Legend of the Seventh Virgin (12 page)

“Mellyora … but when she knows!”

“She won’t. I changed your name just in case she might know you. She got the impression that you are my Aunt, although I didn’t say so. It’s a masked ball. She’ll receive us at the staircase. You’ll have to try to look of sober years … old enough to take a young lady to a ball. I’m so excited about it now, Kerensa. We’ll have to decide what we’re going to wear. Costumes! Just imagine it. Everyone will look glorious. By the way, you’ll be Miss Carlyon.”

“Miss Carlyon,” I murmured. Then: “How can I get a costume?”

She put her head on one side. “You should have worked harder on your needlework. You see, Papa is worried about money so he can’t give me very much to buy a gown; and we’ll have to find two out of one.”

“How can I go without a gown?”

“Don’t be so easily defeated. ‘Life is yours to make it as you will.’ What about that? And here you are saying ‘can’t, can’t, can’t,’ at the first obstacle.” She put her arms round me suddenly and clung to me. “It’s fun having a sister,” she said. “What was that your old Granny said about sharing things?”

“That if you shared your joys you doubled them; if you shared your sorrows you halved them.”

“It’s true. Now that you’re coming, I’m so excited.” She pushed me away from her and sat down on the bed again. “The first thing to do is to decide what costumes we should like to wear; and then we’ll see how near we can get to them. Picture yourself looking like one of those paintings in the gallery at the Abbas. Oh, you haven’t seen them. Velvet, I think. You would make a fine Spaniard with your dark hair piled up high and a comb and a mantilla.”

I was excited now. I said, “I have Spanish blood; my grandfather was Spanish. I could get the comb and mantilla.”

“There, you see. Red velvet, I think, for you. My Mamma had a red velvet evening gown. Her things haven’t been touched.” She was up again, taking my hands and twirling me round. “The masks are easy. You cut them out of black velvet, and we’ll do patterns on them with beads. We’ve got three weeks to get ready.”

I was far more excited than she. It was true my invitation was a little oblique and would never have been given had Lady St. Larnston known who was receiving it; but still, I was going. I was going to wear a red velvet dress which I had seen and tried on. It had to be altered and reshaped, but we could do it. Miss Kellow helped, not very graciously, but she was an expert needlewoman.

I was pleased because my costume was costing nothing, and the money — not very much — which the Reverend Charles had given Mellyora could all be spent on her. We decided that her costume should be Grecian, so we bought white velvet and gold-colored silk on which we sewed gold sequins. It was a loose-fitting gown caught in by gold, and with her hair falling about her shoulders and in her black velvet mask she looked beautiful.

As the days passed we talked of nothing but the ball and Sir Justin’s health. We were terrified that he would die and the ball have to be canceled.

I went to tell Granny Bee about it.

“I’m going as a Spanish lady,” I told her. “It’s the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me.”

She looked at me a little sadly; then she said: “Don’t count on too much from it, lovey.”

“I’m not counting on anything,” I said. “I’m just reminding myself that I shall go in the Abbas … as a guest. I shall be dressed in red velvet. Granny, you should see the dress I’m to wear.”

“Parson’s daughter have been good to you, lovey. Be her friend always.”

“Of course I shall. She’s as glad to have me to go with her as I am to go. Miss Kellow thinks I shouldn’t be going, though.”

“’Tis to be hoped she don’t find some way of telling Lady St. Larnston who you be.”

I shook my head triumphantly. “She wouldn’t dare.”

Granny went to the storehouse and I followed and watched while she opened the box and took out the two combs and mantillas.

“I like to put mine on some nights,” she said. “Then when I’m here alone I fancy Pedro’s with me. For that’s how he did like to see me. Come. Let me try this on you.” Lightly she held up my hair and stuck the comb in the back. It was a tall comb set with brilliants. “You look just as I did at your age, lovey. Now the mantilla.” She draped it about my head and stood back. “When it is done as it should be, there won’t be one of ’em to touch you,” she declared. “I’d like to dress your hair myself, Granddaughter.”

It was the first time she had addressed me thus and I could sense her pride in me.

“Come to the parsonage on the night, Granny,” I said. “Then you can see my room and dress my hair for me.”

“Would it be allowed?”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not a servant there … not really. Only you can dress my hair, so you must.”

She laid her hand on my arm and smiled at me.

“Take care, Kerensa,” she said. “Always take care.”

An invitation had arrived for me. It said that Sir Justin and Lady St. Larnston requested the pleasure of Miss Carlyon at the costume ball. Mellyora and I were almost hysterical with laughter when we read it, and Mellyora kept calling me Miss Carlyon in an imitation of Lady St. Larnston’s voice.

There was no time to lose. When our dresses were finished we tried them on every day and I practiced wearing the comb and mantilla. We sat together making our masks, sewing shiny black bugle beads on them so that they glittered. Those days were some of the happiest of my life.

We practiced dancing. It was very easy when you were young and light on your feet, Mellyora said. You simply followed your partner; I discovered that I could dance well and I loved it.

During those days we did not notice that the Reverend Charles was growing more and more wan every day. He spent a great deal of time in his study. He knew how excited we were and I think — although this didn’t occur to me until afterwards — that he didn’t want to cast the slightest shadow over our pleasure.

