Legend of the Seventh Virgin (15 page)

She sat on my bed laughing at me; but I could still feel my nightmare hanging over me.

“What an evening!” she said, and clasping her knees stared before her. As the sense of nightmare faded I remembered what I had heard from the cupboard. It was Mellyora’s dancing with Justin which had provoked Judith’s jealousy.

I sat up. “You danced with Justin, didn’t you?” I said.

“Of course.”

“His wife didn’t like his dancing with you.”

“How do you know?”

I told her what had happened to me. Her eyes opened wide and she sprang up, took me by the shoulders and shook me. “Kerensa, I might have known that something would happen to you! Tell me every word you heard when you were in the cupboard.”

“I have … as far as I can remember. I was horribly scared.”

“I should think so. What on earth made you?”

“I don’t know. I just thought it was the only thing to do at the time. Was she right, Mellyora?”

“Right?”

“To be jealous.”

Mellyora laughed. “She is married to him,” she said; and I was not sure whether the flippancy hid a certain bitterness.

We were silent for a while, each preoccupied with her own thoughts. I was the one to break it. I said: “I think you have always liked Justin.”

It was a time for confidences and indiscretions. The magic of the ball was still with us, and Mellyora and I were closer that night than we had been before.

“He’s different from Johnny,” she said.

“I should hope for his wife’s sake that he is.”

“No one would be safe with Johnny around. Justin doesn’t seem to notice people.”

“Meaning Grecians with long golden hair?”

“Meaning everybody. He seems remote.”

“Perhaps he ought to have been a monk rather than a husband.”

“What things you say!” She started to talk of Justin then: the first time she and her father had been invited to take tea with the St. Larnstons; how she had worn a sprigged muslin dress for the occasion; how polite Justin had been. I could see that she had a kind of childish adoration for him and I hoped that was all because I didn’t want her to be hurt.

“By the way,” she said, “Kim told me he was going away.”

“Oh?”

“To Australia, I think.”

“Right away?” My voice sounded blank in spite of my efforts to control it.

“For a long time. He’s going to sail with his father but he said he might stay in Australia for a time because he has an uncle there.”

The enchantment of the ball seemed to have disappeared.

“Are you tired?” asked Mellyora.

“Well, it must be very late.”

“Early morning rather.”

“We ought to get some sleep.”

She nodded and went into her own room. Strange how we both seemed suddenly to have lost our exhilaration. Was it because she was thinking of Justin and his passionately loving wife? Was it because I was thinking of Kim who was going away and had told her and not me?

It was about a week after the ball when Dr. Hilliard paid a visit to the parsonage. I was on the front lawn when his brougham drew up and he called good morning to me. I knew that the Reverend Charles had been seeing him recently and I guessed that he had come to discover how he was.

“The Reverend Charles Martin is not at home,” I told him.

“Good. It is Miss Martin I have come to see. Is she at home?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then would you be so kind as to tell her I’m here.”

“Certainly,” I said. “Pray, come in.”

I took him into the drawing room and went to find Mellyora. She was sewing in her room and seemed startled when I told her that Dr. Hilliard wanted to see her.

She hurried down to him at once and I went into my room, wondering if Mellyora was ill and had been consulting the doctor secretly.

Half an hour later the brougham drove away, and the door of my room was flung open and Mellyora came in. Her face was white and her eyes looked almost dark; I had never seen her like that before.

“Oh, Kerensa,” she said, “this is terrible.”

“Tell me what it’s all about.”

“It’s Papa. Dr. Hilliard says he is gravely ill.”

“Oh … Mellyora.”

“He says Papa has some sort of growth and that he had advised him to have a second opinion. Papa didn’t tell me. I didn’t know he’d been seeing these doctors. Well, now they think they know. Kerensa, I can’t bear it. They say he’s going to die.”

“But they can’t know.”

“They’re almost certain. Three months, Dr. Hilliard thinks.”

“Oh, no!”

“He says that Papa mustn’t go on working because he’s on the verge of collapse. He wants him to go to bed and rest …” She buried her face in her hands; I went to her and put my arms round her. We clung together.

“They can’t be sure,” I insisted.

But I didn’t believe that. I knew now that I had seen death in the Reverend Charles’s face.

Everything had changed. Each day the Reverend Charles was a little worse. Mellyora and I nursed him. She insisted on giving him every attention and I insisted on helping her.

David Killigrew had come to the parsonage. He was a curate who was to take over the parson’s duties until, as they said, something could be arranged. They really meant until the Reverend Charles died.

The autumn came and Mellyora and I hardly ever went out. We did few lessons, although Miss Kellow was still with us, because most of our time was spent in and out of the sickroom. It was a strangely different household; and I think we were all grateful for David Killigrew, who was in his late twenties and one of the gentlest people I had ever met. He went quietly about the house, making very little trouble; yet he could preach a good sermon and attend to parish affairs with an efficiency which was amazing.

He would often sit with the Reverend Charles and talk to him about the parish. He would talk to us, too; and in a short time we almost forgot what his presence meant in the house, for he seemed like a member of the family. He cheered us and made us feel that he was grateful for our company; as for the servants, they took to him as the people of the parish did; and for a long time it seemed as though this state of affairs would go on indefinitely.

Christmas came — a sad Christmas for us. Mrs. Yeo made some preparation in the kitchen because, as she said, the servants expected it; and she knew it was what the Reverend would wish. David agreed with her, and she set about making the cakes and puddings, just as she had every year.

I went out with David to get in the holly; and as he cut it I said: “Why do we do this? We none of us feel like making merry.”

He looked at me sadly and answered: “It’s better to go on hoping.”

