Saraband for Two Sisters

The Toad in the Bed

I AM DESOLATE SO I am taking up my pen. I had said I would only do so when there was something interesting to write about. I did not think it would be heartbreak. I am so hurt, so humiliated and I think above all angry. My anger is none the less fierce because I hide it from the world; it is like a fire inside me, a banked-up fire which is waiting for the moment to burst forth, and when it does I believe I should be capable of killing the one who has brought me to this state.

I put down my pen then and wrung my hands together; I wished that it were her neck I had in my hands. They are very strong, my hands. I could always do things with them that Angelet could not attempt.

At this time I am only half believing it. I say to myself: It can’t be true. But in my heart I know it is. Grandfather was a prophet when he said she would bring disaster to us. He was thinking of me, I know, because Grandfather has a special feeling for me. There is a bond between us. I think I know what it is, for it is a need, a desire, which he himself possessed and which came down through him to me. I appear outwardly quiet … quieter than Angelet, but internally I am not.

If I had not been as I am, this would not have happened to me. I should not have lain with Bastian in the forest and have revelled in that wild exultation which I could no more resist than he could. I used to think that if we were discovered they would blame him; they would say he had seduced me; he was older than I and I was little more than a child. But it would not be true. I was the one who had tempted him—artlessly, subtly, it was true. He used to kiss me and be frightened by the kisses I gave him in return; I would caress him in such a manner as to arouse his desires. He thought it was innocence which made me do these things. He didn’t understand that virgin though I was, at that time I was possessed by a raging desire to be possessed.

When I was fourteen years old I knew that I wanted Bastian to be my lover. He had singled me out as his favourite and this endeared him to me, for although we were so much alike people were more comfortable in Angelet’s company. She was not prettier than I … how could she be when most people did not know which of us was which? It was something in her manner. When I pretended to be her—it was our favourite game to delude people into thinking one of us was the other—I could assume her nature: open, thoughtless, chattering without thinking very much what she was saying, light-hearted, believing the best of everyone, and being easy to deceive because of that. I just had to think of Angelet’s ways to be her. But she never really succeeded in being me, because if she lived to a hundred she would never know this deep sensuality which was the strongest force in my nature and which was why Bastian and I had become lovers when I was but fifteen years old and he was twenty-two.

The first time it happened we were riding in the woods near Castle Paling where I was staying with my mother and sister. A party of us had gone out riding and Bastian and I slipped away from the others. We came to a thicket and I said the horses were tired and we should give them a rest.

Bastian said, Nonsense. We had not long left the castle. But I dismounted and tied my horse to a tree and he did the same. I lay down on the grass and looked at him standing above me. Then suddenly he was lying beside me and I took his hand and held it against my breast. I remember how his body shook with his heartbeats and how excited I was. And then he was beside me, saying: ‘We must go, Bersaba. Dear little Bersaba, we must go back.’

But I had no intention of going back, and I put my arms about him and told him I loved him because he loved me more than he loved Angelet. And all he could say was: ‘No, Bersaba, we must go. You don’t understand.’

I understood perfectly but he would not know that. He was the one who did not understand. I knew then that there are people who are born with knowledge and I was one of them. There was one of the servants—we called her Ginny—who was the same. I had heard the servants say that she had had lovers since she was eleven years old. But perhaps I was not the same, for I did not want lovers: I wanted my cousin Bastian.

Afterwards Bastian was frightened. When we stood up beside our horses he took my face in his hands and kissed me.

He said: ‘We must never do that again, Bersaba. It was wrong, and when you are old enough I’m going to marry you, and if necessary before.’

I was happy then but Bastian wasn’t. I thought he would betray what had happened by his mournful looks. For some time he would take great pains not to be with me. I would look at him with hurt and yearning eyes, and then one day it happened again, and again he said: ‘It must never happen like that until we are married.’

But it did. It became a ritual, and afterwards he would always say that we were going to be married.

I thought of Bastian all day. My sketchbook was full of sketches of him. I could not wait until the day I would be old enough to marry him.

He said: ‘We shall be married on your birthday and announce our intentions six months before.’

I used to think: I shall be married before Angelet is. Another of my characteristics which is almost as strong as my sensuality is the need to better Angelet. She is my sister, my twin, so like me that many cannot tell one from the other, and she is important to me. Sometimes I feel that she is part of me. I love her, I suppose, for she is necessary to me. I should hate it if she went away, and yet there is an insane desire within me always to better her. I must do everything better than she can or I suffer. People must prefer me or I am consumed with jealousy—and as she has this open, sunny, frank manner and mine is dark and devious, it is often that they turn to her.

Once when we were very young my mother bought us sashes for our dresses—mine was red and Angelet’s blue. ‘We shall now be able to tell you apart,’ she had said jokingly. And when I saw Angelet in the blue and how people turned to her first and talked to her more than they did to me, I became obsessed by the blue sash and it seemed to me that there was some magic in it. I took her blue sash and told her she could have my red one. She refused this, saying that the blue was hers. And one day I went to the drawer in which the sashes were kept and I cut the blue one into shreds.

Our mother was bewildered. She talked to me a great deal, asking me why I had done this, but I did not know how to put my thoughts into words.

Then she said to me, ‘You thought the blue one was better because it was Angelet’s. You were envious of her blue sash, and you see what you have done. There is now no blue sash for either of you. There are seven deadly sins, Bersaba.’ She told me what they were. ‘And the greatest of these is envy. Curb it, my dear child, for envy hurts those who bear it far more than those against whom it is directed. You see, you are more unhappy about the blue sash than your sister is.’

I pondered that. It was true, because Angelet had forgotten the sash in a day, though it lived on in my memory. But the incident did nothing to curb my envy. It grew from that to what it is today. It’s like a parasite growing round an oak tree and the oak tree is my love and need of my sister—for I do love her; she is a part of me. Nature, I think, divided certain qualities and gave her some and me the others. In so many ways we are so distinctly different, and it is only my secretive nature that prevents this being obvious, for I am certain that no one has any idea of the dark thoughts which go on in my mind.

After Carlotta and her mother had arrived Angelet came up to our room. She was very uneasy, because although she had no idea of the nature of my relationship with Bastian, she knew that I admired him and sought his company and he mine.

She looked at me anxiously. How relieved I am that I am not one of those girls who shed tears at the slightest provocation. I cry with rage sometimes; never the soft sentimental tears which Angelet gives way to. A sad story will bring the tears to her eyes, but they are easy tears, for she will have forgotten what made her cry a very short time afterwards.

‘What do you think of it?’ she cried. ‘Carlotta and Bastian!’

I shrugged my shoulders, but that couldn’t deceive even Angelet.

‘Of course,’ she went on, making an effort not to look at me, ‘he is getting old and I suppose it’s time he married. He was bound to marry sooner or later. But Carlotta! Why, she has only been there a week or so. What do you think of her, Bersaba?’

‘I suppose she is very attractive,’ I said calmly.

‘It’s a strange sort of attraction,’ said Angelet. ‘There’s something odd about her … and about her mother. I wonder if it’s true that her grandmother was a witch.’

Horrible pictures came into my mind, but I did nothing to suppress them because they soothed me.

Once, when I was about twelve years old, we had been riding with our mother and some of the grooms and we had come upon a shouting mob. There had been a woman in their midst and she was not such an old woman either. Her clothes were torn from her body and she was half naked, but it was the look of abject terror in her face which I had never forgotten. The crowd was chanting, ‘Hang the witch. Hang the witch.’ I don’t think I ever saw such fear in any face, before or after.

My mother had said: ‘We will go now.’ She turned her horse, and we rode off at speed in the opposite direction from that in which we had been going. ‘These things happen,’ she told us, ‘but it will not always be so. People will become more enlightened.’

I wanted to ask questions but my mother said: ‘We won’t speak of it any more, Bersaba. We’ll forget it. It’s unpleasant; it exists; but in time people will be wiser. We can do no good by talking of it, thinking of it …’

That was the attitude in our home. If there was anything unpleasant one did not think of it. If my mother had a fault it was pretending that things were so much better than they were. She told herself every time my father went away that he would come safely back. She was wise in a way; but it had never been mine to pretend, even to myself. I look straight into my heart, soul and mind and ask myself why I did such a thing. I think I know myself better than my mother or Angelet will ever know themselves because of this side of my nature which demands the truth however unpleasant or detrimental to myself.

Afterwards I went back to that lane and I saw the woman hanging there. It was a gruesome sight, for the crows were attacking her. Her hair was long and I could see even then that she had been a beautiful woman. It was beastly; it was vile; it haunted me for a long time; but at least it was reality.

And now I was thinking of Carlotta in the hands of that mob, Carlotta being dragged to that tree. Her grandmother was a witch … Perhaps she was. Perhaps that accounted for the manner in which she had taken Bastian from me. She had cast some spell upon him. An odd excitement possessed me and I felt better than I had since I had heard.

I said: ‘Is witchcraft something that is handed down from grandmother to mother and then on and on, I wonder?’

Angelet looked happy because she had come to the conclusion in her light let’s-see-the-best-of-everything manner that my childish fondness for Bastian had not gone as deep as she feared. One of the lovable things about Angelet had always been that my trouble had been hers. I looked at her now with a kind of contempt—which might have been another form of envy, for I admitted it must be pleasant to sail through life without these intense feelings which beset people like myself—as she answered: ‘Perhaps it is. Oh, I do wonder if Carlotta is a witch.’

‘It would be interesting to find out,’ I said.

‘How?’ she asked.

‘We could think about that,’ I suggested.

‘There are good witches as well as bad ones,’ Angelet said, in keeping with her nature immediately bestowing benign qualities on the woman who had stolen my lover. ‘They cure you of warts and styes and give you love potions to enslave a lover. I believe that if you have bad luck some witches can help you find illwishers who could be causing that bad luck. I was talking to Ginny the other day. She knows a lot about witches. She’s always fancying herself ill-wished.’

‘We’ll talk to Ginny,’ I said, and all sorts of thoughts were whirling round in my head; they soothed me.

‘I wonder if Bastian knows,’ giggled Angelet. ‘You’d better ask him.’

‘Why don’t you?’

‘Oh, you know he always liked you best.’

‘Did he show it then?’

‘You know he did. Wasn’t he always losing himself with you in the woods?’

Now she must see. Her words stabbed me as though they were knife blades. Riding in the woods with him, his pursuing me, intending to be caught, lying on the grass among the bracken … His voice: ‘This is madness. What if we were seen?’ And not caring because it was so important, so necessary to us both.

And now … Carlotta.

I said fiercely: ‘I’m going to find out if she’s a witch.’

‘We will,’ replied Angelet blithely. She would be less blithe when they took Carlotta down the lane, when they stripped her clothes from her, when they hung her up by the neck and the crows came.

It was difficult hiding the fact that I was so stunned. Carlotta knew that I had been fond of Bastian, but did she know how far that fondness had carried us? The more I thought of that the more angry I became. I thought of the insult, the humiliation; I, Bersaba Landor, to be cast aside. And his own cousin too. He must have been completely bewitched.

Carlotta was watching me as a cat watches a mouse, teasing me in the same way, patting me with her paw, letting me run a little way then clawing me back. I comforted myself with the thought that she didn’t know how wounded I was. I was sure she thought I had had a little girl fondness for Bastian and that I, childish like Angelet, was just a little hurt because he no longer paid me the same attention.

