Legend of the Seventh Virgin (42 page)

I discussed the future with Mellyora. She was becoming gay again; it was as though she had escaped from a spell Justin had put on her. This was the Mellyora who had championed me at the fair. Her adoration for Justin had made her meek, a patient Griselda; now she was recovering her own personality.

“You see yourself as a benevolent god, ruling us all,” she told me. “The rest of us are like little kings whom you have put in charge of our kingdoms. If we do not rule as you think we should, you want to take over and rule for us.”

“What a fantastic notion!”

“Not when you consider. You wanted to manage Joe’s life … Johnny’s … Carlyon’s …”

I thought with a twinge of remorse: Yours too, Mellyora. If you did but know it, I
have
governed your life too.

I should tell her one day because I should not be completely at rest until I did.

I decided that we must move to the Dower House. Haggety and the Salts found other employment. Tom Pengaster at last married Doll, and Daisy came with us to the Dower House. The solicitors took over the management of the estate and the Polores and Trelances stayed in their cottages and continued their work, while Mrs. Rolt remained at the Abbas as housekeeper — Florrie Trelance coming in from the cottages to help her.

The Abbas was to be let furnished, which could mean that, with care, by the time Carlyon was of age he might be able to afford to live in it himself. It seemed as satisfactory as a temporary arrangement could be. Each day I went to the Abbas to make sure that everything was being kept in order.

Carlyon was content with the Dower House; together Mellyora and I taught him. He was a docile pupil, though not a brilliant one and often I would see him looking wistfully out of the windows when the sun was shining. Every Saturday he accompanied Joe on his rounds and they were his red-letter days.

We had had only two prospective tenants. One had found the Abbas far too big; the other considered it eerie. I began to think it would remain empty, waiting for us to return.

It had always amazed me how important events burst suddenly upon one. I feel there should be some warning, some little premonition. But there rarely is.

I rose that morning rather late as I had overslept, and when I dressed and went down to breakfast I found a letter awaiting me from the agents who were dealing with the house. They were sending a client along that afternoon, and hoped three o’clock would be a convenient time.

I told Mellyora as we sat at breakfast.

“I wonder what will be wrong this time,” she said. “Sometimes I think we are never going to find a tenant.”

At three o’clock I walked over to the Abbas, thinking that I should be wretched when I could not go in and out as I wished. But perhaps we should become friendly with the new tenants. Perhaps we should receive invitations to dine. How strange — to go to dine in the Abbas as a guest. It would be like that occasion when I had gone to the ball.

Mrs. Rolt was unhappy, sadly missing the old days and, I was sure, all the gossip round the table.

“I don’t know what we are coming to,” she would say every time I saw her. “My dear life, the Abbas be a quiet sad place these days. I never knew the like.”

I knew she was wishing for a tenant, someone to spy on, to gossip about.

Soon after three there was loud knocking on the main door.

I stayed in the library and Mrs. Rolt went to let in the visitor. I felt melancholy. I did not want anyone to live in the Abbas, and yet I knew someone must.

There was a knock on the door, and Mrs. Rolt appeared with a look of blank astonishment on her face; and then I heard a voice; Mrs. Rolt stepped aside and I thought I must be dreaming, for it was like a dream — a long cherished dream — coming true.

Kim was coming towards me.

Those were, I believe, the happiest weeks of my life. It is difficult now to record exactly what happened. I remember his picking me up in his arms; I remember his face close to mine, the laughter in his eyes.

“I wouldn’t let them mention my name. I wanted to surprise you.” I remember Mrs. Rolt standing in the doorway; the distant murmur of “My dear life!” And I wanted to repeat “My dear life … my dear
dear
life!” because it had suddenly become very precious.

He hadn’t changed much, I told him. He looked at me. “You have. I used to say you were becoming a very fascinating woman. Now you’ve become one.”