“Is it? When we can’t help knowing that the end is near — and what that end will be?”

“We live by hope,” he told me.

I admitted that this was true. I looked at him sharply. “For what do you hope?” I asked.

He was silent for a while; then he said: “I suppose what every man hopes for — a fireside, my own family.”

“And you know that your hopes will be realized?”

He moved closer to me and answered, “If I should get a living.”

“And not till then?”

“I have my mother to care for. My first duty is to her.”

“Where is she now?”

“She is in the care of her niece who is staying in our little house until I return.”

He had pricked his finger on the holly; he sucked it in a shamefaced way and I noticed that there was a warm flush under his skin.

He was embarrassed. He was thinking that when the Reverend Charles died he had a good chance of being offered the living.

On Christmas Eve the carol singers came to the parsonage and sang “The First Nowell,” softly, below the Reverend Charles’s window.

At the kitchen table Mrs. Yeo was making the Christmas bush by fastening two wooden hoops together and decorating them with furze and evergreens. She would hang it in the window of the sickroom, just to pretend that we were not too sad to celebrate Christmas.

David dealt with the services in a manner which gave satisfaction to everyone and I heard Mrs. Yeo commenting to Belter that if it had to happen, this was the best way.

It was on Twelfth Night that Kim called. I have always hated Twelfth Night since, telling myself often that it was because all the Christmas decorations were taken down then and that was the end of the festivities until next year.

I saw Kim riding up on the chestnut mare he always rode and I thought how fine and manly he looked — not wicked like Johnny, nor saintly like Justin — exactly as a man should look.

I knew why he had come, since he had told us that he would call to say good-bye. He had seemed sad as the time for departure grew near.

I went out to meet him because I believed that I was the one he regretted leaving.

“Why,” he cried, “it’s Miss Kerensa.”

“I saw you arriving.”

Belter had come to take his horse and Kim started towards the entrance. I wanted to delay him, to have him to myself before we joined Mellyora and Miss Kellow who, I knew, were in the drawing room.

“When are you leaving?” I asked, trying to hide the desolation in my voice.

“Tomorrow.”

“I don’t believe you want to go one bit.”

“Just one bit does,” he said. “The rest hates to leave home.”

“Then why go?”

“My dear Kerensa, all the arrangements have been made.”

“I see no reason why they shouldn’t be canceled.”

“Alas,” he replied. “I do.”

“Kim,” I said passionately, “if you don’t want to go …”

“But I want to go across the seas and make a fortune.”

“What for?”

“To come back rich and famous.”

“Why?”

“So that I can settle down, marry and raise a family.”

These were almost exactly the same words David Killigrew had used. Perhaps this was a common desire.

“Then you will, Kim,” I said earnestly.

He laughed and, leaning towards me, kissed me lightly on the forehead. I felt wildly happy and almost immediately desperately sad.

“You looked so like a prophetess,” he told me, as though to excuse the kiss. Then he went on lightly: “I believe you are some sort of witch … the nicest sort, of course.” For a moment we stood smiling at each other before he went on: “This cutting wind can’t be good … even for witches.”

He slipped his arm through mine and we went into the house together.

In the drawing room Mellyora and Miss Kellow were waiting and as soon as we arrived Miss Kellow rang for tea.

Kim talked mainly about Australia, of which he seemed to know a great deal. He glowed with enthusiasm and I loved listening to him, and saw vividly the land he described: the harbor with its indentations and sandy beaches fringed with foliage; the brilliant plumage of strange birds; the moist heat which made you feel as though you were in a steamy bath; it would be summer there now, he told us. He talked of the station to which he was going; how cheap land was; and labor, too. I thought with pain of a night when my brother had lain in a mantrap and this man had carried him to safety. But for Kim, my brother Joe might be “cheap labor” on the other side of the world.

Oh, Kim, I thought, I wish I were going with you.

But I was not sure that was true. I wanted to live in St. Larnston Abbas like a lady. Did I really want to live on some lonely station in a strange and uncultivated land, even with Kim?

It was my wild dream for Kim to stay, for Kim to own the Abbas instead of the St. Larnstons. I wanted to share the Abbas with Kim.

“Kerensa’s thoughtful.” Kim was watching me, quizzically. Tenderly? I wondered.

“I was imagining it all. You make it sound so real.”

“You wait till I come back.”

“And then?”

“I shall have some stories to tell you.”

He shook hands with us as he was leaving, and kissed first Mellyora and then me.

“I’ll be back,” he said. “You see.”

I went on remembering those words long after he had gone.

It was not that I overheard a precise conversation; it was little hints I caught now and then which made me understand what was in people’s minds.

No one had any doubt that the Reverend Charles was dying. Sometimes he seemed a little better but he never really progressed and week by week we saw his strength slowly slipping away.

I wondered constantly about what would happen to us when he died, for it was clear that the state of affairs which now existed was only a compromise.

Mrs. Yeo gave me the first clue when she was speaking of David Killigrew. I realized that she accepted him as the new master of the house; she believed — and I realized that this had occurred to many others — that when the Reverend Charles died David Killigrew would have the living. He would become the parson here. And Mellyora? Well, Mellyora was a parson’s daughter so it would be reasonable to suppose that she would make a good parson’s wife.

It seemed to them right and reasonable, so they hinted that it was inevitable. Mellyora and David. They were good friends. She was grateful to him; and he must admire her. Suppose they were right, what would happen to me?

I shouldn’t leave Mellyora. David had always shown the utmost friendliness towards me. I should stay on in the parsonage, making myself useful. In what capacity? Maid to Mellyora? She never treated me as a maid. I was the sister she had always wanted and who had the same name as the one she had lost.