Legend of the Seventh Virgin (41 page)

Mellyora and I sat alone in my sitting room.

How like the old days it was, those days when we had been together in the parsonage. We both felt this and it drew us closer together.

“This is a waiting time, Mellyora,” I said. “Life will change soon.”

She nodded, her needle poised; she was making a shirt for Carlyon and she looked daintily feminine and helpless working there.

“No news of Johnny … day after day,” I mused. “When do you think they will give up the search?”

“I don’t know. I suppose he will be listed as a missing person and will remain so until we have some news of him.”

“What do you think has happened to him, Mellyora?”

She did not answer.

“There was a lot of feeling against him in St. Larnston,” I went on. “Do you remember how angry he was that day when someone threw a stone at him? The people of St. Larnston might have killed him because he would not open the mine. Their livings were at stake. They knew I would be willing to open it.”

“
You
… Kerensa.”

“I shall be the mistress of the Abbas now … unless …”

“The Abbas belongs to Justin, Kerensa; and it always did.”

“But he has gone away and Johnny administered everything in his absence. Until he comes back …”

“I do not think he will ever come back. I haven’t told you this before but he is trying to come to a decision now. He believes that he will stay in Italy and enter a religious order.”

“Is that so?” I wondered if I succeeded in keeping the joy out of my voice. Justin a monk! Never to marry!

I suddenly remembered Mellyora, sitting at home, patiently waiting like Penelope. I looked at her sharply. “And you, Mellyora? You loved him so much. Do you still?”

She was silent. “You are so practical, Kerensa. You would never understand me. I should seem so foolish to you.”

“Please try to make me understand. It is important to me … your happiness I mean. I have grieved for you, Mellyora.”

“I know you have.” She smiled. “Sometimes you have been angry when Justin’s name was mentioned. I knew it was because you were so sorry for me. Justin was a hero of my childhood. It was a child’s adoration I had for him. Picture it. He was the heir to the big house; and the Abbas meant something to me as it did to you. To me he seemed just perfect; and I suppose my most cherished dream was that one day he would notice me. He was the prince of the fairy tale who should have married the woodcutter’s daughter and made her a queen. It grew out of a childish fantasy. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “I thought you would never be happy again when he went away.”

“So did I. But ours was a dream idyll. His love for me and mine for him. If he had been free we should have married and perhaps it would have been a good marriage; perhaps I should have gone on adoring him. I should have been a good meek wife to him; he would have been a courteous tender husband; but there would always have been this dream quality about our relationship, this bloodlessness, this unreality.
You
have shown me that.”

“I? How so?”

“With your love for Carlyon. That fierce passion of yours. That jealousy I have seen when you think he cares too much for me or Joe. It is a wild all-consuming thing, your love; and that is real love, I have come to believe. Think of this, Kerensa, if you had loved Justin as I thought I did, what would
you
have done? Would you have said farewell? Would you have allowed him to go? No. You would have gone away with him, or you would have stayed here and fought defiantly for the right to live together. That is love. You never loved Johnny in that way. But you once loved your brother like that; you loved your Granny; and now all your love is for Carlyon. One day, Kerensa, you will love a man and that will be the fulfillment of your being. I believe I too shall love that way. We are young yet, both of us; but I took longer to grow up than you did. I am grown up now, Kerensa, and we are neither of us fulfilled. Do you understand me? But we shall be.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because we have grown together, Kerensa. There is a bond between us, a line of fate which we cannot break.”

“You have an air of wisdom this morning, Mellyora!”

“It is because we are both free … free from the old life. It is like a beginning again. Johnny is dead, Kerensa. I am sure of it. I believe what you say is right. Not one but several people killed him because he stood between them and their living. They murdered him that they and their wives and children might live. You are free, Kerensa. The hungry men of St. Larnston have freed you. And I am free … free of a dream. Justin will enter a religious order; no longer shall I sit and dream as I sew, no longer wait for a letter, no longer start up at the sound of arrival. And I am at peace. I have become a woman. It is like gaining freedom. You too, Kerensa, for you haven’t deceived me. You married Johnny, you suffered him for the sake of this house, the position he gave you, for the sake of being a St. Larnston. You have what you want and all the installments are paid. It is a new beginning for you as well as for me.”

I looked at her and I thought: She is right. No more reproaches. I need never shudder when I look at Nelly; the scar on her back is no longer a scar on my soul. I did not ruin Mellyora’s life when I saved the Abbas for Carlyon. There need be no more regrets.

On impulse I went to Mellyora and put my arms about her. She smiled up at me, and I bent and kissed her forehead.

“You are right,” I said. “We are free.”

I made two discoveries within the next few weeks.

The family solicitor came to the Abbas to see me. He had depressing news. For some years the St. Larnston fortunes had been on the wane and several economies were needed.

Judith Derrise had bolstered up the position with her dowry, but it was to have been paid over a number of years and as she was dead and there were no children of the marriage, the remainder of the dowry would not be paid. Johnny’s gambling had expedited the disaster which, with careful economies, would have to be staved off and, had Judith lived, would never have occurred.

