Legend of the Seventh Virgin (22 page)

“Of course. He was certain of it. It was a sort of promise and Kim always keeps promises.”

I felt great pleasure. I pictured him coming back to St. Larnston, walking into the Abbas one day. I could imagine his voice, ‘Why, Kerensa, you’ve become a fascinating young lady.’ And when he saw Mellyora, obsessed by Justin, he would become more my friend than hers. I was certain that you could make life go the way you wanted it, but was it possible to bring the people you wanted back to you? I must ask Granny.

Mellyora said that it was time she went to Sir Justin, so I left her and returned to my room. I stood at the window for some time, thinking of Kim and the night of the ball. Then I went to my mirror and lighted the candles there. Had I changed much since that night? I had become older, wiser, more accomplished. I had read a great deal. I was making myself worthy … of Kim? No. Of the person I intended to be.

I took the pins out of my hair and shook it about my shoulders. Thick, luxuriant, it was more beautiful than Judith’s. Deftly I began to coil it high on my head. Where was my Spanish comb? Where was my mantilla? I adjusted them and stood enraptured by my own reflection. Narcissus! I mocked. In love with yourself.

I went to the window. Out there were the ring of stones that never seemed to be far from my thoughts. I had always promised myself a visit by moonlight. Why not? I was free. I believed Johnny was closeted with his brother, and there was no danger of his being around. Now was the time.

I was soon there. How exciting they seemed by moonlight. Alive! The Six Virgins! And I made a seventh. Did it really happen as the legend said? Did they in truth dance here? Were they struck down in their defiance and turned to stone, to stand on this spot as the centuries passed? How fortunate they were! Sudden death was preferable to a lingering one. I thought of the seventh — the one who had been dragged to the hollow wall, the one who was shut in to die; and I was filled with a momentary melancholy.

Footsteps! The sound of a low whistle. I leaned against one of the stones, waiting, some instinct telling me who had followed me here.

“So the seventh is here tonight?”

I felt furious with myself for coming. Johnny had seen me leave the house after all. In that moment I hated him.

He had stepped into the circle of stones and was grinning at me.

“Miss Carlyon in person!” he cried. “The Spanish lady.”

“Is there any reason why I should not dress my hair as I wish?”

“There’s every reason why you should since it so becomes you.”

“I wish you would not follow me.”

“Follow you? But why should I not visit the Virgins if I wish? They are not exclusively yours, are they?”

“Since you have come to see the Virgins, I will leave you.”

“There’s no hurry. I prefer the seventh to all the six put together. Ladies of stone are not to my fancy. Yet the seventh would have me believe she is composed of the same unyielding material. I’m going to prove to her that she is not.”

“Is it impossible for you to believe that I do not want your advances?”

“Quite impossible.”

“Then you are more arrogant than I imagined.”

“I’ll tell you something, my Spanish lady. You would not reject my advances in some circumstances.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“You have always had a mighty high opinion of yourself. If I said to you, ‘Kerensa, will you marry me?’ you would consider my proposal very seriously and I’ll warrant it wouldn’t take you long to recognize its merits. It is merely because you think I would treat you like any serving girl that you are so haughty.”

I caught my breath for his words had conjured up a picture of myself living at the Abbas as I had always longed to. It had seemed an impossibility but if I married Johnny my dream would come true. With a shock I realized that this was the only way in which it could. But almost immediately I knew that he was teasing me.

I said haughtily: “I do not wish to listen to any suggestions you make.”

He laughed. “Only because you know that the one you want to hear is the one I should never offer.”

I turned away and he caught my arm. “Kerensa …” he began. He put his face close to mine and the blaze of desire in his eyes alarmed me. I tried not to show my fear by slapping off his arm; but he would not release me; he kept his face close to mine, grinning at me. “I,” he said, “can be as determined as you.”

“You don’t know how determined I can be when it is a matter of ridding myself of you.”

“Then,” he said, “we shall see, shall we not?”

In spite of my efforts I could not free myself. He caught me to him and I felt his teeth against mine. I kept mine firmly clenched and I hated him. I hated him so fiercely that I found a certain pleasure in my hatred. In that moment Johnny St. Larnston aroused an emotion in me that I had never felt before. It was not without desire. Perhaps, I thought later when I was alone and trying to analyse my feelings, the desire I felt was for a house, for a different station of life than that into which I had been born, for a fulfillment of a dream. My desire for these things was so fierce that perhaps another kind of desire could be aroused by anyone who could give me them; and Johnny’s words about marriage had put an idea into my mind.

One thing I was sure of; he must not guess for one moment that he aroused anything in me but contempt and a longing to be rid of him.

Holding myself away from him, I said: “You had better be careful. I shall complain if you attempt to persecute me and in view of your reputation I do not think I shall be disbelieved.”

I knew then that he had been aware of some change in my feelings and that he was expecting me to give way; thus I took him off his guard and with a little push as I had on another occasion, I freed myself. I turned and walked haughtily towards the house.

When I reached my room I looked in the mirror.

Is it possible? I asked myself. Would Johnny St. Larnston consider marrying me? And if he did, would I accept?

I was trembling. With hope? With fear? With pleasure? With repulsion?

I was not sure which.

