diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 77839-0.txt | 12900 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 77839-h/77839-h.htm | 18382 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 77839-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 189070 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
6 files changed, 31298 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/77839-0.txt b/77839-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dad23c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/77839-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12900 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77839 *** + + + + + THE + COUNTESS FANNY + + A CORNISH SEA PIECE (1856) + + BY + MARJORIE BOWEN + + + + + HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED + LONDON + + + + + PROLOGUE + +The one man who might know the truth of this story was the one man +who could never speak that truth; yet in old age, when his passions +were stilled into a quiet curiosity as to his own youth, he would +refer to it with those who had never known the Contessina Francesca +Sylvestra Caldini, familiarly named the Countess Fanny. + +But once, when he mentioned to his grandson Oliver Sellar’s wild +accusation against him, the young man asked: + +“Would it, sir, have been possible--I wonder--in those days--could she +have really been there and then have got away? Escaped?” + +“It was a madman’s suggestion,” was the smiling reply. + +“But if it had been true, you could never have admitted it, could you, +sir? You would have had to lie.” + +“That is understood. In those days, as you call them, a woman’s +reputation----” The old man broke off. “One’s sense of duty, too----” + +The young man laughed suddenly. “Of course it isn’t possible, and no +one could have done it--kept such a secret--a whole lifetime.” + +The old man smiled sadly. “Don’t you think so?” was his slow reply. + + + + + THE COUNTESS FANNY + + CHAPTER I + +With her own hand, and an air of ceremony, the lady unlocked her +jewel-case, took out the _parure_, and placed it on her large, dark +dressing-table. She had not for some time looked at this set of +ornaments, and now that she did gaze at them, they seemed to her +rather old-fashioned, and ill-suited to an unmarried woman: necklet, +bracelet, comb, ear-rings, and buckle, all massive and sparkling. The +diamonds were very fine, and handsomely set; the cornelians that they +surrounded gleamed a most silky lustre, and showed the colour, when +held to the light, of old blood. + +The lady thought that these adornments would not look so fashionable +as they had appeared when her mother had worn them, or even when she +had worn them herself, ten years ago, during her one brief London +season; but the jewels remained handsome and impressive, and, by their +sheer incongruity, would make a certain flashing show, worn in the +dark, sombre rooms of this remote country house. And she must wear +something to-night (to do honour to the occasion) that would be both +beautiful and conspicuous. The jewels would, after all, do very well; +and she tried them on, clasping the wide bracelet upon her slim wrist, +and lifting up the long locks of her dark hair with the prongs of the +heavy comb, which sparkled with diamonds and was elegantly set with +cameos, which her mother had bought in Rome. Not very suitable for an +unmarried woman, no doubt! But Ambrosia Sellar had been so long +mistress of this important house that she had rather the air of a +married woman. She was not in any sense a girl; she had a poise both +of maturity and experience and appeared older than her twenty-seven +years. + +As she thoughtfully and carefully locked the jewels away again, and +left the case on her dressing-table ready for the evening, she marked +with apprehension the darkness of the day: not the darkness of +twilight, but a natural darkness that was a portent of +fast-approaching winter. And before this portent Miss Sellar winced. + +Winters at Sellar’s Mead were to her in every way dreadful--ordeals +that could scarcely be endured; and, though this coming winter was, +most certainly, the last she would be called upon to support, she +still did not know quite how she would endure it; the gloomy, lonely +house, the gloomy, lonely country, the spit of land thrusting out into +the endlessly tumultuous sea; the sense of being isolated, here at the +very extreme of the country; the prospect of the ceaseless winds, the +continuous storms, the long nights and short, gloomy days--these +things oppressed the spirit of Ambrosia Sellar, although she had been +used to them since she was a child. + +It was the home in which she had been born and bred, and, save for +very few occasions, she had never left it; first she had lived there +as a child with her parents; then as housekeeper to her father; now as +housekeeper to her brother--a widower who, two years ago, had returned +to Sellar’s Mead, an austere, a disappointed, and (as Ambrosia well +knew) a violent man. + +Their circumstances seemed to Ambrosia as lonely as their estate. A +brother had recently died in India; the death of their parents had +followed quickly one after the other; a lingering disease had taken +Oliver’s wife while she was yet in the flower of her days, and she had +left no children. There were just the two of them--herself and +Oliver--alone in the old, large, and sombre house; and Ambrosia could +never forget this. It seemed to her as if Death had swept a wide, +clean circle round them which cut them off from other people. They had +relatives and friends, but these were all far away, and seldom +communicated with; there were two other considerable houses within +reasonable distance, but one had for long been shut up, and the land +appertaining thereto rented to Oliver Sellar. The other was the domain +belonging to the most considerable magnate of the county--Lord Lefton; +but he was an old and ailing man, much reduced in means. He maintained +a pinched state with a diminished staff of servants and the company of +one son. To this gentleman’s son, Lucius Foxe, Lord Vanden, Ambrosia +was promised in marriage; and, with the spring, she would leave +Sellar’s Mead and go as mistress to Lefton Park, which was only a few +miles away, and as familiar to her as her own home. + +But she did not intend to reside there. Some way, somehow, she would +get to London or get abroad; she would break through this monotonous +dullness which enveloped this lonely portion of Cornwall, and in which +she had grown up. But she made this resolve rather in a spirit of +tremulous bravado, for she knew the claims of the old Earl, an invalid +and a lonely man, who would not easily be able to endure to part with +his only son; and she knew the disposition of Lucius, which was not as +her disposition, but one that was content to dream in inaction. He had +never been galled by the loneliness and gloom of his estate, and +seemed part of the land on which he had been bred. He was absorbed, +too, in an odd hobby; one with which neither Ambrosia nor his father +had any sympathy. He wished to be an engineer, and, with but little +training, employed most of his time in this difficult science, +essaying all manner of odd and fruitless experiments, and attempting +all manner of fantastic inventions. + +In particular, he was interested in the lighthouse on the terrible +rocks of St. Nite, which, once swept away in a ghastly gale, had +lately been rebuilt--chiefly by his exertions and his father’s +generosity. + +Ambrosia was not interested in the lighthouse, nor in engineering. +Some day she hoped to make Lucius forget both these subjects, which at +present seemed so to occupy his time and his mind. She thought, with a +steady, concealed persistency that was impervious to all argument and +reason, that the only occupation for a gentleman was statecraft or the +services; and she trusted that, in time, she would be able to turn the +attention of Lucius to one of these--to her--noble pursuits. + +She rose and looked out of the window, though she knew that she would +dislike the prospect that she would behold. Yet some fascination +brought her there, and made her put aside the stiff, heavy curtains +and stare out at the late October day. Grey, grey--everything grey! +Garden and field and distant headland and sky, and far-off glimpse of +sea; all grey; and the air bright with the flashing passage of +sea-birds, presage of a storm. + +“I must not be so low-spirited!” Ambrosia said to herself. “I must +count my blessings; that is a very good practice. Why should I be +melancholic? I am going to be married to Lucius in the spring!” And +she added--though this was difficult to add in a cheerful spirit: “And +Oliver is going to be married, too.” And this reflection made her +think of her duties. + +She was an excellent housewife, perfectly trained in all the details +of her duties as mistress of a large country mansion; and she +proceeded at once to inspect, for the last time (an unnecessary +inspection this, for she knew that every detail was in order), the +room put aside for the guest who was to be, in the spring, the wife of +Oliver. + +Ambrosia herself occupied, not without repugnance, her mother’s +chamber; and she had given to her guest that which had been her own. +But, though it had been for so long a girl’s room, it had, like all +the other apartments in Sellar’s Mead, a sufficiently austere and +sombre appearance. + +Ambrosia, pausing now on the threshold, hoped with some misgiving that +the girl would not find it dreary and repellent. The furniture was +heavy walnut, the walls dark panelled; and the chintz of the hangings, +though white glazed and printed with birds and flowers in cornflower +blue and raspberry tints, would do little to alleviate this general +impression of massive darkness. + +Ambrosia herself had draped the dressing-table with sprigged muslin +over blue sateen, and tied it up with bows of silk ribbon. She had +hung some water-colours on the walls--pale paintings of children and +flowers. She had put some books--keepsakes and collections of +poetry--in cheerful covers on the inlaid table by the bedside. She had +gathered some late autumn blooms, which were beginning to look sodden +and drooping, and set them in a bowl of pink lustre ware in the +window-place. She had ordered a fire to be lit; the logs were even now +crackling on the wide hearth. But, with all this, Ambrosia had her +misgivings about the cheerfulness of the room. + +The visitor was coming from Italy, and, though Ambrosia had never been +to Italy, she always thought of it in connection with laughter and +sunshine and singing. A very conventional conception, no doubt; but +she could not believe that it was in any way like the concentrated +gloom of Cornwall in the winter-time; and she thought that, if she had +been in the visitor’s place, she would not have greatly cared to come +to Sellar’s Mead in October, with Oliver as a promised bridegroom. An +odd marriage, of course--Oliver and this half-foreign girl. Everybody +said so, with their eyes if not with their lips, when Ambrosia, with +some embarrassment, had made the announcement to their few neighbours. +Oliver! Forty, stern, austere, passionate! And this girl, not yet +eighteen! Of course, from the worldly point of view, not a bad +marriage at all, since it would unite two large estates, and make +Oliver the most considerable landowner for many miles round. With +Flimwel Grange added to Sellar’s Mead, he would rival in importance +Lord Lefton himself. From that point of view, very well and good; but +from any other point of view, Ambrosia could see nothing hopeful in +the proposed match. + +She had not been very well acquainted with Oliver’s wife--the woman +whom she would soon have to think of as Oliver’s _first_ wife; she had +been delicate, and they had lived in London, or abroad, not only +because of her health, but because, during his father’s lifetime, +Oliver’s pride did not easily permit him to come and cut the second +figure at Sellar’s Mead. + +There had been two children, who had died, bringing to the parents’ +hearts black and ineffaceable grief; never had Ambrosia been taken +into the confidence of either. Only there had been one occasion which +she could never forget, and which had come very poignantly into her +mind ever since she had received that letter from Oliver, written from +Italy, in which he announced his second marriage. This was the +occasion: + +It had been in London--a day of fog--and she, Ambrosia, had gone to +call on Amelia, her sister-in-law, and found her alone on a sofa, +embroidering a chair-back. She looked ill and forlorn, and Ambrosia, +with an impulse of pity, had made a futile attempt to get within her +guard. But Amelia had put her off with insipid chit-chat; only when +Ambrosia was leaving, a sudden depression had seemed to fall over the +other woman’s spirits, and, as she was kissing her “Good-bye” at her +drawing-room door, she had suddenly whispered, in tones of a broken +misery: “Oh, Amy, I am not happy!” She had instantly appeared to wish +to annul these words by a return to her former manner; and, the maid +being present, Ambrosia was not able to urge the matter. She did not +see Amelia again. The next news she heard of her was the news of her +death. But it was impossible for her to forget that short sentence: +“Amy, I am not happy!” No, not happy with Oliver; Ambrosia could +believe it. She knew his faults, although she was fond of him, +although she tried to love him; but there was something about him +which made even her sisterly affection cold. And she was not a cold +woman, though often hard in manner. + +How was this little strange, half-foreign girl going to succeed where +Amelia had failed, with the added handicap of this remote Cornish +life, which Amelia had never been asked to support? For it was +Oliver’s intention, of course, to remain for the rest of his life at +Sellar’s Mead, administering the two estates--that of his own and that +of Flimwel Grange. + +Ambrosia was glad that her duty was plainly not to remain and help +them, but to leave them. She knew that a third party would be fatal in +such a case, and it was most gratifying that her own marriage was +arranged, and that she would not have to remain at Sellar’s Mead--a +tolerated dependent where she had been mistress, and an awkward +go-between in an unhappy marriage; for unhappy she was sure it would +be. + +Well, it was Oliver’s life--not hers. She would not be able to help +Oliver; he was not the manner of man whom anyone could help. Better +for her to take her mind off the whole matter, and consider Luce and +her own problems. + +While she stood thus musing, still at the door of the large +guest-chamber--what was now the guest-chamber, though it had been so +long her own chamber--Julia, the grey-haired maid, came upstairs and +told her that Mr. Spragge was already below. + +“But it is not yet time to start!” said Ambrosia. + +Mr. Spragge was the vicar, who was to accompany her to the ferry, +where she was to meet Oliver and the girl he was bringing home. + +“No, miss; Mr. Spragge says there is no hurry. You may step down when +you will. He is quite able to entertain himself in the drawing-room.” + +“But I have nothing to do,” said Ambrosia, endeavouring to rouse +herself from her vague and despondent mood. “I will come down at once; +and you might order some sherry and biscuits to be sent in, Julia. I +don’t think this room looks very cheerful, and yet I cannot see what +we can do to improve it.” + +“I think it looks very handsome and suitable, miss!” replied Julia, +not without an accent of reproach. She, of course, was secretly +hostile towards the newcomer, and extremely hostile towards the idea +of a young, foreign mistress. Ambrosia knew this, although the subject +had never been touched upon between them. Everyone, she reminded +herself, would be hostile to the stranger, and it would be her duty to +combat and reduce this hostility, and to champion the strange girl on +every possible occasion. This must be done tactfully, or she would +rouse a more bitter antagonism. Therefore, for the moment, she said +nothing, and went downstairs to the drawing-room, where Mr. Spragge +waited. + +“I am too soon,” he began immediately; and Ambrosia smiled, knowing +why he was so early. He wanted a talk--the last opportunity there +would be for a talk before Oliver came. At least, he wished to know +all there was to know about the odd affair of Oliver’s marriage. He +hoped that there might be some new scraps and fragments of information +since he had last discussed the matter with Ambrosia. + +But Miss Sellar knew nothing more. If she had, she would have related +it, for she sympathised with the vicar’s anxiety about her brother’s +marriage; not, she was sure, a vulgar or a gossipy curiosity induced +him to take this interest in Oliver’s matrimonial projects. Oliver +was, to Mr. Spragge, quite an important personage, and his marriage a +matter of some moment. And Ambrosia could very nicely sense the +sensation of dismay and perplexity that had overtaken good Mr. Spragge +and all his parishioners at the news that Oliver was going to marry a +young foreigner; a dismay and perplexity which, if she had told the +truth, she would have admitted to sharing. + +“I am glad you have come early,” she said. “I want someone to talk to. +I must admit I feel very nervous.” + +“It is most difficult and embarrassing for you!” agreed the clergyman +cordially. “I quite understand, Miss Sellar, the delicacy of your +position.” + +Ambrosia seated herself beside the fire. + +“We must all make up our minds,” she smiled, “to like her very, very +much.” + +“Of course, of course!” he answered. “There is no reason to suppose +that that will be much of a strain on our affections: a pretty, a +lively, a well-bred young girl, I have no doubt!” + +“But a foreigner,” said Ambrosia warningly, “and one in a most curious +position; an orphan, an heiress, and one who is betrothed before she +has seen anything of the world. Oliver,” added Ambrosia fearfully, “is +old enough to be her father!” + +“We,” said Mr. Spragge, “must not think of it like that!” + +“No, I suppose not,” replied Ambrosia, with a certain restiveness; +“but it is going to be a difficult winter, and I am trying to face it, +and to decide on some course of action. You see, Mr. Spragge, though I +have made up my mind to like her, I do not know if I can find it very +easy to do so; one cannot control one’s inclinations.” + +“What will you call her?” asked the clergyman. + +“The Countess Fanny!” smiled Ambrosia. + + + + + CHAPTER II + +The kind old clergyman said that title was pretty, if a little odd +for England. + +“I did not know exactly how one should address her,” he remarked; “if +she would be known here as Miss Caldini----” + +“Oliver always calls her the Countess Fanny,” interrupted Ambrosia. “I +suppose he has got into that way, and we must follow it. She is, too, +you know, a contessa--or contessina; in Italy all the children take +the title, and that makes it a much more common affair than it is over +here. Her name is Francesca Sylvestra Caldini; but, as I say, Oliver +always calls her the Countess Fanny, and I suppose we must do the +same. As you have remarked,” added Ambrosia with something of an +effort, “it is a pretty name, and I dare say suits her very well; +though it has that touch of the fantastic that I should have thought +would not have appealed to Oliver.” + +“She is, I suppose,” asked Mr. Spragge, “a Roman Catholic?” + +And Ambrosia said, yes, she supposed so, and there would be a slight +awkwardness and difficulty there. Though one wished to be extremely +tolerant, yet to be tolerant did require a certain exercise of +patience. Of course, the girl could be nothing else than a Romanist, +brought up in Italy by Romanist parents; but it was awkward; there was +no Roman Church or priest nearer than Truro, and that, in the winter, +was almost inaccessible. How would the girl contrive? Perhaps she was +ardent in her faith, and perhaps not; Ambrosia did not know. But the +subject was tiresome. Here again, it was strange in Oliver, who was +such a firm and ardent Churchman, to betroth himself to what he had +always hitherto termed “a papist”; and Ambrosia smiled into the fire, +not without irony. Mr. Spragge did not smile, though his thought was +the same as the thought of Ambrosia--that this was, of course, a clear +case of infatuation. The man cared nothing about anything, except +possessing the girl; this, put crudely, was what was in the minds both +of Ambrosia and of the clergyman, and there lay their distress and +their problem. + +Neither of them was very sympathetic toward, or very capable of +dealing with, crude or violent passion. Ambrosia did not wish to be +shut up in the house with these two people during the winter months of +their betrothal; and Mr. Spragge did not want to stand by and be a +witness of what, in his own heart, he condemned as a most unsuitable +and unworthy matrimonial arrangement. + +Sherry and biscuits were brought in, and Ambrosia was glad of the +wine. Even though she sat close to the fire, she had the sensation +that her blood was chill, and running sluggishly in her veins. + +“I suppose,” she reflected regretfully, “that Oliver should never have +gone out to Italy to fetch her home. It seemed to me at the time an +injudicious arrangement. We should both have gone, or someone else +should have been sent--Dr. Drayton and his sister, for instance, or +even yourself. That would have been a far wiser proceeding.” + +“What,” asked the clergyman, “induced Mr. Sellar to go himself, and to +go alone?” + +“I don’t know,” said Ambrosia. “You know that he is impulsive and +self-willed; and I think the very fact that I remarked that it was not +suitable persuaded him to take that course. She is, you see, our +second cousin and he her guardian, and it seems she has no nearer +relations; and her parents died so suddenly----” + +Ambrosia paused, for as she spoke of the death of the Countess Fanny’s +parents she had again, and very acutely, that sensation of Death +making a circle round them, cutting them off from the rest of the +world. Yes, here it was again! Two sudden deaths, casting the Countess +Fanny into their midst! If those two strangers had lived, why, neither +she nor Oliver would have been likely ever to meet this foreign girl. + +“Well,” she added, endeavouring to cast off this sombre reflection, +“there it is, she was left in some great castle outside Rome, with +only a Frenchwoman, a certain Madame de Mailly, as her companion. And, +as she inherits Flimwel Grange, there seems to have been some decision +that she should come over here and claim the place--it is very +troubled in Italy now. I don’t quite understand what her lawyers and +guardians decided, but at least, as you know, they wrote to Oliver, +who was left the girl’s guardian, and asked if there was someone who +could fetch the girl home; and Oliver himself went.” + +“Is this French lady accompanying her?” asked Mr. Spragge. + +“Only as far as Calais, I believe,” replied Ambrosia. “I do not think +Oliver cared for her at all, or she for Oliver. I gathered, indeed, +from his letters that there was some warm dispute between them, and +that, though the Countess Fanny could obviously not travel alone with +Oliver, the lady had been dispensed with as soon as her chaperonage +was no longer necessary.” And Ambrosia smiled again, reflecting on +what was likely to have been that passage of arms between her brother +and the unknown Frenchwoman. + +“It is perhaps as well,” said Mr. Spragge with some relief. “I do not +think our village, Miss Sellar, would be altogether acceptable to a +lively French lady used to foreign society!” + +“But will it,” asked Ambrosia at once, “be acceptable to the Countess +Fanny?” + +“Well,” said the clergyman, “she has made her choice, as one says, and +must even make the best of it, I suppose that she will find interest +and excitement in her new life. There will be a great deal for her to +learn, of course, and I dare say a great deal for her to unlearn!” + +“But youth,” remarked Ambrosia, “does not enjoy either learning or +unlearning! There are few diversions here, and, for a young girl, +hardly any company. We are, when you come to think of it, Mr. Spragge, +a very odd little community. There are just the fisher-folk, the +farmers, Dr. Drayton, yourself--and who else? There is seldom any +society at Lefton Park, and Oliver is so rooted to the place that I do +not think he would be easily induced to go away, even for a brief +visit.” + +“Yes,” agreed Mr. Spragge, “it is a lonely and a quiet place, and I am +sorry that my own children are married and far away, and that Dr. +Drayton has none; also that, as you say, Lefton Park entertains so +little society. It will, no doubt, I am afraid, be very dull for the +Countess Fanny!” + +“I shall be what company I can for her till the spring,” replied +Ambrosia; “and then I, also, hope to go away; not unreasonably, I +think, Mr. Spragge? I have lived here all my life, and know the place +too well!” + +“It is certainly not a lively life for a beautiful young woman,” said +Mr. Spragge, in his most fatherly and courteous manner; “and I can +well understand that when you are married to Lord Vanden you will be +glad to leave us.” + +“You make me feel ungrateful!” said Ambrosia. “Of course I belong +here, and I never can belong anywhere else; and, I do believe, love it +all as I never can love anything else; but there comes a time when one +is melancholy, and it seems lonely and confined in interest. There are +times, too, sir, when the landscape oppresses me, and the constant +thought of the winter terrifies me! I must confess that I do look +forward with dread to the long months before the spring comes.” And +her lips and her hands trembled a little as she spoke. + +“A brilliant woman in a dull place!” smiled the old clergyman. “What +you say is most natural, and I can only admire you for the spirit with +which you have endured such a long monotony!” (“And with,” he thought, +“a difficult man!” For he did not either very much admire or very much +like Oliver Sellar.) + +“Lord Vanden is away,” he added, “is he not? Or has he returned since +I was last at Lefton Park?” + +“He is still in London,” said Ambrosia, “eager with plans about the +new lighthouse. Oh, how absorbed he is in that subject! I wish he had +been here to-day, to go with us to the ferry! The more of us there +are,” she added, with a smile, “the easier, I think, it will be. And +now, it is surely time that we departed? The boat is most uncertain, +and just because we are late it may be early.” + +“It would be dreadful to miss them,” agreed Mr. Spragge; and Ambrosia +went upstairs and put on her mantle and her bonnet. As she tied the +strings under her chin and looked into the large, mahogany-framed +mirror, she thought of the words that the old clergyman had just +spoken: “A brilliant woman in a dull place!” That was probably the +truth; she was not beautiful, but she was graceful, elegant, polished, +charming--a creature for crowds, brilliant functions--one who could +wear clothes and jewels grandly; witty, cultured, amiable; not, by +nature, the least austere or melancholy. Well, here she was--shut up +for twenty-seven years at Sellar’s Mead, in the loneliest part of +Cornwall, in the extreme of England. Next year, in the spring, she and +Lucius would get away. Whether he wished it or not, she would take him +away! For his own sake as well as hers. It was not much of a title or +much of a fortune, but it _was_ a title and a fortune; in not so many +years she would be a countess--not a toy title from Italy, but an +English countess--and the means, meagre as they were, would be +sufficient, with her careful management, to support that splendid +pretension. She would go with Lucius to London, to Paris--perhaps to +Vienna or Florence; and she would meet people like herself--stately +and elegant women, polished and charming men. People who “did +things”--soldiers, diplomats. She would entertain herself by music, +singing, painting. She would dress with taste, if not in the extreme +of luxury. She would have a beautiful equipage and well-trained +servants. She would not often come to Lefton Park, and perhaps not +ever to Sellar’s Mead. That depended on the Countess Fanny. Why, with +this brilliant prospect before her, could she not brace herself with +more patience to endure the time of waiting? She was angry with +herself for her own despondency. Perhaps it was because Luce was away? +Why must he so frequently go away, absorbed in the lighthouse and in +his schemes for the lighthouse? It irritated his father and irritated +her; and yet he must do it. Even this special day, when she would have +liked his counsel and support, when she would very much have desired +him beside her at the ferry, when Oliver brought his foreign bride, he +must be away, consulting with engineers in London about the +lighthouse. The lighthouse was very well--of course it must be there; +and she was glad that the Earl, even out of his constrained means, had +been able to contribute so lavishly towards the cost of the +lighthouse. There was a grandeur about that gesture, even though it +meant something off her own prospective fortune. Perhaps next year the +clay-pits would pay better, and they could give even more. Ambrosia +was not mean-minded. In everything she was lavish and generous, though +so careful and thrifty in her management. + +But this absorption in the thing itself--that did not please her. She +agreed entirely with the old Earl, who had said: “It is for us to pay +the money, not to build the thing.” But Luce did not think so. He was +interested in the lighthouse as a separate entity, not as a mere +splendid gesture of generosity and princely sumptuousness; something +individual--a creation, almost a personality. + +Ambrosia, as she again went downstairs, was thinking that when she was +married to Luce she would break him of this obsession about the +lighthouse. They would go away, and he, perhaps for years, would never +see St. Nite’s Head or St. Nite’s Lighthouse. + +The brougham was at the porticoed door, and Ambrosia ran her practised +eye over the turn-out. Very neat and faultless; nothing wrong +anywhere. She stepped inside with Mr. Spragge. + +The wind was cold, and the sky deepening in its metallic grey colour. +The trees were all bent in one way under that invisible power of the +wind--bent towards the sea, for the wind was rushing up from the land. + +“They will have a rough crossing!” remarked Mr. Spragge, and he began +to excuse his wife for not accompanying them on this expedition of +welcome, for, he said, she had been ill for the last two or three +days, and not able to leave the house. + +Ambrosia listened with an inward impatience to these excuses. Lord +Lefton had made the same. He, too, was ill. So much illness, so much +old age and death! Ambrosia shut her eyes. She did not wish to see the +prospect from the carriage windows. Every day, now, those hills and +roads would be more and more grey, more and more bleak, the trees more +and more leafless, the fallows a deeper tint of barren russet; the +long winter ahead, with Oliver and this strange girl on her hands! + +She interlaced her fingers nervously. It was cold in the brougham, and +she was shivering when they reached the ferry, where the road ended +suddenly on a dreary stretch of foreshore. + +She had always disliked the ferry, which had helped to cut them off +from the outer world. The train came no nearer than Truro, and from +Truro one must take the coach to St. Lade, and at St. Lade one must +cross this wide, deep arm of sea and river mingled, and so reach the +isolation of St. Nite’s Head. + +Mr. Spragge got out of the brougham and walked up and down, conversing +genially with the fishermen and others by the little platform where +the small steamer put in. Ambrosia remained in the brougham on the +smooth piece of road above the foreshore, and stared from the window +at the prospect. It seemed to her to hold neither beauty nor +tenderness. The wind was casting long fragments of ash-coloured clouds +above the ash-coloured water, which was ruffled into heavy waves. On +either side the shores were clothed with dreary pines, now a dingy +black against the vinegar colour of the hills. + +“What is this restless impatience?” Ambrosia asked herself. “It is my +own country--my own place; I ought to love it! And yet, far from +loving it, I am scarcely able to tolerate it!” + +She could see the boat now--a black smear in the distance, labouring +heavily under a banner of murky smoke; and her heart began to beat +with what she herself called a foolish trepidation. + +“How stupid not to be able to meet a moment like this! How stupid to +be afraid of anything or anyone! No misfortune has happened, and I am +to marry Luce in the spring. Why must I be so despondent and so +foolish?” + +And Ambrosia accused her long seclusion from the world for her present +nervousness. She ought to have more social ease, and if she had been +allowed to leave St. Nite’s before she would have had this social +asset. She would not have trembled before a moment like this. She +tried to forget herself and consider the feelings of the strange, +half-foreign girl being brought towards her on that distant boat. +_She_ had some excuse for nervousness, some good cause for feeling +faint and sick! What a landscape to meet her astonished eyes! What a +prospect of gloom and ashes! How cold the wind would seem, how chilly +the air! How rough the people! Even to Ambrosia the inhabitants of +Cornwall were most uncouth and crude. What would they seem to this +elegant Italian? And Oliver--how had Oliver behaved during the long +and tedious journey? Ambrosia could guess that he had been difficult. +That was her word for Oliver. In her loyalty to her brother, she used +that expression in preference to a more severe term. Oliver was +difficult, she would say; but the word meant to her a great deal more +than “difficult.” She wondered if, by now, it meant more to the +Countess Fanny. + +She left the brougham as the boat put in, and, stepping daintily, came +down on to the shore of stones and mud, holding high her stiff taffeta +skirt with one hand and putting back the fluttering veil from her face +with the other. + +There was hardly anyone on the boat--only a few rough fisher-people, a +farm-boy, and Oliver, and--yes--there was the girl, standing eagerly +at the rail. Not in mourning, though she had so recently lost her +parents. Ambrosia at once noted that, and was vexed with herself for +noticing, for she was not there to pick faults in this stranger. No, +not in mourning; that figure at the rail wore a green bonnet and a +striped shawl. Perceiving Ambrosia she took out a tiny handkerchief, +and waved it with a great deal of excitement. Ambrosia did not care +for that gesture, or for the excitement. For a second time she checked +herself from finding fault. + +Oliver raised his hat, and bowed stiffly; Mr. Spragge bowed with the +best figure he could muster. Ambrosia was conscious of a certain +grotesqueness, almost of a certain ridiculousness, in the whole +meeting of the four of them, here on this windy, muddy foreshore, with +this dark and gloomy landscape about them, with the rough peasants and +fishermen grinning and gaping. Not a very beautiful or charming scene, +but she, Ambrosia, must plainly make the best of it, and throw what +grace she could over these unpromising circumstances. + +The Countess Fanny stepped off the boat. She moved buoyantly down the +rough gangway. With sailing skirts and billowing shawl and fluttering +veil, she stepped on to the shore. + +Ambrosia instantly embraced her and disliked her. Alas! + + + + + CHAPTER III + +Ambrosia observed, and with an instant accentuation of her +despondency, that Oliver was in no amiable mood. He greeted her with +cold affection, and Mr. Spragge with forced courtesy, and began at +once to complain of the tediousness of the journey and the vexatious +accidents of the voyage. He refused to ride in the brougham, and asked +why the horse and groom had not been sent. + +Ambrosia found herself at once falling again into the tone she usually +adopted towards her brother--a tone of mingled exasperation, excuse, +and conciliation. + +“How was I to know, Oliver, that you desired the horse? The day is +very dark and unpleasant, and I thought it would be much more +agreeable for us all to ride in the brougham.” She tried to feel +kindly and sympathetic towards Oliver, even compassionate. After all, +he might easily feel awkward, embarrassed, and ridiculous at this +arrival with his fantastic foreign bride; for the Countess Fanny was, +in Ambrosia’s instant observation, very foreign and very fantastic. +She stood waiting with an appearance of meekness while these +arrangements about the return home were gone into, while the luggage +was brought ashore, and the valet and maids brought her wraps, shawls, +and rugs into the brougham. + +Ambrosia sensed that this was only a superficial meekness. The +stranger was not in the least shy or self-conscious, and appeared +perfectly ready to take part in any argument. Oliver took no notice of +her whatever, and continued to address himself to his sister and the +clergyman. + +Mr. Spragge exerted himself to be pleasant to the stranger, but she +only nodded and smiled at his attempts at an elaborate welcome, giving +the impression that she knew little English. + +“Very well, then,” said Ambrosia at length. “We will go in the +brougham; I will take Fanny, Oliver, and tell them to bring the horse +for you and the wagon for the servants; that, of course, is following +in any case; but surely Fanny’s maid may come with us as it is such a +harsh afternoon!” And she looked pleasantly towards the French maid, +who was sitting, with a disagreeable expression, on the first trunks +that had been brought ashore. + +“There is no occasion,” said Oliver shortly. “Do you take Fanny home, +and I will follow immediately with the others. I am surprised, +Ambrosia, that you have not sent the horse, knowing my dislike to the +carriage.” + +“He feels awkward and foolish!” So Ambrosia excused her brother to +herself, and with the better grace since she knew that she, also, felt +both awkward and foolish in the presence of the Countess Fanny. + +The two women and the clergyman got into the brougham, and turned down +the road which the Sellars had had made from the ferry to Sellar’s +Mead--a very tolerable and smooth road, kept in order at the expense +of the gentry. + +Ambrosia knew that she must talk, and talk at once; so she began +hastily, before the horses’ heads were even turned, putting into +practice the speech she had rehearsed for several days now; and yet +not altogether that speech, for it was nervously broken, and +interspersed with sentences that she had not meant to say. + +“It is so agreeable to see you, dear Fanny, and I hope you find it a +little agreeable to see us! Though doubtless everything must be new +and strange to you just now, and the weather is not what it might have +been--still, we hope to make you comfortable at Sellar’s Mead. You +must not be a little alarmed if it appears very gloomy to you. +Perhaps,” continued Ambrosia, speaking very rapidly, “you do not know +English very well, in which case I shall teach you.” + +The Countess Fanny answered with hardly an accent: + +“Indeed, I understand very well, and do not speak so badly; and as for +gloom, I come from a very large and old house--a castle, in fact--on a +lake; which is not at all what you would call cheerful. And the +weather I have scarcely noticed. It did not seem to me unpleasant.” + +“That is very courteous of you, Countess Fanny!” said Mr. Spragge +gallantly. “We are really rather lonely and isolated here, and Miss +Sellar has been fearing that you may find it dull.” + +The Countess Fanny answered at once, in a high, rather eager, voice: + +“But I am to live all my life here, am I not, sir? And therefore it +would be very stupid of me to find it dull at once!” + +Neither Ambrosia nor Mr. Spragge had been prepared for quite such +plain speaking. They were a little abashed. Ambrosia contrived to make +an answer: + +“Never breathe the word ‘dull’!” she said; “twilight is coming on, and +that makes everything rather dark. In the house we must contrive that +everything is very cheerful and pleasant”; and after that she could +find no more to say of any purport, but had to descend to enquiries +and solicitudes about the journey: Had it been so long? Had it been so +tedious? And was the passage across the Channel very rough? And what +about Madame de Mailly, the companion? + +“Ah!” said the Countess Fanny in dismay, “I regret her indeed very +much; it seems to me a thousand pities that she and Oliver could not +have been good friends--that I could not have brought her with me +here. Indeed, I think you would have liked her very well, and, indeed, +she has been a most dear companion!” + +This again was very bold speaking, and very fluent, too, Mr. Spragge +and Ambrosia could scarcely refrain from exchanging a glance. + +“I am indeed sorry!” said Ambrosia. “But doubtless Oliver thought that +the lady would be rather out of place in a Cornish village.” + +“Why, then, so shall I!” smiled the Countess Fanny, “for she and I are +much alike in many things. Nay, I have no doubt,” she added, “that +Madame de Mailly would have tolerated solitude better than I shall do, +for she had a great many happy memories, and a deal to look back upon; +and I have nothing, I have spent all my life, as I tell you, in an old +castle where there was nothing to amuse one, and very little to look +at.” + +“We are in the same case,” said Ambrosia; “but here there is Oliver, +is there not?--and soon you will be mistress of your own house, and +that will give you a great deal of occupation.” + +The Countess Fanny did not answer this; she simply yawned, and put up +a tiny white-gloved hand to her mouth, then leant back in the corner +of the brougham in an attitude of lassitude, of fatigue. + +“I am, now I come to think of it,” she remarked, “a little tired.” + +“We will not speak any more,” said Ambrosia hastily, “but be silent +until we reach the house; then you must rest till supper-time.” + +“Thank you,” answered the Countess Fanny; “I shall be glad to rest.” + +Ambrosia could not forbear a covert survey of the stranger nestling in +the cushions of the carriage in the corner. She had, unfortunately for +herself, taken an instant dislike to the Countess Fanny, nor was this +dislike much mitigated by her present scrutiny. The girl was odd, +fantastic, and foreign--three qualifications by no means desirable in +the eyes of Ambrosia. She was also lovely, with a vivid, sensuous +loveliness that seldom pleases even the most good-natured of women. +Ambrosia had a feminine mistrust and dislike of very conspicuous +physical beauty in another woman, and the beauty of the Countess Fanny +was not to be disputed: in any company, in any place, she would have +been conspicuous. She was dark and slender, with those features that +Ambrosia had always heard described as “classic”; she was more than +above average height, and exceedingly graceful, with an air of pliancy +and swiftness fascinating to behold. Her profuse and glossy hair was +arranged in very fine ringlets, which escaped, either side of her oval +face, from the framework of the odd apple-green bonnet, which was tied +with a large bow of satin ribbon edged with silver; her multi-coloured +striped shawl was of the finest texture, her green cloth dress trimmed +with fur; she wore curiously embroidered gauntlet gloves, and +bracelet, brooch, and ear-rings of coral, while her veil of black lace +floated back carelessly from her bonnet; it appeared not often to have +been dropped over that lovely face. Ambrosia was sure that she must +have been a great deal stared at on the journey, particularly through +England; she knew that Oliver was not the type of man who cared to go +about with a woman who was an object of curiosity. + +But the Countess Fanny was absolutely composed, as if she were unaware +of having been the centre of any scrutiny. Her manner was indeed a +great deal too composed for Ambrosia’s approval. The elder woman +thought it odd that so young a girl should not have been more +embarrassed by her present curious situation; but then, everything +about the Countess Fanny was odd! + +Rousing herself from her position of lassitude, she suddenly asked: + +“What am I to call you? Ambrosia is such a stiff name--and yet it is +familiar enough to me, because, you know, it is really an Italian +name.” + +Ambrosia answered at once: + +“Yes, it is a very stiff and queer sort of name, but I am used to +it--we have had it in the family a long time and, I suppose, always +shall; but everyone calls me Amy, and you must do so, if you please!” + +“Amy,” smiled the Countess Fanny; “yes, that makes a very delightful +name, and I shall use it; but what,” she said, glancing at Mr. +Spragge, “am I to do with Oliver--is not that a grotesque and awkward +name for anyone to have? And yet there is nothing else that one could +call him.” + +“No,” said Ambrosia, “he has no other name than Oliver, and you must +do the best you can with it, I am afraid.” And she, too, tried to +smile with graceful good-humour, but felt it difficult. He was indeed +Oliver to her, and nothing else; nor had he been, she believed, +anything else to anyone. Even in the nursery he had had no odd, pretty +name, given by affection. + +The Countess Fanny now turned her lively black eyes on Mr. Spragge. + +“You are a clergyman, are you not?” she asked; and he, surprised and +amused, bowed and said, yes, he was the vicar of St. Nite’s. + +“Then you will be _my_ clergyman, I suppose,” smiled the Countess +Fanny lightly, “for Oliver--since I must call him Oliver--says that I +am to become a Protestant now, and leave the old faith; and that is +very peculiar and disagreeable, is it not, for me? And yet I do not +mind very much, though Madame de Mailly says it is very dreadful; but +since I have left my country, I suppose I can leave my religion,” she +added with a little pout. “And Father Martinelli was really very harsh +and dull.” + +Mr. Spragge did not know what to answer to this frankness. All his +instincts told him to warn the girl not so lightly to leave a +hereditary and cherished faith; nor did he wish to be the one to +persuade her to become a convert to his own Church. Yet he knew that +it was for Oliver’s interests that she should do so, and his loyalty +was for Oliver Sellar, not for the Countess Fanny Caldini. + +Ambrosia was in the same predicament: it was not at all pleasant, she +thought, to hear the girl talk so lightly on such a subject, and yet +it was a matter of relief to think that Oliver had been able to induce +her to change her faith. It would have been, as she had already +thought to herself, most disagreeable and tedious if the Countess +Fanny had persisted in being a Roman Catholic in a place like St. +Nite’s. So she tried to speak moderately and evasively, in that +temperate tone which good breeding had taught her. + +“You will be able to go into all this presently yourself, my dear +Fanny,” she said, “and come to your own decision. It is really a +matter about which no one can advise you.” + +“But I have been already advised,” replied the girl, with a +devastating frankness, “and I have already made my decision: I am now +a Protestant, and,” she added, with a little bow towards Mr. Spragge, +“you must teach me exactly what a Protestant is.” + +Mr. Spragge thought she mocked him, and could not find an answer. He +had been very greatly impressed by her beauty, but he thought even +less than he had thought before of Oliver’s prospects of happiness in +his forthcoming marriage. + +“We know so little of you,” smiled Ambrosia, with an effort to be +amiable and entertaining. “Oliver’s letters have been very brief. We +are not even aware what has become of your Italian property; this +castle of which you speak, now--is it still yours, and will you +sometimes return there?” + +“It is not mine,” replied the Countess Fanny, with something of a +sigh. “My father’s brother inherits that, and I have money and the +English property, because my mother was English, you see.” + +“Then I am afraid you will feel rather homesick,” condoled Ambrosia, +“though of course you will be able to visit Italy.” + +“But Oliver says no; Oliver says that I am never to return to Italy +again, and that I must forget all about it,” smiled the Countess +Fanny. “You see,” she added, “Oliver did not like Italy, and the +Italians did not like Oliver.” + +Neither Ambrosia nor Mr. Spragge could here resist a laugh. In the +minds of both, the girl’s words had called up a very definite picture +of the Englishman abroad and Oliver Sellar in Italy. + +“Well, my dear young lady,” remarked the clergyman, “it seems to me +that you are called upon to make no mean sacrifice, and that you are +doing this in a very cheerful spirit.” + +To this remark the Countess Fanny returned an odd answer: + +“I really don’t think,” she said, half under her breath, “that I know +quite what I am doing.” + +Ambrosia stared out of the window. This was exactly as she had +surmised. The girl did not know what she was doing, and probably +Oliver did not know either. She had been anything but happy and +gratified at the glimpse she had had of him when he landed from the +boat. No, they neither of them knew quite what they were doing, and +she had got to stand between them through the black winter months +ahead. + +She could hardly repress a heavy sigh, both at the potentialities for +disagreeableness of the situation and her own incapacity to deal with +them; for emotionally she was an indolent woman, and both her +affections and her interests were absorbed with Luce, and Luce’s +future, and Luce’s character, and Luce’s projects. + +Mr. Spragge endeavoured to bring the moment back to the commonplace. + +“I have no doubt,” he remarked, “it all seems very strange to you just +now; but presently you will find that we contrive to be tolerably +happy here.” + +The young girl replied with a charming vivacity: + +“Indeed, dear sir, I am sure you will do your best for me, just as I +am sure that I shall need everybody’s best to help me; for, as you +say, it is all very alien to me at present.” + +Ambrosia would have been moved to some real affection and tenderness +at these words if they had been spoken in a different manner; but they +were delivered in so light and airy a style that she felt that they +came from the lips only, and not from the heart. She was excused from +further conversation by their arrival at Sellar’s Mead, and by the +immediate necessity of ordering Oliver’s horse and groom to go down to +the ferry, where, no doubt, he would be already fuming with impatience +at the delay. + +“Why did he want to ride, I wonder?” she could not help remarking. “It +is so unreasonable in Oliver to be so difficult over these details!” + +The Countess Fanny remarked at once: + +“But he would not care to be shut up with two women and a clergyman, +would he? It is not very reasonable to expect that, either!” And she +smiled, with a little malice, Ambrosia thought. + +Mr. Spragge had left them before they reached Sellar’s Mead, and +returned to the village. He was coming to dinner that evening--he and +the doctor, and possibly the old Earl; a little party of welcome for +the Countess Fanny. + +When Ambrosia had seen Mr. Spragge go off down the lane that led to +the village, she had had a little regretful feeling that his gesture +of welcome, at least, had fallen considerably flat; but the Countess +Fanny seemed neither to know nor care when he left her company. + +She now showed the girl her room, with a faint misgiving lest she +should dislike it; but the Countess Fanny commended it with her +buoyant good humour. + +“It is quite charming,” she said, “but small.” + +And Ambrosia exclaimed: + +“Small! It is the largest room in the house! And none of the rooms +here seem to me of mean dimensions.” + +“Ah well, small after the castle,” smiled the Countess, “where the +rooms were very large indeed, you know; but I like it immensely, and +thank you for making it so pretty for me.” And she dropped a little +old-fashioned curtsey. + +Again Ambrosia should have been moved and touched; and again she was +not. + +“Your maid will be here in the wagon with the luggage in a moment or +two, I have no doubt,” she replied; “and meanwhile there is Julia, and +you must command her for anything you wish. Tea will be brought up to +you, unless there is anything else you prefer; and then you must rest +just as long as you wish.” + +“I am not so very tired,” said the Countess Fanny, sitting down by the +fire, “but I shall be glad to rest, just to get used to things, you +know.” + +“And at dinner,” continued Ambrosia, lingering by the door, “there +will be one or two old friends--very dear old friends of ours--and if +you care to come down in your very prettiest frock, why, how pleased +and honoured and gratified they will be.” + +“Of course I will come down,” replied the strange girl. “I have no +wish to spend my evening alone, and it was very thoughtful and +obliging of you to call all your friends together to welcome me. I +hope they will not be disappointed in me, for, as far as I have been +able to observe on the journey, I am not like ordinary English girls.” + +She smiled brilliantly, and took off her shawl and coat and untied the +apple-green bonnet, which Ambrosia so disapproved of; without these +encumbering garments, she showed indeed very lovely, even lovelier +than before. There was something so swift and graceful and elegant in +every line and pose of her--something so rich and lustrous in that +dark colouring and in those pure features and in that exquisite +complexion. To cover her almost uneasy sense of this great beauty +revealed so artlessly, Ambrosia said: + +“You speak a wonderful English, Fanny!” + +The Countess Fanny replied: + +“My mother was English, a Flimwel, was she not--one of your +neighbours? I always spoke English with her, and I had an English +nurse, and later an English governess. Oh, yes, it was considered very +important that I should speak English.” + +Ambrosia retired to her own chamber, where the candles had now been +lit. “That girl,” she thought heavily, “will require neither patronage +nor help; indeed, it will be all I shall be able to do to hold my own +with her. How unfortunate that I cannot like her--but perhaps that +will come later. Anyhow”--and she consoled herself with this +reflection, which continued to come into her head like a +refrain--“anyhow, the winter will soon be over, and with the spring I +shall be away, thank heaven, away!” + +Her evening gown of flowing, stiff bright blue silk, with a bertha of +blond lace, was lying ready on the bed, and again she unlocked her +jewel-case and took out her mother’s _parure_, which went so +excellently with the brilliant glitter of the stiff silk; and then +something occurred to her, so suddenly and with such force that the +blood rushed into her face. Of course, the jewels were not hers; they +really belonged to this stranger--the Countess Fanny! Oliver had +always impressed on her that they were only lent to her. His first +wife had worn them. Of course; how foolish! How could she have been +trapped into such stupidity? The jewels were not hers--they were +Oliver’s, and would belong to Oliver’s wife. How horrible if she had +not recollected this in time, if she had gone down to dinner with +those stones round her wrist and throat, in her ears and hair, and +seen Oliver’s angry glance! Perhaps even heard his angry words, and +had to go upstairs and take them off! Or wear them all the evening +under his ironic eye! And he would never have believed in her +innocence in the matter; he would think that she had done it on +purpose to flaunt them. It was most merciful that in time she had +remembered. + +Hastily she locked the jewels away, and returned them to the place +from which they had come--a large walnut-wood case inlaid with brass, +which stood in the corner of the room and contained other gems which, +of course, were also no longer hers. They had only been in her +keeping. + +With the same haste, she flicked from her mind the emotion of jealous +discomposure. What did it matter to her? She had other souvenirs of +her mother, and, as for jewels, she would soon be wearing those of +Lord Lefton: nothing very magnificent, perhaps; nothing very costly, +certainly--but her own, just as these were Fanny’s own. + +Meanwhile there were the modest jewels which her father had given her +on her twenty-first birthday, and the Indian bracelet which poor +William had sent home just before he was killed in a frontier action, +and seed pearls and a brilliant brooch that her mother had left her in +her will, after all. She was glad of the little respite. Her head +ached, and she thought: “If only Luce were here!” + + + + + CHAPTER IV + +The dinner was perfectly arranged--Ambrosia had seen to that; there +was no fault in any detail. The room looked rich and handsome in the +light of the brilliant candles. Ambrosia never used lamps whenever she +could use candles. The furniture and the walls and the silver all +gleamed alike with rich and deep and varied reflections. The lace on +the cloth and on the sideboard was both fine, elegant, and impressive; +the Waterford glass had a thousand facets of coloured light; the fruit +was hot-house and luxurious; the wine was of the best, as was the +service and the food. + +Dr. Drayton had brought his sister, an elderly lady who seldom left +her own house, and Mr. Spragge was full of excuses about his wife. The +old Earl had not come after all, so they were but a small party--three +men and three women round the circular table; but everyone, save the +host, made an effort towards goodwill and courtesy. + +Ambrosia felt grateful towards these three modest and genial +gentlefolk who were showing such a pleasant and obliging humour--for +her sake, she knew, for they none of them greatly cared for Oliver, +and were all of them, like herself, doubtful about the stranger. And +the situation was awkward--Ambrosia could not disguise that. So +difficult to know what to talk about, so almost impossible to know +_how_ to talk when one had found a subject; for Oliver sat so silent, +said so little, and said that little with so ungracious an air. And +the Countess Fanny had that light, cold, mocking way which seemed to +dispose of every subject as trifling or obvious. She had almost an air +of laughing at all of them, and, whereas she should have been the one +who was shy, embarrassed, and self-conscious, in the end she was the +only one who was completely self-possessed. + +In brief, no one knew how to deal with her, but she appeared to know +how to deal with everyone. Ambrosia wondered how she had contrived +such self-control and finish in that gloomy castle outside Rome, +where, she declared, she had spent all her days. + +On being pressed, she admitted to having been to Rome and Florence; +yes, and even to Paris. “And she is only eighteen!” thought Ambrosia, +“and has already seen more of the world than I; and that is why she is +able to carry this off when I can’t--I, who am nearly ten years older, +and in my own house, sitting here like a fool, while she is not moved +in the least!” Then Ambrosia added, in her thoughts: “Of course, it is +her beauty; if one’s as beautiful as that one can do anything.” + +The other three--those three elderly, quiet people from this lonely +village--were, she thought, fascinated and almost embarrassed by the +stranger’s beauty; clearly, they had not expected that: prettiness, +perhaps, or charm, but not this definite quality of vivid beauty. +“Greatly gifted,” thought Ambrosia; “very considerably dowered; rich, +too--well educated, well born, and not foolish; it is rather +surprising”--and she glanced at her brother--“that the girl chose +Oliver.” + +Ambrosia was angry with Oliver; it seemed to her unforgivable that he +could not make some effort to pass over this occasion with greater +agreeableness and courtesy. How inexcusable was this silence, these +dark looks, these brief replies, this air of discontent and gloom; +what was the matter with Oliver? The girl’s beauty forbade the +conjecture that perhaps he had already repented of his rash +engagement, and her courteous, smiling manner towards him forbade the +suggestion that they had quarrelled on the journey. Why, then, could +not Oliver behave himself better? + +She looked at him keenly across the high silver epèrgne loaded with +fruits, and hoped that he would catch the glance of disapproval in her +eyes; but he was looking down at the cloth, and making pellets of his +bread that he flicked to and fro along the lace cloth. + +Oliver was quite unnecessarily good-looking: Ambrosia had always +thought so. He had all the beauty there was in the family; both she +and poor William had been plain compared to his dark handsomeness, and +this had always irritated Ambrosia. Stupid for Oliver to be +good-looking--a man like that! It made no difference at all whether he +was handsome or not, unless it had made a little difference now, in +his capture of the Countess Fanny. “But if he came wooing me,” thought +Ambrosia, “he would not win me with those dark, sullen, scowling +looks, and that air of suppressed violence!” He was a heavy, massive +man with blunt features and thick, slightly curling hair, now +ash-coloured on the temples. He appeared, in his sister’s eyes, very +sombre in his black clothes and the carelessly-tied white choker, with +his dark complexion and exactly-drawn black lines of side-whiskers on +his flat ruddy cheeks. His full lips were set in petulant lines of +ill-humour, and his very heavily marked brows drawn together in a +slight frown--the last expression he should have worn on such an +occasion, at the head of his own table. + +Ambrosia had to withdraw her gaze--“Or I shall find myself disliking +Oliver,” she thought; “really disliking both Oliver and his future +wife; and how hateful that would be.” Yes, it would be hateful; she +despised herself for the mere thought. But the thought had been +there--had lingered quite definitely in her mind. + +If only Luce were here! Luce, with his charm and his gaiety and high +spirits! Why, life went to a different measure when Luce was about. +When they were married she would see that he was not so often away. +She thought that to-morrow she would go over to Lefton Park, and see +the old Earl, and hear when Luce was returning. It was possible, +though it was not likely, that he would let his father know before he +let her know; anyhow, she could talk with someone who loved Luce as +none of these loved him! Why, the three old people liked him, of +course--he was popular with everyone--but they could not love him like +she loved him. And as for Oliver--well Oliver did not like him. And +since the Countess Fanny had chosen Oliver, it was not very likely +that she would like Luce either. No, he was quite different and apart +from all these people, and Ambrosia, in the recesses of her secluded +mind, dwelt on these things and tried to forget the present company. + +Yet she was first to admire how the young foreign girl carried off +this difficult situation; how amiable she was to the three elderly +people; how deferential to the clergyman; how cool and self-assured +with Oliver, and how affectionately respectful towards herself--and +yet all in a heartless manner that could not evoke any response from +Ambrosia. “She has taught herself,” thought the elder woman, “the +right manner for everybody, but it has been taught--it does not come +from the heart.” And so she judged the stranger, who sat so gracefully +at the table which would soon be her own table, in the house that was +now so alien to her, but where she would soon be the mistress. + +After dinner there was an awkward half-hour in the drawing-room, where +the Countess Fanny sat on a yellow sofa and listened with an agreeable +smile to the chit-chat of the doctor’s sister, and to Ambrosia’s +efforts to be entertaining about the neighbourhood. + +The girl appeared to have little curiosity as to her future home. She +listened with a polite attention, but it was no more than a polite +attention. “What is her heart in?” thought Ambrosia; “not in this +place, sure enough, I think; and scarcely, I believe, in Oliver.” + +“I shall like to see your scenery,” said the Countess Fanny. “I +believe it is very fine and grand, and I do little landscapes in +pencil which are much admired. I must show you my album, Miss Drayton, +where I have some such designs which I have taken of the Italian lakes +and the ruins in and round Rome. Do you not also sketch with crayons?” +she asked Ambrosia. + +And Ambrosia shook her head: + +“I used to, when I was a girl, but I do not now.” + +“You speak as if you were already old,” smiled the Countess Fanny, +“but I think you are a girl still; and you are to be married, are you +not?--Oliver said in the spring--the same time as myself.” + +Ambrosia answered: + +“Yes, I am to be married in the spring--to Luce Foxe; I hope you will +like him. He is away just now, or he would have been at the ferry to +meet you.” + +“Of course I shall like him!” said the Countess Fanny, with her +brilliant and beautiful smile, “since he has been your choice, my dear +Amy. Does he live near here, and will you, when you are married, be +still a neighbour?” + +“The place--Lefton Park--is near here,” replied Ambrosia, “but I hope +to go to London and abroad.” + +“That,” said the Countess Fanny, “is where I shall never go, I +believe, since Oliver says we are to spend the rest of our lives +here.” + +“She can’t know what she is saying!” thought Ambrosia. “She is only +eighteen, and she talks so coldly of spending the rest of her life +here--here in Sellar’s Mead, in Cornwall, near the Land’s End! The +girl is senseless or heartless--or both!” + +The guests left early; Ambrosia believed that they all felt the +considerable tension in the atmosphere, for all Fanny’s ease and her +own attempt at gracious hospitality; and Fanny, too, must go to bed +early, under a quite reasonable plea of fatigue and excitement. She +had her own maid, and refused all other ministrations. She kissed +Ambrosia lightly on the cheek, and suffered Oliver to kiss her lightly +on the hand; and then she was gone, leaving the brother and sister +alone in the drawing-room that had been familiar to them since they +could remember anything. + +Ambrosia wished for no private conversations with Oliver. She really +had nothing to say to him, and dreaded being involved in any argument +or discussion. She knew how wearisome and tedious discussions and +arguments were with Oliver, and, after all, what was there now to +dispute or discuss? He had decided on his future, and she had decided +on hers. There was nothing for them to do but to be as amiable as +possible to each other while they had to live in the same house. The +only thing that she would really have liked to say to Oliver was this: +to request that he would contrive to be, during the coming winter +months, more agreeable than he had been to-night. + +So she began to chatter about commonplaces, and meant soon to make an +excuse of retiring; but Oliver detained her. With a serious air, he +asked her, when she made an attempt to rise, to keep her seat. + +“I am only going to fetch my needlework,” said Ambrosia, who wished to +rob the occasion of all solemnity. + +But Oliver said, with some impatience, that she need not bother about +her work, but must remain and listen to him. + +“Dear me, Oliver! Surely you cannot have anything very important to +say at this time of night! It is nearly eleven o’clock, and has been, +I know, a most fatiguing day for all of us.” + +“Surely not for you,” rejoined Oliver sullenly; “what have _you_ had +to do, Amy, that has fatigued you so?” + +“It is not what I’ve had to do, but what I’ve had to think,” replied +the young woman, “that I have found fatiguing; but if you have +something to say, pray say it, Oliver--do not keep me in suspense.” + +“You are not making it particularly easy for me!” said her brother. +“You might guess that what I have to say is about Fanny.” + +Ambrosia had guessed this: she was also right in supposing that she +was not making things very easy for him. She saw no reason why she +should do so: Oliver had never made things easy for her. + +“I was not able to explain myself in my letter,” remarked Oliver +harshly; “it was, of course, obvious that I could not; also obvious, I +suppose, that you should expect me to explain myself now.” + +Ambrosia made a little gesture of weariness. + +“Please, Oliver, do not try to explain yourself--indeed, there is no +need! Why should you? You are your own master--of your thoughts, your +fortunes, and your person--and you have chosen this young girl. I know +nothing about her, but I can see that she is exceedingly--nay, +dazzlingly--beautiful, and that should be sufficiently your excuse. I +hope I shall like her--hope, even, I shall love her.” + +“You don’t,” replied Oliver heavily; “you don’t like her, and I don’t +think, or hope, that you will love her.” + +She was annoyed that he had seen her attitude towards Fanny. How +stupid and tiresome that she should have had such an attitude! + +“One must not go on first impressions,” she said hastily; “it is not +true to say that I don’t like her. I think she is odd and strange, +but, as I say, she is so beautiful----” + +Oliver interrupted. + +“There is no need to repeat that, Amy--everybody can see that Fanny is +beautiful,” he said sullenly and petulantly. “You must be wondering, +though, why I am going to marry her. You know, and no doubt have +remarked, that I am double her age; and you know, and no doubt also +have remarked,” he added with some bitterness, “that she has been shut +up all her life and had very little opportunity of seeing anyone save +myself in the light of a suitor.” + +“Naturally,” replied Ambrosia stiffly, for it seemed to her as if her +brother was trying to force a quarrel, “everyone will have remarked +and noticed these things. Why should you take any heed of them? You +have made your choice, and I dare say nothing will influence you +against it.” + +“Nothing will influence me against it, naturally,” he replied at once; +“but I should like to explain myself.” + +“How can you possibly explain such a thing?” asked Ambrosia, raising +her brows. “I could not explain why I am going to marry Luce--why +should you explain why you are going to marry Fanny? It is really +absurd, Oliver; you are, as I say, your own master, and you have no +need to think of me--after the spring I shall be off your hands. Only, +I pray you, do let us be as considerate as possible towards each other +while we are shut up here. The winter is very long and very lonely at +Sellar’s Mead, and we must all make the best of it.” + +But Oliver would pursue the subject. His sister could perceive that he +was desperately self-conscious about his marriage--terribly afraid of +making a fool of himself in the eyes of his neighbours. He continued +to talk at some length, with some violence and in a rambling fashion, +about the Countess Fanny--how he had found her, alone and, as it were, +unprotected, in the company of a most undesirable woman--a frivolous, +corrupt, worldly woman, this Madame de Mailly; and of how he had +fought the influence of this Madame de Mailly. + +Ambrosia yawned at last, and interrupted him: + +“Please don’t tell me all about it, Oliver. It’s quite apparent that +you have fallen in love with the girl, that you offered yourself as a +husband, and that she accepted you; and do leave it at that!” + +“But you said that she was odd and queer,” persisted Oliver gloomily. +“And I dare say those other three fools went away and said that she +was odd and queer, and are mouthing and gossiping over her and the +fact that I am going to marry her, and the fact that I brought her +back, and that we are staying here together all the winter. I don’t +know why you don’t marry Luce at once, Amy--then I could marry Fanny +immediately.” + +“But that would be hardly decent!” cried Ambrosia. “Her mother has +been dead only about two months. Nay, it is impossible: an outrage on +all feelings, Oliver! And as for myself and Luce, you know that all +arrangements have been made for the spring, and that it would be +almost impossible to alter them now.” + +“Bound up in customs and convention,” said Oliver, walking up and down +the room; and his sister laughed. + +It was indeed a curious remark for him to have made, for he himself +was a slave of customs and convention, to an almost absurd degree. + +“Besides,” she said, “it would be scarcely fair on Fanny herself--an +immediate marriage. She must get used to this country; she must get +used to her neighbours! Let her know a little bit, Oliver, what she is +letting herself in for!” + +“That is not a pleasant way of putting it!” he retorted, violent at +once. “‘Letting herself in for’--what do you mean, Amy?” + +Ambrosia rose and shrugged her shoulders wearily. + +“You know perfectly well what I mean. It is not altogether so pleasant +here, is it? It is certainly not lively, and the winter is a severe +test for anyone. There are hardly any women, and no girls. She must +either invite company here or get used to doing without it; in either +case it will take a little time and practice. Perhaps she has +friends--somebody in London. I should take her there for a few weeks, +if I were you, Oliver. Did not the Flimwels have some connections in +town? Surely her mother knew somebody; and her family--her father’s +family, I mean--I suppose they are of some pretension? Do be a little +reasonable, Oliver! You don’t expect her and me and you to remain shut +up here all the winter, do you, doing nothing but getting used to each +other’s characters?” + +“I shall _not_ take Fanny to London,” said Oliver sternly; “and don’t +put any such ideas or wishes into her head, Amy. We are going to +remain here till the spring, when we shall be married, and then we +shall continue to remain here--settle down here for the rest of our +lives; what else?” + +“Exactly as you please,” said Ambrosia; “I merely gave you my advice. +You will do what you wish, and I suppose you will be able to make +Fanny do what you wish. As for myself, I am going away, as you know.” + +“But no farther than Lefton Park.” + +“A great deal farther than Lefton Park, I hope,” said Ambrosia +nervously. “I intend to take Luce away.” + +“Yes, you’ll take Luce--that’s it: he won’t take you. If you leave him +alone he’ll stay at Lefton Park. He’s absorbed in the place, and in +his lighthouse.” + +“Oh, the lighthouse,” said Ambrosia, on a quick breath; “that’s just a +passing whim--a caprice; you don’t suppose a man like Luce will all +his life continue to be interested in the lighthouse on St. Nite’s +Point?” + +“I should have thought he would,” retorted Oliver; “I should have +thought it would have got hold of him, and it wouldn’t be so easy for +you, as you call it, to ‘take him away.’” + +Ambrosia bit her lip with vexation: she was very sorry she had used +that expression, “take Luce away.” How weak and trifling it sounded! +And yet, how exactly it had expressed her intention and her feeling! +It would be she who took Luce away from St. Nite’s--not Luce who took +her! + +“I must leave the room,” she thought, “or I shall quarrel! How really +appalling that Oliver and I can hardly meet without quarrelling! Even +now, after he has been all these months away, the first thing we +stumble on is disagreement and dissension!” + +She rose, shaking out the folds of the glittering bright blue dress; +and, as she did so, the door opened and the Countess Fanny entered. +She had forgotten her bag, she said; and the three of them began +looking for this bag--a little affair of striped sarcenet with gold +beads on it, Fanny described it, which had been dropped somewhere +among the cushions. It could not immediately be found. + +“It has my beads in it,” she explained, “my rosary.” + +And Oliver, at that, rose from where he was stooping over the +cushions, and asked angrily what she still did with a rosary? + +“I like to say my prayers,” smiled the Countess Fanny, with a +brilliant and rather meaningless smile. “May I not do so, Oliver, even +though I am a Protestant?” + +“Of course you will say your prayers,” he replied, “but not with +beads! Amy, there is no need for us to search for this satchel if it +is only the beads it contains.” + +The Countess Fanny said, in the same clear, unembarrassed tones: + +“It is more than the beads I wish. There is a pot of pomade there.” + +Ambrosia had found the bag, and gave it to Fanny, again bidding her +good night, and trying to throw some tenderness into the simple +salutation. + +Billowing her pale skirts about her, the Countess Fanny moved +buoyantly towards the door. Oliver was opening it for her, and +Ambrosia chanced to notice his expression as he looked at the girl +while she passed before him. Ambrosia was shocked, was held by that +expression: everything was now explained. Oliver regarded her with a +greedy stare of insatiable passion; Ambrosia knew at once, with a +pang, that she had never seen such a look on Luce’s face. + + + + + CHAPTER V + +Ambrosia rode to Lefton Park through a land wind that drove the +dense, grey clouds seawards. In the pauses of this wind a fine drizzle +of rain fell, and there was no colour in any of the rugged landscape. +Against her will, Ambrosia noticed the signs of neglect in the large +park: fences needed repairing, the trees required pruning--the +wreckage of last year’s tempest not yet entirely cleared away; the +gardens, that were neat but not very plentifully replenished with +flowers or shrubs; the house itself, an ancient structure, refronted +in the palladian style, looking dingy and sombre. It was a pity there +was not more money to spend on the place. Ambrosia had heard Luce talk +of a mortgage on the woods. Well, perhaps next year the clay-pits +would pay better, and the tin-mines give a return for all the money +that had been spent on them. The Leftons had been for two generations +unfortunate: their estate was on too lonely, too wild, and too +unproductive a portion of land; this rock-bound coast hemmed them in +from prosperity, it seemed--almost from civilisation. + +The interior of the stately house bore the same evidence of pinched +means. The splendid pictures, vases, and tables of basalt and +porphyry, the walnut and needlework furniture--these still remained, +but many of the larger rooms had been shut up, and everywhere were +evidences of discreet economy. + +Ambrosia found the old Earl where she usually found him--in his own +private room (cabinet, he called it) off the library. He collected +shells, and in this study of conchology passed most of his solitary +days. He was a man who cared little for society, and nothing for +affairs; an invalid of a gentle, temperate disposition, who held +firmly to all the traditions of his family and his class, but had +never had either the health or the energy to put these into practice. + +Ambrosia blamed the brave negation of his patient philosophy for much +that was so irritating in Luce. He had made--against his will, +perhaps, but none the less effectively--something of a recluse of his +only son, the child of his late marriage. + +The little room, which looked upon a lake in the park and an avenue of +trees, was lined with cabinets, shelves, and cases, all containing +shells or books of shells--specimens carefully labelled and indexed, +arranged in boxes and on cards. + +The Earl did most of this work himself, but there was an elderly man +who helped him--a Mr. Wilabraham, who had been Luce’s tutor, and now +called himself the Earl’s secretary. He was present when Ambrosia +entered the closet, and engaged in washing some shells in a glass bowl +of clear water through which the sand ran and settled at the bottom. + +The Earl was in his armchair, with his newspaper and his glasses +across his knee; he greeted Ambrosia with real pleasure, and +courteously dismissed the secretary. + +Ambrosia sat down by the little table, still scattered with the +unwashed shells, which emitted a faint yet pungent odour of the sea. + +“Well, my dear,” said the old man kindly, “so she has arrived: now +tell me all about it. I feel guilty because I was not at the ferry +yesterday, but really I could not manage it.” + +“No, of course,” said Ambrosia dutifully; and the old man added with a +sudden smile: + +“But if it had been _you_, my dear, coming home, I dare say I should +have been there!” + +Ambrosia looked at him thoughtfully. He had an appearance at once +delicate and noble. There was a certain air of grandeur about him that +nothing in his secluded life had justified, and yet she trusted him as +implicitly as if he had proved himself again and again of the finest +and most reliable material; and she thought, with a certain pang of +despondency, how difficult, how almost impossible, it would be to +leave him--to take Luce away and leave him. And yet it would be more +impossible to wait for his death as a signal for freedom; they must go +away, be at liberty; their youth had that right--a certain freedom, a +little measure of liberty! Of course, they would come back; as long as +he lived they would come back to Lefton Park; but they must go away! + +She repeated this nervously in her heart. With the spring they must +leave Cornwall! + +“You don’t like her,” asked Lord Lefton, “eh?” + +Ambrosia had been afraid that he would immediately say that. She did +not quite know how to defend herself against a charge that was so +true. + +“It is all my fault,” she said; “there is nothing wrong with +her--nothing. But I have grown stiff and cold, shut up so long in +Sellar’s Mead, and this project of Oliver’s marriage was very +startling--a thing to which it is difficult to get used.” + +“There is no great need,” remarked the Earl drily, “why we should, any +of us, get used to it; let Oliver go his own way.” + +“Of course he will,” smiled Ambrosia. “He is his own master, as I had +to remind him last night; but still, no one can be utterly isolated in +his relationships. Oliver is self-conscious and agitated. He feels, I +believe, that he has made rather--well, he feels, perhaps, that he has +done a precipitous and perhaps foolish thing.” + +“What is she like?” asked the Earl; and Ambrosia said at once, shaking +out the folds of her dark blue riding-habit: + +“She is very beautiful--really beautiful. One reads and hears so much +about beauty, and one does not very often see it.” + +“It depends,” replied the old man, “what you call beauty.” + +“Beauty like that,” persisted Ambrosia; “really vivid and startling +beauty. She has it, I assure you--beauty of face and of bearing. She +is very finished, too--strangely so, for eighteen.” + +“Dark, I suppose?” asked the Earl. “The Flimwels were always handsome. +I remember her mother as a child--she was really a beauty, also.” + +“Dark and flashing,” said Ambrosia, “with a swift, buoyant air, and +very graceful; oh, indeed, there is no flaw in her. But that was a +little startling at first--she is so composed. She speaks an excellent +English, yet she is in everything a foreigner.” + +“Foreigners,” remarked the Earl, “are all right in the proper place.” + +“I don’t think,” said Ambrosia, with the faintest of ironic smiles, +“that you would call Cornwall, and this part of Cornwall, the right +place for such an one as Countess Fanny.” + +“A Roman Catholic?” queried the old man. + +“She was,” said Ambrosia, “but seems to have left all that very +lightly. She and Oliver both say she is a Protestant now--yet last +night she was looking for her beads. I don’t know; she has a worldly +way, as if no faith were of any great matter to her.” + +“Well, well,” remarked the old man, “it’s Oliver’s choice and Oliver’s +life, and, I suppose, from one point of view, a very good thing; your +brother and your husband, my dear Amy, will own all this part of the +country between them. But has this young woman no other friends and no +relations? It seems odd that she should have left Italy and come +straight here. Will she not have a few weeks in Town--perhaps a visit +to Paris--something before she marries Oliver and settles down at +Sellar’s Mead?” + +“I put all that to Oliver last night,” said Ambrosia; “and he--well, +you know what Oliver is--he was impatient, and even harsh, at the mere +suggestion. He says that Fanny is to remain with us till they are +married in the spring, and she herself told me (and in a most +unconcerned manner) that she was never either to return to Italy or to +go abroad--nay, that she was not to visit London, but to remain here! +What can one do? As you say, it is Oliver’s business.” + +“And so she is beautiful!” mused the old man, putting aside his paper. +“Beautiful, eh? I don’t quite like that. Beauty, you know, my dear, is +something apart--not for every day; especially foreign beauty.” + +“I know what you mean,” said Ambrosia; “and she sets it off too much. +She’s fantastic; her clothes are queer: very gay and brightly +coloured. Not quite the garments of a gentlewoman. I do not know how +she escaped observation on the journey--nor how Oliver endured it if +she did not escape.” + +“Oliver is certainly,” replied the Earl, “the last man who should +marry a conspicuous woman. In fact, my dear, I don’t think any man +should marry a conspicuous woman--not Englishmen of our class. We +don’t want beauty: not beauty like that--flashing beauty, as you call +it, of feature and colouring. Yours, my dear Amy,” he added, with a +courtly air, “is the type of beauty that is required in our country +and our position.” + +Ambrosia did not deny the compliment. She knew exactly what he meant. +Neither the women of her house nor of his had ever been beautiful in +the way that the Countess Fanny was beautiful. Well bred, yes; +elegant, graceful, pleasing--but not beautiful. And she was quite +aware of his attitude, which was the usual attitude of the English +gentleman. Beauty was something rather to be avoided. It did not +belong to the gracious women who had ruled either at Lefton Park or +Sellar’s Mead. + +“She is well behaved,” said Ambrosia, “and it should not be very +difficult to get on with her. But she seems to me so cold. I could not +think of half the pretty speeches I had prepared, and yet she was +always smiling, but in a heartless sort of way. And yet, again, I have +no right to speak--I don’t know; why, she has only been in the house +a few hours. You must see her and judge for yourself, of course.” + +“Won’t she find it dull here?” asked the old man. “They say it’s going +to be a stormy winter, too.” + +“Dull? So I should have thought, but she says she is used to seclusion +and loneliness. Evidently this castle outside Rome was in a very +isolated position, and, according to her account, she saw little +company.” + +“It is difficult and trying for you,” said the old man with sympathy. + +Ambrosia rose impatiently, and went to the window and stared out at +that grey prospect that smote her heart with a sense of gloom. + +“It ought not to be,” she said, “it ought not to be so difficult. It +is my fault entirely. I have allowed my spirits to sink--I do not know +why.” + +“Luce ought to be back to-day,” remarked the Earl. + +Ambrosia did not answer, but continued to stare, with fascinated eyes, +at the murky damp of the park and the lake, ruffled by the land wind. +Something was wrong between her and Luce just as definitely as +something was wrong between the Countess Fanny and Oliver. She could +not endure to suppose that they had drifted into this engagement +because they were friends of childhood’s standing, because they saw +each other so frequently, because neither had any rival. And yet this, +perhaps, was the bitter truth at the root of her lowering discontent. +If Luce had seen many other women, he might not have married her! And +if she had been wooed by other men, she might not have chosen Luce! +Ugly to think like this, for it tinged all her most cherished thoughts +with the darkness of disillusion. But she had lain awake nearly all +night, listening to the winds howling in the chimneys and past her +casement, and considering that expression that she had seen on +Oliver’s dark face as he opened the door for Fanny. That was love--or +passion? Which was the right word? She did not know; but in any case +it was a look that she had never seen on Luce’s face, though he had so +often turned to her in earnest affection and sincere admiration. But +that look--never! + +At the moment, she had endured a pang of surprisingly fierce jealousy; +but afterwards, under a colder consideration, she had wondered if this +was for good or evil, this fierce love, this violent passion which she +had seen depicted on her brother’s sombre face. Perhaps she and Luce +were better without it. Perhaps she was not the woman to evoke such a +turbulent emotion in the heart of any man, and perhaps Luce was not +the man to be so moved by any woman. + +Ambrosia did not know. She moved in webs and mists of inexperience and +ignorance, but she was troubled and disturbed, and she wished, with a +sudden foolish perversity, that she was not four--nay, nearly +five--years older than her future husband. + +The wind rose with a sudden gust that rattled the window-pane. + +“It is a merciful providence,” remarked the Earl, “that the lighthouse +has been finished before the winter.” + +“But Luce is not satisfied,” mused Ambrosia. “He still wishes to +labour and to contrive for the lighthouse.” + +“It is the question of the gas syren,” said the old man. “You know we +have already fixed one which, in thick or foggy weather, gives three +blasts; but that is not enough for Luce,” he added with a smile: “he +must think of a bronze wolf, which shall be hollow, and give the +signal through its mouth when the gale roars a blast in the metal.” + +“But that is fantastic!” smiled Ambrosia. + +“Like the Countess Fanny,” said the Earl. + +Ambrosia turned to the window. Behind her was a large print of +Winstanley Lighthouse of nearly two hundred years ago: a most +elaborate, grotesque, and fanciful building--all manner of projections +and contrivances, and a great flag at one side, and a weathercock in +the form of an iron standard on top, and the inscription “_Pax in +Bello_.” + +Luce greatly admired this queer old print; but Ambrosia disliked it, +because it was part of this obsession of Luce in a subject that to her +was alien, and even repellent. Of course there must be lighthouses, +but it was unnatural for a man like Luce to devote his life to one of +them. + +The Earl seemed to guess her mind. He sympathised and even agreed with +her attitude towards Luce’s infatuation, but he had also a certain +pride in the lighthouse, which had been first erected by one of his +ancestors. Later, the cumbrous structure had been purchased by Trinity +House, soon after swept away, and re-built; but the position was among +the most exposed in the world, and even the new building had not been +able to withstand the incessant tempests, not only of winter but of +summer, which beat upon the precipitous coast. The Earl had strained +both his influence and his fortune to have the lighthouse of St. Nite +renovated. It had been placed in a new coat of granite three and a +half feet thick, and raised thirty-five feet higher, while an +explosive gas signal with a report every five minutes had been placed +there, as well as a new powerful lantern. + +The lighthouse was situated in the most dreadful and dangerous portion +of the coast, and at the end of a long bridge of rock called “The +Leopard,” which was covered, even in fair weather, by three feet of +water. + +Under the lighthouse, at the end of a long fissure in the rock, was a +cavern, and when the sea was very high the noise produced by the rush +and roar of pent-up air through this cavern was so great that the +keepers could hardly sleep. Legend said that one man, a newcomer, had +lost his reason when exposed for the first time to this terrific +tumult beneath the lighthouse. Legend and superstition, all in the +extreme dark, portentous and gloomy, clung to the Leopard’s Rock and +the Lighthouse of St. Nite’s, and for this reason the fishers and the +farmers alike regarded it with every feeling of awe and dread, and +Lord Lefton and his son had both thought that, in spending so much +time and money in giving so much heartfelt enthusiasm to the building +and maintenance of the lighthouse, they were not only saving the lives +of possible shipwrecked mariners, but also letting some light into the +darkened minds of the Cornish peasantry, by proving that to them none +but natural dangers haunted the Leopard’s Rock. + +The huge lights of the lighthouse illuminated, they hoped, more than +the darkness of the storm, and dispelled something of the blackness of +ignorance and grossness of the superstition, and proved that the +dangerous block of greenstone in the midst of an incessant swirl and +eddy of waters was but a human obstacle that human ingenuity could +overcome, and by no means tinged with any of the horrors of the +supernatural. + +The Earl now asked Ambrosia if she intended to go to the lighthouse +while the weather was still comparatively fair and calm; but the girl +replied no, she did not wish to visit St. Nite’s. + +“It depresses me,” she said; “it is gloomy and awful.” + +“But surely,” said the old man, “there is a certain comfort in the +light and the syrens--a sense of protection and security?” + +“To sailors, perhaps,” smiled Ambrosia faintly, “but scarcely to me.” + +“Would your little Italian friend care to go?” asked the Earl. +“Perhaps that would be a little point of interest for her before the +winter comes.” + +Ambrosia wondered why he had asked that. + +“I should think,” she smiled, “that Fanny would be utterly +uninterested in anything of that kind.” And she added swiftly: “Of +course you must not think _I_ am uninterested--Luce’s enthusiasm +should be enough to inspire one; but it is to me--well, the Leopard’s +Rock, St. Nite’s Head and all that part--I don’t know, but it rather +frightens me.” + +“In the winter, yes,” conceded the Earl. “But now, why, it’s grand and +sumptuous! I mean, if possible, to get down there. I should like to +see Luce’s wolf howling out his warnings across the ocean; I think +there is something quite splendid in that idea.” + +“But is it practical?” asked Ambrosia. + +“Is Luce ever practical?” asked that young man’s father; and Ambrosia +winced, for this judgment sounded to her like a disparagement, and she +could not endure even the slightest, most affectionate, disparagement +of Luce, for she was too near disparaging him herself--disparaging at +least some of his tastes and characteristics. She wanted to hear Luce +exalted and praised. + +“When,” she asked restively, “can you contrive to come over, sir, and +see Fanny--or shall I bring her here?” + +The Earl replied that he would drive over that afternoon. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + +When Ambrosia returned to Sellar’s Mead, she found the Countess +Fanny in the drawing-room with her harp; she seemed very fond of this +most old-fashioned accomplishment, which Ambrosia had heard her mother +speak of as out of date. She wore what was, to the Englishwoman, a +most extraordinary dress of black and white striped silk, with green +ribbon; but it was useless to try to mitigate the fact that she was a +picture of exquisite loveliness, seated there in her fantastic, +flowing garments, at the elegant gilt instrument, which she had +brought, at much trouble and expense to Oliver, from Italy. + +Seeing Ambrosia, she took from her pocket a letter, and presented it +to her, saying, with her careless smile, that she had forgotten it +last night. + +“It is from Madame de Mailly,” she said. “Poor thing--she will be very +sad and lonely at Calais, and I think it would show very kind in you, +Amy, if you were, after all, to invite her here.” + +“But it is Oliver’s house,” replied Ambrosia; “and if he has +quarrelled with this lady, how is it possible for me to invite her?” + +Fanny made a little grimace, and fluttered her long fingers across the +harp-strings. + +“Must it always be as Oliver says?” she asked lightly. + +And Ambrosia replied: + +“No; I dare say in time it will be as _you_ say; but, for the moment, +surely it is better not to provoke him? Indeed, my dear Fanny, I do +not see how it is possible for me to invite your friend here, in face +of Oliver’s command to the contrary. Shall I read the letter now?” she +added. “And do you know what is in it?” + +“Why, I can guess,” replied the Italian girl, “but I do not quite +know. Yes, read it if you please--and tell me what my friend says!” + +Ambrosia tore the envelope, and took out the sheet of thin, foreign +paper. The letter was in a fine, flowing hand and a finished English. + + + “Mademoiselle,--_No doubt you will think it peculiar that a stranger + should thus address you; but the circumstances, you must admit, are + peculiar also. I refer, of course, to the projected marriage between + my dear pupil and companion, Countess Francesca Sylvestra Caldini, and + your brother, Mr. Oliver Sellar._ + + “_In my judgment--and I do not lack experience and knowledge of the + world--this matrimonial arrangement is of the most foolish possible. + There is a vast disparity in age and a vast disparity in temperament._ + + “_I have endeavoured to make of the Countess Francesca an accomplished + lady, but it has been impossible for me to give her, at the age of + eighteen, the worldly wisdom which she would require to judge the + merits and faults of such a man as Mr. Oliver Sellar. She is, in + brief, thoroughly ignorant both of his character, his country, and his + position._ + + “_I am aware, of course, mademoiselle, that your brother is of a fine + presence, notable fortune, and of good family; but are these + sufficient to assure the happiness of my dear pupil? For I may add + that her heart is not touched. This you, no doubt, will soon perceive + for yourself. Nor can I disguise from you--indeed, it is the main + purpose of this letter to put it before you--that Mr. Sellar, + obviously smitten by one of those passions which are usually as brief + as they are violent, has importuned my pupil, the Countess Francesca, + into the acceptance of his hand with a persistency and an ardour which + have secured for him the present gratification of his wishes, and, I + fear and dread, a most unhappy future both for himself and the girl on + whom his choice has fallen._ + + “_Mademoiselle, it is a random affair, with passion on one side and + indifference on the other; and I must state that I consider that Mr. + Sellar has greatly abused his position by forcing his suit on an + unprotected and unadvised female._ + + “_There was, also, another circumstance which operated greatly in his + favour: the Countess Francesca’s parents had proposed a match between + her and her cousin, the Count Caldini--the present heir of the Italian + estate. This marriage, in every way desirable from a worldly point of + view, was certainly not likely to be agreeable to a lively and + beautiful young girl, for the Count Caldini is not amiable in + appearance, polished in manners, nor robust in health. Mr. Sellar goes + favourably by contrast with this unwelcome pretender, and by every + means in his power--and these were considerable, as we were all + enclosed in the castle together while the affairs of the late Countess + were settled--pressed his advantage._ + + “_The result you know, and, I have no doubt, mademoiselle, are as + dismayed at it as I am myself._ + + “_Mr. Sellar has already perverted the Countess from the faith of her + childhood, and separated her from the companion of her youth. After + enduring every possible disagreeableness during a long and tedious + journey, I find myself separated from my pupil--nay, I was almost + going to say my ward--and relegated to the obscurity of a lodging in + Calais._ + + “_I send you this letter through the hands of the Countess Francesca, + and I conclude it by entreating you to use every means in your power + to break off a match which I fear will be fatal to both parties + concerned._ + + “_The Countess Francesca Sylvestra Caldini has many friends and + connections on the Continent, any one of whom would be willing to + receive her at a moment’s notice should she decide, after all, to + leave England, which I cannot believe she would find genial to her + disposition._ + + “_I therefore, mademoiselle, shall remain for the present at this + address, in the expectation and the hope that you will write to me and + request my companionship and protection for the Countess Francesca, + which will be very willingly and affectionately hers until I can + escort her to the protection and guardianship of her friends._ + + “_Mademoiselle, pray take this letter both as a protest and as a + warning; I am, with many compliments,_ + + “_Your devoted servant_, + “Hélène de Mailly.” + + +Ambrosia folded the letter up and returned it to its envelope, then +glanced at the Countess Fanny, who remained seated negligently by her +harp, idly plucking at the slackened strings. + +“Your friend is not in favour of your marriage.” + +“No,” said the Italian girl; “she quarrelled with Oliver, of course. +Oliver quarrelled with everyone in Italy; it is odd, is it not? I +suppose you would call him,” she added with her careless smile, “a +disagreeable man.” + +“Why are you marrying him?” asked Ambrosia, stung to bluntness. “All +your friend says is quite true: you may read the letter, if you will.” + +“There is no need for me to read it,” replied the Countess Fanny, “for +she told me herself all that she could possibly tell me on the matter; +used, I dare swear, every conceivable argument.” + +“And you remained unmoved?” asked Ambrosia. “Therefore, of course, +there is no need for us to speak about this any more. I shall answer +Madame de Mailly’s letter, and tell her that the whole matter is quite +out of my hands. You are your own mistress, of course. Oliver would +remain quite unmoved by any argument of mine. Madame de Mailly says +her letter is a protest and a warning--perhaps I ought to tell you +that.” + +“She told me so herself,” smiled Fanny. “It is a pity, is it not, that +she and Oliver should not have been good friends?” + +Ambrosia was silent. She picked up a painted hand-screen, and through +it gazed at the flickering flames on the hearth. It was all very well +for her so lightly to shake all this responsibility off her shoulders, +but perhaps this foreigner, this stranger, was right in the attitude +she had taken up. Perhaps it was not mere spite and malice, and the +result of her quarrel and disagreement with Oliver. Perhaps she felt a +sense of duty towards the girl, and perhaps, also, she (Ambrosia) +should have the same sense of duty. Could she, this foreign creature +of eighteen, realise what she had undertaken in promising to marry a +man like Oliver and spend all her life at Sellar’s Mead? It was +scarcely possible, and in that case was it not a bare duty of Oliver’s +sister to warn her, to try and set before her to what manner of task +she had put her hand? + +And yet, when she stole a covert glance at the Countess Fanny, and saw +her seated there, so negligent, so lovely, so fantastic, she found she +could not speak the words of cold advice and dry warning. There was +something in the vivid personality, in the vivid loveliness, that she +found unapproachable. It was the Italian girl who spoke first: + +“I hope it does not rain this afternoon, for I am to go riding again +with Oliver.” + +“You like riding?” asked Ambrosia mechanically. + +“Yes--and I like this country too. It is so different from Italy, but +grand and stimulating, is it not? These rocks and the loneliness.… I +want, this afternoon, to go right down to the sea. There is a +lighthouse there Oliver says.” + +“Oh, yes,” answered Ambrosia. “We are all very interested in the +lighthouse. It has just been renovated--almost rebuilt--and there will +be a great test for it this winter, for everyone predicts great +storms.” + +“I have never seen a lighthouse,” replied the Italian girl with +flashing vivacity. “It must be most vastly exciting! May one visit +it?” + +“Oh, yes,” replied Ambrosia. “Lord Lefton was only this morning asking +if you would care to go.” + +“Of course I should care to go!” cried the Countess Fanny. “I should +like it above all things. It is out on the dangerous rocks, is it not, +with a marvellous view of the sea?” + +“No doubt it will please you,” smiled Ambrosia, “if you have never +seen anything of the kind before; but I have grown up with the +lighthouse and I am afraid it rather depresses me.” + +The Countess Fanny laughed, and rose and tripped lightly to the +window, and gazed up at the lowering clouds. + +How lovely she was, Ambrosia mused, even in that cold, hostile light. +How delicious and grand and noble the lines of her head and throat, +the sweep of those black ringlets and the poise of those delicate +shoulders! How exquisite and graceful every movement! + +“You must find it all very chill and dark and foreboding!” remarked +the Englishwoman thoughtfully. + +But the Countess Fanny turned a flashing look over her shoulder. + +“Indeed I do not,” she said. “I find it--well, I don’t know--exciting: +that seems the only word. To be out this morning, and feel the wind +and the rain on one’s face, those clouds all hurrying out to sea… and +the rocks… and now, there is the lighthouse, right out there at the +end of the land, battling with the ocean… oh, how could one find it +dull or chill?” + +“It is my native place,” said Ambrosia, “but I find it depressing.” + +“And you will go away?” smiled the Countess Fanny. “Yes, I can +understand that!” + +“I think you will go away too,” Ambrosia could not resist replying. +“You won’t want to spend all your life in Cornwall.” + +“I don’t believe I think beyond to-morrow,” replied the Italian girl, +gazing again at the sky. “Does anyone? For the moment I am happy here; +I was tired of Italy and the castle, and that sunshine, so hard and so +continuous. Yes; I loved the place, but I was glad to get away.” + +“Where did Oliver take you this morning?” asked Ambrosia. + +“Round the farms,” replied the Countess Fanny. “All over his estate +and up to Flimwel, which is mine. And that is odd, is it not--looking +at those strange lands and thinking: ‘Why, they are your own; that was +where your mother came from, where she was born.’” + +“You did not go to Flimwel Grange?” asked Ambrosia. “That has been +shut up so long that I think it must be rather dreary.” + +“No, we did not go so far. We saw the entrance gates, and they looked +very worn and rusty. But I must go--I want to go--and I do not think I +shall find it dreary,” she added. “It is my mother’s home, is it not? +I am not quite Italian, you know, but half Cornish. And now I must +write to Madame de Mailly. She will be looking for a letter from me, +and it would be rude in me and unkind, would it not, not to write to +her?” + +Speaking rapidly, moving swiftly, and smiling, she left the window and +the room. Ambrosia heard her running lightly upstairs. + +Almost immediately Oliver entered, and asked for her. + +“She has gone to her room to write a letter, I think,” said Ambrosia. +“I don’t quite know. It is nearly luncheon-time.” And she could not +forbear the thought that she would not be able, with much equanimity, +to endure months of this: Oliver’s constant enquiries after the girl, +if she was out of his sight for a single moment… no, it was too much +to ask of any woman to remain during the storm and gloom of a long +winter, shut up with indifference and passion! A man’s +scarcely-contained violence of emotion; a girl’s ignorance and +negligence and serenity.… + +Ambrosia hesitated, then handed her brother the letter which she had +been given by the Countess Fanny. + +“Perhaps you ought to see this,” she said, and hoped that she had kept +all malice from her voice and from her heart. + +Oliver took the letter ungraciously. + +“Whom is it from?” he demanded. + +“Madame de Mailly. She dislikes you. Oh, what a pity you had to +quarrel with her, Oliver!” + +He replied fiercely, snatching the sheet of paper from the envelope: + +“The woman was intolerable. I can’t think what Fanny’s mother was +about to have her! She has been divorced, I believe; in every way +unsuitable--a cynical, flippant, worldly woman.” + +“But accomplished, I think,” remarked Ambrosia drily. “And she seems +to have a sense of duty and a certain affection for Fanny.” + +“Nothing of the kind,” retorted Oliver. “She merely wishes to preserve +her own position. She was extremely well paid, and has been most +generously pensioned; but that is not sufficient. She wishes to obtain +a hold on Fanny, to get a footing here; and surely, even you, Amy, can +imagine what that would mean. An intriguing woman who hates me is to +be given a position of authority in my house.” + +“Of course, you are right,” agreed Ambrosia sincerely. “It would be +quite impossible for her to come here, and she would never have +forgiven Fanny for leaving her religion. Still, need you have +quarrelled with her, Oliver? It makes it all seem so disagreeable and +harsh.” + +Oliver Sellar did not listen to this. He was reading the letter, his +handsome mouth set bitterly, and his fine face flushed darkly as he +read the polished, acid sentences. + +“Presumptuous impertinence!” he cried at length, and, crumpling the +letter up, cast it into the fire. “The woman is false and dangerous, +and I was well advised in dealing with her firmly.” + +“One must allow for her affection for Fanny,” said Ambrosia. “I dare +say that it does all seem very--well--peculiar to her.” + +“And to you, too, I suppose?” asked Oliver haughtily. “I have no doubt +that you have judged me--aye, and all the neighbours also, Amy.” + +Ambrosia stood her ground before his portentous scowl. + +“No one thought you would marry again so soon, Oliver,” she said, “and +certainly no one thought that you would marry someone so much younger +than yourself--a foreigner, a stranger. After all, we know nothing +about her at all.” And she could not resist adding: “Neither, I think, +do you. Probably you did not require to know anything about her--it +was sufficient for you to see her.” + +Oliver turned away with the deepest impatience. Though Ambrosia’s +regard of him was cold, she admitted that he looked, in his +riding-suit, a manly, almost a splendid, figure; and she could believe +that Fanny might behold him in an attractive light. No doubt he had +one manner for his sister and another for the woman whom he was going +to marry, and yet there came into her mind, even at this moment, +directly and poignantly into her mind, that remark made by poor +Amelia: “Amy, I am not happy!” + +“When is Lucius coming back?” demanded Oliver. + +“I don’t know--to-morrow perhaps, or the day after. He is really +obsessed with the lighthouse. There is a scheme now for a bronze wolf, +that is to be hollow, and emit howls when the blasts blow.” + +“Folly!” cried Oliver. “Folly! Surely enough money has been spent on +that lighthouse! There is a foghorn now.” + +“It is more than a lighthouse to Luce,” said Ambrosia. “An ideal, a +symbol.” + +“An ideal? A symbol?” cried Oliver in disgust. “I hope, Amy, you will +knock all that nonsense out of Lucius when you are married!” + +This was Ambrosia’s own hope, but she detested to hear it voiced in +this harsh and unsympathetic manner. + +“You do not understand Lucius,” she replied. “Everyone,” she added +with meaning, “even those who most pride themselves on their strength +of character, are liable to infatuation.” + +Oliver frowned sullenly. He understood perfectly the meaning of her +allusion. She knew that he was caught in the toils of an infatuation +for Fanny, a more perilous infatuation than one for a lighthouse. He +had not wished Amy to guess this, but it had been impossible to +deceive her, and indeed, what other reason could anyone suppose he had +in marrying this foreign girl? In his sullen pride and petulant +temper, Oliver Sellar had hoped people would believe he was marrying +the girl for her money, because the two estates marched, and Flimwel +would be a very handsome addition to Sellar’s Mead. But evidently he +had betrayed himself--at least to his sister, who was acute enough; +and probably to those three old fools whose company had been forced on +him last night. How tactless and stupid in Amy to ask those tiresome +old people the first night of his arrival--just as it had been +tactless and stupid in Amy to come to the shore with a brougham, not +to send his horse to the ferry; to think that he wished to be shut up +with Spragge and herself in that close carriage! + +He would be glad when Amy was married and away from Sellar’s Mead. In +many ways she jarred on him and irritated him. He thought now, with +vexation, that she and that young idiot, Lucius, would be well +matched. Pedantic, pragmatical--both of them! + +Ambrosia broke in on his reserved and angry reflections. + +“Fanny appears interested in the lighthouse,” she remarked. “She says +you are taking her there this afternoon.” + +“Not to the lighthouse,” replied Oliver sullenly. “Near enough to see +it, I dare say. And of course she is interested, it is a great novelty +to her. She has never seen anything of that kind before. You ought to +be flattered, Amy, that Lucius has at least one admirer.” + +Ambrosia ignored this. “Lord Lefton is coming over this afternoon,” +she said, “so do not keep Fanny out late.” + +“Lord Lefton need not have troubled,” replied Oliver. “If he could not +get to the ferry yesterday, it is odd that he can get here to-day.” + +“He means it most courteously and kindly,” said Ambrosia. + +Oliver replied that he did not think that the old Earl meant it in any +such manner. + +“It is just curiosity,” he said hotly. “I suppose everyone, for miles +round, will be coming to pass an opinion on Fanny, just because she is +a foreigner and I am going to marry her.” + +Ambrosia knew what lay behind this bitter protest; he was sensitive, +almost ashamed, on this subject. He could not endure that anyone +should nose out the store he set upon the girl. His next words +confirmed the supposition on the part of Ambrosia: + +“It is perfectly natural that I should marry Fanny,” he said in a +guarded voice, “seeing how Flimwel and Sellar’s Mead march.” + +“Oh, yes,” smiled Ambrosia ironically. “Of course it seems perfectly +natural.” + + + + + CHAPTER VII + +The Countess Fanny had returned, considerably fatigued, from her +long ride. Oliver had gone to the stables, and Ambrosia was occupied +with some domestic affairs. The Italian girl therefore found herself +alone in the drawing-room. She sat down beside the fire without +troubling to change her elegant habit, threw off her hat, and clasped +her hands behind her long curls. She knew that her flowing attire, her +plumes and her veil, were out of fashion and not very suitable for +this country or climate; but she did not care in the least, for she +knew that these slightly fantastic garments were infinitely becoming. + +With graceful easiness she nestled into Ambrosia’s cushions and stared +into Ambrosia’s fire. She had not actually approached the lighthouse, +but she had seen it from a distance, and it haunted her imagination +and pervaded her memory. + +They had been testing the light; therefore she had been able to see +the red-orange and the blue-white of the lanterns, flashing every +second through the gathering gloom of the late autumn afternoon. She +had been able to hear, also, the faint distant sound of the angry +swirl of the waters across the Leopard’s Rock, where the waves always +boiled and eddied, even on a calm summer day--dashing to and fro on +the hidden ledges of greenstone. + +Luxuriously enjoying the warmth and the candlelight and the softness +of the silk behind her head, Francesca Sylvestra Caldini recalled with +pleasure that sombre, gloomy, and stormy scene. She did not find it in +the least depressing, any more than she found the grey landscape +depressing; it was all so new, all so exactly like Oliver Sellar +himself--dark, sullen, petulant, and strange, but exciting also! Oh, +yes--exciting. To feel the light rain on one’s cheeks, to sense the +high winds blowing the clouds above one’s head, the feeling of that +angry scene encompassing one--the jutting rocks; the dull furrows of +the barren fields; the gaunt and bare trees that appeared to have been +swept seawards in some portentous storm, and never to have recovered +their erect defiance of the heavens.… All like Oliver. Yes, it all +reminded her of Oliver, her English lover. So, too, he was dark, and +stormy, and difficult, and grim. Yet she could do what she liked with +him. That was the fascination. She had already learned how to make +that commanding voice stammer with emotion, that stern face flush with +hope and pale with fear, those powerful hands to tremble. She could +already play on Oliver Sellar almost as skilfully as she played upon +her harp; and that was amusing, like the landscape--both strange, +amusing, and diverting. + +She stretched and yawned, agreeably sleepy, pleasantly tired. She was +an excellent rider, and had had an excellent mount. It had been a +delicious feeling to trot along those roads beside Oliver, the dark +man in the dark landscape, the wind and the storm overhead and that +impetuous, sullen lover by her side. Francesca Sylvestra Caldini had +enjoyed that ride. And the glimpse of the lighthouse at the end, like +a glimpse of something beyond the usual ken of human eye, almost like +a glance into another world--that brilliant and flashing light, and +then the austerity of the winter evening.… That had been exciting, +stimulating. She would have liked to go nearer, to have seen the +lighthouse at close range, to inspect it, that strange building, out +there on the angry rocks, which, as Oliver had told her, were reported +to be haunted with evil things--the creation, no doubt, of man’s +frightened fancy, but none the less terrible and fascinating for that. + +The Countess Fanny was superstitious. She believed that the fancies +men created in their minds often left that narrow habitation and +walked the earth; and she would not have cared to go alone to the +Leopard’s Rock either in the twilight of morning or evening, and +scarcely in the full blaze of noon. But she would go there one day +with Oliver, and he would row her out to the lighthouse, and she would +inspect it, and stand beneath that light, and see it revolve, and hear +the harsh, strident screams of the seagulls that he had described, and +see them flutter by that light like moths around a candle; that was +odd and exciting. She smiled to herself, thinking of these great +birds, many of whom, her lover said, measured five feet across, from +wing to wing, beating against that gigantic light, and falling, +wounded or dazed, into the hissing sea. + +And then the cavern underneath it, where the wind howled in such a way +that a man had died of fear, and another’s hair had turned white in +twenty-four hours--shut up there alone, with that terrible roar and +boom of the pent-up wind in the long cavern beneath the lighthouse. +She would have heard that. She had a mounting spirit that had early +tired of sun and peace, and she thought now that, with pleasant and +sturdy company, she would have liked to spend the night in the +lighthouse, and behold the ocean spread around her--an unknown and +powerful domain--and hear the waves beating against the greenstone +rock, and listen to the wind threatening in his underground cave--that +would be surely magnificent, a fresh sensation, something different +from those long days, all hazed with golden sunshine, in the castle +outside Rome. Why, even in the winter there had been sunshine, of a +paler, less lucent, quality, perhaps, but still sunshine; and she +could not remember any storm upon the lakes, which had always lain +peaceful beneath a sky more or less vivid; a blue sky always blue, +sometimes a cerulean blue of summer hyacinth, and sometimes a pale +blue of the last speedwell; but always blue, and seldom clouded, and +then only with evanescent clouds, pale and tremulous in quality--not +clouds like these that she had seen this afternoon; and these, Oliver +had declared, were nothing. She must wait till the winter, he had said +grimly, and see then what a tempest on the Cornish coast really +meant.… + +The Countess Fanny nestled more closely into the cushions and looked +into the fire, building there, after the manner of youth, many magic +castles, nameless habitations, and immemorial palaces, gilded with a +brighter glory than even the glory of the glowing coals; the glory of +a young and ardent imagination. + +The rose-gold of this firelight and of a few lit candles on the +mantelpiece was over her, and cast into shadow the heavy furniture, +and the big, clear water-colours on the walls, and the massive +curtains of stiff damask, and the diminishing mirror by the door, +which was framed in walls of polished mahogany. All these things, and +the Countess Fanny, lounging on the sofa, were in warm light. + +She liked the house as much as she liked the landscape, and as she +liked Oliver; and she could not understand why Ambrosia, whose native +place it was, should find it dull or distasteful. “But then,” thought +the Countess Fanny lightly, “poor Amy is not very young or very +pretty,” and, indeed, to an Italian imagination, the stately +Englishwoman was past her first youth, and had never been beautiful. + +The Countess Fanny was sorry for her, but in a light and careless +fashion; for as yet no deep feelings had been stirred in her young +heart. From Ambrosia her mind travelled to Madame de Mailly, in +Calais; and she was sorry about Madame de Mailly, and wished that +Oliver could have been pleasant to her. When they were married, she +thought, she would see that Madame de Mailly came to stay with them at +Sellar’s Mead, whether Oliver liked it or no. + +The door opened, and the Countess Fanny turned her head languidly on +the cushions, smiling her careless and accomplished smile, expecting +to see Ambrosia, with her keys at her waist, emerge through the +shadows; but it was not a woman, but a young man who advanced, and the +Countess Fanny sat up, shaking out her ringlets, which had been +crumpled beneath her cheek. + +A young man, a stranger; she rose, with her pretty composure, and +dropped her antiquated curtsey, at which Ambrosia had smiled without +much indulgence. + +The young man came into the warm blaze of the candle and firelight. He +seemed utterly surprised and amazed, and the Countess Fanny enjoyed +his surprise and amaze, for she knew that this was his expression of +his homage to her beauty. She had already seen, many times, such a +confusion on the part of those who first beheld her. + +She stretched out her hand gracefully, and said, still with that +rather meaningless smile: + +“I am Francesca Sylvestra Caldini, and residing here; you, no doubt, +are a visitor for Miss Sellar, or perhaps for Oliver.” + +“I am Lucius,” he answered, in some confusion. “You have, perhaps, +heard of me.” + +Ah, yes, she had heard of Lucius! This was the man who was going to +marry Amy. How much younger than Amy, she thought, picking up the +hand-screen and holding it between her face and the fire. How +different from any man whom she had pictured as likely to be marrying +Amy! + +She asked him to sit down, with a charming air of being hostess, and +reclined again among the cushions, and asked him if he would wait +awhile, as neither Amy nor Oliver were, it seemed, at leisure. + +He somewhat stiffly took his seat in the large armchair opposite; and +she was rather glad of these uncertain lights and shifting shadows, so +that she could study him, furtively, carefully, and as long as she +wished. It was very interesting to be able to have this keen scrutiny +of poor Amy’s lover; for already the Countess Fanny thought of +Ambrosia as “poor Amy.” + +Well, he was good-looking, she decided, but rather peculiar. Of +course, not nearly so good-looking as Oliver, but much, much younger, +and much, much more like an Englishman. Why, Oliver might have been an +Italian--several people thought he was so; or would have thought so, +she reflected with malice, if his manner had been more amiable and his +accent less atrocious. But for darkness, for a vivid look of swarthy +strength, he might have been Italian. This man, no; this man was like +the Englishmen whom she had imagined, the Englishmen of whom her +mother had spoken, and the Englishmen whom she had seen at Dover, in +London, and on the voyage. Yes, he was fair--inclined to be reddish in +his thick locks; smooth-shaven and pale, with a long face and +light-grey eyes. He was very elegantly dressed, with a precision that +Oliver despised. She liked his exquisitely swathed cravat, and his +cameo pin; his riding-suit was surely much more fashionable than the +riding-suit of Oliver, which had seemed to her very rough +indeed--almost like that of a farmer. + +Plainly he was embarrassed; plainly he did not know what to talk +about; and why was this? Because, of course, she was beautiful; so +much more beautiful than he could possibly have expected to find her. +He had come prepared to discover a Countess Fanny, a poor little +foreign girl, but he had not been prepared to discover a beauty. So +the girl read him, and she laughed with pleasure, and asked him +gracefully if he had lately seen the lighthouse. + +“I rode there this afternoon with Oliver,” she said. “Perhaps you know +that I am going to marry Oliver, and he is taking me about to see +Cornwall, which is, I suppose,” she added, smiling, “to be my home.” + +Lucius had become instantly interested at the mention of the +lighthouse, and he answered at once: + +“Yes, Countess Fanny--for I suppose that is what I am to call you----” + +In the pause, she said: “Why, you may call me what you please. I +suppose it will be ‘Fanny,’ will it not, if you marry Amy.” + +She unconsciously stressed the “if,” but he did not appear to notice +that, nor, indeed, could he very well have given any sign if he had +done so. + +“It seems bold to call you ‘Fanny,’” he said with a smile, “on this +our first meeting.” + +He was still feeling embarrassed and confused, but was making a +gallant attempt to disguise this awkwardness. + +“And I am indeed flattered that you are interested in the lighthouse, +for that is very--well--dear to me; almost my own work--mine and my +father’s,” he added. + +“Is it?” she cried with animation. “That is indeed diverting! I never +heard that, though, now I think of it, Amy did say something--yes, she +said that you were very interested in the lighthouse; but I had +forgotten. Now you must take me there, will you not? One day quite +soon.” + +Lucius laughed uneasily. + +“Do you really want to see it?” he asked. “I suppose it is a great +novelty to you; but I have been brought up--well--in sight of the +lighthouse, and for months thinking of nothing else. We get the most +terrible winters here--you would hardly believe, the storms and +tempests last sometimes for weeks together.” + +“I know,” she said, with a kindling voice and glance, “I have heard of +it, and it pleases me very much.” + +“Pleases you?” he asked curiously. “Coming from Italy and sunshine?” + +“Just because of that, perhaps,” smiled the Countess Fanny. “One +wearies of the sun.” + +“I suppose so, but I have been so little abroad,” he said doubtfully. +“My father is a great invalid, and I do not care to leave him for +long. It is to make his apologies that I am here to-day. He should +have come to welcome you to St. Nite’s, but this afternoon he found +himself most unwell; and, as I had just arrived from London, I thought +that I would come instead, and beg you to forgive him.” + +At the end of this speech, which the young man made rather stiffly, +the Countess Fanny laughed, and clasped her hands round the long folds +of her riding-habit, which fell across her knees. + +“Oh, la, la!” she cried. “Make no matter about that. I dare say you +think it very tiresome in me to come here like this, and to be going +to marry Oliver! People don’t like foreigners in England, do they? I +have been told that several times already, and, though I am half +English, I dare say no one remembers that.” + +Lucius was startled by her plain speaking, as Ambrosia had been +startled, but touched by it in a way that Ambrosia had not been +touched. + +“Surely,” he exclaimed, “no one has said anything about not liking +foreigners to you! We are very rough and uncouth here, but not, I +think, as rude as that!” + +“Oh, not said it!” she replied lightly, “but one senses it, and I +think it’s amusing.” + +“It is very gracious of you,” he replied, “to take it as amusing; but +believe me,” he added, with an earnestness that overcame his +awkwardness, “you must never think that anyone round here, even the +roughest, intends any discourtesy towards you. It would be +impossible.” + +She knew what he meant, but pressed him to explain the meaning. + +“Why?” she asked. + +“You know,” he smiled. + +Yes, she knew: it was because she was beautiful. He had been impressed +with that beauty from the moment he had seen her. The Countess Fanny +was quite aware of that. Impressed just as Oliver Sellar had been +impressed when he had come into that large, grey room at the castle, +hung with rather worn tapestry, where she had sat at her harp and +looked at him across the room. Yes, she had seen Oliver Sellar +impressed and moved as this young man was impressed and moved. + +Oh, it was very pleasant and agreeable to be so lovely, and see so +often the reflection of that loveliness in the eyes of men! But this +was Amy’s lover--she must remember that; and she stretched herself and +yawned, pitying Amy, pitying the young man. + +He had risen, and stood by the mantelshelf, and she looked at him +under her lids, and observed his beauty and his strength. He was not +so massive as Oliver, but oh, much more graceful, she thought, with a +far finer air of breeding. + +“It is odd that you should be interested in the lighthouse,” he said, +with an accent of excitement, “for I am afraid that Amy begins to be +quite bored with it. I dare say I talk of it a great deal too much, +but to me it is entirely fascinating--even absorbing. I have a scheme +now for a fog-signal--a large bronze wolf or leopard--perhaps it +should be leopard, as it is the Leopard’s Rock--through which the +winds will howl and give a warning when a gale blows.” + +The Countess Fanny clapped her long hands. + +“Why, that is splendid!” she cried in deep delight. “I should like +above all things to hear your wolf howling through the storm!” + +“That is what father says,” smiled Luce, “but I do not know yet +whether it is practical. I have been to London to see engineers about +it, and they have made trouble, and nothing yet has been really +decided.” + +“But it is decided,” asked Fanny swiftly, “that you take me over the +lighthouse? And you must do that soon, before the bad weather comes, +for everyone is predicting great storms.” + +“Of course I will take you over the lighthouse,” he answered +instantly. “Of course I will take you anywhere you wish.” But then he +seemed to reconsider his words, and, with a slight change in manner, +added: “But Oliver will wish to take you.” + +“Oliver,” smiled the Countess Fanny, “is not, I think, so interested +in the lighthouse as you are. We came in sight of it to-day, as we +were riding, and he was dry and brief about it, and seemed to think it +is no matter for a woman’s enthusiasm.” + +“Nevertheless,” replied Lucius quietly, “when he hears that you wish +to go, he will wish to take you. Perhaps I may come too, and point you +out one or two curiosities in the structure.” + +“You must come too,” she answered, “for I can see that the lighthouse +means a great deal to you, and nothing at all to Oliver.” + +“Now how did you know that?” he asked curiously. + +She smiled, and shook back her ringlets. Of course she knew it, in the +same way that she knew she looked entrancing by candlelight. +Intuition, Madame de Mailly had called it--a woman’s intuition; a +useful quality, and one that served very well to baffle the men. She +had maddened Oliver with it often enough before now. + +He did not press her for a reply; he seemed to read that in her smile +and her glance. + +Ambrosia entered the room. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + +The year darkened down to implacable gloom and rising storm; day +after day of sombre weather set in. The winds, menacing during the +day, rose to gales during the night. + +Lord Lefton was not able to leave his room and pay his promised visit +to Sellar’s Mead, although his curiosity to see the Countess Fanny was +extreme. Nor could he satisfy himself from his son’s account: Lucius +had very little to say of the Italian girl, and no opinion to express +as to the desirability or the reverse of her marriage with Oliver +Sellar. Even when the Earl asked, “Is she really as beautiful as Amy +declares?” Lucius had no definite reply to give. + +“She will be married in the summer,” he remarked once shortly, “nay, +in the spring, I believe, and Amy and I shall be abroad; there is no +occasion for us to concern ourselves with her very much.” And he +appeared absorbed in his lighthouse. + +Oliver Sellar himself waited on the old Earl, but not from him, +either, could Lord Lefton obtain any satisfaction. Oliver was taciturn +and sombre, and only referred briefly and replied drily on the subject +of the Countess Fanny. + +“I hear she is very beautiful,” said the old man courteously; and +Oliver at once and harshly demanded: “Who told you that, sir?” + +“Amy,” replied Lord Lefton. “Amy, perhaps, would say that out of +kindness, but I believe she meant it. You should not resent it, +surely?” + +But Oliver did not wish to have the Countess Fanny’s beauty stressed, +it seemed. + +“She is well enough,” he admitted shortly; “a common Italian type, +sir--dark and slender; yes, a pretty young girl, you might say; and I, +of course, am very devoted to her. But you must admit that it was a +great inducement that the two estates marched. I have rented the land +for years now, and it will be very gratifying to know that they are my +own.” + +This was meant to deceive the old Earl, and to an extent did so. He +questioned Lucius as to the position when Oliver had gone. + +“Is it really for the land or for the girl?” he asked. “I mean, is he +honestly in love with her, or is it merely a _mariage de convenance_?” + +Lucius replied abruptly that he did not know. It was all a sealed +matter to him, he declared, nor was Amy any wiser. + +“The girl seems happy, light, and even excited.” + +“A rattle and a coquette, I suppose?” smiled the old man. “Well, well, +I should think if she survives this winter she can survive a lifetime! +Shut up here with the storms, with Oliver----” + +“There’s Amy,” said Lucius quickly. “Amy is always there, you know, +and a houseful of servants. She has brought her own maid with her.” + +Lord Lefton thought these remarks very curious. He did not wish to +probe into the inner meaning of them. And that afternoon he had a +chance of judging the Countess Fanny for himself, for she rode over +from Sellar’s Mead, buoyant, with her accomplished smile and her +careless air, and trailed, in her fantastic riding-habit, straight +into the old man’s closet, where he was busy with his shells, washing +them, indexing them, examining them through a microscope. + +“Well, sir,” she cried as she entered, “you would not come to see me, +and so perforce I am come to see you. I have heard a great deal about +you, and surely it is time that we should make a certain +acquaintance.” + +She watched him to see in his old face the effect produced by her +beauty, just as she had watched Oliver Sellar, and, later, Lucius +Foxe. + +Her effect, now as then, was unfailing. She saw the admiration, the +kindness, and the goodwill at once in the fine old countenance before +her. + +“Why, I had no idea,” he said, rising with difficulty from his +invalid’s chair, “really no idea! Well, well, my dear, why didn’t they +tell me that you were a beauty--a great beauty? And yet,” he said, +taking her hand and patting it, as she smiled delightedly up at him, +“now I come to think of it, Amy did tell me, but somehow I didn’t +quite realise.” + +“Now, I think that very kind of you!” said the Countess Fanny. “Really +charming and delightful of you, Lord Lefton--a pretty compliment; and +I love compliments!” + +“But you didn’t come here to get compliments, eh? But to give pleasure +to an old man.” + +“To make your acquaintance,” said the Countess Fanny, dropping her +little, old-fashioned curtsey. “Indeed, sir, I could not any longer +stay away.” + +“Not bored, are you?” he enquired, with a trace of anxiety in his +voice. “You don’t find it dull at Sellar’s Mead?” + +“Dull! Oh, no, not in the least dull! I like it--the greyness and the +dark, the grandeur and the storms!” + +Lord Lefton laughed at these peculiar expressions. + +“Then perhaps you will enjoy our long, severe winter, eh, my dear? I +am afraid there are a great many storms and tempests in store for us +before the spring.” + +She seated herself beside him, and picked the shells up in her +delicate fingers, and laid them in her delicate palm, and looked at +them with a warm admiration and a fastidious appreciation that +delighted Lord Lefton. + +“You collect these? Oh, that is charming! What a delicious occupation! +And you wash them--do you?--in that bowl of crystal-clear water! You +see the sand fall to the bottom, and the colours brighten into lustre, +that is indeed diverting!” + +“Do you think so?” he asked, enthralled. + +But now her attention was distracted by something else. She placed the +shells carefully back on their trays, and darted round the room, and +stopped before the fantastic drawing of Winstanley Lighthouse. + +“That is a very old print,” the Earl informed her, “and one of our +earliest lighthouses, built by a very brave man; though he had, as you +perceive, a fanciful turn. But it was blown down in a storm. In those +days engineering was very crude. We have a lighthouse here, I dare say +you have seen it in the distance.” + +“Yes, I have seen it,” replied the Countess Fanny, still looking at +the fanciful print; “but I have not been over it, though I want very +much to do so; and presently it will be too stormy.” + +“But surely,” exclaimed the old man, “Lucius would take you any time, +and with the deepest of interest and pleasure! Why, Lucius is absorbed +in the lighthouse--spends hours there every day!” + +“Ah, Lucius!” replied the Countess Fanny serenely. “But Oliver does +not wish me greatly to go. He, you must know, sir, does _not_ spend +hours every day at the lighthouse, nor is he greatly concerned with +it.” + +The old Earl smiled at this plain speaking. + +“Oliver must not be selfish,” he remarked. “He must indulge you; it is +something that you consent to remain here all this winter, and do not +wish to go to London, or to Paris. You have, of course, friends in +both places?” + +“Yes, I have friends and connections and relations,” replied the +Countess Fanny, turning, with her back to the print, and elegantly +gathering up the riding-habit with her left hand. “Yes, dear sir, I +have all these, and I have a dear companion--a certain Madame de +Mailly,” she added with a smile, “who is even now waiting for me at +Calais, in case I should change my mind.” + +“Change your mind about what, my dear?” + +“About marrying Oliver, and staying in England, of course,” said the +Countess Fanny, with her careless smile. “Madame de Mailly thinks that +I cannot long endure such seclusion, and such limited company; and you +must know, sir, that she detests Oliver, and has violently quarrelled +with him. So far, my mind remains fixed; I desire to stay in Cornwall, +and to marry Oliver.” + +“Oliver,” smiled the old man, “should be very flattered, and reward +your complaisance and your preference, my dear, by making everything +as comfortable and as pleasant for you as possible. I think he should +take you to London; here there is no society, and indeed but little +comfort. I, as you may see, am old and sick, and there remains +only----” + +“Lucius,” smiled the Countess Fanny; and the name fell oddly into the +room between them, like something definite; and the Earl was silent, +and put his thin, wrinkled fingers to his mouth, and looked down on +the floor. + +Yes, there was Lucius--Lucius, more or less her age, and so much +younger than Amy. Why had she said the name just like that? She must +be very coquettish or very innocent. The Earl could not decide which.… + +“Lucius,” continued the Italian girl in the same light tone, that was +yet so polished and controlled, “is much more agreeable than Oliver.” + +“Have you seen much of him?” asked Lord Lefton cautiously. + +“Oh, no! Very little. I have only been here about ten days, and, of +course, when he comes to Sellar’s Mead, he is with Amy; and I must be +with Oliver.… Why, I scarcely have a word with him, or I should have +pressed him to show me the lighthouse, but perhaps, dear sir, you will +do that on my behalf.” + +“Is that what you came here for?” smiled the old Earl. + +“No, indeed--I came to make your acquaintance,” she replied, with an +earnestness that he sincerely believed to be purely candid. “I wished +to see if you were like Lucius; and so you are! I wished to see the +house that Lucius lived in, and it’s just like the house I thought it +would be! Not quite so large as my castle, you know, but something the +same--so many large rooms, and gloomy.” + +“Yes, it is gloomy,” said the old Earl with a smile. “I can’t do what +I would like to with the place, my dear. It is built for a large +family and a large staff of servants, and I have neither.” + +“But perhaps,” she replied, “Lucius and Amy will have both.” + +“They won’t have very much money, my dear,” he answered. “Amy is +scarcely an heiress, and poor Lucius will not have a very rich +inheritance; but I dare say they will do well enough, and probably +make it a great deal more cheerful than I am able to do. Do you like +Sellar’s Mead?” he added abruptly. + +“Oh, yes; I like it very well, and everyone makes me very comfortable +there; but best of all I like to ride out. These dark days, these +sombre skies, the storms, you know--it fascinates me. I should like,” +she added impetuously, clasping her hands, “to be in the lighthouse +during a storm.” + +“Why, that is a dreadful experience which will turn some men’s wits; +you must not wish for anything as awful as that, my dear!” + +“No. I suppose,” she replied with a light sigh, “I shall always be +safe and guarded! There will always be Oliver there to see that +everything runs smoothly. And I should consider myself very +fortunate--should I not?” + +“Is Oliver calling for you now?” asked the old Earl. “You surely are +not riding back alone?” For the light was already beginning to fail, +and he looked anxiously at the darkening squares of sky and landscape +beyond the tall window. + +“No, Oliver does not know I am here; neither does Amy. I went away +while both were occupied. Oliver spends a great deal of time with his +agent and on the estate; the farm, he says, has been neglected while +he has been away. And Amy has the house: it is astonishing what she +finds to do in the house. At the castle we did hardly anything at +all--and all seemed to go well enough!” + +“Amy is a prudent and a thrifty housewife,” said the Earl. He smiled +as he added, “I dare say you have not much concern in these matters +yet?” And he looked at her curiously, for he knew the exacting and +precise tastes of Oliver, and how these had always been tended--tended +and pampered--first by his mother and then by Amy, and then by an +excellent staff of servants, who were quite likely not to remain when +the Countess Fanny was their mistress. How would Oliver’s love--or +Oliver’s self-interest, or whatever it was that was inducing him to +marry this girl--stand the strain of her carelessness and her +incapacity in household matters? For the Earl did not doubt that she +was both indifferent and incapable in those directions; and, now that +he had seen her, he thought with compassion of her future, and, with a +certain indignation, of Oliver. Why, the man was old enough to be her +father--as the catch-phrase went. He had really no right to have +snatched her away like this from her own home and people! He was +convinced that her heart was untouched where Oliver was concerned. +Yes, after these few moments’ conversation, the old man, though not so +very wise nor so greatly experienced, was assured in his own heart +that the girl before him was not in love with any man, nor greatly +moved by Oliver Sellar. It was an odd, a rather uncomfortable, +situation. + +He felt concerned for the girl, for her beauty had moved him +profoundly; whereas to Amy it had been an obstacle to an understanding +and a mutual kindness, to the old Earl it was no such thing, but a +bond and an incentive to friendship. + +Lucius came into the room, with a roll of drawings on blue paper in +his hand. + +The girl said at once: + +“Oh, will you ride home with me? It is getting late and dark, and I do +not care for the roads without company--especially when it’s +twilight.” + +The old Earl answered for his son, who did not instantly reply. + +“Of course he will go with you, my dear. Of course. And tell them all +how kind you have been, in coming to see an old man; and I hope you +will come again, and quite soon--and earlier in the day, so that you +can stay longer. I dare say that there are still some things here that +you would care to see.” + +For answer she stooped, with the prettiest of foreign gestures, and +lifted the veined old hand and kissed it. + +“I am so glad that I have come!” she said, with a simplicity that was +in contrast to her usual slight affectation. “It has been very +pleasant to know you; I thought you were nice, but you are even nicer +than I had thought. Is not that the right way to put it in English? +But ‘nice’ always seems to me a silly word.” + +The old Earl laughed, and affectionately stroked the lovely hand that +was laid on his. + +“But now you must go at once, my dear, because I don’t want you either +distressed by rain or frightened by the wind.” + +“Frightened!” she said, with a little lift in her voice. “But I like +the wind, and I came on purpose!” + +“But you don’t want to ride home alone.” + +“Oh, no,” she said. “I thought that Lucius would see me home.” And the +old man remarked how strange it was to hear his son’s name on this +stranger’s lips. + +Lucius had not spoken yet. He had set his roll of plans carefully down +beside the cases of shells, and now the Countess Fanny perceived them, +and took them up. + +“Are these to do with the lighthouse?” she asked eagerly. + +“Yes,” he answered, with a slight stiffness; “but you must not look at +them now. It is late, and we must go at once; and, in any case, I fear +that you would not understand them.” + +She looked at him directly. + +“You have not taken me to see the lighthouse,” she said; and Lord +Lefton interposed: + +“Of course you must take her to see the lighthouse, Lucius. You ought +to be delighted that she is interested. I believe you bore most +people, but Fanny is kind enough to say that she really wants to go.” + +“Of course I want to go--on a stormy day, if possible.” + +Lucius laughed uneasily, and said he feared that was not possible, but +that on the first possible occasion they should go--the four of them; +she, and of course Oliver, and he, and of course Amy. And the Countess +Fanny said, with the slightest intonation of malice: + +“Of _course_ Amy, and of _course_ Oliver.” + +They were mounted, and riding through the park. The wind was rising +with steady and mournful force, lifting the boughs of the bent trees +and spreading them out like stiff tresses against the grey of the +twilight. The lake was full of shadows, and appeared fathomless, and +as soon as they had passed the house was blotted into one massive dark +shape. + +“It will be a wild night,” remarked Lucius; and the Countess Fanny +asked: + +“How much more daylight have we?” + +He was startled by this, and asked: + +“Do you mean now?” + +And she replied: + +“Yes--now!” + +“Well, I think the light will hold for another hour--perhaps an hour +and a half. It gets dusk like this, you know, but not immediately +dark. Why do you ask? There is, in any case, plenty of time to reach +Sellar’s Mead.” + +“I was not thinking of that,” she answered at once; “I wish to go +somewhere before we go home, and I was wondering if there was time.” + +“Where do you want to go?” he asked curiously. + +“The churchyard,” she replied. + +“The churchyard?” + +“Yes; you see, all my mother’s people are buried there, and I would +like to go. I have not been yet. I asked Oliver, but he said it was a +dreary pilgrimage. I have not been to Flimwel Grange, either, perhaps +you will take me there one day, if Oliver will not.” + +Lucius did not answer, and the girl added: + +“I suppose you think all this queer, and yet, I hoped that you would +not be so ready to think me queer.” + +He replied at once and impetuously: + +“Of course I don’t think you queer. I don’t think anything queer, +really; we will certainly go to the churchyard, if you wish--it is not +far out of the way, and is a reasonable request. Why not? After all, +even if it gets dark,” he added, as if arguing with himself, “we can +get lanterns in the village, the church is quite close to the +village.” + +“I know--I have seen it, I have been past, but I want to stop, and +dismount, and go into the churchyard, and find those monuments of the +Flimwels, my mother’s people. Please take me,” she added on an +imperious note, “and don’t question me. That is why I asked +you--because I thought you would take me immediately, and not question +me!” + +“I will certainly do so,” said Lucius gravely; and they did not speak +again until they had reached the village, which lay, cosily enough, +nestled into the hollows of the precipitous rocks and hills, in a cove +which stretched down to the shore, six or more miles from St. Nite’s +Head and the lighthouse. + +“We could leave the horses at the vicarage,” suggested the Countess +Fanny; but Lucius said no, it was not necessary to rouse Mr. Spragge, +who might be curious as to their visit, and even offer them his +company as guide. + +“I do not want that above all things,” she answered impatiently. “I +want to go alone--that is, with you.” + +“Do you mean that you would really like to be alone?” said Lucius, +“for I can wait at the gate; and yet, how are you to find your way?” + +“I did not mean I wished to go entirely alone, but with you,” she +replied. + +They dismounted at the lych-gate, and Lucius took the two horses to +the blacksmith’s house, that was not far from the church, and then +returned to her to where she waited in the blackness of the porch. +Lights were already showing in the low windows under the deep thatches +of the cottages in the village street; the steady, livid gloom of the +heavens increased. Against this rose the squat, dense greyness of the +church, and near it the blackness of an enormous yew, which spread its +impenetrable shadows over the huddled gravestones. A wind swept round +the tower, and smote them as they left the shadow and shelter of the +gate. + +“Oh, but it’s cold!” cried the Countess Fanny, laughing. “And I like +it, you know--the wind and the cold and the dark!” + +Lucius did not answer; he led the way down the long brick path between +the bleak, sodden, damp grass that grew in patches round the +headstones. He had brought a storm-lantern with him, and he stopped +and lit this when they reached the church porch. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + +They entered the church, where they could scarcely have found their +way about had it not been for the light of the lantern that Luce +carried. + +“I am afraid,” he said, “that it will be, after all, too dark to see +anything, and we had best be turning towards Sellar’s Mead, lest we be +benighted on the road.” + +The Countess Fanny said she wished to stay, and remarked how beautiful +the beams of the lantern were--like the long, regular rays of a +star--playing upon the pillars, the funeral hatchments that hung +thereon, and the mural tablets beyond, just picked out, gleaming with +a black or white lustre of marble in the almost complete darkness of +the long aisle. + +“But you will not be able to see anything,” remarked Lucius; and he +held the lantern a little higher, so that he, at least, could see +something; and that was the face of the Countess Fanny, which seemed +to have a peculiar and glowing radiance in this funereal darkness. + +“How odd,” he thought uneasily, “that she should wish to stay here now +at an hour so sombre and in a place so gloomy, alone with a stranger. +And more peculiar yet that she should not appear in the least +distressed by this experience, but elated--almost joyful.” + +He asked her if she had been here before; he had noted that she had +not attended last Sunday’s service, and he had thought, at the time, +that this must have been a matter of some vexation to Oliver Sellar, +and even to Amy. It was rather conspicuous for them to come to church +without their very notable guest, who was to be of such importance in +the social life of St. Nite’s.… + +“No, I have never been here before,” replied the Italian girl; and +then she, also, referred to last Sunday. “I would not come to the +service, you know; I knew how I should be stared at, and that is +rather disagreeable, is it not? I do not think that anyone really +approves me--they think that I am peculiar. Miss Drayton almost said +so, and so did the vicar’s wife. They asked me if I were going to +continue to wear these foreign clothes, and they did not say it very +kindly; although I think they were trying hard to be kind all the +time.” + +“I am sure,” replied the young man warmly, “that nothing in the way of +unkindness could have been meant; but, of course, no one here has ever +seen anything like you.” (“Nor I either,” he added to himself, +“neither in London nor in Paris.”) + +It was not peculiar that she startled a Cornish village, when she +would have been remarked in the finest society of any capital. + +“Oliver should take you away,” he added uneasily. “You will find it +very dull here.” + +“Everyone says that,” smiled the Countess Fanny, “but indeed I do not +find it dull at all.” + +At this moment she had no air of finding anything dull. She seemed to +illuminate even this lugubrious and dreary building. She showed, in +those long, dim lantern rays, with all the poise and grace and vivid +loveliness of a spring-time flower against the dark lines of the +pillar and the darker lozenges of the funeral hatchments. + +“Where are the Flimwel graves?” she asked, as lightly as if she spoke +of some pleasing and commonplace object. + +Lucius Foxe winced from this careless expression, which seemed to show +him how little she understood of anything. Even he, not so much older +than she was in years, was startled, almost repelled, by such a light +and indifferent attitude to life and death; an attitude even more +careless than that of a child who is unfrightened by the dark, and +tales of ghosts and goblins. + +But the Countess Fanny seemed impervious to any such fanciful or +mysterious terrors. She moved with her light, buoyant step down the +gloomy aisle, and Lucius Foxe followed her, holding the lantern. + +She glanced at the mural tablets, the urns and draperies, the skulls +and crossbones, the weeping figures, the long Latin inscriptions; +sometimes she paused, and with a fine finger traced the half-effaced +letters, striving to discover the name of Flimwel. + +It was there often enough, and he must pause and hold the lantern up, +that she could read the lists of the pieties, charities, and virtues +of her ancestors pompously engraved on tablet and scroll; and his name +was there also--frequently enough, too--and she must read that out +aloud, again and again, half laughing: “‘Lucius Foxe,’ ‘Lucius Foxe’; +how many of them, eh?” + +“This is a sad place,” replied the young man, “and I seldom come +here--and never with pleasure!” + +The Countess Fanny replied that she did not think it sad at all. + +“We all of us must die,” she remarked, with her brilliant smile, “and +why should we fear to contemplate death?” + +“But these”--he was surprised into a familiar and intimate form of +address--“but these are curious sentiments for so young a woman!” + +“I have been well educated,” said the Countess Fanny. “Madame de +Mailly taught me many things that young women do not usually know.” + +She had reached the altar now, and stood there curious, glancing up +and down the steps--at the tablets with the Commandments, the +alabaster statue of the knight in armour who knelt here in perpetual +adoration, the altar itself, which cast now a feeble glimmer from the +gold metal and candlesticks thereon. Hot-house flowers from Lefton +Park drooped in the chill, bleak air. Their whiteness had a ghastly +and a deathlike look. + +“So this is a Protestant church,” mused the girl; “and I am a +Protestant now. When we stopped in Paris, Oliver insisted on that. I +went to the Protestant church there, at the Embassy, you know. It was +all odd, and Madame de Mailly was very angry indeed. But what does it +matter? Madame de Mailly herself always taught me that one should +never be a bigot.” + +The young man endeavoured to rouse himself from a state of drowsy +fascination; the scene and the girl seemed alike unreal. Never before +had he been in the church at such an hour, alone with such a +companion. He had always been sensitive to the thought of death, which +thought was associated very intimately in this peculiar spot--in this +church where all his ancestors lay beneath his feet when he came there +to a service. + +He had, in his extreme youth, often been assailed by terrible visions +of what lay beneath those smooth stones: mouldering coffins, decaying +skeletons--all the hideous panoply of decay; and it was astonishing to +him to behold this foreign girl, a stranger, so unaffected by an +atmosphere which to him had always been full of dread and gloom. So +serene was she, so flashing with life, that she seemed to the young +man like a symbol of resurrection herself--a flower, a lily-bell, +growing from a grave. Standing on the altar steps, and glancing round +at the half-hidden memorials of the past, she said: + +“Is it not strange to think that, with them, it is all over, and with +us, scarcely begun?” + +“That thought does not depress you?” he asked. + +“No,” she replied. “Madame de Mailly used to say that if one permitted +oneself to be depressed by the thought of death, who could ever be +joyful? These people all had their day; and now it is your turn and +mine.” She must unintentionally have coupled their names, yet the fact +that she had done so gave the young man a curious pang, a deep thrill. +He moved away from the altar steps, and the withdrawal of the lantern +left her in darkness; and from that darkness he heard her voice: + +“So little time for any of us--eh, Lucius? Such a small life!” + +“But we can plan it,” he answered uneasily. “We can plan our lives so +as to make the best of them.” + +“But we cannot,” she said, descending from the altar steps and coming +beside him. “We cannot plan our love.” + +She looked at him without embarrassment, and added almost immediately: + +“Tell me about the lighthouse.” + +“The lighthouse?” repeated Lucius stupidly. “This is hardly the place +in which to talk about the lighthouse.” + +“But I want to hear; and what time do we ever get alone?” she +answered. “There was a promise that you should take me to the +lighthouse, but with every day the weather’s more stormy. Don’t you +want to take me there?” + +He parried that, and said: + +“Why are you so fascinated with the lighthouse?” + +“Why are you?” she countered. + +“Oh, with me it is different! My family first built that +lighthouse--quite a long time ago. It was theirs, you know; and they +made a great deal of money out of it, with dues and tolls: and that +seemed wrong to me--almost like blood money. Well, that was before my +time, then the place was bought by Trinity House. It is one of the +wildest and most lonely in the kingdom, you know, once it had been +swept away.” He began to talk with some animation, forgetting the +place in which he stood. “There is nothing, I think,” he continued, +“like the ocean, nothing quite so grand and mysterious. I have felt a +different man when I have been out on the rocks or in the lighthouse; +and what more sublime symbol could anyone wish than that light, held +aloft through the storm, giving protection and safety? I am interested +in engineering also,” he continued hurriedly, as if making an +explanation which must be made. “I should like to build bridges, and +palaces--yes, and hospitals also, great buildings of all kinds, but I +have had very little training, and my schemes are not at all +practicable.” + +The girl did not answer, and Lucius Foxe concluded hastily: + +“But, of course, you cannot be interested in all this--to you the +lighthouse is just a curiosity.” + +“No,” she said, “no! Why will you not take me there?” + +“I will take you there if you wish,” replied the young man uneasily. +“We must ask Oliver about it.” + +“Oliver!” said the Countess Fanny. “Is Oliver to be the master in +everything?” + +“I suppose,” answered Lucius Foxe, “that so you have decided, since +you are to marry him.” + +“I can make him do as I wish,” replied the girl with animation. + +“Then make him bring you to the lighthouse,” said Lucius, and added +immediately: “It is getting very cold here, we’d better return.” + +She followed him slowly down the aisle between the high pews and the +higher pillars, and the funeral hatchments and the mural tablets, all +emblazoned with the arms and names of the dead. + +“Do you think there will be any great storms this winter?” she asked. + +“Everyone says as much,” he replied. “There is hardly a winter here +when there are not storms. Two oceans meet round this point, and it is +most exposed to winds.” + +“I want to be in a storm!” said the Countess Fanny. “All my life, you +know, I have lived in the sun, and peacefulness.” + +“You won’t care for it,” he smiled. “Oliver ought to take you to +London: you have friends there, of course?” + +“Oh, yes--and in Paris, too; but I wish to remain here.” + +They had left the church, and come out into the little porch, which +darkened over them. The last bleak, lurid light of day glimmered on +innumerable white headstones and stone vases, swathed with stone +drapery, on the railings round ponderous altar tombs, and on the +immemorial blackness of the mighty yew, which blotted out in its +shadow yet more glimmering graves. + +“I suppose,” said the Countess Fanny, “that they will bury me here. I +shall be ‘Fanny Sellar’--a name on one of these stones.” + +“Do not say that,” cried the young man at once; “don’t talk of such a +thing!” + +“Why not--did you think I was immortal?” + +And he replied: + +“Just now, it seemed to me you were! At least, I cannot think of you +and death in the same breath.” + +“But I shall be old,” she answered, “and not pretty any more; and then +no one will regret me.” + +“I wish you would not stay here!” he murmured. “I really cannot endure +for you to stay here!” + +“Amy,” she reminded him, “has been here all her life.” + +“Amy belongs to the place,” he answered. “She is part of St. Nite’s. +But you come from another country--almost from another world, I +think.” + +The Countess Fanny serenely accepted this extravagant speech: + +“I believe I do!” she said. “But Amy--yes, of course, you are taking +Amy away, are you not, in the spring? And I am staying behind.” + +He did not answer, but preceded her down the brick path, lighting her +way by that raised lantern. The long beams picked out tombs, one tomb +after another, during their progress. He observed the names, the +dates, the bleak harshness of the grey stone. The wind met them, and +fluttered her long ringlets and the plume in her hat. He heard her +laugh excitedly in the gathering twilight, which to him was so full of +menace and even spite. + +“It is too dark for us to ride home,” he said, in rising agitation. +“You must go and stay with the Spragges, while I send for a carriage.” + +“I should like to ride home through the dark,” said the Countess +Fanny, pausing at the lych-gate. + +The little yellow crude lights of the village gleamed, scattered +beneath them; the village street wound down to the cove. Above them, +light vaporous clouds whirled to a stormy confusion, and as they +paused, looking upwards both together, by a common impulse, these +clouds were torn apart, and in the rift appeared the crescent of the +new moon, icy cold and unutterably far away. + +“A gate,” murmured the Countess Fanny; “we are standing in a gate--at +the entrance to something--and holding a lantern. True, is it not?” + +“You are very fanciful,” replied the young man uneasily; and then, +after both looking at the moon together, they looked at each other in +that dim, uncertain and treacherous light, just touched with colour by +the edges of the lantern beams which shone from a down-hung hand. His +life had always been very quiet and monotonous; neither at home, at +school, nor at college had he made many friends nor attracted much +attention towards himself; and, even when he had gone abroad, it had +been in a modest manner, for he was neither much impressed nor much +impressed anyone else. Everything about him had always been ordinary; +he had been restricted by the lack of means suitable to his position, +and by a lack of energy and vigour in his own character: content with +Lefton Park of his ancestor; content with attendance on a sick father, +and dutiful visits to dutiful relatives; content with his dreams, +clustering round the lighthouse, his fancies and caprices and whims, +gathering round the lighthouse; content to drift into that engagement +to Ambrosia Sellar. + +As he lingered here now, gazing at the dark foreign girl, whose +brilliant face was so near to his own, all these reflections rushed on +him, bringing with them an amazing sense of his own futility, his own +stupidity. He felt as if he had hitherto lived in a dream or trance, +and that the awakening was painful unto agony. + +The girl watched his clear grey eyes falter under the reddish brows, +and a faint colour stain that long, smooth, pale face, so precisely +set off by the exact folds of the white neckband. + +“How the wind is rising!” she cried joyously. “It is rising high, high +above the clouds. Look--it seems as if it would sweep even the moon +out of place.” + +As if he were painfully endeavouring to break a spell, the young man +withdrew his fascinated regard from her. + +“We cannot ride back now,” he said; “it would be too dangerous.” + +“But the danger is all!” she answered. “What is anything if there is +not a risk to it? Why, we are risking all in even being alive!” + +This was a new philosophy to Lucius Foxe. He had always been taught, +and had always accepted, the doctrines of prudence and safety. He had +always believed, as he had told the Countess Fanny, just now in the +church, that a man can plan his life; and she had countered with the +remark, “We cannot plan our love.” His blood had stirred to that, as +it stirred now to her speech of risk and danger. It might be that she +was right, and he a sluggish fool, with his conventions and +prejudices, with his prudence and foresight, with his acceptance of +the easiest and most immediate path. + +“But I cannot risk your safety,” he smiled, with an effort to cover +his own roused emotion, “by taking you home now through the darkness +and the wind, the road is not too good, and we might easily have an +accident.” + +“Are you always so cautious?” she flashed. “I should not have thought +it, you know! Cautious and young--that is not admirable in you.” + +“They will be wondering what has become of you,” murmured Lucius. +“See, the blacksmith is at his door, with the horses: he also is +surprised that we have been so long in the church.” + +“And yet we have not been long enough,” said the Countess Fanny. “We +have really seen nothing, and I must come again.” + +They crossed the steep village street down which the wind was rushing +in its impetuous travelling to the sea. They could just hear the boom +of the surf on the rocks beyond the cove. + +“You must go and stay with Mrs. Spragge,” said Lucius, “while I send +for the carriage.” + +She did not appear to hear these words; at least she took no heed of +them, but stood there in the rough street, listening to the wind and +looking up at the wild storm clouds, the cold serenity of the night +heavens beyond, and the icy slip of moon, like a splinter of ice +indeed in those remote regions beyond the clouds. + +She had taken off her hat with the long white plume, and her hair was +fluttering away from her face, down towards the sea--caught in the +tempestuous passage of the wind. Lucius would not look at her. He went +to the blacksmith’s door, and spoke to him hasty and ill-considered +words about the horses, suggesting first that they rode at once, and +then that it was not fit for a lady to return at this hour. + +“She can wait in the vicarage,” he said confusedly, “and I will go to +Sellar’s Mead and have the carriage sent.” + +And then he decided differently from that, and asked if there was a +messenger--someone who could ride at once to Sellar’s Mead. + +The blacksmith stood humbly, listening with an air of deference to +these contradictory orders; yet for all that Lucius thought he +detected a leer in the man’s coarse face, and he blamed himself +bitterly for this predicament. Of course they should never have +stopped to go into the church. Of course he should have taken her home +immediately. This careless, brilliant girl had induced him to act most +foolishly. His present dilemma was solved for him by the sudden +appearance of Oliver Sellar, who had ridden up to the village to +discover the whereabouts of the Countess Fanny. He had taken the +precaution to bring the carriage with him. As he drew rein at the +blacksmith’s, Lucius beheld at once that he was in a violent temper. + + + + + CHAPTER X + +The next morning the Countess Fanny did not appear at the +breakfast-table, and Ambrosia guessed that there had been a scene +between her and Oliver the night before; but, as she looked at her +brother’s dark, scowling face, she decided to say nothing of the +matter, and to accept the non-appearance of her guest as the most +natural thing in the world. Perhaps, indeed, it was the most natural +thing in the world in the life of the foreign girl; though to Ambrosia +it was a very peculiar occurrence indeed. Never, save in the case of +rare sickness, had she been absent from the formal breakfast table. + +From the first moment that she had seen her guest, she had expected +some such jar as this; of course, a lively, arrogant, and impetuous +girl would not be able to regulate her ways exactly to the liking of a +man like Oliver. She was sure to vex him sorely by too much licence +and too much exercise of liberty; and Ambrosia’s only surprise and +vexation at the episode arose from the fact that Luce had been +involved in it. Of course she was able instantly to understand _how_ +he had come to be involved in it; when the Countess Fanny had paid her +late and unexpected visit to Lefton Park, it would have been +impossible for Luce to do anything save to offer to escort her home; +and, no doubt, not easy (though here Ambrosia was not so full of +excuses for her betrothed) for him to refuse to take the Countess +Fanny over the old church. Imprudent and indiscreet, Ambrosia thought +that action. He might have seen that it was only the wilful whim of an +impetuous girl, and have refused so late and so injudicious a visit, +which gave Oliver some handle for his temper. + +Luce was sure to ride over that morning, and give her his account of +the whole affair. It was a pity that he had to be concerned in it at +all; she had feared that from the first--that she and Luce would be +dragged into Oliver’s quarrels and Oliver’s grievances. + +Cool and indifferent behind the tea-urn, she turned over her morning +paper. She was not going to sympathise with Oliver, nor even to be his +confidante. No doubt he would very much like to pour all his +annoyances and irritations into sympathetic ears; but Ambrosia had +resolved to regard all his grievances coldly. Why, anyone--even a +fool--could have told him what was in store for him with a girl like +Fanny. With such a marriage, arranged so hastily and in so peculiar a +fashion: nay, in a fashion more than peculiar; a fashion indecorous, +according to Miss Drayton and Mrs. Spragge. They had hinted as much to +Ambrosia, and Ambrosia had been forced, in her heart, to agree; though +on her lips had been every loyalty towards her brother. But she knew, +with perfect clarity, that a certain convention had been outraged by +Oliver when he had brought home this girl as his future wife, and that +another convention was being outraged by him in this insistence in +keeping her in Cornwall, in his own house, during the long months of +their betrothal, during the forced seclusion of the tempestuous +winter. He should have allowed the girl to go, under the chaperonage +and protection of friends and relations, until such time as they could +be married, or he should himself have left Sellar’s Mead, or, as a +third alternative, he should have permitted Madame de Mailly to +accompany her pupil to England. + +As things were, the girl was oddly isolated, in a peculiar position, +heightened, of course, by her peculiar appearance and manner; and +Oliver himself was to blame. + +Ambrosia, therefore, now, when she lifted her eyes from the dull +news-sheet, studied him coldly--almost with hostility. She did not +intend to endure, during those dreary, dark months ahead of them, any +scenes with Oliver. She could very well surmise what had passed last +night. Oliver had left his horse in the village, and ridden back with +Fanny in the carriage: a thing he detested doing, and a thing which +would by no means have improved his sour mood. + +Lucius had not accompanied them, and if there had been the least +goodwill or good humour on Oliver’s part, Amy knew that he would have +done so. He was well used to the road, and did not mind riding to and +fro at any hour of the night, or under any circumstance of wild +weather. But Luce had not come, and Oliver, of course, was responsible +for that. If Oliver was going to quarrel with Luce--Ambrosia shrugged +her shoulders and bit her lip, endeavouring to force her attention on +the paragraph which she held beneath her gaze--if Oliver was going to +quarrel with Luce, why, how intolerable! She could not see herself in +the rôle of universal peacemaker. + +Oliver rose heavily, seeming to make as much noise as was possible in +doing so. He pushed back his chair roughly, and shook the table. He +was a massively built man, and clumsy in everything he did. + +“If Fanny begins complaining about me,” he said heavily.