Legend of the Seventh Virgin (48 page)

“Hush,” she soothed. “You must not think such things.”

“But I have … as deeply as she did. More so. She broke her vows. I broke mine. I broke the vows of friendship, Mellyora.”

“You have had bad dreams.”

“Bad dreams of a bad life.”

“You have had a terrible experience. There is no need to be afraid.”

“Sometimes I think Reuben is in the room, that I shout and no one hears.”

“They have taken him away to Bodmin. He has been ill for a long time. Gradually getting worse …”

“Since Hetty went?”

“Yes.”

“How was it Kim was there to save me?”

“Because he had seen that the wall had been tampered with. He spoke to Reuben about it and Reuben said it had collapsed again. He said that he’d have it put right the next day. But Kim couldn’t understand why it should have collapsed when it had been rebuilt not so long ago … oh you remember when … we were children.”

“I remember well,” I told her. “We were all there together …”

“We all remember,” Mellyora answered. “Then you didn’t come home and I went to Kim … naturally.”

“Yes,” I said gently, “naturally you went to Kim.”

“I knew you’d gone to the cottage, so we went there first. It was unlocked and the door was wide open. Kim was frightened then. He ran on … because Reuben had said something strange to him about Hetty … and the idea must have come to him …”

“He guessed what Reuben was going to do?”

“He guessed something strange was happening and we might find out at the wall. Thank God, Kerensa.”

“And Kim,” I murmured.

Then I began to think of all I owed to Kim. Joe’s life probably and Joe’s present happiness; my life; my future happiness.

Kim, I thought, soon we shall be together and everything that has gone before will be forgotten. There will only be the future for us — for me and for you, my Kim.

I woke in the night, sobbing. I had had a bad dream. I was standing on the stairs with Mellyora and she was holding out the toy elephant to me.

I was saying: “It was this which killed her. You are free now, Mellyora … free.”

I awoke and saw Mellyora standing beside me, her fair hair in two plaits; thick and glistening, they looked like golden ropes.

“Mellyora,” I said.

“It’s all right. It was nothing but a bad dream.”

“These dreams … is there no escape from them?”

“They will pass when you remember that they are only dreams.”

“But they are part of the past, Mellyora. Oh you don’t know. I have been wicked, I’m afraid.”

“Now, Kerensa, stop saying such things.”

“Confession is good for the soul, they say. Mellyora I want to confess.”

“To me?”

“It is you whom I have wronged.”

“I shall give a sedative and you must try to sleep.”

“I will sleep better with a light conscience. I must tell you, Mellyora. I must tell you about the day Judith died. It was not as everyone believed. I know how she died.”

“You have had bad dreams, Kerensa.”

“Yes, that is why I must tell you. You will not forgive me … not deep in your heart although you will say you will. I kept silent when I should have spoken. I spoilt your life, Mellyora.”

“What are you saying? You must not excite yourself. Come take this and try to sleep.”

“Listen to me. Judith tripped. Do you remember Nelly … the elephant, Carlyon’s toy elephant?”

She looked alarmed. Clearly she thought I was wandering.

“Do you?” I persisted.

“But of course. It’s still about somewhere.”

“Judith tripped over it. The scar …”

Her brow was furrowed.

“The tear,” I went on. “You mended it. Judith’s heel made that. It was lying on the stairs and she tripped over it. I hid the elephant first because I didn’t want Carlyon blamed and then … afterwards because I thought that if it were proved to have been an accident Justin would never have gone away; he would have married you; you would have had a son who would have had everything — everything that I wanted for Carlyon.”

Silence in the room. Only the sound of the clock ticking on the mantelshelf. The dead silence of the Abbas by night. Somewhere in this house Kim was sleeping. Carlyon, too.

“Did you hear me, Mellyora?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“And do you hate me … for shaping your life … for ruining your life?”

She was silent for a while and I thought: I have lost her. I have lost Mellyora. First Granny, now Mellyora. But what do I care? I have Carlyon. I have Kim.

“It is all so long ago,” said Mellyora at length.

