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.