‘Prynne wrote a book against stage plays.’

‘Why should he be against such plays?’ demanded my mother. ‘What harm do they do?’

‘It was Prynne’s opinion that plays are unlawful, because they engender immorality and have been condemned by the scriptures.’

‘But is this so?’ asked my mother.

‘Prynne produced evidence to prove his case.’

‘He is a killjoy,’ said my mother. ‘Miserable himself and wanting everyone else to be the same!’

‘That may be,’ put in my father, ‘but every man should have the privilege of stating his views.’

‘That is what many think,’ put in our guest. ‘A man may be wrong or right but he must be given leave to air his opinions. Those who don’t agree snap their fingers at him; those who do applaud. There are certain to be those who are ready to take sides.’

‘On what grounds was he sent to the Star Chamber?’ asked my mother.

‘This is where the King is foolish in his fondness for the Queen,’ was the answer. ‘Prynne attacked the women who appeared on the stage, for in his opinion although stage plays in themselves are wicked, the greatest sin of all is for a woman to appear on the stage. Now the Queen loves the play—to witness it and to take part in it—and she and her ladies have recently performed William Montague’s Shepherd’s Paradise, so the attack appears to be on her personally and on the King too for that matter, for he took great pleasure in watching and applauding the play. And for this Prynne is sent to prison, but first set in the pillory and deprived of his ears.’

‘His ears!’ cried my mother, deeply shocked.

‘Ah madam,’ said our guest, ‘you live in this peaceful spot. Pray God it may always remain so. But there are changes creeping over our country and they are such that the people will not endure.’

I was trying to imagine what a man looked like without his ears, and I felt a sudden pain and fear such as I had never known before.

When I rode out I noticed that the people of the countryside seemed thoughtful. It was as though a cold wind had started to blow across the country from Whitehall, so steadily, so relentlessly that we were even feeling it at Trystan Priory.

We had been home for two weeks when my father was called to Plymouth to discuss the next voyage. My mother begged to go with him, leaving our brother Fennimore in charge of the household.

‘We shall not be away long,’ my mother assured us, and when they rode off together I thought she looked like a bride setting out on her first journey with her new husband. The house seemed different without her. We were accustomed to my father’s absences so that did not affect us so much—but the house without her seemed somehow bereft.

After we had bade them farewell in the courtyard, Bersaba and I climbed to the turrets and watched them from there until they had disappeared from sight.

‘When I am married I shall be just like our mother,’ I told Bersaba.

‘You will not,’ answered my sister, ‘because you are not like our mother.’

‘I mean I shall have a husband who thinks I am as young and beautiful after thirty years of marriage as I was on the day he first saw me.’

‘You are not going to marry a blind man?’

‘You know what I mean. Father thinks that of our mother.’

‘There are not many like them.’

Sadly, I agreed with her.

‘Mind you, it would be dull if they were. I want my marriage to be different from that. Theirs is hardly exciting.’

‘I don’t think anyone could ever have a more exciting moment than our mother when she hears his ship is sighted.’

‘It would greatly depend on what excitement meant to you,’ Bersaba pointed out.

‘Oh, you can never accept things as they are. You always have to probe and dig about and spoil them.’

‘I like to know the truth,’ observed my sister. ‘I wonder what’s happening at Castle Paling?’

‘It’s odd that we haven’t heard.’

‘Do you think they will be asked here?’

‘Not until Father goes. He clearly didn’t like Senara. She tried to stop his marrying our mother. She was jealous … She didn’t want anything to come between her and our mother. She loved her so.’

‘I’ll suggest that she wanted to be the one to marry first.’

‘It must have been exciting then. I wish we could read our mother’s journal. It will be all about Senara and her mother and Grandfather when he was young. Have you started writing, Bersaba?’

‘No,’ said Bersaba shortly.

‘Are you going to?’

‘When I’ve something that’s exciting enough to put down.’

‘Well, don’t you reckon Senara’s return with Carlotta is?’

‘It remains to be seen.’ She hesitated. Then she said: ‘I’ll tell you something. I swear someone from Paling will be over soon.’

