The legend of the seventh virgin

2

I soon began to realize what a great opportunity Mellyora had given me, and although later strange things were to happen about me and to me, that first year at the parsonage seemed to me, while I lived it, the most exciting time of my life. I suppose it was because that was when the realization came to me that I could begin to climb into another world.

Mellyora was my opportunity. I understood that she was attracted by me in the same way that I was by her. She had discovered in me this tremendous urge to escape from an environment which I hated; and she was fascinated.

I had my enemies in the house, naturally. The most formidable of these was Miss Kellow. Prim, a parson's daughter herself, she was constantly on her dignity, eager to prove that only misfortune had forced her to earn her living. She had an affection for Mellyora, but she was an ambitious woman and I, who possessed that quality in excess, was quick to observe it in others. Like myself, she was dissatisfied with her lot and planned to improve it. There was Mrs. Yeo, the cook-housekeeper who looked upon herself as head of the staff, including Miss Kellow. There was a feud between those two which worked to my advantage, for although Mrs. Yeo couldn't, as she said, for the life of her see why I had been brought into the house, she didn't resent me quite as much as Miss Kellow did, and was inclined, at times, to take my part, simply because to do so was to be in opposition to Miss Kellow. There was the groom, Tom Belter, and the stableboy, Billy Toms; they were inclined to view me more favorably, but I would have none of the familiarities they gave to Kit and Bess, the two maids, and I quickly made this clear; even so, they bore me no grudge and they were inclined to respect me for it. Kit and Bess regarded me with awe; this was because I was Granny Bee's granddaughter; they would sometimes ask me questions about Granny, they wanted her advice in their love affairs, or some herb that would improve their complexions. I was able to help them, and this made life more comfortable for me, because in exchange they would do some of the tasks which had been allotted to me.

For the first few days in the parsonage I saw little of Mellyora; I thought then that she had done her good deed and left it at that. I was handed over to Mrs. Yeo, who, when she had done complaining about my unnecessary presence, found jobs for me to do. I did them uncomplainingly for those first days.

When Mellyora had brought the parson to her bedroom on that first day, I had asked if I might run and tell my Granny where I was going to be and permission was readily granted. Mellyora had come with me to the kitchen and herself packed a basket of dainty food which I was to take for my poor brother who had fallen off the tree. So I was in a rather exalted state when I arrived at the cottage to tell the result of my standing for hire at Trelinket Fair.

Granny held me in her arms, nearer to tears than I had ever seen her. "The parson's a good man,'' she declared. "There's no better in the whole of St. Larnston. And his girl's a good girl. You'll do well there, my love."

I told her about Haggety and Mrs. Rolt and how they had nearly hired me, and she laughed with me when I told her how flabbergasted they were to see me walk off with Mellyora.

We unpacked the basket but I wouldn't eat a thing. It was for them, I said. I should eat very well at the parsonage.

This in itself was like a dream coming true because hadn't I imagined myself playing the lady bountiful?

The elation faded during those first few days when I didn't see Mellyora and was set to scouring pots and pans or turning the spit or preparing vegetables and swabbing floors. But there was the compensation of eating well. No sky blue and sinkers here. But I remember during those first days hearing a remark that astonished me. I was cleaning the slate floor of the cooling house where the butter, cheeses, and milk were kept, when Belter came into the kitchen to talk to Mrs. Yeo. I heard him give her a noisy kiss and that made me more alert. "You give over, young man," said Mrs. Yeo, giggling. He didn't give over and there were sounds of scuffling and heavy breathing. Then she said: "Sit down then, and stop it. Them maidens'll be seeing you. wouldn't do for they to get to know what sort of man you be, Master Belter."

"Nay, that be our secret, eh, Mrs. Yeo?"

"Give over. Give over." Then: 'We've got that Granny Bee's girl here, did you know?"

"Ay, I've seen 'un. Sharp as a wagonload of monkeys, I reckon."

"Ay, I've seen 'un. Sharp enough. What beats me ... why do we have her here then? Parson finds it hard enough, lord to you know, to feed us all. Then they brings this one in—and she can give a pretty good account on herself when it comes to the table. Better she be at that than doing her work, I can tell 'ee."

"So things be bad then?"

"Oh, you do know, if parson has a halfpenny, he'll give away a penny."

They quickly found something of more interest to them than the parson's affairs or my arrival; but I went on thinking as I swabbed the floor. Everything had seemed luxurious in the parsonage; it was astonishing to consider that in this house they found it difficult to make ends meet.

I didn't really believe it. It was just the servants' gossip.

I hadn't been a week at the parsonage when I realized my great good fortune. I had been sent to clean Mellyora's room while she was having her lesson in the library with Miss Kellow, and as soon as I was alone in the room I went to the bookcase and opened one of the books. It had pictures in it with captions underneath. I stared at these, trying to understand what they were. I felt angry and frustrated, like someone shut up in a prison while the most exciting things in the world are happening just outside.

I wondered if I could teach myself to read if I took one of the books and looked at it, learned the shape of the letters, copied them, remembered them. I forgot all about cleaning the room. I sat on the floor, took one book after another, tried to make comparisons of letters to give me a clue as to what they meant. I was still sitting there when Mellyora came into the room.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

I shut the book hastily and said: "I'm cleaning your room."

She laughed. "Nonsense. You were sitting on the floor reading. What were you reading, Kerensa? I didn't know you could read."

"You're laughing at me," I cried. "Stop it. Don't think because you hired me at a fair you bought me!"

"Kerensa!" she said haughtily as she had spoken to Miss Kellow.

Then I felt my lips tremble and her face changed at once.

"Why were you looking at the books?" she asked gently. "Tell me, please. I want to know."

It was the "please" which made me blurt out the truth. "It's not fair," I said. "I could read if someone would show me."

"So you want to read?"

"Of course I want to read and write. More than anything in the world I want to."

She sat on the bed, crossed her pretty feet, and looked at her shiny shoes. "Well, that's easy enough," she said. "You must be taught."

"Who'll teach me?"

"I will, of course."

That was the beginning. She did teach me, although she admitted afterwards that she thought I would soon tire of learning. Tire! I was indefatigable. In the attic which I shared with Bess and Kit, I would wake with the dawn and write the letters, copying those Mellyora had set for me; I would steal candles from Mrs. Yeo's store cupboard and bum them half the night. I threatened Bess and Kit with horrible misfortunes if they should tell on me, and because I was Granny Bee's granddaughter, they meekly agreed to keep my secret.

Mellyora was astounded by my progress and on the day I wrote my name unaided, she was quite overcome by emotion.

"It's a shame," she said, "that you have to do this other work. You ought to be in the schoolroom."

A few days later the Reverend Charles summoned me to his study. He was very thin, with kind eyes and a skin that seemed to grow more and more yellow every day. His clothes were too big for him and his light-brown hair was always ruffled and untidy. He didn't care much about himself; he cared a great deal about the poor and people's souls; and more than anything in the world he cared for Mellyora. You could see that he thought of her as one of the angels he was always preaching about. She could do exactly what she liked with him, so it was lucky for me that one thing she had inherited from him was this caring about other people. He always looked rather worried. I had thought that this was because he was thinking of all the people who would go to hell, but after I overheard the conversation between Mrs. Yeo and Belter, it occurred to me that he might be worried about all the food being eaten in this house and how he was going to pay for it.

"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 Capten 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 ain'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 Td 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 ain'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.

Mellyora and I were together a great deal now that I was a fit companion for her. I imitated her in lots of ways—walking, speaking, remaining still when I spoke, keeping my voice low, holding in my temper, being cold instead of hot. It was a fascinating study. Mrs. Yeo had ceased to grumble; Bess and Kit had ceased to marvel; Belter and Billy Toms no longer called out when I passed; they even called me Miss. And even Miss Kellow was polite to me. I had no duties in the kitchen at all; my task was to look after Mellyora's clothes, do her hair, walk with her, read with her and to her, talk to her. The life of a lady! I assured myself. And it was now two years since I had put myself up for hire at Trelinket Fair.

But I had much to achieve. I was always a little downcast when Mellyora received invitations and went off on visits. Sometimes Miss Kellow accompanied her, sometimes her father; I never did. None of those invitations, naturally, was extended to Mellyora's maid, companion, whatever one liked to call her.

She often went to call at the doctor's house with her father; on very rare occasions she went to the Abbas; she never went to the Dower House because, as she explained to me, Kim's father was a sea captain and he was rarely at home, and during the vacation Kim wasn't expected to entertain; but when she went to the Abbas she often found him there, because he was a friend of Justin's.

After Mellyora returned from a visit to the Abbas she was always subdued and I guessed that the place meant something to her, too—either that or the people. I could see reason in this. It must be wonderful to go boldly into the Abbas as a guest. One day that would happen to me. I was sure of it.

One Easter Sunday I learned more about Mellyora than I had ever known before. Sundays were naturally busy days at the parsonage because of all the church services. The sound of bells went on for most of the day and since we were so near they appeared to be right in the house.

I always went to morning service which I enjoyed, chiefly I have to admit because I would be wearing one of Mellyora's straw hats and one of her gowns; and sitting in the parsonage's pew I felt grand and important I loved the music, too, which always put me in a state of exultation and I liked to praise and give thanks to God who made dreams come true. The sermons I found dull for the Reverend Charles was not an inspired speaker and when, during them, I studied the congregation, my eyes invariably came to rest on the Abbas pews.

These were at the side of the church—set apart from the rest. There were usually quite a number of servants from the house in church. The front row where the family sat was almost always empty.

Immediately behind the Abbas pew were the lovely glass windows said to be some of the best in Cornwall—blue, red, green and mauve glinting in sunshine; they were exquisite and had been given to the church by a St. Larnston a hundred or more years before; on the two walls on either side of the pews were memorials dedicated to past St. Larnstons. Even in church one had the impression that the St. Larnstons owned it like everything else.

The whole family was in the pew this day. I suppose because it was Easter. There was Sir Justin, whose face seemed more purple—just as the parson's seemed more yellow—every time I saw him; there was his wife, Lady St. Larnston, tall with a long, somewhat hooked nose, very imperious and arrogant-looking; and the two sons, Justin and Johnny, who hadn't changed a great deal since that day I had encountered them in the walled garden. Justin looked cold and calm; he was more like his mother than Johnny was, Johnny was short compared with his brother, and lacked Justin's dignity; his eyes kept roaming round the church as though he were looking for someone.

I loved the Easter service and the flowers which decorated the altar; I loved the joyous singing of "Hosanna." I felt I knew what it must be like to be risen from the dead; while, during the sermon I studied the occupants of the Abbas pews, I was thinking of Sir Justin's father fancying Granny and how she went to him in secret for Pedro's sake. I wondered what I should have done in Granny's place.

