Legend of the Seventh Virgin (10 page)

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.”

“What 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 will 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.