At supper that night Fennimore sat at the head of the table and Carlotta turned her langorous eyes on him. Fennimore was made in the image of his father, and as Carlotta was engaged to marry his cousin Bastian, it would not occur to Fennimore to be aware of her fascination. Like my parents, my brother created a sense of security and made even me think that whatever happened, this would always be my home and my parents would shelter and protect me.

Carlotta talked of her coming marriage and what it would mean to her.

‘I hesitate,’ she said. ‘I am not sure that I would wish to be buried in the country.’

‘You’ll get used to it,’ said Fennimore easily. ‘Bastian will be involved with the estates and that can be a full-time job, I assure you.’

‘When we were in Madrid we went to Court often. I am already beginning to find it somewhat dull here.’

‘Then,’ said Angelet logically, ‘you should not marry Bastian, unless you have other interests.’ Angelet looked slyly at me, and I thought: Oh no, sister, not now.

‘What interests are there in the country?’

‘There’s riding, for one thing. You can ride far more in the country than in the town. There are exciting things … like the May revels and Christmas when we bring in the holly and the ivy. We do have the occasional ball.’

‘They are nothing like the Court balls, I do assure you,’ said Carlotta coldly.

‘There are exciting things, though,’ insisted Angelet, ‘like going to see the witch of the woods.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘They hanged her some time ago,’ said Angelet soberly, ‘but there’ll be another. There are always witches.’

‘What do you know of them?’ Carlotta was animated.

‘That they do all sorts of interesting things, don’t they, Bersaba?’

‘They sell their souls to Satan in return for special powers on earth which enable them to get what they want.’

‘It’s strange,’ said Fennimore, ‘that witches so often seem to be ugly old women. If they could have what they want you’d think they’d be beautiful.’

‘Perhaps there are some beautiful ones,’ said Carlotta.

I thought exultantly: She is. I am sure she is.

‘My grandmother was said to be a witch and I never saw a more beautiful woman,’ she went on.

‘I wonder,’ I said slowly, ‘if witchcraft powers are passed down through families.’

Carlotta looked steadily at me: ‘I think that could be very likely,’ she replied, and I knew that she wanted me to think that she had special powers, powers to get what she wanted—attract people to her, for instance, take them away from those whom they loved by making herself irresistible.

Fennimore—how typical of him—evidently considered the subject unsuitable for his young sisters and determinedly and deliberately changed it.

I didn’t listen to what was said. I was excited and felt better than I had since I had heard the news.

Two days after Carlotta and Senara had come to Trystan Priory Bastian rode over. I saw him from one of the castle windows and I did not know what to do. Part of me wanted to run to our room and shut myself in, but it was Angelet’s room too and how could I shut her out? Another part of me wanted to go down to him, to rage at him, to abuse him, to tell him that I hated him.

Neither of these actions could I take, and there is another trait in my character which I don’t quite know whether I should be grateful for or deplore. When something good or bad happens I seem to stand outside the event, to look in and watch myself and others, so that whatever my feelings I can always curb them and ask myself what action will bring most advantage to me. Angelet never stops to think; she does what comes naturally. If she is angry her anger bursts forth, so does her joy. I sometimes think it would be easier for me if I were like that. As at this time. If I did what was natural—either to go to my room and burst into floods of tears or go down and abuse Bastian—people would know what I was feeling. But being myself, even in my most abject misery and hatred, and feeling everything so much more intensely than Angelet ever could, I must be outwardly calm and say: What is the best thing for me to do? And by best I always mean advantageous to myself.

So now I pondered, and I decided that I would go away from the house, so that if he looked for me he would be unable to find me. That would give me time to think.

I quickly changed into my riding-habit and went down to the stables, saddled my mare and rode out. As the wind brushed my face and caught at the hair under my riding-hat, I could smell the dampness of the earth, for it had been raining in the night. I felt the tears coming to my eyes, and I knew that if I could have cried I should have felt relieved to some extent. But I would not cry. Instead I nursed my anger. I thought of the insult to my pride, and I knew that I had loved Bastian because he had noticed me more and liked me better than my sister and that it was my pride which had made me love him; now he had wounded that pride he had taken away my reason for loving him and I hated him. I wanted to hurt him as he had hurt me.

I heard a small voice within me saying: ‘You never loved Bastian. You loved only yourself.’

And I knew it was true and I wished that I were like Angelet who never probed her own secret mind as I did.

I went down the old pack-horse track where the flowers on the blackberry bushes were out in abundance, and where we came with our dishes at the end of summer and gathered them so that they could make preserves in the stillroom. I started to gallop past the fields of deep green wheat and I came to the woods—the woods where I had lain with Bastian when he visited us at Trystan Priory. The foxgloves were flowering there. Angelet and I once gathered them and took them into the house, and old Sarah who worked in the kitchens said they were poison flowers and witches knew how to brew a potion from them to make you sleep forever.

I would like to make Carlotta sleep forever.

I was wrong to have come to the woods where there were too many memories. I thought of the last time we had been here together. It was six months ago—in January—and the trees were bare—lacy branches seen against a grey sky. How beautiful they had been; more beautiful, I had said to Bastian, than they were in summer.

‘I’d rather have the leaves to shelter us,’ he had said. ‘It’s dangerous here.’

‘Nonsense,’ I had replied. ‘Who’d come to the woods in winter?’

‘We did.’

It was cold, I remember—the wind was chill; but I said to him: ‘While our love is warm, what matters it?’

And we laughed and were happy and he said: ‘This time next winter we shall announce our betrothal.’ And it was an enchanted afternoon.

When we rode back I pointed out the points of yellow in the jasmine which climbed over one of the cottages we passed.

‘Promise of spring,’ said Bastian. It seemed significant. The future was full of promise for us.

Why did I want to come here to revive memories? Better to have stayed in the house.

Then I saw a man riding towards me, and I felt a sudden quiver of alarm because I was doing what was forbidden—riding out alone. I spurred up my horse and, turning off the road, broke into a canter across the meadow. My alarm intensified, for the man who had been on the road was coming across the meadow in my direction.

There is nothing to fear, I admonished myself. Why should he not come this way?

I seemed to hear my mother’s voice. ‘I never want you girls to go out alone. It is all right if Fennimore or Bastian is with you. But always make sure that there are two grooms at least.’

He had ridden past me and was pulling up his horse. Strangely enough my fear had left me; excitement took its place, for the rider was no ruffian. Far from it. He was elegant in the extreme and a stranger, for we did not often see such gentlemen in the country.

I noticed his hat first because he swept it off and turned to me, waved it in his hand as he bowed his head; it was of black felt, broad-brimmed, and adorned with a beautiful white feather which trailed over the brim. His hair—light brown, almost golden, curled at the tips—fell to his shoulders. We did not wear our hair like that in the country, yet I had heard that it was the latest fashion. Fennimore had laughed at the time and said he would never wear his hair like a girl. But I had to admit that if the face it framed was manly enough the effect was not effeminate. His doublet was black, with wide sleeves caught in at a cuff with lace edges; his breeches were of black material that had a look of satin; and he wore square-toed boots fitting up to his leg to just below his knees. I suppose I noticed his appearance so minutely because I had never seen anyone like him before.

‘Your pardon, mistress,’ he said. ‘I would ask your help. Do you live hereabouts and know the country?’

‘I do,’ I answered.

‘I am looking for Trystan Priory, which I believe is in this neighbourhood.’

‘Then you are fortunate to have met me, for I live there and am returning there now.’

‘Is that truly so, then this is indeed a happy meeting.’

‘If you ride beside me I will take you there,’ I said.

‘That is kind of you.’

Our horses walked side by side as we crossed the meadow to the road.

‘I think you may wish to see my father,’ I said.

‘I have business with Captain Fennimore Landor,’ he answered.

‘He is away at this time.’

‘But I had heard his voyage was ended.’

‘Yes, it has. He is only gone to Plymouth and will be home within a few days.’

‘Ah, that is better news. I shall not be too long delayed.’

‘I dare say it is business concerning the East India Company.’

‘Your assumption is correct.’

‘People often come to see him. But you have come far.’

‘I have come from London. My servants are at an inn. I left them with my baggage and rode out to see if I could find the Priory. You have made my quest easy.’

‘I am pleased. My brother will talk to you. He knows a great deal about the Company.’

‘That’s interesting. May I introduce myself? I am Gervaise Pondersby.’

‘I am Bersaba Landor. I have a twin sister, Angelet. She and my brother will be very pleased to see you.’

I pictured their astonishment when I rode in with this elegant stranger. I was grateful to him, for he had made me forget temporarily the hurt Bastion had inflicted on me.

The Priory came into sight.

‘A charming place,’ said Gervaise Pondersby. ‘So this is the Landor home, is it? And how far from the sea?’

‘Five miles.’

‘I had expected it would be nearer.’

‘Five miles is nothing much,’ I answered. I told him that the house had been built with stones from the ruined priory as we rode up the slight incline and into the courtyard.

We had been seen, and I imagined the consternation that had caused: Bersaba arriving home with a gentleman from London!

I shouted to a groom to take our horses, and when we stepped into the hall Fennimore was already there with Bastian. I would not look at Bastian but spoke to Fennimore.

‘I met this gentleman on the road. He was looking for Trystan Priory. He has business with Father.’

The bow was elegant as he said: ‘Gervaise Pondersby at your service.’

‘Why, Sir Gervaise,’ cried Fennimore, ‘my father has often spoken of you. Welcome to Trystan. Alas, my father is not here at this time.’

‘Your sister told me so. But I believe he is not far from home.’

‘He will be back in a few days. May I present my cousin, Bastian Casvellyn.’

Bastian bowed. I thought: he seems awkward beside this man, and I exulted in the fact.

‘I pray you come into my father’s private parlour. I will send for refreshment.’

‘I will take a little wine and perhaps you can give me more exact information as to when your father will return.’

‘I can send a messenger to Plymouth to tell him you are here,’ said Fennimore. I was rather proud of my brother because he did not seem in the least overawed by the stranger.

As Fennimore led him away I ran upstairs. Bastian ran after me but I was fleeter than he.

‘Bersaba,’ he whispered.

‘I have nothing to say to you,’ I hissed over my shoulder.

‘I must explain.’

I sped on, but he came after me, and caught up with me in the gallery.

‘There is nothing you can say to me,’ I told him. ‘It is I who must say to you congratulations.’

‘You must understand, Bersaba.’

‘I do understand. You have asked Carlotta to marry you. That’s clear enough, is it not?’

‘I can’t think how it happened. Bersaba, I love you.’

‘You love me so much that you are going to marry Carlotta. Oh, that is perfectly clear.’

‘It was a moment of madness. I don’t know what came over me … I was sort of bewitched. That’s how it is, Bersaba. You must understand. When she is there …’

Every word was like a knife in my heart. I wondered how such a simple man as Bastian could inflict such pain.

I pushed him from me. ‘Go to her then. Go to your witch. I promise you this. You’ll be sorry … sick and sorry …’

Then I turned and ran and I reached our bedroom. I was thankful that Angelet was not there. I locked the door. He was outside tapping on it, whispering my name.

‘I must explain, Bersaba …’

Explain. What was there to explain? Only that she was irresistible. He wanted her. He was ready to thrust me aside for her.

‘Go back to her,’ I whispered venomously. ‘Go back to your … witch.’