“But you might have married Justin. You might be mistress of the Abbas. You might have children. Oh, Mellyora, how you must hate me!”

“I could never hate you, Kerensa, besides …”

“When you remember it all … when it comes back to you clearly … when you remind yourself of all you have lost, you will hate me.”

“No, Kerensa.”

“Oh, you are so good … too good. Sometimes I hate your goodness, Mellyora. It makes you so weak. I would admire you more if you blazed at me in anger.”

“But I couldn’t do that now. It
was
wrong of you. It was wicked of you. But it is over. And now I want to say thank you, Kerensa. For I am glad you did what you did.”

“Glad … glad to have lost the man you loved … glad for a life of loneliness?”

“Perhaps I never loved Justin, Kerensa. Oh, I am not so meek as you believe me to be. If I had loved him, I should never have let him go. If he had loved me, he would never have gone. Justin loved the life of solitude. He is happy now as he never has been before. And so am I. It would have been a bitter mistake if we had married. You saved us from that, Kerensa. For the wrong motives, yes … but you saved us. And I am glad to be saved. I am so happy now … I could never have had happiness like this but for you. That’s what you have to remember.”

“You are trying to comfort me, Mellyora. You always did. I am not a baby to be soothed.”

“I had not meant to tell you yet. I was waiting until you were better. Then we were going to celebrate. We are all getting excited about it. Carlyon is thinking up a big surprise. It’s going to be a grand party, and we’re only waiting for you to be better.”

“To celebrate … what?”

“This is the time to tell you … to set your mind at rest. They won’t mind that I’ve told you … though we did plan to make an occasion of it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I knew as soon as he came back. And so did he. He knew it was the chief reason why he wanted to be back.”

“Who?”

“Kim, of course. He has asked me to marry him. Oh, Kerensa, life is so wonderful. So it was you who saved me. You see why I can only be grateful. We’re going to be married soon.”

“You … and Kim … oh
no
.
You
and Kim!”

She laughed. “You have been grieving all this time, thinking of Justin. But the past is done with, Kerensa. What has gone before isn’t important any more. It’s what lies ahead. Don’t you see?”

I lay back and closed my eyes.

Yes, I did see. I saw my dreams in ruins. I saw that I had learned nothing from the past.

I looked into a future as dark as the hollows between the walls. I was walled in with my misery.

T
here are children at the Abbas now — Mellyora’s and Kim’s. The eldest — called Dick, after his father — is ten years old and so like Kim that when I see them together my bitterness is almost unendurable.

I live at the Dower House and every day or so I walk across the meadow, past the ring of stones to the house. All sign of the mine has now been removed. Kim says that the St. Larnstons needed to know it was there, but the Kimbers have no need of it because they will love the place and work for it so that it will always prosper while there are Kimbers at St. Larnston.

Mellyora is a wonderful chatelaine. I have never known anyone as capable of happiness. She is able to forget the hardship she endured under old Lady St. Larnston, the unhappiness she suffered through Justin; she once told me that she looks on the past as a steppingstone to the future.

I wish that I could.

If only Granny were with me! If only I could talk to her! If only I could draw on her wisdom!

Carlyon is growing up. He is tall, bearing scarcely any resemblance to Johnny, but he’s a St. Larnston for all that. He is sixteen and spends more time with Joe than with me. He is like Joe — the same gentleness, the same absorption with animals. Sometimes I think he wishes that Joe were his father; and as Joe has no son of his own he can’t help being delighted by their relationship.

The other day I was talking to Carlyon of his future and, his eyes shining with enthusiasm, he said: “I want to go in with Uncle Joe.”

I was indignant. I reminded him that he would be Sir Carlyon one day and tried to make him see the future I had in mind for him. St. Larnston couldn’t be his, naturally, but I wanted him to be master of a big estate as, I pointed out, his ancestors had been for generations.

He was sad because he didn’t want to hurt me, and he believed I was going to be disappointed in him, for gentle as he is, he has a will of his own. How could I expect otherwise in
my
son?

