I wondered if I could teach myself to read if I took one of the books and looked at it, learned the shape of the letters, copied them, remembered them. I forgot all about cleaning the room. I sat on the floor, took one book after another, tried to make comparisons of letters to give me a clue as to what they meant. I was still sitting there when Mellyora came into the room.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

I shut the book hastily and said: "I'm cleaning your room."

She laughed. "Nonsense. You were sitting on the floor reading. What were you reading, Kerensa? I didn't know you could read."

"You're laughing at me," I cried. "Stop it. Don't think because you hired me at a fair you bought me!"

"Kerensa!" she said haughtily as she had spoken to Miss Kellow.

Then I felt my lips tremble and her face changed at once.

"Why were you looking at the books?" she asked gently. "Tell me, please. I want to know."

It was the "please" which made me blurt out the truth. "It's not fair," I said. "I could read if someone would show me."

"So you want to read?"

"Of course I want to read and write. More than anything in the world I want to."

She sat on the bed, crossed her pretty feet, and looked at her shiny shoes. "Well, that's easy enough," she said. "You must be taught."

"Who'll teach me?"

"I will, of course."

That was the beginning. She did teach me, although she admitted afterwards that she thought I would soon tire of learning. Tire! I was indefatigable. In the attic which I shared with Bess and Kit, I would wake with the dawn and write the letters, copying those Mellyora had set for me; I would steal candles from Mrs. Yeo's store cupboard and bum them half the night. I threatened Bess and Kit with horrible misfortunes if they should tell on me, and because I was Granny Bee's granddaughter, they meekly agreed to keep my secret.

Mellyora was astounded by my progress and on the day I wrote my name unaided, she was quite overcome by emotion.

"It's a shame," she said, "that you have to do this other work. You ought to be in the schoolroom."

A few days later the Reverend Charles summoned me to his study. He was very thin, with kind eyes and a skin that seemed to grow more and more yellow every day. His clothes were too big for him and his light-brown hair was always ruffled and untidy. He didn't care much about himself; he cared a great deal about the poor and people's souls; and more than anything in the world he cared for Mellyora. You could see that he thought of her as one of the angels he was always preaching about. She could do exactly what she liked with him, so it was lucky for me that one thing she had inherited from him was this caring about other people. He always looked rather worried. I had thought that this was because he was thinking of all the people who would go to hell, but after I overheard the conversation between Mrs. Yeo and Belter, it occurred to me that he might be worried about all the food being eaten in this house and how he was going to pay for it.

"My daughter tells me that she has taught you to write. That's very good. That's excellent You want to read and write, do you, Kerensa?"

"Yes, very much."

"Why?"

I knew I mustn't tell him the real reason, so I said craftily: "Because I want to read books, sir. Books like the Bible."

That pleased him. "Then, my child," he said, "since you have the ability, we must do all we can to help you. My daughter suggests that you join her with Miss Kellow tomorrow. I shall tell Mrs. Yeo to excuse you from the duties you would be doing at that time."

I didn't try to hide my joy because there was no need to, and he patted my shoulder.

"Now if you find that you would rather be at your tasks with Mrs. Yeo than those set you by Miss Kellow, you must say so."

"I never shall!" I answered vehemently.

"Go along!' he said, "and pray earnestly that God will guide you in all you do,"

The decision which would never have been made in any other household caused consternation in this one.

"I never heard the like!" grumbled Mrs. Yeo. "Taking that sort and making a scholar of her. Mark my words, it'll be Bodmin Asylum for some people afore long—and them not far distant from this room where I do stand. I tell 'ee, parson's going out of his mind."

Bess and Kit just whispered together that this was the result of a spell Granny Bee had put on parson. She wanted her granddaughter to be able to read and write like a lady. Just showed, didn't it, what Granny Bee could do if she wanted to. I thought: this is going to be good for Granny, too!

Miss Kellow received me stonily; I could see that she was going to tell me that she, an impoverished gentlewoman, was not going to sink so low as teaching such as I was, without a struggle.