Fennimore immediately sent a messenger to Plymouth to tell my father of Sir Gervaise’s arrival, and while he was taking wine my brother persuaded him that he would be more comfortable at Trystan Priory than at the inn, and he begged him to come with his personal servants and baggage, and rooms would be made ready for him.

Sir Gervaise graciously accepted the invitation, but would not come until my father returned.

At supper everyone was talking about Sir Gervaise, and I explained how I had discovered him when out riding and was immediately reprimanded for riding alone. ‘You know our mother says you are always to have the grooms with you,’ said Fennimore. ‘It was wilful of you to do that while she was away.’

‘I’m not a child any longer, Fennimore,’ I said sharply.

I knew Bastian was looking at me and that he blushed a little, remembering our unchildlike behaviour, I was sure. He sat next to Carlotta and I was aware of the spell she had laid on him. He was hurt and bewildered by what had happened to him, which was just the way he would be if he were bewitched. But he could not keep his eyes from her; I saw his hands reach out to touch her. How I hated them both; and I must sit there and pretend that nothing was wrong.

Carlotta said: ‘He seemed a very courtly gentleman. I saw him when he left—but from a window.’

‘He will return when my parents are here,’ said Fennimore, ‘and then I expect he will stay for a few days.’

How I lived through that meal I did not know. Bastian must go home or I would break down. I could not bear to see him and Carlotta together. It was asking too much of me.

After supper the minstrels played soothing music from the gallery, and Thomas Jenson, who taught us music and had a beautiful voice, sang madrigals with us. Of course there was the inevitable one about the faithless lover, which did not help me.

As soon as I could I said I was tired and I would go to my room, but my sister had to come up with me and to tell me that I looked pale and strained and that I had been very wrong to ride out alone. Chiding me with this tender scolding was more than I could endure, and I begged her to leave me alone that I might close my eyes and try to sleep.

Sleep! As if I could sleep.

I lay there for half an hour when there was a knock on the door. I closed my eyes, thinking it was Angelet returning, but it was not. It was the maid Ginny with some posset Angelet had sent up for me.

I looked at Ginny. She was twenty-one, very wise. She had had a child when she was fourteen and kept him with her in one of the attics, because my mother said that it was not right that a mother should be parted from her child. There had been many lovers since for Ginny but no more children. ‘Foolish girl,’ said my mother. ‘She will find herself in trouble again one day.’ But I understood her. She wasn’t so much foolish as helpless.

‘Mistress Angelet said you was to take this, mistress,’ she said now. ‘Her said it ’ud make you sleep.’

‘Thank you, Ginny,’ I said.

She gave it to me. It was hot and soothing.

‘Wait a bit while I drink it.’

‘Yes, mistress.’

‘Have you ever talked to a witch, Ginny?’

‘Oh yes. I went to one when I had my trouble. It was too late, though … she could do nothing for me.’

‘That was Jenny Keys, wasn’t it? They hanged her in the lane.’

‘Yes, mistress, it were. There was naught wrong with Jenny Keys. She’d helped many a girl from her trouble and it was beautiful to see the way she could charm off your warts. She did good, she did. My granny used to say, “There be white and black witches, Ginny, and Jenny Keys be a white one.” ’

‘Some didn’t think so.’

‘No, there be some terrible people about. Jenny Keys could turn off a bad spell. Why, when my young brother had the whooping cough Jenny Keys cured him by tying a bag of spiders round his neck. I don’t reckon Jenny Keys ever laid a spell. Some of them do, though, and there’s always them as will tell against a woman who’s a witch. Tain’t safe, being a witch … black or white.’

‘What happened to Jenny Keys?’

‘There was people who hated her. They started to talk about her, build up against her, like. A cow died in calf … so did the calf, and the cowherd he were so mad he said he’d caught Jenny Keys ill-wishing it. Someone else said she’d gone along for a remedy and had seen Jenny Keys in her cottage with her black cat there at her feet and she was roasting a bullock’s heart stuffed with pins. She was saying:

“ ’Tis not this heart I wish to burn But Jack Perran’s heart I wish to turn Wishing him neither rest nor peace

Till he be dead and gone.”

And when Jack Perran died all sudden in his sleep—people started whispering. They started remembering other witches and how in the times of King James there’d been regular witch baiting. They reckoned a lot of them had been driven under ground at that time but now they was coming out again. They reckoned they ought to make an example of one. They talked … they remembered … they spied on Jenny Keys. Then came the day when they took her and hung her on a tree in Hangman’s Lane.’

‘If she was indeed a witch perhaps it was right.’

‘Perhaps it were, mistress, but they do say she were a white witch.’

‘There was a witch once at Castle Paling. Have you ever heard of her?’

Ginny was startled. She looked furtively over her shoulder.

‘Why yes, mistress, everyone have heard of how she come by the sea. My granny told me. It were always remembered. She came and she went back to the Devil and came back again, and then she went back to him and was never heard of no more.’

I shivered.

‘You be cold, mistress?’

‘Someone walking over my grave, Ginny, as they say. You know the ladies here?’

Ginny was very disturbed. ‘Yes, mistress.’

‘Well, the young beautiful one is the granddaughter of that witch.’

‘Yes, mistress.’

I’m going too far too fast, I thought. But nevertheless I went on.

‘Do you think the powers are passed down … these dark powers, I mean?’

Ginny was a conspirator. Her voice sounded hoarse.

‘I’ve heard it’s so. Yes, indeed I’ve heard it said.’

‘I wonder … Here, take the dish. The posset was good and warming. I feel I could sleep now.’

She took the dish and tiptoed out. I felt like a gardener who has prepared the ground and sewn the first seeds. Now I could wait and see what crop came forth.

I felt better because I had a plan. I became obsessed by it and would awake in the night when a wild excitement possessed me and this soothed my hatred and bitterness. I could understand Homer’s saying ‘Revenge is sweeter far than flowing honey.’

I used to dream of Carlotta’s being dragged by the mob to the tree in Hangman’s Lane, and all the humiliations which would be thrust upon her. I pictured her half-naked body and lewd men watching her, and afterwards Bastian coming to the Lane and seeing her hanging there.

How wicked I am! I thought; but the hurt was so deep that I had to soothe it some way, and at the back of my mind I believed it to be only a fantasy—like a daydream when one receives comfort for indulging in a fancy that one possesses something which is unattainable.

Carlotta created a good deal of attention in a household like ours. She was so different with her airs and graces; she was exotic, and anything foreign aroused suspicions in the simple. With interest I watched the servants’ behaviour towards her. They were fascinated and a little afraid, and I did all I could to foster this fear in them. I think Ginny had talked and reminded them of that old story of the witch who had come from the sea.

Once when we were riding I saw a woman hurry away as we went by, averting her eyes from Carlotta, and I exulted because it seemed to me that the seeds I had sown were sprouting.

Bastian had left the next day. I don’t think he could bear to be in the same house with Carlotta and me together. When he left I did not say goodbye to him but kept out of the way, though I watched him ride off from one of the turret windows and saw how he kept looking backwards, for a last glimpse of Carlotta, I thought angrily.

Sometimes when I was in my room I would be frightened at what I was doing. I wanted to kill Carlotta but not in a straightforward way, since I planned that others should do it for me. It was cowardly, because I was planning it so that when it happened I could pretend it had nothing to do with me.

Then when I was with her I would say to myself: She deserves it. There is something wicked about her … something evil. I believe she is a witch, for only a witch could have taken Bastian from me, and if she is, it is better that she be removed.

Nobody could deny her beauty. It was not beauty which is a joy to behold and is the outward manifestation of inner goodness. I always thought my mother was beautiful in that way. Carlotta’s was a beauty which came from the Devil—meant for the destruction of those about her. At least, that was what I told myself.

Her mother Senara was proud of her, but I didn’t think she loved her; and I was certain that Carlotta loved no one but herself. Indeed, sometimes I used to think that if Bastian married her that would be sufficient punishment for his treatment of me.

The servants did not like Carlotta. She was too arrogant with them, reminding them always that she was the great lady and they beneath her notice, except for what they could do for her. She and her mother shared a Spanish maid whom they had brought with them. Ana was a woman in her mid-thirties, dark-haired, with a faint line of black hairs on her upper lip, and deep-set eyes. She was very quiet and I had never heard her speak, but I imagined she was efficient and an excellent lady’s maid, for the manner in which she dressed Carlotta’s hair was a wonder in itself. Silent-footed, almost mouse-like, one was hardly aware of her. She slept in a small ante-room adjoining Carlotta’s bedroom.

When my parents returned and Sir Gervaise with his manservant and two grooms moved into Trystan Priory, life changed. We were now living in greater style, for to have a man such as Sir Gervaise in the house made that a necessity. His business, he told my father, would take up a whole week, he believed, and if he could intrude on Landor hospitality all that time he would be gratified.

Of course we welcomed him. My father was delighted, for Sir Gervaise was as deeply involved with the Company as he was himself.

They rode out together, and were closeted together and talking a great deal. They went down to the sea and inspected my father’s ship; they discussed the cargoes he had brought back and were constantly in each other’s company.

Meals had become ceremonial occasions. Not only was Sir Gervaise our guest but also Senara and Carlotta, and there was no doubt that our society had become much more grand and sophisticated by these arrivals.

There was a great deal of talk about the Court, and in this Sir Gervaise, Senara and Carlotta had a good deal in common, since they had all moved in Court circles, and though Sir Gervaise was connected with Whitehall and Senara and her daughter with Spain, there had been a connection between the two Courts when the King—Prince, as he was then—had visited Spain in order to arrange a marriage between himself and the King of Spain’s sister.

Sir Gervaise told us that as a boy of eighteen he had had a small role in the King’s entourage and it seemed very likely that he and Senara had actually been at the same functions. Senara had met King Charles on one occasion. She said this was before his father’s death when he was but a prince, though heir to the throne, and she had thought him a handsome man, though smaller than was becoming in a king. He had great charm of manner, however, and being young and handsome created quite a good impression.

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘he was more interested in getting help for his sister Elizabeth and her husband Frederick, who had lost his country, than he was in marriage with the Infanta.’

‘The King saw the present Queen at the French Court when he passed through Paris,’ Sir Gervaise told us, ‘but of course she was but a child then, and he did not give her a second glance.’

‘It’s strange,’ said my mother, ‘that fate doesn’t give us a little nudge when we are face to face with a situation or a person who is going to change our lives.’

‘You ask too much, my love,’ said my father.

‘There are some people who say they have premonitions,’ suggested Senara, and admitted, ‘I do now and then.’

‘Is it because your mother was a witch?’ I asked.

There was a silence at the table. My mother was frowning.

‘Oh, that’s all nonsense, Bersaba,’ she said. ‘I can’t think where you hear these things.’

‘But it’s true, isn’t it?’

‘It was said that she was,’ Senara told us. ‘That was when she was here. It was never mentioned when I joined her later.’

‘People build up these fantasies,’ said my mother. ‘I am glad they are not talking of such things nowadays. They’re … unhealthy.’

I noticed that the servants who hovered about the table were listening. They would repeat in the kitchen what they had heard in the dining hall. They would remember the witch who had come to Castle Paling and disappeared. That she now lived in Spain would not make her any less of a witch in their eyes.

I watched Carlotta. How beautiful she was! Angelet looked insignificant beside her—and that meant I did too. I had noticed that Sir Gervaise was aware of her—so was she of him, and it was as though she was sending out her tentacles to draw him into her net just as she had Bastian. I noticed how often he addressed his remarks to her.