Johnny had heavily mortgaged certain properties to pay for his gambling debts; in a few months capital would have to be raised. There seemed to be no alternative but to sell the Abbas.

The situation was similar to that which had threatened the family some generations back. Then the tin mine had proved a source of wealth and the family retained the old mansion.

Some action within the next few months was vital.

What action? I demanded to know.

The solicitor looked at me kindly. He was sorry for me. My husband had disappeared. Large sums of money belonging to the estate could not be accounted for, but they had passed through Johnny’s hands, probably lost in gambling. In any case, Johnny had disappeared and I was left to salvage what I could for my son. Justin was about to renounce the world and all his possessions except a small private income which would go to the monastery where he would spend the rest of his days.

“I think, Mrs. St. Larnston,” the solicitor said, “that you should leave the Abbas for the Dower House which is vacant just now. If you lived there you would considerably reduce your expenses.”

“And the Abbas?”

“You might find a tenant. But I doubt whether that would solve your difficulties. It may be necessary to sell the Abbas …”

“Sell the Abbas! It has been in the possession of the St. Larnston family for generations.”

He lifted his shoulders. “Many estates like this one are changing hands nowadays.”

“There is my son …”

“Well, he is young and it is not as though he has spent a great number of years in the place.” Seeing my distress he softened. “It may not come to that.”

“There is the mine,” I said. “It saved the Abbas once. It will save it again.”

I asked Saul Cundy to come and see me. I could not understand why the agitation to open the mine had stopped. I had made up my mind I was going to set work in motion at once, and the first and all-important discovery to make was whether or not there was tin in the mine.

I stood at the library window, waiting for Saul, looking out across the lawns to the meadow and the ring of stones. What a different scene there would be when the sound of the tinners’ voices would be heard and I should see them going to work with their horn picks and wooden shovels. We should need machines. I knew little of the industry except what I had picked up from Granny but I did know that a certain Richard Trevithick had invented a high-pressure steam engine which hoisted out the ore and crushed and stamped it on the surface.

How strange it would be — all that noise, all that activity so near the ring of ancient stones. Well, it had happened before and it was the modern industry which was going to preserve the ancient house.

Tin meant money and money could save the Abbas.

I was growing impatient when at last Haggety announced that Saul Cundy was outside.

“Bring him in at once,” I cried.

He came, hat in hand, but I fancied he found it difficult to meet my eye.

“Sit down,” I said. “I think you know why I have asked you to call.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Well, you are aware that there is no news of my husband and that Sir Justin is far away and not in a position to manage affairs here. You headed a deputation some time ago and I did all I could to persuade my husband that you were right. Now I am going to give permission for an investigation to be made. If there is tin in the St. Larnston mine, then there will be work for all those who want it.”

Saul Cundy twirled his hat round and round in his hands and stared at the tips of his boots.

“Ma’am,” he said, “’twouldn’t be no good. St. Larnston mine be nothing but an old scat bal. There bain’t be no tin there and there won’t be no work for us here in this district.”

I was aghast. All my plans for saving the Abbas were being destroyed by this slow-speaking giant.

“Nonsense,” I said. “How can you know?”

“Because Ma’am, us have already made the investigation. We made ’un before Mr. Johnny was … before Mr. St. Larnston went.”

“You made it?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Us had our livings to think on. So a few on us got working on it at nights and I went down so I be certain sure there bain’t no tin in the St. Larnston mine.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“’Tis so, Ma’am.”

“You went down alone?”

“I thought it was best like, there being a danger of collapse — seeing it were my idea in the first place.”

“But … I … I shall get the experts to look into this.”

“Cost you a mint of money, Ma’am … and us tinners do know tin when we see it. Us have worked all our lives in the mine Ma’am. There bain’t no fooling we.”

“So that’s why there’s been no more agitation about opening the mine.”

“’Tis so, Ma’am. I and us tinners be going out to St. Agnes. There be work there for we. The best tin in Cornwall do come from St. Agnes way. We be leaving by the end of the week and we be taking the women and children with us. There be work for us there.”

“I see. Then there is nothing more to be said.”

He looked at me and I thought his eyes were like those of a spaniel. He seemed to be asking me for forgiveness. He would know of course that I needed the rich tin, for that all was not well at the Abbas would be common knowledge. It was Haggety and Mrs. Rolt and our servants who would now be wondering how
they
were going to live.

“I be sorry, Ma’am,” he said.

“I wish you good fortune at St. Agnes,” I answered. “You and everyone who goes there.”

“Thank ’ee, Ma’am.”

It was only after he had gone that I saw the double significance of this.

I knew, of course, that the men I had seen from my window were the tinners. They had been down the mine that very night and discovered it to be sterile. Then the thought hit me: that was before Johnny died. So they knew the mine had nothing to offer them. Why then should they kill Johnny? What was the point?

Then it was not these men who had killed him. Who then? Could it be that Johnny was not dead?