… + +Ambrosia put her paper down with a quick gesture of temper. + +“My dear Oliver,” she cried, “please don’t draw _me_ into it! Of +course Fanny will complain about you, if you have been rude and +disagreeable. I suppose she is not infatuated to that extent--as to +accept everything with meekness.” + +“How do you know that she’s had to accept anything disagreeable?” he +challenged. “Of course you women always stick together, I shall have a +pleasant life of it, it seems to me.” + +“Nothing will be ever pleasant to you, Oliver,” replied Ambrosia, +“unless you cultivate a better temper. You know perfectly well there +was no harm in yesterday, why, the girl must sometimes go out by +herself! I cannot be always ready to accompany her--nor you, I +suppose. And even if it was a little late, there was no harm done! +Luce was with her.” + +Oliver did not answer this, and Ambrosia was conscious of an immediate +tension in the air at the mention of that name. + +Yes, of course, there had been a quarrel with Luce--perhaps a quarrel +that would make it difficult for him to come to the house. How +intolerable Oliver was! She rose impatiently, brushing down the stiff +folds of her silk gown. She was expecting some violent outburst from +her brother, in which case she intended to leave the room; but Oliver +contained himself, and answered, not without difficulty: + +“Amy, you must not try to come between me and Fanny, for I will not +tolerate it. She is quite wild and impetuous, and knows nothing of our +ways and customs. I must, of course, train and shape her; and do you +not interfere with me.” + +“I shall not interfere,” replied Ambrosia; “neither shall I help you.” +And though this was not in the least a favourable moment for such a +comment, she could not resist adding: “You know, Oliver--everyone +thinks it very peculiar that she should be here at all: both of you +under the same roof like this, during a long engagement. It is +scarcely fair to her.” + +“Who is ‘everybody’?” retorted Oliver sullenly. “A few old women in +the village, I suppose.” + +“Useless to argue,” replied Ambrosia, “you know perfectly well what I +mean; but it is a detail, really. Nothing would matter if you could be +more good-natured.” + +“Good-natured,” sneered Oliver. “That’s a woman’s word for a fool; she +expects a man to be a fool when she tells him she wishes him to be +good-natured. You want to have your own way in everything, and that +the man is to dance to every tune you choose to call, if he does not, +he is a brute, and disagreeable.” Again he added, not without dignity: +“I must beg you, Amy, not to encourage Fanny.” He left the room +gloomily. + +Ambrosia said resolutely to herself: + +“I will not be drawn into the position of peacemaker. Nothing is more +odious; and, of course, however hard I strove to make things pleasant, +they would quarrel just the same. I will not interest myself in, or +exhaust myself with, the affair at all. I will go my own way, and just +try to put the months through somehow till the spring.” That was very +glibly said. Would it be so glibly accomplished? She could not resist +staring out of the window, at that dark, iron-grey country, at those +bent, leafless trees, and those high clouds, tumbled by an incessant +wind. Well, every day there was a number of small, insistent duties; +things that appeared of no importance, and yet were indispensable--all +the machinery for the smooth-running of this complicated household +depended upon her; there was plenty to occupy her; she must fix her +attention on these incessant duties. + +Yet to-day she was reluctant to take them up. She did not wish to +interview the housekeeper, to give out the stores, to visit the +still-room, to pack baskets for the poor and write notes to Mrs. +Spragge and Miss Drayton; no, she had no heart for any of these +things. Her mind went back to last night, and to Luce. Would he come +to-day? How detestable to have to count one hour after another, +wondering if he would come! Of all things, Ambrosia was frightened of +waiting, terrified of suspense. Neither did she wish to write to him. +No, in every detail she would have had him the pursuer, and herself +the pursued, indifferent while he was ardent. Well, she must try to +forget him; there was no other way; and probably, when she was +absorbed in her small, regular duties, he would be there, and +everything would be different. + +He was at least her lover--yes, at least he coloured her life for her. +Without Luce the days would be unendurable. And she resolved that when +he came she would be kinder than usual, and listen with interest, even +if he wished to talk about his lighthouse. She would even promise to +go and visit the lighthouse--that would please him very much; for +hitherto she had been rather contemptuous of the new work there, and +quite careless as to all the points in which he was so passionately +absorbed; but she felt now that she had been harsh in this, and she +would be so no longer. She would endeavour to see something of what he +saw in the lighthouse. + +Meanwhile, there was Fanny. She remembered that with a start. Of +course, she must go and see Fanny. The girl had not even pretended +illness; she had merely sent down a message by her maid that she would +like her breakfast in bed. Not to vex Oliver, not to encourage the +girl, but as a plain matter of duty, she must go and see Fanny; and +that little visit would be an excuse also for putting off the routine +of the day, which, this morning, seemed more than usually distasteful. + +This was the first time that she had entered her one-time bed-chamber +since the stranger had occupied it. Hitherto, she had said, rather +fastidiously, her good-nights on the threshold. Now, as she entered +the room, once so poignantly familiar, she saw that she scarcely +recognised it--Fanny and her maid between them had so altered +everything, and put about so many curious objects, taken from those +immense trunks which Fanny had brought with her from Italy. + +The bright, clean chintz had gone, and been replaced by lengths of +handsome, yet faded, silk, embroidered with gold and silver threads. +There were a great many cushions about; vases and bowls of porcelain +and glass; and a long, painted wooden coffer, set, oddly, in +Ambrosia’s eyes, at the foot of the bed. There were silk scarves and +shawls, and strings of bright beads, and trinkets that looked very +alien to Ambrosia, scattered almost everywhere; flounces of lace and +French books; and, amid all this luxurious finery, the startling +black-and-white of an ivory and ebony crucifix hung beside the bed +between the two pale water-colours of English flowers which Ambrosia +had placed there to please her guest. + +Ambrosia noticed the rosary of corals and crystal which Fanny had had +in her bag on the night of her arrival, and which she had been looking +for in the drawing-room. Ambrosia thought ironically of that +conversion of Fanny’s which Oliver had so pompously announced to +everyone. + +The girl was no longer in bed. She was seated by the fire, wrapped in +a flowing gown of white silk, which made the hair, falling on her +shoulders, appear ink black. She was embroidering, with nervous +fingers, with a length of vermilion silk, a faded strip of orange +canvas; she seemed a queer, unfamiliar figure to the Englishwoman, who +could not infuse much friendliness into the manner with which she +asked her how she did. + +“I am quite well,” said Fanny, with her quick frankness, “but I did +not want to meet Oliver, I dare say you guessed as much.” + +Ambrosia said yes, she had guessed as much; but added: + +“Really, you know, my dear Fanny, it is stupid of you to quarrel with +Oliver.” + +“Perhaps,” said the Italian girl, “it is stupid of him to quarrel with +me!” + +Ambrosia did not like the note of temper in that. She held to her +resolution of the breakfast-table. + +“Really,” she replied, as pleasantly as possible, “I cannot be a +peacemaker, you know; it is very awkward for me to be between you two +like this. You will have to make your quarrels and conciliations +without me.” + +The Countess Fanny had dropped her embroidery, and was staring into +the fire. + +“Of course,” added Ambrosia, “I know that Oliver is very +overbearing--sometimes harsh, but you could have spared all this if +you had let us know that you were going to Lefton Park yesterday, the +country is very wild and lonely, and you are a stranger, and you might +have been lost.” + +“I had Lucius with me,” said Fanny. + +“Yes, but we did not know that; and I dare say,” added Ambrosia, +speaking quickly to conceal a certain hurry in her breath, “that in +Italy you were not allowed out alone.” + +“I had Madame de Mailly,” said Fanny, “and if she were here now, of +course she would go with me everywhere. But you and Oliver are always +busy, are you not?” + +“Not always!” Ambrosia found herself in a position of defence. “Not +always, Fanny! Of course, we cannot neglect everything--Oliver has +been away six months, and there is a great deal for him to do; and I +always have my duties in the house. You should be learning them, you +know,” she added negligently. “You will be taking them on in the +spring.” + +She spoke without interest, for in reality she did not greatly care +whether or no the girl made a success of the housekeeping at Sellar’s +Mead. She excused herself for this indifference by the consideration +that whatever Fanny did, Oliver would not be pleased. Neither his +mother nor his sister had been ever able to win his full approbation +for the domestic arrangements of Sellar’s Mead; it was therefore quite +impossible that Fanny Caldini would be able to do so. + +The Italian girl answered quickly, with her brilliant self-assurance: + +“But of course I can learn all that in a day or two--there is no need +to bother about it now, and it is not very interesting, is it?” + +“I have had to find it so,” smiled Ambrosia. “I dare say it is very +dull and monotonous, but it is the work that women have to do. I could +never manage Lefton Park if I had not learned to manage Sellar’s +Mead,” she added; and felt the words were in the worst of taste, yet +could not withhold them. + +“Ah, yes, of course!” said the Italian girl. “You will be mistress of +Lefton Park, as you call it, and that is a much bigger house than +this, is it not?” + +“There are not so very many servants, there is not very much money,” +said Ambrosia gravely, “and that makes it all so much more difficult. +One must be economical without being mean. There will be no chance for +show or splendour, but there may be decorousness and good management.” + +“Lucius is so young!” cried the Countess Fanny with a sigh; and +Ambrosia blushed hotly and at once. + +“What an odd thing to say!” she exclaimed. + +“It came into my mind,” said the Italian girl indifferently. “I +thought of that picture you called up of economy and good management +in a place like Lefton Park, and Lucius, so young.” + +“He is not the owner of Lefton Park yet,” said Ambrosia, trying to +control herself. “I dare say the Earl will live for a great many +years, and by then Lucius will be trained for his position, if that is +what you mean.” Nothing could have vexed her more than this reference +to the difference between her age and that of Lucius, for so she took +the girl’s remark “Lucius is so young!” She had never said “_You_ are +so young!” + +“Trained for the position,” repeated the Countess Fanny. “I suppose +that is what he meant yesterday, when he spoke about planning his +life.” + +“It is what we all must do,” replied Ambrosia, relieved that Lucius’ +conversation had run on such sensible lines. + +“But I answered,” smiled Fanny, “‘We cannot plan our love.’ And that +rather throws our schemes out, doesn’t it?” + +“Sometimes,” replied Ambrosia nervously, “but not always, you know. +After all, love and duty do, frequently, go hand in hand! There aren’t +so many of us who crash to a tragedy.” + +“Madame de Mailly,” remarked the Countess Fanny, “used always to say +that when the passions met the conventions there would certainly be a +tragedy.” + +“We all know that,” replied Ambrosia with some stiffness. + +“But I can tell you something worse,” cried Fanny, turning in her +chair and looking at her with those almost unnaturally dark, brilliant +eyes, “and that is when passion meets passion.” + +Ambrosia was startled, and even affronted. She had never discussed +these subjects with anyone, and certainly did not intend to discuss +them with a woman so much younger than herself. + +“Oliver will not care to hear you talk like that,” she said, smiling; +“it is that spirit in you that he will complain of most.” + +“Oliver does not matter to me,” replied the Countess Fanny carelessly. + +“Oliver not matter to you?” + +“No. For I do not intend to marry him.” + +Ambrosia laughed at the childishness of this. + +“Don’t carry these petty quarrels too far,” she said. “That is petty +in you.” + +The Italian girl, unmoved, persisted: + +“I do not intend to marry Oliver.” + + + + + CHAPTER XI + +Ambrosia was almost incredulous of the extreme vexation that this +attitude on the part of Fanny promised. To have been only ten days in +the house, and to have already arrived at this pitch, a deep and +petulant quarrel with Oliver! Oliver would be to blame, no doubt; but +that did not make the position any the less galling to Ambrosia. She +endeavoured to be cool and amiable. + +“Of course, you must not take Oliver so seriously,” she smiled. “I do +not know what happened, but I dare say he was unendurable, but you, +who seem to have so many accomplishments, will be able to overlook +that. You are no raw schoolgirl, my dear Fanny, to be so easily +affronted.” + +“I do not think that I am affronted,” replied the Italian girl +candidly. “Really, he said nothing to offend me, but I have decided to +make an end of the whole affair. A lady may, I suppose, change her +mind. Madame de Mailly always said so.” + +“But you would convict yourself of an almost incredible lightness!” +said Ambrosia. “You have engaged yourself to Oliver; you have come +over here to his house; everyone knows about it--oh, of course it is +unthinkable! You _must_ marry him! I am sure, Fanny, you will see +that. Do not talk so easily and so carelessly of breaking off anything +as serious as a matrimonial engagement.” + +“But I cannot marry him!” replied the girl resolutely. “Indeed I +cannot! I did not know him, I was scarcely aware of his character +until yesterday. Last night he behaved with the greatest harshness. I +have been doubtful, ever since I got to Cornwall, whether I could +marry him, you know, but I thought I would say nothing about it. In +Italy everything seemed different.” + +“Then you do, after all, dislike the country,” said Ambrosia, “though +you would not confess it? You do find it all grey and grim and dull?” + +“No,” replied the Countess Fanny; “I am not speaking of the country, +but of Oliver. You may have noticed his behaviour to me, it has not +been gracious. And worse than his behaviour, there is something +else--his greedy, staring looks, the way I must be always with him, +never out of his sight.” + +At this Ambrosia stiffened. + +“You did your best to turn his head, I suppose,” she remarked. + +“Oh, yes, I expect I did,” replied the Italian girl, with her +careless, brilliant smile. “That was amusing, but a man must not let +you see that you have turned his head: that is bad breeding.” + +“It is bad breeding,” retorted Ambrosia, “too flagrantly to play the +coquette and the rattle. If you have flirted with Oliver, you really +must take the consequences. He is very fond of you--I can see that, +however unkindly he may appear to behave, believe me he is very fond +of you.” + +But the Countess Fanny shook her shoulders, and made a little grimace, +and said that she did not think “fond” was the word. + +“He has a passion for me,” she said, “and I do not understand it nor +care about it. I am rather like something he has bought--a toy or an +ornament or a trifle, something that he must look at and handle and +get tired of, he really does not understand me at all.” + +“This is a very sudden conclusion, it seems to me,” remarked Ambrosia, +aghast. “And you have such an air of self-assurance.” + +“He is too old,” continued the Countess Fanny, in her light, +relentless accent, unheeding this protest on the part of Ambrosia. “He +is really old enough to be my father, is he not? Everyone round here +has said so; you know that. Everyone has thought how grotesque for us +to be married.” + +“But you did not think so yourself, in Italy.” + +“No; matters were different in Italy. Madame de Mailly was there, and +she provoked me into opposition. Every time she said anything against +Oliver, I was the more resolved to admire him, and I could not, on any +occasion, have married the Count--my cousin.” + +“But even yesterday you gave no hint of this decision, of this swift +change of mind!” cried Ambrosia in dismay. “What a situation you put +us all into! If you will not marry Oliver, how can you remain here, in +this house?” + +“How not?” answered the Italian girl. “Are you not my nearest +relations?” + +“But do you think,” asked Ambrosia angrily, “that Oliver can endure to +live in the same house with you, knowing that you have jilted him?” + +And again the Countess Fanny, with a heartless tone in her voice, +asked: + +“Why not?” + +“It would be impossible!” said Ambrosia heavily; and she began to walk +impatiently and restlessly up and down the over-furnished, +over-heated, and perfumed room that had been so transformed from its +chill simplicity by the light fingers of the Countess Fanny and her +sprightly maid. + +Outside was the dark grey, and the bare trees, and the wind; one would +not get away from that--no, not for months to come. + +The spring seemed further off than it had seemed yesterday. What a +ridiculous situation was she now required to face. This queer, +capricious, heartless girl, and the undoubted passion of Oliver. + +Leaning her elbow on the window-sill, and looking out on that bleak +prospect lit with such a livid light of colourless and concealed sun, +she said: + +“Have you told Oliver?” + +“I have had no opportunity to tell him. I felt too disordered to face +him this morning,” replied the Countess Fanny, who appeared, however, +perfectly composed. “And last night he would not listen. He was very +angry, he did not wish me to go out alone nor be back so late, and he +did not care to see me with Luce.” + +“This is absurd!” Ambrosia felt herself forced into this protest. “He +would have been pleased to see you with Lucius. Of course, of course, +it was not that that made him angry. He was glad you were in such good +hands.” + +The Countess Fanny laughed. Her embroidery fell from her knee, and she +picked it up and smoothed it out, and laughed again; and yet it was +not a laughter of humour or happiness, but sounded sad, and even wild. + +“If you will not marry Oliver,” said Ambrosia--and there was a hint of +wildness in her falling voice also--“you must go home; you must go +back to Italy. You cannot remain here.” + +“But my land is here,” replied the Italian, “the land that Oliver +rents--Flimwel; I have not been taken to see that house yet. I would +like to stay. I want to see the storms; I want to go over the +lighthouse.” + +“All these are childish whims,” said Ambrosia sternly, “and bottomless +caprices, and have nothing to do with the matter in hand. That is +between you and Oliver. And I must not--do you hear me, Fanny?--I must +not, I will not, interfere! I have indeed no key to the situation; I +do not know what passed between you and Oliver when you were abroad, +nor even,” she added, “what passed between you last night.” + +“It is all simple,” was the negligent reply. “I rather liked him; at +least, I did not dislike him; and he was different from the other men, +and it seemed amusing to make him very fond of me. And then, you know, +he importuned me very much.” + +Ambrosia recalled Madame de Mailly’s letter, which had contained this +same accusation. All the same, she turned with temper upon Fanny. + +“You confess to a great frivolity and lightness,” she declared. “I +should not say too much, if I were you, of it being amusing and +diverting to make a man fond of you. I suppose you would also call it +amusing and diverting to break his heart, and upset his whole life.” + +To this, after the shortest of breathless pauses, the Italian girl +replied: + +“Am I, then, to break my own heart, and upset my own life? Do you +really think it wise for me to marry Oliver? Do your friends, or +anybody here, really think it wise? Does even Oliver himself,” she +added impetuously, “think it wise?” + +Ambrosia had no reply immediately ready to this. She was caught up in +the toils and complications of an impossible situation. She blamed +both Fanny and Oliver; she could scarcely blame herself--she had been +outside it from the first. Even if she had made a desperate +contradiction when the scheme was put before her, in Oliver’s dry +letter from Italy, no attention would have been paid to her protest; +and she did not know the Countess Fanny well enough to know if her +resolution were genuine and sincere or but a passing humour--merely +the result of a lovers’ quarrel. Oliver she did know, and the depth +and obstinacy of his passions when they were aroused; but this girl +remained to her as a stranger. + +“I must leave it all alone,” she admitted wearily. “There is really +nothing I can do. You had better get up and dress, and see Oliver, +Fanny, and explain everything to him; but I really cannot have you in +the house if you are going to refuse to marry him--not both of you. I +will keep you, with pleasure, till the spring; but Oliver must go to +town or abroad. But I hardly think that you would care to remain here +alone with me, and it seems much more natural that you should return +to Italy.” + +“I shall remain,” smiled Fanny. + +Ambrosia winced before that smile, and was irritated with herself for +doing so. Why should she flinch before this strange creature, this +alien, who probably, after all, was to mean nothing in her life, who +would most likely return whence she came, to foreign lands? + +Yet Ambrosia, still leaning in the window-place, and still looking at +that iron-bound prospect of grey and bleakness without, said what she +had never meant to say: + +“Since when did you take this resolution to be done with Oliver?” + +And she heard what she did not wish to hear--the reply of a few words +only: + +“Since last night.” + +As she spoke the Countess Fanny rose, and crossed the room with her +swift and joyful step, the folds of white silk billowing round her +tall, slender figure, the long locks of black curls shaking on her +slender shoulders. She went to her dressing-table and took up a case +of keys, and handed them to Ambrosia, saying, sweetly enough: + +“These are yours again now. Oliver gave them to me--the keys of your +jewels, you know, that belonged to your mother. Somehow I did not care +to wear them.” + +Ambrosia had noted that, and admired it as a delicacy in Fanny. + +“And here is his ring,” she said, taking a large diamond from her +finger. “All this must go back to Oliver.” + +“But not by me,” said Ambrosia. “I certainly cannot be your +intermediary in this most painful matter.” + +“No, I will give them to him myself,” said Fanny; but there seemed a +slight faltering in her serene courage, in her careless indifference +of manner. “But he is apt to be violent,” she added; and Ambrosia +guessed, for the first time, that she was secretly afraid of Oliver, +and she remembered what the girl had just said, and what Madame de +Mailly had stated in her letter: that Oliver had importuned the girl, +exerting all his strength of character, all his violence of temper, +all the massive darkness of his personality to dominate and overawe +her. Really, after all, one ought not to blame Fanny. It had been +Oliver’s fault from the beginning. + +So Ambrosia spoke with a certain warmth of affection: + +“You must not be afraid of him. If you really feel that you can’t go +through with it, you must be frank about it. Of course, you have been +in fault, but then, so has he. You must not be afraid of him!” + +The Countess Fanny would not confess to fear. She shook her head. + +“You are right,” she said. “I have been in fault, and therefore--well, +it is not a pleasant thing to do.” + +“Wait a day or two,” suggested Ambrosia. “Let this quarrel blow over, +and think about the thing in cold blood.” + +But the girl put the keys and the ring apart from her other trinkets, +and, shaking her head again, said: + +“Never, never can I change my mind!” + +“Then you must go away,” urged Ambrosia. “It is the only possible +thing to do. Of course you must see that!” + +The Countess Fanny, however, declared that she intended to spend the +winter in Cornwall. + +“Perhaps Oliver will go away,” she suggested. “Perhaps he will be glad +to do so.” + +“But it is his home,” said Ambrosia, in some indignation. “It is his +place, and he has a great deal to do here. He loves Sellar’s Mead +above everything. It is really you, Fanny, who should go away.” + +At this the Italian girl laughed, but in melancholy fashion. + +“Very well, I will go to Flimwel, then,” she said. “I will send for +Madame de Mailly, and live there: that will be quite proper and +decorous, will it not?” + +“But the house has been shut up for years!” cried Ambrosia. “It is +damp and in decay and disrepair, and almost, I believe, unfurnished!” + +“That does not matter. I have some money; I will get the place +furnished, and there I will go and live, and enjoy my Cornish winter +after all.” + +Ambrosia tried to cure herself of a pang of apprehension by the +reflection: + +“This is only a mood or a whim. Probably by to-morrow she and Oliver +will be the best of friends again, and have forgotten everything about +this.” And aloud she said, in a tone that she strove to render as +ordinary as possible: + +“You had better dress and come downstairs, Fanny; it looks odd in you +to remain here. One does not want the servants to gossip.” + +“Do they ever do anything else, however one behaves?” smiled Fanny. + +Ambrosia felt rebuked, and was vexed that she should so feel. It was +really impossible for her to be intimate and friendly with this queer +girl. + +She went downstairs rapidly; mid-morning now, and Lucius had not come. +Why must she notice that? Of course, she was upset by this scene with +Fanny--a ridiculous, whimsical creature. Best not to say a word about +it, but to hope that the thing would end as soon as it had begun, and +that never would she talk of breaking off her engagement again. + +There in the hall was Oliver, sullen and fuming because Fanny had not +yet appeared. + +“You were unkind to her last night, no doubt,” remarked Ambrosia, “and +it shows most foolish and ill-natured in you, Oliver. Surely she was +safe enough with Lucius, and it was quite natural that she should wish +to turn into the church!” + +“When _I_ asked her to go there,” said Oliver, “she refused; and if I +were you, Amy, I should not be so pleased at this intimacy with +Lucius.” + +“How ridiculous!” cried Ambrosia sharply. “You must control yourself, +Oliver, and not make these jealous insinuations. As for Fanny, I think +she is still out of humour with you, but she is coming down +immediately, and will speak to you herself. It is most odious for me, +I can assure you, to have these perpetual scenes.” + +“You have a quick tongue,” replied Oliver grimly. “You do not help to +smooth things over, do you, Amy?” + +She felt convicted of meanness, of lack of generosity, and the ready +tears came into her eyes. + +“Oh, Oliver dear,” she cried, “I do not mean to be like that--not to +be hateful! But it is all so difficult. I have felt in a confusion--a +sense of tension--for some time now. While you were away it was a +strain, and now you have come back it is confusing! Forgive me! I will +do my best! And do you use a little kindness and softness towards +Fanny, for she, I believe, can ill endure harshness.” + +Ambrosia, dreading to extend the interview lest this pleasant note +should not last, hastened away, taking her keys from her girdle and +hurrying to the servants’ quarters. These little daily duties, these +little monotonous and insistent tasks, must occupy her now, so that +she did not watch the clock for Lucius, nor interfere between Oliver +and Fanny. + +Oliver Sellar waited impatiently in the wide hall, leaning against the +newel post--a sombre and a dark figure. + +It was not long before the Countess Fanny came down the wide, shallow +stairs, a black lace scarf thrown carelessly over her stiff, striped +green and white sarcenet dress, her coral bracelets clasped round her +fine wrists, and her coral combs in her black hair. + +“Why do you not now wear,” asked Oliver at once, “some of the +ornaments I have given you?” + +She passed him lightly, with a tantalising swiftness. + +“Come, don’t tease!” he said harshly. “I am sorry about last night, I +dare say I went too far; but you put me into a great anxiety, and you +must never do that, Fanny, for when you do, I become so desperate I +hardly am responsible for my actions or my words! Come, don’t tease, +but be friends again!” + +He spoke with a rough articulation and profound emotion, but Fanny, +without answering, sped into the parlour, which was almost dark in the +shadow of the big cedar on the lawn, which blotted out the bleak and +pallid light of the winter’s morning. Oliver followed her light, gay +presence, which did indeed seem to irradiate that dark and sombre +room. + +“Come, Fanny! Won’t you speak to me?” He was pleading now, she moving +farther away from him, panting a little, until she could move no +farther, but must pause by the wall and turn there and face him, +laughing a little defiantly, more defiantly at herself and her own +tremors than at him and his advances. + +“But you will not care to hear what I have to say,” she said +breathlessly. “Let it go for the moment; indeed, Oliver, I wish you +well. I am sorry.” + +“That is enough!” he replied at once. “No need for more!” + +He had put out his large white hand as if to touch her, but she had +slipped away, still trying to carry the moment with a laugh. + +“Oliver, you know we have made a very great mistake. We were never +meant to get married--I dare say we both knew that from the first.” + +“Don’t torment me, Fanny,” he replied harshly, “or I shall become +angry again.” + +“But I do not speak to torment you--only to let you know what I have +told Ambrosia just now, that I have decided--oh, believe me, quite +decided--that we cannot be married.” + +He laughed, and she had always--even in the early days in +Italy--disliked his rare laugh, which broke up his face to +disadvantage. He was not very handsome when he smiled or laughed. + +“Come, come!” he said, with an effort to be good-humoured; “you must +have your jests, I suppose. But it’s gone far enough. We won’t talk +any more about it. I’ve told you I’m sorry for last night; let it go +at that. Would you like to go into Truro, or even, for a few days, to +London? Have you got enough clothes and trinkets? I should have +thought I bought you enough in Paris and Florence, but, if you want +any more, you shall have them.” + +Fanny had her hand in the little satchel that hung at her waist by two +silver ribbons, in a coquettish style; out of this she took the ring +and the keys that she had set apart on her dressing-table half an hour +before, and offered them to him with a coolness which concealed a good +deal of courage; for she was afraid of him, and had always been +afraid, though never so afraid as at this moment. But she was true to +her own resolution. + +“Indeed, I am not going to marry you, Oliver,” she said, with an +attempt at her usual negligent indifference, “and here are your keys +of the jewel-boxes, which must be taken from my room to-day; and your +ring. And please be kind about it! I was wrong, of course, but when I +said I would marry you I did not understand.” + +“What do you understand now?” he demanded in a thunderous rage. “Who +has told you to understand anything? What are you talking of? Do not +provoke me, Fanny, I beseech you!” + +“And I beseech you--oh, set me free!” she cried, in a voice that was +beginning to break. “It was all a game of play, I never meant it +seriously!” + +He made some passionate exclamation under his breath, but she could +not, did not, wish to hear. + +“I will leave your house!” she cried hastily, “unless you wish to go +away.” + +“You will go to Italy?” he exclaimed. + +“No; I want to stay in Cornwall.” + +“And why do you want to stay in Cornwall?” he flamed; “and how can you +stay here?” + +“I’ll go to Flimwel Manor--I’ll have that opened and furnished. I’ll +send for Madame de Mailly----” talking rapidly and fiercely. + +He swept away her words by a coarse interjection. + +“Don’t talk like a fool, Fanny!” + + + + + CHAPTER XII + +Lucius Foxe had been at the lighthouse for two days. He rejoiced in +being in this manner cut off, as it were, from the land, and almost, +as it seemed to him, in the midst of the ocean. Two engineers were his +companions, as well as the usual lighthouse-keeper and his boy. The +young man knew that he must soon return, or his father and Ambrosia +would be vexed that he had so long delayed upon the lighthouse; and +yet, for hours and hours, he put off giving orders for the boat. + +There was really nothing for him to do on the lighthouse. The +engineers good-humouredly tolerated the presence of the young lord, +who took such an interest in their work and was the son of the man who +had so generously contributed to the success of it, but still, there +was nothing that Lucius Foxe, at the best but an amateur engineer, +could do. The lighthouse was complete, and his bronze wolf had proved +a failure, and quite unable to support the fury of the winds. + +He had long since been told it probably would be a failure, but he had +persisted with his model, and a slight sense of flat disappointment +had stung him when the prophecy of the uselessness of his design had +been fulfilled. Instead of this fantastic beast, which was to howl his +warning with every blast that blew, a gas engine had been fixed, with +a powerful detonator. + +St. Nite’s Lighthouse stood a few miles out at sea, at the end of the +long spit of rock called the Leopard’s Rock, which was always covered +to a depth of several feet by the sea, and a quite impassable way for +ships. A lighthouse had stood there since 1760; it had been erected at +the expense of the then Earl of Lefton, who had received, in exchange, +heavy dues on the passing shipping. Lucius was glad that neither he +nor his father made money out of the lighthouse, but had, instead, +been able to contribute towards the cost of it. He was proud of the +lighthouse, which had just been recased in cement, and was now one of +the finest in England, rising, from the base to the lantern-room, a +height of 117 feet, and from high-water mark to the centre of the +lantern, 110 feet; yet even so, already, although the gales had been +mild compared to those that were likely to assail the lighthouse in +the winter, the waves had flung their foam with a rattle against the +lantern-panes, and on one occasion even lifted the cowl off the top, +so that the water poured in and extinguished some of the lamps. The +sea-birds, too, continued to dash themselves against the lantern, and +to drop, dead or dying, on the sharp rocks on which the heavy base +rested. Yet the engineers believed that these massive blocks of +granite, arranged after the plan of Smeaton in his great work at the +Eddystone, would withstand the fiercest storms, even of the Cornish +coast; and they were extremely elated that they had been able to +complete the lighthouse before the tempests of winter set in with +their implacable fury. + +Already the seas were running heavily, and the waves plunging high, +and the long fissure underneath the lighthouse began, when filled with +perpetual winds, to emit that rush and roar which had always so +impressed and even terrified the keepers of St. Nite’s Lighthouse. But +as yet the lighthouse had been put to no very severe test. Sometimes, +as the engineers and the keepers and Lucius well knew, the full force +and fury of the Atlantic would beat upon it: two channels commingling +with the ocean would meet here in one fierce assault. Lucius from his +childhood had often ventured down to this spit of land, and from the +precipitous rocks of the shore watched the old lighthouse withstand +the fierce fury of the outswell and the inrush of the ground swell of +the main ocean, raging and beating upon the valiant and stately +structure. Even in summer the billows always came tumbling and raging +in thunder over the ridge of the Leopard’s Rock, dashing impatient +spray nearly to the summit of the land cliffs. Here and there a jagged +rock pierced these swirling waves, and that would make a hideous +whirlpool, all foam and whirl, waves running together and leaping high +with the shock across this dangerous channel. + +Lucius had been excited by the reports of the commissioners, who had +just visited the lighthouse and pronounced it a magnificent structure +but perhaps the most exposed in the world. What would they say, he +thought with pride, in the winter, when the rolling seas sent their +spray over the top of the lantern? This lantern was the great pride of +the engineers. It was illuminated by colza oil, and gave an alternate +white light and red light revolving every half-minute, which in fair +weather was visible for seventeen miles. + +Lucius, walking round the gallery outside the lantern, was inspired by +the hope that perhaps this winter, however terrible for storms, would +pass without a wreck upon these ghastly coasts. He could not remember +any year when there had not been some disaster on St. Nite’s Head. One +year, three steamers had gone to pieces; out of sixty-five sailors and +passengers on one ship only three escaped from the wreck. + +Everyone on board the other two was drowned. Lucius could just recall +that most horrible of all catastrophes, when the Hamburg mail steamer +went ashore in this perilous neighbourhood with the appalling loss of +331 lives; and further back there was the tradition that, during the +seventeenth century and the wars with France, no less than four +British warships, going to pieces and perishing on these horrible +rocks, split like eggshells among the masses and fragments of granite. +The _Vulture_, the _Hythe_, and the _Thunderer_ were the names of +these boats, and legends were still strong on this coast, of drowned +sailors and soldiers being cast ashore for days, and the peasants, +farmers, and fishermen being enriched by inlaid weapons, guns, swords, +bullion, and heartily replenished sea chests; while, if local tales +spoke the truth, these rocks, known as the Leopard or the Devil Rocks, +were haunted by hundreds of unshriven ghosts. + +“But that is over,” thought Lucius; “we shall have no more deaths on +this coast!” And he smiled confidently, with the confidence of +visionary youth. + +He paused now, leaning against the high rail, with his back to the +desolate sweep of murmuring waters, and looked up at the inscription +he had caused to be put on the large stone steps; that over the door +of the lantern on the east side, which read: “24th August, 1856: _Laus +Deo_,” this he had copied from the old design of Winstanley Lighthouse +on the Eddystone. + +Well, he must return now: Ambrosia would be waiting for him at his +father’s house; he knew that they were both jealous of the time and +attention he gave to the lighthouse, and now there was no longer +excuse for so much absorption in St. Nite’s Point and the new +structure there. Everything was complete, and he--well--he had never +been of much use, and now he was not required at all. + +He would like, if possible, to take one of the watches during the +winter. He wondered if Ambrosia and his father would consent to that; +one family, the Tregarthens, had for generations been hereditary +keepers of the lighthouse, and the present representative was an old, +sullen, and violent man, who was usually accompanied by one of his +sons. The elder of these had, however, lately gone to Canada, and the +two younger appeared, oddly enough, more interested in farming than +the sea. + +Lucius thought there might be a good excuse and a fair opportunity for +him to accompany old Joshua Tregarthen during one of the winter +watches, which were for a period of three weeks. + +Lucius entered the lantern-room; there was a seat all round the vast +centre lamp with the reflectors. Descending from this by the +ladder-like stair, he entered the first bedroom, which was plainly +furnished with cabin-beds, drawers, and lockers; and then again into +another, exactly the same, each with two windows; the third was the +kitchen, with fireplace and sink, two settles with lockers, a metal +cupboard, a rack for dishes; and fourth was a parlour or office, where +papers and documents were stored; and underneath two store-rooms, one +for food, one for water; and beneath this, on the foundation-courses, +a huge tank for the accommodation of oil. + +Lucius put on his hat and cloak, and left the lighthouse and stood +thoughtfully on the little ledge of rock, looking out to sea--that +grey, immense expanse of fluttering sea--and then across the rocks +where the waves met and boiled, to the dark stretch of the +sand-coloured land. + +St. Nite’s Head was six miles or more from the village, and the only +people who lived here were a handful of fisher-folk, mostly occupied +by the work of the lighthouse and the lifeboat: rough, sturdy people, +of a Spanish-looking complexion--descendants of wreckers and smugglers +who yet had, for many years, been faithful to their tremendous task. + +Nothing could have been more lonely and desolate than this scene, with +the little huddle of cottages just discernible in the crook of the +land beyond the Leopard’s Rock, protected by the rising cliffs from +the full force of the gale, and yet, to an alien mind, scarcely +inhabitable in winter. + +The seagulls were flashing and swooping round the lighthouse. Lucius +thought that if he put out his hand he could have touched them, and +yet they were gone so swiftly that this was impossible. He almost felt +their wings brushing his face, and yet in a second they had passed. + +The boat was in waiting; the engineers were already in it, and a +fisherman with the oars. + +As they rowed to the land, Lucius looked continually back at the +lighthouse. He was fascinated by it, and proud of his family’s share +in its construction. The more proud, perhaps, as he was not really +Cornish by descent, and had always been looked upon as something of an +alien here: yes, even now, though it was two hundred years since the +Foxes had inherited, through the female line, this remote property. + +Neither their name nor their appearance was Cornish, and never, Lucius +believed, would they be regarded as one with the people; but they had +done this--they had identified themselves by the building of that +lighthouse with that dreadful coast, with this remote gloomy part of +England. + +Lucius wished that he could have paid every penny of the expenses of +the lighthouse, but that would have been impossible. Still, it was +something to have given up the dues; something to have used influence, +such influence and power as they possessed, to urge Trinity House to +rebuild the lighthouse, and to themselves have contributed, out of +their limited means, towards the expenses. He envied old Joshua +Tregarthen, who had been left behind with one of his sons for the +three weeks’ watch. + +The old man lived almost perpetually in the lighthouse, only coming +ashore for a day or so, when his place would be taken by a second son +and a boy. But he was old now, and beginning to ail, and Lucius +reflected that they must name someone else to take his place, or at +least to take longer watches in turn with him; though the old man had +been obstinate in his claim to be left in the lighthouse all this +winter, and extremely jealous of the suggestion that anyone else +should be employed in this important work. But the engineers had +warned Lucius that the old man would not much longer be able to +support the continuous fatigue of watching in the lighthouse; also +that he was somewhat difficult in the matter of the new invention of +the gas syren, and the very elaborate lantern; and Lucius had found +another fisherman, who was willing to go out to the lighthouse and be +trained, and would presently do so, however much old Joshua Tregarthen +disliked it. + +The boat put in by the huddled cluster of houses, and the three men +made their way to the small inn, called curiously the “Drum and +Trumpet,” in memory, it was supposed, of the numbers of dead sailors +and soldiers who had been washed up on this shore after the wreck of +the three battleships. + +It was the man who kept this inn who was willing to be trained to +attend the lighthouse--who had, indeed, already accepted the job of +lighthouse-keeper--and Lucius turned into the inner parlour to speak +to the man, to urge him to go out immediately, while the weather still +held moderately fair, and learn the business of attending the lantern +and the signal. + +The rough, low parlour seemed very dark as he entered it, straight +from the bleak, whitened light of outside, and he peered into the +shadows and raised his voice a little: + +“Why, Reuben, Reuben, where are you? I want to speak to you!” + +He had thought the parlour empty, but a woman moved from the window, +where she had been blocking some of the feeble light; and he saw at +once, with amazement and dread, that it was the Countess Fanny, in her +riding-habit and plumed hat, holding a little whip in her gauntleted +hand. + +“You have come here?” he exclaimed stupidly. + +“Why not?” she answered. “Is it so far?” + +And he replied, amazed. + +“Not so far, but odd that you should come!” + +“I have not seen you,” she replied, “since that day in the churchyard, +that is nearly a week ago.” + +“Is there anyone with you?” stammered Lucius. + +The Countess Fanny shook her head. + +“No; and no one knows that I am here. But I found my way somehow, the +roads are not so rough, and it is but six miles, is it not?” + +Lucius Foxe looked away. He took off his hat, and his fine, clear +profile and the thick reddish hair, damp from sea-spray, clinging to +his forehead and cheeks, was clearly presented to the Countess Fanny +as she moved from the window and suffered that pale winter light to +fall over him. + +“You have been thinking of nothing but the lighthouse!” she said; and +he answered, still without glancing at her: + +“Believe me, I have been thinking a great deal of you.” + +“You never came to Sellar’s Mead,” said the Countess Fanny, “and I +have been most terribly unhappy! I must see you and speak to you. I am +so alone, and have no one to advise me.” + +“But why did you come here?” he asked uneasily. “It will look very odd +in you, and Oliver--you know how angry he was last time.” + +“It is because of Oliver’s anger that I am here now,” she replied. +“Oliver is unendurable, and I am afraid of him.” + +At that Lucius glanced at her swiftly. + +“Then you want to go away?” he asked. “You wish to return to Italy?” + +“No, I don’t want to go away,” said the Countess Fanny, “unless it +were to Flimwel Grange. But they won’t allow me to do that!” Her high, +eager voice rose on a note of distress, and Lucius said, hastily and +uneasily: + +“Hush! You must not talk about these things here! The two engineers +are outside, and the fisher-people. Make this but an ordinary visit, +and later we will talk.” + +“Will you ride back with me?” she asked. + +“Of course, of course, but I fear you will get but a poor reception if +Oliver does not know.” + +“No--nor Amy either,” she said. + +The young man blenched at this name, and said impetuously: + +“We cannot, must not remain here! Come out into the open. You must +meet these other gentlemen. We must put a good face on it--of course, +you should not be here.” + +“It is a breach of decorum, no doubt,” admitted the girl, “but I am +not of that temper that can sacrifice all my happiness to the +conventions.” + +She spoke so desperately that Lucius, though he wished to bring the +conversation to an end, was forced to ask: + +“What has befallen? Has something disastrous happened?” + +“I have told Oliver that I cannot marry him,” said the Countess Fanny, +“and he will not accept that decision.” + +“But that is monstrous!” cried Lucius impulsively. “Of course he must +accept it!” + +Then he checked himself, and threw open the door, terrified of this +secret conversation. + +The engineers had already left the inn, and were on the shore, +superintending the packing of their luggage into a rough farm cart. +They were to stay that night with the old Earl, and in the morning to +take the ferry and so reach Truro and the train. + +“This lady has come to see the lighthouse,” said Lucius awkwardly, +“but of course it is too late to-day for her to make this visit.” + +“Oh, why?” cried the girl. “It looks so near, and the sea is so calm!” + +“It is two miles away,” smiled one of the engineers, “and one cannot +go there direct because of the dangerous channel across the Leopard +Rock; one must go round, and that will take a while--especially with +the tide against one, as it is now.” + +The Countess Fanny took no heed of these words. She stood on the rough +wet shore, and stared out, fascinated, at the lighthouse, which soared +grey into the lighter greyness, granite against a winter sky, while +beyond, the jagged rocks rose perilously out of the ash-coloured ocean +that murmured to and fro round the base of lighthouse, rock, and +cliff. + +Lucius stared at her as she stared at the lighthouse. He could not +immediately command this moment. She had said that she was not going +to marry Oliver, and it had been as if a load of lead was lifted from +his heart. As clearly as if she now spoke the words, he heard in his +mind the sentence she had uttered in the old church, among the ancient +graves: “We cannot plan our love!” + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + +Lucius and the Countess Fanny rode back side by side across the +sombre landscape. The engineers had taken the shorter way to Lefton +Park. They were alone on the desolate road, which finally reached St. +Nite’s village and Sellar’s Mead. + +She had spoken little to him, save to commend the lighthouse, and +once, as they passed a lonely farm, to say that, on her way there, she +had stopped and spoken to the people. + +“You should not have done so,” said Lucius. “They are wild and +ill-conditioned folk, disregarded here, where none are too civilised. +They have the worst of reputations. You should not have entered their +house.” + +The Countess Fanny had smiled, and said that the woman had been very +kind, and that she had nursed the baby by the fire, and given it a +jewel from her wrist. + +“She gave me a drink, and set me on the right road. I have no ill will +against them; and they are horribly poor! The land here is miserable, +is it not--sterile and bleak?” + +“Not in the spring,” said Lucius, but heavily. “There are primroses +then--masses of primroses.” + +“Even on the graves, I suppose?” said the Countess Fanny; and for a +while they rode in silence. + +The young man knew that he must break that silence; he must discover +how she stood in her relations to the Sellars, and what her plans +were. She had declared that she could not marry Oliver; what, then, +did she propose to do? And yet he had no right to question her, and he +did not dare ask her why she had ridden down to the Leopard Rock--to +seek him out or to look at the lighthouse? In sheer wilfulness or in +despair? And while he conned over all possible manners of speaking to +her on this subject, it was she who broached the matter in hand. + +“Listen to me, Lucius!” she said suddenly, turning slightly in her +saddle and speaking to him directly. “I am not going to marry Oliver; +and yet he terrifies me. Now, tell me what I am to do!” + +“You must leave Sellar’s Mead, of course,” he answered nervously, “and +immediately. He can put no obstacle in your way.” + +“But I do not wish to leave St. Nite’s,” she replied. “Besides, I do +not think he would let me. He will not accept my decision, Lucius. He +says I am a child and a fool, and do not know what I say, and that he +will hold me to my promise. And I have conceived such a disgust for +him,” added the girl with a shudder, “that I cannot endure that he +should approach me; and that infuriates him the more. He says I am a +flirt and a rattle, and turned his head for fun. And of course it is +true; but one does not expect----” she stopped abruptly. + +They were on a desolate stretch of land on top of the cliff, riding +inward from the coast; barren burrows and bending trees and sad +horizons and grey skies encompassed them. Not in all the prospect +could they discern one blade of grass. They rode slowly. + +“What of your friend, Madame de Mailly?” asked Lucius. + +“Ah--she? She writes to me frequently, but I think that Oliver will +endeavour that I shall not get her letters any more, for I was +imprudent enough to show him the last one, in which she said much ill +of him. She has come to Brest now, which is so much nearer than +Calais; and there she is living in discomfort, for me.” + +“But you must go to her!” urged Lucius. “Or you have friends in London +and Paris. It is of course ridiculous that you should remain here if +you wish to go!” + +“I want to remain here!” she persisted. “I like the country. I want to +spend the winter in Cornwall; but I also want to get away from Oliver. +Tell me--what shall I do?” + +Oliver felt helpless before this appeal, and it was the last of +appeals before which he would have wished to appear helpless. The +situation seemed to him both intolerable and to admit of no solution. +Well he knew and greatly he dreaded the black, implacable temper of +Oliver Sellar. The man loved the girl--in what measure of love it did +not greatly matter; he loved her, or felt for her a passion that he +would term love; and he would not let her go. How then was he, Lucius, +the betrothed of Amy, to rescue the Countess Fanny from this terrible +predicament in which she had so lightly involved herself? He had no +mother or sister, or near female relative, to whose care he could +relegate her--to whose advice he could implore her to listen. Who was +there in the village? Miss Drayton, Mrs. Spragge--all those +conventional old women who had disliked her from the first.… He +thought perhaps Madame de Mailly might be asked to St. Nite’s; but +where could she lodge? Her presence would be but an added vexation and +an increased scandal. + +“Ambrosia,” said the young man, “Ambrosia seems your only friend. What +does _she_ suggest?” + +The Countess Fanny answered mournfully: + +“Did you not see that she disliked me from the first?” + +He had seen it, but he knew that it was not usual to talk of such +things, and, with some reproach, he told the girl so. + +“But why ignore it?” she asked, with her cold candour. “It is very +important to me; if Amy liked me, everything would be so much easier. +Amy stands apart--says she is not to be tormented with any of it. She +does not like Oliver, either. I think,” added the girl with a certain +passion, “that no one likes Oliver.” + +“Then why?” asked Lucius distractedly, “did you engage yourself to +him?” + +“Out of lightness and some malice,” she confessed; “because Madame de +Mailly provoked me on the subject; because it was amusing to have so +stern and gloomy a man devoted to me--and I did not wish to marry the +Count, my cousin, and remain in Italy. It seemed very exciting and +diverting to come to England. Can’t you understand?” + +Lucius could scarcely understand--he was too young and too +fastidiously minded. But he could sense something of the situation she +wished to convey, and it made him shudder. + +“You must get away, then, quickly--you must get away at once.” + +“But how?” she asked. “Who will save me from Oliver?” + +“I must speak to him,” murmured Lucius. “I will speak to Amy.” + +“Amy is angry with you,” remarked the Countess Fanny mournfully, +“because you have been so long away; for three days she has watched +the clock for your coming, and still you have not come nor sent a +letter. And when she heard you had gone to the lighthouse, she was +much vexed; she does not like the lighthouse, you know!” + +“It is the last of it,” replied Lucius uneasily. “I shall not go there +again.” And he remembered his cherished project of spending one of the +winter watches out in the lighthouse. That must go, with so much else; +it seemed that he was no longer to be his own master, now he was +betrothed to Amy. + +“I’ll speak to my father,” he said; “he will help.” + +“Your father likes me well enough,” smiled the Countess Fanny, “but I +do not know if he will help me, because, of course, he will be +thinking of you.” + +Lucius wanted to say, “How are you and I connected--in his mind or in +anyone else’s?” But he could not speak these words. Slowly they rode +together across this desolate landscape, and stared at each other now +and then, when they were not occupied in guiding their horses over the +rough road. + +How strange she looked, even now, in her quiet riding-habit. How alien +to this grim landscape. Yet something of her bright, flashing radiance +was subdued. Something of the light arrogance of her manner was gone. +She still bore herself with a negligent gallantry, but this now seemed +forced. Lucius observed, and observed with terror, that there was a +change in that gay, careless creature whom he had met for the first +time in the parlour of Sellar’s Mead, seated so radiantly among her +cushions, smiling so indifferently, with such finished pride and cool +self-assurance. What emotions had changed her? He believed, and yet +dared not believe, that this emotion was fear. + +“I will come with you at once to Sellar’s Mead!” he said impulsively. +“And speak now, immediately, to Oliver, if you wish.” + +She shook her head. + +“No; you must not do that. Something terrible might happen if you did +that. I do not wish you to come to Sellar’s Mead at all.” + +“But I must do so--to see Amy, if for no other reason!” + +“Amy can wait till to-morrow. Ride over to-morrow! But I cannot +endure--nay, you must not persist, Lucius--I cannot support our joint +arrival to-night.” + +“You’re afraid of Oliver!” he exclaimed. + +The Countess Fanny did not answer. + +“Why, then,” he continued desperately, “this expedition, which must +vex Oliver to the heart? He will detest the thought of your riding +alone so far, and you know he dislikes the lighthouse!” + +“But I had to,” she said; “I wanted to see you! And I heard that you +were leaving the lighthouse to-day, and there was a chance, was there +not?” + +“But it has done no good,” he said impatiently, “has it?” + +“No good!” she repeated. “I don’t know, but I had to see you. I wanted +to tell you. I didn’t want someone else to tell you. From me you get +the truth, you see--that I can’t marry Oliver, that he inspires me +with repugnance. If you had heard this from Oliver or Amy, they would +have told you that I was whimsical and tiresome and malicious, just +doing all this to upset their peace; they can’t believe--Oliver won’t +believe; and Amy, I think, has no feeling.” + +Lucius felt impelled to make some show of loyalty towards Amy. + +“Amy is not cold,” he protested. “She disguises her emotions, that is +all; it is our English way, you know.” + +The Countess Fanny gave a hard smile, and said: + +“Of course you must champion Amy, for you are going to marry her--in +the spring, is it not? Ah, holy heavens! Where shall _I_ be in the +spring?” + +They had come now to where the roads divided, one going to Lefton Park +and one to Sellar’s Mead, which lay about two miles apart; and there +they paused at the cross-roads, side by side on their patient horses +in that universal, damp, windy greyness, in that slight sea-wind +ruffling the curdled clouds above their heads, and looked at each +other and trembled, neither knowing what to say. + +“I’ll come with you,” he declared at length. “Whatever happens, I’ll +come with you. You’re not to go back alone. See, it is getting dusk +again, and Oliver is sure to be angry! Probably he is already +searching for you.” + +But she was firm in her desire to return to Sellar’s Mead alone. + +“I will give Amy a message from you,” she said. “I will say you are +coming to-morrow. That will be true, will it not? And to-morrow you +need not see me, if you wish, for now I am generally in my own room. +There is Luisa, my maid, for company, and books, and my needlework.” + +Lucius sensed something ghastly behind these simple words; a far from +pleasant picture, that, the girl shut up in her own room; and why? to +be rid of Oliver.… + +“Tell your father,” she added in earnest tones. “Tell him of my +trouble, and get his advice. There is no need to plague him--but ask +him what I should do.” + +“But it is so clear,” cried Lucius, “what you should do. You should go +away.” + +“But what should I do?” she said, with a sudden break in her voice, +that had been so clear and brave, “if Oliver will not let me go away? +Oliver is my guardian, you know, and has all my money and all my +affairs till I am twenty-one.” + +Lucius had never considered--indeed, had scarcely known--of this +aspect of the case, and it appalled him. But he exclaimed instantly: + +“Of course Oliver can’t abuse that power. There are your other +relations and friends. But it is grotesque for us to discuss this--if +you wish to leave Sellar’s Mead, of course you must leave.” And the +young man looked at her anxiously, with straining eyes, and no +confidence in the bravery of his own words. She intently returned his +regard. Her eyes were abnormally large and dark in her pale face, and +the black ringlets that fell beneath her hat were ebon itself in the +colourless light. + +She pulled off one of her gloves and gave him her hand. + +“Good-bye!” she said. “And come to-morrow to see Amy, and ask your +father about my case; and, indeed, there is no more to be said!” + +Indeed, there was no more that he could find to say. He was baffled. +He wished to linger there with her; he wished to return to Sellar’s +Mead with her; and yet, perhaps she was right. She seemed to have more +command of the moment than he could possibly possess. + +“Good-bye!” he repeated, and clasped her hand closely. It was cold +within his cold fingers, and she drew it away, and rode past him and +down the lane which led to the estate of Sellar’s Mead. + +Why had she come? he mused bitterly, looking after her retreating +figure, and hoping that she would glance back; but she did not--she +rode resolutely away. Why had she come? There was no sense or reason +in that visit--that long ride to the lighthouse, just to say these few +words, just to tell him that she could not marry Oliver Sellar: a +thing that he would soon have heard, or have guessed, for himself. No +sense or reason. But was there anything else? “We cannot plan our +love!” He turned, and rode away to Lefton Park. + +The Countess Fanny proceeded so slowly and reluctantly on her way that +the landscape darkened about her, and straight drives of rain began to +fall from the clouds, ceasing from their hurrying flight with the +dropping of the wind. She did not mind the splash of the raindrops in +her face, nor even the gathering sombre gloom of the winter twilight; +as she approached nearer and nearer to Sellar’s Mead, she rode more +slowly. + +At last the house rose before her, blank and bleak, with the straight +façade and the narrow windows and the porticoed door, and the bare +parterres in front, and the barren, leafless park on either side. + +The Countess Fanny left her horse at the stables, which were some +little way from the house, and went her way on foot underneath the +bare trees, where the wind made a rocking in the branches, and the +rain dripped from one bough to another. The faded grass of last summer +was sodden beneath her feet. Now and then she moved through a wet +litter of dead leaves. There were lights in the house--pleasant orange +lights of lamps and candles, glowing in nearly all the windows. It +seemed suddenly much colder; the rain was like ice on her face. + +She turned into the iron gates that separated the garden from the +park, and moved with her reluctant steps between the shrubs and +laurels and bays and tamarisks which had been planted to keep out some +of the wind, but which now rustled, dry and withered, an inadequate +shelter from winter storms. + +As she entered these gates, she saw a man waiting for her, holding a +storm-lantern, and it reminded her of Lucius, and the storm-lantern he +had taken with him into the church; but this was not Lucius--it would +be, of course, Oliver, and she paused. + +The man, perceiving her, came forward, and the Countess Fanny observed +that it was not Oliver either, but the man Jeffries, his servant, sent +to look for her, no doubt. And she was passing on with a smile, but he +stepped in front, impeding her way. + +“Have you been looking for me?” asked the Countess Fanny, surprised at +his stopping her. + +“Everyone has been looking for you, my lady,” replied the man, in a +whisper. “And it were best if you went in, if I might be so bold as to +suggest it, by the back way, and straight up to your room. You could +do it, you know,” he added anxiously, “by the servants’ staircase.” + +“But why,” said the Countess Fanny, “should I use the servants’ +staircase? What do you mean?” + +“The master, my lady--he’s angry, like a wild thing, hardly in his +right senses, as you might say; and I don’t think it would be wise for +you to meet him just now.” + +“Ah!” cried the Countess Fanny, and stood still, gazing at the man, +who continued to talk vehemently and anxiously, urging her, with +respect and terror mingled, not to cross Oliver Sellar’s path just +now. + +“I have been to see the lighthouse,” said the girl slowly. + +“That won’t make it any better, my lady. He’s no love for the +lighthouse; and it’s your going out alone again, and at this time of +day--and now it’s nearly dark.” + +The Countess Fanny interrupted. + +“Did Miss Ambrosia send you?” she demanded. + +The man shook his head. + +“No, my lady--I made bold to come on me own. And the housekeeper, Mrs. +Nordon, and Julia, the maid--they both thought you should be warned; +and it being my own idea too, I said I’d do it, come what may.” + +“Not Amy, then,” reflected the Countess Fanny. “She had no such care +of me, eh?” + +“My lady, the groom who saddled your horse has lost his place, so +maybe I’ll lose mine; but I had to give you this warning. If you slip +round the back Julia will let you in, and you could be in your room +unobserved.” + +The Countess Fanny replied: + +“I am much obliged--you are very kind; but I will go in by the front +door.” + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + +The manservant stepped aside, though not without a murmur, earnest, +though whispered, of warning; and the Countess Fanny proceeded through +the windy dusk up to the blank façade of the large dark house. + +The door stood open, and a large shaft of light fell from it across +the exotic and withered shrubs that bordered the beds of the terrace. +Slowly, reluctantly, and yet without faltering, the girl entered the +house. + +Ambrosia was standing by the open door of the brilliantly-lit parlour, +and she gave an exclamation, that did not seem wholly one of pleasure +and relief, when she saw the Countess Fanny. Then she immediately +repeated the warning which the girl had already received from the +frightened manservant. + +“Oliver is in a most violent temper,” she whispered, “and it were wise +for you to go directly to your room.” + +The Countess Fanny did not reply. She took off her wide-brimmed hat +and put back her long, black ringlets, which had been blown by the +evening wind; and Ambrosia, exasperated by this silence, added: + +“Was there any need for you to do this--for a second time to ride out +like this? You know very well this is not the proper thing, and that +it very much disturbs Oliver; and it is the second time, my dear +Fanny, that you have treated us like this!” + +“I cannot for ever remain in the house,” replied the girl quietly. + +“No, but you can go out in the ordinary way, and with some company! It +certainly looks odd and perverse in you to pass the day in your room, +and then to ride out like this, without telling us where you are +going.” + +“I went to the lighthouse,” said the Countess Fanny. “I am tired; it +is a good many miles there and back.” + +Ambrosia put her hand to her forehead, and repeated dully: + +“To the lighthouse? What do you mean? You are crazy indeed!” + +“I wanted to see the lighthouse,” explained the Countess Fanny +patiently, yet with a blight over her usual flashing manner; “and no +one would take me, so I went alone. There was no wrong in it. Indeed, +you must not consider me harshly!” + +“No, no, there is no wrong; but now it would be well if you went +upstairs. Indeed, it would not be wise to see Oliver now.” + +Then she asked the question that she loathed to take upon her lips: + +“Did you see Lucius? I believe it was to-day that he was to leave the +lighthouse. Perhaps you knew that, and went there to see him?” she +added, with a forced smile. + +“Yes, I knew that,” replied the girl, “and I did go there to see him, +and I met him, and he rode with me as far as the cross-roads; and he +sent this message to you, Amy--that he is coming to-morrow morning.” + +“I am obliged,” said Ambrosia stiffly and dully. “This is all very +extraordinary, Fanny, and I am rather without words.” She did not +approach the girl, or look at her, but she made a little gesture with +her pretty hand towards the wide, shallow stairs, and repeated: “You +had better go, and I will try to make your peace with Oliver.” + +The Countess Fanny moved slowly towards the stairs, and then +hesitated, and then turned back and held out her hands, and took those +other cold, reluctant hands in hers, and exclaimed, with more passion +than Amy had yet heard her use: + +“We should be friends! Do, I pray you, let us be friends! It would +look very strange if we were to quarrel; above all things I do not +wish us to quarrel!” + +“I hope we _are_ friends,” replied Amy still dully. She found it +impossible to evoke any response in herself towards this affectionate +impulse on the part of the other woman. + +“But help me with your brother!” cried the Countess Fanny earnestly, +still clinging to Ambrosia’s unresponsive hands. “Help me with him!” + +“How can I do that if you continue to provoke him?” cried Ambrosia, +vexed. “My position is very difficult.” + +“But what is mine?” asked the Countess Fanny proudly. “Is not that +also difficult?” + +“But you created it yourself,” said Ambrosia reproachfully. “Remember, +I do not know how you behaved in Italy--though I can guess. Now, +please go upstairs before he comes in and finds you here, for I cannot +support any more scenes of violence and temper.” + +The Countess Fanny dropped her hands, but continued to plead with her +impetuously. + +“But you must see there are no such scenes; you have some influence, +surely? You are his sister; you have lived with him always. You know +what the dispute is between us; I have told him that I cannot marry +him.” + +“And he will not believe that,” said Ambrosia nervously, “and it all +creates a disturbance and a scandal; and if you were willing to marry +him when you were in Italy, and even the first week that you were +here, how is it that you have so suddenly changed your mind? It all +seems to me,” she added, on a rising note of hysteria, “to date from +that day when you went to the church with Lucius--that quarrel you had +with Oliver then. But do go, I pray you, or I shall say what I did not +mean to say. The days here are very long and trying, and I--I cannot +always control myself.” + +The Countess Fanny took no notice of this storm of words. She gazed at +Ambrosia, and again said mournfully: + +“You will not, then, help me?” + +“I cannot help you,” said Ambrosia, and she turned into the parlour, +and closed the door on the other girl’s face. + +The Countess Fanny stood alone in the wide hall; with an impulsive, +foreign gesture she wrung her hands, and then she turned to mount the +stairs. If she had meant to escape, she was too late, for she had not +passed the newel-post before the front door, which still stood ajar, +was pushed open, and Oliver Sellar entered his house. + +The girl paused on the lowest step of the stairs, and, half turning, +gazed seriously at the man. + +“Ah, you are back at last!” he exclaimed; and he, like his sister, +spoke without pleasure or relief. + +“It is not so late,” replied the Countess Fanny quietly, “and I have +not been so far--only to see the lighthouse.” + +“And to meet Lucius, I suppose,” he exclaimed. + +“Yes, I saw Lucius. He was leaving the lighthouse, and he rode home +with me as far as the cross-roads,” replied the girl lightly. + +Oliver Sellar unbuttoned his coat and flung off his hat. + +“I want to speak to you,” he said hoarsely; “come into my room and let +me speak to you.” + +She came, with no sign of fear, to his side. The heavy, powerful man +seemed enormous in the narrow space of the hall. His massive face was +strained and livid. Against the unnatural pallor of his complexion his +hair looked horribly dark, the grey on his temples like ashes. + +The Countess Fanny studied him coldly, and paused before she was quite +close to him. He picked up her hat, that she had dropped on the floor, +and put it next his own. + +“Dishevelled,” he muttered, eyeing her. “Blown by the wind, wet with +the rain, well, and you must go down to St. Nite’s Head, and find +young Lucius, eh?” Then he asked: “Where is Amy?” + +“Here, in the parlour.” + +“Then come with me into my room.” + +“If you are going to scold me, it is better I went upstairs, as Amy +advised.” + +“Amy advised that, did she?” + +“Yes--said that you were in a vile temper, and that I should get +scolded.” + +He looked at her with gloomy rage. + +“Then why didn’t you go?” + +“Because I am not afraid!” said the Countess Fanny, gallantly holding +her ground. “But I will come with you into your room, Oliver, and hear +what you have to say. It will not make any difference.” + +Without answering, he flung open the dining-room door, and she +proceeded down that empty chamber, where the silver and china and +glass were already set out on the gleaming mahogany table, and a fire +gave a cheerful light on the wide hearth. + +Oliver Sellar opened another door, and showed her into a room where +she had not been before--the room where he did most of his business, +and which was fitted up as a small library or business-closet. Here, +also, was a fire, and here was a heavy desk, and a multitude of books, +and some sporting prints and engravings, and a gun hanging on the +wall, and an old fat dog, asleep on the hearth. + +“Sit down,” said Oliver Sellar grimly. + +The Countess Fanny sat down, gracefully and negligently, on one of the +rough, worn leather chairs. + +Oliver Sellar lit the lamp that stood ready to his hand on the desk. +He took a long time over this simple task, which gave him an +opportunity to endeavour to control himself--a task which he had to +admit, in his own heart, he found well-nigh impossible. + +The Countess Fanny shaded her face with her long fingers and her long +ringlets from the glow of the fire which was so near, and waited. + +“Understand this, once and for all!” he said, at length. “You must +conduct yourself differently--do you hear me?” + +“Don’t threaten me,” she replied in a low voice. “Please, Oliver, +don’t threaten me!” + +“How do you expect me to speak to you?” he demanded. “What am I to +make of your behaviour? I always knew that you were light and +capricious, but I was not prepared for this!” + +“Neither was I,” she replied sincerely. “Believe me, Oliver--neither +was I!” + +“But it is your fault, Fanny; yours entirely. I have not changed, but +you have!” + +“No,” she replied with the same earnestness, as if she pleaded with +him, “I have not changed. You have just said that you always knew I +was light and capricious; well, I am the same now. Why should you have +expected constancy from a creature so flimsy and thoughtless?” + +He bit his lip at that, and struck the table with his closed hand. + +“Don’t fool with me,” he said, “don’t palter with words. Cease this +game you play, for I’ll not endure it!” + +“You’re not my master,” she replied, yet still in a gentle, +conciliatory tone. “Remember that, Oliver!” + +“Remember that you promised to be my wife!” + +“But that was a fiction!” She seemed to entreat him. “That was an +amusement, a gay diversion--you surely guessed as much! I said yes, +and yes, and yes again, because you importuned me, because Madame de +Mailly advised me against you, because I was, as you say, light and +frivolous, because--oh, because of a thousand things! But that is over +now, and you must let me go! Oliver, I have come with you here now to +entreat you to let me go! Do not force me beyond a point. I warn you,” +she added with a certain wildness, “not to force me beyond this +point!” + +“It is no question of forcing,” he answered thickly; “I hold you to +your word.” + +She drew away, nearer to the blaze of the fire, farther from the anger +of the man. + +“That is a gross way of putting it,” she said. “I am not used to such +an attitude! I have said that I am inconstant and capricious! I take +all the fault, all the blame, Oliver. But now you must let me go!” + +“Never!” he replied violently. “Never! I will not be so put and played +upon by a foolish girl.” + +“If I am a foolish girl,” she entreated, “you--a man like you--are +better rid of me! If it is my fortune you want,” she added, “you may +have it; take all the lands that you rent; I still have money enough; +and I need so little.” + +“You need so little!” he flared out. “You are the most extravagant +piece I have ever met. What is this play-acting, what is this pose you +take up? Your fortune is nothing to me, and you know it. Your estates +have no interest for me, and you are aware of it! It is you I want! +You took good care of that in Italy, didn’t you? You made me want +you!” + +“Perhaps I did; see, I am striving to be honest. Yes, I dare say it +was not fair, Oliver; but I had never thought that it was a sin to be +a coquette, or that men would take it amiss if one strove to make them +admire one.” + +“No,” he ejaculated, struggling hard to express himself with some +moderation, “that was the teaching you got from that Madame de Mailly. +A false, worldly woman.” + +“I was wrong,” she admitted. “I was wrong. Accept my contrition, +Oliver! Indeed, I did not understand!” + +“What,” he asked violently, “makes you understand now--eh? Why this +sudden change of mood and complexion?” + +She did not try to defend herself against this invective, but, rising, +said, on a panting breath: + +“Oliver, I cannot marry you--recognise that, and be a good friend.” + +“I’ll never recognise it!” he answered, impetuously and stubbornly, a +flash of fury in his black eyes. “I’ll never even deal on the matter; +you’re promised to me, and that promise stays! I’m your guardian, +remember, and I shall exert my full authority.” + +“You cannot force me,” murmured the Countess Fanny. “And surely, +Oliver, you can be a little kind!” + +“Kind!” cried the heavy man scornfully. “Kind! Who am I to be talking +of kindness?” Again he struck his hand upon the table, and then cried, +with exceeding bitterness: “It is Lucius! It’s that fool and fop, +Lucius!” + +The Countess Fanny cried out as if she were hurt indeed. + +“You must not use that name--you must not say that!” + +And he, for the first time since they had been in the room alone +together, appeared moved by her protest, and caught up the other +violent words that were on his trembling lips. + +“No, no,” he muttered; “I had no right to say that! Of course Lucius +could have nothing to do with it, of course not! I did not mean to say +it, Fanny--the name slipped out; I have been grossly tried! This is +the second time you have done this--escaped away from me into the +dark; and each time you’ve chanced to meet Lucius.” He laboured with +his words. He contrived a ghastly smile. “And of course it could have +nothing to do with Lucius: that was only a coincidence, was it not?” + +“I am sorry,” she said timidly, “to see you moved!” + +At this faint indication of tenderness, he turned instantly towards +her. + +“Oh, Fanny, you know that you move me! You know that you have this +power over me! Don’t abuse it, I entreat you!” + +She blenched away from his nearer approach. She rose, and stood behind +the chair, keeping it in front of her with her back against his rows +of heavy books. + +“I feel kindly towards you, Oliver; indeed I do,” she said. “I want us +to be friends. But you must not talk any more of our marriage. That +was all a wild jest, a stupid mistake.” + +“Don’t talk like that, Fanny! You know that you can do anything with +me; and I, I’ll give you all you want. I’ll take you away from here if +you find it dull--if you don’t get on with Amy; there’s London; +there’s Paris--or back to Italy: where you will! But don’t be unkind +to me, Fanny, for God’s sake don’t be unkind!” + +The black, sparkling eyes were at once compassionate and terrified. +This entreaty seemed to alarm her more than his frenzy. Closer and +closer she drew against the bookcase. She stared at his powerful and +energetic hands, clasping and unclasping nervously on the worn back of +the leather chair. + +“I can’t let you go, Fanny!” he muttered. “I don’t intend to let you +go--understand that! See,” he added with distressing emotion, “I will +be gentle and kind; I will do anything you wish--behave as you desire! +I did not mean to be angry to-night; it was only fear for your safety. +You don’t know the country, and it was getting dark, and--well--I am +jealous of every moment that you are away from me. Can’t you +understand it, Fanny? I dare say you understand nothing yet, but be +patient--wait; don’t indulge these whims! Have some pity! You must +know how it has been with me from the first moment I saw you, and I am +not so facile or impressionable.” + +“Forgive me,” she murmured, “but it cannot be. Oh, Oliver, you +distress me very much! Please let me go!” And with a lithe, swift +movement she tried to pass him and the chair and gain the door. + +This movement towards escape half maddened the man already wrought +almost beyond control, he was instantly after her, and with a certain +exultant pleasure in the exercise of his strength, had caught and +detained her, gripping her brutally by the shoulders; and at this +powerful touch her control was gone also, and she began to struggle, +endeavouring to push the massive bulk of him away with her long, slim +hand. + +“See,” he said fiercely, “you can’t free yourself!” And, his passion +inflamed by the feel of her struggling fragility clasped firmly in his +two hands, unable to resist his long pent-up and fierce desires, he +began to kiss her neck and cheeks, though she violently turned her +head away. + +“Don’t be a fool, Fanny!” he whispered hoarsely. “Don’t be a tiresome, +vexatious little fool!” And between every word he kissed her the more +greedily for her frantic efforts to be free of him. The Countess Fanny +wrenched and writhed in his harsh grasp, and gasped out words which, +as they forced themselves on his understanding, made him let her go, +so suddenly that she almost fell. + +“I loathe you!” she had stammered, with all the bitter accent of clear +truth. “I detest you. You are repellent to me; if you do not let me +go,” she added, “if you do not release me, I will make a scandal by +calling Amy and the servants!” + +But he had set her free before she had finished her sentence, and she +fell upon the door and stood there panting, and endeavouring to +re-arrange her habit, torn across the breast and about the neck by his +violence. Her shoulders were aching where he had clutched her. She +felt outraged, sick, humiliated. At least she had always, so far, been +able to keep him at arm’s length; throughout all the comedy of their +engagement he had never done more than press a kiss upon her brow or +cheek. But this! As she recovered from her immediate fright, she +stamped her foot in haughty rage. + +“Never--do you hear, Oliver?” she exclaimed; “never, never!” + +“No,” he answered hoarsely, “you detest me, do you? And I am repellent +to you? You don’t suppose I am going to take any notice of these +girlish rages, do you? Go upstairs and stay upstairs, keep out of my +sight, and do not suppose that I shall give any heed to your brittle +fancies! Nay, nor concern myself with your furies! I’ll marry you +first and tame you afterwards!” + +The Countess Fanny, with all the force of her Italian temper, which +was usually concealed under such a pretty gloss of courtesy, replied, +in the extreme of violence: + +“I’ll die first!” and flung herself out of the room. + +The man’s impulse was to follow her instantly and subdue her on the +spot; but the habits of a long convention were too strong for him. It +was his house. There was Amy there, and the servants. Decorum and +restraint encompassed him. His passion was out of place, and he must, +as best he could, conceal and control it. + +With a groan, he flung himself into the chair where she had sat, and +put his distorted face in his trembling hands. + +How endure it? How break her? + + + + + CHAPTER XV + +Ambrosia could not sleep that night, because of the gale flying past +her window; for the tempest had broken with fierce violence, and, +after a day that had been of a grey stillness and a mere low muttering +of wind and a mere cold slash of rain, there was now a roused fury +abroad. + +Ambrosia was familiar with these gales, which often began at this time +of the year and did not cease till the winter was past. As she lay in +bed, listening to this onslaught of the wind, it seemed to her as if +the whole house, square, ponderous and solid as it was, shook before +these ferocious charges of the elements. + +The wind always made her nervous and excited, and to-night she would +have been nervous and excited without the wind. Last evening had been +dreadful, and had exhausted her, body and soul. She had felt it her +duty to speak to Oliver about Fanny; take Fanny’s part, and champion +her, or try to induce her brother to adopt some reasonable attitude +towards the strange girl. Of course Ambrosia herself admitted that +Fanny had behaved very badly, with the greatest lightness and +frivolity--perhaps with something that could be given a worse name +than either lightness or frivolity. But there still remained a certain +standard for Oliver; there were things he must not do, and things he +must not say. + +Opening the parlour door, earlier in the evening, she had seen the +Countess Fanny sweep upstairs in a whirlwind of rage and fear, and she +had seen Oliver standing at the dining-room door, staring after her +with a hideous expression on his face. + +She had not spoken to him then, because she had felt it would be +useless to do so; and also, perhaps, because she was a little +frightened. Nor had there been any conversation on this subject during +their gloomy meal, served with all pomp and pretension, and in a +melancholic silence in the big dining-room, in which two people seemed +so lost and so insignificant. + +Ambrosia had decided to speak to Fanny before she spoke to Oliver, to +try and sift out from the girl exactly what had happened, and what was +likely to happen; and so, after the dreary meal, she had gone upstairs +and endeavoured to see Fanny. + +The Italian maid had refused her admission to her guest’s room, and +not with the greatest of courtesy. Rebuffed and humiliated, Ambrosia +had returned to the dining-room, in a haughty and an irritated mood, +resolved to have matters out with Oliver; and Oliver had been greatly +displeased to see her again. He had believed she had retired for the +night, and he was sprawling in a low chair by the fire, heavily +drinking port. + +Oliver, like his father before him, could be a hard drinker on +occasion. Ambrosia was used to this. She knew that he was a solitary, +not a convivial, drinker, and that seemed to her doubly disgusting. +There was some excuse for intoxication in a large, cheerful company, +at a gathering of friends or acquaintances; but there seemed no excuse +for a man to sit alone by the fire, heavily fuddling himself from +solitary bottles. And this was what Oliver did, and what his father +had done before him. Of course, it had never made much difference to +Ambrosia; she had simply withdrawn from these scenes, and if either of +the men had been found, prone on the hearth or under the table, by the +servants in the morning, it had never been much business of hers, for +she had never seen it; and usually, when she saw Oliver flushed and +his eyes glazed and his temper more than ever uncertain, she departed +with an extra note of hauteur in her manner, and an extra glimpse of +reproach in her dark eyes. + +But to-night she did not leave him, but sat down on the other side of +the large, mahogany table, keeping that shiny expanse of wood between +her and her brother, resting her elbows thereon and her cheeks in her +hands, and looking at him with distaste and malice across the +lamplight. And then she had spoken to him about Fanny--spoken rapidly +and coldly. She heard the shrewish notes becoming accentuated in her +own clear voice, and she disliked shrewishness in a woman; and yet she +could not control herself. She went on, till she rose to heaping +invective on her brother, blaming him for an intolerable situation and +a scandal that could not long be concealed. + +She had pretended not to understand what the Italian maid, in broken +English, had flung at her when she had just now gone to Fanny’s room. +She had understood, just the same; with Southern exaggeration, the +maid had spoken of bruises, of wounds on her mistress’s shoulders, and +in screaming excitement had accused the master of the house of being +the cause of these. + +Amy now reproached her brother with this, and voiced all the +bitterness of her degradation in the fierce, cold words she used. +Oliver had listened in a tormented, sour silence, as a man might +listen to the buzzing of a wasp that he is too languid, or too idle, +to brush away. + +Ambrosia had wished he would speak--give her some answer. She detested +the sound of her own angry voice. She knew that she was playing a part +which was not a pretty or a graceful part for a woman to play. She +knew that if Lucius heard her he would disapprove--Lucius, who was so +sensitive to the least inflection of scolding or temper in a feminine +voice. + +But still she could not stop: she began to speak of Fanny--without +enthusiasm, indeed, with reluctance, she tried to champion the girl. +She spoke of her with what justice she could muster, and pointed out +her intolerable situation, continually reiterating: “Oliver, you must +let her go! Oliver, it is scandalous to detain her here! Oliver, you +cannot force yourself on her if she will not have you! Whatever she +has done, she is free!” Still Oliver had made no reply. His only +movement had been to refill his glass and swallow the contents. + +“Stop drinking!” Ambrosia had cried at last, at the end of her +control. “Listen to what I say!” + +“I’m listening,” Oliver had replied; and his voice was a grumble in +his deep chest. + +“Then answer me.” + +“There is no answer; go upstairs and get to bed!” + +“You are intoxicated!” Ambrosia had replied in angry disgust. “It is +useless for me to talk to you.” + +“Why don’t you hold your peace, then?” he retorted sullenly. + +“It was my plain duty to remonstrate with you.” + +“Well, now you have done your duty,” he had snarled, “and you can go! +Go at once, I say!” And he had leant forward in his chair with a +menacing gesture. + +Ambrosia had risen, nauseated with herself and with him, filled with +despair and disgust at the whole position. + +“I will ask Lucius to speak to you in the morning,” she had said, more +to give herself courage than to threaten him; for she well knew that +Oliver was not easily menaced. + +She was not prepared for the outrageous reply that her challenge had +provoked. Oliver had sworn at her--as grossly, Ambrosia thought, with +a shudder, as if she had been in a pot-house--and added in a raucous +voice: + +“You railing shrew! Don’t you understand the part that Lucius has in +this? Twice she has gone out to meet him!” + +“No!” cried Ambrosia. “No! You must not dare to say that!” + +“Yes, and yes, I say!” he had cried violently. “Do you think you are +such a beauty as to hold him against a girl like Fanny?” And he ended +on a groan, and put his face in his hands. + +Ambrosia had stood rigid. A dozen sentences had paused on her lips and +died away without her having the force to pronounce them. She had +stared dully at that heavy, bowed figure of her brother. She ought to +have felt some compassion for him, but she could not do so, for he had +brought this on them both. Why did he need to go to Italy and bring +this girl home? Could not he have had more dignity and self-control +than to unleash this wild, ungovernable passion for a worthless +rattle, a light flirt? Of course, what he said of Lucius was +grotesque, absurd! And yet it had been most moving to hear him say +it.