After supper my father and Sir Gervaise went off together. They had so much business to discuss, and my mother told me that it had something to do with the Hoogly factory that was going to be built. ‘They are worried, of course,’ she said, ‘because there is so much conflict between the King and the people. The fact that he rules without a government is amazing to me. Sir Gervaise says it can’t go on like this. There’ll be some sort of climax, and heaven knows what will happen when that comes.’

I said: ‘Do you think we shall feel it here, Mother?’

‘My dear child, we could not escape. This ship money is really worrying the people at Plymouth, and this certainty that he rules by divine right and is therefore justified in everything he does, is making the King enormously unpopular.’

‘What does Father think will happen?’ I asked.

‘That there will have to be an understanding sooner or later. The King will have to change his ways. He is being harsh to the Puritans and it is said that he is influenced by his Catholic wife. I don’t like the way things are going, but let us hope they will be put right in time. By the way, I want to talk to you, Bersaba. There was something that was said at supper … about witches.’

‘Oh yes, Mother.’

‘I don’t want the subject encouraged. I believe it was you who brought it up.’

‘Was it?’ I asked, my voice mildly interested.

‘I’m sure of it, dear. I’ve never liked to talk of it. I can’t ever forget the day they came for my stepmother.’

‘What happened, Mother? Was it very terrible?’

‘Yes, it was. I hate to recall it. I dreamed about it for a long time afterwards … until I was married to your father, in fact. I would see that procession in my dreams—lighted torches, chanting voices and the callous, cruel, gloating, lewd faces of the people marching on the Castle. I never want to see the like again.’

‘Do you think interest in witches has come back?’

‘Never say such things. Has Senara been talking to you?’

‘No, Mother.’

‘I remember when she was young she was constantly talking of witches and reminding people that her mother was suspected of being one. She didn’t realize how dangerous it was then. It could still be.’

‘We haven’t heard much talk of it, Mother.’

‘It’s there, though … sleeping … ready to be awakened. People still believe in it, but we have never encouraged it. I don’t want people talking about witches just because Senara has come back. So Bersaba, please … if anyone speaks of it brush it aside. I don’t want a return of what happened before.’

‘Of course, Mother,’ I said.

‘You see, my dear, hysteria can so easily be whipped up. Then ignorant people get together and fan the flames … you see what I mean.’

‘Yes, I do. They could march to Trystan Priory just as they marched that night to Castle Paling. They still hang and burn witches; they still tie their arms and legs together and throw them into the sea or the river or any pools deep enough to drown them.’

‘We’ll not think of it. We’ll not mention it. If you hear any of the servants talking, stop them. They may well talk, because they remember Carlotta’s grandmother. I don’t want them to, Bersaba.’

‘I will remember that, Mother,’ I said ambiguously, and I wondered whether she would notice my excitement.

As I went up to my room I saw one of the maids on the stairway. She was holding a kerchief in her hand.

‘This was dropped by the lady Carlotta,’ she told me.

‘Oh, why do you not take it to her then?’ I asked.

The maid looked furtive. ‘I be feared to, Mistress Bersaba.’

‘Why?’

The girl cast down her eyes.

‘Why? Why?’ I demanded.

She couldn’t say. I took the kerchief from her. ‘Are you afraid she’s a witch and might ill-wish you?’ I asked.

‘Oh I dursen’t say that, Mistress Bersaba.’

The suspicions were spreading fast, I thought exultantly, and said: ‘Give it to me. I’ll take it to her room. I’ll say a prayer as I cross the threshold. That’s what you have to do isn’t it?’

‘I do believe so, mistress, but it would be hard to bring myself to …’

‘All right, don’t worry. I’ll take it.’

I seized the kerchief and went to the room which I knew to be Carlotta’s. I knocked, and as there was no response I opened the door cautiously and went in. On the bed lay her nightgown, silk with a thousand frills. How beautiful she would look in it with her dark hair hanging about her shoulders. A soft perfume hung about the room. The fact that it was temporarily Carlotta’s had changed it subtly.

I went quietly to the bed and picked up the nightgown. I held it against me and imagined that Bastian was coming in and

I was his bride. Then the picture changed from me to Carlotta and the wild misery seized me.

I was suddenly aware of being watched. I turned sharply. The door of the ante-room was open and Ana was standing there.

‘Is there anything you want—’ she asked in her halting English.

‘I brought your mistress’s kerchief which she had dropped. There it is on the table.’

Ana bowed her head. I felt foolish standing there holding the nightdress about me, so I said: ‘It’s beautiful, this nightdress.’

‘I make it,’ said Ana.

‘Congratulations. You must be a magician with your needle.’

The dark eyes seemed to be probing my mind. I felt mentally exposed, as though this woman read what was in my mind: all my hatred of Carlotta; all my desire for revenge.

She came forward silently and, taking the nightdress from me, laid it on the bed.

She’s uncanny, I thought. It’s almost as though she knows what’s in my mind. And she will be a watchdog.

The next day I disobeyed orders and again rode out alone. I didn’t want anyone with me because I wanted to think. Revenge! It filled my mind, and I thought how clever I was to have formulated a plan which would exonerate me while it utterly defeated my enemy. All my love and longing for Bastian was lost in this new emotion.

I had not gone very far when I noticed that my mare seemed to be going lame, so I dismounted and discovered that she had cast a shoe. By good fortune I was less than a mile from the smithy, so I decided to take her along without delay.

I talked soothingly to her as we went along and in a short time we arrived. Neither Angelet nor I enjoyed our visits there, for the smith was not the most pleasant of men. He was a man of considerable height and girth, and we always said that the Devil must look something like him when he stood over his furnace, looking as though he would like to cast into it all the sinners of the neighbourhood to their eternal torment.

Thomas Gast was a fierce man; he preached every Sunday in one of the barns not far from the smithy, and a number of the villagers went to hear him—not so much to agree with his doctrines as to shiver at his fierce language. For Thomas Gast was a Puritan. He believed that pleasure was sinful. I used to misquote to Angelet: ‘There is more joy in Thomas Gast over one sinner who earns eternal damnation than a thousand who repent in time.’

My parents were uneasy because of his fiery preaching which they feared might bring trouble to the neighbourhood. They believed that every man had a right to his opinions on the manner in which God should be worshipped, but it seemed to them the wise way was to keep one’s thoughts to oneself. Thomas Gast was not like that. He was a man who believed firmly that Thomas Gast was right and everyone who disagreed with him in the slightest detail was wrong. Moreover, he was not content to leave them in their ignorance. He would chastise them with words and—if he got the opportunity, as he did with his own family—with a leather strap.

He had ten children—and they and their poor little mother lived in fear lest they incur his wrath by an ill-chosen word or some action which could be construed as sinful.

He was a most uncomfortable man, but, as my father said, the best smith he had ever known.

When I took in my mare he looked at me with disapproval, I presumed because I was wearing my riding-hat at too jaunty an angle, or perhaps my contemplation of revenge had made me appear to cherish a zest for life. However, my appearance displeased him.

I told him what had happened and gently he examined the horse. He nodded grimly.

‘If you could please shoe him right away I’d be glad,’ I said.

He nodded again, looking at me with his bright black eyes. I could see the whites round his pupils, which made him look as though he was staring like Grandfather Casvellyn—and a little mad. He was a fanatic, and when people carry their fanaticism as far as he did, perhaps that could be construed as madness.

I said, ‘It’s a beautiful morning, Thomas. It makes you feel good to be alive on such a day.’

It really wasn’t good at all with Bastian’s deceit so recent, but there was in me a grain of mischief and I knew that anyone’s finding pleasure even in God-given nature would fill Thomas Gast with the desire to rant.

‘You should be thinking of all the sin in the world,’ he growled.

‘What sin? The sun is shining. The flowers are blooming. You should see the hollyhocks and sunflowers in the cottage gardens. And the bees are mad with joy over the lavender.’

‘You’re a feckless young woman,’ said Thomas Gast. ‘If you don’t see the blackness of sin all around you you’ll be heading for hell fire.’

‘Well, Mr Gast,’ I said mischievously, ‘so many of us are. You seem to be the only one who is without sin. You’ll be very lonely when you get to Heaven.’

‘Don’t ’ee joke about matters as is sacred, Mistress Bersaba,’ he said sternly. ‘You be watched and all your sins be noted. Never forget that. All your jesting mockery will be recorded and one day you’ll answer for it.’

I thought then of lying in the woods with Bastian, and I knew that Thomas Gast would consider this a cardinal sin which could only earn eternal damnation, and for a moment I trembled, for there was something about Thomas Gast which made one believe, while one was in his company, that there might be something in his doctrines.

I watched him, his strong face flushed by the furnace, his gentleness with the horse—the only time he was ever gentle was with horses—and he began to declaim as though he were addressing an audience in the barn. The day of judgment was coming. Then those who now strutted in their finery would be cast into utter despair. The torments of hell were beyond human imagination. He licked his lips.

I think he saw himself as one of God’s executioners—a role, I decided, which would suit him very well.

I grew weary of his diatribe, and interrupting it I said I would stroll off and return when the horse was shod.

So I left the smithy and looked at the gardens in the little row of cottages. There were six of them—all built of the grey Cornish stone which was a feature of the countryside; they had long gardens in front and a patch behind in which most of them grew vegetables or kept a goat or a pig. But the front gardens were full of flowers, with the exception of the blacksmith’s. He grew vegetables in his, and at the back, pigs were kept. I had been inside the cottage once when the latest Gast was born and my mother had sent Angelet and me over with a basket of good things. Everything in the house was plain and for use, not for ornament. The girls of the household—there were four of them—always wore black garments with collars tight at the neck; so did their mother. Their hair was hidden by caps so that it was not easy to tell which was which. Angelet and I were always sorry for the Gast children.

As I came round by the cottages I saw one of the girls in the garden; she was weeding. I had heard that they all had their tasks and if these were not done to their father’s satisfaction they were severely beaten.

As I approached I called good morning and the Gast girl straightened up and spoke to me. I looked at her steadily and guessed her to be the eldest girl. She was about seventeen—my age. I noticed how she took in my riding-habit, which must have seemed as elegant to her as Carlotta’s did to me.

‘Good day, mistress,’ said the girl.

I was very curious to know what life was like lived in the blacksmith’s house. I could of course imagine to a certain extent, and I pictured myself in such a position. If I had been his daughter I would have defied him, I was sure.

‘You work very hard,’ I said. ‘Which one are you?’

‘I’m Phoebe, mistress, the eldest.’ Her eyes filled with tears, and I said suddenly: ‘You’re unhappy, aren’t you?’

She nodded, and I went on: ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Oh, don’t ’ee ask me, mistress,’ she said. ‘Please don’t ’ee ask me!’

‘Perhaps there’s something we could do.’

‘Ain’t nothing you could do, mistress. ‘Tis done, more’s the pity.’

‘What is it, Phoebe?’

‘I dursen’t say.’

Strangely enough, as I stood there looking at her I was aware of some understanding between us. And I thought: It’s a man.

Then I thought of Bastian, and all my bitterness came back to me and a bond between this girl and myself was forged in that moment.

‘Of course,’ I said, ‘your father sees sin where others see ordinary pleasure.’

‘This be true sin.’

‘What is sin?’ I said. ‘I suppose if it’s hurting other people … that’s sin.’ I thought of myself leading Carlotta to her death. That was the blackest sin of all. ‘But if no one is hurt … that isn’t sin.’

