Legend of the Seventh Virgin (8 page)

“My daughter tells me that she has taught you to write. That’s very good. That’s excellent. You want to read and write, do you, Kerensa?”

“Yes, very much.”

“Why?”

I knew I mustn’t tell him the real reason, so I said craftily: “Because I want to read books, sir. Books like the Bible.”

That pleased him. “Then, my child,” he said, “since you have the ability, we must do all we can to help you. My daughter suggests that you join her with Miss Kellow tomorrow. I shall tell Mrs. Yeo to excuse you from the duties you would be doing at that time.”

I didn’t try to hide my joy because there was no need to, and he patted my shoulder.

“Now if you find that you would rather be at your tasks with Mrs. Yeo than those set you by Miss Kellow, you must say so.”

“I never shall!” I answered vehemently.

“Go along,” he said, “and pray earnestly that God will guide you in all you do.”

The decision which would never have been made in any other household caused consternation in this one.

“I never heard the like!” grumbled Mrs. Yeo. “Taking that sort and making a scholar of her. Mark my words, it’ll be Bodmin Asylum for some people afore long — and them not far distant from this room where I do stand. I tell ’ee, parson’s going out of his mind.”

Bess and Kit just whispered together that this was the result of a spell Granny Bee had put on parson. She wanted her granddaughter to be able to read and write like a lady. Just showed, didn’t it, what Granny Bee could do if she wanted to. I thought: this is going to be good for Granny, too!

Miss Kellow received me stonily; I could see that she was going to tell me that she, an impoverished gentlewoman, was not going to sink so low as teaching such as I was, without a struggle.

“This is madness,” she said when I presented myself.

“Why?” demanded Mellyora.

“How do you think we can continue with our studies when I have to teach the ABC.”

“She already knows it. She can already read and write.”

“I protest … strongly.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Mellyora. “Give a month’s notice?”

“I might do that. I would like you to know that I have taught in the house of a baronet.”

“You have mentioned it more than once,” retorted Mellyora acidly. “And since you so regret leaving that house, perhaps you should try to find another like it.”

She could be sharp when she had something to campaign for. What a champion she was!

“Sit down, child,” said Miss Kellow. I obeyed meekly enough because I was anxious to learn all she could teach me.

She tried to spoil everything, of course; but my desire to learn and to prove her wrong was so great that I astonished not only Mellyora and Miss Kellow but myself. Having mastered the art of reading and writing, I could easily improve without anybody’s help. Mellyora gave me book after book which I read avidly. I learned exciting facts about other countries and what happened in the past. Soon I should equal Mellyora; my secret plan was to surpass her.

But all the time I had to fight Miss Kellow; she hated me and was continually trying to prove how foolish it was to waste time on me, until I found a way to silence her.

I had watched her closely because I had already learned that if you have an enemy it is as well to know as much about him as you can discover. If you have to attack you must go for the vulnerable part. Miss Kellow had a secret. She was frightened of insecurity; she hated being unmarried, seeing in it some slur to her womanhood. I had seen her flinch at the reference to “old maids,” and I began to understand that she hoped to marry the Reverend Charles.

Whenever I was alone with her in the schoolroom, her manner to me would be disdainful; she never praised what I did; if she had to explain anything she would sigh with impatience. I disliked her. I should have hated her if I hadn’t known so much about her and recognized that she was as insecure as I was.

One day when Mellyora had left the schoolroom and I was putting our books away, I dropped a pile of them. She gave her unpleasant laugh.

“That’s not the way to treat books.”

“I couldn’t help dropping them, could I?”

“Pray be more respectful when you speak to me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I have a position here, because I’m a lady — something you will never be.”

Deliberately I set the books down on the table. I faced her and I gave her a look as scornful as the one she had given me.

“Leastways,” I said, lapsing into the dialect and accent which I was learning to drop, “reckon I wouldn’t be chasing an old parson, hoping as how he’ll marry me.”

She turned pale. “How … dare you!” she cried; but my words had struck as I had intended they should.

“Oh, I dare all right,” I retaliated. “I dare taunt you as you taunt me. Now listen, Miss Kellow, you treat me right and I’ll treat you right. I won’t say a word about you … and you’ll give me lessons just like I be Mellyora’s sister, see?”

She didn’t answer; she couldn’t; her lips were trembling too much. So I went out, knowing it was my victory. And so it proved to be. In future she did her best to help me learn, and stopped taunting me and when I did well she said so.

I felt as powerful as Julius Caesar whose exploits were fascinating me.

No one could have been more delighted than Mellyora at my progress. When I beat her at lessons she was genuinely delighted. She looked on me as a plant she was cultivating; when I didn’t do so well she was reproachful. I was discovering her to be a strange girl — not the simple creature I imagined. She could be as determined as I — or almost — and her life seemed to be governed by what she considered right and wrong, probably instilled by her father. She would do anything — however daring or bold — if she believed it to be right. She ruled the household because she had no mother and her father doted on her. So when she said that she needed a companion, a personal maid, I became that. It was, as Mrs. Yeo continually complained, something she had never heard the like of, but the parsonage was like a madhouse, she reckoned, so she couldn’t be expected to know what would happen next.