Then I was aware that beside me, Mellyora was also studying the Abbas pew; her expression was rapt and completely absorbed—and she was looking straight at Justin St. Larnston. There was a sheen of pleasure on her face and she looked prettier than I had ever seen her look before. She is fifteen, I said to myself, old enough to be in love, and she's in love with young Justin St. Larnston.

There seemed to be no end to what I was discovering about Mellyora. I must find out more. I must make her talk about Justin.

I kept my eyes on the St. Larnston family and before the service was over I knew who Johnny was looking for. Hetty Pengaster! Mellyora and Justin —that was understandable. But Johnny and Hetty Pengaster!

That afternoon the sun shone warmly for the time of the year and Mellyora had a fancy to go out of doors. We put on big shady hats because Mellyora said we mustn't let the sun spoil our complexions. Her fair one was very susceptible to sunshine and she freckled easily; my olive skin seemed indifferent; all the same I liked to put on a shady hat because it was what ladies did.

Mellyora stood in a solemn mood and I wondered whether it had anything to do with seeing Justin in church that morning. He must be twenty-two, I thought, which would be about seven years older than she is. To him she would seem only a child. I was becoming worldly wise and I wondered whether it would be considered fitting for a future Sir Justin St. Larnston to marry a parson's daughter.

I thought she was going to confide in me when she said, "I want to tell you something this afternoon, Kerensa."

She led the way on our walk as she often did; she had a way of reminding one now and then that she was the mistress, and I didn't forget that I owed my present contentment to her.

I was surprised when she led the way across the parsonage lawn to a hedge which divided the garden from the churchyard. There was a gap in this hedge and we passed through it.

She turned to smile at me. "Oh, Kerensa," she said, "it is good to be able to go out with you instead of Miss Kellow. She is rather prim, don't you think?"

"She has her job to do." Strange, how I stood up for the woman when she wasn't there.

"Oh, I know. Poor old Kelly! But, Kerensa, you serve as a chaperone. Don't you think that's amusing?"

I agreed.

"Now if you had been my sister I suppose we should have been plagued by a chaperone."

We picked our way over the gravestones towards the church.

"What were you going to tell me?" I asked.

"I want to show you something first. How long have you been in St. Larnston, Kerensa?"

"I came when I was about eight years old."

"You're fifteen now, so it must have been seven years ago. You wouldn't have heard. It's ten years since it happened."

She led me round to the side of the church where one or two more recent headstones rose from the ground, and standing before one as though reading the inscription she beckoned me over. "Read it," she said.

"Mary Anna Martin," I read, "thirty-eight years. In the midst of life we are in death."

"That was my mother. She was buried here ten years ago. Now read the name below."

"Kerensa Martin. Kerensa!"

She nodded, smiling at me with a satisfied expression.

"Kerensa! I love your name. I loved it the moment I heard it. Do you remember? You were in the wall. You said 'It's not an "it." It's Miss Kerensa Carlee.' It's strange how you can recall days and days in one little minute. I remembered when you said that. This Kerensa Martin was my sister. You see, it says 'aged three weeks and two days'; and the date. It's the same as the one above. Some of those gravestones have little stories to tell, don't they, if you go round reading them."

"So your mother died when Kerensa was born?"

Mellyora nodded. "I wanted a sister. I was five years old and it seemed as if I waited for her for years. When she was born I was so excited. I thought we could play together right away. Then they told me I had to wait until she was grown up. I remember how I kept running to my father and saying; I've waited. Is she big enough to play yet?' I made plans for Kerensa. I knew she was going to be Kerensa even before she was born. My father wanted a Cornish name for her and he said that was a beautiful name because it meant peace and love which, he said, were the best things in the world. My mother used to talk about her and she was certain she would have a girl. So we talked about Kerensa. It went wrong, you see. She died and my mother died, too; and everything was different then. Nurses, governesses, housekeepers ... and what I had longed for was a sister. I wanted a sister more than anything in the world... ." I see.

"Well, that was why when I saw you standing there ... and because your name was Kerensa. You see what I mean?"

"I thought it was because you were sorry for me."

"Fm sorry for all the people on the hiring platform, but I couldn't bring them home, could I? Papa is always worried about bills as it is." She laughed. "I'm glad you came."

I looked at the gravestone and thought of the chance which had given me all I wanted. It might have happened so differently. If that young Kerensa had lived ... if her name hadn't been Kerensa ... where should I be now? I thought of Haggety's little pig's eyes, Mrs. Rolt's thin mouth. Sir Justin's purple complexion, and was overawed by this sequence of events called Chance.

We were closer than ever after our talk in the graveyard. Mellyora wanted to make believe that I was her sister. I was nothing loath. When I brushed her hair that night I started to talk about Justin St. Larnston.

"What do you think of him?" I said, and I saw the quick color in her cheeks.

"He's handsome, I think."

"More so than Johnny."

"Oh ... Johnny!" The tone was contemptuous.

"Does he talk to you much?"

"Who ... Justin? He's always kind when I go there, but he's busy. He's working. He'll graduate this year and then he'll be home all the time."

She was smiling secretly, thinking of the future when Justin would be home all the time. Riding through the country one would encounter him; when she called with her father he would be there.

"You like him?" I said.

She nodded and smiled.

"Better than ... Kim?" I ventured.

"Kim? Oh, he's wild!" She wrinkled her nose. "I like Kim. But Justin, he's like a ... knight. Sir Galahad or Sir Launcelot. Kim is not like that."

I thought of Kim's carrying Joe through the woods and to our cottage that night. I did not believe Justin would have done that for me. I thought of Kim's lying to Mellyora about the boy who had fallen off the tree.

Mellyora and I were like sisters; we were going to share secrets, adventures, our whole lives. She might prefer Justin St. Larnston. But Kim would be my knight.

Miss Kellow had one of her bouts of neuralgia, and Mellyora, who was always sympathetic towards the sick, insisted on her lying down. She herself drew the curtains and gave Mrs. Yeo orders that she was not to be disturbed until four o'clock when tea was to be taken to her.

Having looked after Miss Kellow, Mellyora sent for me and said that she fancied a ride. My eyes sparkled because naturally she could not go unaccompanied and I was sure she would prefer my company to Belter's.

Mellyora mounted her pony and I was on Cherry who was used for the pony cart. I hoped I should be seen by some of the St. Larnston people as I rode through the village, particularly Hetty Pengaster whom I had noticed more since I was aware of Johnny St. Larnston's interest in her.

However, we were only seen by a few children who stood aside as we passed; the boys pulled their forelocks and the girls curtsied—a fact which pleased me.

In a short time we were on the moor and the beauty of the scenery took my breath away. It was awe-inspiring. There was no sign of any dwelling, nothing but moor and sky and the tors which here and there rose up from the moorlands. The scene could, I knew, be somber in shadow; on this day it was sparkling, and as the sun caught the little rivulets, which here and there tumbled over the boulders, it turned them to silver; and we could see the moisture on the grass shining like diamonds.

Mellyora lightly touched her pony's flanks and broke into a canter; I followed and we left the road and went over the grass until Mellyora drew up before a strange formation of stone and as I came up behind her, for her pony was fleeter than mine, I saw that there were three slabs of stone standing upright in the ground supporting a slab which was resting on top of them.

"Eerie!" commented Mellyora. "Look round. There's not a sign of anyone. We're here, Kerensa, you and I, alone with that. Do you know what it is? It's a burial ground. Years and years ago ... three or four thousands of years before Christ was born, the people who lived here made that grave. You couldn't move those stones if you tried for the rest of your life. Doesn't it make you feel ... strange, Kerensa ... to stand here, beside that and think of those people?"

I looked at her; with the wind tugging at her fair hair which fell in curls beneath her riding hat she was very pretty. She was earnest, too. "What does it make you feel, Kerensa?"

"That there isn't much time."

"Much time for what?"

"To live ... to do what you want ... to get what you want."

"You say strange things, Kerensa. I'm glad you do. I can't bear to know what people are going to say next. I do with Miss Kellow and even Papa. With you I'm never sure."

"And with Justin St. Larnston?"

She turned away. "He hardly ever notices me to speak to," she said sadly. "You say there isn't much time, but look how long it takes to grow up."

"You think so because you're fifteen and each year that passes seems long when you have only lived fifteen years and you've only got fifteen to compare it with. When you're forty or fifty—one year seems less because you compare it with the forty or fifty you've lived."

"Who told you?"

"My Granny. She's a wise woman."

"I've heard of her. Bess and Kit talk of her. They say she has 'powers,' that she can help people... ." She was thoughtful. Then she said: "This is called a quoit. Papa told me that they were built by the Celts, the Cornish, who have been here much longer than the English."

We tethered our ponies for a while and sat leaning against the stones while they nibbled the grass and she talked to me of the conversations she had had with her father about the antiquities of Cornwall. I listened intently and I was proud of belonging to a people who had inhabited this island longer than the English and who had left these oddly disturbing monuments to their dead.

"We can't be far from the Derrise country," said Mellyora at length, rising to indicate that she wanted to mount. "Don't tell me you've never heard of the Derrises. They're the richest people in the neighborhood; they own acres and acres."

"More than the St. Larnstons?"

"Much more. Let's go. Let's get lost. It's always such fun to get lost and find your way after."

She mounted her pony and we were off, she leading.

"It's rather dangerous," she called over her shoulder, more concerned for me, who was not so expert, than for herself, and brought her pony to a standstill. I came up beside her and we walked our ponies over the grass.

"You can easily get lost on the moor because there is so much that looks alike. You have to find a landmark ... like that tor over there. I think it's Derrise Tor and if it is I know where we are."

"How can you know where you are if you're not sure it's Derrise Tor?"

She laughed at me and said: "Come on."

We were climbing as we made our way to the tor; it was stony country' now and the tor itself was on a hillock; a strange, twisted shape in gray stone that, from a distance, could be mistaken for a man of giant proportions.

We dismounted once more, tethered the ponies to a thick bush, and together we scrambled up the hillock to the tor. It was steeper than we had thought and when we reached the top Mellyora, looking like a dwarf beside a giant, leaned against the stone and cried excitedly that she was right. This was the Derrise country.

"Look!" she cried; and following her gaze I saw the great mansion. Gray stone walls, battlemented towers, a massive fortress looking like an oasis in a desert, for the house was surrounded by gardens; I glimpsed trees laden with fruit blossom, and the green of lawns. "Derrise Manor," she informed me.

"It's like a castle."

"It is, and though the Derrises are said to be the richest people in East Cornwall, they're doomed, some say."

"Doomed with a house like that and all those riches?"

"Ah, Kerensa. You always think in terms of worldly possessions. Don't you ever listen to Papa's sermons?"