She wasn’t listening to me; she was caught up in her own drama.

I said gently: ‘Phoebe, are you … in trouble?’

She lifted woebegone eyes to my face, but she did not answer and the fear in her face reminded me of Jenny Keys.

‘I would help you if I could,’ I said rashly.

‘Thank you, mistress.’ She bent down over the earth and went on weeding.

There was nothing I could say to her. If what I guessed might be true then Phoebe was indeed in trouble. I had seen that in her face which I believe Grandfather Casvellyn had seen in me. Did girls change when they took a lover? Was the loss of virginity apparent in their faces, I wondered, for I was absolutely certain that Phoebe had had a lover and that now she was faced with the consequences.

The consequences. A child! Then I was overwhelmed by the thought that it might have happened to me. ‘I will marry you when you are old enough or before if necessary,’ Bastian had said.

There had been a certain recklessness in our loving, for we had not to consider the consequences too seriously. I knew that my parents, shocked as they might have been, would have given me love and understanding. So would Aunt Melanie, and Uncle Connell being the man he was would laugh and say Bastian was a chip off the old block.

How different for poor Phoebe Gast. To wear a ribbon, to undo a button at the neck on a hot day, to wear a belt which might hold in the waist of those shapeless black smocks they wore—that would be sinful. But to have lain in the fields or the woods with a man …

I went back to the smithy. The mare was waiting for me. Thomas Gast looked more like one of Satan’s henchmen than ever and I could not stop thinking of poor Phoebe Gast.

Yesterday I overheard two servants talking. I had come in from the stables and they were dusting in one of the rooms which led out of the hall. They could not see me so I sat down and listened because what they were saying interested me. One of them was Ginny and the other Mab, a girl in her middle teens who had a reputation among the servants as one who was ready for adventure, and had an eye for the men.

As soon as I caught the name Jenny Keys I had to listen.

‘She truly were,’ Ginny was saying. ‘White she was but white can turn to black … and it could have been that was what happened to her.’

‘What did she do, Ginny?’

‘Her did lots of good. Why, if I could have gone earlier to her I’d have been spared my shame.’

‘But you wouldn’t have been without young Jeff for the world.’

‘Not now. But then I would.’

‘How was Jenny Keys brought out, Ginny?’

‘You mean how was it known what she were. I’ll tell you something. One day two of the servants from the Priory went down to see her. ’Twas just a love draught they wanted. There was this stable man who wouldn’t look at one of them and all she wanted was to turn his eyes to her. And what did they see? Right there in Jenny Keys’s lap was a toad … a horrible slimy toad … but ’twas no ordinary toad, they did say. There looked out of his eyes something as told them he were the Devil in toad form. They shook with trembling both of them and then they turned on their heels and ran for their lives. ’Twasn’t long after that one of them took sick and she swore ’twas some- thing that toad had sent out to her—for he weren’t no ordinary toad. He were what they do call her familiar, and that showed Jenny Keys was a witch.’

‘How would you know when a toad was a familiar? There’s lots of them round the ponds. I’ve heard ’em croaking at night in the spring when they come out looking for a mate and then they go down to the ponds to lay their eggs.’

‘They’re just ordinary toads … they ain’t familiars.’

‘But toads is nasty things. I suppose it’s because they come out at night.’

‘’Tis so, but don’t do to mistake them all. There’s some as just goes about their business … same as any other creature might. ’Tis only when a witch do take one up and to her bed maybe and in him comes the spawn of the Devil who lives and shelters in the toad.’

‘Like in the toad they saw with Jenny Keys?’

‘Maybe so, and when it was known that Jenny Keys harboured a toad and took him to her close like, the trouble started. They said she carried him in her bosom and that he crawled over her body and was familiar like.’

Mab burst into giggles and Ginny reproved her. ‘You laugh now but you wouldn’t be laughing if witches heard you.’

‘Jenny Keys be dead, though.’

‘Jenny Keys ain’t the only witch, remember.’

‘Who else is?’

‘You don’t have to look far.’

There was an awed silence.

‘You mean … her … ’

‘Why not? Her grandmother were. Powers be passed down, I reckon.’

‘I reckon we ought to keep our eyes open.’

I rose, and went swiftly and silently up the staircase to my room.

Angelet—with that special feeling that was between us—began to sense that I wanted to be alone. She had guessed of course that this was concerned with Bastian, and I had seen her look at Carlotta with something like distaste, for she was very loyal to me.

When we lay in bed at night, it was our custom to talk over the events of the day, and although since I had heard of Bastian’s perfidy I had had no wish to talk to her, I could not suddenly break the habit.

She said to me one night after the conversation at the dinner-table had been particularly sparkling and Carlotta with Senara and Gervaise had discussed the Courts of Spain and England at great length—thus making it very difficult for the rest of us to participate: ‘Has it occurred to you, Bersaba, that Sir Gervaise and Carlotta are getting very friendly?’

‘I think Carlotta is of a nature to pay attention always to the male members of the company.’

‘You are right. Of course she is beautiful. One has to grant her that, and having been at Court, I suppose does something to one. I wonder if we shall ever go to Court?’

‘Do you want to?’ I asked.

‘It would be amusing. Besides, we shall have to marry some time, shan’t we? Mother obviously meant something like that when she said our next birthday party would be different.’

I yawned. ‘It’s a long way away.’

‘There are the Trent men and the Krolls and the Lamp tons. One of them, I suppose. Oh, isn’t it dull living in the country! I would like never to have known my husband and then the next day he is there. Do you feel like that?’

I felt the anger surge up in me. No, I had expected Bastian to be my husband and I’ve known him all my life … and yet I never really knew him. I used to think he was quiet and steady and that I could tease him about this. Then I found that that wasn’t true at all. He had only to see Carlotta and he forgot all his vows to me. How little we knew people whom we thought we understood so well.

‘Do you?’ urged Angelet. ‘You’re not asleep, are you?’

‘What’s that?’ I cried, pretending to be starting out of a doze.

‘Oh, go to sleep,’ she said. ‘You never want to talk these days.’

It was better to be alone, for if I talked to Angelet I might betray something of my feelings. I was afraid that I might let fall some little comment which would betray me when the time came.

So I rode out alone doing the forbidden thing. Down the blackberry track, past the smithy. I glanced in the direction of the cottages and thought of poor Phoebe, wondering how she was faring. I could visualize clearly the misery she must be enduring with a heavy burden of guilt upon her. I wondered what Thomas Gast would do if my surmise was correct.

It was a misty evening and darker than usual when I took my mare to the stables. I wandered down by the garden to the pond on which the water-lilies were growing, and as I did so I heard the croaking of a toad and as I came nearer I saw him.

He was seated there by the pool—drowsy, I imagine, after a good feed of insects, and I suddenly felt my heart begin to beat wildly as memories of the conversation I had heard between the servants came back to me.

On impulse I took a large kerchief from my pocket and, stooping, wrapped it round the toad and carried him into the Priory. I went straight up to our room and was thankful that Angelet was not there.

I was excited. I knew what I was going to do with the toad. It was part of my plan, and seeing him there, waiting for me, as it were, had forced me to act before I had meant to.

But why not? There was no point in delay.

In the evening the servants went into the bedrooms to prepare the beds for the night, to turn back the quilt and, if it were cold, put in hot bricks wrapped up in flannel.

Ana did not turn down the beds for Carlotta and Senara any more than she cleaned their rooms. That was a housemaid’s task and Ana, as lady’s maid, would consider it beneath her. It was Mab who did the beds and I was particularly amused because she was the one whom I had heard talking to Ginny. When I considered that it seemed as though I was being guided by fate, for I knew what Mab would find when she turned down Carlotta’s bed. There was a tall livery chest in the corridor outside the bedroom door, and when I heard Mab going up to the rooms I followed at a discreet distance and hid myself behind the chest.

It happened just as I knew it would. It was not long before I heard Mab’s piercing scream and she came running out of the bedroom, her face white as a lily petal. She didn’t see me because her one thought was to get away from that room as fast as she could.

I slipped out and went into Carlotta’s room. There on the pillow was the toad. He seemed to glare at me with baleful eyes, so I smothered him in the kerchief and hurried from the room. As I did so I felt my blood run cold, and my heart began to beat so wildly that it was like a drum beating against my bodice. I was standing there by the bed when I had a strange feeling that I was not alone. I looked round the room. No one was there. The door of the communicating room where Senara slept was open a little but I could see no one.

What was it—this sudden fear? It had seemed so easy. All I had to do was put the toad in her bed, leave it there for Mab to find when she came to do the beds, then when she ran out, as I was sure she would, I was to go in and remove the toad so that when she brought the others to see it, it would have disappeared, which I felt was just the sort of thing a familiar would do.

As I stood there in that room and I could feel the toad moving in the kerchief, I had an impulse to drop it and run. I thought to myself: Suppose she is truly a witch. She bewitched Bastian. Suppose the toad is her familiar! Suppose it is a devil in toad form! But I had found him—a perfectly harmless toad—by the pond in the garden and it was I who had placed him in her bed.

It was just a feeling that eyes were watching me. Why? I went swiftly to the door between the two rooms. I looked inside. No one was there. Then I ran from the room, out into the corridor. I could hear Mab’s voice as she explained what she had seen.

In the corridor I could hear Ginny’s voice: ‘’Tis nothing. You dreamed it. ’Twas because we was talking of toads.’

And Mab: ‘I can’t go in there. I’d die rather.’

I waited in one of the rooms while they went up to Carlotta’s room, then I came swiftly along the gallery and down the stairs, praying I should meet no one. I went out through a side door and across a courtyard to the gardens.

I sped across to the pool and laid down the kerchief. The toad remained still for several seconds. I watched him fearfully, half expecting him to turn into some horrible shape, but seeming to realize that he was free and on his home ground he made his cautious way to the edge of the pool and hid himself under a large stone.

I picked up the kerchief and went into the house.

On the way I met several of the maids, who were chattering wildly together.

‘What’s happened?’ I said.

‘Oh, ’twas Mab, Miss Bersaba. Her be well nigh in hysterics.’

‘Why?’

‘’Tis what her have seen in the lady Carlotta’s bed.’

‘In her bed?’

Ginny said: ‘Mab could have fancied it. There were no toad there when I went up.’

The maids were silent, their eyes on my face.

‘Whatever made Mab imagine such a thing?’ I asked.

‘’Tis talk, Miss Bersaba,’ said Ginny.

‘I did see it,’ Mab insisted. ‘It were there … on her pillow. The way it looked at me … ’twere terrible. It was like no other toad I seen.’

‘Well, where is it now?’ I asked with a hint of impatience.

‘It have clean disappeared,’ said Ginny.

‘Well, that’s a blessing,’ I answered, infusing scepticism into my voice.

And I passed on.

I knew that that night the great topic of conversation among the servants would be the toad Mab had seen in Carlotta’s bed. I knew too that the story of the toad would not be confined to the Priory. It would spread to the village. I wondered what Thomas Gast would say when he heard it. The habits of witches would be great sin in his eyes.

I dreamed of him that night standing by his furnace with his wild eyes gloating on the flames.

Journey through the Rain

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON and I was in our orchard, lying beneath my favourite apple tree and thinking of Bastian and wondering what he was doing at that time. He had looked so unhappy when he had left, and although I had pretended to be unaware of him I was far from that. I hoped he was unhappy. He should be. He had deceived me and now he was parted from Carlotta, for she was undecided whether or not she would marry him, and when one considered her growing friendship with Sir Gervaise, the wealthy courtier, it seemed unlikely that she would take Bastian, the country squire.