‘Who’s coming over from Castle Paling then?’

She smiled secretly. ‘Bastian perhaps,’ she said.

It was not Bastian who came. It was Senara and her daughter. I wondered if they knew that my father was absent.

Senara cried: ‘So your mother is not here—’

We told her she had gone with our father to Plymouth.

‘Who is in charge?’ asked Senara.

‘My brother Fennimore,’ I answered. ‘And Bersaba and I are the hostesses.’

‘It’s nice of you to welcome us,’ said Carlotta with a sly smile, reminding us that we had done nothing of the sort.

Bersaba told them that Fennimore was out on the estate and we hastily ordered the grooms to take the horses while we brought them into the hall.

‘It’s a lovely old place,’ said Serena. ‘I always thought so. The castle is so much grimmer.’

‘But grander,’ added Carlotta.

‘Our mother will be so sorry not to be here,’ said Bersaba.

I could not imagine my mother’s being in the least sorry while she was with my father. In fact, I thought she would be rather pleased not to be here, since he would not want these visitors.

‘We’ll have a room made ready,’ I said, and went away to give orders.

When I came back Bersaba was taking the visitors into the intimate parlour, and one of the maids had brought the wine and cakes with which we always refreshed travellers on their arrival.

‘I was surprised,’ Senara was saying, ‘that your mother did not insist on our coming before.’

‘It was because our father was home,’ Bersaba was explaining. ‘When he comes they have so much to talk of because he has been away so long. They just have to be together. It has always been like that.’

‘Your mother fell in love with him when she was nothing but a girl … younger than you are,’ said Senara.

‘And she has stayed in love with him ever since,’ I said defiantly, as though there was need to defend her.

‘We were not all destined to find such happiness in married life, alas,’ commented Senara. She smiled at Carlotta and went on: ‘Let us tell the twins your news. I suppose I should be right to wait until your mother returns. She should be the first to know. But I can see you are all agog with curiosity.’

‘What news is it?’ asked Bersaba.

‘Carlotta has already had a proposal of marriage.’

‘Already … but from whom?’ My mind went over the people we knew. The Krolls, the Trents, the Lamptons … Surely one of those young men would not be considered good enough by Carlotta, who had gone to great pains to make us aware of her almost royal lineage.

‘She has to consider it, have you not, Carlotta? It is not the match she would have expected had she stayed in Spain, but it will bind the families closer, and I have never forgotten all through my life the days I spent here in my childhood.’

‘Who is it?’ asked Bersaba almost sharply.

‘It is your cousin Bastian. He has asked Carlotta’s hand in marriage.’

Because I am close to Bersaba I felt the shock which ran through her. It numbed me as it numbed her and instinctively I knew that she was deeply disturbed.

I began to talk rapidly to save her the necessity of doing so. I said: ‘So soon? How can you be sure? How can Bastian? What do Uncle Connell and Aunt Melanie say?’

‘They say it is a matter for Bastian to decide. He is of age. He is his own master and there is no doubt how strongly he is involved. Is that not so, Carlotta?’

‘He is determined to marry me.’

‘And you to marry him?’ I asked faintly.

A smile flicked across her lips. ‘I am not sure. He must wait for his answer.’

‘We left Paling so that Carlotta could have time to think of this in peaceful surroundings,’ Senara explained.

‘I wanted to know what you felt about it here,’ said Carlotta. ‘Would you be happy to have me in your family? I wanted the twins to tell me.’ She was looking at Bersaba, who stood still, her eyes downcast, saying nothing. ‘Of course,’ went on Carlotta, ‘I shall not listen to what you tell me. I shall make up my mind whether or not I shall marry Bastian.’ Again that look at Bersaba. ‘And something seems to tell me that I shall.’

The atmosphere had grown tense with secret feelings. It affected me strongly because it came from Bersaba. I could see Grandfather Casvellyn’s wild eyes, hear his accusing voice: ‘They’ll bring trouble here if they stay.’ Was that prophecy already coming true?