"No, do you?"

"No, but I know without listening about treasures on earth and all that. In any case, for all their money the Derrises are doomed."

"A at sort of doom?"

"Madness. There's madness in the family. It comes out every now and then. People say that it's a good thing there aren't any sons to carry on the line and that this generation will see the end of the Derrises and their curse."

"Well, that's a good thing."

"They don't think so. They want their name carried on and all that. People always do. I wonder why?"

"It's a sort of pride," I said. "It's like never dying, because there's always a part of you living on through your children."

"Why shouldn't daughters do as well as sons?"

"Because they don't have the same name. When they marry they belong to a different family and the line is lost."

Mellyora was thoughtful. Then she said, "The Martins will die with me. Think of that. At least the Carlees have your brother—the one who hurt his leg falling off a tree."

Because we had become close now and I knew I could trust her, I told her the truth of that incident. She listened intently. Then she said: "I'm glad you saved him. I'm glad Kim helped."

"You'll not tell anyone?"

"Of course not. But no one could do much about it now in any case.

Isn't it strange, Kerensa? We live here in this quiet country place and tremendous things happen round us just as though we lived in a big city ... perhaps more so. Just think of the Derrises."

"I'd never heard of them until this day."

"Never heard the story! Well, I'll tell you. Two hundred years ago one of the Derrises gave birth to a monster—it was quite frightful. They shut it up in a secret room and hired a strong man to look after it, and pretended to the world that the baby had been born dead. They smuggled a dead baby into the house and it was buried in the Derrise vault; meanwhile, the monster lived on. They were terrified of it because it was not only malformed but evil. Someone said that the devil had been its mother s lover. They had other sons and in time one of these married and brought his new bride to the house. On the wedding night they played hide-and-seek and the bride went away to hide. It was Christmas time and the jailer wanted to join in the wassailing. So he drank so much metheglin that he went into a drunken sleep, but he had left the key in the door of the monster s room. When the new bride—who didn't know the house and that no one ever went into the wing which was said to be haunted because the monster made queer noises at night—saw the key in the lock, she turned it and the monster sprang at her. He didn't hurt her, because she was so fair and lovely, but she was shut in with him and she screamed and screamed so that those who were searching for her knew where she was. Her husband, guessing what had happened, snatched up a gun and bursting into the room shot the monster dead. But the bride went mad and the monster as he died cursed all the Derrises and said that what had happened to the young bride would recur every now and then in that family."

I listened spellbound to the story.

"The present Lady Derrise is half crazy, they say. She comes out onto the moor when the moon is full, and dances round the tor. She has a companion who's a sort of keeper. That's true enough; and it's the curse. They're the doomed, I tell you, so you shouldn't envy them their fine house and riches. But the curse will die out now, because this will be the end of the line. There's only Judith."

"The daughter of the lady who dances round the tor at full moon?"

Mellyora nodded.

"Do you believe the story of the Virgins?" I asked.

Mellyora hesitated. "Well," she said, "when I stand there amongst those stones they seem alive to me."

"To me, too."

"One night, Kerensa, when there's a full moon, we'll go down and look at them. I've always wanted to be there at full moon."

"Do you think there's something special about moonlight?"

"Of course. The ancient Britons worshiped the sun—and the moon, I expect. They made sacrifices and things. That day when I saw you standing in the wall I thought you were the seventh virgin."

"I guessed you did. You looked so odd ... just the way you would look if you saw a ghost."

"And that night," went on Mellyora, "I dreamed that you were being walled up in the Abbas and I pulled away the stones till my hands were bleeding. I helped you escape, Kerensa, but I got terribly hurt doing it." She turned her back on the view spread out before us. "It's time we went home," she said.

At first we were very solemn as we rode back; then we both seemed to become obsessed by the desire to break the mood which had settled on us. Mellyora said that nowhere in the world were there so many legends as in Cornwall.

"Why should there be?" I asked.

"Because we're the sort of people things like that happen to, I suppose."

Then the frivolous mood came to us and we started telling wild stories about the stones and boulders which we passed, each trying to cap the other's story and becoming more and more ridiculous.

But neither of us was really attending to what we said; I believe Mellyora was thinking of that dream of hers; and so was I.

The time began to pass quickly because each day was like another. I had settled into my comfortable routine; and whenever I went to the cottage to see Granny I told her that being almost a lady was as wonderful as I had always thought it would be. She said that it was because I was constantly striving to reach a goal, which was a good way to live, providing it was a good goal. She herself was doing well—better than ever before, and could have lived well enough on the good things I brought to her from the parsonage kitchens and what Joe brought her from the vet's house; only yesterday the Pengasters had killed a pig and Hetty had seen to it that a fair-sized ham had come her way. She had salted it down and there was a meal for many a day to come. Her reputation had never been so fine. Joe was happy in his work; the vet thought highly of him, now and then gave him a penny or two when he had done some job particularly well. Joe said that he lived with the family and was treated as a member of it; but he wouldn't have minded how they treated him as long as he could be looking after his animals.

"It's strange how it's all turned out so well," I said.

"Like summer after a bad winter," agreed Granny. "Have to remember though, lovey, that winter can and will come again. Tain't natural to have summer all the time."

But I believed that I was going to live in perpetual summer. Only a few trivial matters darkened my pleasant existence. One was when I saw Joe riding through the village with the vet on the way to the Abbas stables. He was standing at the back of the trap and I felt it was an indignity for my brother to ride like a servant. I should have liked to see him riding like a friend of the vet's or an assistant. Better still if he could have ridden in the doctor's brougham.

I still hated those occasions when Mellyora went visiting in her best gown and long white gloves. I wanted to be beside her, learning how to enter a drawing room, how to make light conversation. But, of course, no one invited me. Then again Mrs. Yeo would let me know now and then that for all Miss Mellyora's friendliness I was only a superior servant in the house—on a level with her enemy Miss Kellow, almost, but not quite that. These were small pinpricks in my idyllic life.

And when Mellyora and I sewed our samplers—names and dates in the tiniest cross-stitches which were a trial to me, Miss Kellow allowed us to work our own motto and for mine I chose "Life is yours to make it as you will." And because it was my creed, I enjoyed every stitch. Mellyora chose as hers "Do unto others as you would they do unto you" because she said that if you followed that you must be a good friend to everyone, since you were your own best friend.

I often remember that summer: sitting by the open window as we worked at our lessons, or sometimes under the chestnut tree on the lawn while we stitched at our samplers and talked together to the background music of contented bees in sweet-scented lavender. The garden was full of good smells—the various flowers, the pine trees and warm damp earth mingled with occasional odors from the kitchen. White butterflies—there was a plague of them that summer—danced madly about the hanging purple of the buddleias. I would sometimes try to catch at a moment and whisper to myself "Now. This is now!" I wanted to keep it like that forever. But time was always there to defeat me—passing, inexorably passing; and even as I spoke, that "now" had become in the past. Beyond the hedge I was aware of the graveyard with its tombstones, a constant reminder that time well stand still for none of us; but I always contrived to turn my back on it, for how I wanted that summer to go on! Perhaps it was some intuition on my part, for that summer saw the end of the life in which I had found a comfortable niche for myself.

The year before, Justin St. Larnston had left the University and we saw more of him. Often I would encounter him riding through the village. It was his duty now to help with the estate in readiness for the day when he would become the squire. If Mellyora was with me he would bow courteously and even smile, but his was a rather melancholy smile. When we met him, that made Mellyora's day; she would become prettier and quieter as though occupied with pleasant thoughts.

Kim, who was a little younger than Justin, was still at the University; I thought with pleasure of the days when he would have finished; then perhaps we should see him more often in the village.

One afternoon we were sitting on the lawn with our samplers in our hands. I had finished my motto and had come to the full stop after "will" when Bess ran out onto the lawn. She came straight over to us and cried: "Miss, there be terrible news from the Abbas."

Mellyora turned a Ktde pale and dropped her needlework onto the grass. "What news?" she demanded, and I knew that she was thinking something terrible had happened to Justin.

"Tis Sir Justin. He have collapsed like in his study, they do say. Doctor have been with him. He be terrible bad. Not expected to live, they do say."

Mellyora relaxed visibly. "Who says so?"

"Well, Mr. Belter he did have it from the head groom up there. He says they be in a terrible state."

When Bess went in we continued to sit on the lawn, but we could no longer work. I knew that Mellyora was thinking of what this would mean to Justin. He would be Sir Justin if his father died and the Abbas would belong to him. I wondered if she was sad because she didn't like to hear of illness or perhaps Justin seemed more out of reach than ever.

It was Miss Kellow who had the next news first. She read the announcements each morning because as she implied she was interested to hear of the births, deaths, and marriages in the illustrious families she had served.

She came into the schoolroom, the paper in her hand. Mellyora looked at me and made a little grimace which Miss Kellow couldn't see. It meant "Now we shall hear that Sir Somebody is getting married or has died ... and that she was treated as one of the family when she 'served' them—and how different her life was then before she had sunk to becoming a governess in the impecunious manage of a country parson."

"There's some interesting news in the paper," she said.

"Oh?" Mellyora always displayed interest. Poor Kelly! she said to me often. She doesn't get much fun out of life. Let her enjoy her honorables and nobles.

"There's to be a wedding up at the Abbas."

Mellyora didn't speak.

"Yes," Miss Kellow went on in that maddeningly slow way of hers which meant that she wanted to keep us in suspense as long as possible. "Justin St. Larnston is engaged to be married."

I didn't know I could ever feel someone else's distress so keenly. After all, it was nothing to me whom Justin St. Larnston married. But poor Mellyora, who had had her dreams! Even from this I could learn a lesson. It was folly to dream unless you did something about making a dream come true. And what had Mellyora ever done? Just smiled prettily at him when they passed; dressed with especial care when she was invited to tea at the Abbas! When all the time he had looked upon her as a child.

"Who is he going to marry?" asked Mellyora, speaking very distinctly.

"Well, it seems odd that it should be announced just now," said Miss Kellow, still eager to delay the denouement, "with Sir Justin so ill and likely to die at any moment. But perhaps that is just the reason."

"Who?" repeated Mellyora.

Miss Kellow couldn't hold it back any longer.

"Miss Judith Derrise," she said.

Sir Justin didn't die, but he was paralyzed. We never saw him riding again to the hunt or striding to the woods, his gun over his shoulder. Dr. Hilliard was with him twice a day and the question most asked in St. Larnston was: "Heard how he is today?"

We were all expecting him to die, but he lived on; and then we accepted the fact that he wasn't going to die just yet although he was paralyzed and couldn't walk.

After she had heard the news Mellyora went to her room and wouldn't see anyone—not even me. She had a headache, she said, and wanted to be alone.