So I hated her on two counts—one for taking my lover and the other for finding him not good enough for her. When I considered that I could gloat over the toad incident. I knew the servants talked of little else because I eavesdropped continuously. Often I would come upon them in a room, on the stairs or in the gardens whispering together. They would stop when I approached, but not before I had discovered the subject of their conversation.

Sometimes I would grow impatient. What if Carlotta decided to go back to Castle Paling? She would then go away … back to Bastian … and when she was out of sight people here would forget their suspicions.

While I was brooding in this way Ginny came out to the orchard.

She said: ‘I saw ’ee come out here, Miss Bersaba, so I knew where you were to. There’s someone as wants a word with you … and in secret.’

Ginny spoke in a quiet voice with a tremor of excitement in it which made her seem conspiratorial. My feelings of guilt were growing very strong. I would start when anyone spoke to me because I suppose I felt that someone had watched me put the toad in the bed and remove it and understood what I was doing—so that … when the time came they would know what part I had played in the drama.

Ginny’s next words quashed my fears in that direction but startled me nevertheless. ‘It’s Phoebe Gast,’ she said.

‘What does she want?’

‘She wants to see you, Miss Bersaba. She be in the barn. She have asked me to come for you and ask you if you’d talk to her like.’

The barn was a stone-walled building in which corn was stored. It was apart from the other outbuildings and one had to cross a small field after leaving the gardens to reach it.

‘Does anyone know she’s there?’

‘Oh no, mistress. She be scared out of her wits, I do tell ’ee. She waited in the lane for me, for she knows I come along that way, and she darted out and said to me, “Tell Mistress Bersaba. Tell her I must see her.” Then she told me she was going to the barn.’

‘I’ll go and see what’s wrong,’ I said; but I knew, and I felt exultant in a way because she had come to me.

When we reached the barn, I pushed open the door and looked in. The creak of the door brought Phoebe to her feet and as soon as she saw who it was relief flooded over her poor sad face.

I felt adult, in charge of the situation, as Angelet, who lacked my experience, could never have been.

I said: ‘Ginny, go back to the house. Don’t tell anyone that Phoebe is here. I will see you when I get back.’

Ginny ran off and I shut the barn door.

‘Oh mistress,’ cried Phoebe, ‘I had nowhere to go. And I thought of you. You was terrible kind to me the other day.’

‘I did nothing, Phoebe.’

‘’Twas the way you looked at me. As though you understood like.’

‘Now, Phoebe,’ I said. ‘You have been with a man and you are going to have a child. That’s it, isn’t it?’

‘You be terrible sharp, mistress. How did ’ee know?’

‘I did know,’ I said. ‘I am … perceptive.’ I think she thought I meant I had special powers, and she was so desperate, poor girl, that she seemed to look upon me as some goddess who could drag her out of her trouble. A great pleasure swept over me to be so regarded. It was strange to have been thinking of bringing disaster, possibly death, to one woman so recently and then to feel gratified because I was going to save another. It was a sort of expiation, placating the angels. Moreover, I felt a sense of power which was very gratifying—and like a balm laid on the wounds which Bastian had inflicted.

I sat down beside her. ‘How did it happen?’ I asked.

‘He said I were pretty and he did like the look of me. He said he couldn’t keep his eyes off me. I hadn’t thought I could be pretty to anyone before that. It just made me soft like, I reckon.’

‘Poor Phoebe,’ I said, ‘it must have been hard living in that cottage with a father like yours.’

At the mention of her father Phoebe began to tremble.

‘I fear him, Mistress Bersaba.’ She unbuttoned the shapeless black gown and showed me the marks of a lash on her shoulder. ‘He gave me that for singing a song about spring on the sabbath day,’ she said. ‘What he’d give me for this I don’t dare think. He’d kill me, I reckon. I deserve it, I don’t doubt. I’ve been so wicked.’

‘Why did you do it, Phoebe?’

‘The need to came over me, mistress.’

I nodded. Who could understand better than I?

‘Let us be practical,’ I said. ‘Does he know?’

‘Oh God help us, no. My mother does and he might beat it out of her. He’ll blame her for my sins. He’ll say she knew of my wanton ways and let them go unpunished. What can I do, Mistress Bersaba?’

‘I’ll think,’ I said.

‘You be terrible good to me. No one ain’t ever been so good before.’

I felt somehow ashamed. I would never have believed I would. I was learning something about myself. I could put myself so easily into Phoebe’s place. I could feel the need coming over me and I could see myself, if I had been Thomas Gast’s daughter, finding myself in the same position as she was.

It was for this reason that I could give out this comfort, this understanding, and even in that moment I thought: Angelet could never be the same. Innocent Angelet could not understand.

I said: ‘Could the man marry you?’

She shook her head. ‘He be married. I did know at the time. I can’t think what came over me.’

‘How old is the baby?’

‘Well, ’twould be six months nearly. There comes the time when it can’t be hid no more … and that time’s come now.’

‘So you ran away.’

‘Yes, my mother knew. Her’s known for a day or two. Her’s beside herself. She keeps saying: “Gast’ll kill you.” He’s a hard man … but a good man. He can’t abide sin and I reckon this is about one of the biggest sins there is. She was frightened for me. So I ran away. I thought it best.’

She was looking at me with pleading eyes, and I said, ‘Don’t worry, Phoebe, I’ll see to it. You mustn’t get too upset. It’s bad for the baby.’

‘Oh, the baby, I wish it dead, mistress. I wish I was dead. I did think of doing away with myself but … I couldn’t somehow.’

‘You mustn’t talk like that. Now, that is wicked. Listen. You will stay here for tonight. Nobody knows you’re here except Ginny and she won’t dare tell anyone because she knows I’ll be angry if she does. I’ll bring you a wool cloak to wrap yourself in and I’ll bring you food. There’s a bolt on the barn door. When I go, pull it across the door and don’t open it for anyone but me. In the morning I’ll have a plan.’

She started to cry. ‘Oh Mistress Bersaba. You be terrible good to me. You’re like an angel, that’s what you are … an angel of mercy. I won’t ever forget this …’

‘Don’t say any more. Just wait there. I’ll be back.’

I came out of the barn and heard her pull the bolt as I had bidden. I felt exultant, powerful, godlike, as I went into the house.

The next morning I realized that I could not keep Phoebe indefinitely in the barn and there was only one thing I could do and that was tell my mother. I could have done that the previous night, for I knew very well what her reaction would be. She would never turn away a girl in Phoebe’s condition. I was beginning to take a sharp look at myself, and I did not disguise the fact that I had behaved as I had because of a love of power. I had wanted to take all the glory of saving Phoebe for myself and no one else was to have a share in it. So it was I who had taken food and covering down to her. It was I who kept her secret for a night.

But now I must tell my mother before Phoebe was discovered. I found her in the stillroom with one of the servants, and she looked up with pleasure when she saw me. She always liked us to come to the stillroom because she thought it was so good for us to learn the secrets of preserving and such culinary arts.

‘Mother,’ I said, ‘I want to speak to you.’

I must have looked very serious, for she immediately said to the servant: ‘You carry on, Annie.’ And to me: ‘Come to my bedroom, Bersaba.’

So we went there and I told her that Phoebe was going to have a child and had run away from home and that I had hidden her in the barn for the night.

‘Oh, poor, poor girl. What will become of her? Thomas Gast is such a cruel man. Why didn’t you come to me last night?’

‘She was so distressed, Mother, and I didn’t quite know what you would say. I had to save her for at least a night. I said I would do what I could. We must help her.’

‘Of course we must. She can’t go back to that father of hers.’

‘Could she stay here?’

‘She will have to. Where else is there? But what of the child?’

‘Ginny’s child stays here.’

‘I know. But Ginny was one of our servants. We mustn’t let people think that they can have children as they like and that the Priory is a sort of home for them.’

I knew that while she was talking she was wondering what she could do for Phoebe. She would never turn her away and she would let the child stay here because she would say that a child cannot be parted from its mother. I could see the horror in her eyes, which meant that she was contemplating Thomas Gast’s avenging anger if the girl ever fell into his hands.

‘Mother,’ I said, ‘she is terrified. If you could see her you would have to help.’

‘My dearest child, of course we shall help her. She will have to come here at least until the child is born and then we will see what can be done.’

‘Oh, thank you, Mother.’

She looked at me, her eyes full of love and approval. ‘I am so happy, Bersaba, to see how compassionate you can be.’

‘I have not done wrong to promise her, to give her hope?’

‘I wouldn’t have had you do anything else. Go down to the barn and bring her to the house.’

Exultantly I went.

Phoebe drew back the bolt when I said who it was. Her eyes were shadowed and still filled with terror.

‘It’s all right,’ I told her. ‘You are going to stay here. I have spoken to my mother. She says you are not to worry. The baby will be born here and then we’ll see.’

Phoebe fell to her knees and, taking my hand, kissed it.

I felt wonderfully happy. I had not felt like that since I had heard of Bastian’s deception and I had thought I never would again.

It was impossible to keep Phoebe’s presence at the Priory a secret. Not that we had attempted to. My parents said that Thomas Gast would have to know sooner or later and the sooner perhaps the better. His daughter’s disappearance would have to be explained, and it could only be a matter of hours before one of the servants talked to someone in the village, and such news would spread like wildfire.

It was not therefore surprising that the following day Thomas Gast presented himself at the Priory.

Phoebe saw him coming and—much to my gratification—immediately came to me as though I was the one who could best protect her.

She, Angelet and I went to one of the peeps in the solarium where we could look down on the hall without being seen, and where not only could we see but hear what was going on. Angelet and I had used those peeps in our childhood when we had watched our parents entertaining in the great hall. My sister had thrown herself wholeheartedly into Phoebe’s cause, as I had known she would, and was as determined as I that Phoebe should not go back to the fiery blacksmith. With characteristic enthusiasm she had been busy finding discarded garments which Phoebe would be able to adjust to her ever-increasing size, and materials which could be transformed into baby clothes.

The blacksmith looked less fierce in our hall than he did in the smithy. I missed the glow which the fiery furnace cast over his face and the ring of the anvil which because of him sounded Satanic. I think he was perhaps a little subdued by what would seem to him the grandeur of our home. At the same time he would disapprove of it and I could imagine his thinking of it as treasures upon earth which rot and decay.

Our mother came down to the hall. She looked very fragile confronting that mighty man, but there was that air of dignity about her of which he could not help but be aware.

‘My lady,’ said Thomas Gast, ‘it’s come to my ears that you have my daughter here, and I am come to take her from you.’

‘For what purpose?’ asked my mother.

‘That I may treat her according to her deserts, m’am.’

I could feel Phoebe tremble beside me. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ I whispered. ‘You’re not going. Watch.’

‘It is for that reason that we have decided she shall stay here at least until the child is born. A girl in her condition must not be subjected to harsh treatment, if only for the sake of the unborn child.’

Thomas Gast was temporarily taken aback. My mother was speaking as though this was a child about to be respectably born. He spluttered: ‘I don’t follow you, m’am. It must be you don’t know …’

My mother seized her opportunity. ‘I know what has happened. Poor Phoebe has been seduced by a man who can’t marry her. She is young, little more than a child herself. We must be merciful. There is a new life to consider. I am sure she will realize the error of her ways and that it won’t occur again.’