"This is madness," she said when I presented myself.

"Why?" demanded Mellyora.

"How do you think we can continue with our studies when I have to teach the ABC."

"She already knows it. She can already read and write."

"I protest ... strongly."

"What are you going to do?" asked Mellyora. "Give a month's notice?"

"I might do that. I would like you to know that I have taught in the house of a baronet"

"You have mentioned it more than once," retorted Mellyora acidly. "And since you so regret leaving that house, perhaps you should try to find another like it."

She could be sharp when she had something to campaign for. What a champion she was!

"Sit down, child," said Miss Kellow. I obeyed meekly enough because I was anxious to learn all she could teach me.

She tried to spoil everything, of course; but my desire to learn and to prove her wrong was so great that I astonished not only Mellyora and Miss Kellow but myself. Having mastered the art of reading and writing, I could easily improve without anybody's help. Mellyora gave me book after book which I read avidly. I learned exciting facts about other countries and what happened in the past. Soon I should equal Mellyora; my secret plan was to surpass her.

But all the time I had to fight Miss Kellow; she hated me and was continually trying to prove how foolish it was to waste time on me, until I found a way to silence her.

I had watched her closely because I had already learned that if you have an enemy it is as well to know as much about him as you can discover. If you have to attack you must go for the vulnerable part. Miss Kellow had a secret. She was frightened of insecurity; she hated being unmarried, seeing in it some slur to her womanhood. I had seen her flinch at the reference to "old maids" and I began to understand that she hoped to marry the Reverend Charles.

Whenever I was alone with her in the schoolroom, her manner to me would be disdainful; she never praised what I did; if she had to explain anything she would sigh with impatience. I disliked her. I should have hated her if I hadn't known so much about her and recognized that she was as insecure as I was.

One day when Mellyora had left the schoolroom and I was putting our books away, I dropped a pile of them. She gave her unpleasant laugh.

"That's not the way to treat books."

"I couldn't help dropping them, could I?"

"Pray be more respectful when you speak to me."

"Why should I?"

"Because I have a position here, because I'm a lady—something you will never be."

Deliberately I set the books down on the table. I faced her and I gave her a look as scornful as the one she had given me.

"Leastways," I said, lapsing into the dialect and accent which I was learning to drop, "reckon I wouldn't be chasing an old parson, hoping as how he'll marry me."

She turned pale. "How ... dare you!" she cried; but my words had struck as I had intended they should.

"Oh, I dare all right," I retaliated. "I dare taunt you as you taunt me. Now listen. Miss Kellow, you treat me right and I'll treat you right. I won't say a word about you ... and you'll give me lessons just like I be Mellyora's sister, see?"

She didn't answer; she couldn't; her lips were trembling too much. So I went out, knowing it was my victory. And so it proved to be. In future she did her best to help me learn, and stopped taunting me and when I did well she said so.

I felt as powerful as Julius Caesar whose exploits were fascinating me.

No one could have been more delighted than Mellyora at my progress. When I beat her at lessons she was genuinely delighted. She looked on me as a plant she was cultivating; when I didn't do so well she was reproachful. I was discovering her to be a strange girl—not the simple creature I imagined. She could be as determined as I—or almost—and her life seemed to be governed by what she considered right and wrong, probably instilled by her father. She would do anything—however daring or bold—if she believed it to be right She ruled the household because she had no mother and her father doted on her. So when she said that she needed a companion, a personal maid, I became that. It was, as Mrs. Yeo continually complained, something she had never heard the like of, but the parsonage was like a madhouse, she reckoned, so she couldn't be expected to know what would happen next.

I was given a room next to Mellyora's and was spending a great deal of time with her. I mended her clothes, washed them, shared her lessons and went for walks with her. She was very fond of teaching me and she taught me to ride, taking me round and round the meadow on her pony.

It didn't occur to me how unusual this was, I simply believed that I had made a dream which was coming true, as Granny had told me that it would.