And when I did go in she was very composed though pale.

All she said was: "It's that Judith Derrise. She's one of the doomed. She'll bring doom to St. Larnston. It's that I mind."

Then I thought she couldn't have cared for him seriously. He was just the center of a childish dream. I had imagined that her feelings for him were as intense as mine were for rising out of that station in which I had been born.

It couldn't be so. Otherwise she would have cared as much whoever he had arranged to marry. That was how I thought, and it seemed sensible enough to me.

There was no reason why the wedding should be delayed—and six weeks after we saw the announcement it took place.

Some of the St. Larnston people went over to Derrise church to the wedding. Mellyora was on edge wondering whether she and her father would have an invitation but she need not have worried. There was none.

On the day of the wedding we sat in the garden together and were very solemn. It was rather like waiting for someone to be executed.

We heard news through the servants and it occurred to me what a good system of espionage we had. The servants from the parsonage, those from the Abbas and from Derrise Manor, formed a ring and news was passed on and circulated.

The bride had a magnificent gown of lace and satin, and her veil and orange blossom had been worn by numerous Derrise brides. I wondered if the one who had seen the monster and gone mad had worn the veil. I mentioned this to Mellyora.

"She wasn't a Derrise," Mellyora pointed out. "She was a stranger. That's why she didn't know where the monster was kept."

"Have you met Judith?" I asked.

"Only once. She was at the Abbas and it was one of Lady St. Larnston's At Homes. She is very tall, slender, and beautiful, with dark hair and big dark eyes."

"At least she is beautiful; and I suppose the St. Larnstons will be richer now, won't they. She'll have a dowry."

Mellyora turned to me and she was angry, which was rare with her. She took me by the shoulders and shook me.

"Stop talking about riches. Stop thinking of it. Isn't there anything else in the world? I tell you, she'll bring doom on the Abbas. She's doomed. They all are."

"It can't matter to us."

Her eyes were dark with something like fury.

"They are our neighbors. Of course, it matters."

"I can't see how. They don't care about us. Why should we about them?"

"They are my friends."

"Friends! They don't bother much about you. They don't even ask you to the wedding."

"I didn't want to go to his wedding."

"That doesn't make it any better for not asking you."

"Oh, stop it, Kerensa. It won't ever be the same, I tell you. Nothing will ever be the same. It's changed, can't you feel it?"

Yes I could feel it. It was not so much changed as changing; and the reason was that we weren't children any more. Mellyora would soon be seventeen; and I should be a few months after. We would put our hair up and be young ladies. We were growing up; we were already thinking with nostalgia of the long sunny days of childhood.

Sir Justin's life was no longer in danger and his elder son had brought a bride to the Abbas. This was a time for rejoicing and the St. Larnstons had decided to give a ball. It would take place before the summer was over and it was hoped that it would be a warm night so that the guests could enjoy the beauty of the grounds as well as the splendors of the house.

Invitations were issued and there was one for Mellyora and her father. The bride and groom had gone to Italy for their honeymoon and the ball was to celebrate their return. It was to be a masked ball; a very grand affair. We heard that it was the wish of Sir Justin, who would not himself be able to join in, that the ball should take place.

I wasn't quite sure how Mellyora felt about the invitation; she seemed to veer between excitement and melancholy. She was changing as she grew up; she had once been so serene. I was envious and couldn't hide it.

"How I wish you could come, Kerensa," she said. "Oh, how I should love to see you there. That old house means something to you, doesn't it?"

"Yes," I said, "a sort of symbol."

She nodded. It often happened that our minds were in tune and I didn't have to explain to her. She went about with a thoughtful frown for some days and when I mentioned the ball she shrugged the subject aside impatiently.

About four days after she had received the invitation she came out of her father's study looking grave.

"Papa's not well," she said. "I've known he hasn't been for some time."

I had known it, too; his skin seemed to be getting more and more yellow every day.

"He says," she went on, "that he can't go to the ball."

I had been wondering what sort of costume he would have worn because it was difficult to imagine him looking like anything but a parson.

"Does this mean that you won't go?"

"I can't very well go alone."

"Oh ... Mellyora."

She shrugged impatiently and that afternoon she went out with Miss Kellow in the pony trap. I heard the trap from my window and when I looked out and saw them I felt hurt because she hadn't asked me to go with them.

When she came back she burst into my room, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks slightly flushed.

She sat on my bed and started to bounce up and down. Then she stopped and putting her head on one side said: "Cinderella, how would you like to go to the ball?"

"Mellyora," I gasped. "You mean ..."

She nodded.

"You are invited. Well, not you exactly, because she hasn't the faintest notion ... but I have an invitation for you and it's going to be such fun, Kerensa. Much more than going with Papa or some chaperone he might have found for me."

"How did you manage it?"

"This afternoon I called on Lady St. Larnston. It happens to be her At-Home day. That gave me an opportunity of speaking to her, so I told her Papa was unwell and unable to bring me to the ball, but I had a friend staying with me—so could his invitation be transferred to her? She was very gracious."

"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 govern 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. "Fm 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 muggetty 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.

There were all kinds of drink; stirrup cup which we called dash-an-darras; there was metheglin and mead, gin, and other wines which came from foreign parts. It was amusing to see Haggety in charge of these, bowing obsequiously, looking very different from the self-important butler who had wanted to hire me at Trelinket Fair. When I thought of what he would say if he knew that he would now have to serve the girl he might have hired, I wanted to burst out laughing.

When you are young and have known hunger you can always eat with relish, however excited you might be, and I did justice to the lammy pie and fair maids which Kim brought to us while I sipped the mead poured by Haggety.

I had never tasted it before and I liked the flavor of honey; but I knew that it was intoxicating and I had no intention of dulling my senses on this most exciting evening of my life.

Kim watched us eat with pleasure and I knew he was puzzled about me. I sensed he recognized that he had met me before and was wondering where. I was delighted to keep him guessing.

"Look," he said as we sipped our mead, "here comes the Borgia boy."

I looked and saw him; he was dressed in black velvet, there was a little cap on his head and false mustaches. He looked at Mellyora and then at me. His gaze stayed on me.

He bowed and said in a theatrical manner: "Methinks I have met the fair Grecian in our St. Larnston lanes."

I knew at once that he was Johnny St. Larnston because I recognized his voice as I had Kim's.

"But I am certain I have never seen the Spanish beauty before."

"You should never be too sure of anything," said Mellyora.

"If I had seen her once I should never have forgotten her and now her image will remain with me all the days of my life."

"It's strange," said Mellyora, "that by merely wearing a mask you can't really hide your identity."

"The voice, the gestures betray," said Kim.

"And we three are known to each other," went on Johnny. "That makes me mighty curious about the stranger in our midst."

He drew his chair close to mine, and I began to feel uneasy.

"You're a friend of Mellyora's," he added. "I know your name. You're Miss Carlyon."

"You are not supposed to embarrass your guests," Mellyora told him primly.

"My dear Mellyora, the whole purpose of a masked ball is to guess the identity of your companions before the unmasking. Did you not know? Miss Carlyon, my mother told me that Mellyora was bringing a friend as her father could not come. A chaperone ... an aunt, I think. That was what my mother said. Surely you are not Mellyora's aunt?"

"I refuse to tell you who I am," I answered. "You must wait for the unmasking."

"As long as I may be at your side at that exciting moment I can wait."

The music had started and a tall handsome couple were opening the ball. I knew the man in Regency costume was Justin and I guessed the tall, slim, dark-haired woman to be his newly married wife.

I could not take my eyes from Judith St. Larnston who, until recently, had been Judith Derrise. She was wearing a crimson velvet dress very similar in color to mine; but how much richer was hers! About her neck diamonds glittered; they were also in her ears and on her long, slender fingers. Her dark hair was worn in pompadour fashion which made her look slightly taller than Justin, who was very tall. She looked very attractive but what I noticed more than anything was a certain nervous tension about her. It was betrayed by the sudden movements of her head and hands. I noticed, too, how she clung to Justin's hand and even in the dance she gave the impression that she was determined never to let him go.

"How attractive she is!" I said.

"My new sister-in-law," murmured Johnny, his eyes following her.

"A handsome pair," I said.

"My brother is the handsome member of the family, don t you think?"

"It is difficult to say until the unmasking takes place."

"Oh, that unmasking! Then I shall ask for your verdict. But by that time I hope to have proved to you that Justin's brother has other qualities to make up for his lack of personal beauty. Shall we dance?"

I was alarmed, afraid that if I danced with Johnny St. Larnston I should betray that I had never danced with a man before.

If it had been Kim, I should have been less afraid, because I had already proved that in an emergency one could rely on him; I was unsure of Johnny. But Kim was already leading Mellyora out.

Johnny took my hand and pressed it warmly.

"Spanish lady," he said, "you are not afraid of me?"

I gave the kind of laugh I might have given years ago. Then I said in my slow, careful way, "I see no reason to be."

"That's a good start."

The musicians, who were in a gallery at one end of the ballroom, were playing a waltz. I thought of waltzing round the bedroom with Mellyora and I hoped that my dancing would not betray my lack of experience. But it was easier than I thought; I was skillful enough not to arouse suspicion. "How well our steps fit," said Johnny.

I lost Mellyora in the dance and wondered whether Johnny had intended that I should; and when we sat together on the gilded chairs and I was asked to dance by someone else, I was rather relieved to escape from Johnny. We talked—or rather my partner did—of other balls, of the hunt, of the changing conditions of the country, and I listened, careful never to betray myself. I learned that night that a girl who listens and agrees, quickly becomes popular. But it was not a role I intended to play permanently. Then I was taken back to my chair where Johnny was impatiently waiting. Mellyora and Kim joined us and I danced with Kim. I enjoyed that very much, although it wasn't so easy as it had been with Johnny; I suppose because Johnny was a better dancer. And all the time I kept thinking: You're actually here in the Abbas. You, Kerensa Carlee —Carlyon for the night.

We had more food and wine and I didn't want the evening ever to end. I knew I should hate to take off my red velvet dress and let down my hair. I stored up in my mind every little incident so that I could tell Mellyora the next day.

I joined in the cotillion; some of my partners were paternal, others flirtatious. I managed them all with what I thought was great skill; and I asked myself why I had ever been nervous.

I drank a little of the dash-an-darras which Johnny and Kim had brought to our table with the food. Mellyora was a little subdued; I believe she was hoping that she might dance with. Justin.

I was dancing with Johnny when he said: "It's so crowded here. Let's go outside."

I followed him down the staircase and out to the lawns where some of the guests were dancing. It was an enchanting sight. The music could be heard distinctly through the open windows and the dresses of the men and women looked fantastic in the moonlight.