At last the day of the ball arrived. Mellyora and I dressed in our costumes and Granny came to the parsonage to do my hair.

She brushed it and put some of her special concoction on it so that it gleamed and shone. Then came the comb and the mantilla. Mellyora clasped her hands in admiration when she saw the effect.

“Everyone will notice Miss Carlyon,” she said.

“It looks well here in this bedroom,” I reminded her. “But think of all the lovely costumes those rich people will be wearing. Diamonds and rubies …”

“And all you two do have is youth,” said Granny. She laughed. “Reckon some of ’em would be willing to barter their diamonds and rubies for that.”

“Kerensa looks
different
,” pointed out Mellyora. “And although they’ll all look their best, no one will look quite like her.”

We put on our masks and stood side by side giggling as we studied our reflections.

“Now,” said Mellyora, “we look quite mysterious.”

Granny went home and Miss Kellow drove us to the Abbas. The trap looked incongruous among all the fine carriages but that only amused us; as for me I was approaching the culmination of a dream.

I was overwhelmed as I stepped into the hall; I tried to see everything at once and consequently had nothing more than a hazy impression. A chandelier with what seemed like hundreds of candles; walls hung with tapestry; pots of flowers — the scent of which filled the air; people everywhere. It was like straying into one of those foreign courts which I had read about in history lessons. Many of the ladies’ dresses were fourteenth-century Italian I learned afterwards and several of them wore their hair caught into jewelled snoods. Brocades, velvets, silks and satins. It was a glorious assembly; and what made it all the more exciting were the masks we were all wearing. I was thankful for them; I could feel more like one of them when there was no danger of being discovered.

We were to unmask at midnight; but by then the ball would be over and this Cinderella-like condition cease to worry me.

A wide and beautiful staircase was at one end of the hall and we followed the crowd up this to where Lady St. Larnston, her mask in her hand, was receiving her guests.

We stood in a long and lofty room on either side of which were portraits of the St. Larnstons. Painted in their gorgeous silks and velvets they might have been members of the party. There were evergreen plants about the room and gilded chairs such as I have never seen before. I wanted to examine everything closely.

I was conscious of Mellyora beside me. She was very simply clad compared with most of the women, but I thought she was more lovely than any of the others, with her golden hair and the gold about her slim waist.

A man in green velvet doublet and long green hose came towards us.

“Tell me if I’m wrong,” he said, “but I believe I’ve guessed. It’s the golden locks.”

I knew that voice to be Kim’s, although I shouldn’t have recognized him in that costume.

“You look beautiful,” he went on. “And so does the Spanish lady.”

“Kim, you shouldn’t have guessed so soon,” complained Mellyora.

“No. I should have pretended to be puzzled. I should have asked lots of questions and then, just before the stroke of midnight, guessed.”

“At least,” said Mellyora, “you’ve only guessed me.”

He had turned to me and I saw his eyes through the mask; I could guess how they looked; laughing, with the wrinkles round them; they almost disappeared when he laughed.

“I confess myself baffled.”

Mellyora sighed with relief.

“I had thought you would be here with your father,” he went on.

“He is not well enough to come.”

“I’m sorry. But glad it didn’t prevent your appearing.”

“Thanks to my … chaperone.”

“Oh, so the Spanish beauty is your chaperone?” He pretended to peer behind my mask. “She seems too young for the role.”

“Don’t talk about her as though she’s not here. She won’t like that.”

“And I’m so eager to win her approval. Does she speak only Spanish?”

“No, she speaks English.”

“She hasn’t spoken any yet.”

“Perhaps she only speaks when she has something to say.”

“Oh, Mellyora, are you reproaching me? Lady of Spain,” he went on, addressing me, “I trust my presence does not offend you.”

“It doesn’t offend me.”

“I breathe again. May I conduct you two young ladies to the buffet.”

“That would be pleasant,” I said, speaking slowly and guardedly, because I was afraid, now that I was here among the people with whom I had always longed to mix, that I might by some inflection of voice, some trace of accent or intonation betray my origins.

“Come then.” Kim stood between us gripping our elbows as he piloted us through the crowd.

We sat at one of the little tables by the dais on which large tables laden with food had been set up. I had never seen so much food in my life. Pies and pasties being the main dish of rich and poor alike, there were more of these than anything else. But what pies and pasties! The pastry was a rich golden brown and some of the pies had been made into fantastic shapes. In the center was one which was a model of the Abbas. There were the battlemented towers and the arched doorway. People were looking at it and expressing their admiration. On the pies, figures of animals had been decorated to show what they contained; sheep for the muggety and lammy pies, pig for nattlins, tiny piglets for taddage to show that the pigs were stillborn; a bird for squab and curlew. There were great dishes of clotted cream, for the gentry, who could get it, always took cream with their pies. There were meats of all sorts; slices of beef and ham; there were pilchards served in various ways — in pies and in what we called fair maids and which Pedro had told Granny was really the Cornish way of pronouncing fumado. Pilchards served with oil and lemon and called by the Spaniards food fit for the grandest Spanish Don.