How can I describe Kim? He was gay, full of high spirits, teasing, mocking yet at the same time tender. He had wit but it was never used to hurt others; I think that was what made him a very special person. He laughed with people, never at them. He made you feel that you were important to him — as important as he was to you. Perhaps I saw him in a rosy glow because I was in love with him, and I knew as soon as he returned that I was in love with him, and had been ever since that night he had carried Joe to safety.

His father was dead, he told me; when he had retired from the sea, they had settled together in Australia and had bought a ranch there. They had bought it cheaply and made money raising cattle; then suddenly he had decided that he had made enough money; he sold out at a high figure and had come home with a fortune. What did I think of that for a success story?

I thought it was wonderful. I thought everything was wonderful — life, everything — because he had returned.

We talked so much that the time fled by. I told him all that happened since his departure — how Mellyora and I had worked at the Abbas, how I had married Johnny.

He took my hands and looked at me with concentration.

“So you married, Kerensa?”

I told him about Johnny’s disappearance, how Justin had gone away when Judith had died, how we had fallen on hard times and that was why the Abbas was to let.

“So much happening at home!” he said. “And I not knowing it!”

“But you must have thought of us. Otherwise you wouldn’t have wanted to come back.”

“I’ve thought of you continually. I’ve often said, ‘I wonder what’s happening back home. One day I’ll go and see …’ And there was Kerensa marrying Johnny; and Mellyora … Mellyora, like me, never married. I must see Mellyora. And your son, I must see him. Kerensa with a son! And you called him Carlyon! Oh, I remember Miss Carlyon. Well, Kerensa, if that is not just like you.”

I took him to the Dower House. Mellyora had just returned from a walk with Carlyon. She stared at Kim as though she were seeing a vision. Then laughing — and almost crying I believe — she was in his arms.

I watched them. They were greeting each other like the old friends they were. But already my love for Kim was beginning to take possession of me. I did not like his attention to stray for one moment from me.

I visited Granny Bee every day because something told me that I should not be able to do so for much longer. I would sit there by her bed and she would talk to me of the past, which was what she loved to do. There were occasions when she seemed to get lost in the past like someone wandering in a maze; at others she would be lucid and very perceptive.

One day she said to me: “Kerensa, you have never been so beautiful as you are now. ’Tis the beauty of a woman in love.”

I flushed. I was afraid to talk of this feeling I had for Kim. I felt superstitious about it. I wanted to forget what had gone before; I wanted a different kind of life, governed by different emotions.

I felt frustrated because each day it was becoming clearer to me that I wanted to marry Kim. And how could I, when I did not know whether or not I had a husband living.

Granny wanted to talk about Kim and was determined to.

“So he’s back then, lovey. I’ll never forget the night he carried Joe home from the woods. He were our friend from that night on.”

“Yes,” I said. “How afraid we were then, but we need not have been.”

“He’s a good man and ’twere he who spoke to Mr. Pollent. When I think what our Joe owes to him I bless him with all my strength, I do.”

“I too, Granny.”

“I can see it. There’s something else I’d like to see, Granddaughter.”

I waited and she went on softly: “There was never barriers between we two. Nor should there ever be. I’d like to see you married happy, Kerensa, which is something you haven’t had yet.”

“To Kim?” I said quietly.

“Aye. He be the man for you.”

“I think so too, Granny. But perhaps I’ll never know whether I’ll be free to marry.”

She closed her eyes and just as I thought she might have gone meandering into the past, she said suddenly: “’T’as been on the tip end of my tongue to tell ’ee these many times and I’ve said, ‘No, better not.’ But I don’t say ‘No,’ no longer, Kerensa. I don’t think I’ll be with ’ee much longer, child.”

“Don’t say it, Granny. I couldn’t bear it if you weren’t.”

