Agnes and Bartholomew: brother and sister

Agnes and Bartholomew are siblings whose bond moves from the physical closeness of childhood to active solidarity under pressure. Their relationship is marked not by constant agreement or shared residence, but by Bartholomew’s willingness to defend Agnes’s right to remain in the family home and by her later reliance on him for support and representation. In a household where marriage, inheritance, and work constrain individual choices, their sibling tie becomes a practical source of protection and agency.

Childhood and Shared Family Memory

Agnes’s earliest memories place Bartholomew within the care of their first mother. She carries him against her chest, where the two children can look at each other and touch fingers above the rounded bones of her shoulders. The remembered image makes their connection bodily and immediate: before either sibling can act independently, they are held together within the same maternal embrace.

Their mother also makes two matching dolls from green reeds, dries the stalks, and gives the children identical figures to lay together in a box. The dolls’ sameness and their shared place beside each other echo the children’s early intimacy. When their mother is gone, Joan replaces her in the household, burns the dolls as devilish figures, and punishes Agnes after she tries to rescue them. The episode is presented through Agnes’s memory, so it does not establish Bartholomew’s response to the loss; it does, however, set their shared childhood within a home where the loss of their mother and the arrival of a new authority change the conditions of family life.

Joan’s Opposition and Bartholomew’s Protection

As an adult, Agnes chooses the Latin tutor, but Joan rejects the match. She invokes his father’s debts and disgrace, insists Agnes should marry a prosperous farmer, and declares that the tutor cannot marry her. Agnes openly refuses Joan’s preferred future. Their conflict escalates into physical violence: Agnes, with a swollen and bleeding lip, tells Joan that she is not her mother; after Joan strikes her again, Agnes strikes back.

Bartholomew intervenes by restraining Joan from behind and holding her hands, while Thomas steps between the women and helps Agnes stand. The confrontation brings the divided household into view: Joan’s children watch in shock, while Caterina comforts the crying Joanie and Margaret holds the youngest child. Bartholomew’s intervention prevents Joan from continuing to hit Agnes, but the lasting decision comes after Joan throws Agnes’s bundle at her feet and orders her out forever.

Joan claims authority over the household and argues that this gives her the right to expel Agnes. Bartholomew answers that the house belongs to him because their father left it to him, and that Agnes may stay. When Joan presses him with appeals to family reputation, the other children, and their father’s wishes, Bartholomew calmly repeats his decision. His inheritance is not merely a possession in this scene: it gives him the standing to resist Joan’s command and makes Agnes’s continued presence possible.

A Decision Made Between Them

Bartholomew’s protection does not erase Agnes’s own choice. When he begins to qualify his offer, Agnes touches his sleeve; the siblings look at one another in silence. Bartholomew spits on the ground and puts a hand on her shoulder. Agnes gives him a crooked smile through her split, bleeding lip, wipes her face with her sleeve, and reties her bundle twice. He watches as she lifts it onto her shoulder, touches her hand, and assures her that he will take responsibility and that she need not worry. Agnes answers that she is not worried.

The exchange is intimate but restrained: neither sibling explains the decision aloud, and the brief gestures carry the weight of their agreement. Bartholomew offers a place in the house, while Agnes proceeds with her departure. She crosses the yard and enters the apple storehouse, emerging with the hooded kestrel on her glove. The moment shows the limits as well as the strength of his support: he can protect her right to stay, but he does not make the choice for her or prevent her from leaving.

Separate Homes, Continuing Support

After Agnes marries, she and her husband live in a small house built beside the familiar family home. Agnes suspects the arrangement has something to do with Bartholomew and may form part of the marriage agreement. When the couple first enters, Bartholomew examines the narrow rooms, goes through the house, and signals his assent to John, who has remained at the doorway. John hands over the key only after Bartholomew nods twice. The scene suggests that Bartholomew’s standing within the family helps shape the practical arrangements that allow Agnes to establish a separate household, although the narrative leaves the exact terms uncertain.

The siblings’ connection also persists when illness puts pressure on the wider family. During Judith’s grave fever, Bartholomew puts an arm around Agnes’s shoulders and says he will speak with John that very night, knowing where John goes to drink. Agnes, meanwhile, has stayed beside Judith through the night, refusing food, sleep, or rest. Bartholomew’s response is not a substitute for her care of her daughter; it is an effort to intervene in the family situation around them while Agnes remains at the bedside.

Later, Agnes writes to Bartholomew asking him to represent her in making a purchase. She does not want to tell her other brothers, since their father might interfere, and asks whether Bartholomew will help her this time. He considers the letter, leaving it on the mantel and looking at it while he eats. The evidence does not state what he decides. Even so, the request shows that Agnes treats him as a possible intermediary whose involvement may help her act without inviting her father’s interference. Across these episodes, their bond is expressed through concrete choices: a defended home, a hand on the shoulder, a promised intervention, and an appeal for help.