The blacksmith’s fury broke out. ‘M’am, she be my daughter, more’s the pity. I would she had been strangled at birth rather than bring this disgrace on me and mine. I want that girl. I’ll thrash her till she screams for mercy. ’Tis the only way to cast out the blackness of her sin. Not that it will ever be cast out. She’ll know the folly of her ways when she goes to hell … but first she must have a taste of hell on earth.’

‘She has had that most of her life,’ said my mother tartly. ‘Thomas Gast, your Puritan piety has brought misery to your entire family. We are not going to give Phoebe back to you. She is staying here. We shall employ her in the household, and that’s an end to it.’

The blacksmith was like a lion cheated of his prey. ‘I’d respectfully remind you, m’am, that she be my girl.’

‘That does not give you the right to ill-treat her.’

‘Begging your pardon, m’am, I have every right. Give her over to me that I can help her mend her ways and maybe save her soul from eternal damnation.’

‘If we gave Phoebe back to you, Thomas Gast, and if any ill befell her or the child through your treatment of her, do you know that would be murder?’

‘You seek to bemuse me, m’am. I only want my girl.’

My father had come into the hall. He stood beside my mother and said quietly: ‘You will go now, Thomas Gast. Your daughter will remain here until her child is born. I forbid you to harm her and you are trespassing on my land. I gave you no permission to come here.’

‘You’ve got my girl, master.’

‘Your daughter is here and stays here. Now go, and remember this. The smithy belongs to me and if you wish to stay there you must obey my wishes. If aught happens to your daughter through your ill-treatment I shall accuse you of murder and that will not be very pleasant for you.’

‘I’m a godfearing man, master, who only wants to serve the Lord and do his duty by his family.’

‘Harsh duty, Thomas Gast.’

‘They be my children and I be responsible to God for ’em.’

‘You are also responsible to God for yourself,’ said my father.

‘I, master! There’s no more religious man in these parts. I’m on my knees four hours a day, and I’ll see it’s the same with my family. This girl of mine have brought terrible disgrace on us all and God calls for vengeance.’

‘Mind you do not bring disgrace on us all by your cruelty to your wife and children.’

That stung Thomas Gast to retort. In that moment he was ready to fling away his very smithy in his righteous anger.

‘’Tis a sorry matter when such as I am is chided by those as harbour whores and witches among them.’

With that he turned and went out.

I could see the horror on my parents’ faces as they looked at each other; and I knew what was responsible for it.

It was the reference to witches.

The aura of glory in which I had been living since I went to Phoebe in the barn seemed to evaporate. My father slipped his arm through my mother’s and they went out of the hall together. He was clearly reassuring her.

During the next two days Phoebe would not venture out. Angelet and I looked after her. We had reminded our mother that she had once said that when we were eighteen we should have a personal maid between us—one who would look after our clothes, sew for us, do our hair and take our messages. Well, here was Phoebe and we both wanted her. We weren’t eighteen yet but soon would be.

Our mother, delighted by our sympathy for Phoebe, readily agreed, and at first I was afraid that Angelet with her more appealing ways might win Phoebe from me. But that was clearly not to be. Phoebe remembered what I had done—and I believed she always would. I was her saviour and she told me that was something she would never forget as long as she lived.

‘I’ll be your slave all the days of my life, Mistress Bersaba,’ she told me.

‘We don’t have slaves nowadays, Phoebe,’ I replied. ‘If you’ll just be my maid that’s good enough.’

‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for ’ee,’ she answered fervently. ‘You changed everything for me. You’ve even made me love the baby.’

I was very happy.

Ginny told me that Thomas Gast was preaching hell fire every night on the village green.

‘Crowds do go and listen to him, mistress. Once there was just the few … them like himself. They want to stop dancing and singing and have nothing but church and prayers all day long.’

I watched Carlotta with Sir Gervaise. They often went out riding together. They were becoming very friendly, which seemed to please Senara. I heard her say to my mother: ‘It would be quite a good match. Carlotta would never settle in the wilds.’

My mother replied: ‘You were happy enough here once, Senara … until you went away, and then you didn’t want to go.’

‘I liked adventure, but it’s true I often wished I was back. Carlotta is different. I was brought up here. The place where you spend your childhood means something to you.’

Once when I was standing at our bedroom window watching the moon which was nearing its fullness, Phoebe came and stood silently behind me.

I turned and smiled at her. I took great pleasure in her devotion to me and I was constantly amazed that it did more to soothe me than my plans for revenge had done.

‘Look at the moon, Phoebe,’ I said. ‘Is it not beautiful?’

‘’Twill soon be full, Mistress Bersaba.’

Her brows were puckered and she looked anxious. I said: ‘What’s wrong, Phoebe? Everything is going well, isn’t it?’

‘There’s something I think I should tell ’ee, mistress. ‘Tis about the moon.’

‘The moon! What on earth do you mean?’

‘I know you don’t like her, mistress, and that is what have held me back. But ’tis for you to say what should be done.’

‘What are you trying to tell me, Phoebe?’

‘There be a lot of grumbling in the village, mistress. My father have always spoke against witches. And now I be here it have made a hate in him against this house. He’s a man with a mountain of hate in him for all his goodness and that he never laughs or sings, seeing it as sinful. He hates sin, and he hates that you have sheltered me and robbed me of my punishment, and he hates witches. He says he wants to see every tree with a witch hanging on it. Then perhaps we’ll be free of them.’

‘There has been a lot of talk of witches lately.’

‘Oh yes, mistress, ’twas since the ladies came and it was remembered. There’s the one they came to get long time ago at Castle Paling and her fled. But now ’tis the daughter they’m after. She have a look of the Devil in her and she have bewitched the fine gentleman from London. He be always seen with her. There was not many as would listen at first, on account of her being at the Priory. Witches by rights lives in little huts and they’re easy to take. There was some who wouldn’t believe the lady was a witch … not until the toad was found on her pillow.’

‘Oh!’ I gasped. ‘And now …’

‘They’ve had their proof, mistress. They’re going to take her the first opportunity they get and they’re going to hang her on a tree on the night of the full moon. If they can take her easy, they’d like that better, not wanting trouble with the Priory … but if they can’t … well, they’ll take her some way.’

My first thought was: It’s worked. I’ve done this. I’ve roused them up against her, and no one will know that I did it. I shall have my revenge. They will kill her … in a most horrible fashion, and I shall be avenged.

Then I saw her in my mind’s eye being dragged to the pond. Would they tie her right arm to her left leg and her left arm to her right leg and throw her into the water? If she sank she would be innocent but dead and if she floated she would be guilty and put to death.

This was the perfect revenge. Ugly death, humiliation. Carlotta, the dignified lady, to be submitted to such.

Why not? She had taken Bastian from me, and then she had rejected him in his turn for Sir Gervaise—or so it seemed she would. She deserved the worst that could happen to her. I should not be sorry for her.

Since the toad was found in her bed …

Phoebe was looking at me. ‘You’re so good, Mistress Bersaba. You won’t let it happen.’

I pressed Phoebe’s hand and went to my mother.

‘I must speak to you at once,’ I said. ‘Please, quickly … there’s no time to lose.’

Once more she took me into her bedroom.

‘They are going to take Carlotta,’ I said. ‘If they can’t capture her before they’ll take her on the night of the full moon. They are going to kill her … hang her on a tree or drown her … Perhaps …’

‘My child,’ cried my mother, and held me against her. ‘I feared it,’ she went on. ‘That man is wicked. He seeks revenge. And he calls himself Godly. He yearns to inflict torture on everyone. It is not the concept of Heaven that he loves but that of Hell.’

‘What shall we do, Mother?’

‘Thank God you discovered this in time. It is two days before the full moon. They must leave tonight. Your father and I will arrange it.’

That night Senara and Carlotta left and Sir Gervaise, his business with my father completed, accompanied them.

I lay in bed bewildered. I could not sleep. What had I done? I had planned so carefully, and when my plans were nearing fruition I had deliberately ruined them.

I could not understand myself. What had come over me? I hated Carlotta and yet I had saved her.

My mother came into the room and stood by my bed.

‘They are safe,’ she said. ‘They will soon be in Castle Paling.’

I did not answer and she stooped over the bed and kissed me.

‘You have saved them,’ she said. ‘I’m proud of you, my darling.’

When she had gone Angelet said to me, ‘You’ve become a sort of saint. Mother’s proud of you and Phoebe thinks you’re a god or something.’

‘And you know different,’ I answered, and added: ‘So do I.’

Angelet went on talking about witches and I pretended to be sleepy.

‘I think she was one,’ was Angelet’s verdict. ‘After all, there was that toad in her bed. How could a toad have got there … and then it disappeared, didn’t it?’

I remained silent, asking myself what had possessed me to do what I had, and the answer was: I did not know.

The night of the full moon passed without incident, for it was soon common knowledge that Carlotta had left with her mother and the fine gentleman from London. This seemed further proof of her special powers. But it was an anticlimax. The fevered excitement had died down. There was to be no witch baiting on the night of the full moon, and Thomas Gast’s pregnant daughter had become a maid at the Priory where her child would be born. It was not the first time that the Big House had sheltered wayward girls, and it seemed in the natural course of events that the affair would soon be forgotten.

Life went on normally at the Priory. We no longer ate in some state in the main hall but took our meals in the small dining-parlour. Estate affairs were discussed between my father and Fennimore, and they were planning together how the estate should be run when they had both gone to sea. There was already a very good manager and he would take over much of Fennimore’s work and everything would be satisfactory, while Fennimore would be doing what he wanted to.

My mother was uneasy at having two men at sea, but as usual she curbed her misgivings and believed in the best.

It was about a week after Carlotta, Senara and Sir Gervaise had left that we had news from Castle Paling. Carlotta was betrothed to Sir Gervaise and they were leaving for London, as he must be close to that city that he might hold his place at Court. He and Carlotta would be married when they reached London and Senara was to accompany them and stay a while with them before returning to Spain.

I thought about Bastian then and I must admit I felt a certain pleasure in his misery, for I was sure he was miserable after being so shamefully treated by Carlotta.

Within two days Bastian rode over to the Priory.

I heard his voice so I had warning, and I shut myself in our room trying to compose myself. It was not long before Angelet came running in.

‘Who do you think is here? Bastian! Come down and see him.’

I hesitated. Not to go and see him might be construed as an indication that I was emotionally moved. I didn’t want that to happen. My pride was fierce and strong and all I was afraid of was that when I saw him it would melt and I should be ready to go back to the old relationship. That was what I did not want. If I forgave him, I should never know when he was going to turn from me because someone more attractive had appeared.

No, his conduct was something I could not forgive.

I went down to the hall and there he was … Bastian, who used to arouse such joy in me. When he looked at me his eyes shone with the old pleasure and I was delighted that it scarcely moved me. I kept the vision of himself and Carlotta before my eyes.

‘Good day to you, Bastian.’

He seized my hands and held them firmly. I made sure that they gave no response. ‘Oh, Bersaba, I’m glad to see you.’

Angelet stood there smiling benignly at me. I knew she was thinking: It’s all right now, Carlotta is out of the way and he is free for Bersaba.