We danced over the lawn and we came to the hedge which separated the Abbas lawns from the field in which stood the Six Virgins and the old mine.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked.

"To see the Virgins."

"I always wanted to see them in moonlight," I said.

A slow smile touched his lips, and I realized at once that I had given him a clue that I was not a stranger to St. Larnstons who had come for the ball, since I knew of the existence of the Virgins.

"Well," he whispered, "so you shall"

He took my hand and together we ran over the grass. I leaned against one of the stones and he came near to me pressing close. He tried to kiss me, but I held him off.

"Why do you plague me?" he said.

"I do not wish to be kissed."

"You're a strange creature. Miss Carlyon. You provoke and then become prim. Is it fair?"

"I came here to see the Virgins in moonlight."

He had put his hands on my shoulders and held me against the stone. "Six virgins. There might be seven here tonight."

"You've forgotten the story," I said. "It was because they weren't virgins "

"Precisely. Miss Carlyon, are you going to turn to stone tonight?"

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you know the legend? Anyone who stands here in moonlight and touches one of these stones is in danger."

"From what? Impertinent young men?"

He put his face close to mine. He looked satanic with the false mustaches and his eyes glinting through the mask. "You haven't heard the legend? Oh, but you don't come from these parts, do you. Miss Carlyon? I must tell you. If the question is asked 'Are you a virgin?' and you cannot answer Yes,' you'll be turned into stone. I'm asking you now."

I tried to wriggle free. "I wish to return to the house."

"You haven't answered the question."

"I think you are not behaving like a gentleman."

"Do you know so well the ways of gentlemen?"

"Let me go."

"When you answer my questions. I've already asked the first. Now I want an answer to the second."

"I shall answer no questions."

"Then," he said, "I shall be forced to satisfy my curiosity and impatience." With a swift gesture he snatched at my mask and as it came away in his hand, I heard the sudden gasp of amazement.

"So ... Miss Carlyon!" he said. "Carlyon." Then he began to chant:

"Ding dong bell, Someone's in the well. Who put her in? Was it due to sin?"

He laughed. "I'm right, am I not? I do remember you. You are not a girl one easily forgets, Miss Carlyon. And what are you doing at our ball?"

I snatched the mask from him. "I came because I was invited!"

"H'm! And deceived us all very nicely. My mother is not in the habit of inviting cottagers to St. Larnston balls."

"I'm a friend of Mellyora's."

"Yes ... Mellyora! Now who would have thought her capable of this! I wonder what my mother is going to say when I tell her?"

"But you won't," I said, and I was annoyed with myself because there seemed to be a note of pleading in my voice.

"But don't you think it is my duty?" He was mocking. "Of course, for a consideration I might agree to join in the deception."

"Keep away," I warned. "There is no question of a consideration." He put his head on one side and regarded me with a puzzled look. "You give yourself airs, my cottage beauty."

"I live at the parsonage," I retorted. "I am being educated there."

"Tr la," he mocked. "Tr la la!"

"And now I wish to return to the ball."

"Maskless? Doubtless known by some of the servants? Oh, Miss Carlyon!"

I turned from him and started to run. There was no reason why I should return to the ballroom. The evening was spoilt for me in any case. I would go back to the parsonage and at least preserve my dignity. He ran after me and caught my arm. "Where are you going?"

"As I am not returning to the ballroom, that is no concern of yours."

"So you are going to leave us? Now please don't do that. I was only teasing you. Don't you recognize a joke when you hear one? That's something you have to learn. I don't want you to leave the ball. I want to help. Could you repair the mask?"

"Yes, with a needle and thread."

"I will get them for you if you come with me."

I hesitated, not trusting him; but the temptation to go back was too great to be resisted.

He led me to a wall which was covered with ivy, and pushing this aside disclosed a door. When we passed through this we were in the walled garden and straight ahead of us was the spot in which the bones had been discovered. He was taking me to the oldest wing of the Abbas.

He opened a heavily studded door and we were in a dank passage. There was a lanthom hanging on the wall which gave a feeble light. Johnny took this down and holding it high above his head turned to grin at me. He looked satanic and I wanted to run, but I knew that if I did I could not return to the ball. So when he said: "Come on!" I followed him up a spiral staircase, the steps of which were steep and worn down by the tread of feet over hundreds of years.

He turned to me and said in a hollow voice: "We are in that part of the house which was certainly the old convent. This is where our virgins lived. Eerie, don't you think?"

I agreed.

At the top of the staircase he paused. I saw a corridor in which were what appeared to be a row of cells, and when I followed Johnny into one of these, I saw the stone ledge cut in the wall which might have served as a bed for a nun; I saw a narrow slit unprotected by glass which could have been her window.

Johnny set down the lanthom and grinned at me.

"Now we want a needle and thread," he said. "Or do we?"

I was alarmed. "I'm sure you won't find one here."

"Never mind. There are more important things in life, I do assure you. Give me the mask."

I refused and turned away, but he was beside me. I might have been very frightened if I hadn't remembered that this was only Johnny St. Larnston whom I regarded as a boy not much older than myself. With a gesture which took him completely by surprise, and using all my strength, I pushed him from me. He went sprawling backways, tripping over the lanthom.

This was my opportunity. I ran along the corridor, clutching my mask in my hand, looking for the spiral staircase which we had ascended.

I could not find it, but came to another which led upwards; and although I knew I should not be going further into the house when what I wanted was to leave it, I daren't turn back for fear of meeting Johnny. There was a rope attached to the wall to serve as a banister because the stairs were so steep, and I saw that it could be dangerous not to use it. This was a part of the house which was rarely used, but on this night, presumably in case some of the guests should lose their way and find themselves in this wing, lanthorns had been placed at intervals. The light was dim and just enough to show the way.

I discovered more alcoves like those to which Johnny had taken me. I stood listening, wondering whether it would be wise to retrace my steps. My heart was racing; I could not help glancing furtively about me. I was prepared at any moment to see the ghostly figures of nuns coming towards me. That was the effect being alone in this most ancient part of the house had on me. The gaiety of the ball seemed far away—not only in distance but in time.

I had to get away quickly.

Cautiously I tried to retrace my steps, but when I came to a corridor through which I knew I had not passed before, I began to feel frantic. I thought: What if they never discovered me again? What if I remained locked away in this part of the house forever? It would be a kind of walling up. They would come for the lanthorns. But why should they? They would gradually go out one by one and no one would think of relighting them until there was another ball or house party at the Abbas.

This was panic. It was more likely that I should be discovered wandering about the house and recognized. They would be suspicious of me and accuse me of trying to steal. They were always suspicious of people like myself.

I tried to think calmly of what I knew of the house. The old wing was that part which looked down on the walled garden. That was where I must be ... perhaps close to the spot where the nun's bones had been discovered. The thought made me shiver. It was so gloomy in the passages and there was no covering on the floor of the corridor which was cold stone like the spiral stairs. I wondered if it were true that when something violent happened to people their spirits haunted the scene of their last hours on earth. I thought of her being brought along these corridors from one of those alcoves which could have been her cell. What terrible despair there must have been in her heart! How frightened she must have been!

I took courage. My situation was comic compared with hers. I was not afraid, I told myself. If necessary, I should tell exactly how I came to be in this situation. Lady St. Larnston would then be more annoyed with Johnny than with me.

At the end of the stone corridor was a heavy door which I opened cautiously. It was like stepping into another world. The corridor was carpeted and there were lamps hanging at frequent intervals on the wall; I could hear the sound of music—though muted—which I had lost before.

I was relieved. Now to find my way to the dressing rooms. There would be pins there. I even believed I had seen some in a little alabaster bowl. I wondered I hadn't thought of it before; I had an uncanny feeling that thinking of the seventh virgin had helped me by calming my mind which was overexcited by the mingling of unaccustomed wine and strange events.

This was a vast house. I had heard it contained about a hundred rooms. I paused by a door and, hoping this might lead me towards that wing in which the ball was being held, gently turned the handle and opened it. I gasped with horror for in the dim light from the shaded lamp which stood by the bed, it seemed for those first seconds that I was looking at a corpse. A man was propped up by pillows; his mouth and one eye were drawn down on the left side. It was a grotesque sight and seeing it so soon after my fanciful thoughts in the corridor, I believed I was seeing a ghost, for it was a dead face ... almost. Then to my horror as I stood there something told me that I was seen, for there was a strange sound from the figure in the bed. I shut the door quickly, my heart pounding.

The man I had seen on the bed was a travesty of Sir Justin; I was horrified by the thought that someone who had been so robust, so arrogant, could become like that.

Somehow I must have reached the family sleeping quarters. If I met anyone now, I would say I was looking for the dressing rooms and had lost my way. I clutched again the torn mask in my hand and hesitated by a half-open door. Looking inside I saw a bedroom; two lamps on the wall gave a dim light. It suddenly occurred to me that on the dressing table there might possibly be some pins. I looked along the corridor; there was no sign of anyone, so I stepped into the room, and sure enough, on the mirror, looped by satin ribbons, was a pincushion with pins sticking in it. I took several and was about to make for the door when I heard voices in the corridor.

A sudden panic seized me. I had to get out of this room quickly. Old fears came back to me like those I had had on the night when Joe was missing. If Mellyora was found in one of these rooms and said that she had lost her way, everyone would believe her; if I were—and they knew who I was —that would subject me to the humiliation of suspicion. I must not be found here.

I looked about me and saw there were two doors. Without thinking I opened one and stepped forwards. I was in a cupboard in which clothes were hanging. There was no time to escape so I shut the door and held my breath.

In a few terrifying seconds I knew that someone had come into the room. I heard the door shut, and waited tensely for discovery. I must tell everything about Johnny trying to make love to me and who I was. I must make them believe me. I should open the door at once and explain. If I were caught I should look so guilty; and if I went out and explained right away, which was what Mellyora would have done, I should be more likely believed. But what if they didn't believe me?

I had hesitated too long.

A voice said: "But what is it, Judith?" A weary voice which I knew to belong to Justin St. Larnston.

"I had to see you, darling. Just to be alone with you for a few minutes. I had to be reassured. Surely you understand."

Judith, his wife! Her voice was what I would have expected. She spoke in short sentences as though she were breathless; and there was a feeling of tension which was immediately apparent.

"Judith, you must not get so excited."

"Excited? How can I help it when ... I saw you and that girl ... dancing together."

"Listen to me, Judith." His voice sounded slow and drawling almost, but perhaps that was in contrast to hers. "She's only the parson's daughter."

"She's beautiful. You think so, don't you? And young ... so very young... . And I could see the way she looked ... when you were dancing together."

"Judith, this is quite absurd. I've known the child since she was in her cradle. Naturally I had to dance with her. You know how one must at these affairs."

