King of the Sea

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

HILDA STARED UNHAPPILY at Miss Kernow. The earnest young woman reminded her of someone but she could not think whom. She said, "I find the entire business extremely distasteful," and turned her gaze to the street outside. "I cannot imagine why a supposedly loving Creator ever allowed it in the first place."

Miss Kernow cleared her throat delicately. "The science of zoology..."

"Zoology!" Hilda exploded. "There you have it, indeed! Zoo-ology! As if we were mere creatures in a zoo! I shall have a thing or two to say on Judgement Day, I can promise you." She squared her shoulders and returned to her visitor, gathering her shawl about her more tightly yet. "What have we to do with zoo-ology? Are we made in God's image or that of the baboon?"

Miss Kernow dipped her head as if she were conceding the point. "But as to practical matters," she went on, "I mean, I presume you did warn her to expect some such event?"

For a second or two Hilda made no reply; then she said, more to herself than to the teacher, "Nobody ever warned me." "I found her in the washroom, trying to pour water inside herself, you know. Very cold. It could have brought on a hæmorrhage."

Hilda wrinkled her nose in disgust but said nothing. "She was almost hysterical," the younger woman continued. "I gave her an assurance that it happens to every young girl at around her age. But I withheld the glad tidings that she may expect it to continue for the next quarter-century." She smiled wanly. "Sufficient unto the day, I thought."

Hilda no longer appeared to be listening. "I've been dreading this," she said. She rose and went back to the window, where she stared up and down the street as if some miraculous deliverance were momentarily expected. "Catherine's innocence is such an ornament to this household."

"She has two older brothers, I believe?"

The question made Hilda realize who it was the young woman resembled. It was lightly put, almost inconsequential, and yet it could prick like a thorn. "Two," she replied guardedly. "Boys no more. Young men. With all that implies! I don't know when I last got the whole truth out of either of them." She turned in the bay window, a hind at bay. "Men are such furtive creatures, don't you find."

Yes! Miss Kernow even had the same smile as Daphne Dowty - knowing, superior, condescending. "Not that they have a monopoly in evasion," the teacher said. Her tone suggested she was offering the most abstract of philosophical comments but her smile made it quite clear that her target was more parochial. However, long experience at trying to cross swords with Daphne made Hilda wary of

pitting herself against Miss Kernow, now. It was absurd. How old was she? Twenty-two, perhaps? She'd be lucky to get a husband now. So why was she, Hilda Troy, thirty-nine and mother of three, wife of the greatest captain in the Mercantile Marine why was she deferring to this little chit of a thing? Deferring to? No, that was a bit strong. Entertaining the callow, bookish opinions of? That was more like it. Why was she entertaining such opinions? What could Miss Kernow know of life? Only what she'd read, or picked up in earnest, late night discussions with others of her type - all second hand stuff.

"Yes... well..." Miss Kernow rose, straightening the fingers of her left hand glove as if pulling an invisible ring onto each finger exactly as Daphne did it. Hilda had a fleeting intimation that there are probably only two or three dozen human individualities, doled out at random; she rejected the thought at once, as being too uncomfortable to live with. We are what we strive to become. No matter what you were "born to be," you could become anything you wanted, simply by striving hard enough. Except men, of course. They could only struggle so far up the ladder to perfection; the Old Adam would always drag them back a rung or two. But for a woman the possibility was vast. "Yes," she said firmly. "Say not the struggle naught availeth!"

Miss Kernow smiled. Such a charming smile. It was a wonder some man hadn't snapped her up; if she were a man, she'd love to kiss such a creature. Hilda frowned at the thought; it was not quite the direction she had intended her mind to go. Meanwhile Miss Kernow was saying, "At the practical, everyday level, Mrs Troy, I've advised Catherine to tie a small bandage around her ankle when 'her friend' is visiting, and to find some unostentatious way of letting me or one of the other teachers see it."

Hilda nodded solemnly and rang the bell for one of the maids to show her visitor out. "I shall do all in my power to preserve her innocence, Miss Kernow," she said firmly, knowing that the woman's departure I would now preclude any tedious discussion of the business. "Catherine's virtue and purity is one of the ornaments of this household, the very jewel in our crown. I shall conserve it as if it were my own life, which, indeed, it is."

Miss Kernow was too nonplussed to make any reply to this. She bowed gravely and allowed herself to be shown out.

Hilda returned to the bay window and watched her emerge into the street. She walked a few yards and hesitated. Hilda shrank back into the dark of the room, knowing the woman was going to turn which, indeed, she did. She stared back at the house, at the windows of the room where she had so lately sat, and shook her head before turning again and resuming her walk. -

Was it pity, bewilderment, or admiration? Such an ambiguous gesture. She was so like Daphne! Or like Daphne had been at that age. A great warmth toward the young woman flooded through Hilda's body. She wanted to befriend her, talk to her, warn her ... help her to avoid becoming what Daphne had become. She had a delightful vision in which the pair of them walked arm in arm over Highbury Fields on a hot and languorous summer day, as she and Daphne had done in that amazing summer of 'Sixty-six, when she was engaged to Francis and Daphne to Brian. The last summer of their innocence. The last truly happy period of her life, to be honest.

Now she wished she hadn't been quite so offhand with poor little Miss Kernow. She must write her a note... how much she'd enjoyed their little chat ...

tea, perhaps? Catherine entered at that moment. Was it a look of reproach in her eye? Hilda threw her arms wide. "Oh, my poor darling! My poor dove!"

Half the girl fell eagerly into that embrace; half permitted it with some diffidence - the girl and the woman, poised in a gawky balance. "I want to go back to school," she said.

"But you're ill, my pet," her mother objected. "I'm not," she asserted and then softened it with,

"not really, you know. I felt much worse yesterday." She gave a complicit smile. "And now I know why, of course."

Hilda frowned. How could she know? Miss Kernow? Could that woman have had the impudence and bad taste to explain the whole business to the girl? Provisional invitations to tea were firmly withdrawn.

"Emma says it's always worse before. She says she feels best of all when ..." Catherine felt her mother stiffen. She withdrew and looked at her in alarm. She had rarely seen such anger in her mother's face. Quickly she sought to appease her: "She was very kind to me. Kinder even than Miss Kernow." Praise hardly came higher; she hoped it was enough.

But her mother's face hardened yet further. "Go to your room, please," she said in a voice ominously quiet.

"What are you going to do to me?" the girl asked. "Not you. You are the innocent in all this. I will not have you polluted. To your room!"

Catherine stood her ground. "But what are you going to do? Emma? Is it something about Emma?"

"I shall not tell you again, miss." "But Emma was only trying to be kind."

Her mother took one menacing step toward her and the girl fled. At the threshold she paused. The words formed in her mind: "If you punish Emma for this, I'll never forgive you," but the courage to say them deserted her at the last. She tried to convey the notion with a glance instead.