Legend of the Seventh Virgin (11 page)

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 little 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
ménage
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.”