… + +So, as he would not speak and she could not, she had left him, and +gone wearily upstairs. It seemed her plain duty to endeavour to visit +Fanny again, but she had found the door locked; once, twice, thrice +she tried the handle. Yes, it was securely locked, and as well that it +should be, she thought grimly! Fanny must go away immediately, of +course--but where? Oliver was her guardian; that was dreadful! But +there were other people--those relatives in Italy. Oh, the girl must +go, and at once--anywhere! + +Ambrosia felt her head aching. She sat alone in her room, listening to +the wind, which was rising even then, and turned over a dozen hectic +schemes to be immediately rid of Fanny--like one might plan and plot +to be rid of a pretty snake that one had suddenly found lying coiled +in one’s path, that one dared not touch for fear of a fatal sting. + +How to be rid of it, by some craft or subterfuge, without provoking a +venomous stab which might mean death? + +Ambrosia dwelt on the simile of the snake: pretty, yes; graceful and +vivid, crested and glossy; but fatal--ah, fatal! + +“I will write to Madame de Mailly,” thought Ambrosia desperately. “To +those Italian relations; to her lawyers--anyone, anywhere! But she +must go!” + +As the wind rose still more impetuously, her harassed thoughts ran on +another matter. + +“I am glad that Lucius has left the lighthouse; it is merciful that he +will not be there during this storm. Perhaps he would not have been +able to get off if he had stayed till to-morrow; and to-morrow he is +coming here, and I shall see him; and I must speak to him most +moderately and carefully about Fanny. Oh, yes, I must be most just +towards Fanny!” And she clenched her hands unconsciously, in the +effort that even the contemplation of being just to Fanny cost +her--this exotic, incomprehensible creature, suddenly cast in the +midst of them. + +Then she had gone to bed, and endeavoured to sleep; but uselessly. +For, apart from the agitation of her heart, there was the agitation of +the storm without, ever growing and increasing, whirling and battling +round the house and seeming to shut them off from the rest of +humanity--the three of them shut up there, with their roused passions, +their unsubdued tempers, and their irrevocable destinies. “Oh, God, +have pity on me!” prayed Ambrosia. “Don’t let me be drawn into +anything vile! Don’t let me behave contemptibly!” And in the darkness, +and the swirl and rattle of the wind, the self-contained woman left +her bed and knelt in her long nightgown beside that bed, and prayed as +she had, since her childhood, been taught to pray: “Whatever happens, +may I not behave ignobly!” But there came no response from the noisy +darkness. “It is my fault,” thought Ambrosia wretchedly. “I am too +torn by earthly emotions to listen to any divine comfort!” And she +returned to her bed, and lay there tossing on the pillows, trying to +count the booming rattles of the wind against the panes of her tall +windows. “If I could have liked her!” she thought in remorse. But +something within her answered mockingly: “How could you like her, when +she came to rob you of all you had?” “That is her business,” Ambrosia +answered back. “She was made--well--made to rob. She only follows her +destiny, and I must follow mine. I should not hate her: perhaps if I’d +liked her; perhaps if I’d been kinder--but it all happened so +swiftly!” + +Yes, that was part of the horror of it: it had all happened so +swiftly, like a storm in summer-time, like thunder and lightning out +of blue skies. All her life, for twenty-seven years, things had gone +placidly and serenely; she had been discontented, no doubt; bored, +melancholic, weary of monotony and calmness and quiet emotions and the +perpetual round of exact and small duties. She had sighed and +lamented, but everything had been in a minor key. The days had gone +round without any serious interruption to their stiff austerity. Her +mother and father, her brother who had gone to India--all quiet +people, or people who maintained an appearance of quiet, as she had +maintained such an appearance herself. Passions and emotions had been +hardly allowed to be spoken of: there was Oliver’s evil temper always, +but that had been a thing that must not be discussed. And Oliver had +gone from home--and here, at this pause in her thoughts, with a +shudder Ambrosia recalled the words of Amelia, Oliver’s wife: “Amy, I +am not happy!” + +And she had been gay, simple and affectionate as a girl; poor Amelia. +Ambrosia could recall her on her wedding-day--how excited and +light-hearted she had been, how pretty she had looked, in her bonnet +lined with orange-blossom. But Oliver had blighted her as he now was +blighting all of them. It was all Oliver’s fault! + +She clenched her hands under the bed-clothes. Yes, it must be Oliver’s +fault! She should not, must not blame Fanny, any more than she would +have blamed Amelia. But Amelia had drooped--had pined and died. Fanny +would not do that. She would struggle; she would try to escape; she +would assert herself. She might beat herself to death, in a frenzy of +passion, against the bars of her imprisonment, but she would not droop +and die behind them--of that Ambrosia was sure. + +The tempest increased with the ragged, pale, and bitter dawn, when +Ambrosia, heavy-eyed and with an aching head and trembling limbs, rose +at last and went to the window, and looked out with a shudder of +distaste at the devastated landscape. She saw that several trees had +been blown down in the park, and lay there desolate with their twisted +roots stiffly pointing upwards, while the heavens were one wild tumult +of clouds. + +Her first thought was: “Perhaps, as the weather is so wild, Lucius +will not come to-day.” And her second: “What am I to do about Fanny?” + +There was one obvious duty to perform: to maintain decorum, in which, +all her life, she had been so exactly trained. Everything must be as +usual. To that creed she sternly held. The servants must suspect +nothing--or, rather, one must assume they suspected nothing. Though, +of course, since yesterday they had learned a great deal, if not +everything. + +Oliver’s scene with the groom had been sufficient to apprise them all +of his relations to the Countess Fanny. Still, no lack of propriety +should come from her: she would be seen, as usual, in her place, and +in front of the servants she would treat Oliver as usual. She must +induce Fanny to come downstairs, and not sulk in her room; or else she +must proclaim her definitely ill, and bring Dr. Drayton there. There +would be a certain comfort in that--to have Dr. Drayton. Perhaps she +might ask his sister to come and stay with them; there would be +another personality in the house, and one that would be definitely on +Ambrosia’s side, against both Oliver and Fanny. + +So Ambrosia dressed carefully in her dark morning gown, and precisely +fixed the lace collar and cuffs and fastened the big cameo at her +throat, and draped over her shoulders a cashmere shawl that her +brother had sent from India, and combed back her ringlets into a +tortoiseshell comb, and went downstairs into the dining-room and took +her place behind the heavy breakfast equipage. + +Everything looked exactly as it had looked yesterday, and for so many +more yesterdays before that: the fire burning cheerfully with big, +glittering coals, the silver and the glass and the china on the +mahogany, sparkling in the light of it; only, to-day no letters or +papers--the storm, of course, had been too fierce. Often in the winter +they would go for weeks together without any news of the outer world. + +Ambrosia was relieved when Oliver entered the room, sullen and +heavy-eyed, but with some manner of formal civility over his temper. +He vented his rage on the weather--almost as if he thought Ambrosia +could have helped the tempest--and on the service, which he certainly +_did_ think she could have helped. Everything was wrong. Ambrosia did +not answer; she was so well used to everything being wrong. + +At last he asked abruptly if she had seen Fanny that morning. + +“No,” said Ambrosia. + +“Then you must go up to her.” + +“I have sent up her breakfast,” said Ambrosia; “and last night she +would not see me.” + +“If you will not go up, I shall.” + +“Do not be impossible, Oliver!” + +“Go up and see her, and bring her down,” he answered violently. “How +long do you think I am to endure this sort of play-acting?” + +“It is more a question,” said Ambrosia coldly, “of how long _we_ are +to endure _you_, Oliver! I shall, of course, make immediate +arrangements for Fanny to leave the house.” + +Oliver laughed; and even in Ambrosia’s own ears, her statement had +sounded feeble. There were a great many difficulties--and some of them +were almost insuperable--to be overcome before the Countess Fanny +could depart from Sellar’s Mead. + +To quiet her brother, and in some way her own conscience, she went to +Fanny’s room, and was again denied admittance; nor could she get any +coherent statement from the excitable maid as to the girl’s condition. + +There was nothing to be done. “One can hardly force the door, of +course!” Ambrosia reminded herself bitterly; and even Oliver was at a +loss. He might storm and fume as he would; he was powerless. + +By the middle of the morning, when there still had been no sign from +Fanny, nor any response to Ambrosia’s enquiries at her door save a +string of ejaculations, reproaches, and exclamations from the maid, +Luisa, a sudden suspicion came into Oliver’s dark and stormy mind. He +hastened round to the stables. He had given the most strict orders +that the Countess Fanny must never again be allowed a horse, but it +occurred to him that possibly she had bribed the grooms, or one of +them, at least--perhaps even the man whom he had dismissed yesterday. +He was still perhaps hanging round Sellar’s Mead, and in spite and +vengeance had helped the Countess Fanny to escape. For that was the +word that now formed itself, unconsciously enough, in Oliver Sellar’s +mind. Escape--the girl was surely trying to escape! + +The storm smote him as he left the house, and the strong man was +buffeted back by it, and almost swept off his feet, so mighty and +stupendous was the wind that howled round the blank façade of +Sellar’s Mead. He made a furious exclamation as he noted his trees +blown down. No doubt a power of damage had been done to his estate +during the night; and on any ordinary occasion he would at once have +ridden round the whole of his domain, noting the devastations of the +storm. But, maddening as these misfortunes were, he could not now +consider them. He hastened round to the stables, bending before the +wind. + +The horses were all there, and the groom declared that the Countess +Fanny had not been near them since yesterday, when she had left her +horse on her return from her visit to the lighthouse. + +“Did she tell you,” asked Oliver, “that she had been to the +lighthouse?” + +And one of the men said yes, the lady had mentioned that she had been +to St. Nite’s Head; and a fine sight it was. + +Oliver returned to the house, and on his way he was stopped by one of +the under-gardeners, who told him, with a certain deferential fear, +that the young lady--the foreign lady--had left the house about two +hours ago, on foot. He had seen her and spoken to her. She had hurried +across the garden, through all the wind and wet, and had run--fled, as +you might say--through the park. He had seen her, and been alarmed +lest one of the crashing trees should have fallen on her; for even now +the old oaks were being uprooted by the violence of the wind. + +With a bitter oath Oliver flung back into the house, and threw himself +up the stairs and hammered on the door of the Countess Fanny’s room. +And when the terrified maid opened it and saw his face, she confessed, +in an access of terror, that her mistress _had_ left the house some +hours ago, on foot and alone. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + +Mrs. Trefusis, the housekeeper at Lefton Park, looked with dismay +and hostility at the figure standing in the portico, blown upon and +ruffled by the continuous stormy wind. It was a second before she knew +this guest to be the foreign young lady from Sellar’s Mead, whom she +had from the first disliked and mistrusted: the young lady whom they +called the “Countess Fanny”--but was no such thing in the eyes of Mrs. +Trefusis, but a nameless foreigner who deserved little consideration. + +The girl’s shawl and bonnet were wet, and her long skirt draggled at +the hem from traversing the wet grass of the park and the muddy roads +of the country-side. + +Mrs. Trefusis marked, with increasing disapproval, her ungloved and +ringless hand, and soaked shoes, which were of the finest kid. + +“I want to see Mr. Lucius Foxe,” said the girl, as if wholly +unconscious of anything peculiar in either her looks or the manner of +her visit. + +“You mean Lord Vanden, ma’am,” replied the housekeeper severely. + +“Oh, yes--that is his title, is it not? I did not quite know how you +called people here. Can I see him, please--and immediately?” + +“I do not think so, ma’am,” replied Mrs. Trefusis grimly. “His +lordship is not, I believe, in the house.” + +“Then I will wait for him,” replied the Countess Fanny, still without +the least trace of self-consciousness. “Perhaps I could see the Earl?” + +“Indeed, ma’am, that you cannot; the Earl is not at all so well this +morning; he had one of his heart seizures last night, and there are +two doctors there. Lord Vanden has been very occupied with that. It +was difficult, in the storm yesterday, to get someone over from Truro, +his young lordship being on the lighthouse, and all that. Indeed, +ma’am, you cannot see either the Earl or Lord Vanden this morning.” + +“But I can come in?” asked the Countess Fanny haughtily. “I cannot +wait here in the wind and the rain. I have walked over two miles from +Sellar’s Mead, and I am most exhausted; I have had no breakfast, +either. Pray let me pass, and get me some refreshment!” + +Mrs. Trefusis was too well trained to be able to resist a tone of +authority on the part of a superior. She moved aside, but with an ill +grace, and allowed the Countess Fanny to enter the wide hall. + +“Where is there a fire?” the girl asked. + +“In the withdrawing-room, I suppose, ma’am,” said Mrs. Trefusis, +vexed. “I perceive that you are very wet and blown, and it is indeed +wild weather for a young lady to be abroad.” + +“There are times,” said the Countess Fanny, “when the weather, however +wild, is of no moment at all. Is this the door?” And she opened that +at her right, which led into a large room, where, however, no fire was +burning. + +“The room beyond,” said Mrs. Trefusis, stiffly and crossly, and +without offering to conduct this, to her, most unwelcome guest. + +The Countess Fanny took no further heed of her, but crossed the long +room which, with the green panels, indigo tapestry, and a few black, +sombre pictures, was gloomy enough on this dark morning. But in the +room beyond was a fire. It was a smaller chamber, and one more +frequently used by the inhabitants of Lefton Park; and there, at this +moment, was Lucius, discontentedly turning over a pile of papers and +letters at a little desk which stood in front of the one small, +uncurtained window. + +The Countess Fanny gave a joyful exclamation, and stepped forward +lightly, holding out her hand as if unconscious of any possibility of +rebuke or rebuff. + +“Well, Lucius!” she exclaimed. “So that cross old woman did not tell +the truth after all! You _are_ here! I thought you would be. It is a +very stormy morning for anyone to go abroad. Why,” she added +hurriedly, on a panting breath, “I saw the trees fall even as I came +through the park at Sellar’s Mead; and the wind is terrible--I could +hardly keep my feet sometimes, and had to crouch against the hedges +till the gusts went by. I think my shawl is torn,” she laughed, “and +my bonnet is battered--see!” She snatched it off, and her black +ringlets fell in a cloud on to her shoulders. She dashed the bonnet on +to a chair and took his reluctant hand in hers; for he was standing +and staring at her with dismay, not untouched with horror. + +“What has happened, Fanny?” he stammered. “What has happened?” + +She laughed again, and approached the fire, holding out her stiff, +cold fingers to the genial heat. + +“Look at my shoes--they are soaked, and even split! What shall I do, +Lucius? I have never walked so far before, and I thought these shoes +were so stout; and see, they have been no use at all. And yet I had to +put them on because they are so pretty! One cannot help choosing a +pretty thing if one has it--can one?” + +“Yes, you are wet!” he cried. “And will be ill, I must send for Mrs. +Trefusis, or one of the maids.” + +“No, don’t do that,” she smiled, “for Mrs. Trefusis was very cross +with me. She did not want to let me in--said that you were abroad, and +that the Earl was ill.” + +“It is quite true that my father is ill,” replied Lucius uneasily. +“When I arrived yesterday I found that they had sent for another +doctor, besides Dr. Drayton; but that is of no matter now--you must +change your shoes, and have some hot milk or cordial.” + +“I should like something,” said the Countess Fanny; “I have had no +breakfast this morning.” + +“No breakfast! What do you mean?” + +“I mean that I cannot eat anything more in Oliver Sellar’s house,” she +replied. + +He rang the bell. + +“Oh, Fanny--what has happened? What sort of a tangle are we involved +in?” + +“I don’t know,” she replied. “I can scarcely tell if it is a tangle or +not. You see, I told Oliver some days ago that I could not marry him. +I told him that I had been wrong--light, a flirt and a rattle, as he +calls me; but I was quite honest, really. From the moment that I knew +I couldn’t do it, I said so. And he would not accept that; he said +that I must stay there, and marry him in the spring; and last night he +was very angry because I had been to the lighthouse.” + +“I knew he would be!” cried Lucius. “You should have let me come with +you!” + +“Then it would have been worse,” she said candidly. “He was so angry +that his man, Jefferies, met me in the drive and told me to go in the +back way; but of course,” she added simply, “I could not do that. I +went in and faced him--and he was terrible!” + +“What did he do?” breathed Lucius. + +“First there was Amy. Amy blamed me. Amy said I provoked him and +destroyed everyone’s peace; but he provoked me first, by refusing to +let me go out, by refusing to accept my decision that I could not and +would not marry him. But Amy was hard and unkind. She shut the door in +my face, and left me there in the hall; and then Oliver came in, and +asked me into his room, and of course I went.” + +“But Oliver--Oliver--surely he----” stammered Lucius. + +“He behaved very badly,” said the Countess Fanny calmly. “He lost his +temper and his manners. I think he is rather a dreadful man. He ended +by taking me by the shoulders and shaking me. I don’t want to talk +about that--but I have never been treated in that manner before, and, +of course, I shall not return to the house.” + +Lucius did not trust himself to speak. Mrs. Trefusis had come, in +answer to the ring, and he was glad of her appearance, for it gave him +a few moments’ respite. + +He asked, hurriedly and nervously, for refreshment for the Countess +Fanny, and for shoes and stockings--surely the maids had something? +Could she not be taken up to one of the bedrooms? + +But here the Countess Fanny interrupted. + +“I will remain here, if you please. Pray do not look so disagreeable +and angry with me, Mrs. Trefusis, but just bring me these things that +Lord Vanden--is it not?--has asked for, and I shall be greatly obliged +to you.” + +The housekeeper left the room in silence. + +“How unkind everyone seems here!” remarked the Countess Fanny coolly. +“All the women, I mean--so harsh and severe!” + +“She thinks it odd that you are here,” murmured Lucius. “Of course, it +_is_ strange: you should have thought a little, Fanny. I cannot save +you from yourself, it seems.” + +“You too are dry and cold to-day!” cried the girl with vivacity. “I +should have thought you would have been glad to see me--distressed, +but glad! Are you not glad to see me sitting here?” + +Glad! He had always thought of her as a branch of flowers, as a +bouquet of brilliant red roses; and in this old house, which so long +had been dull and monotonous to him, she was indeed like colour and +radiance and melody; all life, every second, seemed to move to a +different music when he was in the presence of the Countess Fanny, so +lovely and so self-assured, so intent upon her own brilliant business +of being beautiful, so radiating life--life at its fullest and most +wonderful, blown in from the storm, from the greyness and the dark, +like a brilliant butterfly, or a gorgeous bird, helpless but gallant. +But he must keep his head--he must think of the best for her and for +Amy. He had to drag Amy into his thoughts; that was a plain duty--and +he had been always trained to put his duty first. + +“Fanny,” he said hoarsely, “we will think of something to do; you +shall not be forced to do anything that you do not wish to do. Believe +that. Confide in us, my father and me--we will think of something. You +shall go back to Italy, or to your friends in London or Paris.” + +“But I,” she replied, “wish to stay here.” + +“Stay here, in Lefton Park?” + +“Yes,” she said. “I like your father; he likes me: and you----” + +Lucius looked away. + +“I like you too, Fanny; but you cannot stay here!” + +“How odd and cold you are!” she said wonderingly. “Are you afraid?” + +“Yes,” replied Lucius gravely, “I am afraid!” + +“Of what?” she challenged. + +“Of what may happen to you,” he answered; “and there’s Amy also.” + +Mrs. Trefusis did not return; in her stead she sent a maid, who was +far more respectful, and even sympathetic. She had brought Fanny her +shoes--her own very best, she said, but hardly good enough for the +young lady. + +“These are very pretty,” said the Countess Fanny, gracious at once in +response to this courtesy. “And I will buy you another pair--blue kid, +if you will, with silver ties; that will be pleasant, will it not? And +I see you have brought me some milk and cakes; I shall be very glad of +those. You are a kind, sweet girl, and I am greatly obliged to you.” + +The girl blushed violently, and gave the brilliant foreigner a look of +worship. + +“Now,” said the Countess Fanny to Lucius, “you may look out of the +window, if you please, and I will change my shoes; otherwise I fear I +may get a chill, and perhaps a sore throat, and that would be very +disagreeable.” + +Lucius moved obediently to the window, and stared out at the greyness +of the sky and the park, where he seemed to see the wind, like a +visible thing, rushing over the tops of the trees and bowing them +beneath its progress. + +The maid changed the young lady’s soaking shoes and stockings, and put +on those of her own; and again the Countess Fanny thanked her, with +her graceful, self-confident manner. And then they were alone again, +and she said to Lucius: + +“Come back to the fire now. See, they have brought me some breakfast, +and I feel revived already.” + +In that moment or two when he had stood by the window, he had +endeavoured to formulate some plan of conduct. This was a difficult +and unexpected situation, and he was totally unprepared to meet it; +but there must be some way out. He had always been taught that--that, +whatever the situation, there was some strong and honourable way out. +But here he could not, for the moment, find it. He was too young and +inexperienced, and his emotions too disturbed. In those brief moments +he had been conscious of nothing but the greyness without and the rush +of the embattled wind, and the sweep backwards of the bare trees under +its onslaught. + +No, he had not been able to think of anything honourable and sensible +and just. Bitterly he regretted the illness of his father. It was +impossible for him now to disturb the old man. Agitation or a shock +might be fatal to him. He could not, in common humanity, plague his +father with this affair; he must settle it alone and by himself. He +had no friends here; nor was it, in the face of this intense tempest, +easy to communicate with anyone. + +The Countess Fanny drank her milk and nibbled her biscuits with as +serene an air as if she had been mistress in her own house. + +“I feel safe and happy and free here,” she declared. “It has been +dreadful at Sellar’s Mead, shut in my room, and with that horrible +face of Oliver’s always so dark and scowling, so staring and greedy; +and Amy pinched and grim. Horrible, I say!” + +“Oh, but Amy is your friend,” he protested. “Amy would help you! Amy, +I am sure, you misunderstand.” + +She looked at him directly, and said: + +“Don’t pretend to me, Lucius--you don’t love Amy, you know; and I +don’t think Amy loves you! That was also a mistake, was it not?” + +Lucius could not answer. + +The Countess Fanny rose. She seemed to be suddenly impressed by the +reluctance of Lucius, by his hesitation and half-heartedness, and she +said, almost haughtily: + +“Why are you so dull and slow?” + +The young man answered that challenge with almost equal haughtiness: + +“Because of what I may not say; but because of what you, I think, can +very well guess!” + +“You love me, don’t you?” asked the girl, in the same proud tone. +“Several men have loved me, and out of them all I choose you. I have +come to you now.” + +“Oh, Fanny!” he groaned. + +“Why should it distress you so? I am well-born and well-dowered; I +shall make you quite a good wife. I am not such a fool as Oliver says; +not now, since I have met you. For I love you, Lucius, and you must +have known it from the moment you first saw me.” + +“I didn’t wish to know it,” replied the young man desperately. “I +don’t wish to know it now. We must not talk like this, Fanny. I dare +say you only do it to try me; I must think of it like that!” + +“You don’t believe what I say?” she asked, wide-eyed. + +“No, Fanny, of course not!” replied the unfortunate young man, hardly +knowing what he said. “I think you play with me, make a game of me, +and it is all impossible and dreadful! I must think of Amy.” + +“You must think of Amy before me?” she demanded. “What is Amy to you?” + +“She is the woman I have promised to marry,” he replied. “One can’t +forget that so easily.” + +“But Amy will set you free when she knows,” said Fanny, with surprise +at his protest. “Amy can find someone else, she is much older than +you, and, as I say, you don’t love her! Why, it is impossible that you +should love her! But you do love me, I can’t be mistaken in that!” + +“Fanny,” broke in the young man desperately, “you must not talk so, +and I must not listen! We are involved in a lunacy! You shall not +marry Oliver--I will see to that, but I can’t break my bond to Amy, +that is out of the question. You must not stay here, I should be doing +you a wrong to allow it. You must leave, and at once, Fanny,” he added +sternly. “You don’t understand this country, you don’t know what you +are doing.” + +She went pale under his stare. + +“I would not have believed you would have spoken to me so!” she cried. +“It seems impossible, when I have come to you like this. What do you +think I am going to do, then? Are you sending me away?” + +“Yes,” he returned, “I am sending you away, Fanny!” + +“Where do you think I am going?” + +“You must, of course, return to Sellar’s Mead. Amy is there; that is +enough!” + +“Oh,” said the girl; “oh!” And she turned away to the fire. No further +word or sound than that. + +Lucius continued speaking, rapidly, thickly; he felt that he had done +a difficult, almost an heroic thing, and that encouraged him. He was +denying his own heart and passions as he had denied hers; he strove +now to justify himself--spoke of honour, and plighted words, of +conventions and obligations, of scandals to be avoided, of gossip to +be quenched. He told the girl that she must return to Sellar’s Mead, +and leave the house decorously with the full countenance and +protection of relatives and friends; said that she could trust in Amy, +and even, to an extent, in Oliver. + +“Oliver is a gentleman,” he answered, trying to impress this fact upon +himself as much as upon her. “You are, after all, safe with Oliver, +even if he does lose his temper.” + +The Countess Fanny stood with her back to him during this agitated and +broken speech, with her hands upon the mantelshelf, staring into the +fire. At length she turned round, and said swiftly: + +“There is no need for you to make any more of this pragmatical +discourse, I understand your meaning very well. I have come to you and +you have turned me away.” + +“Oh, not that, Fanny, not that!” he cried in despair. “I am trying to +do my best for you.” + +“You are trying to thwart our destiny, it seems to me,” she said with +a bitter smile. “I do not understand you, you are quite right when you +say that I do not understand this country.” + +“Love is not all the business of life,” said the unfortunate young man +gloomily. + +“It is all _my_ business,” said the Countess Fanny. Then she added +coldly: “So you say I am to return to Sellar’s Mead?” + +“I can see nothing else,” said Lucius; “at least for a few days--till +something can be arranged. It is impossible for you to remain here.” + +She looked at him strangely, intently, with her fingers laid lightly +on her bosom, and her eyes sparkling with a deep passion. + +“Very well,” she said at length; “I will return to Sellar’s Mead. Do +you go and get the carriage, and take me back with all propriety. Amy +is expecting a visit from you to-day, and that will do very well, will +it not?” + +The distracted young man replied faintly that he did not think it +would do very well, but it was the best they could do, and he would +immediately order the carriage. + +“It can somehow be glossed over, no doubt,” he said; and she, smiling, +said: + +“How much you think of those things--glossing over!” + +“It is for your sake,” he replied hoarsely. “I have to think of you, +for myself, of course, it does not matter.” + +“Order the carriage,” said the Countess Fanny in an expressionless +tone. + +She moved from the room, and he behind her, they stood side by side in +the other long, green chamber, so dark with tapestries and pictures, +and that cloudy light of the stormy day without the tall windows. + +The Countess Fanny had picked up her bonnet, and now put it on and +tied it under her chin. + +“Go at once,” she insisted in a still tone. “I will wait for you in +the corridor without.” + +He was hesitant, baffled, reluctant; he scarcely knew what to do. +There happened to be no servants in the hall, and he left her there +while he went in search of one, and to find his own coat and hat, +thinking also, in a confused manner, of a warm wrap for her. Her shawl +was still damp, and he had noticed how storm-beaten was her bonnet, +with the pretty wreaths of red flowers hanging limply on the silken +straw. What to do for her? Oh, heavens! How to look after her? The +problem was too acute. + +When he returned to the hall, ten minutes or so later, Mrs. Trefusis +was there, but not the Countess Fanny. He immediately and peremptorily +asked after the girl. + +“She has gone, my lord,” replied the housekeeper, with an air of +hostility and surprise. “As soon as you left the hall, I entered it. I +saw you, sir, departing, she at once left the house. I watched her +across the park, but she is now out of sight.” + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + +It was another quarter of an hour before Lucius could get his horse +out, mount, and ride across the park; and in that ride there was no +sign of the Countess Fanny. Not the distant flutter of a pale shawl +amid the bare trunks nor even a footprint on the soft ground: nothing +that his anxious and frantic gaze could discern; and, when he had left +the park, ridden out of the high gates which she must have passed +through a short time before, there were several roads in front of +him--one straight ahead, across the pasture-land belonging to his +father; one either side, running to the rocks and cliffs (for here the +point of land was only a few miles wide, and either side reached the +sea). + +A wild fear knocked at the distracted heart of Lucius Foxe. He could +not decide which way to take. Surely she had returned to Sellar’s +Mead, and that would be straight ahead! And yet the road was level +across the uplands, and he could discern, sharp as his young eyes +were, no trace of a figure in the grey distance. How swiftly she must +have gone, with the haste of passion, of despair, perhaps of fear! He +groaned, and clenched his teeth. If she had intended to return to +Sellar’s Mead, why had she not waited for him and the carriage? The +day was still terrible; at intervals the rain splashed down from the +low, tumultuous clouds, and the wind hardly ceased. + +Lucius stayed his restless, nervous horse, and stared about him, in +the grip of this terrible indecision. Which way had she gone--which +way? Or was she, even still, behind him? Lagging, perhaps, in the +park! She might have done that--turned aside; and yet it would be +difficult for her to hide behind those bare trees. There was the +summer-house--did she know of that? He did not think so; and yet he +hesitated, wondering if he should turn back and see if she was hiding +in the summer-house. Yet that thought was dreadful, too--she, so +bright, so self-confident, so lovely, hiding amid the storm. + +She had come to him, and he had sent her away. How cruel and heartless +he must have appeared, with his narrow ideas of right and duty, with +his sense of the conventions and his horror of scandal. She so bold +and passionate! And he had rejected her. + +What, after all, _was_ Amy? Less than dust in the scale against _her_! + +He took the straight road at length, urging his horse to a gallop +across the grey landscape. Of course he must overtake her; it would +not be possible for her to evade him, on foot and, by now, weary--ah, +poor child, weary. + +He thought, with the bitterest remorse, of those soaked shoes, of that +neglected breakfast--for she had scarcely touched the milk she had +been so glad to see; of the poor, pretty wet bonnet, of the shawl that +had been slashed in struggling with the wind; and she, so delicate and +fine, so luxurious and fragile, exposed to this horror of cold and wet +and sleet, and this bleak and formidable country. + +He came within sight of Sellar’s Mead, and still he had not seen her. +If she had taken this road, he must, by now, have overtaken her. He +paused, again in the clutches of a dreadful indecision. Should he go +up to Sellar’s Mead and alarm them? That, surely, would be the right +and natural thing to do. Oliver should help in this pursuit; it was +Oliver’s business more than his, after all. And then he caught back +that reflection. Had she not repudiated Oliver? he demanded of himself +fiercely. No; Oliver had no right--no more right than he. Whatever +happened--even if Amy took her brother’s part--Oliver should not be +allowed to annoy her; nay, scarcely to approach her again. + +He did not want to go to Sellar’s Mead now; did not want to face Amy. +That was selfish and unkind in him, he knew; Amy must be terribly +distressed--she must have found out by now about the flight of the +Countess Fanny. It was his duty to go and comfort Amy; yet he could +not do it. Could not do anything but continue this wild search for the +girl through the storm. + +He did not think, in his nervous remorse and terror, that she could +long survive the inclemency of the day, and her own emotions working +upon her from within. She would be faint, she would be exhausted. She +might have to drag herself behind one of these barren hedges, into one +of these water-logged ditches, to die. + +He turned his horse, and was riding back to his own gate to take one +of the other roads when he heard hoofs behind him, and, looking +backwards over his shoulder, saw another horseman: Oliver Sellar, of +course. Lucius waited. + +Oliver Sellar had perceived him, and galloped up alongside and drew +rein, and stared at him after the driest salute--stared at him with +the bitterest antagonism. + +“Why are you here?” he demanded, with scarcely a pretence at courtesy. + +“I am looking for the Countess Fanny,” replied Lucius. + +“I also search for her,” said Oliver; and the two men stared at each +other in the lurid light of the bleak, grey heavens. + +Oliver Sellar was more than pale. He seemed to Lucius to be the colour +of ashes: a dead greyness in the complexion as in the hair that showed +beneath his low-crowned beaver. Massive and grim, he sat his powerful +horse, and gave out an atmosphere of vast fury before which the +younger man instinctively recoiled. It seemed to him that he had never +known Oliver Sellar till this moment, and he wondered how he had ever +tolerated him. He had not liked him, of course: he did not know of +anyone who ever _had_ liked Oliver Sellar; but he had tolerated him, +and from this moment he would tolerate him no more.… + +“What did you do to her?” he cried hoarsely. + +“What have you done with her?” replied Oliver grimly. + +And Lucius closed his eyes and gave a gasping sigh, trying to command +himself. If he were not careful he would say too much--he would betray +her and himself. The Countess Fanny must be saved--not only from this +man, but from the least flick of the tongue of scandal. + +“She came just now,” he said in laboured tones. “The Countess Fanny +came to Lefton Park.” + +“I knew that,” interrupted Oliver fiercely. + +“She came to see my father,” continued Lucius, staring now, not at the +other man, but over his horse’s head; “and it was not possible for her +to see him: he is ill--seriously ill, I am afraid; and I--when I +found--when _she_ found, I mean--that my father was ill, she was +coming back with me, of course. I ordered the carriage, and left her +for a moment or so in the hall. When I came back, she’d gone!” + +“That’s all a lie!” + +Lucius scarcely appeared to notice this, the strongest insult that +anyone had ever given him. He replied, in the same difficult tone: + +“No, it’s the truth. I’m looking for her now. Don’t quarrel with me, +but help, you go one way, and I’ll go the other. This is a dreadful +day for her to be abroad.” + +But Oliver did not stir. + +“Why did she come to you?” he asked thickly. “This is the third time!” + +“No,” said Lucius; “no, you don’t know what you’re talking about, you +mustn’t say or think such things! She has not come to me three times.” + +“Once you were with her in the church,” stormed Oliver; “once she went +to the lighthouse to meet you, and this morning, when I had taken the +precaution to lock up all the horses, she must go on foot to find you, +eh?” + +“Ah, you did that!” cried Lucius. “Locked up the horses, did you? +That’s why she had to fly on foot. Don’t you understand that your +cruelty has driven her to this? She is frightened of you, Oliver!” + +“I would she had been a little more frightened!” the big man replied. +“Frightened enough to keep her place, the hussy! Are you going to let +her entangle you, you young fool? Don’t you see that she’s an artful +minx--one of those foreign pieces, brought up by that Frenchwoman? She +can’t see a man but she must try to make him lose his head; aye, and +succeed, too, nine times out of ten!” + +“She only asked to be allowed to go,” said Lucius. “I can understand +what you feel about it. She said herself,” he added, with a deep +compassion for the ravaged face of the other man--he might loathe +Oliver, but he could feel sorry for him--“she said herself that she +had not behaved well, but she has had that kind of upbringing, as you +say. You must let her go now, Oliver. Listen, I am trying to speak +moderately and quietly, I don’t want us to quarrel, for Amy’s sake.” + +“Amy!” said Oliver, violent and sneering together. “Better leave Amy’s +name out of it, I should think!” + +“Why?” asked Lucius, very pale. “Best bring her name in, I think. She +is the only one who can do anything for Fanny, she must look after +Fanny till we can find somewhere to send her. You must let her go from +Sellar’s Mead, Oliver. It is impossible for her to stay there--you +must see that for yourself. It really was always impossible, but you +insisted. She knew nothing.” + +“She knows more than you think,” cried Oliver bitterly. “She is not +the innocent she seems to be--a flirt, I say, experienced with two +seasons at Rome. Girls marry at fourteen in Italy. She’s accomplished +enough!” + +“For God’s sake,” said Lucius, with a cry of almost insupportable +pain, “let us leave this ranting, and try to find her. I suppose you +have some tenderness left, however you are disgusted with her.” + +“Tenderness!” Oliver flung the words back at him as if he would fling +back an insult. “Tenderness is not my feeling for the girl, she’s +mine, and I mean to have her,” he added coarsely. “I’m going to marry +her in the spring, whatever she, or you, or any of you say.” + +“But you’re not,” answered Lucius coldly. “Put that out of your head, +Oliver, not only are you not going to marry her, but she is to leave +Sellar’s Mead immediately.” + +Oliver leaned forward from his saddle, thrusting his face close to the +shrinking face of Lucius. + +“Did she come over to Lefton Park whining to you?” he demanded. “Did +she come telling you tales about me?” + +“No tales,” replied Lucius, with trembling lips. + +“Did she say she had taken an aversion to me, eh?” + +“No, not even that, she said that you had not behaved well last +night.” + +“Ah, she told you about last night, did she? I might have known--the +foreign jade, the sneaking piece! Go to you with tales of me! I’ll +break her, body and spirit, yet!” + +“Don’t talk like that!” cried Lucius wildly, “for even as you speak +she may be broken, body and spirit, by another power than yours.” + +Oliver Sellar seemed to blench at that. He, too, looked round the +wild, desolate, grey-coloured landscape, those bleak, rotting hollows, +those iron-coloured distant hills and rocks. + +“Where are we to search for her?” he muttered. “Where? Perhaps by now +she’s crept back to Sellar’s Mead. I’ll go and see.” + +“I don’t think so,” said Lucius. “I don’t think she would return +there. I was such a fool as to have been taken in by her; she became +meek, all in a moment; said she would come with me--therefore I left +her. I can see now that she thought I was betraying her in taking her +back, and therefore she has fled.” + +A poignant cry broke from Oliver Sellar. + +“My God! What are we going to do? Where are we going to search?” + +“Everywhere!” replied Lucius. “She can’t have gone far on foot!” + +Then the two men stared at each other, forgetting their enmity. + +“But there’s the sea!” said Oliver. + +“Yes, the sea!” muttered Lucius. “But why do you speak of that? She +wouldn’t go to the sea!” + +“She’s so wild,” said Oliver. “When she’s in a passion--of course, you +don’t know. I’ve seen, in Italy.” + +“We must sound the alarms,” said Lucius. “We must send everyone out, +searching. We haven’t so many more hours of daylight. The storm grows +worse.” + +“There’s the scandal,” said Oliver bitterly. + +“We’ve got past caring about the scandal, it seems to me,” returned +Lucius. “We may say she has gone for a walk, in her queer foreign +fashion, and maybe has lost her way. That’s natural enough--it will +have to serve, at least, he added impatiently.” + +The two men separated on that. Oliver dashed back to Sellar’s Mead--no +trace of the girl there. Lucius returned to Lefton Park--no trace of +her there. No glimpse of her, no message. Both the men scoured the +country in different directions during the next couple of hours, and +neither found the Countess Fanny. + +By then their apprehensions were so acute that there was no longer any +talk of concealment. Both the servants from Sellar’s Mead and those +from Lefton Park were sent out in search of the foreign lady who had +so strangely disappeared. + +With the darkening down of the day the storm increased in violence; +the sound of the frantic billows hammering on the precipitous rocks of +the coast was borne far inland; even in the sheltered ravine where the +village was placed, slates were torn off the roofs and chimneys flung +down, while the huge elms and oaks in the park were here and there +still uprooted and cast groaning on the ground. + +By the time the dusk fell, the whole population of St. Nite’s--that +is, all the men and boys--were abroad with lanterns, searching for the +Countess Fanny; and the old vicar had gone into the church and put up +prayers for the safety of the girl. It was no night for anyone to be +abroad, let alone for one like the Countess Fanny to be abroad. +Fisher-folk searched the coast--the rocks and caves. She might, they +said, have wandered there, or fallen, and be lying with a wrenched +ankle at the bottom of some cliff; might have tried to walk along the +shore, and been cut off by the tide; might have struck inland, and +been lost in the utter loneliness of the fields and hills. + +Lucius had not been yet to see Amy. Amy could understand that. She +tried to be reasonable and just. Of course he would need to search for +the Countess Fanny: that was understood. Of course, in a moment so +terrible, he would have no time for her: that also was understood. Yet +there were little creeping flames of doubt and jealousy, of disgust +and disappointment in her mind. Why had the girl flown to Lefton Park? +Why must Lucius be so utterly and entirely absorbed in the search for +her? If she, Amy, had come first in his heart, surely he would have +found time to come and see her? Oliver also--it was not pleasant to +see him so rapt in this obsession; he could think or talk of nothing +but the Countess Fanny. + +Twice he had returned, and snatched a little food, but not for that +reason--only to ask if, by any chance, the Countess Fanny had +returned; and, when Amy had said no, he had given her a black look, as +if the fault were hers, and, dark and formidable, ridden off again. +That day he had tired out three horses. + +It had not taken them long to ascertain that the girl could not have +left the village. No horse had been hired, nor had the one public +coach, which was kept at the inn, left the place; no one had left the +village the whole of that short winter day. + +The ferry was impassable; the small steamer not running; and it was +impossible to reach the little town of St. Lade without using the +ferry, just as it was impossible to reach the railway at Truro without +going to St. Lade. + +Wherever the girl was, she must have reached there on foot, and how +far could she get on foot, exhausted as she was already, in such +weather as this, wandering over an unknown country? + +Oliver Sellar had ridden down to the lighthouse. The few cottages +there were searched in vain. None of them had seen or heard anything +of the Countess Fanny, though they very vividly remembered the visit +of the girl the day before. + +On his way back from the lighthouse, Oliver stopped at the one +desolate, miserable farm which lay in that bleak and uncultivated +district. These were wild people, with an evil reputation, who lived +there--people who were the descendants of smugglers and wreckers, and +were themselves suspected of being capable of both these practices. +Oliver detested them, and had again and again endeavoured to get them +removed; but, by some odd chance, their little bit of land was +freehold, and they remained there in defiance of the lord of Sellar’s +Mead. + +When he enquired now about the Countess Fanny, they stared at him with +stupid malice, and said they had never seen such a lady; but one of +the younger women struck in and said yes, yesterday _she_ had seen +such a lady, who had come in and been pleasant to the child, and given +it a jewel; and she showed a little turquoise, set with pearls, that +the Countess Fanny had yesterday hung round her baby’s neck. But +to-day, she said, she had seen no one, nor was it very likely that +anyone should come to their wretched and desolate habitation. + +Oliver knew this was true; he had only asked in despair. He turned +away now sullenly, with an evil and a formidable look for the +inhabitants of Pen Hall Farm. + +When he reached home again he was, for all his strength, exhausted, +and had to throw himself into the chair by the fire, drinking brandy +heavily in the hope of keeping up his powers so that he might again +pursue the search, even through the night. + +“This is madness, Oliver!” Amy said sharply. “Leave it now to other +people; they are doing all that can be done--they know the coast, at +least, better than you, and I am sure the girl is safe somewhere,” she +added bitterly. “What is likely to have befallen her?” + +“Hold your tongue!” said Oliver savagely. “You would be only too glad +if she never was seen again, I dare say. But it is different with me. +I won’t be treated like this--I won’t be cheated, I tell you!” + +“But if she has run away from you,” Amy reminded him, “you cannot drag +her back by force.” + +“Oh, can’t I?” asked Oliver violently. “You don’t know what you’re +talking about. Hold your tongue, woman--hold your tongue!” + +Julia, the maid, came into the lamp-lit parlour with a frightened air. +A fisherman was without, she said. He had brought something to show +Mr. Sellar. + +“Oh, heavens!” cried Amy. “Not something dreadful!” + +“I don’t know, miss,” said Julia, white-lipped, “that you’d call it +something dreadful; it’s just a bonnet and a shawl.” + +Oliver had staggered to his feet, and come round the dark, gleaming +expanse of the mahogany table. + +“Show it to me,” he said hoarsely. “Show it to me.” + +But there was the fisherman in the doorway, standing wet, halting, and +awkward; and in his big rough hands was a pale cashmere shawl, and a +little bonnet of fine Tuscan straw, with flat wreaths of red flowers +on it, all wet and bent and tattered. + +“I found them on the rocks, sir,” he said awkwardly; “down there by +Pen Coed Cove.” + +Then Oliver Sellar did a dreadful thing. He snatched the bonnet and +shawl, and tore them across, with his big trembling hands, and +screamed: + +“Damn you! Damn you all!” and dropped, in a convulsive fit, across the +table. + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + +The storm had darkened down earth, ocean, and sky to one lurid yet +colourless gloom; the wind was incessant, a north-easterly gale, +continuous day and night, rattling and pounding against the cliffs, +ravaging the land. The few scattered inhabitants of St. Nite’s village +and St. Nite’s Point kept to their houses, and shuttered them well at +night, for the cold was formidable, and bit to the bone; to walk +abroad was like struggling through freezing water, and this quality of +cold seemed to have a quality of blackness also, and to be a visible +entity, as the wind also seemed a visible entity. + +Ambrosia, shivering at the windows of Sellar’s Mead, thought that she +could see them--cold and wind--abroad like two giant ogres, blowing, +from the smitten heavens, chilly disaster upon the shuddering earth. + +With a courage at once cold and nervous, she kept up the routine of +her large, silent house. They were well supplied against storms, well +used to long and dreadful winters, by no means dependent upon the +ferry for any communication with the world. She could keep her precise +household running without worrying about the hope of the comings and +goings of wagon and ferry. No detail of her exact management was +interfered with; day by day she occupied herself with that. Everything +was smooth and elegant. The table was loaded at the appointed time +with glass and silver and lace and finely-cooked food, and abundance +of luxurious provisions. The rooms were warm and lit, and finely kept, +the servants moving about noiselessly, each in his appointed place, +doing his appointed duty. + +And she was upstairs and downstairs with her keys and her books and +her lists, giving out the store, sorting the linen, visiting the +still-room, testing the preserves, superintending the cooking, sending +out blankets and firewood and food for this or that sick or bedridden +person; and always conscious of the wind, beating not only round her +house but round her heart, she thought. + +There had never been any more news of the Countess Fanny since the day +when the fisherman came into the parlour at Sellar’s Mead, with her +bonnet and shawl in his hand; and it was now into the third week from +her disappearance. + +Everyone agreed, in shocked and scandalised whispers, that the foreign +young lady was dead now; there could be no other solution of this +mystery. Was it not enough that her garments had been found on the wet +and slippery rocks? There was nowhere on this wild promontory where +she could have been so long hidden; there was nowhere on this wild +promontory where she could have escaped. It was known, beyond all +possibility of error, that she had not left St. Nite’s either on foot +or in any manner of conveyance. She had disappeared as completely as +some bright, gay land-bird, blown out seawards by the storm and +drowned in the first surge of the advancing billows. + +On the ninth day, the fisher-folk had ventured out, for all the rage +of the tempest, to watch for her body being cast up; for they held +strongly to that superstition that on the ninth day all dead are +returned from the sea. But the body of the Countess Fanny had not come +back. + +An accident, said the few gentlefolk--the vicar and the doctor and +their womenkind. An accident, said Ambrosia and the old Earl--what +else could it be but an appalling accident? The wilful and impetuous +girl had gone out alone on that wild morning, and she had walked along +the rocks. From the first, they all remarked, these had seemed to have +a fascination for her: witness her interest in the lighthouse, placed +on the most stormy of these precipitous crags. + +She had proceeded along the rocks, enjoying, no doubt, the spray on +her face and the wind in her ears, and the light of the tossing clouds +above her, and the flash and glitter of the shrieking sea-birds; and +then she had slipped, and before she had recovered herself, been +washed away and dashed to death against the grey stone, and carried +out to the sea, and lost for ever.… They decided that she must have +died instantly--without a single moment of terror, they hoped. So they +pronounced upon the end of the Countess Fanny. Only old Miss Drayton, +the doctor’s sister, asked timidly: + +“Why did the poor thing take off her bonnet and shawl?” And there had +been a little pause when she asked this, and no one had looked at the +other. + +But Ambrosia had spoken, with a hard nervousness. “She was very fond +of doing that--taking off her bonnet and swinging it by the strings, +and letting the air blow through her hair. She was very wild, you +know.” + +“She seemed to me very elegant and accomplished,” remarked Mr. Spragge +mildly. + +“Oh yes, she was that!” said Amy with a heightened colour. “But wild, +too, you know--and she liked the storm. And she took off her shawl, I +suppose, for the same reason. It cumbered her--it must have been wet +and heavy.” + +The vicar’s wife remarked quietly that it was a very cold day for +anyone to take off a shawl and bonnet, however wet. + +“Without that amount of protection she must in a moment have been wet +to the skin, chilled to the marrow, hardly able to move.” + +“Well,” answered Ambrosia, with pale defiance, “there is no other +explanation; she must herself have taken off the bonnet and the +shawl.” + +“Oh, yes,” murmured the vicar, as one who blenched before a dreadful +thought; and a dreadful thought there was abroad amid that quiet +company, talking, as it were, from one to another: the thought that +the Countess Fanny had committed suicide, had deliberately cast +herself into the ocean--had run down to the shore with that intention. +Otherwise this absence was incomprehensible. She was not a fool; they +all knew she was not a fool! Why should she have climbed down with +difficulty and pain? For she must have had both difficulty and pain to +scramble down the face of that cliff, merely to wander around wet +rocks over which the foam was surging. It seemed an unlikely thing for +even a daring, high-spirited girl to have done, and to have done alone +and on a dark and stormy morning. Then, too, to take off her bonnet, +however wet, and to cast aside her shawl, however soaked.… Why should +she have done that, save that she was throwing aside an impediment to +her own death? Easier to leap into the water without those +encumbrances.… + +Uneasy and still defiant, Ambrosia remarked: + +“Perhaps the shawl and bonnet were torn from her when she was in the +water, and cast up again.” And the others agreed, without conviction; +each saying: “Perhaps--it may have been so,” or shaking their heads. + +It was impossible for any of them to seize that dreadful thought and +make it tangible. Besides, there was no reason why that bright young +creature should have committed suicide. Why, of course, the idea was +absurd! Rich and young and healthy and lovely? Of course, it was +ridiculous! Lucius Foxe might know, and Oliver Sellar might know, that +the Countess Fanny had a reason for destroying herself, and Ambrosia +might horribly guess; but these people were without any clue that +might lead them to such a dark conclusion. Therefore it passed for an +accident--the young girl had been drowned. + +No one asked the opinion of the fishers and the farmers, and what they +said among themselves no one enquired. She had vanished--that was the +hard fact against which all their speculations beat in vain--utterly +vanished, in a way that no ordinary death could have made her seem to +vanish. There was no fair body to look at once again, take farewell +of; no solemn funeral scene of last adieux; she had gone as suddenly +as she had come, and to many of them it seemed like an impossible +dream, the whole episode, from the moment when she had stepped ashore +from the ferry-boat, with her bright veil fluttering and her fantastic +shawl clasped over her bosom, walking lightly, buoyantly, with her +brilliant smile and her lovely face--alien to all of them; by most of +them resented, by none of them liked. And now she had disappeared--in +the minds of most, become like a vision. + +“We can do nothing,” said Amy doggedly; “we must go on. She is a +stranger to all of us, and we cannot spoil our lives because of it.” +But she spoke in defiance, not only of the others, but of her own +heart; for she knew, only too bitterly well, that nothing that the +Countess Fanny could have done would have given her the importance her +disappearance gave.… + +Lucius was changed, and Oliver was like a man possessed. Both of them +ignored her; even from her lover she received but a lame and +perfunctory attention, and Oliver regarded her as a mere part of the +machinery of the house. Both of them were absorbed, utterly absorbed, +by the thought of the dead woman, by the wild quest to prove that she +was not a dead woman. Ambrosia hardened herself. There was a debt +owing to the living, she told her tormented heart. She would not +remember that she might have been kinder--no, she would not let +herself dwell on that, even in the lonely darkness of the stormy +night, when the wind rushed and battled past her windows. + +She had done what she could, she reminded herself with cold obstinacy. +There was no use in making a heroine of the girl because she was dead. +She had been light and obstinate, wilful and passionate--everything +that Ambrosia detested and had been trained to avoid. She had caused +malice and mischief. Whatever Oliver had done, he had not done +anything to justify her flight to Lefton Park. Of that Ambrosia was +sure. She could not speak of that last interview with Oliver; she did +not dare. But she assured herself that it had been nothing so +dreadful. The girl had exaggerated; the girl had indulged her temper, +her wilful fury. Ambrosia had marked her when she was in a rage: a +fury--that was what she was--a vixen! + +Lucius had little indeed to say of that morning visit to his house. He +declared that the Countess Fanny had come to see his father, having +heard that the old man was ill; and that it not being possible for her +to be admitted into the Earl’s presence, he had entertained her for a +little while, and gone to order the carriage and equip himself to +escort her back to Sellar’s Mead; but, while he had gone, she had +disappeared. Mrs. Trefusis added her evidence. And when she told this +secretly to Ambrosia, as she did on the occasion of that lady’s first +visit to Lefton Park after the tragedy, she gave the whole episode a +very different flavour. + +“The young lady, ma’am,” said Mrs. Trefusis, with look and accent +emphasising what she said, “was in a fair taking; she was wet through +when she came here, and quite wild, though she spoke very haughty, and +would take no hint from me, though that was an odd time for her to be +calling. And she didn’t ask for the Earl, ma’am, but for Lord Vanden +himself. And when I told her she could see neither, she pushed past me +in a manner, and went into the drawing-room and found Lord Vanden for +herself; and then she must change her shoes and stockings, and he in +the room! I had to send the maid down with some. His lordship asked me +himself. And she must demand breakfast, though she touched little of +it, I will say.” + +Ambrosia never gossiped with servants, even with such a servant as +Mrs. Trefusis; but she did not refuse to listen to this, only salving +her pride by making no comment on it. And when Mrs. Trefusis had +finished her relation and mouthed over every scrap of evidence against +the decorum and propriety of the Countess Fanny, Ambrosia merely said +drily: + +“She did not know our ways, Mrs. Trefusis. She had been allowed to go +about very freely. I dare say she found nothing odd in coming over +here that morning.” + +“She must have known it was odd, ma’am, to ask for his lordship,” +objected Mrs. Trefusis, with pursed lips. “That’s the same law in +every country, I take it, ma’am; I’ve been abroad myself, and never +heard any different--only that they was more strict than we are, +begging your pardon, ma’am.” + +“We must not criticise her,” said Ambrosia coldly. “She was our guest, +and now she is dead.” + +“But that doesn’t seem to be an end of her,” grumbled the housekeeper. +“Everyone talks and thinks of nothing else. I’m sure I’m sick of it, +like I am sick of the storm--again begging your pardon, ma’am!” But +she knew that Ambrosia would not take offence at what she said; she +knew that Ambrosia would understand that her words were meant for +championship for herself. Mrs. Trefusis and a good many others +sympathised more with Ambrosia than with the Countess Fanny. She, at +least, was one of themselves. That was one great point in her favour. +And she had been engaged to Lord Vanden before the Countess Fanny +came. And that was another point in her favour, in the eyes of all the +women, at least. + +“She’ll never be found now,” sighed Ambrosia; “it is past reason to +hope it.” + +“Past reason to go on searching for her!” said Mrs. Trefusis drily. +“And yet that’s what the gentlemen still do, day and night.” + +“I know it,” replied Ambrosia. “My brother is obsessed. In all +weathers, in all seasons, he must be abroad searching. Oh, Mrs. +Trefusis! I sometimes feel as if I could not any longer endure it! +Always this searching, day and night, hardly pausing to eat or +sleep--I fear for his reason or his life!” She caught herself up, as +if she were afraid of having already said too much, and asked +hurriedly: + +“Where is Lord Vanden now?” + +“Out riding, ma’am,” replied Mrs. Trefusis grimly. “Riding up and down +the coast.” + +“Looking for her, I suppose,” said Ambrosia dully. + +“Looking for her ghost, I should think you might say. That’s all he’ll +meet now!” + +“Why should her ghost come to him?” demanded Ambrosia. “Let us be +quiet, Mrs. Trefusis; we talk wildly.” + +“It’s enough to make anyone talk wildly,” replied the housekeeper. + +“If the wind would only stop!” sighed Ambrosia. “Come, we must not +talk any more. I will go upstairs and sit with the Earl till Lord +Vanden returns.” + +She went up the wide stairs slowly. This was to have been her house. +Keenly had she counted on being mistress here; she knew all the +pictures, all the tapestries, all the pieces of furniture, that yet +remained to the impoverished estate of Lord Lefton. Why did a chill +assail her as she thought of those expectations now? Nothing was +altered, nothing was changed: in the spring she would marry Lucius. By +the spring surely they would have forgotten the Countess Fanny. Not +forgotten her--she caught herself up on that word. No, they would not +have forgotten her, but by then they would be reconciled. + +The old Earl had risen to-day, and was in his little favourite closet +off the library. A small room, but it was the easiest to heat and +light in this big, bare, draughty house, which did not possess much +comfort in the winter. + +He greeted Ambrosia with a real and tender affection. He could see how +dreadful was her part in this, and he had noted, with a deep alarm, +the change in Lucius since the Countess Fanny had disappeared. + +He was arranging his rosy shells in boxes, placing the minute +specimens in cotton wool, and when he saw Ambrosia, he paused at once +in this occupation, and asked anxiously: + +“No news?” + +And Ambrosia replied: + +“No news!” taking the chair opposite him, and languidly untying her +bonnet-strings. + +“I ought to give up asking that question,” said the old man. “It +becomes foolish. How could there be any news, after nearly three +weeks?” + +“But they,” said Ambrosia with a pallid smile, “they will go on +searching!” + +“Yes,” said the old Earl, “yes; I think it is time they stopped. It +will become a madness. The poor, poor creature has gone, and it were +best to display some resignation. Have you told her relatives?” he +asked. + +Ambrosia shook her head. + +“Oliver will have no one told. He is convinced that she is alive, and +that he will find her. And of course he is wise--there is no need to +raise an alarm or a scandal while there is the least possibility.” + +“But is there,” asked the old man cautiously, “any longer the least +possibility?” + +Ambrosia shook her head. + +“I do not think so, but Oliver will not be convinced.” + +“Oliver must pull himself together,” said the old man. “Get him to +come and see me, my dear--or Mr. Spragge. There is a point beyond +which these things are lunacy. God help us all if Oliver gets beyond +that point!” + +“Yes, God help us all!” said Ambrosia. “For I do not think he can long +preserve his sanity.” + +“He was very fond of the girl,” said the old man in a shaking voice. + +“Fond!” replied Ambrosia. “I do not know that that is the word. His +feelings--” she paused--“one does not often speak of these things; but +I do not think it was love that Oliver had for poor Fanny, but +passion.” + +“There should be no difference in the terms,” said the old man. + +“But I believe there is,” said Ambrosia. “I believe he is not so much +sorry for her death as furious that he has been cheated.” + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + +“This must not go on any longer,” said the old man absently, yet +with unconscious love fingering the boxes with his frail treasures. +“Her other guardian, her uncle, should be informed. There should be +notices in the paper; there must be a question of property, too. One +detests to mention these things, but the poor child must have had an +heir. She was, I believe, of some notable wealth. To whom does this +go?” + +“Oliver will know,” replied Ambrosia dully. “I do not. I suppose to +these Italians, since there are no further English relations. You see, +the country is so unsettled there, and in such a difficult state, that +her mother, being an Englishwoman herself, greatly desired her to have +the shelter of England, and to live on her English estate; for I +believe the Caldinis stand neither well with the Pope nor the +Archduke. They are, of course, Italians without any foreign blood +whatever, and are not likely to come over here.” + +“They will sell the estate, I suppose,” said the old Earl. “They +should be told, I think,” he added, “in sheer justice. It will look +odd, and perhaps worse than odd, if they find this death has been +concealed so long.” + +“But all the money owing to them from the first can be paid,” said +Ambrosia anxiously. “There is no question of that, of course.” + +“What have you done with her maid?” + +“I have her still,” said Ambrosia, with a shiver of aversion. “A most +impossible creature, crying on her mistress day and night, refusing +either to work or rest!” + +“Why don’t you send her home?” + +“She won’t go; besides, the weather--the ferry has been impossible +ever since Fanny disappeared.” + +“Well, she must be sent back,” replied the old man, with some energy, +“on the first chance. It is all very hard on you, my dear! After all, +the poor child was no friend or relation of yours. You did not even, I +believe, very much like her?” he added, frankly. “And that I can +understand.” + +“I endeavoured to like her,” said Ambrosia. + +“Yes, my dear--I know, I know; but you did not find it very easy. She +was wilful and difficult, of course, and it was a very odd thing in +Oliver to bring her here like this.” Then he ventured to ask what he +had not ventured, in the first hurry and alarm of the tragedy, to ask +before: “Was there any quarrel--any severe disagreement with +Oliver--the night before? You may as well tell me, my dear child! It +might help one to come to some sort of a conclusion.” + +“There was a quarrel,” said Ambrosia; “I expect everyone guesses as +much, though no one is likely to speak of it; and she provoked +him--you know that I admit the violence of Oliver’s temper and the +disagreeableness of his manner--but certainly she exasperated him! For +the second time she went out alone, and on this occasion a long +way--down to the lighthouse where she had been forbidden to go. +Continually she had asked Oliver to take her----” + +The old Earl interrupted: + +“Why didn’t he? Why push it to this point, with a wilful creature like +that? Why shouldn’t Oliver have taken her? You should have advised him +to be a little more gentle, my dear.” + +“Oliver wouldn’t listen to me,” replied Ambrosia with some warmth. “I +spoke to him, and got abused for my pains. I asked him to be +considerate and gentle, but it was useless. And, as I say, she +exasperated him. She refused to marry him--said she could not and +would not keep her word.” + +“Well, she was right in that--it showed honesty, anyway,” said the old +man quietly. + +“I know; but at the same time, you know, with a man like Oliver, and +his temperament… she had led him on in Italy; she admitted that +herself. She tried to turn his head, and seemed to think that was +nothing--part of her business.” + +Ambrosia could not keep all the bitterness out of her voice, but she +was irritated by the way the old Earl smiled indulgently, and said: + +“Well, with that face, I am not so sure, my dear, that it wasn’t her +business.” + +“Was her face to excuse everything?” demanded Ambrosia proudly. + +“Well, she had more than her face,” mused the Earl, “She was a very +radiant and gay and lovely creature, my dear. There was something most +uncommon about her, I must admit, and I suppose, in the brightness of +her youth, she had a certain licence. After all, it’s generally +supposed to be the man’s business, you know, he’s got to take the risk +of having his head turned, as you call it. He’s got to try and keep +his self-control with a young creature like that. There must have been +a few, you know, who were very willing to have their heads turned.” + +“So she reminded me,” said Ambrosia coldly. + +“Well, she was frank, anyway,” smiled the old man, “poor creature. I +dare say she’d have been a very good wife, after all, they often are, +you know, my dear. Their own beauty and their own power intoxicates +them a little when they are very young, but afterwards they become the +dearest and most loyal creatures.” + +“That is the man’s point of view,” remarked Ambrosia drily. “You also, +I think, were quite entranced by the Countess Fanny.” + +“Ah, well,” he replied, “I didn’t see very much of her. But she did +seem to me a very radiant sort of girl, and very finished, too, her +manners were very pretty to an old man. I believe she was warm-hearted +underneath all her coquetries, and I can’t quite bear, even now, to +think of her out on those rocks, and----” + +“It was an accident,” exclaimed Ambrosia. + +The old man peered at her. + +“Why do you interrupt me like that--with that word? Of course it was +an accident; who says anything else?” + +“I believe,” murmured Ambrosia, looking away, “that many people think +a great deal else; you must have heard those rumours, sir.” + +“No,” said the old man stoutly. “No one would have dared to say +anything like that to me. Of course I know quite well what you mean, +but I have no reason to suppose it true.” And he added, with an air of +authority: “Have you?” + +Ambrosia was silent. + +“If you have any such grounds,” added the old man sternly, “I shall +find it very hard to tolerate your brother.” + +“Why blame him?” flashed Ambrosia. “What of her, and her part in it?” + +The old man looked at her sharply, and with some indignation; a faint +flush tinged his fragile cheeks. + +“Her part in it?” he repeated. “I marvel at you, Amy, speaking so +ungenerously. She was a girl, not eighteen years old, and he a man of +forty and over; he’s alive, at least, and she’s dead; you must know, +as well as I, my dear, that a young girl so full of vitality as she +was, so lovely and so eager, must have been most bitterly moved to +drown herself on such a morning as that morning when she disappeared.” + +Ambrosia rose. + +“I never suggested she drowned herself!” + +“No, but that is what you were insinuating. That, according to you, is +what many people think, and dare not say; and yet you would have +Oliver free from blame. And _I_ say,” added the old man with a certain +violence, “that if that poor child _did_ drown herself, Oliver is +little better than her murderer!” + +“What do you mean?” asked Ambrosia, speaking with stiff lips. + +“You know what I mean,” replied the old man. “Oliver must have +persecuted her. You said that she didn’t wish to marry him. She wanted +to get away, I suppose; and he wouldn’t let her. You spoke just now of +passion, and not love. Well, it all bears a very ugly complexion, my +dear, and I wish--I wish for your sake--that you had not had to stand +by. I wish,” he added deliberately, “that you had been able to save +her.” + +“So do I,” murmured Ambrosia faintly. “So do I! There was nothing I +could do.” + +“I suppose not; but it’s a pity you had to keep silent, Amy. You might +have told me. Between us we could have got her away. You might have +taken her up to London--over to her friends--this Madame de Mailly, +who seemed so devoted. You might, surely, my dear, have done +something. You need not have stood by and kept it all quiet, and +allowed Oliver to persecute that poor creature, that impetuous child, +even if she was light and a flirt.” + +Ambrosia found herself forced to defend her actions of the past, and +she did this hurriedly and tremulously, with a rather frantic +defiance. + +“How was I to know, how was I to guess? I could not tell that she was +not playing with Oliver. He brought her home; she affected to be in +love with him.” + +“Did she?” interrupted the Earl. “Did she? I never guessed that from +her demeanour.” + +“Well, she was going to marry him, anyhow, she did have a free +choice.” + +“There again,” said the old man, “I wonder! Oliver was shut up with +her in Italy. I don’t suppose anyone cared very much to rescue her +from him. I dare say they all thought it a very good match; and she +didn’t know what she was doing--that was obvious, I should think.” + +“What made her suddenly know what she was doing?” demanded Ambrosia, +with her bosom heaving angrily. “Why should she suddenly realise that +she had an aversion to Oliver, after having declared she would be his +wife?” + +“Did she say that?” demanded the old man. “Did she say she had an +aversion to him?” + +Ambrosia was sorry she had made that admission. + +“Well, so she said, it was all over very briefly--a question of days, +she couldn’t suddenly have been driven desperate in a few hours like +that. I told her, again and again, that if she wanted to go away she +could go, but what could I do on the moment, with the storm, and +everyone so far away, and no other woman to help me? Miss Drayton and +Mrs. Spragge both disliked her,” added Ambrosia with emphasis. + +“Just as you did,” said the old Earl. “Well, I wish I’d known--for +your sake as well as for hers. It is a most unpleasant tale, my dear.” + +“And I am in a most unpleasant position,” cried Ambrosia. “Since she +went away--since she died, whichever it was--I have not known a +moment’s respite. Oliver is like a lunatic, a beast cheated of its +prey. Yes; that’s not a pretty simile, but it’s what Oliver reminds me +of! He can hardly contain himself. He had a fit or stroke, that night +they brought her clothes in--that night that stupid fool of a +fisherman had to come in with her shawl and bonnet. And now he’s +always out, even in that fierce storm days ago, Oliver was out and on +the cliffs.” + +“That’s the act of a lunatic, certainly,” said the old Earl. “How +could he have hoped to find her then?” + +“I don’t know, but he can’t rest; he has no respite, day or night, as +I have no respite day or night. God help us both! Where are we? Why +did this woman ever come?” + +“It seems to me,” remarked the old man shrewdly, “as if Oliver were +tormented by something else, besides his love; and that’s his +conscience.” + +“It’s absurd to blame him for that!” protested Ambrosia with violence. +“Absurd! Why will you not listen to what I tell you? Again and again I +had assured this impossible girl that I would stand by her and be her +friend.” + +“It may have been on your lips,” replied the old man, “but did you +show it in your actions? You admit yourself that you disliked her, and +all the women here disliked her, you say; she was the alien, the +interloper, and none of you understood her nor wished to understand +her. She couldn’t help it, poor child--that she was so beautiful, and +clever-headed, no doubt. Eighteen years! Eighteen--think of that, Amy! +Ten years younger than you!” + +He could not have made any remark that would have been more +distasteful to the woman who listened to him. Amy bit her lip to keep +back some uncivil and coarse reply. + +The Earl sighed, unconscious of the deep offence he had given, unaware +of the bitter tumult in Amy’s racked soul; but feeling that the +conversation was becoming dangerous, and wishing to be just. It was +hard on Amy, of course, very hard; and there was that other aspect, +that he had not dared to dwell on, but had just felt round +cautiously--the place of Lucius in this story. But he might as well go +a little into this now, for he must know where he stood, for the sake +of all of them--and particularly for the sake of Amy, who seemed so +unhappy, and looked so distracted and even ill. + +“Why did she come up here that morning?” he asked gently. “I’ve never +quite been able to understand. Was it because this was the only house +she knew of? She didn’t come here, I hope, Amy, for protection.” + +“Why should she have come here for protection?” replied Ambrosia +haughtily. “I was at Sellar’s Mead, and her own maid, and other +women--she didn’t require protection.” + +“You take my meaning a little too easily,” remarked the Earl sadly. He +thought how painfully ready Ambrosia had been with her defence. With +everything that Amy said, he seemed to be brought nearer some hideous +conclusion. The girl had seemed frightened, had seemed frantic. She +had run through the storm to his house for protection, and she had not +received it; and she had gone away desolate, and drowned herself. Good +God! Help him from coming to this most hideous conclusion! + +“Oh, no,” he said hastily, “I must not think that, of course; why +should she have been afraid? Oliver wouldn’t frighten her, surely, +surely.” + +“She had a wild, fierce temper,” said Ambrosia rather shrilly. + +“Yes, yes,” murmured the Earl. “A pity that Lucius couldn’t have +detained her. I was unwell that morning, but I would have made an +effort to see her. Something might have been done--she shouldn’t have +been turned away.” + +“She wasn’t turned away,” said Ambrosia hotly. “Lucius was bringing +her back to us; she was left waiting in the hall a moment or two, and +in that moment ran away.” + +“You see,” remarked the Earl slowly, “Lucius was taking her back to +you. Well, if she was afraid of Oliver, that was the strange thing to +do in turning her away, I wish he’d let me know.” + +“Mrs. Trefusis watched her go,” said Ambrosia. “_She_ saw nothing +unusual about her.” + +“Mrs. Trefusis is a hard woman,” said the Earl, and almost Ambrosia +was forced to take this as a challenge, and to say wildly: “I suppose +you think I, also, am a hard woman!” But she controlled herself, and +bit her lips to keep that impassioned sentence back. + +“Lucius has been much moved,” said the Earl sadly. “I have noticed a +great change in him. And so have you, no doubt, my dear. He has it on +his mind, I think.” + +“Yes, she might have thought of that,” retorted Ambrosia bitterly. +“She might have considered, in her temper and her passion, what she +was inflicting on others.” + +“But we are not concerned with that,” said the old man gravely. “We +have to search our consciences for what we inflicted on her.” + +“I have nothing to reproach myself with,” said Ambrosia coldly; “nor +has Lucius. And you might consider, sir, how this has blighted _our_ +lives. This stranger has come amongst us, and with her wilfulness, and +then her tragedy, has blasted life for us!” + +The old man took no heed of this. Instead of offering any sympathy to +Ambrosia, he asked quietly: + +“Has Lucius told you exactly what she said, that day she came here?” + +“Yes, and it’s been repeated a thousand times. Every detail of the +episode is worn by now,” replied Ambrosia impatiently. “She merely +asked for you, and for a change of her shoes and stockings, and for +some breakfast; nothing else. And he, of course--what else could he +do?