Free Saraband for Two Sisters by Philippa Carr Page B

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