This has put a gulf between us and it grows wider every day. Joe knows of it, and feels the boy should choose for himself. Joe is fond of me, although I sometimes think he is afraid of me. Only once or twice has he referred to that night when Kim and I brought him out of the woods; but he will never forget it. It moves him deeply to think what he owes to Kim and me; and although his outlook on life is different from mine, he understands me a little; he knows about my ambition for Carlyon. After all, I was once ambitious for Joe.

He talks to the boy; he has tried to persuade him that the life of a country vet, while pleasant enough for uneducated Uncle Joe, is not the life for Sir Carlyon.

But Carlyon remains firm; and so do I. I notice that he avoids being alone with me. To know this, and to be forced to watch the family at Abbas makes me ask myself: What happiness did all my scheming bring to me?

David Killigrew writes to me frequently. He is still a curate and his mother lives on. I should write to David and tell him I will never marry again. But I avoid it. It gives me pleasure to think of David waiting and hoping. It makes me feel important to someone.

Kim and Mellyora tell me I am important to them. Mellyora calls me her sister — Kim calls me his. Kim, whom my heart and body calls out for! We were meant for each other; sometimes I almost tell him so, but he is unaware.

He told me once that he loved Mellyora first when he heard that she had taken me home from Trelinket Fair. “She seemed so gentle,” he said, “and yet she was capable of such an act. Gentleness and strength, Kerensa. A perfect combination and the strength was all for someone else! That’s my Mellyora! And then when she brought you to the ball! Never be deceived by my Mellyora’s gentleness; it’s the gentleness of strength.”

I have to see them together and I have to pretend. I was at the birth of the children. Two boys and two girls. There will be more. The eldest will inherit the Abbas. He is being brought up to love it and work for it.

Why should this happen to me when I planned and worked … and came so far?

But I still have Carlyon and constantly I remind myself that he will be Sir Carlyon one day, for Justin cannot live much longer. He is a sick man. Sir Carlyon! He must have a future worthy of himself. I still have Carlyon to work for. I shall never allow him to be the village vet.

Sometimes I sit at my window looking out on the towers of the Abbas and weep silently. No one must know how I suffered. No one must know how I failed.

Sometimes I go and stand in the ring of stones and it seems to me that my fate is more wretched than theirs. They were turned to stone while they were dancing defiance. I wish I could have been.

M
ellyora and Kim came over from the Abbas this evening.

They were frightened.

“We want you to come back with us, Kerensa, just until they find him.”

I was cool. I have so far managed to hide my feelings; in fact one of my triumphs — the few left to me — is the manner in which I deceive them into thinking that I am just a good friend to them both.

“Find whom?”

“It’s Reuben Pengaster. He’s escaped. They rather think he’ll come back here.”

Reuben Pengaster! It was years ago that he had tried to wall me up. There had been times when I told myself I wished he had succeeded; if he had, I should have gone to my death believing that Kim loved me as I loved him; and it seems that the greatest tragedy of my life was learning otherwise.

I laughed. “I’m not afraid.”

“Listen, Kerensa.” This was Kim speaking, his voice stern, his eyes clouded with concern for me. “I’ve heard from Bodmin. They’re specially concerned. For the last days he’s been acting strangely. He said he had something to do and he was going to do it. It was something that he should have done before they took him, he says. They’re certain he’ll come back here.”

“Then they’ll have guards here. They’ll be watching for him.”

“People like that are cunning. Remember what he almost did.”

“But for you, Kim,” I reminded him gently.

Kim shrugged impatiently. “Come over to the Abbas. Then our minds will be at peace.”

I thought: Why should your minds be at peace? Mine has not been all these years because of you.

I said: “You’re exaggerating. I shall be perfectly all right here. I’m not moving.”

“It’s crazy,” Kim insisted; and Mellyora was almost in tears.

“We’ll come over here then,” went on Kim.

I was happy to see his concern. I wanted him to go on worrying about me all through the night.

“I’m not having you here and I’m staying here,” I said finally. “This is exaggeration. Reuben Pengaster has forgotten my existence.”

I sent them away and I waited.