--was for taking her back at once to us; and she acquiesced, and +then slipped off behind his back.” + +“Yes, I know all that,” said the Earl patiently. “But is there +anything else--something that he would tell to no one but you?” + +“He has never given me any other version,” said Ambrosia deliberately; +“and what else could have passed between them? She was not in the +house above ten minutes.” + +“Mrs. Trefusis,” remarked the Earl, “said she was here over half an +hour; and there’s a great deal can be said in a half-hour, my dear. +They could hardly have talked of nothing but the storm for that time! +Lucius, no doubt, is fearful of betraying her; but I think it would be +fitting if he disclosed to you exactly what she said, and it were more +reasonable that you asked him that yourself.” + +Ambrosia sat down at the table covered with shells and boxes and +drawers, with the bowls of water and cotton wool and tweezers. She +felt sick at heart, and trembling in her body. + +“I must return now,” she said. “I must go home. Lucius is long abroad. +He may be riding up and down the cliffs all day. I won’t wait any +longer.” + +The old Earl was moved by the note of despair in her shivering voice. + +“My dear child,” he said, in tender affection, “don’t think I am +indifferent to your suffering. I know what it must be to you. It is +terrible for all of us. Don’t think I meant to reproach you.” + +“Sometimes,” Ambrosia replied wildly, “I reproach myself, but it is +all unavailing--reproaching or defence.” She languidly picked up her +bonnet. She had, indeed, no desire to wait for Lucius, after all. What +use was it again to see that distracted face, to listen to those +distracted sentences, to know and feel that his whole being was +absorbed, not with her, but with the Countess Fanny? To receive his +perfunctory courtesies and his forced attentions--useless and +humiliating. And the day was darkening again. How short they were, +these winter days. And the wind was rising. How stormy they were, +these winter days. She must ride back home, and take up her round of +duties at Sellar’s Mead. + +But the old Earl implored her to stay. + +“Don’t go, my dear, don’t go! Lucius must want to see you.” + +“I don’t think,” she replied dully, “that Lucius will notice if I am +here or not.” + +“But you haven’t had your tea,” protested the old man. “You can’t +leave without tea; and Mr. Spragge is coming in, too; he wants to see +you. We all feel you mustn’t be shut up too much alone at Sellar’s +Mead!” + +As he spoke, Lucius entered, and did not, indeed, at first seem to +notice Amy. It was to his father he spoke. + +“No news? Useless, useless!” + +“What did you expect?” asked the old man mildly. “It’s too late now +for news. Have you not seen that Amy is here?” + + + + + CHAPTER XX + +Lucius turned to Ambrosia with but a mechanical recognition. + +“Forgive me!” he said absently. “I did not at once notice you.” + +“No,” thought Ambrosia bitterly, “you do not notice if I am there or +not! Your mind and your heart and your soul are too occupied with +another woman.” + +“Amy is very distressed,” remarked the old Earl, looking anxiously at +his son. “All this is very difficult and terrible for her, Lucius; you +must not forget that. In your search for one who is lost, you must not +overlook one who is beside you. Your first duty,” added the old man +deliberately, “is, after all, towards Amy.” + +Lucius appeared startled by this, roused and bewildered. He glanced at +his father, and then at the young woman, and seemed about to speak, +but bit his lip and was silent. + +Amy felt that this was a moment when she might with justice put in +some plea for herself. After all, for nearly three weeks she had +remained silent, always standing apart before the thought of the +Countess Fanny. Now, surely, the time was ripe to rouse Lucius from +this useless, hopeless obsession.… + +“Need you search any more?” she asked, glancing timidly towards him. +“Is there any good to be done by this, Luce? It is straining the +nerves of all of us; at home I have Oliver, and when I come here +there’s you… and nobody talks or thinks of anything else. Now, after +three weeks, there cannot possibly be any hope.” + +“Don’t remind me of that,” replied Lucius hoarsely. “Don’t say there +can’t be any hope--there is, there must be!” + +“Lucius, you talk wildly,” put in the Earl sternly. “It is not in any +human probability that there is any hope left of finding Fanny now. +You know that.” + +“I won’t admit it,” insisted Lucius defiantly. “No, sir; I declare +that I won’t admit it.” + +“Why?” demanded Ambrosia. + +“Because,” said the young man with difficulty, “it is too dreadful a +thought. Surely, Amy, for you also it must be too appalling a +reflection--the thought that she is dead, really _dead_!” + +“It is horrible, of course,” agreed Amy; “a tragedy, and an unexpected +one. But why should it be so appalling to either of us? Lucius, she +was a stranger!” + +The young man opened his lips as if to give a vehement denial to this +statement, then put his fingers to his mouth and was silent, turning +moodily away towards the fire. She noticed that he still wore his +riding-coat, and that it was wet. Of late he had become very negligent +in his attire; never before had she seen him carelessly dressed, but +now he seemed indifferent as to his appearance. Out day and night on +the cliffs, day and night out in the storm, his eyes so tired, his +lips so strained, and the hollows in his cheeks perceptible to her as +he stood there, with the firelight giving him a false colour.… + +“You’ll make yourself ill,” she exclaimed impulsively, “and to no +purpose! Oh, Lucius, forget her!” + +“There comes a moment,” remarked the old Earl, kindly but firmly, +“when reason must step in, or madness will follow.” + +Lucius answered with his back to both of them, and his voice shook +with passion. + +“I won’t believe she’s dead.” + +Ambrosia endeavoured to command her painful emotions at these words, +to speak gently and even with sympathy. + +“I won’t believe it either, Lucius. I’m praying for her every +day--that she may be, by some miracle, somewhere, alive. But let us be +calm about it. Cease this wild search! Listen, my dear, as your father +says, to reason. How could she possibly be concealed anywhere now? How +can you, by riding or tramping the fields and cliffs all day, hope to +find her? Just think of it, Lucius--where could she be?” + +“She’s got away, perhaps,” he said sullenly. “Got on to the mainland, +somehow.” + +“But you know,” said the Earl firmly, “we have made enquiries; +hopeless and desperate as they were, we have made them; at +Truro--beyond--even as far as London. It is out of the question, +Lucius, to suppose that she has got away from St. Nite’s. Why, we know +that no conveyance left the village that day. Oliver denied her a +horse, and there was nowhere else she could get one. Besides, she +would have been most conspicuous, even supposing she _had_ picked up a +horse, a solitary woman on a day like that--dressed as she was +dressed. It’s out of the question, Lucius; with all respect for your +distraction, one must maintain some common sense.” + +“If she were dead,” returned Lucius, “I think that I should know it.” + +With an effort, Ambrosia allowed this to pass. + +“I am going home now,” she murmured; “there is no object in my +remaining here. You have nothing to say to me, I perceive, Lucius.” + +“I will go back with you,” he said in a perfunctory manner. “I won’t +come up to the house; I don’t wish to meet Oliver. He is too uncivil.” + +“It is not meant personally to you,” said Ambrosia eagerly. “He has +been like that ever since the tragedy; he is scarcely in his wits.” + +“I do not think you should be left with him,” interposed the Earl. “It +is too much for you, Amy; you will find your nerves giving way. You +should come here; Mrs. Trefusis will make you comfortable.” + +“But how can Oliver live there alone?” protested his sister. “It is +impossible; he cannot look after himself. I doubt if the servants +would remain, if I were not there, standing between them and him! No, +my duty is to Oliver.” + +She thought, even as she said the words, that too much of her life had +been duty. Duty had been almost an indulgence with her; duty, and +never anything else. Perhaps if she had not been so full of duty about +her relations with Lucius, they would have been happier. She could +recall now, and with an intense, bitter regret, that when they had +first been betrothed he had urged her, in a wealth and hurry of +feeling, to marry him then, and go away. There had been duty +then--duty to Oliver, duty to the old Earl, duty to a sense of +decorum, propriety. She had crushed down the feeling which had +responded so eagerly to his. She had thwarted her own intense desire +for escape; and where were they now? Staring at each other stupidly +over the ashes of a dead affection! + +“I am taking Mr. Spragge back with me,” she added dully. “I have asked +him to come and speak to Oliver. We can’t go on like this. I shall +send for a doctor, too. You know, when he had that last seizure, three +weeks ago, Dr. Drayton thought he was in a dangerous state.” + +“I’ll come with you,” repeated Lucius mechanically. + +Ambrosia shook her head. + +“I have the carriage,” she said. “Don’t inflict yourself with our +company. Stay here with your father--he needs you. You look tired, +Lucius, very tired.” + +“No rest,” said the old man anxiously. “He will certainly make himself +ill, but it is useless for me to talk. I wish the storm would cease; +there is something in this incessant wind which is maddening to +everyone. I hope Mr. Spragge can help you, my dear; he is a wise man, +and when need be a brave one.” + +Amy stooped, and allowed the old man’s trembling lips to kiss her cold +cheek. Then she left the cabinet and went downstairs, followed by +Lucius. They had to traverse the green drawing-room, and there she +paused; and Lucius must pause too, though he shivered in doing so, for +the last time he had been through this room with a woman he had been +with the Countess Fanny, and he must recall that now, and seem to see +her radiant, vivid figure there beside him, instead of the sombre +personality of Ambrosia, in her dark dress and black veil and bonnet, +which was like half mourning; for it had seemed to Amy only suitable +to wear a half mourning since the disappearance of her young cousin.… + +“Lucius,” she said now earnestly. “Will you not speak to me candidly? +Your father asked me only just now what you had told me of this last +interview with Fanny; and what could I say--for you have told me +nothing.” + +“There was nothing to tell,” he muttered, looking past her and out on +to the wild prospect of the park, across which he still seemed to see +that buoyant figure hurrying away into the void. + +“Let us leave that excuse!” said Ambrosia, in a quiet voice of +resignation. “Mrs. Trefusis knows that she was here over half an hour. +Something must have passed in that time; your father thinks so, and so +do I. Oh, Lucius, won’t you tell me? We are supposed to be going to be +married in the spring, and there is no confidence between us.” + +Lucius moved to the window, and put his brow against the window-pane +and stared down on the ground, so that his back was towards Amy. + +“She asked me,” he said, speaking slowly and with difficulty, “to save +her from Oliver; that was all there was in it, Amy. She said that she +could no longer support Oliver, and that she was frightened of him; +and I----” + +“And you sent her away,” said Ambrosia. + +“Don’t force me to repeat it,” he cried. “I urged her to return to +Sellar’s Mead.…” + +“And you did right,” replied Ambrosia quickly; “of course you did +right. Why should you reproach yourself with that, Luce!” + +“Why?” he asked bitterly. “Because I sent her to her doom; that is +why. Don’t you see it, Amy? She wouldn’t go back--she preferred to +die.” + +“That is all very high-flown,” said Ambrosia impatiently, “and all +impossible, too. The girl must have been half out of her wits if she +destroyed herself on so slight a thing as that. Oliver----” + +“Yes, don’t tell me about Oliver,” interrupted Lucius. “I don’t care +to think about it. She said very little to me, but since she has gone +away I have thought about it a great deal. I acted like a fool and a +coward, and abandoned her when she had appealed to me; and sometimes +I think, Amy, that I can’t go on living much longer with that thought +in my mind.” + +“Cast it out, then,” urged Ambrosia, coming up behind him and touching +his unresponsive arm. “Put it out of your mind--don’t consider it any +more; for it is folly… the girl had nothing to fear from Oliver.” + +“Don’t continue speaking of her as ‘the girl,’” said Lucius, nervously +and irritably. + +“What am I to call her, then? She was a stranger to me.” + +Then Lucius did turn and look at her, with reproachful eyes, and said +what the Earl had said upstairs in his little closet; but did not say +it with the same temperance and kindness: + +“Oh, Amy! Couldn’t you have saved her? Did you want to stand by and +allow that to happen? It seems incredible; you must have known, you +must have guessed--you, another woman, and living in the same house +with her--could you not have seen to what a pass she was being +driven?” + +Ambrosia closed her eyes. A deep chill pervaded her whole frame. + +“I did what I could,” she replied, forming the words even while +thinking what a commonplace and stale excuse that was. “I never +realised anything was happening that she could take so seriously. I +still don’t think that Oliver did anything or threatened anything that +could have driven her to extremities.” + +Lucius put his hand to his forehead with a touch of weariness. + +“No use our discussing it,” he said. “I am sick of words; I am sick of +everything.” + +“It ought not to spoil our lives,” ventured Ambrosia, in sinking +tones. “You might think a little of me, Lucius. What did your father +say just now--that your first duty was to me?” + +But as she heard her own words echo in the large room, she knew how +hopeless, how bitterly useless, it was to remind anyone of a detested +duty; and that was what she had become to Lucius--a detested duty. + +“Yes, yes,” said the young man hastily. “I know it must be difficult +for you, and I understand. I will try to put it out of my mind.” But +the very way in which he said these words showed that he would never +be able to put the Countess Fanny out of his mind. + +“You ought to have no remorse on her account,” urged Ambrosia. “I wish +I could make you understand that. If anyone should feel remorse, it is +Oliver; and even in his case I think it is unnecessary. She had only +her own wilful temper to blame.” + +“Don’t censure her,” cried Lucius hotly. “I’ll not endure that, Amy. +There was nothing wrong in her--nothing; it was we--we were all wrong +from the first.” + +Ambrosia could not altogether resist a reply to this, although she +softened the instinctive fierceness of that reply. + +“I suppose, then, Fanny had a right to be a flirt and a rattle and a +featherhead?” she remarked. “Playing fast and loose with Oliver, with +first her ‘Yes’ and then her ‘No’!” + +There was a silence. Ambrosia did not wish to break that silence. Yet +she found herself saying, almost against her own volition: + +“Unless you know of some reason, Lucius, why she should have changed +her mind.” + +Lucius did not speak. + +“Perhaps,” continued Amy, “it dates from that day when she met +you--when you were together in the churchyard. That seems the +beginning of it. Perhaps, Lucius, you know something about it after +all.” + +He spoke now, and stubbornly. + +“I know nothing about it whatever,” he declared. + +“Then why should she tease your conscience?” + +“Because I was the last to see her,” said the young man hurriedly. +“Because I had the responsibility of sending her away.…” + +Ambrosia could say no more. She also felt weary; weary to faintness. + +“Good-bye, Lucius,” she said abruptly, and left him; nor did he make +any effort to follow her, and when she looked back to the door he was +still standing there, leaning against the high window-frame and +staring out across the wintry prospect of the park. + +She entered her brougham, and the horses proceeded slowly on the wet +road to the vicarage; and there she found Mr. Spragge waiting for her. +He stepped into the carriage beside her, and they turned back to +Sellar’s Mead. + +Ambrosia sat mute in her corner, wondering how far she should confess +to the clergyman the true state of affairs. Very likely he knew +everything. Very likely everyone in the village knew everything! But +did it do to put all this into words, even to him? Pride and prudence +alike forbade. She would not reveal her heart. The heart of Oliver he +would soon see for himself. + +She even endeavoured to put matters upon a plain and practical +footing, by laying her gloved hands on the old man’s knee, as they +proceeded down darkening roads with the windy trees blown to and fro +above their heads on the high fields, and saying: + +“Dear sir, I fear greatly for Oliver! This tragedy has almost +overturned his brain. He is not in any manner normal, and I scarcely +care to be alone with him at Sellar’s Mead--alone, that is, with the +servants. They are, you now, all terrified of him.” + +“You should have a companion,” said Mr. Spragge anxiously; “someone +must come and stay with you, if you cannot induce him to go away. That +would be the best of all--if he were to leave St. Nite’s Head.” + +“But that,” said Ambrosia mournfully, “is the last thing he will do. +He is as if chained to the spot, rooted to the ground. Nothing will +induce him to abandon this piece of earth where she disappeared.” + +“If her body could only have been found,” said the clergyman gravely; +“if we could have laid that at rest, we might have laid at rest the +demon that possesses your brother.” + +“The demon!” replied Ambrosia, startled at that word. + +“It seems to me, Miss Sellar, that it is no less; a disappointed and +an outraged demon possesses your brother, and we must do our best to +lay it. The event has been dire, the shock great; but nevertheless it +must be met with Christian resignation and fortitude, or disaster will +ensue.” + +“That is what I am afraid of,” shivered Ambrosia, huddled in the +corner of the darkened interior of the carriage, “disaster--I seem to +feel it in the very air I breathe, and oh, this tempest, this endless +tempest.…” + +“It is no more,” said Mr. Spragge heavily, “than we get every winter; +but now, of course, it seems more appalling, with this tragedy so +fresh in our minds.” + +As they approached Sellar’s Mead--Ambrosia could see it from the +window when she leant forward--she turned again to her companion, and +asked, with a fresh access of dread and terror: + +“You can stay with us to-night, dear sir, can you not?” + +Mr. Spragge replied that he could stay that night, and other nights if +necessary; there was no one who had greater need of him in his small +parish, and one or two good neighbours had offered to go and stay with +his wife. + +“We are really very cosy and comfortable in the village,” he said, +“for all the tempests and storms; and while I can be of any use to +you, Miss Sellar, I will remain here.” + +The darkness had almost closed in as they passed through the gates of +Sellar’s Mead, and the wind was rising higher for another night of +angry elements and dreadful weather. + +Ambrosia thought with horror of Luce; standing there alone, in that +empty, cold drawing-room, staring out upon that empty, cold park, +thinking of Fanny.… She ought to have been with him, not with Oliver; +yet it had been impossible for her to stay, for he did not want her, +and she could bring him no manner of comfort.… + +She preceded Mr. Spragge into the parlour. Everything here looked +cheerful and radiant enough. The lamps were already lit, the fire was +sparkling on the hearth, the mahogany gleaming in these varied lights, +every picture in place, seats drawn up round the fire, cushions and +easy chairs, and even a bowl of hot-house exotics, Roman hyacinths and +tuber-roses and violets, standing in a glass vase on the little +_papier mâché_ table, filling the warm air with an elegant perfume. +Nothing had been neglected; there was no hint here of a ravaged or +desolate household. + +Mr. Spragge commended Amy for her good management. + +“You, at least, have not let shock and grief get the better of you, my +dear. You have shown some courage and resignation”; and Amy wanted to +cry aloud, “But I do not love her, and those two men do.” + +But she smiled, and answered the old man’s compliment with some +amiable comment, and sat down, and took up her work-basket and opened +it, and stared into the padded satin lining, and selected a thimble +painted with a wreath of roses and cupids, and a little pair of gilt +scissors, and idly turned these small objects over in her gloved +hands; and then put them back again, and said, with a start: + +“What am I doing--I haven’t taken my outdoor clothes off! Will you, +sir, excuse me for a moment?” + +The old man said: + +“Of course, my dear, of course; I am very comfortable here! And where +is your brother?” + +Amy jerked the long wool-embroidered bell-pull, and Julia came at +once. + +“Where is your master?” demanded Ambrosia. + +And Julia answered that the master was still abroad; dark as it was, +he had not yet returned. + +“This must be stopped,” muttered Mr. Spragge. “He will meet his death +one of these nights, out in a storm like this, along those dangerous +cliffs.” + +“Every night the same,” said Ambrosia dully. + + + + + CHAPTER XXI + +“You see,” said Ambrosia hurriedly, “to what I am exposed; I come +from Lefton Park, and there I find Lucius abroad, searching for Fanny, +and I return home, and Oliver is abroad, searching for Fanny. It is +beyond all reason--an obsession, as you observe, sir.” + +Mr. Spragge could not be unaware of the emotions which must be +agitating Ambrosia, and which he considered she was making a very good +show of concealing. Though his lips and his ears were sternly sealed +to gossip, yet it was impossible for him not to know, even from +glances and intonations, that everyone was remarking on the assiduity +that Lucius showed in searching for the lost girl and his ardour in +the quest, which seemed by now to everyone hopeless; she had been +really no concern of his, and though his anxiety and distress had been +for a while excused by the fact that he had been the last person to +speak to her, that excuse did not hold any longer, and it seemed, as +Mr. Spragge very well knew, to everyone wholly unnatural in Lucius to +continue this desperate search for the Countess Fanny. The absorption +of Oliver in his grief was allowed to be normal, and wholly excused; +he was the missing girl’s betrothed, and her guardian. Both his love +and his responsibility would be hard hit. But Lucius had no real part +in the affair, and Mr. Spragge was afraid that his behaviour was +causing a great deal of gossip, and even scandal. But he could hardly +speak of this to Ambrosia, though he threw as much sympathy as +possible into his voice, as he replied: + +“It is indeed most painful for you, Miss Sellar, and everyone will +sympathise with you; a most ghastly thing to have occurred, and I +greatly admire the fortitude with which you have met it.” + +“Fortitude!” echoed Ambrosia. “I feel all to pieces!” + +“You do not show it,” said Mr. Spragge encouragingly; “you put a very +good face upon it.” + +“Tell me,” cried Ambrosia, holding out her cold, trembling hands to +the warmth of the fire, “tell me, do you not feel convinced in your +own heart, sir, that she is dead?” + +The clergyman answered, gravely and deliberately: + +“Indeed I do; I can come to no other conclusion. Think round the +subject as one will, and reflect upon every possible aspect of it, one +can indeed come to no other conclusion but that; the unfortunate young +lady is dead, and the fact should be met with a decent resignation.” + +“I hope,” replied Ambrosia, “that you will, dear sir, use your utmost +influence to persuade Oliver to meet it with a decent resignation; for +indeed I know not how long I may continue to endure this atmosphere of +despair and agitation.” + +Oliver Sellar now violently entered the placid and polished room. He +was booted, spurred, wet, and muddy, and Ambrosia could not forbear a +fastidious glance of disgust at his appearance. She was forced, no +doubt, to allow him a certain latitude at present, but she disliked +the absorbed negligence which brought him into her drawing-room +straight from the stables. + +He gave her no greeting, and he looked, gloomily and without welcome, +at the clergyman. + +“You have had your ride in vain,” asked Ambrosia dully, “of course. I +have brought Mr. Spragge home with me, Oliver. He has promised to stay +with us a little while--I am very lonely here, you know.” + +“Good evening,” said Oliver coldly. + +Not disturbed by these rude manners, the good clergyman said mildly: + +“I did not wish to intrude upon you, Mr. Sellar, but your sister +somewhat earnestly desired my company.” + +“Very well, very well,” said Oliver distractedly, “but I fear you will +find me but a sullen host just now. There is only one thing in all my +mind.” + +“That I can understand, Mr. Sellar. This has been a great tragedy, a +great shock to you.” + +Oliver glanced at him with contempt. Such insipid and formal +condolences irritated him. Over everyone with whom he had any power, +he had set the command never to mention the Countess Fanny, though he +was searching for the girl all day and often a great part of the +night, no one was to murmur her name or to refer to her disappearance; +and now Ambrosia, provoking woman that she was, had brought this +wandering old man here to go over the tale, to make a scandal and a +gossip of it, to probe into his feelings, which he wished above all +things to conceal. + +Pride gave him the strength to make an effort to reply to Mr. +Spragge’s remark. + +“It is my plain duty to search for the Countess Fanny,” he remarked +darkly. “She was not only my promised wife, but my ward. I have all +the responsibility in the matter. It was my house she left, and she +was under my protection.” + +“But surely human resource and human ingenuity are exhausted now,” +replied the clergyman mildly. “There are limits, my dear sir, to what +any mortal may accomplish.” + +“But if she is anywhere on St. Nite’s Head, I must, in time, find +her,” replied Oliver with fierce stubbornness. + +“You see,” cried Ambrosia, “that he will not realise that she is +lost.” + +“I realise that she is lost,” said Oliver gloomily. “For weeks I’ve +realised nothing else.” + +“Well,” remarked Mr. Spragge, “what you must realise is that she is +dead; and one of my reasons for this visit is to suggest to you that +some monument be put up in the churchyard or the church.” + +At these words, Oliver’s face, already pallid, dark, and ravaged, took +on an expression and a hue livid and terrible. + +“She is not dead,” he declared hoarsely. And then he said the same +words that Lucius had said such a short time before: “If she were +dead, of course I should know it!” + +Ambrosia cast a despairing glance at Mr. Spragge, but the clergyman +did not see this look, which seemed to appeal to him for +commiseration, for he was gazing at Oliver, fascinated by the man’s +look and appearance. + +The clergyman had had a long life, but not very much experience, and +he had never before seen anyone in the grip of a violent passion. He +thought, as he looked at Oliver Sellar, of the old Greek fables of men +possessed by furies; for like a fury, he thought, must be the +vehement, convulsive feelings that shook and rent the soul of Oliver +Sellar. The man was frenzied by a wild rage, frantic with thwarted +passion, furious with a fierce jealousy--cruel, insatiable, bitterest +jealousy; the most ghastly of all jealousies--the jealousy of Death. +All his hopes, all his fancies, must now be in his distracted mind as +a mockery and a torment. Lost, all lost! Swept away by the dark ocean +which had seized his bride; baffled, outwitted, triumphed over, +scorned by Death. The conventional comforts, the usual props and stays +of religion, the talk of Christian resignation and trust in the Most +High with which Mr. Spragge had come armed, now failed him as he +stared at Oliver Sellar. In the agony of the man’s eyes, the grim set +of his features, the very hunch of his shoulders and the clench of his +hands, the atmosphere he gave out, the clergyman felt agony--agony of +soul and agony of body; and how was he, with his platitudes, his +formal commonplaces, to deal with that? + +The old man shivered. He wished that he had not come to Sellar’s +Mead--he would do no good there, might, even, provoke that demon of +fury with which Oliver Sellar was battling. + +Even now he seemed to be forgetful of those other two, both of whom +were regarding him so earnestly. His look showed where his thoughts +had flown--out into the storm, out on to the sea; with his mind he was +still searching for Fanny. And still Mr. Spragge could not speak. The +atmosphere of this dark personality in such dark torment was too +powerful for him. He stood motionless and trembled. And then he turned +his glance away; his dimming eyes could not endure the spectacle of +such unbearable pain. Yes, the dismal and awful atmosphere of this +room was engulfing him more and more. He began to see things with the +eyes of Oliver Sellar--be engrossed in that most horrid mystery, that +terrible tragedy of the death of the Countess Fanny. He wished he had +not come to Sellar’s Mead. + +But Ambrosia spoke, and her words were like the breaking of a spell. +The old man startled. She was beside him, and had laid her hand on his +arm. + +“Won’t you speak to him?” she pleaded. “Why are you quiet, sir? See +how he stands there, like a man possessed.” + +Mr. Spragge tried to rouse himself to say something appropriate and +friendly, but his words came unwillingly and stiffly. He was too much +under the influence of that dark, silent, staring figure by the +chimney-piece. + +The old man endeavoured to rouse himself--call up his beliefs, which +had been so easy to hold to in placid times, which had supported him +very well until he came to a crisis like this. He had always been able +to deal adequately with ordinary troubles--sickness or domestic grief; +but this was beyond him here; the agony of Oliver seemed to him to +pass the ordinary agony of humanity, and to come into the province of +the devil. + +Still, he must rouse himself. How mean and shaking a thing was his +faith, if it fell before the first assault like this. And he was +startled that in his thoughts he had used the word “assault,” for who +had attacked him? Oliver had said nothing.… + +Ambrosia waited, glancing from her brother to the old clergyman. + +“Sir,” said Mr. Spragge, moistening his thin lips, “I should be +showing but a fickle temper and a hollow faith were I not to speak to +you now as I had resolved to speak to you when I entered your house.” + +Oliver did not move or reply, and before that dark, implacable +presence, Mr. Spragge winced again. But Ambrosia’s hand tightened on +his wrist, and she whispered hoarsely, under her breath: + +“Speak to him, sir, speak to him!” + +The old man continued in a steadier tone: + +“I will admit that, until I saw you now, Mr. Sellar, I had hardly +realised the extent of your trouble, nor the torment which is +consuming you as by a slow fire; and the spectacle of your suffering +made me a little stay my hand. Yet for your own sake, for your +sister’s sake, and for the sake of all of us, I must speak, to entreat +you to a decent resignation.” + +Oliver turned: + +“To what am I to resign myself?” he demanded hoarsely; and even under +those dark, sunken, shadowed eyes staring him down, Mr. Spragge found +the courage to reply: + +“To the loss of this girl.” + +“I will never resign myself to that,” replied Oliver, with a ghastly +grin worse than any frown, “for she is not dead--only lost; and I am +resolved to find her. Do you not think a man may do as much, sir?” + +“This is not a moment to boast of your humanity,” replied the +clergyman. “It is all in the hands of God; and though you may think me +preaching, yet, if you will but use your reason, Mr. Sellar, you will +see that I speak the bare truth. We are all in the hands of God. What +can you do against this black mystery which has suddenly engulfed all +your happiness? Nothing.” + +Oliver ground his teeth. + +“Do not rage,” said the clergyman. “It is so, we are all of us puny +before the unfathomable gloom of this tragedy.” + +“You cannot console me,” replied Oliver fiercely, “and I will scarcely +endure to be reprimanded. I find no comfort in any of these +platitudes; I am past smooth phrasing, sir.” + +“It is no platitude nor smooth phrasing, sir,” replied Mr. Spragge +with dignity. “I would suggest to you some measure of control and +resignation; whether or no you will bear to hear the name of God, it +must be clear, even to your obstinate mind, that there is some Hand in +this whose power you cannot fathom.” + +“More the devil, I think,” groaned Oliver, “to take her away like +that.” + +“Call it the devil if you will,” returned the clergyman. “It is +something against which you strive in vain, and by indulging in this +sense of grief, you will not only overset your own reason, but will +confound your friends. Regard your sister now, how she is overwrought +and overwhelmed by this.” + +In reply, Oliver gave Amy a thunderous regard. + +“We won’t discuss her part of it,” he said shortly, “and I entreat +you, sir, to forbear your homilies, which but exhaust yourself and do +me no manner of good.” + +The clergyman continued to exhort him, in mild and earnest tones. + +“Consider, sir, your age and station. You are no boy, to indulge these +fantasies; there is a responsibility attaching to you--a name and +estate. There is your sister to consider. She is to be married in the +spring. Must all her prospects be blasted by this?” + +Again Oliver gave his sister a bitter, black glance. Mr. Spragge +continued hurriedly: + +“Leave aside those higher Powers that you do not desire me to name; +say nothing of resignation and fortitude, and submission to divine +ruling; think of yourself, sir, in a social sense. Frenzied tempests +of unappeasable grief give cause for scandal in the place. It is now +nearly three weeks----” + +Oliver interrupted vehemently. + +“But people have been lost for longer than three weeks.” + +“I do not know about all that; it may be so. But taking all the +circumstances here, it is incredible to me and to every other person +of sense who has considered the matter that the lady still lives.” + +“So I have told you for days,” urged Ambrosia. “You hear what Mr. +Spragge says, Oliver, and so says the Earl, and so all of them.” + +“But Lucius?” asked Oliver, with a cunning reflection. “Does he say +so?” + +“What matters the opinion of Lucius?” demanded Ambrosia wildly. “Why +bring in the name of Lucius? Oh, Oliver, do let us be sane about all +this! Fanny is dead. She is gone. Let us plan our lives without her!” + +Oliver did not seem to hear these words. He began pacing up and down +the room with his hands clasped behind the skirts of his heavy coat, +his glance bent downwards. And he began to talk in rapid, uneven +tones, as if he cared not who listened, nor, indeed, was aware that +there was any one in the room besides himself. And the old man and the +young woman glanced at each other with horror, for they feared that +these were symptoms of a breaking mind--that horrid muttering of +Oliver’s, and his uneven pacing up and down. + +“I went to that Pen Hall Farm,” he said, “where she went in once, you +know--on her way to the lighthouse. They admitted that. They’re wild +rogues up there; they’ve always defied me. I’ve had my doubts of them. +I thought I’d go again.” + +“Heavens!” said Ambrosia. “You never thought that Fanny would be +hiding there! It’s incredible, it’s unthinkable! Do not let such ideas +get into your head, Oliver!” + +“I don’t know, I don’t know!” he muttered. “I went there again. +They’ve still got her jewel--the jewel she gave the child; some +Italian fal-lal; the child is wearing it round its neck yet. I made +them go over her visit, word by word.” + +“That was the day before,” protested Ambrosia. “That has nothing to do +with her disappearance.” + +“I had my doubts of them, I had my suspicions,” continued Oliver. “I +thought she might be there. I searched the place out. But then, the +scoundrels! I’ll get them off the land somehow, they’ve got a sick boy +there, tramped up from Falmouth, coughing and choking by the fire, in +rags. The filthy, diseased brat! I’ll have them turned off, freehold +or no; they’re a plague-spot to the neighbourhood!” + +“But why should you speak of it now?” asked Ambrosia. “What has that +got to do with the search for Fanny? What has it got to do with any of +us--we all know about Pen Hall Farm. They have been there for +generations.” + +“He scarcely knows what he has said,” whispered the clergyman. “He is +exhausted, mind and body.” + +Oliver suddenly paused in his uneasy pacing up and down. + +“Can’t we have dinner?” he demanded gruffly. “Can’t we have some food? +I want to be off again.” + +“Again? To-night? Oh, Oliver, you must not.…” + +“I tell you I’m going out again, immediately. I’ve thought of +somewhere else to search. What a fool I was not to think of it +before!” + +Ambrosia was now alarmed beyond concealment. She wrung her hands. + +“Somewhere else to look--what do you mean, Oliver? As if every inch +had not been searched!” + +“There’s somewhere where no one has been,” said Oliver with a cunning +look. “And that’s Flimwel Grange--her own house. No one thought of +that, did they?” + +“Flimwel Grange?” said Ambrosia, in accents of horror. “But this is +lunacy, Oliver! Why should she go there? She could not have lived +there for three weeks--that’s only an empty house, so long shut up. +Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t go there!” + +“I’m going,” he replied violently, “and at once. Do you hold your +tongue, Ambrosia, and leave me in peace or I’ll say things you won’t +care to hear, nor I to speak! I give you some fault in this, you +know!” + +“That is ungenerous in you,” said Mr. Spragge. “You should not, sir, +blame your sister. And you, I pray you, show a little charity and +patience.” + +Oliver glared at him angrily. His black brows were pulled deep over +his eyes; his pale lips twitched convulsively. + +“I do not intend to preach to you,” said the clergyman steadily, “if +you wish, I will go with you to Flimwel Grange. It were better, since +you are set on this expedition, that you should at least have a +companion.” + +At this suggestion, the look of hate cleared from Oliver’s gloomy +face. He gave a long, heaving sigh, and said: + +“Yes, I would like a companion! If you are prepared to leave at +once.…” + +“I will certainly go with you, and at once,” declared Mr. Spragge +firmly. “Let us, however, conduct the matter with common sense. We +will take some refreshment, and you will change or dry your clothes; +and, as the night is so wild, we will go in a carriage, not on +horseback.” + +He half expected to be met by a further outburst from Oliver; but +instead, the tormented man regarded him with a sudden wistfulness in +his expression, and muttered: “Thank you, thank you!” + + + + + CHAPTER XXII + +“You’ll agree, then, that she’s not dead,” Oliver had asked +anxiously. “You’re willing to believe that she’s alive, hidden +somewhere, and to come with me to search for her at Flimwel Grange?” + +Mr. Spragge had agreed, for he believed that he had to deal, now, with +a man not wholly in his right mind, and he feared for Oliver Sellar’s +reason if he were strenuously opposed. He believed that the only help +he could give him and Ambrosia would come from gaining his confidence +and proving himself a friend to these wild fancies and delusions which +Oliver Sellar cherished. + +Ambrosia had taken him aside and protested about this +expedition--protested against his self-sacrifice in accompanying +Oliver on a night like this, with such a storm abroad, and to that +lonely house. + +“It is not far away,” said the old man, “and I have often been out in +a storm before; and I am quite well and stalwart, and if we take the +thing reasonably, it will harm neither of us. Why, my dear, it is but +a question of a mile-and-a-half drive, and looking over an empty +house.” + +“But what good will it do Oliver?” she urged. “It is only encouraging +him!” + +“It will get me into the confidence of Oliver. Who knows but that I +may be able to say a word in season, and to persuade him to some peace +and tranquillity?” + +Ambrosia did not reply. She gave orders for a hasty meal to be +prepared, for Oliver would not wait till the usual dinner-time; and +then she returned to her drawing-room and took out her sewing. So she +was to be left again--even the old clergyman was to be swept into this +wild search for Fanny. She must sit there alone by the +fireside--pondering, wondering, examining her own heart, struggling +with her own feelings.… + +Oliver had taken Mr. Spragge into his own private room--that little +closet beyond the dining-room where he had interviewed Fanny the last +time that he had spoken to her; the room where he now always passed +the brief time that he was in his house. + +On the bureau were the cases containing his mother’s jewels, which +Ambrosia had handed to Fanny, and Luisa, the Italian maid, had handed +back on her mistress’s disappearance. Among them, though Mr. Spragge +did not know this, was the heavy engagement ring which he had given +Fanny in Italy, and a necklace of Etruscan gold, and a _rivière_ of +diamonds which he had purchased for her in Paris. + +The two rooms which she had occupied during her short stay at Sellar’s +Mead were now locked up, and Oliver kept the keys with these other +treasures. He had given severe orders that nothing was to be touched; +none of her possessions was to be put away. All the fal-lals and +trifles left upon her dressing-table, her clothes still hanging in the +press, her shoes on the floor, her vases and ornaments in the places +where she had left them.… + +When he had given these orders, he had said: + +“At any moment she may come back, at any second she may return; and +everything must be in readiness.” + +Now he rang the bell, as was his usual evening custom, and, when the +maid came, gave her the key of these apartments, saying: + +“See that all is prepared, and a large fire lit. It may be that +to-night the Countess Fanny comes home. I am going abroad, and +possibly I shall bring her back with me.” + +Mr. Spragge listened in dismay to these instructions, which the maid +received with respectful impassiveness. + +When she had gone, Oliver took a piece of paper from his pocket, and +showed it to the clergyman. + +It contained a list of the clothes the Countess Fanny was wearing on +the day of her disappearance. + +“Two of them are here--two of those items,” said Oliver; and he opened +a drawer in the bureau. Mr. Spragge observed, with a shudder, the +crushed straw bonnet with the wreaths of dark-red flowers, and the +torn, pale cashmere shawl which Fanny had worn the day she had +disappeared. + +“Those were found on the rocks, you know,” said Oliver. “She’d been +walking on the rocks, and cast them down. It was her manner, you know, +to take off her bonnet whenever she could, and let the wind blow +through her hair. But, for the rest, she wore these.” + +And his heavy hand and pointing finger indicated to the clergyman the +list carefully compiled from Luisa’s instructions as to the attire of +the lost girl. + +“A dress of dark-green cloth with steel buttons, and underclothing of +Indian lawn with Valenciennes lace; a tippet of blue and white striped +sarcenet with a silk fringe; a cameo brooch, set in foliated gold, and +carved with a head of Medusa; a pair of bracelets and a necklace, in +wrought coral, fashioned to appear like grapes, and set in gold; a +comb to match; a rosary of gilt beads and lapis; a reticule--yellow +velvet--containing beads, handkerchief, a half-finished purse of +netted silk, some charms and holy medallions.” + +The clergyman read the piteous list. He did not know what to say, yet +plainly Oliver was waiting for him to speak. + +“None of these things has been found,” he faltered. + +“No,” said Oliver, “not one.” + +“How should they be?” thought Mr. Spragge, with deep pity, “when they +are all with her at the bottom of the sea?” And he marvelled at any +passion being deep enough to create so bottomless a hope as that +nourished by Oliver Sellar. And he noted that the unfortunate man was +drinking heavily. + +He hardly touched the food that was brought him, but the wine he drank +in copious glassfuls, one after the other. No doubt he had been +drinking like this ever since the girl was lost. He foresaw a dark +future for Oliver Sellar if the Countess Fanny was not found; and +indeed it was impossible that she should be found. + +Then a fantastic thought came into the old man’s mind. Supposing, by +some miracle, that she _was_ found; what then would the situation be? +She had run away from Oliver--that was clear enough. So that, even if +she returned, as it were from the grave, what use to this dark, +tormented man sitting beside him, since she would reject him? Better, +almost for Oliver Sellar that the Countess Fanny should be dead! + +They set out on their senseless journey, and the old man bowed and +shuddered a little, used as he was to tempestuous weather, at the +blasts of the wind that blew up out of the darkness and smote him as +he waited on the porch for the carriage. What a night and what an +errand! + +The stout horses and the willing coachman, knowing the road so well, +and skilful in his driving, soon brought them through the tearing wind +and the onslaught of the rain to the gates of Flimwel Grange, which +lay just beyond the confines of the estate of Oliver Sellar, who +rented the house with the land, but had never troubled to endeavour to +find a tenant for it, nor for years crossed its threshold. + +When the Countess Caldini, Fanny’s mother, had been asked what she +wished done with the house where she had spent her own childhood, and +of which she was now the sole heiress, she had replied indifferently +enough from Italy, saying it might be shut up until such good time as +she could return to England, where it was always her intention, she +had declared, to return sooner or later; but she had been absorbed in +the troubles of her distracted country--the shifting policies and +incipient rebellions of Rome and Florence and Turin--and she had never +come back to her native country, though it had been her dying wish +that her daughter should do so, and for that reason she had left +Oliver Sellar as her child’s guardian, hoping that he would take her +back to Cornwall. + +Mr. Spragge could remember when the Grange had been inhabited. He had +come to St. Nite’s just before the marriage of the Englishwoman to the +Italian, whom she had met in London during her first and only season +there. + +The Count Caldini had come to England to endeavour to rouse interest +in the cause of the Italian patriots, and, in the drawing-room of some +well-wisher to his cause, he had met the beautiful young Cornishwoman +and married her immediately, and taken her away, never wishing her to +return; and soon after the father and mother had died, and the Grange +had been shut up. + +Flimwel Grange was an ugly and pretentious house, recently built on +the site of an old mansion, some parts of which yet remained; but the +façades were of sham Gothic, heavy and gloomy, with a square tower at +one side. + +Beneath this tower was an archway, and there they left the carriage +and horses in some sort of a shelter. The driving rain was incessant, +and the wind seemed to increase in volume every moment. + +Oliver had the keys and a lantern, and Mr. Spragge, bending before the +gale, followed him round to the front door. + +Oliver flashed the lantern over the blank façade of the house. All +the windows were shuttered. + +“Surely,” thought the clergyman to himself, “he has, indeed, lost his +wits to suppose that the poor child can be in there, or can, indeed, +ever have been in there! What a madman’s quest is this!” And he almost +regretted his complaisance in accompanying Oliver Sellar on such a +journey. + +But Oliver was already unlocking the front door, and Mr. Spragge was +glad to follow him, even into the gloom of that deserted mansion; for +it was some shelter against the rising rain and the cold wind. + +He wondered, as Oliver closed the door behind him, to whom the house +now really belonged. He was not quite sure who was the heir of the +Countess Fanny--but Italian, no doubt; the uncle or the cousin; and he +thought uneasily, as the Earl had thought, that these people should be +apprised of the death of their young relation, and informed as to +their inheritance of her property. + +Oliver held the lantern aloft, and in the long beam looked up the +stairs, which rose straightly before them, and disappeared into +darkness. + +“I should hardly have recognised the place,” murmured Mr. Spragge. +“How different it looks from when I last saw it! They had it very +prettily furnished, I used to think, and kept it very well.” + +“The furniture was sold,” said Oliver absently, “and the proceeds sent +to the Countess Caldini. She always wanted money for her husband’s +cause. Fanny, you know, has not very much.” + +This was the first time the clergyman had heard the dower of the +Countess Fanny referred to. + +Oliver continued: + +“Her cousin and her uncle inherit the estate, and she has nothing but +a little money in cash and this estate. It is not worth such a very +great deal.” + +He still spoke in a distracted tone, and seemed entirely absorbed in +gazing up those empty, dusty stairs. + +Mr. Spragge was glad that he had said this, for it did show that at +least he had had no mercenary motive in his ill-judged and hasty +engagement. + +“We will search every room,” said Oliver. “Do you go one way, and I +another.” + +“We have only one lantern,” objected Mr. Spragge, “and I can scarcely +hope to find anything in the dark. Let us go together, sir; the house +is not so large, and we have ample time.” + +“Very well,” assented Oliver, “we’ll begin on the ground floor. There +are two drawing-rooms and a parlour or so, I believe; it is long since +I was in the house, and I have forgotten.” + +He opened the door on his right as he spoke, and Mr. Spragge +accompanied him on this sombre, and to the old man useless, +pilgrimage. + +It did not take long to satisfy even Oliver that no one was lurking in +the rooms, for they were completely unfurnished and square, without +any recesses or cupboards. The one object in each was the ponderous +stone mantelpiece, and all was open and bare to the most casual +scrutiny. Perhaps, hoped Mr. Spragge, this emptiness would give him +some manner of shock, and prove to him the futility of this dismal +search. + +Oliver trudged impatiently from one room to another, disturbing the +dust and sometimes the rats and mice, who scampered away at the sound +of his noisy tread. Everything was covered with dust; in some places +the plaster had fallen; in others the damp had come in, and lay in an +ugly green-black blotch, bloomed with mildew, all over the +drab-coloured walls. + +Oliver flashed his lantern into every corner. He tried the shutters; +they were all firmly bolted, and it was quite clear, from the +thickness of the dust upon the sills, that they had not been recently +disturbed. + +“Let us go upstairs,” said Oliver grimly. “After that we will go down +into the basement, the kitchens and cellars.” + +“As you please,” said Mr. Spragge. He was again struggling against +that pervading miasma of despair and gloom, like the breath of a +demon, given out by the tormented personality of Oliver; here, alone +with him in this empty and gloomy house, he felt it even more strongly +than he had felt it in the comfortable drawing-room at Sellar’s Mead. +The man was possessed, surely! + +Mr. Spragge thought there was something monstrous in his +looks--something dark and menacing and inhuman, almost as grotesque +and horrible as the big, wavering shadows cast behind him by the +lantern that he carried; the jet black hair and whiskers, with those +plumes of white upon the forehead, that grimly set face and those +sunken, flashing eyes; the whole aspect of the man inspired the +clergyman, not only with aversion, but almost with terror. + +They went upstairs, and the boards creaked beneath their tread. + +“She was interested in this place, you know,” said Oliver quickly, and +more as if speaking to himself than caring about his companion; “she +even wanted to live here. She asked me to bring her over to see it, +but I never did.” + +“She would wish to see her mother’s house, of course,” replied the +clergyman feelingly. “That would be natural enough.” + +“And she might have come here,” insisted Oliver, looking down with a +grin over his shoulder, at the clergyman following--a demoniacal grin, +Mr. Spragge thought, with a shudder in his heart. “Why should she not +have come here? That would have been a natural place for her to hide, +would it not--her mother’s old home?” + +This was so horrible and so grotesque that the clergyman decided not +to reply to it. How impossible to point out to one of the temper and +mood of Oliver Sellar the absurdity of anyone hiding in the house and +surviving there for three weeks. And he began to speculate as to what +Oliver Sellar would do when he discovered that he had been cheated in +his hopes yet once again; when the disappointment of finding the house +empty indeed broke upon him with full force. Would he lose control and +have some fit, some seizure? Would he be thrown into an even deeper +gloom, an even more sombre despair? Or would he, Mr. Spragge, be able +to enforce on him a lesson of resignation and fortitude? + +The clergyman endeavoured to brace himself so that he could give +strength and consolation to this soul in torment. But how futile +seemed all his possible administrations to one so frantically +possessed as Oliver Sellar! + +Now they must make a progress through the upper rooms, one after +another, flashing the lantern’s long beams into the corners, fingering +the dust on the sills, looking at the rusty bolts in the shutters, +flinging open empty cupboards and gazing into the blackness therein. + +“I meant to have furnished this as a wedding-present for her,” said +Oliver. “I could have made it very pretty, could I not, sir? The rooms +would really be charming.” And he grinned again. “Think of them, done +up with silver paper and sprigged muslin, with roses here and there. +Could they not be made very delightful to a young lady’s taste?” + +“God have pity on you!” thought Mr. Spragge, with deep compassion. + +“She should have had a whole suite to herself,” continued Oliver, +speaking rapidly. “With an aviary. She would have liked that--gilded +wire cages, with pretty birds in them, like she had in Italy; and +flowers always. There is a good soil, here at Flimwel. I could have +grown a number of flowers--under glass, of course, sir. She loved +exotics.” + +“Yes, yes, this a very fine house,” said Mr. Spragge hastily. “Very +fine indeed, no doubt.” + +“I will have the decorators in to-morrow,” cried Oliver. “I will send +to London, to Paris, for painters and gilders. I will give it to her +as a wedding-present--eh?” + +“I beseech you, sir,” cried Mr. Spragge, laying a hand on his arm, “to +control yourself, and speak reasonably. You should not have come to +this place--perhaps I was wrong to sanction it.” + +“We are to be married in April, you know,” replied Oliver wildly, “but +I think by April they can have it ready, can they not?” + +They had now entered another room, and Oliver gave a sudden fierce +exclamation. + +“What’s that?” he cried. + +A small object was lying in the middle of the floor, and as Oliver +seemed incapable of moving, Mr. Spragge hurried forward and picked it +up. It was a small coral bracelet, wrought in a design of grapes and +vine-leaves. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII + +Mr. Spragge felt himself engulfed in horror. Never, till that +moment, had he known what real terror was. All his previous +convictions as to the end of the Countess Fanny were blown aside by a +breath of sheer dread, and wild and awful speculations took their +place. Had she been to this house? Was such a conclusion possible? How +explain this ornament, lying here in the middle of the empty room on +the dusty floor? And for the first time there crept into the +bewildered mind of the clergyman the ghastly thought that possibly the +girl had met with foul play. He could not think of anyone on St. +Nite’s Point who was capable of such a crime; but possibly some +stranger, possibly some wandering sailor, for the sake of those few +trinkets that she wore… he dared not pursue the thought, but stood +with the broken bracelet in his hand, looking down at it. + +Oliver Sellar was looking at it also. + +“You see,” he said quietly, “she _is_ here somewhere. I thought so, +did I not?” + +The clergyman could not immediately answer; he was trying to control +his own racing thoughts, to steady his own beating heart. Never had he +been smitten with such utter amazement. + +“Are you sure this is hers?” he asked unsteadily. “Let us keep our +heads, and exercise our reason. Can you swear that this is hers?” + +“Of course,” said Oliver; “one of the set, two bracelets and a +necklace. I showed it you on the list, did I not?” + +“Heaven support us!” murmured the clergyman. + +Oliver had taken the bracelet now, and was examining it keenly. The +clasp was broken, and a great deal of dust lay in between the fine +pieces of coral which formed the leaves and berries. + +“It has been here some time,” he remarked. “Now we must search the +rest of the house.” And he slipped the bracelet into his pocket, with +a calm that was, to Mr. Spragge, very horrible to behold. + +The clergyman had indeed no stomach for any further search. It did not +seem to him possible to follow Oliver any longer on such a ghastly +quest, after this discovery of the bracelet. She might be in the +house--yes, but how? Murdered, buried in a cellar, for all he knew. +That was surely the only possible solution for such a discovery. She +had been trapped and decoyed to this lonely house, or dragged there +after she was dead. The clergyman’s brain reeled under the ghastly +images that were forced upon him. + +“We’d better go and get help,” he said, trying to detain the other man +with a trembling hand. “Better have someone else in this. We can’t +undertake any more alone.” He suggested wildly that they should get in +the coachman, forgetting that it was impossible for the man to leave +the horses. + +Oliver took no heed of any of this. He thrust it all aside as a cloud +of irritating words that had no meaning. + +“Come on,” he said, “or leave me. Go outside and wait in the carriage +if you will. I desire no further company.” And he advanced with his +lantern, leaving Mr. Spragge in darkness. Sooner than be abandoned +thus, the clergyman followed him. + +They now went up a further flight of stairs and explored the attics. +Nothing there. Then down again into the basement--the great kitchen, +offices, and beneath them the cellars. Clinging, noisome damp filled +these underground rooms, and Mr. Spragge found it difficult to +discover the courage to descend into them. He recalled with what dread +and dismay he had read of atrocious murders, where the victim was +hidden in cellars, or under the stones of yards and kitchens. Even +though he had read such things in the cold print of formal accounts in +newspapers, he had not quite believed them; his mind had glanced away; +he had dismissed the whole fearsome subject; and now, was it possible +he was himself going to be brought face to face with some such +atrocious incident? + +He scarcely dared to glance round the cold blackness of the kitchen, +so dimly illuminated by the rays of the lantern that Oliver held +aloft. But there was nothing: dark emptiness was all. + +So in the other rooms--the servants’ parlour, the china closet, the +offices; one after another empty--bare shelves, bare cupboards. Mr. +Spragge’s nerves began to recover from the jangling shock they had +received from the discovery of the bracelet. After all, it must be +some extraordinary coincidence. Perhaps it was not the bracelet of the +Countess Fanny, but some ornament that had been dropped there when the +house was stripped of its furniture--not so many years ago, after +all.… He tried to reassure himself by this reflection. No, the +bracelet could not have belonged to the Countess Fanny. There was +nothing here; she had not been murdered and buried in any of these +horrible underground rooms, nor could she, by any stretch of +imagination or fancy, be supposed to be alive and in hiding in such a +place as this desolate mansion. + +“Come away now,” he said, endeavouring to speak sensibly and +moderately. “We can return to Sellar’s Mead, and you can show the +bracelet to the Italian maid. She can tell you if it is really the +belonging of her mistress. After all, it’s a common pattern; I’ve seen +many ladies wearing such ornaments.” + +“But I know,” said Oliver, in tones that chilled Mr. Spragge’s heart, +“that this is Fanny’s bracelet, and Fanny is somewhere here.” + +Again he must proceed through all these underground rooms, flashing +his light into every nook and corner, opening every cupboard, eyeing +the windows. + +Here, as on the other floor, all was bolted and secured. Rain and damp +had entered, but nothing else could possibly have done so. The rusty +bolts had been long in place; the wooden shutters were stout. + +Oliver now proceeded down the long stone passage which led to the back +door. Rats fled before them, startled by the light. At the sound of +those scampering feet Mr. Spragge shuddered with disgust and terror. +Most heartily now did he repent of his encouragement of Oliver to +visit Flimwel Grange, and he looked desperately at his companion, +hoping for some flicker of emotion on that dark, inflexible face. +Surely the moment would come when Oliver would break down and declare +“I can’t go on!” + +There was no sign of this. Undeterred and grim, Oliver proceeded on +his progress round the deserted house. + +The back door was as secure as the front door; a most thorough +examination revealed that it had not been tampered with. Oliver stood +erect, pausing. He had at last been brought to a stop, because there +was nowhere else where he could very well turn any longer. Mr. Spragge +waited, shivering; hoping every moment that he would say: “Let us now +return to the carriage.” But what Oliver did say, at length, was +something totally different from this. + +“There is a window open somewhere,” he remarked. “I feel a blast of +cold outer air.” + +“Oh, no,” muttered the clergyman fearfully. “How can you feel that, +Mr. Sellar, when everything here is like ice?” + +“But there is a window open,” persisted Oliver, “in that direction.” +He made a motion with his free hand towards the left of the passage, +and then strode down it. Mr. Spragge, from a sense of duty and also +because he did not care to be left there without the light, was at his +heels. + +It seemed to him that it was impossible for Oliver’s perception to be +so delicate as to be able to perceive an extra blast of cold in what +was so chill already, and it was with a horrible surprise that he +discovered that his companion had been correct in his surmise. One of +the windows in the passage was open; that was to say, it was broken. A +shutter had been wrenched back, and the glass smashed; the fragments +of splintered wood and broken glass lay on the stone floor of the +corridor. + +The window-frame had been latched, but it was easily possible to +unlatch it from the outside, and when it was so open the aperture was +sufficiently large for anyone to have entered the house--anyone, that +is, of not too great a bulk. + +“You see,” said Oliver; “someone has been here.” + +“This is indeed dreadful,” murmured the vicar, sick at heart. “What +are we to do?” + +“It was she,” said Oliver unheedingly. “She came through here.” + +“No, no!” protested Mr. Spragge vehemently. “Don’t nourish such ideas, +sir, I entreat you. This has been some wandering vagabond who broke +through to get a night’s shelter.” + +“And that bracelet?” + +“We’ll call it part of his spoils; they get such things, you know.” +The clergyman’s voice faltered. He could not think of what words to +choose. + +“None of this has anything to do with the Countess Fanny; I beseech +you to believe that! Have we not already searched every part of the +house?” + +Oliver proceeded along the stone-flagged passage. There was, indeed, +nowhere else to look. The long and exhaustive search had only produced +these two results--the broken window and the coral bracelet. + +“Let us go outside and look beneath the window,” said he sombrely; and +after some difficulty he contrived to pull back the creaking bolts of +the door and to open this on to the yard or garden at the back of the +place. + +As he did this he was met by a blast of wind that blew in howling, and +raged in triumph through all the empty rooms. So violent and icy was +this wind that Mr. Spragge bent his head towards it, and even then +felt his breath choked in his throat at the fury of this onslaught. He +could hardly keep his feet as he followed Oliver Sellar out into the +blackness, which the lantern only so faintly dispersed. + +They searched beneath the broken window, but again their search was +fruitless. It was impossible now to tell if the ground had been ever +disturbed by human footsteps--so wet was it, so beaten upon by rain +and the rush of the water from one of the choked gulleys of the house +which fell here in a steady stream, turning the small bed of earth +that edged the flagged yard into a lake of mud about a tangle of dead, +sodden weeds. + +“Nothing, you can see, nothing,” murmured Mr. Spragge. “Shall we not +now, sir, return? Ambrosia will be getting anxious. We have been a +long time away.” + +Oliver sighed. He seemed impervious to the elements--to the cold, the +wind, the dark, the rain--and stood there, holding his lantern and +staring at the broken window, absorbed in thoughts the clergyman did +not dare to guess at; nay, he tried to put from his own mind what was +probably passing in the mind of Oliver Sellar. + +“Let us think, sir,” he said tremulously, “of those at sea to-night; +this will be ghastly weather at sea. Let us contemplate the +misfortunes of others, and that will give us the humility to endure +our own.” + +Baffled, mute, and terrible, Oliver Sellar continued to stare at the +broken window, and made no reply. It seemed impossible to touch him by +any reference except to his own loss. He was living in a world of his +own creation--a world, Mr. Spragge thought, inhabitated by demons. + +At length, with another long sigh, Oliver turned away, and, in a +moody, absent voice, said: + +“We will come again to-morrow. I do not see what more we can do +to-night.” + +They walked round the house, bending before the blast, making their +way with difficulty to the arch where the carriage waited. + +During the ride home Oliver Sellar did not speak a word, but remained, +with arms folded and head sunk on his breast, in his corner, wrapped +in his overcoat, with his hat pulled down over his sullen brow. + +“I have been of no use,” thought Mr. Spragge, miserable with the sense +of his own inadequacy. “This is the first time that I have been called +upon to help anyone, and I cannot do it.” + +It was late when they returned to Sellar’s Mead--even later than the +clergyman had feared it would be; but Ambrosia was sitting up for +them. She had, as usual, performed her housewifely duties perfectly. +There were fires in all the rooms. She herself, with her air of +decorous patience, sat in the large drawing-room before the hearth, on +which a kettle was elegantly steaming. A table was beside her--a small +table on which were cakes on a silver stand, biscuits and sandwiches, +glasses, and various bottles of wine, besides a tea-service; all +looking so homely, comely, and pleasing in the red light of the lamps. + +Mr. Spragge wondered why he noticed, with such a poignant clarity, all +these ordinary and familiar details. + +“It must be,” he thought, with a shudder, “because of the contrast +they make with the bleak, black desertion of Flimwel Grange.” + +Ambrosia glanced from him to Oliver. The clergyman noted with +compassion how strained and lined was her face; she looked almost an +old, almost a plain, woman. + +“You must both be very exhausted,” she remarked quietly. “It is a +terrible night.” + +Oliver did not answer this formal greeting; he thrust his hand into +his pocket, and then held it out to Ambrosia--the coral bracelet on +the palm. + +“Fanny’s!” exclaimed Ambrosia. Then, on another breath: “Where did you +find it?” + +“At Flimwel Grange,” said Oliver. “In the middle of the floor of one +of the upper rooms.” + +Then Ambrosia, shrinking back, cried: + +“It can’t be hers!” + +“There was a window broken at the back,” added Oliver. “Quite +possible, you see, for someone to have entered there. It would not +take very much strength or skill to wrench the shutter and break the +glass and lift the latch. She has been there, Amy; Fanny has been to +Flimwel Grange.” + +“Oh, heavens,” cried Amy, with a sick look. “What do you mean, Oliver? +What can be the meaning of it? Why should she go there? You--you +didn’t find her?” she added, in sinking tones. + +“No, no,” said Mr. Spragge hastily, seeing that Ambrosia had sensed +the same horror as he had sensed; the ghastly, unspeakable possibility +of a slain and murdered Fanny. “No, no, my dear; nothing at all--just +this bracelet, and the broken window. As I tell your brother, it would +be quite possible that some wandering vagabond, some sailor, has +pushed his way in there to sleep the night; and the bracelet--it is a +common pattern.” + +“It is Fanny’s,” said Oliver. And he returned the ornament to his +pocket. + +“Why not ask Luisa?” said the vicar, on a faint hope that the bracelet +might have been proved not to be that of the missing girl. + +Amy shook her head. She did not wish the extravagant hysterics of the +Italian maid introduced into the matter; she knew too well that that +was Fanny’s bracelet. She had noticed it again and again on her fine +wrist. + +Moving mechanically, and with an almost unnatural composure, she +proceeded to make the tea and to offer it to the two men. She must do +something, and these domestic actions came very naturally to her. + +Mr. Spragge drank the beverage gratefully. He was exhausted and +disturbed beyond measure. The events of that evening had been a great +shock to him, and inexplicable.… + +Ambrosia folded away her needlework into the mother-of-pearl inlaid +satinwood work-basket, and locked it, and hung the key on the ring at +her waist, and then poured herself a cup of tea and drank it. After +she had performed these trivial actions, she asked her brother: + +“What will you do to-morrow, Oliver?” + +“Let us pray for resignation,” murmured Mr. Spragge humbly. + +“I shall find her,” said Oliver. “Some day I shall find her.” + +Mr. Spragge looked at the tormented man with grave and fearful +compassion. + +“God help you!” he said sincerely. “God, in His mercy, help you!” + +“Oliver,” implored Ambrosia earnestly, “think of this--however much +you dislike to be reasoned with on this subject, think of this--if she +is alive, she is hiding from you; she does not want you to find her; +and if she is dead, it must be that you vex her spirit by this refusal +to leave her in peace. Don’t you think she would hear you crying on +her, day and night, and be troubled in her grave?” + +Oliver appeared impressed and startled by this. For the first time for +many days he gave some personal attention to his sister, and looked at +her keenly. + +“Aye, aye,” he muttered. “I think even if she were at the bottom of +the sea she would hear me.” + +“Then leave her in peace,” said Mr. Spragge. “We know not what we do +when we so trouble the repose of the dead. She might come back, sir, +in some form that you would shudder to behold! While you search for +her body, you might be brought face to face with her soul.” + +“I don’t want her soul,” returned Oliver. + +Mr. Spragge had known that; there was nothing spiritual in the passion +of Oliver Sellar for this foreign girl; it was her body for which he +searched, her body that he wanted, her body of which he had been +cheated.… + +“The wind rises,” said Ambrosia, glancing towards the curtained +windows. “For three days now they have been trying to fetch old Joshua +from the lighthouse; his leave is overdue.” + +“Ah, yes, the lighthouse,” said the vicar. “I had forgotten. We may be +thankful that there has been no wreck.” + +“The winter is young,” remarked Oliver, with a horrid grin, as if he +would have liked to have thought of the coast strewn with wreckage, +fragments of great ships, and tattered bodies. + +“Don’t remind me of that,” replied Ambrosia nervously. “Indeed, I do +not know how I am going to live through it.” + +Oliver pushed aside the cup of tea which Ambrosia had placed behind +him, and instead poured himself out a large glass of port. + +“I’ll go to bed,” said Ambrosia rising. She turned to the clergyman. +“Your room, sir, is ready.” She knew what it would be now; Oliver +would sit there for hours--perhaps till the dawn--piling coal on the +fire, drinking, silent, taking no notice of her if she were in the +room, not missing her if she went out of the room; merely keeping the +blaze on the hearth replenished, and drinking; until, in the morning, +they would find him in a sodden sleep, tumbled in a chair. So did he +spend too many nights after these days of frantic and hopeless search. + +And now there was the added horror of the coral bracelet for him to +brood over; the horror that Ambrosia had put out of her own mind. + +Mr. Spragge followed her to the door. He did not think that he could +any longer endure the company of Oliver Sellar. + +Then, to the surprise of both, Oliver spoke, without changing his +attitude, nor looking at them. + +“I’ll go to Lefton Park,” he said. “Perhaps, after all, Lucius knows +where she is.” + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV + +Ambrosia had not answered when her brother had made that dreadful +remark about Lucius--when he had stared at her and said: + +“Perhaps Lucius knows where she is.” + +She had been about to make some passionate reply when Mr. Spragge had +touched her hand and given her an imploring look that seemed to say +“You deal with a man whose mind is broken. Take no heed of him. Do not +cross him by a contradiction, at least!” + +So she had left the room in silence; nor had the clergyman spoken, +either. But Oliver Sellar, staring after them from his easy chair by +the hearth, had laughed heavily. + +When they were outside in the passage, Ambrosia had turned to the +clergyman, and demanded, with almost uncontrolled agitation, what he +really made of the episode of the coral bracelet found in the empty +Grange? + +“Was it hers, do you think, sir? How did it get there? And what +solution do you suggest to this profound mystery?” + +“None,” replied the clergyman, shaking his head. “Whichever way you +look at it it seems impenetrable.” + +“Is your conviction that she is dead shaken?” demanded Ambrosia +fearfully. + +Again the old man shook his head, deeply troubled, almost confounded. + +“Surely she must be dead!” he murmured. “No, I cannot say that I have +the least hope that she is alive. As for the bracelet, there may be +some quite commonplace solution. Some of her trinkets might even have +been found, with the shawl, and kept by the fishers; they’re wild +people here, you know, with strange ideas of morality and honesty; and +one of them may have stolen these trinkets.” + +“Yes, yes,” said Ambrosia impatiently. “Yet I do not think that, +either, for they knew that they would have got a good reward by +bringing them to Oliver. And even so, how should it get into Flimwel +Grange?” + +“Well, someone had broken in; that was obvious,” said the clergyman. +“The window was broken and wrenched back. Of course, this wild weather +has destroyed all possible trace of footsteps, but someone had broken +in, and that person must have had the bracelet in his possession and +dropped it there by error.” + +“The clasp is broken,” said Ambrosia fearfully, “as if it had fallen +from her wrist.” + +But Mr. Spragge declared hurriedly that he could not and would not +believe that the Countess Fanny herself had been in the abandoned +mansion. + +“What possible reason could there be for her to go to such a forsaken +place? Indeed, Miss Sellar, what possible reason could there be for +her to remain hidden? If she is alive, she is doing a very terrible +thing. She must know the pain and agony she is inflicting on several +people; but no, let us dismiss any idea so cruel and fantastic. She +had no motive, either.” + +But Ambrosia muttered: + +“I fear that she was in dread of Oliver. She was very passionate and +wilful, and I think she is quite capable of hiding from him. And might +it not have been that she had the curiosity to go to that house, and +get into it and look round? It was her mother’s house, you know, and +she often expressed a great desire to see it; but it was so desolate +and dreary a place that we were in no eagerness to take her there; +though I believe that Oliver had some scheme of furnishing it for her +and giving it to her on their wedding as a surprise.” + +But such a solution of the profound mystery of the disappearance of +the Countess Fanny did not seem feasible to Mr. Spragge. Indeed, he +declared, correcting himself, it was not so profound a mystery after +all; the girl had plainly been drowned. + +“Do you think she drowned herself?” asked Ambrosia, with her fingers +to her lips; and Mr. Spragge did not answer. He did not know enough of +the story to declare an opinion on this dreadful matter; but, from his +late observation of Oliver Sellar, he thought it was possible that he +had terrorised the girl, even perhaps to the point of suicide. Surely +remorse--deep and unavailing remorse--was one of the furious passions +now devastating the soul of Oliver Sellar. Mr. Spragge thought so, at +least; but it was not for him to say so. + +He tried to give what conventional comfort he could to Ambrosia, and +he noticed dismally that the girl seemed as impervious to his formal +consolations as her brother had been; she smiled absently, pressed his +hand, thanked him for his good offices, and went to her room. + +As Mr. Spragge entered his great chamber, he noticed that the wind had +dropped, and, going to the window, discovered that the clouds had been +torn aside from the dark, midnight blue of the sky, and that a few icy +stars sparkled in the upper air. In this cessation of the supreme +violence of the storm he found a slight comfort. If they could, +somehow, get through this dreadful winter and to the spring, why, +surely, with the fresh budding of the trees and the new coming of the +flowers there would be some hope for all of them--even for Oliver +Sellar.