“Oh, child, you’ve been a regular comfort to me. I’ve often thought of the day you walked in with your little brother … come to look for Granny Bee! That were one of the happy days of my life and I’ve had many. It’s a great thing to marry the man you love, Kerensa, and have children by him. Reckon that be one of the real reasons for living. Not rising above what you was born, not getting big houses. I’d like ’ee to know the sort of happiness I’ve had, Kerensa, and you can find it inside of four cob walls. You should know it now, girl, because now you’ve got the shine of love on you; and if I be right, you’m free.”

“Granny, you
know
that Johnny is dead?”

“I didn’t see him die. But I know what goes on and I think I be right …”

I leaned close to the bed. Was she dreaming? Was she really thinking of Johnny or had her mind lost itself in the past?

She read my thoughts, for she smiled gently and said: “No, I be clear in the mind, Kerensa, and I shall tell you now all that happened and led up to this. I didn’t tell ’ee before because I weren’t sure it were good for ’ee to know. Can you cast your mind back to a night when you come to me from the Abbas. You was lady’s maid then to her that fell down the stairs and while you was here you saw a shadow at the window? Do ’ee remember, Kerensa?”

“Yes, Granny, I remember.”

“Twas someone looking in as wanted to see me and wanted to make sure none see her come. It were Hetty Pengaster — five months with child and frightened. She was afraid of discovery, she says, and her father so strict and her spoken for by Saul Cundy and it couldn’t be his. She were frightened, poor girl. She wanted to wipe out all sign of what she’d been up to, and start again. Learned, she had, that Saul were the man for her; and she wished she hadn’t listened when the other came courting.”

I said quietly: “Her child was Johnny’s?”

Granny went on: “I said to her, ‘Tell I who be the father,’ and her wouldn’t tell. Said she mustn’t tell. He’d told her not. He was going to do something for her, she said. He’d have to. She were meeting him the next night and she was going to make him see that he’d got to do something for her. She believed he might marry her, but I could tell she were fooling herself. Then she went away, fair mazed she were. Her father being so strict and her being spoken for by Saul. She were frightened of Saul. Saul weren’t the sort to let another take what were his …”

“And she didn’t tell you Johnny was the man?”

“No, she didn’t tell, but I feared it. I knew how he were after you, and that made me determined like to find out if he were the man. I said to her bain’t you feared someone will see you meeting like, and Saul or your father’ll come to hear on it? She said No, they did always meet in the meadow by the Virgins and the old mine and ’twere safe enough there, for people didn’t like to be there after dark. I can tell ’ee, I was worried. I wanted to know if it were Johnny. I had to know on account of you.”

“And it was, Granny. Of course it was. I always knew he had a fancy for her.”

“I was worried all that day, and I said to myself, Kerensa’ll work out her destiny, same as you did. And I thought of how I’d gone to Sir Justin and deceived my Pedro and how I’d tell myself now ’twere all for the best. And thinking of Pedro I dressed my hair with my comb and mantilla and I sat wondering what I was going to do when I found out Johnny were the father of Hetty’s child. I had first to be certain, so that night I went to the meadow and I waited there. I hid myself behind the biggest Virgin and I saw them meet. There were a crescent moon and the stars were bright. Twas enough to show me. Hetty, she were crying and he were pleading with her. I couldn’t hear what were said, for they didn’t come near enough to the stones. I think she were frightened of them. Maybe she thought like one of they Virgins she’d be turned to stone. Close to the mine shaft they were. And I think she were threatening to throw herself down if he didn’t marry her. I knew her wouldn’t. Her was only threatening. But he were frightened. I guessed he were trying to persuade her to leave St. Larnston. I moved away from the stones to try to hear what they were saying and I heard her say: ‘I’ll kill myself, Johnny. I’ll throw myself down there.’ And he said, ‘Don’t be silly. You’d do no such thing. You don’t fool me. Go back to your father and tell him. He’ll get you married in time.’ Then she was real angry; she stood for a moment poised there on the edge. I wanted to shout to him: Leave her be. She won’t do it! But he didn’t leave her be. He caught her arm … I heard her cry out suddenly and then … he were there alone.”