In the half dark I thought she was some illusion of the raindripping windows.
“So, Maugan Killigrew! … Well, lad, you’re back. I’m glad. Truly glad.” She spoke as if I were the visitor here.
“Yes. How is it “
“You’ve not been to see me since you came safe home.”
“It is only three months. What brings you here?”
She laughed gently. “Your stepmother thinks I’ve a skill or two that’s useful.”
“Mrs Killigrew invites you?”
“She sent for me first when your sister Odelia had the quinsies, but I would not come on account your father was here. So I sent a syrup which I’m told gave her ease. Then after, I came when Mrs Killigrew had an ailment, and again to see little Peter. It surprises you?”
I did not know what to say.
“Peter’s sick again,” she said. “He has the autumn fever. But I tell Mrs Killigrew to save her fears for others. He shivers and quivers, in every wind, but he’s like to out-see you all.”
It was on my tongue to tell her of the salve I had made for Mariana’s scald.
“Does my father know you come?”
She shrugged. “There’s servants here who rail at me comin’, and one or another may drop the word. It’s no concern of mine.”
“But you would not come when he’s here?”
“I don’t like your father’s ways. I believe the Killigrews have no good destiny here, and he is sealin’ it. Each time I come it’s like a clenched fist over this house. It slopes, Maugan. The whole house slopes towards the pill “
She seemed herself a part of what she prophesied, a bird of ill-omen flapping its wings in the dark.
“Take care for yourself,” she said. “I told you there was blood on your hands.”
I stared down stupidly, thinking for a moment she meant from the carcass of the animal we had just slaughtered.
“There’s blood on each hand,” she said, “and I’m none too sure Otho Kendall’s is marked on either. But it’s a warning. Follow not your father, lad. You’ve better things in you than to become one of his bullies. And as for women, the way for your happiness is not to pull down any maid within reach of your fingers, as your father did and I hear you’re coin’, but to live for one or two. Each bauble you seize and throw off tarnishes and debases what you can feel for the others. Love is like gold, it should be spent in sum and not frittered away.”
That she was talking in such ignorance of the truth set all my anger alight. “I’ve a life to live, and how I spend it’s of concern only to me! I’m part Killigrew and I owe all to my father! If I can give him some service I shall do it. As for women … that’s my concern too, isn’t it?”
She swung her scarlet stringed bag gently back and forth. “Well, I see there’s been a change in you, Maugan, and that in less than a year.”
“Don’t come here again. If you’re against my father you’re against us all.”
`‘That’s not true, boy. I’m not against your father. I’m ‘against’ no one. I see trouble comin’ to this house as rain comes with a cloud. That don’t mean I shout welcome to it. I speak warnin’. If you’ve no time or patience to heed it, more’s the pity.”
“There’ll be less trouble with you out of it.”
She put her hand on my arm; I tried to shake it off but it had a firm grip.
“In Truro we were friends. Who’s slid poison in your veins?” She peered more closely. “Ah … I remember. You were sighin’ for that girl … How’s she done you ill?”
I shook her hand off at last.
She said: “I’ve many cures, but not for the one that ails you now. Time only can help. But remember that if one man robs you it don’t make all the world a thief. Nor one woman neither.”
“Keep your advice.”
I saw she was suddenly angry.
“As for me staying away from Arwenack,” she said, “I’ll see you damned ere I do that! So long as your stepmother calls me, I’ll come. I have a finger in this house, lad, and not you nor your father shall root it out. I give you warning of it! “
She brushed past me. I almost laid hands on her, but something held me back, some old awe. I watched her till she was out of sight. Then I went on clumsily, noisily, up the stairs.
I began to want Meg Levant. I wanted her not out of love, not at first wholly from desire, but out of seething black-minded misery and frustration. Because of loyalty to Sue I’d rejected Mariana, because the alarm was raised I had been robbed of Sibylla. I had no hard thoughts for Dick Stable; everyone liked him; but I was in the mood to ignore the feelings of others. If he could not keep a pretty girl content for six months of marriage then he should not be surprised if another tried.
With some cunning I changed my attitude to Meg. I began to use her with a respect which I saw she at once appreciated.
I did not hurry; there was time. I contrived to meet her once by the castle steps when she was coming back from an errand there, so we walked home together. I was carrying a copy of The Noble Birth and Gallant Achievements of Robin Hood it was Katherine Footmarker’s book which had never been returned and on the way I suggested we sat on the stile and she could listen to the first of the twelve adventures. She sat very quiet all through the reading. A week later I did the same again; and when this was over suggested she should try to find an errand to come this way each Wednesday to listen to the rest. She looked at me out of her long hazel eyes, but did not say either yes or no.
The next Wednesday she was not there, but I said nothing when we met in the house. I kept to my new civility and left things to simmer. The following Wednesday she was there, and, as it was raining we sheltered in the granite look-out which was at the narrowest part of the land. When the third chapter was finished she stretched as if coming out of a dream.
“Laws, tis all very strange. Is it all true, d’ye think, all this trade about Friar Tuck and Maid Marion and the rest? Did they ever live?”
“Surely they lived. Doesn’t it speak of King John?”
‘q wish I was like Maid Marion,” she said, pulling at a thread in her skirt. “I wish I was a man or could dress like a man …”
“You did once.”
“When?” she looked at me. “Oh … that were in a play, in jest. Tedn the same ‘tall.”
“Meg,” I said, “what did you do with the stockings?”
“Those? Oh, I still have ‘em. But I wore them last Christmas and tared a hole in ‘em. They’re mended, but I couldn’t get the right colour o’ wool.”
“I never gave you a wedding gift. When next I’m in Truro I’ll buy you another pair.”
For a few long seconds she looked through the rain towards the house. “Can’t you get a good view from herel Tis as good or betterer’n from your father’s window.”
“Would you like that?”
“I might like it but Dick might not.”
“Dick would never know. He does not see all Swear.”
She giggled slightly. “Aye, that’s true.”
“Meg, I’ll buy you two pair, one red pair, one green on a condition.”
“What? “
“That you let me put ‘em on for you.”
She went a sudden blushing scarlet. “Really, Mauganl” She stood up. “What d’ye think I am a common queen? Well … my life … tis too insulting of you. I thought you’d mended your ways “
“So I have.”
“So you have not ~
“I’ve mended my ways because I don’t joke with you, Meg. It’s dead serious.”
“Then all the more shame! “
“D’you truly think so? But I’ve a great taking for you, Meg. I mean it~not rudely but as a compliment.”
She stared down at me, angry and flushed of face. Then, as usual with Meg, she saw the comic side of it and burst out laughing.