"But you seemed ... you seemed... ."

"Weren't you dancing? Or were you watching me all the time?"

"You know how I feel. I was aware of you, Justin. Aware of you and that girl. You may laugh but there was something. I had to be reassured."

"But really, Judith, there is nothing to reassure you about. You're my wife, aren't you? Isn't that enough?"

"Everything. Just everything! That's why I couldn't bear ..."

"Well then let's forget it. And we shouldn't be here. We can't disappear like this."

"All right, but kiss me, Justin."

Silence, during which I felt they must hear my heart beating. I had been right not to show myself. As soon as they had gone I would creep out and quickly repair my mask with the pins and then all would be well.

"Come on, Judith, let's go."

"Once more, darling. Oh, darling, how I wish we didn't have to go back to all those tiresome people."

"It'll soon be over."

"Darling... ."

Silence. The shutting of the door. I wanted to rush out but I forced myself to stay where I was while I counted ten. Then cautiously I opened the door, peered out at the empty room, sped to its door, and with a sigh of thankfulness reached the corridor.

I almost ran from that open door, trying to rid myself of the picture of one of them opening the door and finding me hiding in the cupboard. It hadn't happened, but, oh, it was a warning not to do anything so silly again.

The music was louder, as I had reached the staircase where Lady St. Larnston had received us. Now I knew my way. In my anxiety I had forgotten my mask until I saw Mellyora with Kim.

"Your mask!" cried Mellyora.

I held it up. "It's broken, but I've found some pins."

Kim said: "Well, I believe it is Kerensa."

I looked at him shamefacedly. Mellyora turned to him. "Why not?" she said fiercely. "Kerensa wanted to come to the ball. Why shouldn't she? I said she was a friend of mine and so she is."

"Why not indeed?" agreed Kim.

"How did it break?" asked Mellyora.

"My stitches weren't strong enough, I expect."

"Odd. Let me look." She took the mask. "Oh, I see. Give me the pins. Now ni fix it. It'll last. Did you know that there's only half an hour to midnight?"

"I lost count of time."

Mellyora fixed the mask and I felt pleased to hide behind it.

"We've just been out into the gardens," said Mellyora. "The moonlight's wonderful."

"I know. I was out there, too."

"Let's go back to the ballroom now," said Mellyora. "There's not much time left."

We went back, Kim escorting us. A partner came to ask me to dance and I felt hilariously happy to be masked and dancing again, while I congratulated myself on my escape. Then I remembered that Johnny St. Larnston knew who I was, but I didn't really attach much importance to that. If he told his mother, I should quickly let her know how he had behaved; and I fancied she would not be any more pleased with him than with me.

I danced with Kim later and I was glad because I wanted to know what his reactions were. He was clearly amused.

"Carlyon," he said. "That's what puzzles me. I thought you were Miss Carlee."

"Mellyora gave me that name."

"Oh ... Mellyora!"

I told him all that had happened while he was away at the University, how Mellyora had seen me at the fair and taken me home.

He listened intently.

"I'm glad it happened," he told me. "It's good for you and for her."

I glowed with pleasure. He was so different from Johnny St. Larnston.

"And your brother?" he asked. "How is he getting on with the vet?"

"You knew?"

He laughed. "I'm rather interested in his progress since it was I who mentioned to Pollent what an asset he would be."

"You ... spoke to Pollent?"

"I did. Made him promise to give the boy a chance."

"I see. I suppose I should thank you."

"Don't if you'd rather not."

"But my Granny is so pleased. He's getting on well. The vet is pleased with him and ..." I heard the note of pride in my voice. "... he's pleased with the vet."

"Good news. I thought that a boy who would risk so much for the sake of a bird must have a special gift. So ... all goes well."

"Yes," I repeated, "all goes well."

"May I say that I think you have grown up just as I thought you would."

"And how is that?"

"You have become an extremely fascinating young lady."

What a number of emotions I experienced on that night, for dancing with Kim I knew absolute happiness. I wished it could have gone on. But dances quickly come to an end when you have the partner of your choice, and all too soon the clocks which had been brought into the hall to strike at the midnight hour began chiming at once. The music stopped. It was time to take off our masks.

Johnny St. Larnston passed near us; he grinned at me.

"It's no surprise," he said, "but still a pleasure."

And there was a purpose in his mocking smile.

Kim led me outside so that no one else would know that Miss Carlyon was really poor Kerensa Carlee.

As Belter drove us home to the parsonage neither Mellyora nor I spoke very much. We were both still hearing the music, caught up in the rhythm of the dance. It was a night we should never forget; later we would talk of it but now we were still bemused and enchanted.

We went soberly to our rooms. I was physically tired and yet had no desire to sleep. While I kept on my red velvet gown I was still a young lady who went to balls, but once I took it off life would become less exciting. In fact. Miss Carlyon would become Kerensa Carlee.

But obviously I could not stand before the mirror staring dreamily at my reflection all night, so by the light of two candles I reluctantly took the comb from my hair and let it fall about my shoulders, undressed, and hung up the red velvet gown. "You have become an extremely fascinating young lady," I said.

Then I thought of how exciting my life was going to be because it was true that life was yours to make as you wanted to.

It was difficult to sleep. I kept thinking of myself dancing with Kim, fighting with Johnny, hiding in the cupboard, and that horrific moment when I had opened the door of Sir Justin's room and seen him.

So it wasn't surprising that when I did sleep I had a nightmare. I dreamed that Johnny had walled me up and that I was suffocating while Mellyora was trying to pull away the bricks with her bare hands and I knew that she would not be able to save me in time.

I awoke screaming to find Mellyora standing by my bed. Her golden hair was about her shoulders and she had not put a dressing gown over her flannelette nightdress.

"Wake up, Kerensa," she said. "You're having a nightmare."

I sat up and stared at her hands.

"What on earth was it?"

"I dreamed I was walled up and that you were trying to save me. I was suffocating."

"I don't wonder at it, you were buried right under the bedclothes and think of all that dash-an-darras and mead."

She sat on my bed laughing at me; but I could still feel my nightmare hanging over me.

"What an evening!" she said, and clasping her knees stared before her. As the sense of nightmare faded I remembered what I had heard from the cupboard. It was Mellyora's dancing with Justin which had provoked Judith's jealousy.

I sat up. "You danced with Justin, didn't you?" I said.

"Of course."

"His wife didn't like his dancing with you."

"How do you know?"

I told her what had happened to me. Her eyes opened wide and she sprang up, took me by the shoulders and shook me. "Kerensa, I might have known that something would happen to you! Tell me every word you heard when you were in the cupboard."

"I have ... as far as I can remember. I was horribly scared."

"I should think so. What on earth made you?"

"I don't know. I just thought it was the only thing to do at the time. Was she right, Mellyora?"

"Right?"

"To be jealous."

Mellyora laughed. "She is married to him," she said; and I was not sure whether the flippancy hid a certain bitterness.

We were silent for a while, each preoccupied with her own thoughts. I was the one to break it. I said: "I think you have always liked Justin."

It was a time for confidences and indiscretions. The magic of the ball was still with us, and Mellyora and I were closer that night than we had been before.

"He's different from Johnny," she said.

"I should hope for his wife's sake that he is."

"No one would be safe with Johnny around. Justin doesn't seem to notice people."

"Meaning Grecians with long golden hair?"

"Meaning everybody. He seems remote."

"Perhaps he ought to have been a monk rather than a husband."

"What things you say!" She started to talk of Justin then: the first time she and her father had been invited to take tea with the St. Larnstons; how she had worn a sprigged muslin dress for the occasion; how polite Justin had been. I could see that she had a kind of childish adoration for him and I hoped that was all because I didn't want her to be hurt.

"By the way," she said, "Kim told me he was going away."

"Oh?"

"To Australia, I think."

"Right away?" My voice sounded blank in spite of my efforts to control it.

"For a long time. He's going to sail with his father but he said he might stay in Australia for a time because he has an uncle there."

The enchantment of the ball seemed to have disappeared.

"Are you tired?" asked Mellyora.

"Well, it must be very late."

"Early morning rather."

"We ought to get some sleep."

She nodded and went into her own room. Strange how we both seemed suddenly to have lost our exhilaration. Was it because she was thinking of Justin and his passionately loving wife? Was it because I was thinking of Kim who was going away and had told her and not me?

It was about a week after the ball when Dr. Milliard paid a visit to the parsonage. I was on the front lawn when his brougham drew up and he called good morning to me. I knew that the Reverend Charles had been seeing him recently and I guessed that he had come to discover how he was.

"The Reverend Charles Martin is not at home," I told him.

"Good. It is Miss Martin I have come to see. Is she at home?"

"Oh, yes."

"Then would you be so kind as to tell her I'm here."

"Certainly," I said. "Pray, come in."

I took him into the drawing room and went to find Mellyora. She was sewing in her room and seemed startled when I told her that Dr. Milliard wanted to see her.

She hurried down to him at once and I went into my room, wondering if Mellyora was ill and had been consulting the doctor secretly.

Half an hour later the brougham drove away, and the door of my room was flung open and Mellyora came in. Her face was white and her eyes looked almost dark; I had never seen her like that before.

"Oh, Kerensa," she said, "this is terrible."

"Tell me what it's all about."

"It's Papa. Dr. Hilliard says he is gravely ill."

"Oh ... Mellyora."

"He says Papa has some sort of growth and that he had advised him to have a second opinion. Papa didn't tell me. I didn't know he'd been seeing these doctors. Well, now they think they know. Kerensa, I can't bear it. They say he's going to die."

"But they can't know."

"They're almost certain. Three months, Dr. Hilliard thinks."

"Oh, no!"

"He says that Papa mustn't go on working because he's on the verge of collapse. He wants him to go to bed and rest... ." She buried her face in her hands; I went to her and put my arms round her. We clung together.

"They can't be sure," I insisted.

But I didn't believe that. I knew now that I had seen death in the Reverend Charles's face.

Everything had changed. Each day the Reverend Charles was a little worse. Mellyora and I nursed him. She insisted on giving him every attention and I insisted on helping her.

David Killigrew had come to the parsonage. He was a curate who was to take over the parson's duties until, as they said, something could be arranged. They really meant until the Reverend Charles died.

The autumn came and Mellyora and I hardly ever went out. We did few lessons, although Miss Kellow was still with us, because most of our time was spent in and out of the sickroom. It was a strangely different household; and I think we were all grateful for David Killigrew, who was in his late twenties and one of the gentlest people I had ever met. He went quietly about the house, making very little trouble; yet he could preach a good sermon and attend to parish affairs with an efficiency which was amazing.