I was given a room next to Mellyora’s and was spending a great deal of time with her. I mended her clothes, washed them, shared her lessons and went for walks with her. She was very fond of teaching me and she taught me to ride, taking me round and round the meadow on her pony.

It didn’t occur to me how unusual this was. I simply believed that I had made a dream which was coming true, as Granny had told me that it would.

Mellyora and I were about the same height, but I was much more slender than she and when she gave me dresses which she no longer wanted, I only had to take them in to make them fit. I remember the first time I went home to the cottage wearing a blue and white gingham dress, white stockings, and black shiny shoes — all gifts from Mellyora. I carried a basket on my arm, because whenever I visited the cottage I took something.

Mrs. Yeo’s remarks had been the only disconcerting note to a perfect day. As I packed the basket, she said: “Miss Mellyora be like parson — very fond of giving away what she can’t afford to.”

I tried to forget that remark. I told myself that it was just another of Mrs. Yeo’s grumbles; but it was like a tiny dark cloud in a summer sky.

As I walked through the village I saw Hetty Pengaster, the farmer’s daughter. Before that day I had set myself up for hire at Trelinket Fair I had thought of Hetty with envy. She was the farmer’s only daughter, although he had two sons — Thomas, who farmed with him, and Reuben, who worked at Pengrants the builders, and was that young man who had thought he had seen the seventh virgin when the Abbas wall collapsed and consequently had become piskey-mazed. Hetty was the darling of the household, plumply pretty in an overripe way which made the old women shake their heads prophetically and say that Pengasters ought to watch out that Hetty didn’t have a baby in a cradle before she had a wedding ring on her finger. I saw what they meant; it was in the way she walked, in the sidelong glances she gave the men, in the thick, sensuous lips. She always had a ribbon in her auburn hair and her dresses were always showy and low cut.

She was all but affianced to Saul Cundy who worked in the Fedder mine. A strange alliance this would be — for Saul was a serious man who must have been some ten years older than Hetty. It would be a marriage approved of by her family, for Saul was no ordinary miner. He was known as Cap’en Saul and had the power to employ men; he was clearly a leader and one would have thought him scarcely the sort to come courting Hetty. Perhaps Hetty herself thought this and wanted to have some fun before settling down to sober marriage.

She mocked me now. “Well, if it bain’t Kerensa Carlee — all dressed up and fit to kill.”

I retorted in a tone I had learned from Mellyora: “I am visiting my Grandmother.”

“Ooo! Are you then, me lady. Mind ’ee don’t soil your hands with the likes of we.”

I heard her laughing as I went on and I didn’t mind in the least. In fact I was pleased. Why had I ever envied Hetty Pengaster? What was a ribbon in the hair, shoes on the feet, beside the ability to write and read and talk like a lady?

I had rarely felt as happy as I did when I continued on my way to the cottage.

I found Granny alone and her eyes shone with pride when she kissed me. No matter how much I learned I would never cease to love Granny and yearn for her approval.

“Where’s Joe?” I asked.

Granny was exultant.

I knew Mr. Pollent, the vet, who had a good business out Molenter way? Well, he had called at the cottage. He had heard tell that Joe was good with animals and he could do with someone like that … someone who would work for him. He would train him and make a vet of him, maybe.

“So Joe has gone to Mr. Pollent?”

“Well, what do ’ee think? Twas a chance in a lifetime.”

“A vet. I was planning for him to be a doctor.”

“A vet has a very good profession, lovey.”

“It’s not the same,” I replied wistfully.

“Well, ’tis a start like. Get his keep for a year, then he’ll be paid. And Joe be happy as a king. Don’t think of nothing but they animals.”

I repeated Granny’s words. “’Tis a start.”

“’Tis a load off my mind, too,” Granny admitted. “Now I see you two settled like, I be at peace.”

“Granny,” I said, “I reckon anything you want can be yours. Who’d have thought I’d be sitting here in buckled shoes and a gingham dress with lace at the collar.”

“Who’d have thought it,” she agreed.

“I dreamed it; and I wanted it so much that it came … Granny, it’s there, isn’t it? The whole world … it’s there if you know how to take it?”

Granny put her hand over mine. “Don’t ’ee forget, lovey, life bain’t all that easy. What if someone else has the same dream? What if they do want the same piece of the world as you. You’ve had luck. It’s all along of parson’s daughter. But don’t ’ee forget that was chance; and there be good chance and bad chance.”

I wasn’t really listening. I was too content. I was faintly chagrined, it was true, that it was only the vet to whom Joe had gone. If it had been Dr. Hilliard I should have felt like some magician who had found the keys to the kingdom on earth.

Still, it was a start for Joe; and there was more to eat in the cottage now. People were coming to see Granny. They believed in her again. Look at that granddaughter of hers worming her way into the parsonage! Look at that grandson! Mr. Pollent himself riding to the cottage to ask “Could I train him please?” What was that but witchcraft. Magic! Call it what you will. Any old woman who could do that could charm the warts off you, could give you the right powder to cure this and that, could look into the future and tell you what you belonged to do.

So Granny was prospering, too.

We were all prospering. There had never been such times.

I was singing to myself as I made my way back to the parsonage.