My room was touched by moonlight. I sat up with a start. Something had awakened me.

I was in danger. An extra sense seemed to be telling me this. I stared in dismay, for someone was in my room. I saw the outline of a figure seated in an armchair, watching me.

I gave a stifled cry, for the figure had moved. I thought, I have always thought the Abbas was haunted. Now I know.

I heard a low laugh and then I knew that my visitor was Johnny, as I should have guessed.

“You!” I cried. “How dare you!”

He sat on the edge of my bed looking at me.

“I’m very daring, Kerensa, particularly where you’re concerned.”

“You had better go … without delay.”

“Oh no. Don’t you think I’d better stay?”

I sprang out of bed. He stood up but did not come towards me. He merely stood staring at me.

“I always wondered how you wore your hair at night. Two long plaits. Most demure! I should like to see it loose though.”

“If you do not leave at once I shall shout for help.”

“I shouldn’t do that, Kerensa, if I were you.”

“You are not me, and I tell you, I shall.”

“Why cannot you be reasonable?”

“Why cannot you behave like a gentleman?”

“To you … who are scarcely a lady?”

“I hate you, Johnny St. Larnston.”

“Now that sounded like the little girl from the cottages. But I’d rather you hated me than were indifferent.”

“I have no feelings for you … none at all.”

“You have no feeling for the truth. You know you hate me and you’re longing for me to make love to you, but you feel that the lady you are trying to become should insist on marriage before entertaining a lover.”

I ran to the door and flung it open. I said: “I will give you ten seconds, Johnny St. Larnston. If you are not outside by then, and if you attempt to touch me, I shall scream to wake your brother and his wife.”

He could see I meant what I said, and was temporarily defeated. He walked past me and into the corridor; his eyes were angry and malevolent. I was horrified because I realized that he really believed I would have become his mistress that night.

I went into my room and shut my door. I leaned against it, trembling. How, I asked myself, was I going to rest in peace, knowing that at any hour of the night he could walk into my room?

I could not go back to bed. I went to the window and looked out. The moonlight showed me the lawn and beyond it the meadow with the ring of stones.

I stood there for some time. I heard a clock strike midnight. And then I saw Johnny. He was walking purposefully away from the house. I stood still watching him as he skirted the field and took the road towards the village. It led also to Larnston Barton.

Some instinct told me that, having failed with me, Johnny was going to Hetty Pengaster.

I crept along the corridor to Mellyora’s room and knocked gently on the door. There was no reply so I went in. Mellyora was asleep.

I stood for a few seconds looking down at her. So beautiful and innocent she looked, lying there. Mellyora, too, I thought, was defenseless in this house. But Justin would never come uninvited into her room. Even so, Mellyora was more vulnerable than I.

“Mellyora,” I whispered. “Don’t be alarmed. It is I … Kerensa.”

“Kerensa!” She started up alarmed. “Whatever is wrong?”

“It’s all right now. But I don’t want to go back to my room.”

“What do you mean? Something’s wrong?”

“Johnny came in. I don’t feel safe when he can come walking in when he likes.”

“Johnny!” she said contemptuously.

I nodded. “He is trying to seduce me, and I’m afraid of him …”

“Oh … Kerensa!”

“Don’t be alarmed. I only want to come in with you.”

She moved over and I slipped into the bed.

“You’re shivering,” she said.

“It was rather horrible.”

“You don’t think … you ought to go away?”

“Away from the Abbas? Where to?”

“I don’t know … somewhere.”

“To work in some other house, to be at the beck and call of someone else?”

“Perhaps, Kerensa, it would be best for us both.”

It was the first time she had admitted her own difficulties, and I was afraid. In that moment I was certain I would never willingly leave the Abbas.

“I can manage Johnny,” I said.

“But this latest affair …”

“Will make everyone understand whose fault it is if I should have to tell on him.”

“Kerensa, you’re so strong.”

“I’ve had to look after myself all my life. You had your father to look after you. Don’t worry about
me
, Mellyora.”

She was silent for a while. Then she said, “Perhaps for us both, Kerensa …”

“We couldn’t ‘go farther and fare worse,’” I quoted.

I felt the relief in the little sigh she gave.

“Where would we find posts together?” she asked.

“Ah, where?”

“And St. Larnston is, after all, home to us.”

We were silent for a while. Then I said: “May I share your room in future, while he is here?”

“You know you may.”

“Then,” I said, “there’ll be nothing for
me
to fear.”

It was a long time before either of us slept.

Judith knew, of course, that I was sleeping in Mellyora’s room and when I hinted at the reason made no objection.

During the weeks that followed, Mellyora and I grew close again, for sharing a room meant sharing confidences, and our relationship was more as it had been in the parsonage than it had been since we came to the Abbas and her feeling for Justin had set us a little apart.

I received a letter from David Killigrew during that time. He thought of me constantly, he wrote; his mother was as strong as ever physically, but growing a little more forgetful every day; he was kept busy but he saw no hope of getting a living which, he implied, he must do before asking me to marry him.

I could scarcely remember what he looked like. I felt guilty because he was so earnest and at one time I had contemplated marrying him as now, deep down in my heart I was contemplating marrying Johnny St. Larnston.