… + +In the morning, the change of weather still held. A veiled sunshine, +even, lay abroad on the rugged landscape. The cold was sharp indeed, +and the ground bitter with frost; but, despite the rigorous cold which +bound the barren earth in icy chains and the dreary spectacle of the +storm-lashed trees, it was some relief that the doleful wind had +ceased to howl, that the enraged heavens had spent their fury; joyless +and gloomy as was the day, at least it was a pause in the long rage of +the storm. And the clergyman preferred the raw and chilling damp mists +that hung above the rimed fields, heavy and oppressive as these were, +to the incessant slash of the rain borne upon the tumultuous winds +which had for weeks devastated the landscape. + +He therefore considered the prospect with some thankfulness, and +watched the pallid beams of the sun endeavouring to disperse the +sullen fogs that lay across the park. + +He hastened downstairs, thinking to himself that even Oliver Sellar +must feel the influence of this fairer day, must feel enlivened by the +sight of the sun. + +He was both surprised and amazed to see Oliver already booted and +spurred, standing in the open doorway, when he descended the stairs +into the passage hall, cold with the rawness of early morning. + +“Why, Mr. Sellar, you’re not going abroad so soon! And it is no fit +day for riding with this hoar frost.” + +Oliver gave him a sullen and malignant glance. + +“My horse can hold the road,” he replied drily. + +Mr. Spragge came to his side in the open doorway, and peered, +shivering, out into the universal and boundless cold. The fog seemed +to be thickening in the distance into large banks of sombre cloud. + +“We shall have snow,” shivered the clergyman, “but I am glad the wind +has dropped; they will be able, perhaps, to change the watch at the +lighthouse now.” He ventured to add: “Where, sir, are you going?” but +he did not carry his temerity so far as to look at Oliver. He could +not yet support the spectacle of unendurable anguish that the strong, +sombre man presented. + +He had hoped that the comparative fairness of the day, the comparative +serenity of the sky, would have blunted the keen edge of the calamity +of the Countess Fanny’s disappearance; but he observed no change in +the demeanour of Oliver, who, glancing at him with indifference tinged +with contempt, said: + +“I am going to Lefton Park, to see Lucius.” And so walked away, +without looking back, leaving the clergyman in the open doorway. + +The clergyman turned back into the breakfast-room, closing the door +behind him. Useless and only vexatious to argue with Oliver: he must +do what he could to console Ambrosia. + +He found her stately and composed behind her breakfast equipage, her +hands folded in her lap, her hair smoothly banded, her long face pale +but resolute. + +“He has gone to see Lucius,” she said; and Mr. Spragge replied: + +“I know--I have just met him. I feel most inadequate to your needs, +but indeed I can do nothing.” + +Ambrosia merely smiled at this confession of failure from that man +from whom she had hoped so much; it had been foolish of her to hope +anything at all; she might have known that Oliver’s case was beyond +any human ministrations. + +“Useless to preach resignation and humiliation to him,” she sighed. “I +also can do no more; I must sit aside and leave it.” + +“I am sorry for him,” cried Mr. Spragge. “One may take an illustration +from the storm. The tree that disdains to bend is dashed headlong to +ruin, while those that are flexible before the wind elude the +widespread havoc. It is presumptuous in humanity to provoke the +Almighty by a refusal to submit to his decrees.” + +Ambrosia turned her head sharply, and listened to the sound of hoofs +on the hard ground without. He had gone, then. + +Oliver rode to Lefton Park, rode cautiously and with precise care. He +had that amount of command of himself, for all his depressed fury. He +would not mar his design by any trivial accident. Carefully he guided +his cautious horse over the iron-like ridges of the road. Pendants of +ice hung on the bare trees and the low hedges. Every battered weed was +outlined in white. Although the wind appeared to have almost died +away, and was now little more than a chill breeze, great banks of +snow-clouds advanced heavily, one with the fog, which they appeared to +absorb, and were closing over that pale space of upper air, and +obscuring the tremulous white radiance of the sun. + +When Oliver reached Lefton Park, he was at once admitted into the +presence of Lucius. The young man was alone, finishing his breakfast. +He greeted Oliver awkwardly, and said at once that his father was +ill--at least not so well to-day--and that he had passed an anxious +night. + +“How long,” asked Oliver grimly, “since your nights were other than +anxious?” + +Lucius glanced at him covertly, and asked, in a hurried tone, why he +had come--if there was any reason for his visit. + +“It is early,” he said. “You are, perhaps, on your way somewhere; or +do you bring a message from Amy?” + +“I don’t think,” replied Oliver grimly, “that Amy will have any more +messages for you. She has, at least, sent none by me.” + +He continued to stare the younger man down, who continued to glance +away. Lucius had all the appearance of illness. He had never been +strong, and his delicate constitution had not been able to support the +anxiety and hardships of the last three weeks, the continual riding +abroad in all weathers, the harassing vexations of the fruitless +search. The glow and lustre of youth had disappeared from his fair +countenance; his eyes were bloodshot and shadowed, and the brightness +of his fair hair showed up the faded dullness of his complexion. + +Oliver Sellar noted all this with satisfaction. + +“You also have suffered,” he remarked. + +It was the first time the two had spoken alone together since the day +when they had met on the road outside Sellar’s Mead, the day when the +Countess Fanny had disappeared. + +Oliver put his hand into the pocket of his coat, and fingered the +coral bracelet he had found last night at Flimwel Grange; and Lucius +again nervously asked: + +“Why have you come here, Oliver. What is there to say?” + +“I don’t know that there is anything to say,” replied the other man +coldly. “But I wanted to look at you. It’s a long time since you and I +looked at each other, Lucius.” + +“Nearly three weeks,” was the quiet reply. + +“Are you going to continue the search?” demanded Oliver; and Lucius +was silent. He put his fine, thin hand before his eyes. + +“Do you think she’s dead?” persisted Oliver, leaning forward a little. + +To this Lucius did reply: + +“No.” + +“Neither do I,” replied Oliver, “and I think you know where she is.” + +Lucius gave him a melancholy and a compassionate look. + +“You must be lunatic to say that,” he remarked, “or else think that I +am lunatic.” + +“You helped her to escape,” persisted Oliver. “You’ve got her hidden +somewhere. You could do it--after all, it wouldn’t be so difficult for +you to smuggle her right out of the place and up to London; or over to +Italy, for all I know--there’s been time enough.” + +“For God’s sake,” cried the young man desperately, “do not let your +mind wander into such channels! I would to heaven that what you say +were true; but consider: if it were, would you then see me in the +state in which you now behold me?” + +Oliver stared with more intensity; he seemed to be impressed by that. + +“Aye, aye,” he muttered to himself; “there’s something in that, of +course. Yet--yes, I believe you know where she is!” + +“I can scarcely find the interest to deny so fantastic a charge,” +replied Lucius wearily. “Suspense and jealousy have broken your brain, +my dear Oliver.” + +“Jealousy, did you say?” cried the older man. “Now why do you bring +that word between you and me?” + +“I don’t know,” said Lucius, striving hard to speak moderately and +temperately; “I should not have used it, of course; there is no need. +You were her guardian and her promised husband, and I had little right +even to help in the search for her. Yet you know why I did it--because +I was the last to see her.” + +“What would I not give,” cried Oliver Sellar, fearfully, “to know what +passed between you then!” + +Lucius replied hurriedly: + +“You might have heard every word of it. There was nothing but the +impetuous talk of an undisciplined girl. As you know, I was about to +bring her back.” He winced as he said these words; they were followed +in his own mind by a dreadful sentence: “Yes, I was about to bring her +back to you; and that caused her death!” + +“So you say,” said Oliver cunningly, “so you say; yet I still believe +you know where she is, and you have her hidden somewhere.” + +“Heavens above!” cried Lucius, with a sudden flare of nervous +impatience, “do you suppose that I should have done the thing +secretly? You couldn’t have forced her, after all; if I had wanted to +I could openly have taken her away.” + +“Could you?” asked Oliver quietly. “But you’re not the man to do it, +are you?--you’re afraid of scandal, and Amy. I think you would have +chosen some quiet way.” + +“You read me wrong,” cried Lucius, struggling for serenity. “I was not +afraid. I wished to behave honourably. So, too, did she. There was no +dishonour or trickery in her mind. In everything she was honest and +open. She did not come here at night, but in the morning, in the broad +light.” + +“Why did she come?” demanded Oliver. “She was running away from me.” + +“Yes,” said Lucius, “she was running away from you. That was your +shame. I sent her back to you; and there’s _my_ shame.” + +“Why did you do it?” asked Oliver, intently and curiously. + +Lucius’s most bitter answer was on his lips. + +“Because I did not then realise that I loved her.” But he would not +speak these words to Oliver Sellar; not because of fear, but because +they seemed a profanation in such a presence, and because of Amy.… He +meant to keep faith with Amy; he had to keep faith with the women, one +living, one dead. + +Oliver stared at him, lowering, scornful. + +“I’ll find out!” he muttered. “I’ll find out! And soon, too. Look to +that, Lucius, for I mean to find out!” + +“I pray to God you do!” replied the young man passionately. “Life has +become a sick and sour thing to me since she went away.” + +“And yet she was a stranger to you,” sneered Oliver. “You hardly knew +her at all.” + +“She was young, and very beautiful,” said Lucius, “and, as you say, a +stranger, that made it more poignant. Something so different coming +among us, and then going so swiftly, so mysteriously! She lingers like +an echo in the air now, I cannot believe but that I shall open the +door and see her seated before the hearth, or leaning at the window, +or look across the park and see her coming under the trees. She was +here so short a time, yet the memory of her is more than vivid.” + +“_My_ memories,” snarled Oliver; “mine, not yours!” + +“She left you,” answered Lucius, “and came to me.” + +“You’re coming very near to it,” cried Oliver; “very near to a +confession!” He smiled, sneeringly. + +“I’ve no confession to make,” replied the young man; “and as for the +search, I have given it up. Continue if you will, but it is the way of +lunacy. There is nowhere else left to look. I have my duties to +perform, my life to take up. I shall not ride abroad any more +searching for the Countess Fanny.” + +“And I,” replied Oliver, with smouldering fury, “shall never cease to +search for her.” + +“God give you good speed,” said the young man wearily. “God grant that +you may find her! As for me, I am going to-day down to the lighthouse, +to see if they have brought old Joshua off. It is a little calmer. The +wind has almost ceased. I thought of going on the next watch myself, +with the young fisherman who has the turn. Then you and Amy will be +free of me for a week or so, and perhaps when I come back to the land +everyone will feel more at ease and peace.” + +Oliver did not reply to this. He frowned, looking both baffled and +ferocious. + +“Then, also, perhaps,” added Lucius, “you will believe that I do not +know the whereabouts of the Countess Fanny: a suspicion that I beg you +to breathe to no one, for it does wrong to all three of us; and surely +you at least can forbear to bandy her name about.” He turned away as +if to leave the room. Oliver stayed him by asking passionately: + +“Do you believe that she has destroyed herself?” + +Cold and quiet, the young man faced that question--one which had never +been absent from his mind during the last three weeks. + +“I cannot answer that,” he said in chill tones. “I leave that to you, +Oliver, and to your conscience. You can answer it better than I.” + +Oliver Sellar did not wince before this accusation and challenge in +one. He seemed, indeed, scarcely to hear it, but stood pondering, +biting his under lip. + +Lucius had no clue to his thoughts, but he seemed to be considering +some course--turning over a possible decision. At length he said: + +“I’ll come with you; I’ll ride down to the lighthouse also. Why not? +As you say, let us give up a useless search. We must be resigned, like +Christian men, as that ranting old fool told me last night. Let us, +then,” he added with a wild laugh, “be patient and hopeful; it is near +the season of peace and goodwill, is it not? We will go together to +the lighthouse, you and I, and see to the comfort of the men. It has +been a severe watch for that old fellow, and nearly a week over his +time, eh?” + +Lucius looked at him, suspicious, hostile, not able to pierce his +meaning. He must take what Oliver said on the surface, and on the +surface there was no objection to his words. + +“Very well, we will go together,” he said coldly. “It will be a long +and difficult ride to-day, but I am resolute to visit the lighthouse +before the dusk.” + + + + + CHAPTER XXV + +When the two sullen and ill-assorted companions, who had preserved a +cold silence during their journey, reached the little creek where were +a few fishers’ huts and houses by the extreme of St. Nite’s Point, +they found that the waves had not subsided. One day of calm had not +been sufficient to check that long-continued fury of the ocean. + +The lighthouse was still difficult of approach, but a boat had +ventured out, and had brought, after some difficulty, Joshua and the +young man who had been with him off the lighthouse; but, what was +sufficiently amazing, they had not taken anyone on to the lighthouse, +which was, for a few hours, untenanted. + +The two gentlemen discovered the situation to be this. The young +fisherman who was in training to be the new keeper of the lighthouse, +and was to share the watches of old Joshua Tregarthen during the +winter, had been stricken with sudden illness. A chill had followed +exposure to the storm, and he lay now sunk in delirium. The question +had therefore arisen, among the remaining inhabitants of the little +cluster of cottages in the cove, as to who was to take old Joshua’s +place? One or two men had volunteered, but half-heartedly. None of +them had any experience. Joshua had suffered both in his health and +his temper from the long confinement of nearly a month in the +lighthouse, and was by no means disposed to return there; and his +companion, the fisher-lad, flatly refused to do so. He had suffered +considerably from the violence of old Joshua’s temper, and had no wish +to renew that experience; and his description of the appalling +loneliness of the lighthouse, of the howl and tumble of the wind +underneath, the ocean sweeping up and sending spray to the very glass +of the lantern, the darkness and gloom and terror of the whole +experience, had done much to make the others dubious about +volunteering for this strenuous duty. + +It had finally been decided to relieve old Joshua while the weather +was set comparatively fair, and to send up to Lefton Park and ask the +advice of Lord Vanden as to who should take the next watch. Such a +messenger had actually been sent, and Lucius must have missed him on +the road, for the fisher had gone on foot and by the fields. + +Here was a situation that took the minds of both the men, for a brief +while at least, off their own tragedy. There were only a few hours of +daylight remaining, and possibly only a few hours of calm sea. Indeed, +the immense track of foam over the Leopard’s Rock looked dangerous +enough even now. The light must go up to-night. + +Old Joshua stepped up to Lucius, and sullenly said that he would +return to the watch, though he begged he might have another boy; the +inefficiency of the last lad, he declared, had been unendurable, nor +was the lad willing to return with him. + +Lucius looked anxiously at the old man, who showed plainly the strain +of his long vigil. He was more than seventy years of age, and +appeared, in the eyes of Lucius, utterly unfit for the renewed charge +that he offered to undertake. + +“I had better go, my lord, old and feeble as I be,” said Joshua +gloomily. “There’s no one here that knows the job. There’s no one here +can undertake the work, now young Mathews is taken sick. Who would +have looked for that?” + +“I had a man coming over from Falmouth and another from Truro,” said +Lucius, “both of whom would have been willing to undertake the work; +one of them has been trained. But the storm has prevented them--they +have not reached us yet. I, of course, never reckoned on the fact of +young Mathews’ sickness”; and he might have added that he had been so +absorbed in his quest for the Countess Fanny that he had scarcely +thought of the lighthouse at all, nor been the least troubled as to +who would follow old Joshua as keeper. + +The fisher-folk gathered silently round the two gentlemen on the +beach. The light was waning rapidly; the snow-clouds helped to darken +the sky. The boat, loaded with provisions, was ready on the water’s +edge in the shelter of the only cove where any boat could be +reasonably beached. Round the base of the precipitous coast the surf +still boiled and thundered, and across the hideous ridge of the +Leopard’s Rock lay that dangerous expanse of whirling foam. + +“The storm be coming up again,” muttered one or two of the men. “Maybe +it will be a month or six weeks for anyone who goes out there now;” +and another wondered if the thing was safe--said that the lad who had +just come back had felt the structure shake beneath him when the storm +was at its height. + +Lucius heard this remark, and checked it sharply. + +“That’s nonsense, of course! The building will stand the sharpest +storm that has ever blown--the highest sea; but we want someone, not +only with courage, but with a little knowledge and experience; someone +who can work the syren and the lantern.” + +“There be no one,” said old Joshua, not without a sullen pride. +“Though I was looking forward to me Christmas on shore, and a +rest--I’ve had bouts of illness, and my knees are so stiff I can +hardly get up and down the stairs--still, my lord, I am willing to go +back if some lad will come with me to help.” + +But no one would. The violence and the gloom of old Joshua were too +well known. It had been increasingly difficult to find anyone to +accompany him on his watches; since the son who had been his usual +companion had gone to Canada, no one had readily taken his place as +his father’s companion on the lighthouse. + +Oliver Sellar, who had watched the scene and listened to the +discussion without much interest, now said harshly: + +“Offer them double pay, and then they’ll go! They’re only standing out +for a higher price.” + +This remark was bitterly resented by the independent spirit of the +Cornishmen. They looked with indignant dislike at Oliver, who was +intensely unpopular with everyone. This injudicious remark only +confirmed them in an obstinate refusal to go on the lighthouse. Fair +words might have induced them to take up this unpleasant duty; foul +ones never would. + +Lucius looked out long and intently towards the sea, and gazed at the +lighthouse which was the fruit of so much enthusiasm and exertion on +his part, and in some degree paid for by his father’s and his own +ill-spared money; many dreams and ambitions, and visions and hopes of +youth had been by Lucius Foxe woven into the structure of the +lighthouse, which now rose up, grand and stately, dark against a +denser darkness, but bearing no lights in the cresset. + +“I will take the watch myself,” he said. “I had intended--yes, really +intended--to share it in any case. I thought that Mathews would have +been going, and I would have gone with him; but now I will go +alone--or perhaps there is some man who will come with me.” And he +looked round the crowd. + +There were some protests, but much relief at Luce’s suggested course. +He was familiar with the lighthouse; he knew how to work the lamps and +the syren; he knew a great deal more about it than they did; he had +lived there for weeks on end at one time. They looked upon him as a +great engineer, and considered his amateur knowledge of these matters +most profound. Oliver, when he heard his offer, had looked at him +instantly and sharply, and now stared at him through the encroaching +dusk. + +“What about your father?” he demanded, “and Amy? Do you care to leave +them so long?” he added with a sneer. + +“You must explain to them,” replied Lucius, unmoved. “It will be only +three weeks; and, even if the tempest returns, a month, say, at the +outside. By then----” He did not finish the sentence, but Oliver knew +what he meant. “I leave everything to you,” he added; “it is your +affair and your duty, as you have reminded me; and now you have it +entirely in your own hands. You will know where I am--on the +lighthouse.” He gave a wan smile. “There will be no possibility for me +to leave the lighthouse without your knowledge.” And he thought that, +by his action, he would be able to persuade Oliver that he knew +nothing of the whereabouts of the Countess Fanny. He thought that this +hideous canker eating into the already half-crazed mind of Oliver +would be at least removed. He could not be jealous of a man shut up on +the lighthouse of St. Nite’s Point. He could not think that a man who +chose to go to such a place would know anything of the whereabouts of +the Countess Fanny. There could be, in these circumstances, no +possible collusion or intrigue between them. As for his father--and he +had instantly and rapidly considered the situation with regard to his +father--the Earl would understand. He would write to him before he +went to the lighthouse; write, too, to Amy. They would be safe; they +had everyone to look after them. It was Providence that there should +be a deliberate chance for him to go on to the lighthouse. It seemed +now a useful, almost a necessary, thing for him to do: not a whim, or +a piece of bravado, but a plain duty. + +One of the fishermen said: + +“There’s a young lad that would be glad to go with you, sir, in the +inn, now--tramped up from Falmouth, I think; just wearing a suit of +slops; a kind of castaway, I suppose. He wanted a job; he was willing +enough to go, even with old Joshua here--temper or no temper! Give him +the chance, as he’s a waif, and willing, and no one else wants to go. +The money don’t mean to us what it does to him.” + +“Very well,” said Lucius indifferently. “I care not whom you send, as +long as I have some companion. But we had better depart at once, +before the darkness descends and the waves rise, so that I may light +the lantern immediately.” + +The little group of gossiping idlers now broke into action. The +remainder of the provisions was brought down and packed into the boat. + +“I’ve no clothes,” remarked Lucius with a smile; “and there’s no time +to send for them. Pack up a few vests and socks and shirts. For the +rest, the place is well stored I know,” he added, “for I thought of it +myself. Oliver”--and he turned to the dark, gloomy figure behind +him--“I pray you take these two letters--one to Amy and one to my +father. I will write them immediately in the inn.” He thought of his +horse, and added: “I will ask for a groom to be sent over; meanwhile +the horse will do very well here in the stable.” And he commended the +beast to the charge of the men in the inn. + +Under the defaced and flapping sign of the “Drum and Trumpet,” he +entered the tiny, dark inn, where one small oil lamp lit the shabby +parlour; and on the threshold of this parlour he paused and shuddered, +for he remembered how he had stood there once with the Countess Fanny; +and he tried not to consider--for the pang would have been too +awful--what he would have given if he could have stood there with her +now. + +The brother of the owner of the inn, the sick Mathews, had followed +him into the parlour, and pointed out respectfully the boy crouched +over the hearth, saying: “There, my lord, is the lad who is willing to +go on the lighthouse with anyone who takes the watch. Perhaps you +would like to ask him a few questions. He came up from Pen Hall Farm a +day or two ago and is staying here. He pays honestly for his keep, but +has come to the end of his money.” + +“Who is it?” asked Lucius indifferently. “Some poor waif tramped up +from Falmouth, I suppose?” + +“That’s it, my lord. One of these boys looking for work--a castaway, +maybe, or one escaped from an orphanage. But he’d answer your purpose +well enough, I dare say. Between you and me, my lord, there aren’t +many others that are willing to go, even if you offered double the +pay. We always left the lighthouse to the Tregarthen family; it was +only my brother that was willing to take it on. The others aren’t +prepared, you’ll understand, my lord,” added the man, as a kind of +rough excuse. + +“Very well, very well!” said Lucius impatiently. “It doesn’t matter to +me, I assure you. I will take the boy. It’s only just to have some +manner of companion. I can wait on myself.” + +The man crossed to the boy by the hearth. + +“Here, my lad,” he said, “wake up! A gentleman’s going to take the +watch on the lighthouse, and you can go with him if you wish. You know +the pay and the conditions, and you said you’d like the job.” + +The boy coughed, and answered in a harsh, hoarse voice that he would +certainly be willing to go on to the lighthouse at any moment they +might ask him, grateful for the chance of earning a few shillings. + +Lucius gave him an absorbed and indifferent glance. He saw, in the +uncertain light of the fire and the lamp, a tall, thin boy of perhaps +sixteen years of age, dressed in a rough suit of slops, much muddied +and stained, with a black kerchief round his neck and a cloth cap on +his head. His face was so deep a brown that Lucius half-suspected him +of being partially of coloured blood, and that was likely enough, for +he might have come from some foreign ship putting in at Falmouth. He +looked miserable, and continually coughed and shivered. A mug of beer +and a fragment of bread and cheese was on a stool by his side. He ate +and drank at intervals. + +“You’ve never been on a lighthouse before?” asked Lucius. + +“No, sir; but I’ve been on ships, and I’m willing and obedient; I’ll +do whatever you tell me, sir.” The boy kept his face averted, and +stared into the fire. He seemed greedy for heat and light. + +“Where do you come from?” asked Lucius kindly. “They say you’ve been +staying at Pen Hall Farm. Those are very wild, rough people.” + +“They were kind to me,” said the boy. “I’d tramped up from Falmouth, +looking for work, and there wasn’t any of course, it being +winter-time. They took me in, and I was ill with a cough--and they +nursed me. They told me that there might be work here at the +lighthouse, so I came; and I’ve been two days waiting for them to get +the keeper off. They told me to-day they’d managed it, and I shall be +glad to go with you, sir, and I’ll do my best.” At the end of this +somewhat husky speech, the boy coughed violently again, and huddled +closer over the fire. + +“Poor wretch, he’s ill!” thought Lucius. And it flashed across his +mind that this might be an added burden on the watch; and yet, it +would be harsh to refuse to take him--hardly possible. + +“He’s half-starved, I suppose,” thought the young man. “Release from +anxiety and good food may put him on his feet. Anyhow, I’ll take him.” +And he said aloud: “Think no more about it, my lad, but get together +whatever you have, and prepare to accompany me at once. I have just +these two letters to write.” + +“I have nothing to get together,” replied the boy; “only a few things +in a handkerchief.” + +“Very well; that will do--there is everything on the lighthouse.” + +Lucius took out his notebook, and, seated by the table, scribbled his +two letters; one to Amy and one to his father, the first guarded and +the second frank. The old Earl understood his situation. He would +sympathise with his resolution. As for Amy, he did not know how Amy +would take it. Ill, no doubt. But for her, too, it was the best thing. +It would silence all gossip, all rumour; would put an end to any +possible violent scenes between him and Oliver; it would stay Oliver’s +foul and restless suspicions; it would clear the good name of the +Countess Fanny of any possible suspicion as to his complicity in her +disappearance. + +When he had finished the letters, Lucius reflected that he could +scarcely trust them to Oliver. The man was in no state to have any +business confided to him. It was quite possible that he might destroy +them both, and in any case refuse to deliver them, or perhaps read +them. In the present condition of his mind, Lucius could not trust +Oliver; and he called the host in and confided the letters to him, +asking him to see that they were sent over as soon as possible on the +following morning. + +Lucius then called for a glass of wine, and sat at the table by the +window, forgetting that he was not alone, entirely oblivious of the +insignificant presence of the boy crouching over the fire. He was glad +of this chance to go on the lighthouse; it seemed, indeed, +heaven-sent. New energy, new courage, and new hope flowed through his +veins, where for the last few weeks the blood had run so sluggishly +and painfully. There was something deliberate and definite for him to +do. He had loved the lighthouse, and that ancient love revived in his +breast now. + +He looked out on the darkening waters, at that stretch of foaming +surf, a livid white in the failing light. He did not fear any coming +storms or tempests. He would like to be on the lighthouse, shut away +there amid the utmost rage of the elements, tending his light and his +signal, saving, it might be, hundreds of lives every night. + +He did not dread the thought of a prolonged watch. What would it +matter if he were shut up there a month or six weeks? He would be at +peace, away from the mute reproaches of Amy, away from the smouldering +violence of Oliver, away from the whispers and glances of pity, of +reproach, of wonder, away from the flicks of gossip and scandal, alone +with his stern and unrelenting duty, occupied by a great +responsibility. + +He felt his spirits rise almost to the point of exultation. The +fishermen appeared in the door and said the boat was ready, and were +there any more instructions or commands from the young lord? And +Lucius said: + +“No; if the boat is equipped in the ordinary way, that will do for +me.” + +They said it was; and the crew of seven ready to take him out. + +The ocean was more quiet even than it had been during the day. Away +from the hidden reefs and pitted rocks it would be quiet enough, and +there would be no difficulty in going out to the lighthouse. + +“Are you ready, boy?” asked Lucius of the crouched figure by the fire. + +The boy lifted the beer mug and drained the last of the contents. + +“Aye, sir, I’ve been ready this long while,” he said. + +“If you drink so much beer,” smiled Lucius, “it will make you +sleepy--that and the keen air together. We have work to do out there +to-night.” + +“I’ll love that; I’ll love work, and to be on the lighthouse,” replied +the lad. + +At that moment Oliver Sellar entered the inn parlour. + +“Good-bye, Oliver,” said Lucius. + +The boy put down the mug and rose; Lucius glanced down at him. + +“Who’s this?” demanded Oliver. + +The boy adjusted his scarf and cap to protect his face from the cold. + +“A lad from Falmouth,” said Lucius, indifferent, “who is going to +accompany me on the watch.” + +And the three of them left the inn together. + +“This is an odd thing for you to do,” said Oliver sullenly. He seemed +not satisfied but startled by Lucius’ conduct in taking the watch at +the lighthouse. + +Lucius did not answer, and without further word to Oliver he and the +boy got into the boat manned by the seven fishermen. It was pushed +off, and was soon riding the waves. + +Oliver Sellar remained on the darkening shore, and looked across the +darkening sea and watched the speck of the boat disappear. Silent, +sombre, his arms folded across his breast, he remained staring after +the boat. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI + +Long after the fishers had retired into their houses and shuttered +their windows against the cold, Oliver Sellar remained on the beach, +staring through the dark, twilit air at the distant, wave-beaten rocks +which bore the now hardly discernible lighthouse, crowned with its +cresset of red fire--the fire which Lucius had lit and which he must +tend for so many days to come. + +Oliver felt lost in a void; the escape of Lucius affected him only +less powerfully than the disappearance of Fanny. He had the same sense +of being cheated--of frustration; of clutching at the air in useless +fury and impotent passion. Fanny had gone when he had been sure of +her; he had been thwarted there in his most poignant and powerful +desires; and now Lucius had gone, not into the blackness of any +imponderable mystery, but out there on to the lighthouse, where no man +would be able to speak to him again, perhaps, if the storm returned +again, for many weeks to come. And he, Oliver, was left lonely, even +more lonely than he had been since the tragedy of Fanny; for now hate, +as well as love, had first assailed then escaped his grasp. + +He assured himself that he had grown to hate Lucius for this many day +past--nay, from the first; from that evening when he had ridden up to +the village to find the two of them in the purple twilight together in +the village street. He had certainly begun to hate Lucius then; and +that hate had grown and nourished and battened on his dead love, as a +weed might grow out of the corruption of a murdered flower. In some +manner, not yet formulated in his dark mind, he had meant to vent his +suppressed emotions on Lucius; he had meant to make him smart and +bleed for the loss of Fanny. Half he had believed his own furious +accusation that Lucius did really know of the whereabouts of the girl; +half he had utterly disbelieved it; that ugly suspicion had eddied to +and fro in the tumult of his mind. But, in any case, he had believed +that Fanny had favoured Lucius, and he had meant to make him pay for +that--somehow, some way; he had meant to torment him--weak, sickly +youth that he was, in the eyes of a man like Oliver.… + +And now he had escaped; he had gone. The land was clear of him. It was +almost as if he had never been. Why, he might not return at all! A +great tempest might sweep the lighthouse away, as lighthouses had been +before swept away.… The winter was to be long and fierce, they all +declared; they might not be able to get out to him--he might starve +there, as men had starved before in lighthouses. He had gone +impetuously, without much thought or precaution, taking no one with +him but that half-witted, half-diseased lad. + +And one night they might look across the waste of water at the cruel +rocks and see darkness in the lighthouse cresset. So Lucius would +escape him--his wrath, his revenge.… There would be nobody on whom to +vent his thwarted passions. + +He had never thought of this. It had taken him utterly by surprise; +during that long, cold journey down to St. Nite’s Point, over the +frozen roads, Lucius had said nothing. Again and again he, Oliver, had +glanced at that pale, composed profile above the upturned collar of +the greatcoat beneath the low beaver hat, and seen no expression +except a difficult fortitude in that face. But, all the while, Lucius +had been thinking of this--of escaping to the lighthouse; for he had +himself declared that that had been his intention, even without this +accident of the young man’s sickness, to take the watch. + +No one came to speak to Oliver Sellar as he stood on the shore; they +glanced at him now and then through the chinks of the shutters, and +one came to the door of the inn and peered at him to see if he was +still there, through the thick, gathering dusk; but no one interfered +with him. They disliked him too much, and were, in a sense--rough and +brutal as they were themselves--too much afraid of him to venture to +speak to him. If he liked to catch his death of cold there, they +thought, he might, for all they cared. They had no sympathy for him in +his tragedy. They had had but a glimpse of the young lady, but they +were sure she was too good for him, and had drowned herself rather +than marry such an ill-mannered, foul-tempered, brutal, violent man as +was Oliver Sellar. + +They knew well enough the general talk and gossip: such things travel +fast even in wild and isolated communities. Rough and full of +superstition as they were, they very accurately sensed his feelings as +he stood there, staring out at the lighthouse; they could perceive his +rage at the escape of his rival. + +“She beat him,” grinned one woman. “She was a brave girl; she got the +better of him, even if it was by jumping into the sea!” And another +said: “If he stands there much longer in the dark, he’ll see her +ghost! And he won’t care for that. Maybe she’ll come up beaming with +light across the water, and pass him by, or point downwards to where +her grave is now! That won’t be a pleasant thought for him to take +home with him!” Then they looked at the lighthouse, and were glad to +see how bravely the lamp shone across the night. + +At last Oliver Sellar dragged himself away from the lonely shore. It +was now too late to ride home. He spent the night, gloomy, silent, in +proud isolation, at the dirty little inn. There was no one who could +take a message at that late hour, and many were the wonders and +distresses and speculations in the village of St. Nite as to the +whereabouts of the two gentlemen during that long winter night. + +Ambrosia thought they were both searching for Fanny. She believed that +they had returned to Flimwel Grange; and Mr. Spragge, who was still +her companion, was for setting out and seeing for himself if either of +the two men was there. + +She detained him. She had proved his uselessness. He could do nothing +with Oliver. Why should be expose himself, poor old man--she +thought--for nothing? + +So she begged him to remain with her, and keep her company by the +fireside which now seemed so desolate. + +There came messages from the Earl, who wondered why his son had not +returned. But they could give him no news. + +It was only well into the morning that a man came up from St. Nite’s +with two letters, and the account of how Lucius had gone out to the +lighthouse to take the next watch. + +Of these two letters, one, at least, was perfectly understood. Lucius +had written only a few lines to his father, but the Earl read between +them. He could sense accurately what had been in his son’s mind when +he took this sudden decision, a decision which he (the father) +applauded. It was better for Lucius to be away on the lighthouse. This +was an honourable and a safe course. It would cut him clear of all +implication in the disappearance of Fanny. It relieved him of the +wearing and harassing position he had been in. It silenced all gossip. +It precluded the possibility of any disgraceful quarrel with Oliver. + +And the Earl had no misgivings as to his son’s safety. Lucius knew +more of the workings of lanterns and foghorns than the average +lighthouse-keeper. The lighthouse had just been rebuilt, was +up-to-date and well equipped. Even if the storm continued, the Earl +would be in no distress as to the safety of Lucius. He would enjoy it, +too; he had always been obsessed with the lighthouse and loved the +sea; nor did he shrink from storms. Therefore, the old man was more at +ease about his son than he had been for many weeks past. + +It was not so with Ambrosia. She saw at once the banal formality of +the little note of excuses. She did not even believe in the sudden +sickness of Mathews; she thought it all a subterfuge on the part of +Lucius, in a frantic attempt to get away from her, to indulge in peace +his rhapsody of grief for the Countess Fanny. And then, the +loneliness… three weeks at least without seeing him, without hearing +from him.… She could not say that there had been of late much pleasure +in his company, and yet she had this bitter sense of desolation when +she found she was relieved of it. Had she ever loved him? She did not +know. She could not yet answer that question. Did she intend to +relinquish him? That also she did not know. But she did know that she +had looked forward to her marriage with him as a release from her +present life, and now all that seemed a withered hope. + +What would the spring bring to her beyond the fresh leaves on the +trees, the sunshine in the air, and the flowers on the earth? Nothing, +it seemed. She had spent too many barren springs to be able to +contemplate yet another with equanimity. + +“I’ve lost Lucius,” she said to herself, and mechanically crumpled up +the note and threw it on to the logs blazing on the hearth. “That +girl, by her death, has taken him away. Yes, if she’d lived, I believe +he’d have stayed faithful to me, but by dying she has him.” + +As Ambrosia turned over the various fragments of her embroidery that +she was putting together with her careful hand, so she turned over, in +her careful mind, the various fragments of pleasure that must now be +forgone--the title; to be mistress of the big place; to go abroad; to +go to London; to have another life and new interests; to have a +husband, young and adoring; to have children, and her place in the +ordinary world--all these things must be put aside. And presently she +folded up her needlework and put that aside in the green-satin-lined +box. One must be resigned; one must be decorous; one must play one’s +part and pray, though one prayed to a stone wall, though one prayed to +an empty sky, still one must have the name of God on one’s lips, bow +one’s head and be dutiful! It seemed to her now as if she had been +training all her life for this one moment of disaster and +disillusion.… For what other purpose had she been taught all this +self-control, all this ladylike deportment, save that it might help +her in such a moment as this? + +She found the courage to look ahead down the years, and saw them +stretched before her in one intolerable, grey monotony, ending in a +tomb in St. Nite’s Church--what else, what else? Her youth was almost +passed. Soon she would be thirty--an old maid, prim and shrewish, +fussy in her ways, intolerant to the young, ruling her household, +looking after the poor, going to and fro the church, making Oliver +comfortable… yes, she supposed that Oliver would continue to live +here, and she would continue to make him comfortable, for years and +years; each year like to another as a pea in a pod; and all +futile--all weary as a string of tired horses plodding homeward. + +“What will Luce do? Ah, my heart! What will Luce do? He’s young; he’ll +recover--he’ll go away! He’ll find another bright girl somewhere; +she’s not the only beauty in the world. He was so young and had +remained so shut up here--such a dreamer, too, with his head full of +radiant fancies. But he’ll go away, and find another one. But you +won’t--you’ll be always here by the hearth, with the household keys at +your waist and your head full of important trifles; your hands busy +with petty duties, growing old beside an ageing, soured man! Perhaps +Oliver will become insane, and you, out of pity, won’t tell anyone, +but will stay there administering to him. He will drink; more often +than not he’ll be intoxicated in the evening, and sometimes in the +morning. He’ll be harsh and cruel--never for five minutes civil. He’ll +abuse you, and say you were the cause of it all. He’ll say you might +have prevented it, might have saved her; but that you didn’t--that you +were sour and jealous; that you hated her for being so beautiful. And +you’ll be quiet, for you’ll know that half of it, at least, is true, +and that you did so hate her, and that you were so jealous of her. As +the years go on, and he can bear to talk of it, he’ll tell you that +Luce loved her; he’ll speak of all his jealousy of Luce. But you +mayn’t do so; you mayn’t say a word about it, because you’re a woman, +and well-bred! You’ll have to endure it, deep down in your heart, go +on with your fine stitching, your measuring out of food, your making +of jam and preserves and your mending of linen, your going to the back +door to listen to the tale of the poor, the whines of the indigent! + +“Nobody may condole with you, for you have had no open loss; nobody +can say they are sorry for you because you had a lover and he left +you; people will be compassionate behind your back and respectful to +your face; and in the middle of such respect and such compassion, you +will freeze and wither till you will be ugly within and without.” + +So Ambrosia, sitting quietly by the fire in the handsome, +well-appointed room, with her capable hands clasped on her black silk +lap, saw her own situation and her own future. + +Mr. Spragge left Sellar’s Mead--where, indeed, he could help no +one--and returned to his parish. Dr. Drayton came over to see +Ambrosia, but, warned by her guarded manner, got no further than +formalities. + +“Oh, yes, it was very well that Lucius had gone on the lighthouse; oh, +yes, indeed, the most natural thing to do--she was glad that he had +done it. The storms had subsided; maybe, after all, they would have a +fair Christmas; and it would only be three weeks--yes, strange that +the man Mathews should be taken ill!” + +Dr. Drayton himself had gone over to see him. There was not much +chance of his recovery. + +Oliver Sellar had returned, and had said nothing of Lucius. Neither +had Ambrosia breathed his name. Life went on, grey and sober, in the +large grey, sober house in the middle of the desolate park and the +black landscape of St. Nite’s Point. + +Oliver was less violent. A moody calm seemed to have fallen on him. +But Ambrosia knew that this did not mean resignation. He was still +brooding bitterly, deeply--as well she knew--over his atrocious, +miserable, incurable wound. Never did he smile; and every day he rode +or walked abroad, wandering for miles over fields and cliffs and +roads; and he had traversed many, many times every square inch of +ground on St. Nite’s Point. + +Ambrosia did not attempt to detain him when he would set out upon +these expeditions, nor to argue with him as to the futility of this +hopeless quest; nor did she speak to him about the coral bracelet, +which he had never mentioned again. Only, in awe-struck whispers, she +had managed to ask Luisa, now reduced to weeping grief and quiet +resignation, about the bracelet which her mistress had worn the day +she had disappeared. And Luisa had said yes, there was a coral +necklace and two coral bracelets, made like grapes and vine-leaves. + +“A mystery,” thought Ambrosia; “well, let it go with all the other +mysteries. What does it matter--one inexplicable detail the more?” She +would interfere with nothing now; she had nothing to say against the +preparation of Fanny’s room every evening, the lighting of the fire, +the turning down of the bed and setting out of the bedgown, the +slippers… all those frail and pretty garments of pale-coloured satin +ruffled with swansdown; the lighting of the candles on the massive +dressing-table; the drawing of the curtains before the twilight. +Against this Ambrosia had nothing more to say. She was even used to +it. It caused her now no thrill of horror to pass that prepared room +when she left her own after changing her dress for dinner; it no +longer gave her a sense of dismay when, in the morning, Oliver went +and locked up those same rooms again and put the key in his pocket +there to rest till the evening. She was used to these things, and +supposed they would continue, night and morning, all the rest of her +life. + +Once she said to herself, staring at him across the immense table, so +rigorously and decorously supplied with silver and glass and plate: + +“Oliver is mad; but I don’t know it.” And then she thought: “What does +it matter whether I know it or not?” + +She went over once to see the Earl, and was pleased that the old man +was better in health, and even seemed serene and cheerful. He could +see--so he declared--nothing odd in Lucius’ departure for the +lighthouse; and he patted Ambrosia’s hand reassuringly as he said: + +“He will come back to you, my dear, a changed man--happier and more at +ease, I’m sure--and things will go smoothly for you again.” + +Ambrosia did not trouble to shake her head or proffer a denial; but +she knew better than this. Never again would things go smoothly +between her and Lucius. + +“It will be a quiet Christmas,” remarked the old man. He had intended +to have relatives to stay at Lefton Park; distant and not very +cherished relatives, but they usually came at Christmas and made a +diversion in the darkness of the winter season. But this year, no: he +had put off everyone under the excuse of his illness, but really +because of the tragedy of the Countess Fanny. He could not himself +endure, and he did not think that anyone who had known the lost girl +could endure, to see other young women moving lightly and carelessly +through the rooms where she had last trodden; see any affectation of +gaiety or lightness while they still mourned her.… Neither Lucius nor +Oliver would be able to support any festivities this Christmas, he had +known; and neither at Lefton Park nor Sellar’s Mead would there be +any. But it was dull for Amy. The kind old man admitted that it was +very dull for Amy. + +“Lucius will be back for Christmas,” he reminded her. “The watch is +over on the day before Christmas Eve. Look out for the 23rd, my dear; +Lucius will come back then, and, as I say, a changed man.” + +“If the weather holds,” said Ambrosia. + +“The light goes very well, they say,” remarked the Earl, with pride. +“Every night it’s lit, and exactly at the same time; Lucius is an +excellent keeper.” + +“I must go and see it,” said Ambrosia dully, and indeed she had often +thought that she would like to ride to where she could see that beacon +out at sea--the beacon that Lucius was tending. Yet something had kept +her from ever doing so. + +“I should like to see it, too,” said the Earl, “if I could get abroad; +but I fear that is impossible until the spring.” + +How acridly these words echoed in Ambrosia’s ears.… “Till the spring”… +and they had once been the dearest of sentences, fragrant with +blossoming hope. + +What did she care now if the spring ever came or not? Her life looked +as if it would be one continuous winter. + +“Is Oliver abroad again to-day?” asked the old man timidly. + +And Ambrosia said: + +“Sir, he is every day abroad.” + +“Still searching?” asked the Earl. + +“Still searching,” said Ambrosia. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII + +About four days before Christmas the storm returned, and the cloudy +damp, the sullen fog, the biting frost, the lowering skies, and the +desultory falls of snow gave place to a renewed rage of wind. The +north-eastern gale smote with undiminished force the whole of the +promontory of St. Nite’s Head, and on the day when the watch of the +lighthouse should have been relieved it was inaccessible through the +severe fury of the lashing waters; the waves were sweeping, high and +dreadful, over all the half-hidden rocks on the Leopard Ridge. This +dangerous channel was one sweep of whirling foam and tossing, gloomy +spray, through which it was sometimes impossible to behold the shape +of the lighthouse. + +Oliver Sellar had come down to the shore in the expectation of seeing +Lucius brought off. Both old Joshua, who had recovered during his +three weeks’ rest, and a young man, were ready to take the place of +Lord Vanden in the lighthouse, though Mathews was still an invalid. +But, as Oliver was told, as soon as he appeared on the stormy shore, +it was, of course, fools’ talk to think of any boat putting out in +weather such as this. It might be many days before they were able to +reach the lighthouse. + +The oldest among them prophesied weeks of continuous storm. + +“He’ll be safe enough,” they said among themselves. “The lighthouse be +stout. There’s provisions a-plenty there, and fresh water and coal and +oil; it’s all very well equipped--the young lord thought of that +himself. He’ll do well enough. It’s dreary for him though, at +Christmastime, and his father waiting.” + +Oliver said nothing. He remained for two days in the little inn among +the cluster of wretched cottages on those precipitous rocks. He spoke +to no man, but daily watched the storm on the lighthouse. + +“He’s haunted,” said some; “he’s mad,” said others. But no one pitied +him, though his face was now hollowed as if the heavy bones had worn +away the flesh, and his hair, which had been so deep a black, save on +the temples, was now frosted with white, as if ashes had been +sprinkled on his head. + +There could no longer be any hope for the Countess Fanny; and people, +whispering among themselves--from Dr. Drayton and Mr. Spragge and +their women down to the fishers and the farmers and their +women--wondered if Mr. Sellar had written to her relatives abroad; +what he had done about her fortune; and if he would have the funeral +service soon read for her in the church, and a cenotaph put up in the +churchyard or the chancel. If he showed no sign of doing this by the +New Year, Mr. Spragge meant to speak to him. He no longer came to +church; nor had the vicar again visited Sellar’s Mead. Ambrosia came +twice a day on Sundays in her carriage and pair, decorous, +self-contained, with smooth brows and set lips; what she was enduring +no one knew, for she never spoke. And the servants at Sellar’s Mead +were as discreet as herself. + +Only the Italian maid, wailing for a priest, had come up to the +village once to see, in despair, Mr. Spragge--heretic though he might +be--and to cry out: “No wonder my poor mistress destroyed herself, for +that man is mad; mad, I tell you; and it is not fit that we should +live with him!” + +The vicar had hushed her; what was she--a foreigner, an hysterical +fool? No notice must be taken of what she said. He had sent her away +rebuked and silenced; yet in his heart there would lurk a horrid +suspicion that she had only spoken the truth. So many people were +beginning to whisper fearfully, one to another, that Oliver Sellar was +mad. He seemed to delight in the storm, to welcome the return of those +fierce gales which had been blowing when she disappeared--gales the +same as these, fierce and blustering from the north-east, smiting the +coast like a clap of giant hands on the bare rocks, buffet after +buffet, till even the iron-like land seemed to ring with the force of +the blows; wind that sent packs of clouds hurrying like hunted +creatures about the sky; but there were always other packs behind +them, and others and others; so that, however fast the wind blew, the +clouds came faster, and the sky was never clear of them. Solid as the +greenstone cliffs were, with an impenetrable solidity, yet they seemed +to shudder before the savage onslaught of the tempest, and the water +round the black jags of dangerous rocks was beaten and swirled and +tortured into towering columns of flying spray. Showers of stone were +hurled inland, and smote the roofs and walls of the tiny cottages, +nestled away as these were in a cove, and some distance from the sea. + +Oliver Sellar, standing on the shore watching the guiding light, his +arms folded on his breast and his greatcoat flapping round him, was +drenched with spray and soaked with gusts of rain, and beaten almost +into insensibility by these buffetings of the wind; but never did he +give up his vigil; in all weathers he was there, up and down, now on +the cliffs, now on the shore, now a little farther inland, now on +another point, farther out to sea--places where it seemed he could not +keep his foothold, where he could not wear his hat, but must go +bare-headed or muffle his head in his scarf--now climbing out on the +rocks as far as he possibly could, amidst the slimy seaweed and the +swirling eddies of foam, now moving round on the rugged coast to +another point, where perhaps he might have a better vantage ground, +here and there, now immovable for hours, now restless and hurrying to +and fro, but always with his eyes in the one direction, fixed on the +one object--the lighthouse. + +The fisher-folk respected him now as they had not respected him in his +prosperity and sanity. He was possessed, they said; he was haunted; +the demons had got him; the water-wraiths and the ghosts claimed him +for their own. His soul was no longer in his own possession. In their +gloomy and superstitious minds they argued that one might be a little +merciful to a man who was damned; and plainly Oliver Sellar was +damned--a lost soul, if ever there was one, who seemed to stand on the +chasm of hell, and to bend his head down and listen to the horrible +groans and sighs that rose from the smoky depths.… + +“He killed her, and he knows it,” they whispered to themselves. “She +loved the young lord, and he loved her. He tried to make her go back +and do her duty, and that was the end of it; she drowned herself +sooner than wed that man yonder.” So near the truth of it did these +rude people get. + +At night Oliver Sellar would come to the “Drum and Trumpet,” and sit +in the dirty little parlour staring into the fire--and drink, steadily +drink. Sometimes he would sit there all night, as had become his +custom in his own home, keeping the fire alight, never moving save to +pile on fresh coal and wood. Sometimes he would go to the small +bedroom allotted to him and sleep--or endeavour to sleep. But always, +with the late dawn, the bitter chill, the stormy winter dawn, he was +abroad again, huddled into his greatcoat, muffled round the throat and +head, and his hands thrust into his pockets--a massive, dark, +portentous figure--out on to the beach, staring at the lighthouse, +where the red revolving light would be still visible. + +Often he was there at the exact moment that it went out, the moment +when Lucius must be mounting the small stairs, going up to the +lantern-room, turning it out, checking the clockwork that moved the +revolving reflector. Even in the evenings, when he had abandoned his +search or his vigil on the shore, he would sit at the window always +and watch the beacon rising out at sea; and sometimes those who served +him, or crossed the parlour, would hear him counting to himself in a +low mutter: “_One--two--flash_; _one--two--flash_”--following the +movement of the light. A fine light, that worked well! Seventeen miles +out to sea it could be seen, they declared proudly; and this year +there had been no wreck. + +“They’ll spend Christmas there,” remarked the fisher-folk; and indeed, +on Christmas Eve, it was apparent that there was no hope of Lucius and +the boy getting off for many days yet. Even when the wind +subsided--and at present there seemed no sign that it would subside +immediately--there would be for several days a heavy swell of the +waters, always rough here with the undercurrents, forcing its way +between those hidden reefs and pitted rocks. + +One night when, despite the wind, the darkness seemed thick, as if the +tremendous foam and spray could not escape, but must densify the air, +they heard the alarm-bell or fog-syren, sounding from the slender, +dark shaft of the lighthouse tower. Accurately and precisely this bell +rang,--ten seconds of ringing, thirty seconds of silence, steadily, +exactly as it had rung when Lucius and the engineers had tested it in +the autumn. + +“The young lord does very well,” smiled the fishers with approval to +each other; “he knows his business, and is good at the work; but he’ll +be lonely out there, with nothing but that boy--yon poor waif from +Falmouth.” + +The rough man who kept the inn could not avoid saying that evening to +Oliver Sellar: + +“Won’t you, sir, be returning home for Christmas? ’Twill be dreary for +your sister, alone there!” + +Oliver deigned no response, but he gave the man a look which forbade +any further questions, and effectually checked the expression of any +curiosity; whatever men might venture to whisper or mutter behind his +back, to his face they preserved a blank impassivity. + +On Christmas day, most of the inhabitants of the little colony made +their way inland to the church, and Oliver remained at the “Drum and +Trumpet.” Ambrosia was at church, and, seeing the fisher-folk from the +promontory there, she asked about her brother in a cool and +indifferent tone; and they, embarrassed and awkward, told her what +they could: that Mr. Sellar remained at the “Drum and Trumpet,” and +watched the lighthouse. + +Ambrosia smiled, and gave them a gift of money for their wives and +children, and passed into the church with her head high, and sat in +the old Earl’s pew, folding her hands in her lap, and listening to the +sermon with as much fortitude as if the storm had not been beating on +the granite walls of the church; as if the memorials of the dead were +not hanging around her on the cold stone; as if the pavings beneath +her feet did not cover coffins; and as if all love and hope were not +withered in her heart. That proud, cold face, in the shadow of the +black bonnet, set off by the dark shawl and pelisse, made the old +clergyman falter in his sermon. It was difficult to speak of peace and +goodwill with that tormented and courageous countenance before him. + +She was alone at Sellar’s Mead; she had refused his invitation, and +that of the Earl, to spend Christmas with them. “Any moment,” she had +said, “Oliver may return, and it would not be good for him to find the +house empty.” + +The old Earl looked puzzled also. It was impossible to sit beside +Ambrosia and not feel something of the essence of her tragedy. He had +been greatly disturbed by this new behaviour on the part of +Oliver--this journey down to the promontory and this vigil, watching +the lighthouse. He eagerly wished that the storm would abate, the +waters be quieted, and Lucius able to come ashore. He had begun to +miss Lucius very keenly. Never, since he left college, had the boy +been so long away. And he feared the consequences of so prolonged a +watch on one of such delicate habits and nervous constitution. + +Lucius was skilful and brave, cool and prudent; but the strain would +be very long. And he had no companion. In his impulsive rashness he +had taken no one with him but a half-witted boy, a waif from Falmouth. + +The fisher-folk from the Point took ale and cakes at the vicarage, and +then tramped back their six miles to their desolate homes, which they +only reached when the day was already darkening down. They found that +the ocean was swelling with an even more tremendous commotion. The +furious waves were heaving high, even over the summit of the jagged +teeth of the Leopard’s Rock. In their lashing fury they seemed to toss +themselves into the low and flying clouds; and, as they curled back +from the land, they seemed to reveal a frightful abyss, even the +capacious bed of the ocean itself, a doomful cavern, an opening gulf. +Vain and impotent seemed any human intervention before such a storm; +like a miracle appeared the beamy light of the lighthouse, showing +through this tempest, across these bursting seas. + +“Aye,” muttered old Joshua, “the young lord should never have done it; +I should have gone again. That’s no place for a delicate gentleman, a +night like this! What though he does know something of the +engineering? But is it not said of the Lord, ‘He holdeth the winds in +His fist, and the waters in the hollows of His hands?’ Unto Him let us +commend him!” + +A dark, shuddering group, they stood on the shore, fascinated by the +spectacle of the gale, and absorbed in staring at the light which +penetrated it. They were all roused by a sharp, fierce exclamation +from Oliver Sellar, who for days had not spoken to any of them, nor, +indeed, opened his lips save to mutter to himself. + +“What’s yonder?” he exclaimed. And they all looked where his heavy +hand pointed across the boiling waters. A fiery bolt, dreadfully +vivid, had darted across the sky; it was just visible through the +spume and smoke of the water, and the tattered fragments of dark +cloud. + +“A rocket!” exclaimed two of the fishermen together. “A ship in +distress!” added another grimly. “But who could put a boat out a night +like this? It would be dashed to pieces before it was launched.” + +“Who is sending the rocket off?” demanded Oliver Sellar. + +And the fishers each returned a different answer; some said it was +from the lighthouse, and that the young lord had seen a ship and was +sending the rocket as an extra warning of rocks, in case the lamp was +obscured in the blizzard; and others said that it was the ship itself +sending the rocket off. + +Even while they thus disputed another came, rending the grey with that +long flash of scarlet. This stream of radiance showed its lambent +blaze for but a second, and then was eclipsed; but it was followed, +almost immediately, by yet another. Then again there was the universal +greyness becoming every instant deeper; and soon a pitchy black in +which not even the shape of the lighthouse could be distinguished, but +only--and that now and then--the flashing, revolving beacon on its +summit. + +Again the glancing flame; and it seemed to those straining ears of the +watchers that they could hear the crackle and whizz of that human +explosion amid all the powerful turmoil of the gale. + +“What do they say in the Book?” muttered old Joshua sullenly. “‘The +heaven shall pass away with a great noise.’ It is like that to-night; +never have I beheld such a tempest.” + +“We can do nothing,” said another. + +“But,” cried a third, “we may keep a watch, at least, in case someone +or somewhat be dashed ashore--if, indeed, it be a wreck; and like +enough it be!” + +“Who could be dashed ashore alive on such a night as this?” asked +Oliver Sellar, with a malignant look. “If any ship breaks on the +Leopard’s Rock to-night, it is death to all aboard her. This shore,” +he added, with an atrocious smile, “is like an antechamber to the +tomb; and standing here one may feel that one peers into the very +sockets of the eyes of Death.” + +Cowering under the shade and shelter of the cliffs, where the jutting +outlines of these afforded some protection from the gale, the hardiest +of the fisherfolk watched through the dark for the recurrence of the +rocket, but saw nothing more. Blind, blank, and furious was the night; +nothing was visible in that inky blackness but the lantern on the +lighthouse. Men recalled fearfully how their grandfathers had told +them how, on just such a night as this, the warships had gone down and +the dead soldiers been cast up on the beach the next morning; how, on +such a night as this, the old first lighthouse had been itself swept +away, and in the morning there had been no trace of it, nor was there +again ever any trace. And all of them thought of the young man and the +boy, shut up there on this dismal and tempestuous Christmas day. + +They could do nothing, and one by one returned to their homes to talk +over the terror of the storm and speculate on the meaning of those +rockets, flashing like ominous meteors through the hideous gloom and +darkness and noise of the night. + +Oliver Sellar remained the last of all, crouching and cowering under +the ledge of rock; for indeed it was almost impossible for him, strong +and heavy as he was, to keep his feet in the open. There he stayed, +staring out at that distant light: “_One--two--flash_; +_one--two--flash_”--steady, steady through the dark! + +Then he, too, left his shelter and his vigil, and, staggering across +the wet stones, made his way with pain and with difficulty to the +little cove where the houses lay, and so to the dreary parlour of the +“Drum and Trumpet,” where he ordered the window to be unshuttered and +took up his place to stare out again at the wild night and the beacon +on the lighthouse. + +When his supper was brought in, he asked in a peremptory tone: + +“Was that a wreck?” + +“Aye, sir, I should say so; but who can tell on such a night as this? +Maybe we’ll know in the morning.” + +“Morning,” muttered Oliver Sellar, with a shudder; “is not the morning +even more detestable than the night, since it begins, instead of +ending another day?” + +After these words of desperate extravagance he fell again into his +black and malignant silence, drinking continuously and staring out to +sea at the beacon on the lighthouse. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII + +When the dark morning dawned at last the inhabitants of St. Nite’s +parish could discover nothing of the meaning of the rocket of the +night before; and as the days went on they gradually heard news from +Falmouth that several ships had gone down in the severe tempest off +the Cornish coast, including a packet, a transport ship, and a French +barque--all of which had perished with all on board, and had only been +identified, by the spars and the portions of wreckage and the bodies +washed ashore. If any of these had sent up rockets the night before, +no one knew; nor could they judge if this signal had come from the +lonely occupants of the lighthouse. It was not repeated; and wind and +waves continued so high, and strove with each other with such unabated +violence, that it was quite impossible to think of reaching the +lighthouse; and so on, dark day after dark day, until the New Year was +there, and Lucius and his companion had been confined nearly six weeks +upon the lighthouse, beset by seas as heavy and as fierce as any man +could remember, even on this stormy coast. + +Several attempts were made to cross the boiling seas and formidable +reefs, but on each occasion the boat had had to return, and only with +difficulty had made that return. Casks of fresh water were floated out +to sea, in the hope that they might reach the lighthouse, and that +Lucius might be able to haul them up, or find them landed on the rocks +at the base of the lonely prison. Letters were also floated out in an +indiarubber bag, cast on the tempestuous waves in the vague hope that +they would reach the prisoners. In one of these the Earl prayed his +son to send up another rocket if he should have received the water and +the bag, and to strive to use the same means of communication with the +shore by enclosing a note in some indiarubber enclosure or bottle. But +no rocket came from St. Nite’s Lighthouse. The men sent by the Earl +watched in vain. + +Yet there was this supreme consolation; that every night, with the +dusk, the lantern was lit on the cresset of St. Nite’s Lighthouse. +Waves were now breaking on the lighthouse that could be seen in the +daytime to rise about twenty feet higher than the lantern, enveloping +the whole grim and stately structure in a fury of smoke and spray. +Reassured as he was by the constant lighting of the lamp, the Earl +was, however, convinced that his son was undergoing painful +privations; the provisions must by now have become scarce, if not +altogether exhausted; and he frantically endeavoured to send out food +by means of a rocket apparatus which was brought over from Falmouth. +But the lighthouse was too far, the sea too furious, and the rocks and +reefs too numerous, the attempt was a complete failure. + +The Earl then communicated his son’s plight to the warships which had +put into Falmouth Harbour, and one of these set out to render +assistance; but the sea was so rough that they could not approach +within any reasonable distance of St. Nite’s Point, and, after +standing by for twenty-four hours, returned to Falmouth without having +been able in any way to communicate with Lucius. The storm was +incessant and seemed to bow the spirits of men as it bowed the trees, +and lash their souls as it lashed the waves. Ambrosia went frequently +to Lefton Park to keep the Earl company; the old man’s confidence in +his son’s safety had now changed to acute anxiety which he struggled +in vain wholly to repress--he had for this only child, the child of +his old age, a more than common affection. Ambrosia, though so racked +with doubt herself, tried, with a dull sense of duty, to comfort the +father of Lucius. + +“He is really in no peril, dear sir; it is only the long separation +makes one anxious--he has plenty of food and water, coal and oil; the +lighthouse was newly built, you know, and well-equipped.” + +“Yes, yes,” the old man would reply; “of course he has everything; and +he will enjoy it, too--he likes the storm and the responsibility. He +is doing a noble work and we should not worry about him at all, my +dear, at all, of course.” + +Oliver never came to Lefton Park, nor ever mentioned the old man. Amy +told the Earl the condition of her brother, and implored his pity. + +“In the spring,” the Earl replied, “you must go away--both of you.” +Amy smiled without answering. She believed that she no longer had any +feeling; surely, she pondered, if you chain down your heart too hard, +it died for lack of air and liberty? Surely if you repressed your +feelings with too firm a hand they withered and perished? She was no +longer conscious of active pain or burning passions--only of a dull +ache behind every duty performed and every formal word she said. She +was almost as lonely as Lucius must be in the lighthouse, moving about +that large house filled only by silent and half-frightened servants; +sitting in that drawing-room, by that fire, evening after evening, +with her account-books or her needlework, or some volume of +meditation, pious and useless, given her by Mr. Spragge; or sitting +there doing nothing at all, with her hands folded in her lap, staring +into the fire, and not even thinking, either, but drowsy with +melancholy. Ah! the long strain, the drab anxiety, the heavy gloom of +this hideous winter! The desolation and the dreariness, and, above all +and most bitter of all, the sense of utter futility! And Ambrosia held +to her worn heart the bitter sentence, “He also serves who only stands +and waits.” + +One day she found, and with a sense of shock, the first snowdrops in +the garden, half hidden beneath a black hedge of yew. Stark and even +unnatural they looked in their vivid whiteness against the rotting +grey of the earthy frozen beds; funereal, they seemed to Ambrosia, +those cold, pure bells drooping downwards, those pale blades of clear +green. + +“The spring!” she thought. “The spring at last!” + +She stooped and plucked these white flowers, and the thought ran +through her mind like a dart: + +“How delighted I should have been to see these. They mean the spring; +and now there will be no spring for me.” + +She took them into the house, and placed them in a little crystal vase +on her work-table; Oliver came in that evening, as he had not come in +for many evenings past; for now he nearly always spent his nights at +the “Drum and Trumpet” and St. Nite’s Promontory. + +“Strange to see you here,” said Ambrosia coldly, looking at those few +snowdrops which showed so alien in the warm darkening room. + +Oliver, looking at her as if he did not know to whom he spoke, +replied: + +“I think the wind is dropping. Perhaps by to-morrow or the day after +we can get to the lighthouse.” + +“Oh!” said Ambrosia, and was silent. + +A fierce excitement seemed to possess Oliver. His deep gloom, his +sombre dullness, seemed lit now by some violent emotion. It was a long +while since Ambrosia had seen any of his usual passions, his tempers +and furies flaming forth; and she glanced at him in surprise. + +“Is it so much to you,” she asked, “that Lucius should be brought off +the lighthouse?” + +“I’ve been waiting for six weeks,” he answered harshly. + +“Why?” demanded his sister; and yet she herself felt the question +futile. Why question Oliver? In everything he was like one bereft of +his wits. She had best be silent. + +“I want to see Lucius,” he said. “I want to know how he has fared. Six +weeks, you know, Amy; six weeks he’s been shut up there with this +continual tempest.” + +“Why, it is kind of you to show this sympathy for Lucius,” remarked +Amy, a little softened by this unusual generosity in Oliver. “I did +not think you cared so much. I am glad.” + +The scowling smile that Oliver gave her scarcely confirmed her hopes +that he had been moved by any warm interest in Lucius, or any concern +for his safety; and when Amy spoke again, it was in a harder, colder +tone. Whenever she did make any gesture or speech or movement towards +warmness and confidence between them, he always chilled her thus, +either with a look or a word, harsh, black, and unpleasant. + +“It is useless for us to talk together, Oliver,” she said. “We can +really only endure things when we are both silent. I will not ask you +what you mean by this reference to Lucius, or why you have been so +absorbed in the lighthouse since he has been there. Why, you never +cared about the thing, never bothered about it.” + +“It’s odd,” repeated Oliver sombrely, “it’s odd that he’s been there +six weeks.” + +“Very likely he’ll be ill,” shivered Ambrosia, “a changed and a broken +man, people are, I’ve heard, after these long watches in these +terrible gales, and perhaps he saw some of those wrecks--some of the +people may have been washed on to the lighthouse. Lucius may have had +ghastly experiences. We must expect to find him changed.” + +“I,” declared Oliver, “shall be in the boat that goes out to bring him +off.” + +“You?” she asked. “Now why is that? Yet I said I would not question +you.” + +“I want to be the first to see him,” declared Oliver again. + +Ambrosia rose with a heavy sigh. + +“Still brooding on that grievance between you?” she said. “Still +jealous, Oliver? What do you think is before either of us, if you +continue to indulge this temper?” She expected no answer to this; it +had merely been a lamentation, a reproach that she was not able to +repress. She stood silent and listened, as so often, during the last +weeks, she had stood silent and listened. Yes, surely the wind was +dropping. The howl and the rush were less intense. + +“We tried to launch a boat again to-day,” said Oliver. “It was +hopeless. To-morrow there will be another attempt, and I believe it +will succeed; and I shall be in that boat, Amy.” + +“I will accompany you to St. Nite’s Head,” replied Amy, “if there is +the least possibility of Lucius being brought off. Is everything in +readiness?” + +“In readiness!” sneered Oliver. “I don’t know what that old man, his +father, has not sent down there! He has half a retinue in waiting, and +I know not what mollycoddling comforts!” + +“He is right,” said Amy. “Lucius may be very ill. How unfeelingly you +always speak, Oliver!” + +“Dr. Drayton has been there all day,” continued her brother, “and +messages coming and going from the Earl. Well, I think the vigil of +all of us is at an end.” + +Amy could find no relief even in this prospect. Lucius would be +restored to a normal life, but not to her. Whatever he had endured, it +would not be to her he would turn for comfort; at least, so she +feared. But a faint hope did gleam in the darkness of her thoughts. +Possibly, just possibly, during that long confinement, during that +strenuous responsibility and peril, he might have forgotten the +Countess Fanny whom he had only known for so short a time. She had +said he might be changed: perhaps he might be changed in that manner. +He could turn again to her, and be the Luce with whom she had grown +up--the friend of her childhood, the lover of a year ago; who had been +so tender, so loyal and faithful. Perhaps, too, he would now have had +enough of the lighthouse. She had always had to share him with the +lighthouse; even before Fanny came, there had been that obsession to +fight. Possibly that was now over. He would not again, surely, want to +take the watch at St. Nite’s? + +The wind continued to fall, almost to die away; Ambrosia, sitting up +in her bed in her dark room, could hardly believe that she no longer +had that roar in her ears. + +With the morning came a stillness; the wind had gone. The sky was +pale, scarcely coloured, and looked hard; but it was illuminated with +a faded sunshine, and a little pallor of light lay on the bare park. + +To-day, then, she would see him; to-day they would bring him off from +the lighthouse. And she would be waiting on the shore, and see him +come out of the boat; and perhaps he would be terribly changed--poor +Luce! She shrank from that, and wished she need not go to meet him, +but wait at home. And yet that would be cowardly in her, and she did +not wish now to show a coward. There was just that possible hope that +he might really need her, might really look for her, ask for her, when +at length he found himself on the land again. + +Early that morning she accompanied Oliver to St. Nite’s Head. Nearly +all the male population, and many of the female, of St. Nite’s +Promontory, was there to see the boats launched that were to go and +rescue the lighthouse-keeper. The Earl had had sent overland, weeks +ago, a large and modernly-equipped boat brought from Falmouth, in the +hope that this would be able to dare the waves more successfully than +the small, rude affair which commonly served the lighthouse; but this +also had proved hopeless in the high seas. To-day, however, there was +every confidence that it could be launched. + +There were two men, also from Falmouth, who were prepared to take the +next watch. Never had the lonely, desolate little cove been so crowded +with people. The waters still ran high. To Ambrosia’s first dismayed +glance the task seemed yet impossible, there was such a spume and fume +of foam and spray round the Leopard’s Rock and dashing against the +precipitous cliffs of the mainland; but the fishers declared that +those who knew the treacherous reefs of the coast would find it +possible now to row out and finally reach the rock; and, if not +possible to land there, still, by means of ropes and pulleys or the +rocket, to get off Lucius and his companion. + +“We must not forget that poor boy!” said Amy to Dr. Drayton and Mr. +Spragge. “Is there someone to look after him? I hear he is a waif who +tramped up from the port.” + +“Oh, surely, surely,” replied the clergyman, “if no one else will take +him in I will myself, of course. I hear he was only a child.” + +“Lucius will want to keep him in his service, I expect,” said +Ambrosia. “They must have grown very intimate and close, being the +sole occupants of the lighthouse for so long, together with so much +responsibility and danger. And Lucius is most affectionate and easily +moved to warmth of feeling.” + +“If the lad,” observed Dr. Drayton, walking up and down, shuddering +even in his greatcoat--for the cold on the shore was still +intense--“has done his duty all these weeks, he certainly deserves +some reward.” + +“He can train as a lighthouse-keeper,” suggested Ambrosia. “I doubt if +old Joshua will go again, I hear he had a stroke about a fortnight +ago, and that leaves only two men, since young Mathews is disabled +now. There should be a third in reserve, of course.” + +“Your brother is going in the boat, I hear,” said Mr. Spragge, trying +to keep the surprise out of his voice. It was the first time that +Oliver Sellar had been known to concern himself with the peril or +distress of others, and the fishermen had scarcely been able to +conceal their amazement when he had declared that he wished to +accompany them to the lighthouse. + +“By God’s mercy we shall have some fair weather now,” said Mr. +Spragge, looking at a thread of sky behind the rugged outline of the +cliffs, that was tinged with a pure blue that seemed indeed to promise +something of the softness and warmth of spring. + +“The first snowdrops are out,” said Ambrosia. “I found them in the +garden yesterday.” + +“A good augury,” smiled the doctor; “a good augury, surely! But oh, +it’s still bitterly cold!” + +The new boat was now being launched. Oliver, in a fisherman’s +tarpaulin, was the first to jump into it. With hoarse cheers from the +spectators the boat was launched into the still angry surf. Ambrosia, +the doctor, and the clergyman went into the parlour of the “Drum and +Trumpet” to await its return, and to watch its slow and sturdy +progress in and out of the dipping waves. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIX + +With every hour the violence and power of the sea abated and though +there remained a fury of foaming waves across the channel of the +Leopard’s Rock, the outer sea dropped from hour to hour to a more easy +serenity; and in the afternoon the lifeboat was seen returning across +the grey, placated waters. A cold tranquillity had overspread the +heavens. With the ceasing of the wind the sky was clear, the clouds +drifting to the sad-coloured horizon. And Amy, still watching from the +window of the “Drum and Trumpet,” could see the new moon, crystal +clear above the dark shoulder of the jagged cliffs. + +“There, madam,” remarked the innkeeper, who stood respectfully behind +the lady, “are those wild folk from Pen Hall Farm. It is not often +they come down to the shore when there are others about.” + +Ambrosia glanced at the group his indicating finger pointed out--a +ragged, wild-looking woman with a child, and a burly, ferocious man. + +“They have a bad name, have they not?” remarked Ambrosia absently, +“but I suppose they have some humanity, and are interested in the +lighthouse.” + +“But I wonder they should come here, madam, when Mr. Sellar is about, +for they are very much in his bad graces. He is doing his best to +prove that their farm is not freehold, after all, and have them moved. +And it would be a charity to the neighbours could he succeed.” + +“They show an effrontery in coming in here now,” remarked Ambrosia; +for she knew that these people were indeed noted as thieves and +law-breakers, poachers and vagabonds. “But I do not think,” she added +coldly, “that my brother takes much interest in them.” + +But the innkeeper had replied that, while Mr. Sellar had been keeping +watch of the lighthouse from the “Drum and Trumpet,” he had +continually ridden over to Pen Hall Farm, to warn the inhabitants, no +doubt, of their trespasses. Ambrosia thought it odd in her brother to +have troubled his head when he was so concerned with other deep +matters, with such an affair as Pen Hall Farm. She thought it peculiar +that at such a moment as this, when they were waiting with so much +anxiety for the return of the boat with Lucius on board, that the +innkeeper should have troubled to mention this fact to her. Surely it +must have impressed him as very extraordinary. And she looked at him +keenly, wondering if there were something more behind his words. + +But the innkeeper’s face was blank, and he suggested to the lady that +they should now go on the shore and welcome the boat back. + +Ambrosia put on her pelisse and went out into the chill air. As she +passed the little group from Pen Hall Farm--a little group of whom no +one was taking the slightest notice--she glanced at the child, and +saw, gleaming on her woollen coat, the little trifle of turquoise and +pearls that the Countess Fanny had given her. And she turned away in +distaste, vexed that these people should be here at such a moment, +displaying such an ornament. Very likely that was the flimsy, +whimsical reason why Oliver had been over so often to Pen Hall Farm. +He knew that Fanny had stopped there and had given this trinket to the +child; and so he had connected these people with her name and drawn +them, as it were, into his infatuation. + +Amy lifted high her flowing skirts, and stepped over the rough beach, +and waited by one of the flat greenstone rocks, and watched the boat +coming in with difficulty through the breaking surf. + +The beach was crowded, and she remained apart from the others--apart, +even, from Mr. Spragge, who was so ready with his fluent consolations +and his conventional thanksgiving. + +Amy reminded herself that she was not going to meet Lucius, her +betrothed, the young man whom she was going to marry in the spring, +but a stranger: she must be quite prepared to meet a stranger. + +The fishers waded out into the surf to help the boat to land. Amy +scanned the occupants of this boat, but did not move from where she +stood, holding her fluttering shawl together on her breast, her veil +blowing out behind her--for the wind, such of it as remained, came +fresh and direct from the sea. + +The tide being in their favour, the boat beached without much +difficulty. Ambrosia saw Oliver sitting there in his oilskins, and the +fishers who had manned the boat, and there--yes, there was Lucius. She +recognised his comely figure, though she could scarcely see his face. +Everyone was crowding round the boat; she must go too. She could not +any longer remain apart; and she advanced slowly, holding her skirts +together and walking fastidiously over the large flat, wet stones. + +Lucius was one of the first to leap ashore and wade through the last +eddy of the surf, and so come out on to the beach close to Ambrosia. +He wore a rough suit of clothes which he had probably found in the +lighthouse, and which were much stained and worn; and this changed +him, in Ambrosia’s mind, as much as the alteration in his features. + +He was not pale as she had expected, but tanned and reddened by +exposure, and all the finer lines of his face appeared to have been +marred or effaced. The countenance was older, harder; there was now +not the least touch of effeminacy or delicacy about Lucius Foxe; and +in this altered visage the grey eyes showed much lighter and clearer +than Amy had ever remembered them to be: odd, pale-grey eyes, blank as +glass, it seemed to Amy as she held out her hand with an embarrassed +gesture, trying to force a warm and a natural welcome. + +“Lucius, at last! It seems as if you had come back from the grave!” + +“So I feel, Ambrosia,” he replied serenely. “I scarcely thought to +return at all.” + +“No,” agreed Ambrosia hurriedly, “we were in great fear and dread for +your safety. This is indeed a great mercy, Lucius, and makes amends +for much. You must hasten to your father, for I fear he will hardly +survive the suspense.” + +“My father!” repeated Lucius strangely. “Yes, I must make haste to see +him.” + +“You’re well, Lucius? You bore it without too great a strain?” + +“I had the light to look after,” replied the young man simply, “and +there didn’t seem time to think of anything else.” + +Others were coming up now, with congratulations and questions and +admiration. Amy observed that only Oliver remained in the boat and +made no attempt to leave it, but sat there motionless when the boat +was beached. + +“Oliver would go to meet you,” she said, nervously. “Nothing could +restrain him. You have seen him and spoken to him?” + +“I have seen him,” said Lucius. + +“Well,” cried Dr. Drayton cheerfully, “we thought you would be dead, +sir! Or half dead, at least--starved and wasted; but it seems I am not +required after all!” + +“The food went very short, and I was scarce of water,” said Lucius, +“but I am not ill, thank you. As I said just now to Amy, there was the +light to look after, and somehow one didn’t seem able to think of +anything else. Thank God there was plenty of fuel and oil there; but +in future we must see that there are better supplies of food and +water, in case anyone else has to endure so long a vigil.” + +“Why doesn’t Oliver get out of the boat?” asked Amy. “Dr. Drayton, do +you go and tell him to get out of the boat. He seems like one amazed.” + +The doctor turned to (what the fishers had not dared to do) suggest to +Mr. Sellar that he now left the boat, which was beached. + +When he was thus directly addressed, Oliver Sellar rose, and made a +stiff movement as if to step over the side of the boat; but instead of +doing so, he collapsed and fell headlong, half on the shore. They +thought it was an accident, that he had lost his balance, all stiff +from the cold as he must be; but they discovered immediately that he +was insensible, and when the heavy big man had been dragged away to a +higher part of the beach, and the doctor bent over him, he said that +it was no accident, but a fit or seizure of the kind that Mr. Sellar +had had when the Countess Fanny’s bonnet and cashmere shawl were +brought in to Sellar’s Mead--nothing dangerous, but he must be carried +into the “Drum and Trumpet,” and left quiet for a while. And Dr. +Drayton remarked, with a smile, that it was odd that he had come to +attend Lucius and found himself so conveniently there to attend +Oliver. + +“I had feared a recurrence of this,” he observed, “on the least alarm; +but what alarm could Mr. Sellar have had just now?” + +“It was emotion,” said Ambrosia hurriedly, and very pale. “He has been +watching the lighthouse so long, you know; now the vigil is over and +Lucius is safe. That would be enough for one in the state of Oliver.” + +“Been watching the lighthouse?” asked Lucius quickly. “Why?” + +“It obsessed him,” replied Amy. “He was thinking of you out there, I +suppose; I don’t quite know, Lucius. But he has not been home often +during the last six weeks; he spent his time here at the little inn, +watching your light, and wondering every night if you could get off. +We all wondered that, you know; but to one whose nerves were as raw as +Oliver’s--well, it might become an infatuation, you know, Luce.” + +Deliberately she gave him the old loving name, but he appeared not to +hear what she had taken on her lips. Surely he was as estranged as, in +her most despondent moods, she had feared. How flat and stale this +meeting seemed, after all these weeks of waiting, watching and +suspense. Not one spark of rapture to enliven them--not one flash of +relief or joy to bring them together. Chill and formal they stood +looking at each other on the wet beach, with the grey background of +rocks and sea and sky.… + +“I must not keep you from your father,” murmured Amy. + +“No,” added Mr. Spragge, who stood close to them, “I must take you +there at once. That was my embassy, you know, Lord Vanden: to take you +home immediately. Miss Sellar will come too, no doubt; the carriage is +ready a little way up the road.” Then he added: “Where’s the boy?” + +“Oh, yes!” added Amy. “Where’s the boy? I had forgotten the boy--where +is he? Surely you owe him a great deal, and we must see that he is +properly looked after.” + +“The boy,” said Lucius, “is dead--drowned.” + +Ambrosia recoiled, with an exclamation of horror. Not only was the +fact in itself dreadful, but Lucius had spoken in so stiff and brutal +a manner. + +“Drowned?” she exclaimed. + +And Mr. Spragge said: + +“Why, this is very distressing, Lord Vanden! Poor lad! And how did it +happen?” + +“I have told all the people who came to take me off,” replied Lucius +stiffly, as if he did not wish to go over an unpleasant matter again. +“It was the night when the French barque went down--you must have seen +the rockets.” + +“Yes, yes,” they both said at once, “we saw the rockets.” + +“Well, that was the night. They put out a boat, and it was broken on +the rocks. I went down to see if I could save any of them, and I did +do so. I found men clinging on the rocks. The boy would come too, and +hold the lantern. The rocks were slippery… well, that’s all there is. +We tried to rescue him when he lost his foothold--the sailor that I +had pulled in and myself; but of course he was gone in a second. And I +suppose it is of no great concern to anyone,” added Lucius, “since he +was but a poor waif from Falmouth.” + +“Then,” cried Ambrosia incredulously, “you’ve been alone +there--_alone_ for all these weeks?” + +“Alone,” smiled Lucius. + +“It’s very horrible!” shivered Ambrosia. + +“Yes,” said Lucius drily; “but do you know, it seems already so long +ago, and it happened so swiftly, and I knew so little about the boy, +that it does not seem to me now so horrible; and it was not a bad +death, was it?--for a poor wretch who had but little prospects.” + +“Did you know anything about him?” asked Mr. Spragge. “Is there anyone +to whom we should give notice of his death--any relative whom we could +compensate?” + +“I know nothing about him,” said Lucius, proceeding up the beach, with +these two walking slowly either side of him. “Nothing at all. He told +me his name was Philip, and seemed to know no other; while I had him +he was a good, obedient boy, but of so little strength or capacity +that he was of not much use to me; and it was through his own daring +that he lost his life, insisting on coming out on the rocks to hold +the lantern.” + +“The Frenchmen--what happened to them?” asked Mr. Spragge. + +“The barque went to pieces, I believe,” said Lucius. “I saw no more of +her. I had the men on the lighthouse two or three days--I hardly +remember which--hoping the lifeboat would come, for the storm fell a +little after then, as you may remember.” + +“Yes,” said Mr. Spragge, “but the boat here is not strong enough; +that’s why your father had another boat sent over from Falmouth. +Without that we should scarce have reached you, even to-day.” + +“Other ships passed,” continued Luce, telling his tale without much +animation, and in a formal manner, “and I contrived a signal to one +and they sent a boat off; they were French also, it seemed, bound for +Brest; and they took on board my Frenchmen. We lowered them with rope, +and that’s the last I know of it.” + +“Well, well,” sighed Mr. Spragge, “I’m sorry for the boy!” + +Lucius asked who now was going to take the watch in the lighthouse. He +had seen the two men who had been left in his place; they had been +rowed out in the boat that took them off. They were strangers to him. +Mr. Spragge explained that they were new men from Falmouth, sent by +his father, since none of the fisher-folk was either willing to go or +capable of undertaking such a task as these long watches in the +lighthouse of St. Nite’s during this perpetual stormy weather. + +Amy stood wretched and irresolute; it was her plain duty to follow her +brother, who was being laboriously carried by four or five fishers +into the inn; but her wish was to go with Lucius. Perhaps all this +estrangement and formality was only the result of their first meeting: +here in public among all these people, on this gloomy, open beach. If +she could go with him to Lefton Park, surely there some kindliness, +some friendliness, would spring up between them! She had not +mentioned, of course, the Countess Fanny. She wondered if she should +do so--if it would be generous in her to say that there was no further +news of the girl; and yet he must surmise as much--probably he has +asked Oliver, or the men in the boat. + +Well, if he did not speak of her, perhaps so much the better. Perhaps +if he never took that name on his lips it might gradually leave his +heart, and they might be as they once had been, before the foreign +girl came to St. Nite’s Head. + +“Are you coming with us, Miss Sellar?” asked the clergyman, as they +reached the Earl’s carriage. + +Lucius did not second this request. + +“I suppose I should stay with Oliver,” said Amy sadly. Then, with an +attempt to move her one-time lover to some compassion she turned to +him and added: “I live a solitary life now; Oliver is sick, as you +see, and he is often afflicted in body.” + +“Poor Amy!” said Lucius, and yet without tenderness. “You also have +had your vigil. Come with us now--your brother is well enough with Dr. +Drayton.” But he did not speak in any manner to induce her to come, +but stood there indifferently, as if he awaited the pleasure of a +stranger to whom he owed courtesy--no more than courtesy. + +But Amy could not leave it at that. She must endeavour to break within +his guard, even if it were with weapons that inflicted a wound upon +herself. + +“Nothing has been heard of Fanny,” she said, in a loud voice that was +almost shrill, and which made Mr. Spragge look at her in dismay. “She +has not been found, Lucius.” + +“No,” said Lucius, “no--one scarcely hoped it, after all these weeks.” + +“But Oliver found something of hers--in Flimwel Grange, of all places; +he must go there one night, in one of his mad moods. And what did he +find, in one of the empty rooms, but one of her coral bracelets! +Perhaps you remember them, Lucius--she nearly always wore them--grapes +and vines in coral.” + +“A coral bracelet?” repeated Lucius, with every accent of alarm and +terror. “You say he found a coral bracelet?” + +“Yes; what is there so odd in it, Lucius?” + +“I think it extremely odd,” said Mr. Spragge, “and to be found in such +a place, too; it is a mystery that one cannot attempt to solve.” + +“Oliver has suffered,” remarked Lucius, in a calmer tone. + +“I think he will always suffer,” said Amy, “and that I must always +stand by and see him suffer. I will go to him now. Perhaps, later, you +will come to Sellar’s Mead, Lucius.” She held out her hand, and he +took it in his, which was, she remarked, so ruined and toil-worn and +scarred; different indeed from the smooth hands that she had long +touched. + +“Good-bye, Amy,” he said; “yes, of course I’ll come soon. I’m +distressed about Oliver.… For the moment everything seems strange, you +know,” he added, in a half apology, “but we shall get it all adjusted +presently. I feel half deafened still, by the noise of the sea in my +ears, and the wind in that underground tunnel, and my eyes half +blinded with the dazzle of the waves--those white lines, you know, +always advancing towards you and always breaking at the foot of the +lighthouse, one after another. Well--for a day or two, then, Amy--and +forgive me!” + +He got into the carriage, followed by Mr. Spragge; she saw him droop +into an attitude of languor and apathy in one of the corners, and put +those two poor stained and roughened hands before his face. + +Well, so it was over, this long-promised meeting! After the suspense, +and the watching, and the waiting, they had met and parted again, both +like strangers. Estranged, estranged--he from her and she from Oliver; +that dead girl between them all, always. + +As she turned back to the “Drum and Trumpet,” she saw the three from +Pen Hall Farm, moving slowly away from the sea. Ferocious and savage +they looked, and they were talking together in excited though low +hoarse accents. + +Ambrosia could guess that they were talking about the boy, who had +lodged with them for a little while. No doubt they had come down there +to get some share of his reward, and were angered to find that he was +dead, and there would be no reward. She must see to it that something +was sent to them. Whatever they were, there must be no meanness over +this matter. They should have the boy’s wages, and perhaps more. + +She went into the “Drum and Trumpet,” to find Oliver still +unconscious. + +That night, the tempest began to rise again. + + + + + CHAPTER XXX + +The storm blew again continuously for three days, and Amy made no +attempt to go over to Lefton Park. She remained in Sellar’s Mead and +nursed Oliver--or rather watched by Oliver, for he required no +nursing. Brought up on a wagon from St. Nite’s Promontory, he had +remained for twenty-four hours unconscious. Amy had stared, with +repugnance and dismay, at his prone, heavily-breathing figure, at his +senseless, flushed face, which was distorted and twitching. “A +stroke,” the doctor had said; and if he had a third it was scarcely +likely that he would survive it--a man of his habits, who drank so +heavily, and was now in such a continuous stress of bitter emotion. +And he did not fail to add the usual consolation of doctors, face to +face with such terrible maladies: “It is far better, Miss Sellar, that +he should pass away suddenly in one of these fits than survive +paralysed or senseless--a log for you to tend, perhaps for years.” + +For all the conventional courtesy of his profession, the doctor had +spoken without much pity or feeling. Ambrosia noted that, and it +reminded her of how little Oliver was loved, even from those who +obtained some advantage from him--even among his own dependants and +servants, who ate his bread and did his work, Oliver was not loved, +nor scarcely liked. + +No one would regret him if he should die; perhaps, as Dr. Drayton had +seemed to say, it would be better if he did not recover. What was his +life but an agony? + +She dutifully did what she could for him; she sat by his bed and +watched for returning consciousness; and there was the wind again, +howling and battling round the house, and no leaf yet on any tree, and +no flowers save those few snowdrops under the yew-tree hedge. Evenings +were longer now, and in the lengthening twilight the landscape looked +bleak as a bleached bone. + +One day Amy rode over to Pen Hall Farm, proceeding cautiously and with +difficulty along the frozen road. The wind had dropped a little, but +it made no difference to the desolation and coldness of the weather. + +Ambrosia had come reluctantly on this errand, but it was one she +scarcely cared to trust to a servant, and one she felt that must be +undertaken. She did not wish these people, wretched and outcast as +they were, to cherish any grievance against her or Oliver. Her pride +forbade that. Of course, it was Lucius who should really have thought +of them, since the boy had been his companion, and he paid the +lighthouse-keepers for any extra service. Yet she felt the +responsibility to be hers, in a way, for she knew that these people +hated Oliver, and that Oliver hated them. Odd that he should hate +anyone quite so insignificant, but there had been no other name, she +thought, for the curious passion with which he had spoken of them, and +the persistency with which he had ridden over here to menace and +threaten them. + +In the dirty kitchen Amy took out her purse, counted five gold pieces +on to the soiled table. + +“You looked after that boy, I believe, who was with Lord Vanden on the +lighthouse,” she said, “and he was swept into the sea by an accident, +as you have heard, no doubt.” + +They replied sullenly that they had heard it. + +“Well,” said Amy, more and more hostile, as she perceived how +unwelcome she was, and what an antagonistic reception she was +receiving, “here is what I reckon to be his wages, and something over. +The poor child seems to have had no relations, nor can he be traced at +Falmouth. He was a stowaway on some ship, no doubt; therefore I have +thought that _you_ should have this money.” + +She had expected to see her gold snatched up with avaricious greed; it +could not have been often, if ever before, that these people had seen +sovereigns lying on their table. But there was a pause, of hesitation +and reluctance. Men and women looked at each other, and then on the +ground. + +“Don’t you think it enough?” asked Amy coldly. + +The grandmother, a repulsive old hag, replied malignantly: + +“We asked for nothing, madam.” + +“You are angry with me, I suppose,” said Amy, “because my brother is +trying to get this farm from you; but he will pay you a good price for +it, and you might do better somewhere else. The land is very poor, you +know; and you keep it all wretchedly,” she added. “I wonder you make a +living out of it. Since you will not work, why not let the farm go to +those who will make something of it?” + +“It’s our land,” replied the man sullenly, “and we intend to remain on +it.” + +“Very well; that is, after all, nothing to do with me,” remarked the +lady coldly. “But here are these five gold pieces, if you care to have +them. I don’t wish you to cherish a grievance about that poor boy. I’d +like to do something for him, and for you, who looked after him. I +suppose he was scarcely able to pay for himself?” + +“He paid,” said one of the women. “He had a few shillings with him, +and he was always careful to pay his dues.” + +Still no one made any attempt to touch the money, and Ambrosia +shrugged her shoulders and turned to the door. Economical as she was, +she could not endure to pick up the sovereigns which she had so +negligently thrown down on that dirty table. + +“Take it or leave it, as you please,” she said, and went out and +mounted her horse by herself, and rode home. + +When she reached Sellar’s Mead, she found that Oliver had recovered +consciousness, and had been asking for her. She hastened at once to +his room, and found him sitting up in bed, looking ghastly, she +thought, for two days unshaven, with one side of his face slightly +dragged, his eyes sunken and bloodshot, the face bloodless beneath the +dark tan that had come from these long weeks of exposure to wind and +rain and keen air. + +“Where’s Lucius?” he asked at once. + +“With his father, of course; I have not seen him since he left the +lighthouse.” + +“He hasn’t written?” asked Oliver, in a faint voice. “No +message--nothing from him at all?” + +“Nothing whatever, Oliver. You see, the storm has risen again.” + +“He isn’t ill?” whispered Oliver. + +“No; no, indeed, he is not ill. He is stronger than we thought. +Oliver. Dr. Drayton said this morning that he is very well; but the +old Earl is failing fast. But you, Oliver--how are you?” she asked +perfunctorily. + +“I’m well enough now,” muttered the big man gloomily. “Queer I should +be struck down like this twice--eh, Amy?” + +“You’ll have to be careful,” said his sister. “Dr. Drayton says so. +You must not agitate yourself so much, Oliver, nor drink so heavily. +If you have this attack for a third time it may be fatal.” + +“And if it were?” he snarled. “Who’d regret me, eh?” + +“I don’t know, indeed!” was on her lips; but she checked these harsh +and bitter words. + +“Don’t you find anything worth while living for, Oliver?” she asked, +rather desperately. “Can’t you make some effort to command and +restrain yourself?” + +“Yes, I’ll make an effort,” he answered; “I want to see Lucius.” And +he added in rasping tones: “How is it between you and Lucius?” + +“As it has been for some time past,” she replied coldly. “Why do you +ask, Oliver? It must be clear to you that everything sentimental is +over between me and Lucius.” + +“Has he said so?” + +“No; he would scarcely say so,” replied Amy, with a bitter smile. “I +have not said so yet, either, for the moment was scarcely right, since +he had just come off the lighthouse and I was waiting for him. Then, +Oliver, I didn’t quite know; I thought perhaps--but it was hopeless; +he was as estranged as before.” + +“By what?” asked Oliver. + +Ambrosia would not feed his smouldering fury by mentioning the name of +Fanny. He only wanted her to say that name to give him an excuse for +an outburst of passion--of that she was well assured. He knew, as well +as she did, what had happened between her and Lucius. She would not +give him the gratification of discussing this hideous affair. + +“We are not suited,” she replied. “That is the usual excuse, is it +not?” And then, with a fierce desire to wound herself, she added: “I +am older than he.” + +Oliver gave her no word of sympathy or compassion. He seemed not to +regard her point of view in the least, but to remain entirely absorbed +in his own brooding and gloomy thoughts. + +“What is Lucius going to do?” he demanded abruptly. + +“How can I tell?” answered Amy wearily. “You had better go and ask +him, Oliver; but what concern, now, is it of either of us?” + +That afternoon there came news from Lucius. He wrote hastily, saying +that his father was very ill, and that had prevented him from coming +over to Sellar’s Mead, and prevented him still; but that, if they +would care to come to Lefton Park, the old Earl might recover +consciousness and would, indeed, be glad to see them. + +“I don’t want to meet him over a death-bed,” said Oliver, when this +news was brought to him. “But do you go, Amy, if you wish.” + +“I will certainly go,” replied Ambrosia, for she had nothing but the +pleasantest and most tender recollections of the old man. But when, +that evening, she reached Lefton Park, the Earl was dead. He had +passed away dozing in his chair, in the little closet off the library, +surrounded by his shells, cases and boxes and trays of specimens, and +the clear glass of water into which he had dropped them to wash them; +dead so peacefully, beneath the print of Winstanley Lighthouse, amid +the shelves of books dealing with conchology. And everyone in Lefton +Park was mourning for the kindest and most patient of masters. And +again, when she heard the news, Ambrosia had the impression that +Death’s scythe was mowing a clear space round them, as the reaper cuts +the standing corn and leaves the last blades lonely. + +Lucius had little to say to her. No doubt he was greatly shocked and +troubled, though he was dry and tearless, and said little about his +father, save to remark that he was glad the tempest had dropped, so +that he could return home in time to see the Earl again. + +“And I can do nothing?” Ambrosia asked. + +“Nothing, my dear, nothing.” And then he asked about Oliver--if he +were yet recovered from his seizure. + +“Yes,” said Ambrosia, “he is better; Dr. Drayton says we must be +careful, or I, too, shall have Death in the house. But how is one to +be careful, Lucius, with a man like Oliver? I cannot cure his +heartache, nor make him cease drinking!” + +“Does he drink?” asked Lucius. + +“Yes--heavily; almost every night, now. One could hardly expect +anything else. I think, Lucius, that his mind is broken!” + +And then Lucius said the name that she wished to say, but did not +dare. + +“Does he still grieve for Fanny?” + +Ambrosia answered: + +“Who else should it be but Fanny that he grieves for?” + +“I know,” replied Lucius, “I know.” + +“And you, too,” she longed to cry out, in an accusing voice. “What do +you think of but Fanny; even now, when your father lies a few hours +dead, you are thinking of nothing but her!” But she choked back this +bitter reproach, and took her leave with decorum. + +At the door he retained her hand a second between his own. + +“Everything is all right between us, isn’t it, Amy?” he asked. + +She stared at him out of the shadow of her bonnet. + +“I don’t know,” she said, forcing a smile. “We must talk of that later +on.” + +And driving home she wondered if she should keep him to his word. To +be a countess, to be the mistress of Lefton Park… should she ignore +his hurt, and keep him to his word and marry him, and so be rid of +Oliver and get away? Or should she renounce him, bidding him remain +faithful to his lost love? Ah, the choice was odious! “Most women +would marry him,” thought Amy. “Why not? The other’s but a dead +dream--dead, dead!” + +Oliver recovered sufficiently to escort his sister to the funeral of +the Earl. He took his full part in the long and lugubrious ceremony. +Side by side, in ponderous and heavy mourning, brother and sister sat +in the dark church and listened to the service read by Mr. Spragge, +and looked round at the mural tablets and funeral hatchments on the +walls and pillars, and the congregation--all, like themselves, in +black--and then followed out into the bleak churchyard, and stood by +while the stone doors of the vault were unlocked and another coffin +was lowered into the impenetrable darkness of the interior; and then +rode back, in mourning coaches, the horses trapped in black, to Lefton +Park, where all the servants wore crape and the funeral meal was set +out in the long, green room with the indigo tapestries and the black +portraits, the room which the Countess Fanny had crossed the last time +that anyone had seen her radiant figure. + +The will was read, and there were little legacies for all of them, but +nothing for Ambrosia, “since, as my son’s wife, she will have all.” +And Lucius sat at the head of his table and did the honours of his +house gravely and without fault. Only his coarsened face and his rough +hands showed strangely against the unrelieved black of his clothes. + +Oliver had scarcely spoken to him, nor he to Oliver; but the elder man +stared at the younger continuously. Once or twice Amy had touched her +brother’s arm, saying, “Oliver, don’t stare so; it’s odd in you. +Whatever you have with Lucius, forget it now for pity’s sake!” + +When all the guests had gone save those relations who had been able to +reach Lefton Park in time for the funeral and were staying in the +house, Amy and her brother yet lingered; Amy would have gone, but +Oliver detained her, saying: + +“I wish to speak to Lucius; I want to see Lucius.” + +“But not to-day, surely?” protested Amy; but to that he gave no +answer. Nor did Amy endeavour to urge him further. She was busy with +her own thoughts, drowsy with a certain lassitude of melancholy and +reflection. The large house, and even life itself, seemed blank enough +without the kind old man. + +This loss in itself saddened her, and brought in its train reflections +which she must consider. + +Lucius was now his own master--the master of Lefton Park, and the +whole estate, and such influence and honour and money as there were. +There was nothing--Amy must face that--there was nothing to keep him +in Cornwall if he wished to leave. He might in a few days go away, and +she never see him again. If she released him, she believed that that +was what he would do; go away, and for ever. But, if she held him to +his promise, then he must marry her, and then she would go too; and +Amy, sitting there in her black shawl and bonnet, with her hands +folded in her lap, staring down at her white cambric cuff and her +prayer-book, had thought: “And I _will_ hold him to it--why not? There +is nobody else now; even if he loved her, that’s over. I’ll marry him +and go away with him. I shall make him a good wife. I can’t be left +here with Oliver; I must escape, and he’s the only chance!” + +Always, from the first day that Lucius had spoken to her, from the +first day that there had been any understanding between them, this had +been in her mind: Lucius was a way of escape; but never had she put it +so crudely and even brutally as she put it to herself now, sitting in +that house of mourning. She would not let him go! She would not lose +her only chance.… She could not afford to do so; let more +highly-placed and better dowered women be generous.… + +When Lucius had a little leisure, he came and spoke to her, very +tenderly and affectionately; and she took instant advantage of that, +and, clasping his hands, said: + +“Lucius, can we begin again? I always counted on the spring, and it is +the spring now? Can you be a little composed?” + +He looked at her earnestly, and she turned away her face. She feared +that she was no longer pleasing to look at, and that even in the +shadow of her black bonnet he must see lines under her eyes and about +her mouth, and hollows in her cheeks. This long winter had rifled her +charms; too well she knew that. + +Turning from him, she must gaze out of the window, across the desolate +park. The snow was beginning to fall; the flakes appeared to drift +more up than down. + +“You must marry me soon,” said Lucius, “and we will go away.” + +And she made no demur, while her heart leapt to hear those words which +were like the grating of the key in the lock to some long-inured +prisoner. + +At last they left; even so, Amy found their departure was but a feint, +for Oliver must turn back, saying he had forgotten his gloves--must +leave her in the carriage and return to Lefton Park. + +The door was still open, and he made his way in, directly across the +long, dark-green drawing-room, where the food still stood on the long +table--the sherry and the cakes, the pies and the tea-urns--and +lightly and directly reached the little closet beyond, where the young +Earl stood, where they had left him a few moments ago. He was leaning +on the mantelpiece, contemplating a small object that he held in his +hand, and he did not hear Oliver open the door; nor did Oliver speak +or move, but stood there staring at him. And he was staring at what he +held--a small coral bracelet. + +Hearing an odd, choking sound which he thought to be that of some +animal, Lucius turned abruptly and beheld Oliver Sellar in the +doorway. The two black-clad figures faced each other, one so heavy and +grim, and one so slight and comely. + +Oliver pointed to the bracelet. + +“Hers!” he cried. “Her bracelet!” + +“Yes,” said Lucius, in a still voice. “She gave it me the day she was +lost.” + + + + + CHAPTER XXXI + +“Why have you come back like this to spy on me?” demanded the young +Earl. “What do you mean? You had better explain yourself. You’ve had +an ill look the whole day, though this was an odd occasion upon which +to endeavour to fasten a quarrel upon me.” + +“Her bracelet!” repeated Oliver, with an ugly smile. “You’ve got her +bracelet.” + +“And I’ve told you how,” said Lucius coldly. “The day she left she was +wearing them--you know that, I think; they were in the list of her +ornaments.” + +“And you let me put it there,” said Oliver, “knowing that you had it +all the while!” + +“I did not care to speak of it,” returned Lucius, “and that you may +well understand. The clasp of the ornament was defective, and she let +me take it when it fell. Why, she was careless about it, of course. I +said ‘I’ll get this mended for you--it’s a poor clasp!’” + +“Don’t put me off like that,” said Oliver; “don’t put me off with such +rant, such lies! I found the fellow to that in Flimwel Grange--she +went there, and dropped it; both the clasps were defective, it seems; +I’ve got it now in my pocket.” And he took the ornament out of the +pocket of his black coat, and held it on his palm: the fellow to the +little bracelet of coral grapes and vine-leaves that Lucius held. + +“Yes, I know,” remarked Lucius. “Amy told me. Again, why did you come +back to spy on me?” + +“I wanted to speak to you,” said Oliver. “I’ve been ill--damnably ill. +A man can’t stand up against everything for ever, can he? And now, +finding you with that bracelet, there is the less need for me to +speak. She did not give it to you the morning she was lost.” + +Lucius turned on him quietly, with the air of dealing with a man who +must be pitied for not being in his right senses: endured because his +brain is broken. + +“When, then, do you think I got it?” he asked, in tone of compassion, +“seeing no man has seen her since? You know she was wearing them that +morning.” + +Oliver Sellar looked on the ground, and said, in a low, raucous voice, +as if he were repeating a lesson learnt by heart: + +“I think she ran away to those people at Pen Hall Farm, and that they +hid her. I think that she and one of them went down to Flimwel Grange +and broke into the place. She had those mad whims, and a curiosity to +see the house. And there she dropped the bracelet--she was wearing +them, no doubt; she never could resist her fal-lals. Something made me +go to that farm, again and again; the people were sullen and +insolent--I thought half-witted; but I believe now she was hiding +there all the time.” + +“God help you!” cried Lucius impulsively. “For indeed your wits seem +to me to be turned. You know that what you say is an impossibility; or +should know it, if you preserved your reason!” + +Oliver continued to talk rapidly, his black, scowling brows bent +downwards and his hands clasped behind him. + +“That boy--the boy I saw coughing over the fire, the boy who went into +the boat with you, the boy who was shut up with you for six weeks, who +was drowned…” + +The younger man still continued to gaze with serene pity at his almost +inarticulate agony. + +“What has the boy to do with it?” he asked. + +“That was why,” groaned Oliver, putting his hands to his forehead, +which was damp with drops of pain, “I had to watch the lighthouse day +and night.” + +Lucius stared at him with darkening eyes. + +“What was your reason for watching the lighthouse when I was on it?” +he demanded. + +“The reason was that she was with you, and you know it, and I knew it. +I recognised her, even as she stepped into the boat; though my senses +did not realise it then, though I was like one stunned and dazed, yet +my heart knew it; but when I had grasped it, it was too late--there +was half a mile of water and the gale between us already.” + +Lucius did not immediately reply. He deliberately and carefully +returned the bracelet to a small case, and the case to his pocket. + +Oliver was wiping his forehead with a large, black-bordered +handkerchief. Lucius remarked that his hair was now completely grey. + +“How sad,” he said at length, “that grief should so upset a strong +intellect, Sellar! You know that what you say--at least you should +know,” he added, in a yet softer voice. “Oliver, look at me! Do you +think--can you believe, that she and I were shut up in that lighthouse +for weeks?” + +“Alone for weeks,” returned Oliver, with a ghastly sigh that was half +a groan. + +“I pity you,” replied Lucius warmly, “if such a thought as that has +been your companion during all these stormy weeks. Believe me, it is +the wildest of all wild delusions!” + +“You lie!” cried Oliver. “She was there with you; and if she be +dead--I don’t know. Yet I think she isn’t dead, or I _should_ know. +I’ve always felt that from the first--that if she were dead I should +have known it, and I never thought she was; I thought she had escaped +me and was in hiding somewhere--and so it proved to be.” + +Lucius replied to him in a sterner tone. + +“Oliver, I fear you wronged her while she lived; now she is dead you +wrong her more, with these scandalous surmises and bitter suggestions. +I pray you do not let them go farther than this room. Would you ruin +all that is left of her to ruin--her reputation?” + +Oliver made no reply to this, but strode a step nearer to the young +man, and made a gesture as if to seize him by the shoulders; but then +dropped his hand to his side. One of them still clutched the coral +bracelet that he had found in Flimwel Grange. + +“Was she drowned?” he asked. “Or did you get her off?” + +“How do you think,” cried Lucius, “if I had had her there, I could +have got her off in such a gale?” + +“There was the French boat,” said Oliver. “Your story of the French +boat; if that were true, you got her off then, I suppose. I dare say +you had money somewhere; everything can be done with money. There was +that Madame de Mailly waiting at Brest; you said the boat was bound +for Brest.” + +“Did I?” interrupted Lucius hurriedly. “No, I didn’t say bound for +Brest, did I?” + +“You did,” said Oliver, coming yet closer. “You may have got her off +like that. I am going to the Continent to look for her there, and see +if that Madame de Mailly is still waiting, or if she’s flown +with--whom she waited for.” + +Lucius turned away and stood with his back to him, resting his elbow +on the mantelpiece; but he did this in a thoughtful, not an insulting, +manner; and there was something in his air of gentle indifference +which did much to quell the fury of the other man, who for the first +time was pervaded with some doubt. + +“I had not thought you had taken it so,” he muttered. “I had thought +to surprise you into a confession, if I could see you face to face, +Lucius.” + +“Amy is waiting without, I think,” replied the young man, without +moving, “and you had best go to her, Oliver; and for God’s sake stop +this wild talk! Fanny is dead--to you and me and all of us she is +dead--and do you endeavour to show some resignation. I will forget all +you have said just now, as you must forget it.” + +“Are you still going to marry Amy?” demanded Oliver harshly. + +“Yes,” said Lucius immediately; “there is no reason why that marriage +should be interrupted.” + +“She still cares to take you, then, after what she’s said to me?” + +“What did she say to you?” + +“That it was all over and done with, as I should think it would be!” + +“We are going to be married,” insisted Lucius coldly. “Do not plague +me any more, I entreat you, Oliver!” + +“And as to what I said?” demanded the elder man, “Do you still give me +a rank denial? Do you still say that that was a poor boy from Falmouth +whom you had on the lighthouse with you?” + +“You have been often enough to Pen Hall Farm,” returned Lucius; “I +hear your visits there have been frequent. You have tried to force +them to say something of what you are saying now to me. Did you +succeed?” + +“No; I could not get a syllable from any of them. They were firm in +the tale that it was a waif walked up from Falmouth.” + +“I also am firm in that tale,” said Lucius. “Should you stand here and +rant all day you would get no more out of me. Clear your brain of +delusions!” + +“You’re changed,” said Oliver, with a fell grin. “You’re not quite the +puny boy that went on board St. Nite’s.” + +“I had to change, or die,” replied Lucius. “And listen to this, +Oliver: if your wild, fantastic tale had been true, and she and I had +been together there all those weeks, she would have been none the +worse for it, and I much the better. For she was innocency itself.” + +At this Oliver laughed stridently and offensively. + +“Come, come!” he cried. “If I stay here a moment or two longer I shall +drive you to an admission! You’ll agree with my tale, however wild, +fantastic and foolish you call it! You’ll say that you knew her almost +the same moment that I did. She got up from the fireplace in the +inn--at the ‘Drum and Trumpet.’ We were standing there in the +half-dark parlour, you by the window, I by the door; do you recall? +She got up, that ragged, coughing, haggard boy, with her face stained +with walnut-juice and her hair cropped, wearing a suit of cheap slop +clothes from Falmouth.” + +“Stop!” cried Lucius. “Stop!” + +“I won’t stop! That was the moment. She looked straight at you, and +you knew her at once; and I--well, I knew her, but I couldn’t quite +grasp it for a moment. I let you go--I was dazed. You were swift then; +you saw it was she, and you took her away under my very eyes, under my +eyes! You hurried her down the beach and into the boat, and I stood +there like a fool--like a dunder-head--struck foolish! Then, as I say, +when you were right out at sea, a speck, it all came to me. That was +she--that was she whom I had seen lounging over the fire at Pen Hall +Farm. She’d made friends with those people--given them jewels for the +child. They hated me. Therefore they would have sympathised with her. +And you know it; even as I speak to you now, you know I speak God’s +truth!” + +“I know you rave,” replied Lucius firmly. “You’ve moped and brooded +over this, Oliver, till you know not what you say or do; and now leave +me in peace! Would you force such things on me on such a day? Why,” he +added, with the first flare of impatience that he yet had shown, “if +it were true do you think that I would admit it, even at the last +extremity?” + +“I’ll make you admit it one of these days!” said Oliver. “Or I’ll +choke the life out of you, Lucius! If you wish to be silent you’ll be +silent where we saw your father put to-day!” + +The door opened, and Ambrosia entered timidly. She was tired of +waiting in the carriage below. It was cold and the coachman had +complained, as he exercised his horses up and down, of the long wait +in the bleak, windy carriage-drive. + +“Oliver, aren’t you coming?” she asked in a sinking voice. She looked +from one man to another, and saw their faces distraught and disfigured +with emotion. A light foam flecked Oliver’s pale lips, and his eyes +were sunk in his head. She saw in his strong, stiff fingers the coral +bracelet. + +“I’ve been cheated,” he muttered, “from the first--tricked and +cheated, Amy!” + +“Don’t say before her,” commanded Lucius, “what you have just said +before me. You can at least respect Amy.” + +Oliver glanced at his sister, and seemed to gain some measure of +self-control from the sight of her frightened face. + +“No,” he said, slowly and thickly. “This, perhaps, is not the time. +You’re more stubborn than I thought, but I shall get it out of you +soon.” + +“Oliver, come away!” entreated Amy. “You can’t force any quarrel on +Lucius to-day--the day his father was buried! Oh, Lucius,” she cried, +turning to her betrothed, “please forgive him, for he is a very sick +man!” + +“Not sick,” muttered Oliver, “but fooled and cheated. What man +wouldn’t be half lunatic who has had to support what I have had to +support?” + +“I am sorry for you,” replied the young Earl coldly; “yet be careful +what you say, Oliver!” Then to the woman he said: “Amy, take no heed +of him. He has just spoken to me most wildly. Shall I come back with +you to Sellar’s Mead? The storm is rising again, and he is scarcely a +fit companion for you.” + +But Oliver appeared to have regained a certain amount of self-control. +In quite a composed manner he made an ironic bow to the young lord, +and said: + +“My sister does very well with me, Lucius, I have nothing more to say +just now. But you may guess, perhaps, what I shall have to say when we +meet again!” + +He turned towards the door. Behind his back Amy stretched out her hand +to her lover. + +“Come over and see us soon!” she entreated. “You are my one hope, +Lucius!” + +Was this a fair appeal? That question ran in her heart as she spoke; +but she was past such fine honesty now. Fair or unfair, she would +cling to him. What else had she, and who should ask from her such +self-sacrifice as loneliness with Oliver? + +Lucius pressed her hand warmly. + +“I will come with you now,” he said. + +But she, with her innate propriety and sense of the conventions, +replied: + +“No, Lucius; it is not fitting that you should leave the house to-day. +I will go back. I have put in so many days at Sellar’s Mead,” she +added with a wan smile, “that one or two more will make no difference. +Come, Oliver, compose yourself!” + +Oliver Sellar made no word or sign of protest. For the second time +that day he left Lefton Park. This time he did not return, but got +into the brougham beside his sister, and rode in silence back to his +own house; and Amy wondered why, with a sort of hysteric fantasy, she +must think that he disliked riding in carriages, and remember that +day, which seemed a day in another life, when she had gone to the +ferry to meet the Countess Fanny, and had seen that brilliant, alien +figure come ashore, the apple-green bonnet and the striped shawl, and +all her beauty and her radiance, and had disliked her… and Oliver had +grumbled because they had brought the carriage and not the horse. Why +must she think of that now? Why must remorse trouble her, and she say +to herself: + +“If I had been kinder, it might not all have happened?” + +As they reached the park gates Oliver, waking from his gloomy +meditation, said harshly: + +“Lucius tells me that you and he are going to be married after all, +Amy.” + +“Yes,” said Amy nervously--she had been ready for that question--“we +are; and can you wonder, Oliver? I cannot wither here for the rest of +my life. I dare say it were a finer thing to refuse Lucius; for I know +he does not greatly care for me.” + +“You know,” interrupted Oliver, “that he loves Fanny. He always did +love Fanny, from the first moment he saw her!” + +“But Fanny is dead,” replied Amy, with a sob in her throat, clasping +tight her mourning shawl across her bosom. “And a woman cannot always +stand aside for the dead. I am alive, Oliver, and must grow old; and +there are so many years ahead--you and I in that lonely house. Oh, +Oliver, have a little pity and common humanity, and say that you +understand that I must marry Lucius and go away.” + +“Fanny will be between you always,” said Oliver. “Do you think he will +ever forget her? Do you know what he was doing now, when I went +back--staring at her little coral bracelet. And how did he get it, +eh?” + +“Did he not explain?” countered Ambrosia. + +“He said that she had given it to him the morning she disappeared; and +that’s a lie, no doubt!” + +“But how else could he have got it?” + +Oliver laughed in the darkness of his corner in the carriage. + +“Don’t ask me that, Amy,” he replied. “Lucius’ll tell you, perhaps, +some day. I’m sorry for you if you marry Lucius!” + +Amy spoke hurriedly, more as if to justify herself to herself than to +her brother: + +“But they only knew each other for a few days! They’d scarcely met +alone, and he is so young, he will forget. It must already be like a +vision to him, and then, all those weeks alone on the lighthouse.…” + +“Alone?” sneered Oliver. “Alone?” + +“Yes, alone! You know it was quite early that the poor boy was +drowned. How dreadful for Lucius, out there in the storm. That, I +think, made him forget--made him forget me, perhaps--but her also.” + +“He didn’t forget,” said Oliver, “He’ll never forget. And you’ll know +it if you marry him.” + +Ambrosia did not answer. She had to check the wild, passionate words +that rose from her lips, lest she be altogether overcome, and seek the +relief that she had so long despised--that of bitter tears. + +When they reached home she went upstairs, and with something of a +shudder put off her mourning dress. There was no need for her to go in +her own house dressed in crape, though she must wear it abroad. She +had not been any relation of the Earl, after all. How it oppressed +her--these yards of mohair and crape and black bombasine! + +As she passed the door of the room that had belonged to the Countess +Fanny she saw that it was closed. Timidly opening it, she saw that it +was dark. There was no fire on the hearth, and all the foreign girl’s +trifles and ornaments had been put away. + +She called Julia with a touch of panic. + +“Julia--what’s this? Isn’t the Countess Fanny’s room to be kept ready +as usual?” + +“No, madam; master said that we were to stop that now, and put all her +things away. No fire and no light, miss, and the bed dismantled, as +you see. It’s a good thing, isn’t it, that the poor master, in a +manner of speaking, has come to his senses.” + +“He is convinced that she’s dead, then,” murmured Amy, shutting the +door softly. “He doesn’t expect her back.” + +She went downstairs. On the chair in the hall was Oliver’s tall black +hat, his weeper and his gloves and long black cloak. And in the +parlour was Oliver himself, still in his mourning suit, with the white +cravat and shirt, growing up his ruined, haggard face and his +ash-coloured hair; flung into the deep chair by the fire, drinking. +The red light reflected in the bottle of port and the glass of port +was like the redness of the Countess Fanny’s coral grapes. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXII + +Again Ambrosia stood before her large, dark dressing-table, and, +with the keys in her hand, surveyed her mother’s _parure_ laid out +precisely before her eyes. + +The spring had come, but it was not the spring of her dreams; she +wondered, without bitterness, if anyone ever had seen the spring-time +of their dreams. It was a chill, light, still season, like a pause of +exhaustion after the storms of winter. The first flowers had been +slain by frost. Ambrosia had marked the blackened violets and withered +daffodils rising from the iron-hard earth and the stunted grass of +last year. + +She still wore half-mourning for the Earl--purples and greys; but she +would soon change that--and for her wedding-dress. In a month’s time +she and Lucius were to be married, and they would go away from St. +Nite’s together, exactly as she had planned; and yet so differently, +from what she had planned.… + +She had not been able to release Lucius; indeed, in every possible way +she had bound him closer to her, appealing, she knew, to his +compassion and chivalry; nor had he given the least sign of wishing to +be released: but there was that between them--her feeling that she +should have let him go. She defied this feeling. She declared to +herself that she would not be intimidated by her own conscience; that +she would be, if not happy, at least secure, despite them all; if not +content, at least not thwarted. If she could never forget the Countess +Fanny, at least she could ignore her; and the same with Lucius. She +would never be able to probe the depth of his memories, but she knew +that he would never speak of them. They might be to some extent, she +dared to think, happy--as happiness was generally reckoned. + +She put on her jewels slowly. There was no one to dispute them with +her now; and she recalled the evening when she had refrained from +wearing them because she had realised, with a start that was almost a +pang, that they belonged to the Countess Fanny. + +She hoped now, almost with a sense of panic, that she had not grudged +them; there had been so little need to grudge Fanny anything, since +she was so immediately to relinquish all.… + +She sighed, staring at herself in the glass; not a beautiful woman, +but graceful and comely enough, and one who could wear handsome +clothes and stately jewellery. She would be a credit to the taste of +Lucius if she could not crown or satisfy the passions of Lucius. + +“It’s over now,” she said to herself, speaking aloud in the emphasis +of her thoughts; “it’s gone, with the storms of winter; and I must not +think of it any more. She came, and she went; and everything is as it +was, even with Oliver. Yes, I dare to think that even with Oliver it +is as it has been.” + +He had fallen lately into a sullen quiet, and most of his life had +been passed in a sullen quiet, so this was not remarkable. He seemed +scarcely more morose and melancholic than he had ever been; even as a +boy he had been sombre and gloomy, given to bursts of violence, and +sulky, brooding.… Ambrosia, living with him in such close intimacy, +might dare to say that she thought he had recovered from the shock of +losing Fanny Caldini. He went about his duties with grim efficiency. +Those who worked with him and those who served him found little change +in him; he was as he had been when he had lived there with his brother +and father, and as he had been later, when he returned home to inherit +the estate. He seemed older, certainly, and the two fits or seizures +he had had, had left a mark on his face; the right side was as if it +had been clawed and dragged, faintly yet distinctly out of place. And +with this defect his cold handsomeness was blemished. That slightly +sinister appearance which had always repelled his fellows was +accentuated. Yet, in everything else, one might say--thought Ambrosia, +still lingering by her mirror--that Oliver had recovered; and she +could, with a placid if not a pacified conscience, leave him. + +“He’ll be alone,” Mr. Spragge had said, almost fearfully. + +Ambrosia had said: + +“Yes, but he does not wish for company; and who would care to offer +themselves?” + +The clergyman had asked if the Countess Fanny’s relations had been +apprised of her death, and Ambrosia had said she supposed so. She had +ventured once again on the subject to Oliver, and he had said that all +those matters had been attended to; and with her own eyes she had seen +the letters coming from London, with the lawyers’ seal on them; and +letters from Italy, with the gaudy arms of the Caldini stamped in +yellow wax on the back. + +She went downstairs slowly and reluctantly, trying to capture the +sensation of pure delight with which she had gone downstairs a few +months ago to greet Lucius. There was to be one of her small +dinner-parties to-night--just the vicar and his wife, the doctor and +his sister, Oliver, Lucius, and herself. + +She had ordered the lamps to be lit early, though it was still light +without, for the spring twilight was bleak and drear, and the trees +were bare that showed against the pallid sky almost as white as +crystal. They had been robbed by the late severe frost of their early +leaves, and showed stark as winter. + +With an almost mechanical care, Ambrosia went round the table in her +rustling silk, examining the silver, the glass, and the napery, exact +and precise as usual. Always, through this most awful winter, she had +maintained this gallant decorum of outward appearance. That had been +in some measure her satisfaction and her triumph. + +Oliver was already in the room. She disliked Oliver in his black +evening clothes, with his black stock and his hair that looked now as +if it had been thickly powdered. His face was tanned and coarsened by +exposure to the fierce weather, and his lips were pallid. For all his +massive air of strength, he seemed to his sister a sick man. But she +would not touch on that--she would not in any way broach the tragedy +between them. She wondered sometimes if he kept the little straw +bonnet with the flattened wreaths of red flowers, and the torn +cashmere shawl; and wondered also as to the fate of the two coral +bracelets, one so oddly in the possession of Oliver, one so oddly in +the possession of Lucius; but she never spoke of these things, and she +tried to take her mind off them. And now, after her usual habit, she +talked of commonplace affairs to Oliver, in formal tones which she +strove to render affectionate. + +“Why,” she reminded herself nervously, “there is nothing now left to +make you think of the Countess Fanny; nothing whatever!” + +The maid had gone, well paid and lamenting. She had been packed off to +Italy, with all Fanny’s trunks and luggage, the harp, the trinkets, +the pretty vases, and silk hangings, all that useless encumbrance of +luxury which Fanny had insisted on bringing with her from Rome, and +which had cost Oliver so much vexation on the journey; all gone now! +Ambrosia had taken pains to be away from home the day that all these +things were loaded on to the wagons and taken down to the ferry. And +now the guest-chamber, which had once been her chamber, was exactly as +it had been, with cool, glazed chintz with raspberry and blue flowers +on them, the walls bare, save for pale water-colours of children and +flowers, the hearth upon which no fire was ever lit, and a +dressing-table with sprigged muslin over blue satin, on which no +ornaments were ever laid. + +Ambrosia wondered, “Will Oliver ever marry again? Will any other woman +ever inhabit that room?” + +Lucius came early, and brought with him a large bouquet of exotics +from the glass-house at Lefton Park--fragile and delicate flowers, of +fantastic shapes and delicately stained with colour, with long Latin +names--aliens, which shed a faint, reluctant perfume in the warm room +and seemed already to be shivering to their death in this foreign +atmosphere. + +But Ambrosia received them with gratitude, as she received any +attention, however formal and stately, on the part of her lover, with +gratitude. She knew so well, in the recesses of her soul, that the +debt was all on her side. He could do very well without her, but she +could not do without him; and her obligation was immense. + +Lucius had changed, too, since that six weeks he had spent on the +lighthouse during the tempest. No longer could she faintly despise +him, think of him as too youthful, too dreamy, too irresolute. He had +grown beyond her stature and beyond her judgment. If his essential +sweetness was more than before apparent, so was his essential strength +which, in a fashion, she had before missed. Fastidious and dilettante +as she had thought him (always she had been slightly contemptuous of +his passion for engineering, for the lighthouse), he had proved +himself to be as resolute and as valiant as any of those ancestors of +his who had fought on land or sea, or shown firmness and courage in +the council chamber. She herself realised, and she had heard others +remark, that not many men, inexperienced as he was, young as he was, +could have done what he had done, and done it coolly, without any +complaint or self-consciousness. She had imagination enough to +understand what those six weeks must have meant to him, tormented by +his passion for the lost woman, assaulted by the raging seas which had +devoured her, alone, after the boy’s death, for so many days, isolated +in the midst of the tempest.… + +Her manner with Lucius now was different--timid, at times almost +humble. She was thankful now for his mere kindness, where before she +had rather haughtily demanded his full love. + +They all sat down to the handsomely appointed table, reserved, +amiable, stately. Ambrosia caught a sight of herself; looking up +suddenly, she beheld herself in the round diminishing mirror, framed +in the Empire style, that her mother had bought in Paris. She saw +herself in the burnished silk and the heavy lace bertha, and _parure_ +of jewels, and she thought vaguely: “That is I, sitting here at the +head of this table, with Oliver opposite and Lucius near me, and those +four other people who have known me all my life; and I am talking +quite pleasantly, and eating and drinking, and nobody says anything at +all about Fanny Caldini.…” + +After dinner they went into the drawing-room, where daffodils and +snowdrops and violets, disposed in the silver vases, gave out a chill +fragrance of spring in the fire-warmed room. + +Ambrosia sat down before the tall, rosewood piano, with the red satin +quilted into an odd design underneath the lattice-work, and played and +sang while Lucius turned over the music. But she avoided any Italian +_aria_, though they were now so fashionable; nor did any of the +company ask for them. + +Oliver had said little during the meal, but this was not remarked, as +he was usually so taciturn and even sullen in his demeanour. + +While Ambrosia sang and played, he remained sunk in his chair, his +chin dropped into his cravat as if he were lost in dangerous dreams. +Then the doctor’s rather shabby little brougham drove up, and took him +and his sister and the vicar and his wife away; and there were +amiable, but rather formal, farewells, and some guarded talk of the +marriage and the future. + +Then the other three sat alone in the drawing-room, and heard the +sound of the horses’ hoofs going off into the distance. + +Oliver was drinking steadily, but as yet this appeared to have had no +effect on him. He rose now, and abruptly left the room, neither +speaking to nor glancing at Ambrosia nor Lucius. + +“He still drinks too much,” murmured his sister, “and yet he seems +something recovered, don’t you think, Lucius?” + +She addressed him in that softer manner which she now used towards +everyone. Ambrosia had of late lost much of her self-assurance and her +hardness; she had been nearly overwhelmed by disaster and was humbled +by the good fortune of her escape. + +“Oliver seems to me much as he ever was,” said Lucius carefully. “But +then, he is much shut away by himself. I am very sorry for Oliver,” he +added. “And you will leave him here alone, Amy?” + +She replied hastily, as if defending herself: + +“What else can I do?” And she said, as she had said to the clergyman: +“There is no one who would come and stay with Oliver; and Oliver will +not leave St. Nite’s.” + +“Well, to each his destiny,” sighed Lucius. Then he added in a more +cheerful tone: “Perhaps as the years go by--that’s the great cure for +everything, eh, Amy--time?” + +He looked at Amy closely as he spoke, then rose impulsively, and came +and stood by her chair. + +“Amy, I wanted to ask you: has Oliver ever said anything to you +about----” + +She knew the name he wished to speak and could not say, and she helped +him gently: + +“Fanny? Do you mean about Fanny? No, he has never mentioned her since +that illness of his, when you came off the lighthouse. A few days +after that”--she laboured with her words, thinking of that +conversation in the carriage, when Oliver had told her so violently +that if she married Lucius, Fanny would be always between them--“he +spoke of her death with great passion; but since, nothing!” + +Lucius gazed at her earnestly, trying to perceive if she spoke the +truth. As far as he knew, Oliver had never mentioned again that +violent accusation which he had thrown in his face on the day of his +father’s funeral; but it had often gnawed at his heart that he had, in +secret, expressed it to Amy. But now he felt assured that this was not +so. Amy was sad, but too tranquil to have been ever asked to consider +such a thought as that. + +“That is all, Amy,” he remarked; “I just wondered if he ever spoke of +her.” + +“There have been letters, as I think you know,” said Ambrosia, “from +the lawyers and from Italy. He has never told anything of it to me, +and I--well, why should I ask, Lucius?” + +“Why, indeed?” smiled the young man. “It is over, is it not?” + +Now was the moment when she might have bared her heart to him, and ask +him what it had all meant to him, and told him of her sympathy and +loyalty and gratitude. But she would not do this; she remained +enclosed within herself, and merely repeated: + +“Yes, it is over, Lucius.” + +“And we must take up life,” added the young man, with a gallant smile, +“and you must never think, Amy, that I was distracted from you--for +more than a little while.” + +She was startled at this. Was he, then, going to tear down those veils +which she had so carefully arranged over this most dreadful subject? + +“Of course, of course!” she agreed at once. “You would be distracted +by such a tragedy as that. That was only natural, was it not, Lucius? +You were the last to see her. I understood.” + +Lucius looked at her very curiously, and smiled. She could not endure +either the glance or the smile, and turned her eyes away. He could +think her obtuse and foolish, vain and dull if he would, but he should +not bring this thing out between them and force her to listen to his +confession that he had loved the Countess Fanny… and she vowed then +that she would be such a wife to him that she would make him forget +that he ever had loved that strange, foreign girl, even for a few days +loved her.… Oh, could love be confined to a space of time? + +She waited, fearful that he would again try to speak--endeavour to +open his heart and make some confession--but he had been checked in +his attempt. + +He remained long silent, staring into the fire, and she venturing to +glance at his face, saw a secret expression there and knew that she +would often behold it on those dear features. + +When he did speak, it was to consult her about the choice of hotels +where they might stay in Paris, and Ambrosia knew that the danger had +passed--possibly for ever. It was not likely, she thought, that he +would again try to tell her that he had loved Fanny Caldini. Yet, even +in her relief, the woman thought that this, perhaps, was the worse +alternative that she had chosen; she had turned back his confidence, +and he would not offer it again. Were they not, then, though to all +outward appearances so loving and intimate, yet further estranged? If +she could have said “I know you love her; I know you love her still, +and I’ll stand by and do what I can,” would not that have given her a +better chance, brought them nearer? It was, anyhow, too late. + +Soon he took his leave. He was going to walk home. There was a moon, +and he liked that two miles along the cool road in the clear night. + +Oliver was not to be found, so the young Earl left Sellar’s Mead +without taking leave of his host. He carried no lantern, for the moon +was almost full, and there were no clouds in the cold sky. He did not +go directly to his home, but turned aside and took one of the lanes +across the fields which led to the cliffs, and mounted the swelling +ground until he reached a point where he could behold the sea, and the +distant flash, red and white, of the light on St. Nite’s Head, that +beacon which he had for six weeks kept alight with his own hands. + +The sea was calm now, curling its sluggish foam among the rocks below; +and the moon traced a path of silver on the water that seemed of +polished metal. + +The young Earl took a coral bracelet from his pocket, and looked at it +by the light of the moon, and was so absorbed in contemplating this +ornament that he did not hear any footfall behind him; only a shadow +passed across his path, causing him to look round: Oliver Sellar was +close behind him, hatless, in his evening clothes, and with the +distortion in his face most noticeable. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIII + +“You followed me?” asked Lucius quietly, returning the bracelet to +his pocket. + +“Every step,” said Oliver. “You did not perceive me, did you, in the +shrubbery when you passed? You were so bemused that you never thought +there was anyone behind you!” + +“I never thought that you would follow me,” said the young Earl +quietly. “Why should I?” + +“You’ve forgotten, then, what passed when we last met, eh?” + +“No, of course I’ve not forgotten,” answered Lucius. “But I have +discovered to-night, Oliver,” he added, with something of an effort, +“that you have not mentioned this to Amy; and for that I respect you. +You have not let that accusation, so wild and impossible, pass your +lips to any but myself, and I am grateful.” + +“It was not for your sake I kept silent,” said Oliver harshly, “but +because I wished to settle the matter myself, with no interference. As +for Amy, she’s a fool--or cunning; she’ll take you, knowing what she +knows!” + +“Amy knows nothing,” replied Lucius firmly. “What is there for her to +know? Do not again try to force these wild imaginings on me, Oliver. I +hoped that you had recovered from your insane delusions.” + +“I think of nothing else, day and night,” replied Oliver in low tones, +and with such agony in his look and voice that Lucius glanced at him +with a deep compassion. “What else should I think of--what else can I +ever think of?” Then he added fiercely, with a change of manner: “And +you--what do you do here now? You didn’t return home, you see; you +came to the cliffs. And there you’re standing, looking at the +lighthouse, looking at the sea, staring at her bracelet.” + +Lucius drew back a step before this violence. + +“Take care,” he said quietly, “don’t go too far, Oliver. This is a +dangerous matter to broach in this dangerous place.” + +“Aye, dangerous indeed!” smiled Oliver. “It wasn’t far from here, was +it, that they found her bonnet. I always admired those red +flowers--she looked well in crimson.… I thought of her like that, you +know--crimson flowers.” + +Lucius was startled off his guard, for he, too, had thought of Fanny +Caldini as a branch laden with warm red roses, and he could recall how +this simile had come to him the last time she had been at Lefton Park, +sitting there by the fire in her damp clothes, with her wet shoes; he +had thought of her then, so vivid and beautiful, as a spray of crimson +flowers. + +“Oliver,” he cried now, with a wildness in his accent, “our silence is +her best monument.” + +“Maybe, there’ll be years of silence, I think,” retorted Oliver; “but +meanwhile you and I must make our reckoning.” + +“There’s no reckoning between us,” replied Lucius sternly. + +But Oliver retorted violently: + +“There’s a dreadful reckoning. You had her on that lighthouse for +days, for weeks. You stole her away under my eyes. Either you’ve got +her hidden somewhere on the Continent, or you let her drown. Either +way you’re answerable to me. She was mine, I say! I might have endured +to be cheated by death, but not by you!” + +“You are not sober,” said Lucius, breathing quickly. “You would not +have done a thing like this in your senses. You drink too heavily, +Oliver, you’ll bring on another attack.” + +“Look to yourself, and leave me.” + +“I shall be glad when I’ve taken Amy away.” + +“Taken Amy away!” sneered Oliver sombrely. “That’ll be a pretty +wedding; some fine love-making there! She knows, I tell you; she +knows! And Fanny, dead or alive, will always be between you. I’ve told +her so.” + +“You told her that?” exclaimed Lucius. + +“Yes; and she wouldn’t hear it. She’ll cling on to you at any price. +She hasn’t the courage to let you go. She’ll pay, poor wretch, she’ll +pay,” he added bitterly. “As the years go on I dare swear her agony +will be worse than yours.” + +Lucius did not speak, but put his hand to his lips and stared out to +sea. + +“You think that you’ll gloss everything over by marrying Amy,” +continued Oliver violently. “You salve your conscience by that--doing +your duty, you call it--covering everything up. Well, you’ll have your +reward for all your respectability and dutiful behaviour. You and Amy +will come to hate each other, I have no doubt. That is, you would,” he +added, “if I gave you a chance.” + +Lucius looked at him swiftly, sensing the meaning of this last menace. + +“I mean to kill you,” added Oliver. “For weeks my fingers have ached +to be at your throat. I mean to throw you down now on the rocks and +into the sea that you’re so fond of.” + +“I had thought,” whispered Lucius, “that you had some such intention. +I’ve seen it in your eyes several times.” + +“I was only waiting an opportunity,” said Oliver, “and now I’ve found +it.” + +Lucius folded his arms on his breast. He knew that Oliver was +immensely his superior in strength, and infuriated even beyond his +ordinary powers by drink and long, brooding, violent passion. + +The place was completely lonely. There was no house nearer than Lefton +Park, which stood a mile or more away. He had no weapon against any +attack on the part of Oliver, and for all he knew Oliver might have +knife and pistol hidden on his person. Even if he had not, with his +bare hands he could murder Lucius. + +With contempt the young man said: + +“This will be a cruel thing for Amy.” + +“You’ll not save yourself,” retorted Oliver Sellar, “by talking of +Amy. This is between you and me; we’ll leave Amy out of it. She’ll be +happier withering and pining at Sellar’s Mead than married to you.” + +“Even if you hang for this?” asked the young Earl haughtily. + +“I shan’t hang,” replied Oliver, with a ghastly grin. “It will be an +accident--the same kind of accident as befell Fanny Caldini.… I’m +going to throw you over the cliff--you’ll be found there, dashed on +the rocks. And then I shall go home, and nobody will know that I left +the house to-night, and they’ll think that you were wandering here, +dreaming about Fanny Caldini, and lost your balance, like the fool you +are! I shall not hang for you!” He came closer to Lucius as he spoke, +and Lucius, drawing farther away from him, found himself nearer to the +edge of the cliff; and, as he did so, calculated coolly his chances of +escape. He thought that these were slight enough; nothing would be +likely to placate Oliver Sellar now, nor would he, Lucius, have the +strength to resist his murderous onslaught; there would be a brief +struggle before the strong man cast him down that drop of thirty feet +or more on to the sharp rocks beneath. But his heart scarcely beat the +faster for his peril. He reflected coolly that this was an odd and +sudden end to it all, and one unexpected; and his mind turned to Amy, +and the long lonely distress ahead of her; and then, oddly, to his +stranger cousin, who would inherit his name and his property.… If it +had not been for Amy, perhaps it was as well that it should end thus, +leaving another man, a more fortunate man, to carry on his line. + +“Oliver.” He spoke with proud indifference, staring with narrowed eyes +through the moonlight. “You’re behaving like a fool, you know. This’ll +only drive you into deeper madness when you think of it later on.” + +He turned and stood his ground a couple of feet from the edge of the +cliff, calculating as to whether, if he turned and ran inland, he +could escape Oliver. He might do so, for he was the younger and the +swifter; yet to do so would be like running away, and he could not +bring himself to do that. + +“Confess,” cried Oliver, standing close to him. “Confess that you had +her on the lighthouse--that you know where she is. Tell me if she was +drowned the night the French barque went ashore, or if you have her +hidden somewhere. Tell me that, and I’ll let you go.” + +“Do you, then, trust me to speak the truth now?” asked Lucius +scornfully. + +“Men generally speak the truth when there’s Death face to face with +them,” cried Oliver, bearing down on him. + +“You don’t know me,” replied the young Earl, “if you think I can be +frightened. Lie or truth--take it which way you will--you’ll get +nothing more out of me but what I told you in Lefton Park on the day +of my father’s funeral.” + +“We’ll see!” yelled Oliver. + +Lucius expected the flash of a pistol, or the gleam of a knife in the +moonlight; but there was neither. It was with his bare hands that +Oliver Sellar came at him, making for his throat with clawing, greedy +fingers. + +The young man threw out his arm to ward off this attack, and at the +same moment stepped swiftly aside, but he could not altogether evade +his assailant, who got him, if not by the throat, by the shoulders, +and shook him up and down, to and fro, snarling, screaming, raging +incoherently. + +“You fool!” panted Lucius, struggling frantically to wrench himself +free, and exerting more strength than he knew himself to possess. +“You’ll have us both over the cliff!” + +“Speak, speak!” screamed Oliver. “Tell me where she is; tell me if +she’s dead or hidden; confess you had her in the lighthouse!” + +Lucius did not answer. He was fighting with all his force to keep his +foothold, struggling not to be hurled to the ground or flung over the +cliff by this lunatic strength which attacked him so ferociously.… He +did not so greatly care if he died or no, but youth and health were +strong in him, and he thought of Amy with real affection and +tenderness, and desired to spare her this last tragedy. So he resisted +fiercely the grip of Oliver, and once wrenched quite away, leaving a +portion of his torn sleeve in the other man’s clutch. + +“You had her, you had her!” shrieked Oliver. “Confess that you had +her!” + +“No,” panted Lucius, “no!” + +Oliver did not, as he had expected, immediately attack him again, but +stood for a second rigid, with his distorted face turned up, and +bleached in the moonlight, with an unnatural, ashy pallor; there were +blood and foam on his lips, and his hands clenched stiffly at his +side; he seemed dead. Lucius remembered with horror the seizures to +which the wretched man had lately been subject, and cried out: + +“For God’s sake come away from the edge of the cliff--come away!” and +made an attempt to seize that dark, erect, convulsed figure. + +But Oliver turned, and struck out impotently, still rigid, still +convulsed, and fell to his knees, then to his side, and then was gone, +falling through the calm moonlit air. + +Lucius sank prone on the ground, and covered his face with his hands; +when he could compose his swirling, dizzy senses he rose and peered +over the face of the cliff. + +Oliver was lying below on the dark rocks, black and white in the +moonlight--black clothes, white shirt, white face--so distinct in the +moonlight. + +“He, and not I, after all!” thought the young Earl curiously; and he +began the painful descent of the face of the ragged cliff. + +When, torn, bleeding, and exhausted, he reached Oliver, he discovered +that he was dead, as he had known he must be dead from the moment he +had seen him topple over the cliff--had known and yet not quite +believed--dead… Oliver.… + +“Another secret,” thought Lucius quietly. + +He knelt beside the dead man with a certain tenderness. Oliver Sellar +looked grotesque in his precise evening clothes, flung there on the +wild rocks and lonely shore. + +Lucius searched his pockets, and took from one of them a coral +bracelet, which was the companion to that which he cherished himself; +and, with both these ornaments in his trembling hand, he sat down on a +rock near by, and by the light of the moon stared down on the dead +man. He thought: “Never again will he ask me about Fanny +Caldini--that’s over.” + +The gentle boom of the sea was in his ears, and when he raised his +eyes he could see the red and white flash of the lighthouse in the +distance. + +Another secret! No one need ever know; no one would be the better for +knowing. Another accident on these treacherous rocks… he had been +walking with Oliver on the cliff; Oliver had had a seizure and had +fallen over… a simple story; a likely, if tragic incident; no one +would doubt it, any more than anyone had doubted that other death he +had had to report, that other accident of which he had been the sole +witness, the end of that other victim of the sea--the youth lost on +the lighthouse rocks. + + + + + EPILOGUE + +Custom had so schooled the lady that she seldom indulged in the +dangerous luxury of memory. But sometimes, when the music played, and +she sat, as now, idle in the theatre, vague images of years ago would +come into her mind. She was beside her husband in a box at the opera +in Paris, formal, composed, amiable, brilliantly yet modestly +dressed--an aristocratic Englishwoman, the wife of a successful +diplomat, the mother of well-bred children--the Countess of Lefton, by +all respected and admired; by none, perhaps, very warmly loved; but +that had not as yet been admitted by Ambrosia. She never said, even in +the innermost recesses of her heart: “My husband does not love me.