Nothing could infuriate me more. Did he think he could pick me up and drop me at will? My feelings had changed towards Bastian. I realized then—in this revealing self-knowledge which had come to me recently—that it was not so much Bastian I had loved, but his admiration, the fact that he singled me out, that he preferred me to Angelet. All my emotions were concerned in some way with Angelet, for they grew from an intense desire to prove that I was as good in every way—no, better—than my sister.

She, dear simple Angelet, felt nothing of this. She was uncomplicated, predictable, and perhaps that was what made her so much more lovable than I.

‘It is pleasant to see you, Bastian,’ I said.

‘I have so much to say to you.’

‘You’ll be wanting to tell us all about your broken engagement.’

‘Oh … it never seemed real somehow to me.’

‘It was real enough to be broken.’ I turned to Angelet. ‘I’ll go and tell Mother that Bastian is here.’

‘I’ll go,’ said Angelet.

‘No, you stay and talk to Bastian.’ I was half-way up the stairs before she could protest.

I went and told my mother and she went down to the hall, but I did not accompany her. Afterwards I wondered whether it looked too pointed. What I really wanted to convey was the fact that Bastian was no longer of any special interest to me.

By supper time I had still not seen him alone. Whenever I was in his company I always contrived that others should be there, and he would look at me with anguished appeal, but I was enjoying the situation. This was revenge … far better than that I had planned on Carlotta. After all, it was Bastian who was the guilty party.

It was inevitable that he should catch up with me at some time. It happened the next morning when I had gone into the gardens to gather some flowers. I had in fact arranged it should be so and I wanted it to happen in daylight in view of the house. I was a little uncertain, not so much of my love for Bastian—which I think I understood and which was based on his preference for me, so that it was not real love—but of what Phoebe called ‘the need’. That was there. I thought of lying on the cool grass with him bending over me, and I had to confess that I thought that would be pleasant—well, more than pleasant.

But my pride was urging me and that must remain stronger than my senses.

So I contrived this meeting in the garden where anything other than a change of words would be impossible.

‘Bersaba,’ he cried, ‘I have to speak to you.’

I pretended to be interested in the rose I was cutting.

‘Listen to me. I’ve come to ask you to marry me.’

I raised my eyebrows. How I should have longed to hear him say that just a short time ago. I was not yet eighteen and we were to have been married then, but now everything was changed. I had seen Sir Gervaise from London and I had to admit that although he did not appeal to me in the way Bastian had done, I liked well his elegant mode of speech and the easy manner with which he wore his clothes. He had shown me that there was a life outside this narrow country one in which we had spent out lives. I had been fascinated by the talk of Courts in which he, Carlotta and Senara had been engaged so often. I thought: I am young for marriage. If I marry Bastian I should be here for the whole of my life. Is it what I want? Don’t I want to see the world? I should like to go to London, to see the King and the Queen and the people whose names had been bandied about at our table. Carlotta’s coming has indeed changed everything and changed me too. Marriage was more than lying in feather-beds—more comfortable than the hard earth, but more binding; it was growing up, changing, seeing life from a hundred different angles. Yes, the events of the last weeks had made me realize that I was very young and inexperienced of life.

Realizing this so clearly showed me how to deal with Bastian.

I replied: ‘Thank you, Bastian. I am indeed honoured. It is good of you to think of me now that Carlotta has rejected you, but I am too young for marriage and have no intention of entering into that state yet.’

‘Bersaba, don’t be a little idiot. You’re talking like Gervaise Pondersby.’

‘That must be interesting. She preferred it, didn’t she, to your rough country speech?’

‘You’re jealous, Bersaba. There’s no need to be. I don’t know what came over me. It was like a spell. I just couldn’t help it.’

‘So you forgot that you had talked of marriage to me?’

‘I always meant it to be you, Bersaba … after what used to happen …’

‘We can forget that,’ I said sharply.

‘You can forget it?’

‘Yes,’ I said boldly, ‘and if I can you should … and it is obvious that you did.’

‘Bersaba, my dearest little Bersaba …’

‘I am not your dearest. There was one who was dearer. It is only because she preferred someone else that you are here now.’

‘I am asking you to marry me. Have you forgotten what you gave me? That is what you should only give your husband. Don’t you know that? I have seduced you, Bersaba. What would your parents say?’

‘Nothing, because they won’t know. You didn’t seduce me, Bastian. I seduced you. I wanted experience. Well, I’ve had it, and as far as I’m concerned there’s an end to the matter.’

‘You’re talking like a … like a …’

‘Yes, like a what?’

‘Like a courtesan.’

‘Perhaps that’s what I am. You thought me such, didn’t you? You were my lover and as soon as Carlotta came along you forgot me.’

‘I never forgot you, not once. And now I want to make amends.’

‘Amends.’ I knew my eyes were blazing. ‘There is no need, Bastian. Fortunately there are no … consequences. It is all over. I no longer want you. I no longer need you. Can you understand that?’

‘You’re so different, Bersaba. I can’t believe you’re the same.’

‘You find it hard to believe that I am not eager for you. That’s it, isn’t it? I’ve grown up, Bastian. You have helped me to grow up. That’s all you mean to me. I’m grateful in a way. I’m not a child any more. I know something of what life is about. I shan’t go to my husband as a shrinking virgin, shall I … thanks to you.’

‘You would never have shrunk, Bersaba.’

‘From some I should … as from you now. Bastian, I must ask you not to bother me any more.’

‘I shall speak to your parents,’ he said.

‘They would never force me to marry against my will.’ I looked down at my fingers. ‘These thorns are sharp.’ I sucked my finger without looking at him. Then I went on cutting the roses, and he stood there watching me helplessly.

My mother asked me to come to her sitting-room as she had something to say to me.

‘Bersaba,’ she said when we were alone, ‘Bastian has asked for your hand in marriage.’

‘I have already refused him, Mother.’

‘I know how you feel, my child. He was betrothed to Carlotta and she rejected him. He is impetuous. He should have waited. But it can be a long engagement. Indeed it would have to be, as both your father and I consider you too young for marriage.’

‘There is no need to consider it at all, Mother. I will not marry Bastian.’

‘You two used to seem so fond of each other.’

‘He is my cousin.’

‘That need provide no real obstacle.’

‘But it is better for cousins not to marry unless they both feel determined to because there is a great love between them.’

‘I always hoped that Bastian would marry one of you.’

‘Perhaps Angelet will oblige.’

‘My dear Bersaba, you sound a little bitter. Don’t take the affair of Carlotta too seriously. She is a very fascinating creature. You see how a noble gentleman like Sir Gervaise became so quickly attracted to her that he is going to marry her. Bastian was temporarily bemused, but he tells me he always loved you and intended to marry you.’

‘Except when he became betrothed to Carlotta.’

‘Ah, you were deeply hurt. I knew it. But it’s over.’

‘Mother, please understand. It taught me something and that is that when I marry it will not be Bastian. Never! I was fond of Bastian but I don’t love him. Please do not ask me to take him because I won’t … I won’t …’

‘You know very well that neither your father nor I would force you into a marriage which was not of your liking.’

‘Then the matter is settled.’

‘Let us leave it for a while, Bersaba. Think about it. Bastian would be a good, kind and gentle husband. He would help you slowly to realize all that marriage means.’

I smiled inwardly at the innocence of my mother, and I wondered what she would say if she knew of those passionate encounters in lonely places in the woods. She had accepted Phoebe’s dilemma. What would she have said if she now found her own daughter in such a position?

‘I will never marry Bastian,’ I said. ‘I am determined.’

She sighed and kissed me. I was sure that she believed that one day I would change my mind.

But Bastian knew I never would. He had sensed the change in me. He thought it had come about because of his entanglement with Carlotta. It had to some extent, but there was more than that. I had learned something about myself and that was that I did not know all I had thought I had. Life was bewilderingly complicated. I had much to learn and I was eager to begin. I felt I had had all I needed from Bastian.

A few days passed. I was coolly aloof and now did not care if I was alone with him, and because I could compare him with Sir Gervaise he no longer seemed the handsome young god he had. I no longer felt the urge to embrace him.

I was free from my ardent desires for a while.

He understood more than my parents could because they had no idea of how far our relationship had progressed.

Before he left, Bastian asked my father if he could join in his enterprise and go to sea with him and Fennimore when they left.

It was a hasty decision, said my father. He must not think that because I had refused his offer of marriage that was the end of the old way of life.

Bastian implored him to consider him and my father eventually said he would.

So he left us, and in due course we heard that Carlotta had become Lady Pondersby and was living in some state in a mansion not far from London and Senara was with her.

My father decided that he could find a place for Bastian, and in September of that year when my father and brother sailed away, Bastian was with them.

Just before they left a messenger arrived from London, with letters from Sir Gervaise to my father, and among these was one for our mother from Senara and one for Angelet and myself from Carlotta.

Angelet and I seized it and with great excitement took it up to our bedroom to read it.

‘My dear twins,’ she had written.

‘I wished that you could have come to my wedding. You would have been so interested to see how these matters are conducted here. I have been thinking of you there in the country and what fun it would be if you came to visit me. You said you always wanted to see London. Well, now is your chance.

I am writing to your mother to tell her that this is an invitation.

I hope she will spare you.

We had an exhausting journey to London, but it was worthwhile to be here, and my mother and I did so much enjoy our little sojourn in the country.

I shall hope to see you both, or if both cannot be spared at the same time, then one of you.

I look forward to hearing your news.

Carlotta.’

Angelet and I looked at each other with sparkling eyes.

‘To London,’ we cried.

Angelet threw herself into my arms and said, ‘We’ll both go. One of us couldn’t stay behind. I wouldn’t let you go without me.’

‘Nor you without me.’

‘We should need clothes.’

‘We’ll take Phoebe. We shall need a maid.’

‘It will be wonderful to see London. Do you think we shall see the King and Queen?’

‘She said to London, not to Court.’

‘Yes, but Carlotta goes to Court, doesn’t she? So perhaps she’ll take us.’

Angelet turned out all her clothes from the cupboard. She tried them on, smiling, frowning. She was very excited.

When we saw our mother we realized that she was not so happy at the suggestion.

‘You can’t go,’ she told us. ‘Not yet. Your father is going and Fennimore with him …’ She looked so woebegone that Angelet cried: ‘Of course we won’t go, Mother. I’d forgotten. You’d be all on your own.’ Then she was smiling. ‘But why shouldn’t you come with us?’

‘I’d have to be here for when your father comes back.’

‘But he’s only just gone. He’ll be away for months.’

‘We’ll see,’ said our mother; but I knew that she did not want us to go.

When our father had left we paid another visit to Castle Paling. My mother and Aunt Melanie talked a great deal about Senara’s suggestion, and my mother said she feared the difficulties of the journey and she would be very anxious for her girls travelling without her. If she could have gone it would have been different, but she was never sure when my father would be home. He had just left, it was true, but sometimes there were reasons for returning almost at once. She had never felt she could leave the Priory when Fenn was away and when he was there she must be there with him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He gave me a little push.

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

Perhaps there was.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phoebe was beginning to look frightened.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Where is Mother Gantry?’ I demanded.

‘Her couldn’t come, Mistress Bersaba.’

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

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

‘What did she say to that?’

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

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

‘Mistress Bersaba …’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I went out of the cottage and mounted my horse.

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

My mother was at the door.

‘Bersaba, wherever have you been?’

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

‘You saw her …’

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

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

‘Phoebe’s baby?’

‘It is born … dead.’

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

‘Phoebe?’ I began.

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

She led me away.

I was feeling limp, deflated and exhausted.