Saraband for Two Sisters Read Online Free PDF

was stretching. She had become a stranger with secrets. One day, I thought, it will break, and then we shall be as ordinary sisters.
    The next day when I was going to ride again I picked up her safeguards in mistake for my own and I saw that there was bracken clinging to them and mud on the edge of the skirt.
    ‘She must have fallen,’ I thought.
    She came upon me staring at her skirts.
    ‘Look!’ I cried. ‘What happened? Did you take a toss?’
    ‘What nonsense!’ she said, snatching the garments from me. ‘Of course I didn’t.’
    ‘These skirts have been in contact with earth, sister. That’s clear enough.’
    She was thoughtful for less than a second, then she said: ‘Oh, I know. It was when I was out yesterday. There was a lovely pool and it was so peaceful I had the urge to sit by it for a while, so I dismounted and sat there.’
    ‘You ought not to have done that … and alone. Suppose someone … some man … ?’
    She laughed at me and turned away.
    ‘We’ve got to grow up one day, Angelet,’ she said, brushing the skirt. ‘That’s what it was,’ she went on, and hung the skirts in a cupboard. ‘And what are you doing examining my things?’
    ‘I wasn’t examining them. I thought they were mine.’
    ‘Well, now you know they’re not.’
    She turned away and I was puzzled.
    The following day a strange thing happened. It was midday and we were at dinner in the great hall, for Aunt Melanie said that as there were so many of us it was better to take our meals there rather than in the dining-parlour which was used for a smaller company.
    There had always been a big table at Castle Paling. Grandfather Casvellyn had set the custom for hearty eating and Connell had followed it. In our house my father’s family had been more abstemious, and although there had been plenty of food in our larders should visitors call unexpectedly, we did not consume the large meals which they did at Castle Paling. Aunt Melanie took great pride in her stillroom and she had Melder to help her and was constantly urging us to try some delicacy or other which she or Melder had concocted from old recipes with little additions of their own.
    My mother and Aunt Melanie were discussing the rival properties of the herbs they both grew with such assiduous care, and Aunt Melanie was saying how she had discovered that a solution acquired from the juice of buttercups gave Rozen such a fit of sneezing that it had cleared her head of a very unpleasant cold from which she was suffering, when we heard sound of arrival from without.
    ‘Visitors—’ said Uncle Connell, looking along the table from his end to where Aunt Melanie was seated.
    ‘I wonder who,’ she answered.
    One of the servants came running in. ‘Travellers from afar, my lady,’ said the man.
    Aunt Melanie rose and hurried out of the hall, Uncle Connell following her.
    We at the table heard cries of amazement, and in a short time my uncle and aunt reappeared and with them were two women—and in that first moment I was aware of their unusual appearance. I often think, looking back, that life should prepare us in some way, that when events occur which are the forerunner of great changes which will affect our lives we should be given a little nudge, some warning, some premonition.
    But it rarely happens so, and as I sat at that table and looked at the newcomers—one a woman of my mother’s age and with her another of my own, or a little older—I was quite unaware that their coming was going to prove one of the most momentous events of our lives.
    Aunt Melanie was crying out: ‘Tamsyn. You know who this is. Senara!’
    My mother stood up; she turned first pale and then rosy red. She stared for a few minutes before she and the elder of the two women rushed towards each other and embraced.
    They were laughing and I could see that my mother was near to tears. She gripped the stranger’s shoulders and they looked searchingly at each other.
    ‘Senara!’ cried my mother.