He would often sit with the Reverend Charles and talk to him about the parish. He would talk to us, too; and in a short time we almost forgot what his presence meant in the house, for he seemed like a member of the family. He cheered us and made us feel that he was grateful for our company; as for the servants, they took to him as the people of the parish did; and for a long time it seemed as though this state of affairs would go on indefinitely.

Christmas came—a sad Christmas for us. Mrs. Yeo made some preparation in the kitchen because, as she said, the servants expected it; and she knew it was what the Reverend would wish. David agreed with her, and she set about making the cakes and puddings, just as she had every year.

I went out with David to get in the holly; and as he cut it I said: "Why do we do this? We none of us feel like making merry."

He looked at me sadly and answered: "It's better to go on hoping."

"Is it? When we can t help knowing that the end is near—and what that end will be?"

"We live by hope," he told me.

I admitted that this was true, I looked at him sharply. "For what do you hope?" I asked.

He was silent for a while; then he said: "I suppose what every man hopes for—a fireside, my own family."

"And you know that your hopes will be realized?"

He moved closer to me and answered, "If I should get a living."

"And not till then?"

"I have my mother to care for. My first duty is to her."

"Where is she now?"

"She is in the care of her niece who is staying in our little house until I return."

He had pricked his finger on the holly; he sucked it in a shamefaced way and I noticed that there was a warm flush under his skin.

He was embarrassed. He was thinking that when the Reverend Charles died he had a good chance of being offered the living.

On Christmas Eve the carol singers came to the parsonage and sang "The First Nowell," softly, below the Reverend Charles's window.

At the kitchen table Mrs. Yeo was making the Christmas bush by fastening two wooden hoops together and decorating them with furze and evergreens. She would hang it in the window of the sickroom, just to pretend that we were not too sad to celebrate Christmas.

David dealt with the services in a manner which gave satisfaction to everyone and I heard Mrs. Yeo commenting to Belter that if it had to happen, this was the best way.

It was on Twelfth Night that Kim called. I have always hated Twelfth Night since, telling myself often that it was because all the Christmas decorations were taken down then and that was the end of the festivities until next year.

I saw Kim riding up on the chestnut mare he always rode and I thought how fine and manly he looked—not wicked like Johnny, nor saintly like Justin—exactly as a man should look.

I knew why he had come, since he had told us that he would call to say good-bye. He had seemed sad as the time for departure grew near.

I went out to meet him because I believed that I was the one he regretted leaving.

"Why," he cried, "it's Miss Kerensa."

"I saw you arriving."

Belter had come to take his horse and Kim started towards the entrance. I wanted to delay him, to have him to myself before we joined Mellyora and Miss Kellow who, I knew, were in the drawing room.

"When are you leaving?" I asked, trying to hide the desolation in my voice.

"Tomorrow."

"I don't believe you want to go one bit."

"Just one bit does," he said. "The rest hates to leave home."

"Then why go?"

"My dear Kerensa, all the arrangements have been made."

"I see no reason why they shouldn't be canceled."

"Alas," he replied. "I do."

"Kim," I said passionately, "if you don't want to go ..."

"But I want to go across the seas and make a fortune."

"What for?"

"To come back rich and famous."

"Why?"

"So that I can settle down, marry and raise a family."

These were almost exactly the same words David Killigrew had used. Perhaps this was a common desire.

"Then you will, Kim," I said earnestly.

He laughed and, leaning towards me, kissed me lightly on the forehead. I felt wildly happy and almost immediately desperately sad.

"You looked so like a prophetess," he told me, as though to excuse the kiss. Then he went on lightly: "I believe you are some sort of witch ... the nicest sort, of course." For a moment we stood smiling at each other before he went on: "This cutting wind can't be good ... even for witches."

He slipped his arm through mine and we went into the house together.

In the drawing room Mellyora and Miss Kellow were waiting and as soon as we arrived Miss Kellow rang for tea.

Kim talked mainly about Australia, of which he seemed to know a great deal. He glowed with enthusiasm and I loved listening to him, and saw vividly the land he described: the harbor with its indentations and sandy beaches fringed with foliage; the brilliant plumage of strange birds; the moist heat which made you feel as though you were in a steamy bath; it would be summer there now, he told us. He talked of the station to which he was going; how cheap land was; and labor, too. I thought with pain of a night when my brother had lain in a mantrap and this man had carried him to safety. But for Kim, my brother Joe might be "cheap labor" on the other side of the world.

Oh, Kim, I thought, I wish I were going with you.

But I was not sure that was true. I wanted to live in St Larnston Abbas like a lady. Did I really want to live on some lonely station in a strange and uncultivated land, even with Kim?

It was my wild dream for Kim to stay, for Kim to own the Abbas instead of the St. Larnstons, I wanted to share the Abbas with Kim.

"Kerensa's thoughtful." Kim was watching me, quizzically. Tenderly? I wondered.

"I was imagining it all. You make it sound so real."

"You wait till I come back"

"And then?"

"I shall have some stories to tell you."

He shook hands with us as he was leaving, and kissed first Mellyora and then me.

"I'll be back," he said. "You see."

I went on remembering those words long after he had gone.

It was not that I overheard a precise conversation; it was little hints I caught now and then which made me understand what was in people's minds.

No one had any doubt that the Reverend Charles was dying. Sometimes he seemed a little better but he never really progressed and week by week we saw his strength slowly slipping away.

I wondered constantly about what would happen to us when he died, for it was clear that the state of affairs which now existed was only a compromise.

Mrs. Yeo gave me the first clue when she was speaking of David Killigrew. I realized that she accepted him as the new master of the house; she believed—and I realized that this had occurred to many others—that when the Reverend Charles died David Killigrew would have the living. He would become the parson here. And Mellyora? Well, Mellyora was a parson's daughter so it would be reasonable to suppose that she would make a good parson's wife.

It seemed to them right and reasonable, so they hinted that it was inevitable. Mellyora and David. They were good friends. She was grateful to him; and he must admire her. Suppose they were right, what would happen to me?

I shouldn't leave Mellyora. David had always shown the utmost friendliness towards me. I should stay on in the parsonage, making myself useful. In what capacity? Maid to Mellyora? She never treated me as a maid. I was the sister she had always wanted and who had the same name as the one she had lost.

Some weeks after Kim's departure I met Johnny St. Larnston near the Pengaster farm. I had been to see Granny, to take her a basket of food, and I was preoccupied because—although she had talked animatedly about the day she had spent at the vet's house, where she had been invited for Christmas Day—she looked thin and her eyes seemed less bright than usual. I noticed, too, that she still coughed too much.

My anxiety was due to the fact that I came from a house of sickness, I told myself. Because the Reverend Charles was ill, I was expecting everyone of his age to be threatened.

Granny had told me how much at home Joe was at the vet's house and how they treated him like one of the family. It was an excellent state of affairs for although the vet had four daughters he had no son, so he was pleased to have a boy like Joe to help him.

I was a little melancholy when I left the cottage; there were so many shadows threatening my life; the sickness in the house which I had come to regard as home; the apprehension over Granny's health; Joe, too, in a way, sitting at the vet's table instead of that of Dr. Billiard.

"Hello!" Johnny was sitting on the stile which led to the Pengaster fields. He leaped down and fitted his step to mine. "I've been hoping we should meet."

"Is that so?"

"Allow me to carry your basket."

"There's no need. It's empty."

"And where are you going, my pretty maid?"

"You seem to have a fondness for nursery rhymes. Is that because you have not yet grown up?"

" My face is my fortune, sir, she said," he quoted. "It's true. Miss ... er ... Carlyon. But watch that sharp tongue of yours. By the way, why Carlyon? Why not St. Ives, Marazion. Carlyon! But it suits you, you know."

I quickened my steps. "I am really in a hurry."

"A pity. I was hoping we should be able to renew our acquaintance. I should have seen you before, don't doubt it. But I have been away and am only just back."

"You will soon be returning, I daresay."

"Do you mean you hope? Oh, Kerensa, why won't you be friends with me? I want to be, you know."

"You go the wrong way about making friends, perhaps."

"Then you must show me the right way."

He gripped my arm and pulled me round to face him. There was a light in his eyes which alarmed me. I thought of the way he had looked for Hetty Pengaster in church and how I had seen him on the stile. He had probably been coming from some rendezvous with her.

I twisted my arm free. "Let me alone," I said. "And not just now ... always. I am not Hetty Pengaster."

He was startled; there was no doubt of that because I escaped with ease. I ran and when I looked over my shoulder he was still standing staring after me.

By the end of January the Reverend Charles became so ill that he was given sedatives by the doctor, which resulted in long hours of sleep. Mellyora and I would sit quietly talking as we sewed or perhaps read, and every now and then one of us would rise to look into the sickroom. David Killigrew was with us every moment he could spare and we both agreed that his presence soothed us. Sometimes Mrs. Yeo brought us food and she would always cast a fond eye on the young man. I had heard her declare to Belter that when this unhappy business was over her first task would be to build up the young parson. Bess or Kit would come in to make up the fire, and the glances they bestowed on him and Mellyora were significant to me, though perhaps not to him or to Mellyora. The latter's thoughts were occupied with her father.

A melancholy peace pervaded the house. Inevitable death was with us, but that had to pass; and then when it was over, we would grow away from it and nothing would be changed, inasmuch as those who now served one person would serve another.

Mellyora and David. It would be inevitable. Mellyora would settle down in time; she would cease to have dreams about a knight whose devotion had been given to another lady.

I looked up and caught David's eyes on me. He smiled when he realized that I had caught him. There was something revealing in that glance. Had I been mistaken?

I was disturbed. That was not how things were expected to work out.

During the next few days I knew that what I had suspected was a certainty.

I was sure after that conversation. It was not exactly a proposal of marriage because David was not the sort of man to propose marriage until he was in a position to afford to keep a wife. As a curate with an aged mother to support, he was not. But if, as he must believe since everyone else did, he acquired the St. Larnston living, that would be a different matter.

He and I were sitting by the fire alone, for Mellyora was at her father's bedside.

He said to me: "You regard this as your home. Miss Carlee?"

I agreed.

"I have heard how you came here!'

I knew that was inevitable. As a subject of gossip it had ceased to be interesting, except of course when there was a newcomer who had not heard it before.

"I admire you for what you've done," he went on. "I think that you are most ... most wonderful. I imagine that you hope never to leave the parsonage,"

"Fm not sure," I said. He had made me wonder what I did hope for. To live at the parsonage had not been my dream. The night when I had dressed in red velvet and, masked, walked up the wide staircase to be received by Lady St. Larnston had been more like a dream coming true than living at the parsonage had ever been.

"Of course you are unsure. There are matters in life which require a great deal of thought. I myself have been reviewing my own life. You see, Miss Carlee, a man in my present position cannot afford to marry; but if that position should change... ."

