The Swains are twins, and this is the first thing anyone learns about them and the last thing anyone understands. Fenella — Fifi to two households and the whole of the town — serves as lady’s-maid; Zane as footman; and between them they constitute a small sovereign nation of two, with its own treaties, its own tariffs, and its own perfect silences. Establishments that engage one Swain come in time to engage the other. It is found to be simpler, and in any case they were never truly apart to begin with.
What one hears, the other appears to know; what one knows, neither says. Cairnholm has long since given up deciding which of them is the discreet one, and settles for the observation that a secret told near either Swain is a secret filed, not lost. Their particulars are taken separately below, as a formality the twins themselves would consider unnecessary.