He paused and I thought: He is asking me to marry him when the Reverend is dead and he has stepped into his shoes. He felt ashamed that he should be thinking of a future for which he must wait until another was dead.

"I think," he went on, "that you would make an excellent parson's wife, Miss Carlee."

I laughed. "I? I do not think so."

"But why not?"

"Everything would be wrong. My background, for one thing."

He snapped his fingers. "You are yourself. That is all that matters."

"My character."

"What is wrong with that?"

"It is hardly serious and pious."

"My dear Miss Carlee, you underrate yourself."

"You little know me." I laughed again. When had I ever underrated myself? Had I not always felt a power in myself that I believed would carry me wherever I wanted to go? I was as arrogant in my way as Lady St. Larnston was in hers. Truly, I thought, love is blind; for it was becoming increasingly clear to me that David Killigrew was falling in love with me.

"I am sure," he went on, "that you would succeed with anything you undertook. Besides ..."

He did not finish for Mellyora came out then; her face was drawn and anxious.

"I think he is worse," she said.

It was Easter time and the church was decorated with daffodils when the Reverend Charles Martin died. Ours was a house of mourning, and Mellyora was inconsolable, for although we had known for so long that death was inevitable, when it came it was still a blow. Mellyora spent the day in her room and would see no one; then she asked for me. I sat with her and she talked of him, how good he had been to her, how lost she felt without him; she recalled instance after instance of his kindness, of his love and care; then she would weep quietly and I wept with her, for I had been fond of him, and I hated to see Mellyora so distressed.

The day of the funeral came and the tolling of the bell seemed to fill the house. Mellyora looked beautiful in her black clothes with the veil over her face; black was less becoming to my dark looks and the dress I wore under the black coat was too loose for me.

The prancing horses, the waving black plumes, the mutes, the solemnity of the burial service, the standing round that grave where I had stood with Mellyora when she had told me that she had had a sister named Kerensa, this was somber and melancholy.

Yet, even worse, was coming back to the parsonage which seemed empty because that quiet man, of whom I had seen very little, was gone.

The mourners came back to the parsonage, Lady St. Larnston and Justin among them; they made our drawing room, in which ham sandwiches and vine were served, seem small and simple—although I had thought it very grand when I had first seen it. Justin spent most of the time with Mellyora. He was gentle, courteous, and he seemed genuinely concerned. David was at my side. I believed that very soon he would definitely ask me to marry him; and I wondered what I could say, knowing as I did that others expected him to marry Mellyora. While the mourners ate their sandwiches and drank the wine which Belter had been called in to serve, I was seeing myself as mistress of this house, Mrs. Yeo and Belter taking their orders from me. A far cry, one might say, from the girl who had set herself up on the hiring stand at Trelinket Fair. A long way indeed. In the village they would always remember. Tarson's wife, she came from the cottages she did." They would envy me and never quite accept me. But should I care?

And yet... I had dreamed a dream. This would not be its fulfillment. I did not care for David Killigrew as I did for Kim; and I was not even sure that I wanted to be with Kim who was so far from the Abbas.

When the mourners had left, Mellyora went to her room. Dr. Hilliard, who had made up his mind that I was a sensible young woman, called and asked to see me.

"Miss Martin is very distraught," he said. "I am giving you a mild sedative for her, but I don't want her to have it unless she needs it. She looks exhausted. But if she should be unable to sleep, give it to her." He smiled at me in his rather brusque way. He respected me. I began to dream then that I was able to talk to him, to interest him in Joe. I hated to find that my dreams even for others did not come true.

I went into Mellyora's room that night and found her sitting at the bedroom window looking out over the lawn to the graveyard.

"You'll catch cold," I said. "Come to bed."

She shook her head, so I put a shawl about her shoulders and drawing up a chair sat beside her.

"Oh, Kerensa, everything will be different now. Don't you feel it?"

"It must be so."

"I feel as though I am in a sort of limbo ... floating between two lives. The old life is over; the new one is about to begin."

"For us both," I said.

She gripped my hand. "Yes, change for me means change for you. It seems now, Kerensa, that your life is entwined with mine."

I wondered what she would do now. I believed I could stay on at the parsonage if I wished. But what of Mellyora? What happened to the daughters of parsons? If they had no money they became governesses to children; they became companions to elderly ladies. What would Mellyora's fate be? And mine?

She did not seem to be concerned with her own future; her thoughts were still with her father.

"He is hang out there," she said, "with my mother and the baby ... little Kerensa. I wonder if his spirit has flown to Heaven yet."

"You shouldn't sit there brooding. Nothing can bring him back, and remember he would not have wanted you to be unhappy. His great aim was to make you happy always."

"He was the best father in the world, Kerensa, yet I could wish now that he had been harsh and cruel sometimes, so that I did not have to mourn so much."

She began to weep silently and I put an arm about her. I led her to bed and gave her the sedative Dr. Hilliard had given me.

Then I stopped by her bed until she slept and I tried to peer into the future.

The future was not to be as we had imagined it. It was as though a mischievous fate were reminding us that man proposes and God disposes.

In the first place David Killigrew did not get the St. Larnston living. Instead, the Reverend James Hemphill with his wife and three daughters came to the parsonage.

David went sadly back to become a curate again, to shelve his dream of marriage and to share his life with his widowed mother. He said we must write to each other—and hope.

Mrs. Yeo and Belter were only really concerned—as were Bess and Kit —as to whether the Hemphills would require their services.

Mellyora seemed to have grown up in those weeks; I suppose I did, too, for we suddenly found that security had been swept away from us.

Mellyora took me to her bedroom where we could talk in peace. She looked grave; but her fear for her own future had at least superimposed itself on her grief for her father. There was no rime for mourning.

"Kerensa," she said to me, "sit down. I've heard that my father has left so little that it will be necessary for me to earn my living."

I looked at her; she had lost weight and seemed frail in her black dress. She had put up her hair, which somehow made her look helpless. I pictured her in some stately mansion—the governess—not quite one of the servants and yet considered unfit to associate with the family. I shivered.

And what of my own fate? One thing I did believe; I should be more able to take care of myself than she would.

"What do you propose to do?" I asked.

"I want to talk it over with you. Because you see this affects you, too. You'll have to leave here."

"We shall have to find means of earning a living. I shall talk it over with Granny."

"Kerensa, I shan't like our being separated."

"Nor I."

She smiled at me wanly. "If we could be together somewhere. ... I wondered if we could start a school ... or something."

"Where?"

"Somewhere here in St. Larnston."

It was a wild plan and I could see that she didn't believe in it even as she spoke.

"When shall we have to leave?" I asked.

"The Hemphills are coming in at the end of the month. That gives us three weeks. Mrs. Hemphill is very kind. She has said I need not worry if I wanted to stay a little longer."

"She won't expect to find me here. I could go to my Granny, I suppose."

Her face puckered and she turned away.

I could have cried with her. I felt that everything I had gained was being snatched from me. No, not everything. I had come to the parsonage an ignorant girl; now I was a young woman almost as educated as Mellyora. I could be a governess even as she could.

That thought gave me confidence and courage. I would talk to Granny. I wouldn't despair yet.

A few days later Lady St. Larnston sent for Mellyora. I can only say "sent," because this was not like the invitations Mellyora had received previously; this was a command.

Mellyora put on her black cloak and black straw hat, and Miss Kellow, who was leaving at the end of the week, drove her to the Abbas.

They returned in about an hour. Mellyora went to her room, calling me to come to her.

I've settled it," she cried.

I didn't understand her, and she went on quickly: "Lady St. Larnston has offered me a post and I've accepted it. Tm to be her companion. At least we won't have to go away."

"We?"

"You didn't think I would leave you?" She smiled and was like she had been in the old days. "Oh, I know we won't like it much ... but at least it's something definite. I'm to be her companion and there's a job for you, too."

"What sort of job?"

"Lady's maid to Mrs. Justin St. Larnston."

"Lady's maid!"

"Yes, Kerensa. You can do it. You have to look after her clothes, do her hair ... make yourself generally useful. I don't think it'll be very difficult ... and you do like clothes. Think how clever you were with the red velvet dress."

I was too taken aback to speak.

Mellyora rushed on. "When she asked me she said it was the best thing she could do for me. She said she felt she owed something to us, and she couldn't let me be left penniless. I told her that you had been with me for so long that I regarded you as my sister and I wouldn't leave you. Then she thought for a while and said that Mrs. St. Larnston needed a maid, and that you would be taken on. I said I was sure you would be grateful "

She was breathless and there was an unmistakable gleam in her eyes. She wanted to go and live at the Abbas even as companion to Lady St. Larnston. I knew why. It was because she couldn't bear to think of leaving St Larnston while Justin was there.

I went at once to Granny Bee and told her what had happened.

"Well, you always wanted to live in that house," she said.

"As a servant!"

"There's only one way as it could be aught else," she went on.

"How?"

"By marrying Johnny St. Larnston."

"As if ..."

Granny laid her hand on my head, for I was sitting on a stool by her chair. "You be comely, my child."

"His sort don't want to marry mine—however comely we are."

"Not as a rule, tis true. But tain't the rule either that your sort be taken up and educated, now is it?"

I shook my head.

"Well, bain't that a sign? You don't expect things that happen to they ordinary folk to happen to 'ee, do 'ee?"

"No, but I don't like Johnny. Besides, he never would marry me, Granny. There's something in him that tells me he never would. He's different with me than with Mellyora, though perhaps he won't be now. He wants me. I know that, but he doesn't care for me one bit."

Granny nodded. "That's for now," she said. "Changes come. Be careful when you be in that house, lovey. Take special care of Johnny." She sighed. "I did hope you'd marry maybe a parson or a doctor like. That's what I could have wished to see."

"If it had all turned out as we thought. Granny, I don't know whether I'd have married David Killigrew."

She stroked my hair. "I know. Your eyes be fixed on that house. It have done something to 'ee, Kerensa. It have bewitched ye."

"Oh, Granny, if only the parson hadn't died."

"There comes a time when we all must die. He weren't a young man and his time had come."

"There's Sir Justin, too." I shuddered, remembering what I had seen when I had opened the wrong door. "Sir Justin and the Reverend Charles. That's two of them. Granny."

"Tis natural. You've seen the leaves on the trees come autumn time. They shrivel and drop and dry. One by one they fall. That's because they be come to autumn. Well some of us be come to our autumn; then one after the other quickly we'll drop from the trees."

I turned to her in horror. "Not you, Granny. You mustn't die."

She laughed. "Here I be. Don't seem like my turn have come yet, do it?"

I was afraid in those moments—afraid of what the future held for me at the Abbas, afraid of a world which would not contain Granny Bee.