…” + +She looked at him now as he sat beside her--a distinguished, quiet, +stately man. She had no definite thoughts of her own, and she wondered +what his thoughts were. + +They very seldom went to Cornwall now--both Sellar’s Mead and Flimwel +Grange were let, the land farmed by others and the houses shut up; and +their visits to Lefton Park were brief and rare and always in full +summer. + +They lived mostly abroad, as Ambrosia had always planned to live +abroad; but, of all the countries they had been to, they had never +travelled to Italy, and there was good excuse in the revolutions, the +wars, and troubles in that disturbed South. + +But the music to-night was Italian, and one of the songs both these +people had heard lightly played on a harp, in the drawing-room in +Sellar’s Mead, ten years ago this winter: the winter that Lucius had +taken the watch on the lighthouse and Oliver had met with the accident +that had killed him; far away now, all of it, and they never spoke of +it, of course; and Ambrosia wondered why she must think of it +to-night. Simply because the melody was Italian, she supposed. They +never spoke of Italy, or of anything that came from Italy. That had +become a frosty custom between them, part of the eternal subterfuge +they played with one another, and to which they were now so used that +they were hardly aware that they played it--custom, “deep as life.” + +They had never quarrelled: that was the most deadly fact about their +life--that they were always courteous to one another, and never +disagreed; because they were keeping a pact which each had sworn to +themselves--a pact of gratitude on her part, and of duty on his, which +she maintained with fortitude and he with sweetness. + +The many clusters of radiant lights were kept lit during the +performance, and Ambrosia’s gaze wandered from the stage and round the +house; and finally rested on a party opposite, who occupied one of the +ornate boxes facing their own. + +Her attention was attracted by these people because the woman wore so +many diamonds--a _rivière_ of brilliants round her white neck, and +falling in sparkling drops on her white bosom; a tiara of brilliants +in her smooth black curls; brilliants round her wrists; a very +beautiful woman--vivid, imposing, and splendid. An elderly lady and +two men were her companions; she sat before them, and rested on the +edge of the _loge_ an enormous bouquet of deep crimson roses arranged +in a circle of white lace with long crimson ribbon, which hung over +red velvet and gilt tasselled cushions; and Ambrosia looked, +fascinated, at this profusion of luxurious flowers--crimson roses in +the midst of winter. And presently, when the act was over, she +remarked to her husband: + +“That is a very beautiful woman opposite; do you know who she is?” + +The Earl glanced across the theatre, and said no, he did not know who +the lady might be. He spoke with careless courtesy, and deep +indifference. + +A great many people were gazing at that beautiful woman, and when some +friends came into Lady Lefton’s box she asked them, “Who is the +gorgeous stranger?” and one of them informed her that she was a +certain Marquise de Marsac, the wife of a considerable noble, and, +they believed, Spanish by birth. She had certainly been for some years +in South America, and that was where her husband had met her. “He was +a very wealthy man,” added the informant with a smile, “as the lady’s +appearance might indicate.” + +Ambrosia gazed at the stranger again. She could not fathom her own +uncontrollable impulse to stare and stare at this woman. And then, +suddenly--and the knowledge was like a sharp pain in her body--she +knew why: for the lady opposite had turned her face full towards her, +and Ambrosia thought: “Why, she is like Fanny Caldini! Exactly like +Fanny Caldini would be now!” And she instinctively glanced at her +husband. + +He was reading his programme; Ambrosia could not bring herself to +mention that name, which had not passed the lips of either of them for +ten years. Besides, of course, it was absurd; a Spanish-American! How +could Fanny have escaped, and have remained for ten years concealed? +And what of her relations--that woman with her now? Why, she was +like--and Ambrosia smiled at her own oddity--she was like she had +imagined the faithful Madame de Mailly; and surely that was Fanny +Caldini’s very way of holding her head, and flinging back the long, +black curls? + +“You look very pale, my love!” remarked the Earl, suddenly turning +towards her. And then she had to say: + +“That woman opposite reminded me of someone--Of poor Fanny Caldini!” +And the name was spoken at last, after all these years. + +“Ah, yes,” replied the Earl, still indifferently. “It is a common +enough type, you know; and then those red roses.” + +“Why do red roses make you think of her?” asked Amy. “There were no +red roses then, you know, in Cornwall in the winter-time.” + +“No,” he admitted, “no; and yet there is that association in my mind.” + +“In mine, too,” said Amy. “Odd that they should be playing Italian +music to-night,” and she nearly added (but checked herself in time): +“when we have so avoided everything Italian.” + +“It is the music, perhaps, that brings up the likeness,” returned +Lucius, and Amy looked earnestly at his fine face--already, though he +was but little over thirty, too fine-drawn--a closed, a secret, a +resigned face. + +“She is very beautiful,” murmured Amy. “How those diamonds become her! +I suppose the elderly man is her husband, and that lady, perhaps, her +sister; an elder sister, do you think?” + +“Why, too old,” remarked the Earl; and the man who had told them the +identity of the fair creature said no, she was only a companion, one +who had always been with Madame de Marsac, and was in her complete +confidence. + +The voluptuous music began again to fill the vast theatre. Amy felt +her head aching. She wished she had not come to the opera; she did not +care for these garish diversions. The routine of every day suited her +best: small duties, small cares, decorous conventions, elegant +company, a stately going to and fro of petty pleasures and petty +cares. Why need she tell herself now, defiantly, that she was happy? +Why need a flicker of passion that she had long hoped burnt out flame +up again as she looked at her husband, so remote and cool, as always +remote and cool. + +He was holding his programme up as if to shade his tired eyes from the +glare of the light; behind his programme he was looking at that woman +opposite, flashing in her diamonds, throwing back, with a white hand, +those long, black ringlets. + +Absurd! absurd! She must not let such a thought get hold of her, or +everywhere she might see the likeness of Fanny Caldini. Had she not +been married at an altar, beside which was a new marble tablet +inscribed: _To the memory of Francesca Sylvestra Caldini, drowned by +accident on these coasts, November_ 13_th_, 1856? + +There were many Italian women of that type; she must remember that. It +had been the music and the roses. Italian! But this woman was Spanish… +well, then _Southern_ women of that type. The music and the roses, of +course.… Italian music, and that little _aria_ Fanny had played on the +pretty gilt harp that Oliver had brought, with so much vexation, from +the castle outside Rome, the odd association with red flowers--of +course she had heard Oliver say that, and that was what lingered in +her mind.… The girl who had come and stayed so short a time had been +like red flowers, he had said--red roses, in that unutterably chill +and stormy and distant winter. + +They left the theatre, and were delayed for a moment or so by the +brilliant crowd in the _foyer_. In that moment they were brought quite +close to the lady who had sat in the box opposite, and who was leaving +the theatre with her companions. Amy could still not forbear to stare +at her; seen close, she had more than ever the likeness of Fanny +Caldini--yet a woman, where that Fanny had been a girl; and stately, +where that Fanny had been wild. But how like! And Amy stood mute +beside her husband, glad of the press, the gay voices and the +laughter, and the formal, artificial air that encompassed them. + +As the stranger approached, she looked at them. She was holding that +close-packed bouquet of red roses high against her bosom; and then, as +she paused near them, higher still against her lips; and over it she +looked at them directly. And Ambrosia’s lips almost formed the word +“_Fanny!_” + +She pressed her husband’s arm, murmuring a request that he should take +her away, for the heat and the perfumes were excessive. The stranger +had just passed them, and was glancing back, still looking at them; +and Amy saw that the Earl was looking at her; no wonder in that; she +was a very beautiful woman, most extravagantly bedizened with +diamonds, the most voluptuously and gorgeously attired woman there; he +was not the only man who stared at her. For a second they looked at +each other across those red roses she carried, higher still now, so +that only her black eyes flashed above their crimson radiance.… For +that one second she and Lucius looked at each other… he had no +expression in his tired face. + +And then she had turned away, and, leaning on the arm of her elderly +escort, was gone down the wide stairs, the long, stiff train of her +crimson satin dress rippling behind her. + +“She is very beautiful,” murmured Amy timidly. + +The Earl did not answer; Amy had always been accustomed to feeling +outside his intimacy, but never had she had that sense so strongly as +she had it to-night.… He was a stranger--a stranger who was not +interested in her; she had never quite put that into words before. + +In the carriage she began talking about ordinary affairs; this was +their last night in Paris. He had a post in a city in Central Europe, +and it might be months before they would return here. She said she was +glad--she had grown to dislike Paris. It was so large and noisy and +garish. + +The Earl said yes; the excessive lights at the opera, and the flash of +jewels, tired one’s eyes and gave one a headache. + +The next morning, when taking leave of her acquaintances, Ambrosia had +the curiosity to enquire of them if they knew anything of Madame de +Marsac; and she was told that that brilliant and erratic lady had left +Paris early that morning. + +“She seldom stays long anywhere, and now, I believe, she is to return +to South America after spending the winter in the South.” + +They would not, then, meet again; and she must be careful. In no other +woman must she see a likeness to Fanny Caldini. For when she had +looked at that lovely woman last night, and then at her husband’s +face, expressionless, composed, alien, she had felt as if someone had +knocked on the lone structure of her life and sounded the hollowness +of all her supposed happiness, echoing in that hollowness the name of +Fanny Caldini. + + THE END + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + +Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. fisherfolk/fisher-folk, +Jefferies/Jeffries, newel-post/newel post, etc.) have been preserved. + +Alterations to the text: + +Add ToC. + +Fix some quotation mark pairings/nestings. + +[Chapter III] + +Change “The _stanger_ was not in the least shy or self-conscious” to +_stranger_. + +[Chapter V] + +“their estate was on too lonely. too wild, and too unproductive” +change the period to a comma. + +[Chapter VII] + +“She stretched out her hand gracefully. and said, still with that” +change the period to a comma. + +[Chapter IX] + +“Well. that was before my time, then the place was bought” change the +period to a comma. + +[Chapter X] + +“nay, in a fashion more than _perculiar_; a fashion indecorous” to +_peculiar_. + +(“Don’t carry these petty quarrels too far” she said.) add a comma at +the end of the quoted passage. + +[Chapter XII] + +“a _hugh_ tank for the accommodation of oil” to _huge_. + +“As clearly as as if she now spoke the words” delete the third _as_. + +[Chapter XIV] + +“defend herself against this invective. but, rising, said” change the +period to a comma. + +[Chapter XIX] + +“She was a very radiant and gay and lovely creature. my dear” change +the period to a comma. + +“She didn’t come here, I hope. Amy, for protection.” change the period +to a comma. + +[Chapter XX] + +“the sombre personality of Ambrosia. in her dark dress” change the +period to a comma. + +“Yet she found herself saying, almost against her own volition;” +change the semicolon to a colon. + +[Chapter XXII] + +(“Very well”; assented Oliver, “we’ll begin on the ground floor”) +delete the semicolon and place a comma at the end of the first quoted +passage. + +[Chapter XXV] + +“_They’r_ only standing out for a higher price” to _They’re_. + +“bitterly resented by the _independen_ spirit of the Cornishmen” to +_independent_. + +“going to take the watch on the lighthouse. and you can go with him” +change the period to a comma. + +[Chapter XXVI] + +“to have children. and her place in the ordinary world” change the +period to a comma. + +[Chapter XXVII] + +“with the late dawn, the bitter, chill, the stormy winter dawn” delete +the comma after _bitter_. + +“bringing with her from Rome. and which had cost Oliver so much” +change the period to a comma. + +[Chapter XXIX] + +(“Yes, yes,” they both said at once “we saw the rockets.”) add a comma +after _once_. + +[Epilogue] + +(were hardly aware that they played it--custom, “deep as life,”) +change the final comma to a period. + +“as she looked at her husband. so remote and cool” change the period +to a comma. + + [End of text] + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77839 *** diff --git a/77839-h/77839-h.htm b/77839-h/77839-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d391047 --- /dev/null +++ b/77839-h/77839-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,18382 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The countess Fanny | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +/* Headers and Divisions */ + h1, h2, h3, h4 {margin:4em 0em 1em 0em; page-break-before:always; text-align:center;} + +/* General */ + + body {margin:0% 5% 0% 5%;} + + .nobreak {margin:2em auto 1em auto; page-break-before:avoid;} + + p {margin:0em 0em 0em 0em; text-align:justify; text-indent:1em;} + .center {margin:0em 0em 0em 0em; text-align:center; text-indent:0em;} + .noindent {text-indent:0em;} + + .toc_l {font-variant:small-caps; margin:0em 0em 0em 2em; text-indent:-2em;} + + .rt1 {margin:0em 1em 0em 0em; text-align:right; text-indent:0em;} + + .font80 {font-size:80%;} + .sc {font-variant:small-caps;} + +/* special formatting */ + + blockquote {margin:1em 2em 1em 2em;} + + .mt1 {margin-top:1em;} + .mt6 {margin-top:6em;} + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77839 ***</div> + +<h1> +THE +COUNTESS FANNY +</h1> + +<p class="center"> +A CORNISH SEA PIECE (1856) +</p> + +<p class="center mt1"> +<span class="font80">BY</span><br> +MARJORIE BOWEN +</p> + +<p class="center mt6"> +HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED<br> +<span class="font80">LONDON</span> +</p> + + +<h2> +CONTENTS +</h2> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#prologue">PROLOGUE</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch01">CHAPTER I</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch02">CHAPTER II</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch03">CHAPTER III</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch04">CHAPTER IV</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch05">CHAPTER V</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch06">CHAPTER VI</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch07">CHAPTER VII</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch08">CHAPTER VIII</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch09">CHAPTER IX</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch10">CHAPTER X</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch11">CHAPTER XI</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch12">CHAPTER XII</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch13">CHAPTER XIII</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch14">CHAPTER XIV</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch15">CHAPTER XV</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch16">CHAPTER XVI</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch17">CHAPTER XVII</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch18">CHAPTER XVIII</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch19">CHAPTER XIX</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch20">CHAPTER XX</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch21">CHAPTER XXI</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch22">CHAPTER XXII</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch23">CHAPTER XXIII</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch24">CHAPTER XXIV</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch25">CHAPTER XXV</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch26">CHAPTER XXVI</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch27">CHAPTER XXVII</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch28">CHAPTER XXVIII</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch29">CHAPTER XXIX</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch30">CHAPTER XXX</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch31">CHAPTER XXXI</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch32">CHAPTER XXXII</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#ch33">CHAPTER XXXIII</a> +</p> + +<p class="toc_l"> +<a href="#epilogue">EPILOGUE</a> +</p> + + +<h2 id="prologue"> +PROLOGUE +</h2> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">The</span> one man who might know the truth of this story was the one man +who could never speak that truth; yet in old age, when his passions +were stilled into a quiet curiosity as to his own youth, he would +refer to it with those who had never known the Contessina Francesca +Sylvestra Caldini, familiarly named the Countess Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +But once, when he mentioned to his grandson Oliver Sellar’s wild +accusation against him, the young man asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Would it, sir, have been possible—I wonder—in those days—could she +have really been there and then have got away? Escaped?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was a madman’s suggestion,” was the smiling reply. +</p> + +<p> +“But if it had been true, you could never have admitted it, could you, +sir? You would have had to lie.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is understood. In those days, as you call them, a woman’s +reputation——” The old man broke off. “One’s sense of duty, too——” +</p> + +<p> +The young man laughed suddenly. “Of course it isn’t possible, and no +one could have done it—kept such a secret—a whole lifetime.” +</p> + +<p> +The old man smiled sadly. “Don’t you think so?” was his slow reply. +</p> + + +<h2> +THE COUNTESS FANNY +</h2> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="ch01"> +CHAPTER I +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">With</span> her own hand, and an air of ceremony, the lady unlocked her +jewel-case, took out the <i>parure</i>, and placed it on her large, dark +dressing-table. She had not for some time looked at this set of +ornaments, and now that she did gaze at them, they seemed to her +rather old-fashioned, and ill-suited to an unmarried woman: necklet, +bracelet, comb, ear-rings, and buckle, all massive and sparkling. The +diamonds were very fine, and handsomely set; the cornelians that they +surrounded gleamed a most silky lustre, and showed the colour, when +held to the light, of old blood. +</p> + +<p> +The lady thought that these adornments would not look so fashionable +as they had appeared when her mother had worn them, or even when she +had worn them herself, ten years ago, during her one brief London +season; but the jewels remained handsome and impressive, and, by their +sheer incongruity, would make a certain flashing show, worn in the +dark, sombre rooms of this remote country house. And she must wear +something to-night (to do honour to the occasion) that would be both +beautiful and conspicuous. The jewels would, after all, do very well; +and she tried them on, clasping the wide bracelet upon her slim wrist, +and lifting up the long locks of her dark hair with the prongs of the +heavy comb, which sparkled with diamonds and was elegantly set with +cameos, which her mother had bought in Rome. Not very suitable for an +unmarried woman, no doubt! But Ambrosia Sellar had been so long +mistress of this important house that she had rather the air of a +married woman. She was not in any sense a girl; she had a poise both +of maturity and experience and appeared older than her twenty-seven +years. +</p> + +<p> +As she thoughtfully and carefully locked the jewels away again, and +left the case on her dressing-table ready for the evening, she marked +with apprehension the darkness of the day: not the darkness of +twilight, but a natural darkness that was a portent of +fast-approaching winter. And before this portent Miss Sellar winced. +</p> + +<p> +Winters at Sellar’s Mead were to her in every way dreadful—ordeals +that could scarcely be endured; and, though this coming winter was, +most certainly, the last she would be called upon to support, she +still did not know quite how she would endure it; the gloomy, lonely +house, the gloomy, lonely country, the spit of land thrusting out into +the endlessly tumultuous sea; the sense of being isolated, here at the +very extreme of the country; the prospect of the ceaseless winds, the +continuous storms, the long nights and short, gloomy days—these +things oppressed the spirit of Ambrosia Sellar, although she had been +used to them since she was a child. +</p> + +<p> +It was the home in which she had been born and bred, and, save for +very few occasions, she had never left it; first she had lived there +as a child with her parents; then as housekeeper to her father; now as +housekeeper to her brother—a widower who, two years ago, had returned +to Sellar’s Mead, an austere, a disappointed, and (as Ambrosia well +knew) a violent man. +</p> + +<p> +Their circumstances seemed to Ambrosia as lonely as their estate. A +brother had recently died in India; the death of their parents had +followed quickly one after the other; a lingering disease had taken +Oliver’s wife while she was yet in the flower of her days, and she had +left no children. There were just the two of them—herself and +Oliver—alone in the old, large, and sombre house; and Ambrosia could +never forget this. It seemed to her as if Death had swept a wide, +clean circle round them which cut them off from other people. They had +relatives and friends, but these were all far away, and seldom +communicated with; there were two other considerable houses within +reasonable distance, but one had for long been shut up, and the land +appertaining thereto rented to Oliver Sellar. The other was the domain +belonging to the most considerable magnate of the county—Lord Lefton; +but he was an old and ailing man, much reduced in means. He maintained +a pinched state with a diminished staff of servants and the company of +one son. To this gentleman’s son, Lucius Foxe, Lord Vanden, Ambrosia +was promised in marriage; and, with the spring, she would leave +Sellar’s Mead and go as mistress to Lefton Park, which was only a few +miles away, and as familiar to her as her own home. +</p> + +<p> +But she did not intend to reside there. Some way, somehow, she would +get to London or get abroad; she would break through this monotonous +dullness which enveloped this lonely portion of Cornwall, and in which +she had grown up. But she made this resolve rather in a spirit of +tremulous bravado, for she knew the claims of the old Earl, an invalid +and a lonely man, who would not easily be able to endure to part with +his only son; and she knew the disposition of Lucius, which was not as +her disposition, but one that was content to dream in inaction. He had +never been galled by the loneliness and gloom of his estate, and +seemed part of the land on which he had been bred. He was absorbed, +too, in an odd hobby; one with which neither Ambrosia nor his father +had any sympathy. He wished to be an engineer, and, with but little +training, employed most of his time in this difficult science, +essaying all manner of odd and fruitless experiments, and attempting +all manner of fantastic inventions. +</p> + +<p> +In particular, he was interested in the lighthouse on the terrible +rocks of St. Nite, which, once swept away in a ghastly gale, had +lately been rebuilt—chiefly by his exertions and his father’s +generosity. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia was not interested in the lighthouse, nor in engineering. +Some day she hoped to make Lucius forget both these subjects, which at +present seemed so to occupy his time and his mind. She thought, with a +steady, concealed persistency that was impervious to all argument and +reason, that the only occupation for a gentleman was statecraft or the +services; and she trusted that, in time, she would be able to turn the +attention of Lucius to one of these—to her—noble pursuits. +</p> + +<p> +She rose and looked out of the window, though she knew that she would +dislike the prospect that she would behold. Yet some fascination +brought her there, and made her put aside the stiff, heavy curtains +and stare out at the late October day. Grey, grey—everything grey! +Garden and field and distant headland and sky, and far-off glimpse of +sea; all grey; and the air bright with the flashing passage of +sea-birds, presage of a storm. +</p> + +<p> +“I must not be so low-spirited!” Ambrosia said to herself. “I must +count my blessings; that is a very good practice. Why should I be +melancholic? I am going to be married to Lucius in the spring!” And +she added—though this was difficult to add in a cheerful spirit: “And +Oliver is going to be married, too.” And this reflection made her +think of her duties. +</p> + +<p> +She was an excellent housewife, perfectly trained in all the details +of her duties as mistress of a large country mansion; and she +proceeded at once to inspect, for the last time (an unnecessary +inspection this, for she knew that every detail was in order), the +room put aside for the guest who was to be, in the spring, the wife of +Oliver. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia herself occupied, not without repugnance, her mother’s +chamber; and she had given to her guest that which had been her own. +But, though it had been for so long a girl’s room, it had, like all +the other apartments in Sellar’s Mead, a sufficiently austere and +sombre appearance. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia, pausing now on the threshold, hoped with some misgiving that +the girl would not find it dreary and repellent. The furniture was +heavy walnut, the walls dark panelled; and the chintz of the hangings, +though white glazed and printed with birds and flowers in cornflower +blue and raspberry tints, would do little to alleviate this general +impression of massive darkness. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia herself had draped the dressing-table with sprigged muslin +over blue sateen, and tied it up with bows of silk ribbon. She had +hung some water-colours on the walls—pale paintings of children and +flowers. She had put some books—keepsakes and collections of +poetry—in cheerful covers on the inlaid table by the bedside. She had +gathered some late autumn blooms, which were beginning to look sodden +and drooping, and set them in a bowl of pink lustre ware in the +window-place. She had ordered a fire to be lit; the logs were even now +crackling on the wide hearth. But, with all this, Ambrosia had her +misgivings about the cheerfulness of the room. +</p> + +<p> +The visitor was coming from Italy, and, though Ambrosia had never been +to Italy, she always thought of it in connection with laughter and +sunshine and singing. A very conventional conception, no doubt; but +she could not believe that it was in any way like the concentrated +gloom of Cornwall in the winter-time; and she thought that, if she had +been in the visitor’s place, she would not have greatly cared to come +to Sellar’s Mead in October, with Oliver as a promised bridegroom. An +odd marriage, of course—Oliver and this half-foreign girl. Everybody +said so, with their eyes if not with their lips, when Ambrosia, with +some embarrassment, had made the announcement to their few neighbours. +Oliver! Forty, stern, austere, passionate! And this girl, not yet +eighteen! Of course, from the worldly point of view, not a bad +marriage at all, since it would unite two large estates, and make +Oliver the most considerable landowner for many miles round. With +Flimwel Grange added to Sellar’s Mead, he would rival in importance +Lord Lefton himself. From that point of view, very well and good; but +from any other point of view, Ambrosia could see nothing hopeful in +the proposed match. +</p> + +<p> +She had not been very well acquainted with Oliver’s wife—the woman +whom she would soon have to think of as Oliver’s <i>first</i> wife; she had +been delicate, and they had lived in London, or abroad, not only +because of her health, but because, during his father’s lifetime, +Oliver’s pride did not easily permit him to come and cut the second +figure at Sellar’s Mead. +</p> + +<p> +There had been two children, who had died, bringing to the parents’ +hearts black and ineffaceable grief; never had Ambrosia been taken +into the confidence of either. Only there had been one occasion which +she could never forget, and which had come very poignantly into her +mind ever since she had received that letter from Oliver, written from +Italy, in which he announced his second marriage. This was the +occasion: +</p> + +<p> +It had been in London—a day of fog—and she, Ambrosia, had gone to +call on Amelia, her sister-in-law, and found her alone on a sofa, +embroidering a chair-back. She looked ill and forlorn, and Ambrosia, +with an impulse of pity, had made a futile attempt to get within her +guard. But Amelia had put her off with insipid chit-chat; only when +Ambrosia was leaving, a sudden depression had seemed to fall over the +other woman’s spirits, and, as she was kissing her “Good-bye” at her +drawing-room door, she had suddenly whispered, in tones of a broken +misery: “Oh, Amy, I am not happy!” She had instantly appeared to wish +to annul these words by a return to her former manner; and, the maid +being present, Ambrosia was not able to urge the matter. She did not +see Amelia again. The next news she heard of her was the news of her +death. But it was impossible for her to forget that short sentence: +“Amy, I am not happy!” No, not happy with Oliver; Ambrosia could +believe it. She knew his faults, although she was fond of him, +although she tried to love him; but there was something about him +which made even her sisterly affection cold. And she was not a cold +woman, though often hard in manner. +</p> + +<p> +How was this little strange, half-foreign girl going to succeed where +Amelia had failed, with the added handicap of this remote Cornish +life, which Amelia had never been asked to support? For it was +Oliver’s intention, of course, to remain for the rest of his life at +Sellar’s Mead, administering the two estates—that of his own and that +of Flimwel Grange. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia was glad that her duty was plainly not to remain and help +them, but to leave them. She knew that a third party would be fatal in +such a case, and it was most gratifying that her own marriage was +arranged, and that she would not have to remain at Sellar’s Mead—a +tolerated dependent where she had been mistress, and an awkward +go-between in an unhappy marriage; for unhappy she was sure it would +be. +</p> + +<p> +Well, it was Oliver’s life—not hers. She would not be able to help +Oliver; he was not the manner of man whom anyone could help. Better +for her to take her mind off the whole matter, and consider Luce and +her own problems. +</p> + +<p> +While she stood thus musing, still at the door of the large +guest-chamber—what was now the guest-chamber, though it had been so +long her own chamber—Julia, the grey-haired maid, came upstairs and +told her that Mr. Spragge was already below. +</p> + +<p> +“But it is not yet time to start!” said Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge was the vicar, who was to accompany her to the ferry, +where she was to meet Oliver and the girl he was bringing home. +</p> + +<p> +“No, miss; Mr. Spragge says there is no hurry. You may step down when +you will. He is quite able to entertain himself in the drawing-room.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I have nothing to do,” said Ambrosia, endeavouring to rouse +herself from her vague and despondent mood. “I will come down at once; +and you might order some sherry and biscuits to be sent in, Julia. I +don’t think this room looks very cheerful, and yet I cannot see what +we can do to improve it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it looks very handsome and suitable, miss!” replied Julia, +not without an accent of reproach. She, of course, was secretly +hostile towards the newcomer, and extremely hostile towards the idea +of a young, foreign mistress. Ambrosia knew this, although the subject +had never been touched upon between them. Everyone, she reminded +herself, would be hostile to the stranger, and it would be her duty to +combat and reduce this hostility, and to champion the strange girl on +every possible occasion. This must be done tactfully, or she would +rouse a more bitter antagonism. Therefore, for the moment, she said +nothing, and went downstairs to the drawing-room, where Mr. Spragge +waited. +</p> + +<p> +“I am too soon,” he began immediately; and Ambrosia smiled, knowing +why he was so early. He wanted a talk—the last opportunity there +would be for a talk before Oliver came. At least, he wished to know +all there was to know about the odd affair of Oliver’s marriage. He +hoped that there might be some new scraps and fragments of information +since he had last discussed the matter with Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +But Miss Sellar knew nothing more. If she had, she would have related +it, for she sympathised with the vicar’s anxiety about her brother’s +marriage; not, she was sure, a vulgar or a gossipy curiosity induced +him to take this interest in Oliver’s matrimonial projects. Oliver +was, to Mr. Spragge, quite an important personage, and his marriage a +matter of some moment. And Ambrosia could very nicely sense the +sensation of dismay and perplexity that had overtaken good Mr. Spragge +and all his parishioners at the news that Oliver was going to marry a +young foreigner; a dismay and perplexity which, if she had told the +truth, she would have admitted to sharing. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad you have come early,” she said. “I want someone to talk to. +I must admit I feel very nervous.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is most difficult and embarrassing for you!” agreed the clergyman +cordially. “I quite understand, Miss Sellar, the delicacy of your +position.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia seated herself beside the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“We must all make up our minds,” she smiled, “to like her very, very +much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, of course!” he answered. “There is no reason to suppose +that that will be much of a strain on our affections: a pretty, a +lively, a well-bred young girl, I have no doubt!” +</p> + +<p> +“But a foreigner,” said Ambrosia warningly, “and one in a most curious +position; an orphan, an heiress, and one who is betrothed before she +has seen anything of the world. Oliver,” added Ambrosia fearfully, “is +old enough to be her father!” +</p> + +<p> +“We,” said Mr. Spragge, “must not think of it like that!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I suppose not,” replied Ambrosia, with a certain restiveness; +“but it is going to be a difficult winter, and I am trying to face it, +and to decide on some course of action. You see, Mr. Spragge, though I +have made up my mind to like her, I do not know if I can find it very +easy to do so; one cannot control one’s inclinations.” +</p> + +<p> +“What will you call her?” asked the clergyman. +</p> + +<p> +“The Countess Fanny!” smiled Ambrosia. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch02"> +CHAPTER II +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">The</span> kind old clergyman said that title was pretty, if a little odd +for England. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not know exactly how one should address her,” he remarked; “if +she would be known here as Miss Caldini——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver always calls her the Countess Fanny,” interrupted Ambrosia. “I +suppose he has got into that way, and we must follow it. She is, too, +you know, a contessa—or contessina; in Italy all the children take +the title, and that makes it a much more common affair than it is over +here. Her name is Francesca Sylvestra Caldini; but, as I say, Oliver +always calls her the Countess Fanny, and I suppose we must do the +same. As you have remarked,” added Ambrosia with something of an +effort, “it is a pretty name, and I dare say suits her very well; +though it has that touch of the fantastic that I should have thought +would not have appealed to Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is, I suppose,” asked Mr. Spragge, “a Roman Catholic?” +</p> + +<p> +And Ambrosia said, yes, she supposed so, and there would be a slight +awkwardness and difficulty there. Though one wished to be extremely +tolerant, yet to be tolerant did require a certain exercise of +patience. Of course, the girl could be nothing else than a Romanist, +brought up in Italy by Romanist parents; but it was awkward; there was +no Roman Church or priest nearer than Truro, and that, in the winter, +was almost inaccessible. How would the girl contrive? Perhaps she was +ardent in her faith, and perhaps not; Ambrosia did not know. But the +subject was tiresome. Here again, it was strange in Oliver, who was +such a firm and ardent Churchman, to betroth himself to what he had +always hitherto termed “a papist”; and Ambrosia smiled into the fire, +not without irony. Mr. Spragge did not smile, though his thought was +the same as the thought of Ambrosia—that this was, of course, a clear +case of infatuation. The man cared nothing about anything, except +possessing the girl; this, put crudely, was what was in the minds both +of Ambrosia and of the clergyman, and there lay their distress and +their problem. +</p> + +<p> +Neither of them was very sympathetic toward, or very capable of +dealing with, crude or violent passion. Ambrosia did not wish to be +shut up in the house with these two people during the winter months of +their betrothal; and Mr. Spragge did not want to stand by and be a +witness of what, in his own heart, he condemned as a most unsuitable +and unworthy matrimonial arrangement. +</p> + +<p> +Sherry and biscuits were brought in, and Ambrosia was glad of the +wine. Even though she sat close to the fire, she had the sensation +that her blood was chill, and running sluggishly in her veins. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” she reflected regretfully, “that Oliver should never have +gone out to Italy to fetch her home. It seemed to me at the time an +injudicious arrangement. We should both have gone, or someone else +should have been sent—Dr. Drayton and his sister, for instance, or +even yourself. That would have been a far wiser proceeding.” +</p> + +<p> +“What,” asked the clergyman, “induced Mr. Sellar to go himself, and to +go alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Ambrosia. “You know that he is impulsive and +self-willed; and I think the very fact that I remarked that it was not +suitable persuaded him to take that course. She is, you see, our +second cousin and he her guardian, and it seems she has no nearer +relations; and her parents died so suddenly——” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia paused, for as she spoke of the death of the Countess Fanny’s +parents she had again, and very acutely, that sensation of Death +making a circle round them, cutting them off from the rest of the +world. Yes, here it was again! Two sudden deaths, casting the Countess +Fanny into their midst! If those two strangers had lived, why, neither +she nor Oliver would have been likely ever to meet this foreign girl. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” she added, endeavouring to cast off this sombre reflection, +“there it is, she was left in some great castle outside Rome, with +only a Frenchwoman, a certain Madame de Mailly, as her companion. And, +as she inherits Flimwel Grange, there seems to have been some decision +that she should come over here and claim the place—it is very +troubled in Italy now. I don’t quite understand what her lawyers and +guardians decided, but at least, as you know, they wrote to Oliver, +who was left the girl’s guardian, and asked if there was someone who +could fetch the girl home; and Oliver himself went.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is this French lady accompanying her?” asked Mr. Spragge. +</p> + +<p> +“Only as far as Calais, I believe,” replied Ambrosia. “I do not think +Oliver cared for her at all, or she for Oliver. I gathered, indeed, +from his letters that there was some warm dispute between them, and +that, though the Countess Fanny could obviously not travel alone with +Oliver, the lady had been dispensed with as soon as her chaperonage +was no longer necessary.” And Ambrosia smiled again, reflecting on +what was likely to have been that passage of arms between her brother +and the unknown Frenchwoman. +</p> + +<p> +“It is perhaps as well,” said Mr. Spragge with some relief. “I do not +think our village, Miss Sellar, would be altogether acceptable to a +lively French lady used to foreign society!” +</p> + +<p> +“But will it,” asked Ambrosia at once, “be acceptable to the Countess +Fanny?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the clergyman, “she has made her choice, as one says, and +must even make the best of it, I suppose that she will find interest +and excitement in her new life. There will be a great deal for her to +learn, of course, and I dare say a great deal for her to unlearn!” +</p> + +<p> +“But youth,” remarked Ambrosia, “does not enjoy either learning or +unlearning! There are few diversions here, and, for a young girl, +hardly any company. We are, when you come to think of it, Mr. Spragge, +a very odd little community. There are just the fisher-folk, the +farmers, Dr. Drayton, yourself—and who else? There is seldom any +society at Lefton Park, and Oliver is so rooted to the place that I do +not think he would be easily induced to go away, even for a brief +visit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” agreed Mr. Spragge, “it is a lonely and a quiet place, and I am +sorry that my own children are married and far away, and that Dr. +Drayton has none; also that, as you say, Lefton Park entertains so +little society. It will, no doubt, I am afraid, be very dull for the +Countess Fanny!” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be what company I can for her till the spring,” replied +Ambrosia; “and then I, also, hope to go away; not unreasonably, I +think, Mr. Spragge? I have lived here all my life, and know the place +too well!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is certainly not a lively life for a beautiful young woman,” said +Mr. Spragge, in his most fatherly and courteous manner; “and I can +well understand that when you are married to Lord Vanden you will be +glad to leave us.” +</p> + +<p> +“You make me feel ungrateful!” said Ambrosia. “Of course I belong +here, and I never can belong anywhere else; and, I do believe, love it +all as I never can love anything else; but there comes a time when one +is melancholy, and it seems lonely and confined in interest. There are +times, too, sir, when the landscape oppresses me, and the constant +thought of the winter terrifies me! I must confess that I do look +forward with dread to the long months before the spring comes.” And +her lips and her hands trembled a little as she spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“A brilliant woman in a dull place!” smiled the old clergyman. “What +you say is most natural, and I can only admire you for the spirit with +which you have endured such a long monotony!” (“And with,” he thought, +“a difficult man!” For he did not either very much admire or very much +like Oliver Sellar.) +</p> + +<p> +“Lord Vanden is away,” he added, “is he not? Or has he returned since +I was last at Lefton Park?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is still in London,” said Ambrosia, “eager with plans about the +new lighthouse. Oh, how absorbed he is in that subject! I wish he had +been here to-day, to go with us to the ferry! The more of us there +are,” she added, with a smile, “the easier, I think, it will be. And +now, it is surely time that we departed? The boat is most uncertain, +and just because we are late it may be early.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be dreadful to miss them,” agreed Mr. Spragge; and Ambrosia +went upstairs and put on her mantle and her bonnet. As she tied the +strings under her chin and looked into the large, mahogany-framed +mirror, she thought of the words that the old clergyman had just +spoken: “A brilliant woman in a dull place!” That was probably the +truth; she was not beautiful, but she was graceful, elegant, polished, +charming—a creature for crowds, brilliant functions—one who could +wear clothes and jewels grandly; witty, cultured, amiable; not, by +nature, the least austere or melancholy. Well, here she was—shut up +for twenty-seven years at Sellar’s Mead, in the loneliest part of +Cornwall, in the extreme of England. Next year, in the spring, she and +Lucius would get away. Whether he wished it or not, she would take him +away! For his own sake as well as hers. It was not much of a title or +much of a fortune, but it <i>was</i> a title and a fortune; in not so many +years she would be a countess—not a toy title from Italy, but an +English countess—and the means, meagre as they were, would be +sufficient, with her careful management, to support that splendid +pretension. She would go with Lucius to London, to Paris—perhaps to +Vienna or Florence; and she would meet people like herself—stately +and elegant women, polished and charming men. People who “did +things”—soldiers, diplomats. She would entertain herself by music, +singing, painting. She would dress with taste, if not in the extreme +of luxury. She would have a beautiful equipage and well-trained +servants. She would not often come to Lefton Park, and perhaps not +ever to Sellar’s Mead. That depended on the Countess Fanny. Why, with +this brilliant prospect before her, could she not brace herself with +more patience to endure the time of waiting? She was angry with +herself for her own despondency. Perhaps it was because Luce was away? +Why must he so frequently go away, absorbed in the lighthouse and in +his schemes for the lighthouse? It irritated his father and irritated +her; and yet he must do it. Even this special day, when she would have +liked his counsel and support, when she would very much have desired +him beside her at the ferry, when Oliver brought his foreign bride, he +must be away, consulting with engineers in London about the +lighthouse. The lighthouse was very well—of course it must be there; +and she was glad that the Earl, even out of his constrained means, had +been able to contribute so lavishly towards the cost of the +lighthouse. There was a grandeur about that gesture, even though it +meant something off her own prospective fortune. Perhaps next year the +clay-pits would pay better, and they could give even more. Ambrosia +was not mean-minded. In everything she was lavish and generous, though +so careful and thrifty in her management. +</p> + +<p> +But this absorption in the thing itself—that did not please her. She +agreed entirely with the old Earl, who had said: “It is for us to pay +the money, not to build the thing.” But Luce did not think so. He was +interested in the lighthouse as a separate entity, not as a mere +splendid gesture of generosity and princely sumptuousness; something +individual—a creation, almost a personality. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia, as she again went downstairs, was thinking that when she was +married to Luce she would break him of this obsession about the +lighthouse. They would go away, and he, perhaps for years, would never +see St. Nite’s Head or St. Nite’s Lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +The brougham was at the porticoed door, and Ambrosia ran her practised +eye over the turn-out. Very neat and faultless; nothing wrong +anywhere. She stepped inside with Mr. Spragge. +</p> + +<p> +The wind was cold, and the sky deepening in its metallic grey colour. +The trees were all bent in one way under that invisible power of the +wind—bent towards the sea, for the wind was rushing up from the land. +</p> + +<p> +“They will have a rough crossing!” remarked Mr. Spragge, and he began +to excuse his wife for not accompanying them on this expedition of +welcome, for, he said, she had been ill for the last two or three +days, and not able to leave the house. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia listened with an inward impatience to these excuses. Lord +Lefton had made the same. He, too, was ill. So much illness, so much +old age and death! Ambrosia shut her eyes. She did not wish to see the +prospect from the carriage windows. Every day, now, those hills and +roads would be more and more grey, more and more bleak, the trees more +and more leafless, the fallows a deeper tint of barren russet; the +long winter ahead, with Oliver and this strange girl on her hands! +</p> + +<p> +She interlaced her fingers nervously. It was cold in the brougham, and +she was shivering when they reached the ferry, where the road ended +suddenly on a dreary stretch of foreshore. +</p> + +<p> +She had always disliked the ferry, which had helped to cut them off +from the outer world. The train came no nearer than Truro, and from +Truro one must take the coach to St. Lade, and at St. Lade one must +cross this wide, deep arm of sea and river mingled, and so reach the +isolation of St. Nite’s Head. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge got out of the brougham and walked up and down, conversing +genially with the fishermen and others by the little platform where +the small steamer put in. Ambrosia remained in the brougham on the +smooth piece of road above the foreshore, and stared from the window +at the prospect. It seemed to her to hold neither beauty nor +tenderness. The wind was casting long fragments of ash-coloured clouds +above the ash-coloured water, which was ruffled into heavy waves. On +either side the shores were clothed with dreary pines, now a dingy +black against the vinegar colour of the hills. +</p> + +<p> +“What is this restless impatience?” Ambrosia asked herself. “It is my +own country—my own place; I ought to love it! And yet, far from +loving it, I am scarcely able to tolerate it!” +</p> + +<p> +She could see the boat now—a black smear in the distance, labouring +heavily under a banner of murky smoke; and her heart began to beat +with what she herself called a foolish trepidation. +</p> + +<p> +“How stupid not to be able to meet a moment like this! How stupid to +be afraid of anything or anyone! No misfortune has happened, and I am +to marry Luce in the spring. Why must I be so despondent and so +foolish?” +</p> + +<p> +And Ambrosia accused her long seclusion from the world for her present +nervousness. She ought to have more social ease, and if she had been +allowed to leave St. Nite’s before she would have had this social +asset. She would not have trembled before a moment like this. She +tried to forget herself and consider the feelings of the strange, +half-foreign girl being brought towards her on that distant boat. +<i>She</i> had some excuse for nervousness, some good cause for feeling +faint and sick! What a landscape to meet her astonished eyes! What a +prospect of gloom and ashes! How cold the wind would seem, how chilly +the air! How rough the people! Even to Ambrosia the inhabitants of +Cornwall were most uncouth and crude. What would they seem to this +elegant Italian? And Oliver—how had Oliver behaved during the long +and tedious journey? Ambrosia could guess that he had been difficult. +That was her word for Oliver. In her loyalty to her brother, she used +that expression in preference to a more severe term. Oliver was +difficult, she would say; but the word meant to her a great deal more +than “difficult.” She wondered if, by now, it meant more to the +Countess Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +She left the brougham as the boat put in, and, stepping daintily, came +down on to the shore of stones and mud, holding high her stiff taffeta +skirt with one hand and putting back the fluttering veil from her face +with the other. +</p> + +<p> +There was hardly anyone on the boat—only a few rough fisher-people, a +farm-boy, and Oliver, and—yes—there was the girl, standing eagerly +at the rail. Not in mourning, though she had so recently lost her +parents. Ambrosia at once noted that, and was vexed with herself for +noticing, for she was not there to pick faults in this stranger. No, +not in mourning; that figure at the rail wore a green bonnet and a +striped shawl. Perceiving Ambrosia she took out a tiny handkerchief, +and waved it with a great deal of excitement. Ambrosia did not care +for that gesture, or for the excitement. For a second time she checked +herself from finding fault. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver raised his hat, and bowed stiffly; Mr. Spragge bowed with the +best figure he could muster. Ambrosia was conscious of a certain +grotesqueness, almost of a certain ridiculousness, in the whole +meeting of the four of them, here on this windy, muddy foreshore, with +this dark and gloomy landscape about them, with the rough peasants and +fishermen grinning and gaping. Not a very beautiful or charming scene, +but she, Ambrosia, must plainly make the best of it, and throw what +grace she could over these unpromising circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny stepped off the boat. She moved buoyantly down the +rough gangway. With sailing skirts and billowing shawl and fluttering +veil, she stepped on to the shore. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia instantly embraced her and disliked her. Alas! +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch03"> +CHAPTER III +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">Ambrosia</span> observed, and with an instant accentuation of her +despondency, that Oliver was in no amiable mood. He greeted her with +cold affection, and Mr. Spragge with forced courtesy, and began at +once to complain of the tediousness of the journey and the vexatious +accidents of the voyage. He refused to ride in the brougham, and asked +why the horse and groom had not been sent. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia found herself at once falling again into the tone she usually +adopted towards her brother—a tone of mingled exasperation, excuse, +and conciliation. +</p> + +<p> +“How was I to know, Oliver, that you desired the horse? The day is +very dark and unpleasant, and I thought it would be much more +agreeable for us all to ride in the brougham.” She tried to feel +kindly and sympathetic towards Oliver, even compassionate. After all, +he might easily feel awkward, embarrassed, and ridiculous at this +arrival with his fantastic foreign bride; for the Countess Fanny was, +in Ambrosia’s instant observation, very foreign and very fantastic. +She stood waiting with an appearance of meekness while these +arrangements about the return home were gone into, while the luggage +was brought ashore, and the valet and maids brought her wraps, shawls, +and rugs into the brougham. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia sensed that this was only a superficial meekness. The +stranger was not in the least shy or self-conscious, and appeared +perfectly ready to take part in any argument. Oliver took no notice of +her whatever, and continued to address himself to his sister and the +clergyman. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge exerted himself to be pleasant to the stranger, but she +only nodded and smiled at his attempts at an elaborate welcome, giving +the impression that she knew little English. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then,” said Ambrosia at length. “We will go in the +brougham; I will take Fanny, Oliver, and tell them to bring the horse +for you and the wagon for the servants; that, of course, is following +in any case; but surely Fanny’s maid may come with us as it is such a +harsh afternoon!” And she looked pleasantly towards the French maid, +who was sitting, with a disagreeable expression, on the first trunks +that had been brought ashore. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no occasion,” said Oliver shortly. “Do you take Fanny home, +and I will follow immediately with the others. I am surprised, +Ambrosia, that you have not sent the horse, knowing my dislike to the +carriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“He feels awkward and foolish!” So Ambrosia excused her brother to +herself, and with the better grace since she knew that she, also, felt +both awkward and foolish in the presence of the Countess Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +The two women and the clergyman got into the brougham, and turned down +the road which the Sellars had had made from the ferry to Sellar’s +Mead—a very tolerable and smooth road, kept in order at the expense +of the gentry. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia knew that she must talk, and talk at once; so she began +hastily, before the horses’ heads were even turned, putting into +practice the speech she had rehearsed for several days now; and yet +not altogether that speech, for it was nervously broken, and +interspersed with sentences that she had not meant to say. +</p> + +<p> +“It is so agreeable to see you, dear Fanny, and I hope you find it a +little agreeable to see us! Though doubtless everything must be new +and strange to you just now, and the weather is not what it might have +been—still, we hope to make you comfortable at Sellar’s Mead. You +must not be a little alarmed if it appears very gloomy to you. +Perhaps,” continued Ambrosia, speaking very rapidly, “you do not know +English very well, in which case I shall teach you.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny answered with hardly an accent: +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, I understand very well, and do not speak so badly; and as for +gloom, I come from a very large and old house—a castle, in fact—on a +lake; which is not at all what you would call cheerful. And the +weather I have scarcely noticed. It did not seem to me unpleasant.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is very courteous of you, Countess Fanny!” said Mr. Spragge +gallantly. “We are really rather lonely and isolated here, and Miss +Sellar has been fearing that you may find it dull.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny answered at once, in a high, rather eager, voice: +</p> + +<p> +“But I am to live all my life here, am I not, sir? And therefore it +would be very stupid of me to find it dull at once!” +</p> + +<p> +Neither Ambrosia nor Mr. Spragge had been prepared for quite such +plain speaking. They were a little abashed. Ambrosia contrived to make +an answer: +</p> + +<p> +“Never breathe the word ‘dull’!” she said; “twilight is coming on, and +that makes everything rather dark. In the house we must contrive that +everything is very cheerful and pleasant”; and after that she could +find no more to say of any purport, but had to descend to enquiries +and solicitudes about the journey: Had it been so long? Had it been so +tedious? And was the passage across the Channel very rough? And what +about Madame de Mailly, the companion? +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said the Countess Fanny in dismay, “I regret her indeed very +much; it seems to me a thousand pities that she and Oliver could not +have been good friends—that I could not have brought her with me +here. Indeed, I think you would have liked her very well, and, indeed, +she has been a most dear companion!” +</p> + +<p> +This again was very bold speaking, and very fluent, too, Mr. Spragge +and Ambrosia could scarcely refrain from exchanging a glance. +</p> + +<p> +“I am indeed sorry!” said Ambrosia. “But doubtless Oliver thought that +the lady would be rather out of place in a Cornish village.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, then, so shall I!” smiled the Countess Fanny, “for she and I are +much alike in many things. Nay, I have no doubt,” she added, “that +Madame de Mailly would have tolerated solitude better than I shall do, +for she had a great many happy memories, and a deal to look back upon; +and I have nothing, I have spent all my life, as I tell you, in an old +castle where there was nothing to amuse one, and very little to look +at.” +</p> + +<p> +“We are in the same case,” said Ambrosia; “but here there is Oliver, +is there not?—and soon you will be mistress of your own house, and +that will give you a great deal of occupation.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny did not answer this; she simply yawned, and put up +a tiny white-gloved hand to her mouth, then leant back in the corner +of the brougham in an attitude of lassitude, of fatigue. +</p> + +<p> +“I am, now I come to think of it,” she remarked, “a little tired.” +</p> + +<p> +“We will not speak any more,” said Ambrosia hastily, “but be silent +until we reach the house; then you must rest till supper-time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” answered the Countess Fanny; “I shall be glad to rest.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia could not forbear a covert survey of the stranger nestling in +the cushions of the carriage in the corner. She had, unfortunately for +herself, taken an instant dislike to the Countess Fanny, nor was this +dislike much mitigated by her present scrutiny. The girl was odd, +fantastic, and foreign—three qualifications by no means desirable in +the eyes of Ambrosia. She was also lovely, with a vivid, sensuous +loveliness that seldom pleases even the most good-natured of women. +Ambrosia had a feminine mistrust and dislike of very conspicuous +physical beauty in another woman, and the beauty of the Countess Fanny +was not to be disputed: in any company, in any place, she would have +been conspicuous. She was dark and slender, with those features that +Ambrosia had always heard described as “classic”; she was more than +above average height, and exceedingly graceful, with an air of pliancy +and swiftness fascinating to behold. Her profuse and glossy hair was +arranged in very fine ringlets, which escaped, either side of her oval +face, from the framework of the odd apple-green bonnet, which was tied +with a large bow of satin ribbon edged with silver; her multi-coloured +striped shawl was of the finest texture, her green cloth dress trimmed +with fur; she wore curiously embroidered gauntlet gloves, and +bracelet, brooch, and ear-rings of coral, while her veil of black lace +floated back carelessly from her bonnet; it appeared not often to have +been dropped over that lovely face. Ambrosia was sure that she must +have been a great deal stared at on the journey, particularly through +England; she knew that Oliver was not the type of man who cared to go +about with a woman who was an object of curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +But the Countess Fanny was absolutely composed, as if she were unaware +of having been the centre of any scrutiny. Her manner was indeed a +great deal too composed for Ambrosia’s approval. The elder woman +thought it odd that so young a girl should not have been more +embarrassed by her present curious situation; but then, everything +about the Countess Fanny was odd! +</p> + +<p> +Rousing herself from her position of lassitude, she suddenly asked: +</p> + +<p> +“What am I to call you? Ambrosia is such a stiff name—and yet it is +familiar enough to me, because, you know, it is really an Italian +name.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia answered at once: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is a very stiff and queer sort of name, but I am used to +it—we have had it in the family a long time and, I suppose, always +shall; but everyone calls me Amy, and you must do so, if you please!” +</p> + +<p> +“Amy,” smiled the Countess Fanny; “yes, that makes a very delightful +name, and I shall use it; but what,” she said, glancing at Mr. +Spragge, “am I to do with Oliver—is not that a grotesque and awkward +name for anyone to have? And yet there is nothing else that one could +call him.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Ambrosia, “he has no other name than Oliver, and you must +do the best you can with it, I am afraid.” And she, too, tried to +smile with graceful good-humour, but felt it difficult. He was indeed +Oliver to her, and nothing else; nor had he been, she believed, +anything else to anyone. Even in the nursery he had had no odd, pretty +name, given by affection. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny now turned her lively black eyes on Mr. Spragge. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a clergyman, are you not?” she asked; and he, surprised and +amused, bowed and said, yes, he was the vicar of St. Nite’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you will be <i>my</i> clergyman, I suppose,” smiled the Countess +Fanny lightly, “for Oliver—since I must call him Oliver—says that I +am to become a Protestant now, and leave the old faith; and that is +very peculiar and disagreeable, is it not, for me? And yet I do not +mind very much, though Madame de Mailly says it is very dreadful; but +since I have left my country, I suppose I can leave my religion,” she +added with a little pout. “And Father Martinelli was really very harsh +and dull.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge did not know what to answer to this frankness. All his +instincts told him to warn the girl not so lightly to leave a +hereditary and cherished faith; nor did he wish to be the one to +persuade her to become a convert to his own Church. Yet he knew that +it was for Oliver’s interests that she should do so, and his loyalty +was for Oliver Sellar, not for the Countess Fanny Caldini. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia was in the same predicament: it was not at all pleasant, she +thought, to hear the girl talk so lightly on such a subject, and yet +it was a matter of relief to think that Oliver had been able to induce +her to change her faith. It would have been, as she had already +thought to herself, most disagreeable and tedious if the Countess +Fanny had persisted in being a Roman Catholic in a place like St. +Nite’s. So she tried to speak moderately and evasively, in that +temperate tone which good breeding had taught her. +</p> + +<p> +“You will be able to go into all this presently yourself, my dear +Fanny,” she said, “and come to your own decision. It is really a +matter about which no one can advise you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I have been already advised,” replied the girl, with a +devastating frankness, “and I have already made my decision: I am now +a Protestant, and,” she added, with a little bow towards Mr. Spragge, +“you must teach me exactly what a Protestant is.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge thought she mocked him, and could not find an answer. He +had been very greatly impressed by her beauty, but he thought even +less than he had thought before of Oliver’s prospects of happiness in +his forthcoming marriage. +</p> + +<p> +“We know so little of you,” smiled Ambrosia, with an effort to be +amiable and entertaining. “Oliver’s letters have been very brief. We +are not even aware what has become of your Italian property; this +castle of which you speak, now—is it still yours, and will you +sometimes return there?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not mine,” replied the Countess Fanny, with something of a +sigh. “My father’s brother inherits that, and I have money and the +English property, because my mother was English, you see.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I am afraid you will feel rather homesick,” condoled Ambrosia, +“though of course you will be able to visit Italy.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Oliver says no; Oliver says that I am never to return to Italy +again, and that I must forget all about it,” smiled the Countess +Fanny. “You see,” she added, “Oliver did not like Italy, and the +Italians did not like Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +Neither Ambrosia nor Mr. Spragge could here resist a laugh. In the +minds of both, the girl’s words had called up a very definite picture +of the Englishman abroad and Oliver Sellar in Italy. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my dear young lady,” remarked the clergyman, “it seems to me +that you are called upon to make no mean sacrifice, and that you are +doing this in a very cheerful spirit.” +</p> + +<p> +To this remark the Countess Fanny returned an odd answer: +</p> + +<p> +“I really don’t think,” she said, half under her breath, “that I know +quite what I am doing.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia stared out of the window. This was exactly as she had +surmised. The girl did not know what she was doing, and probably +Oliver did not know either. She had been anything but happy and +gratified at the glimpse she had had of him when he landed from the +boat. No, they neither of them knew quite what they were doing, and +she had got to stand between them through the black winter months +ahead. +</p> + +<p> +She could hardly repress a heavy sigh, both at the potentialities for +disagreeableness of the situation and her own incapacity to deal with +them; for emotionally she was an indolent woman, and both her +affections and her interests were absorbed with Luce, and Luce’s +future, and Luce’s character, and Luce’s projects. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge endeavoured to bring the moment back to the commonplace. +</p> + +<p> +“I have no doubt,” he remarked, “it all seems very strange to you just +now; but presently you will find that we contrive to be tolerably +happy here.” +</p> + +<p> +The young girl replied with a charming vivacity: +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, dear sir, I am sure you will do your best for me, just as I +am sure that I shall need everybody’s best to help me; for, as you +say, it is all very alien to me at present.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia would have been moved to some real affection and tenderness +at these words if they had been spoken in a different manner; but they +were delivered in so light and airy a style that she felt that they +came from the lips only, and not from the heart. She was excused from +further conversation by their arrival at Sellar’s Mead, and by the +immediate necessity of ordering Oliver’s horse and groom to go down to +the ferry, where, no doubt, he would be already fuming with impatience +at the delay. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did he want to ride, I wonder?” she could not help remarking. “It +is so unreasonable in Oliver to be so difficult over these details!” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny remarked at once: +</p> + +<p> +“But he would not care to be shut up with two women and a clergyman, +would he? It is not very reasonable to expect that, either!” And she +smiled, with a little malice, Ambrosia thought. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge had left them before they reached Sellar’s Mead, and +returned to the village. He was coming to dinner that evening—he and +the doctor, and possibly the old Earl; a little party of welcome for +the Countess Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +When Ambrosia had seen Mr. Spragge go off down the lane that led to +the village, she had had a little regretful feeling that his gesture +of welcome, at least, had fallen considerably flat; but the Countess +Fanny seemed neither to know nor care when he left her company. +</p> + +<p> +She now showed the girl her room, with a faint misgiving lest she +should dislike it; but the Countess Fanny commended it with her +buoyant good humour. +</p> + +<p> +“It is quite charming,” she said, “but small.” +</p> + +<p> +And Ambrosia exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“Small! It is the largest room in the house! And none of the rooms +here seem to me of mean dimensions.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah well, small after the castle,” smiled the Countess, “where the +rooms were very large indeed, you know; but I like it immensely, and +thank you for making it so pretty for me.” And she dropped a little +old-fashioned curtsey. +</p> + +<p> +Again Ambrosia should have been moved and touched; and again she was +not. +</p> + +<p> +“Your maid will be here in the wagon with the luggage in a moment or +two, I have no doubt,” she replied; “and meanwhile there is Julia, and +you must command her for anything you wish. Tea will be brought up to +you, unless there is anything else you prefer; and then you must rest +just as long as you wish.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not so very tired,” said the Countess Fanny, sitting down by the +fire, “but I shall be glad to rest, just to get used to things, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“And at dinner,” continued Ambrosia, lingering by the door, “there +will be one or two old friends—very dear old friends of ours—and if +you care to come down in your very prettiest frock, why, how pleased +and honoured and gratified they will be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I will come down,” replied the strange girl. “I have no +wish to spend my evening alone, and it was very thoughtful and +obliging of you to call all your friends together to welcome me. I +hope they will not be disappointed in me, for, as far as I have been +able to observe on the journey, I am not like ordinary English girls.” +</p> + +<p> +She smiled brilliantly, and took off her shawl and coat and untied the +apple-green bonnet, which Ambrosia so disapproved of; without these +encumbering garments, she showed indeed very lovely, even lovelier +than before. There was something so swift and graceful and elegant in +every line and pose of her—something so rich and lustrous in that +dark colouring and in those pure features and in that exquisite +complexion. To cover her almost uneasy sense of this great beauty +revealed so artlessly, Ambrosia said: +</p> + +<p> +“You speak a wonderful English, Fanny!” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny replied: +</p> + +<p> +“My mother was English, a Flimwel, was she not—one of your +neighbours? I always spoke English with her, and I had an English +nurse, and later an English governess. Oh, yes, it was considered very +important that I should speak English.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia retired to her own chamber, where the candles had now been +lit. “That girl,” she thought heavily, “will require neither patronage +nor help; indeed, it will be all I shall be able to do to hold my own +with her. How unfortunate that I cannot like her—but perhaps that +will come later. Anyhow”—and she consoled herself with this +reflection, which continued to come into her head like a +refrain—“anyhow, the winter will soon be over, and with the spring I +shall be away, thank heaven, away!” +</p> + +<p> +Her evening gown of flowing, stiff bright blue silk, with a bertha of +blond lace, was lying ready on the bed, and again she unlocked her +jewel-case and took out her mother’s <i>parure</i>, which went so +excellently with the brilliant glitter of the stiff silk; and then +something occurred to her, so suddenly and with such force that the +blood rushed into her face. Of course, the jewels were not hers; they +really belonged to this stranger—the Countess Fanny! Oliver had +always impressed on her that they were only lent to her. His first +wife had worn them. Of course; how foolish! How could she have been +trapped into such stupidity? The jewels were not hers—they were +Oliver’s, and would belong to Oliver’s wife. How horrible if she had +not recollected this in time, if she had gone down to dinner with +those stones round her wrist and throat, in her ears and hair, and +seen Oliver’s angry glance! Perhaps even heard his angry words, and +had to go upstairs and take them off! Or wear them all the evening +under his ironic eye! And he would never have believed in her +innocence in the matter; he would think that she had done it on +purpose to flaunt them. It was most merciful that in time she had +remembered. +</p> + +<p> +Hastily she locked the jewels away, and returned them to the place +from which they had come—a large walnut-wood case inlaid with brass, +which stood in the corner of the room and contained other gems which, +of course, were also no longer hers. They had only been in her +keeping. +</p> + +<p> +With the same haste, she flicked from her mind the emotion of jealous +discomposure. What did it matter to her? She had other souvenirs of +her mother, and, as for jewels, she would soon be wearing those of +Lord Lefton: nothing very magnificent, perhaps; nothing very costly, +certainly—but her own, just as these were Fanny’s own. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile there were the modest jewels which her father had given her +on her twenty-first birthday, and the Indian bracelet which poor +William had sent home just before he was killed in a frontier action, +and seed pearls and a brilliant brooch that her mother had left her in +her will, after all. She was glad of the little respite. Her head +ached, and she thought: “If only Luce were here!” +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch04"> +CHAPTER IV +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">The</span> dinner was perfectly arranged—Ambrosia had seen to that; there +was no fault in any detail. The room looked rich and handsome in the +light of the brilliant candles. Ambrosia never used lamps whenever she +could use candles. The furniture and the walls and the silver all +gleamed alike with rich and deep and varied reflections. The lace on +the cloth and on the sideboard was both fine, elegant, and impressive; +the Waterford glass had a thousand facets of coloured light; the fruit +was hot-house and luxurious; the wine was of the best, as was the +service and the food. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Drayton had brought his sister, an elderly lady who seldom left +her own house, and Mr. Spragge was full of excuses about his wife. The +old Earl had not come after all, so they were but a small party—three +men and three women round the circular table; but everyone, save the +host, made an effort towards goodwill and courtesy. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia felt grateful towards these three modest and genial +gentlefolk who were showing such a pleasant and obliging humour—for +her sake, she knew, for they none of them greatly cared for Oliver, +and were all of them, like herself, doubtful about the stranger. And +the situation was awkward—Ambrosia could not disguise that. So +difficult to know what to talk about, so almost impossible to know +<i>how</i> to talk when one had found a subject; for Oliver sat so silent, +said so little, and said that little with so ungracious an air. And +the Countess Fanny had that light, cold, mocking way which seemed to +dispose of every subject as trifling or obvious. She had almost an air +of laughing at all of them, and, whereas she should have been the one +who was shy, embarrassed, and self-conscious, in the end she was the +only one who was completely self-possessed. +</p> + +<p> +In brief, no one knew how to deal with her, but she appeared to know +how to deal with everyone. Ambrosia wondered how she had contrived +such self-control and finish in that gloomy castle outside Rome, +where, she declared, she had spent all her days. +</p> + +<p> +On being pressed, she admitted to having been to Rome and Florence; +yes, and even to Paris. “And she is only eighteen!” thought Ambrosia, +“and has already seen more of the world than I; and that is why she is +able to carry this off when I can’t—I, who am nearly ten years older, +and in my own house, sitting here like a fool, while she is not moved +in the least!” Then Ambrosia added, in her thoughts: “Of course, it is +her beauty; if one’s as beautiful as that one can do anything.” +</p> + +<p> +The other three—those three elderly, quiet people from this lonely +village—were, she thought, fascinated and almost embarrassed by the +stranger’s beauty; clearly, they had not expected that: prettiness, +perhaps, or charm, but not this definite quality of vivid beauty. +“Greatly gifted,” thought Ambrosia; “very considerably dowered; rich, +too—well educated, well born, and not foolish; it is rather +surprising”—and she glanced at her brother—“that the girl chose +Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia was angry with Oliver; it seemed to her unforgivable that he +could not make some effort to pass over this occasion with greater +agreeableness and courtesy. How inexcusable was this silence, these +dark looks, these brief replies, this air of discontent and gloom; +what was the matter with Oliver? The girl’s beauty forbade the +conjecture that perhaps he had already repented of his rash +engagement, and her courteous, smiling manner towards him forbade the +suggestion that they had quarrelled on the journey. Why, then, could +not Oliver behave himself better? +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him keenly across the high silver epèrgne loaded with +fruits, and hoped that he would catch the glance of disapproval in her +eyes; but he was looking down at the cloth, and making pellets of his +bread that he flicked to and fro along the lace cloth. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver was quite unnecessarily good-looking: Ambrosia had always +thought so. He had all the beauty there was in the family; both she +and poor William had been plain compared to his dark handsomeness, and +this had always irritated Ambrosia. Stupid for Oliver to be +good-looking—a man like that! It made no difference at all whether he +was handsome or not, unless it had made a little difference now, in +his capture of the Countess Fanny. “But if he came wooing me,” thought +Ambrosia, “he would not win me with those dark, sullen, scowling +looks, and that air of suppressed violence!” He was a heavy, massive +man with blunt features and thick, slightly curling hair, now +ash-coloured on the temples. He appeared, in his sister’s eyes, very +sombre in his black clothes and the carelessly-tied white choker, with +his dark complexion and exactly-drawn black lines of side-whiskers on +his flat ruddy cheeks. His full lips were set in petulant lines of +ill-humour, and his very heavily marked brows drawn together in a +slight frown—the last expression he should have worn on such an +occasion, at the head of his own table. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia had to withdraw her gaze—“Or I shall find myself disliking +Oliver,” she thought; “really disliking both Oliver and his future +wife; and how hateful that would be.” Yes, it would be hateful; she +despised herself for the mere thought. But the thought had been +there—had lingered quite definitely in her mind. +</p> + +<p> +If only Luce were here! Luce, with his charm and his gaiety and high +spirits! Why, life went to a different measure when Luce was about. +When they were married she would see that he was not so often away. +She thought that to-morrow she would go over to Lefton Park, and see +the old Earl, and hear when Luce was returning. It was possible, +though it was not likely, that he would let his father know before he +let her know; anyhow, she could talk with someone who loved Luce as +none of these loved him! Why, the three old people liked him, of +course—he was popular with everyone—but they could not love him like +she loved him. And as for Oliver—well Oliver did not like him. And +since the Countess Fanny had chosen Oliver, it was not very likely +that she would like Luce either. No, he was quite different and apart +from all these people, and Ambrosia, in the recesses of her secluded +mind, dwelt on these things and tried to forget the present company. +</p> + +<p> +Yet she was first to admire how the young foreign girl carried off +this difficult situation; how amiable she was to the three elderly +people; how deferential to the clergyman; how cool and self-assured +with Oliver, and how affectionately respectful towards herself—and +yet all in a heartless manner that could not evoke any response from +Ambrosia. “She has taught herself,” thought the elder woman, “the +right manner for everybody, but it has been taught—it does not come +from the heart.” And so she judged the stranger, who sat so gracefully +at the table which would soon be her own table, in the house that was +now so alien to her, but where she would soon be the mistress. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner there was an awkward half-hour in the drawing-room, where +the Countess Fanny sat on a yellow sofa and listened with an agreeable +smile to the chit-chat of the doctor’s sister, and to Ambrosia’s +efforts to be entertaining about the neighbourhood. +</p> + +<p> +The girl appeared to have little curiosity as to her future home. She +listened with a polite attention, but it was no more than a polite +attention. “What is her heart in?” thought Ambrosia; “not in this +place, sure enough, I think; and scarcely, I believe, in Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall like to see your scenery,” said the Countess Fanny. “I +believe it is very fine and grand, and I do little landscapes in +pencil which are much admired. I must show you my album, Miss Drayton, +where I have some such designs which I have taken of the Italian lakes +and the ruins in and round Rome. Do you not also sketch with crayons?” +she asked Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +And Ambrosia shook her head: +</p> + +<p> +“I used to, when I was a girl, but I do not now.” +</p> + +<p> +“You speak as if you were already old,” smiled the Countess Fanny, +“but I think you are a girl still; and you are to be married, are you +not?—Oliver said in the spring—the same time as myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia answered: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I am to be married in the spring—to Luce Foxe; I hope you will +like him. He is away just now, or he would have been at the ferry to +meet you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I shall like him!” said the Countess Fanny, with her +brilliant and beautiful smile, “since he has been your choice, my dear +Amy. Does he live near here, and will you, when you are married, be +still a neighbour?” +</p> + +<p> +“The place—Lefton Park—is near here,” replied Ambrosia, “but I hope +to go to London and abroad.” +</p> + +<p> +“That,” said the Countess Fanny, “is where I shall never go, I +believe, since Oliver says we are to spend the rest of our lives +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“She can’t know what she is saying!” thought Ambrosia. “She is only +eighteen, and she talks so coldly of spending the rest of her life +here—here in Sellar’s Mead, in Cornwall, near the Land’s End! The +girl is senseless or heartless—or both!” +</p> + +<p> +The guests left early; Ambrosia believed that they all felt the +considerable tension in the atmosphere, for all Fanny’s ease and her +own attempt at gracious hospitality; and Fanny, too, must go to bed +early, under a quite reasonable plea of fatigue and excitement. She +had her own maid, and refused all other ministrations. She kissed +Ambrosia lightly on the cheek, and suffered Oliver to kiss her lightly +on the hand; and then she was gone, leaving the brother and sister +alone in the drawing-room that had been familiar to them since they +could remember anything. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia wished for no private conversations with Oliver. She really +had nothing to say to him, and dreaded being involved in any argument +or discussion. She knew how wearisome and tedious discussions and +arguments were with Oliver, and, after all, what was there now to +dispute or discuss? He had decided on his future, and she had decided +on hers. There was nothing for them to do but to be as amiable as +possible to each other while they had to live in the same house. The +only thing that she would really have liked to say to Oliver was this: +to request that he would contrive to be, during the coming winter +months, more agreeable than he had been to-night. +</p> + +<p> +So she began to chatter about commonplaces, and meant soon to make an +excuse of retiring; but Oliver detained her. With a serious air, he +asked her, when she made an attempt to rise, to keep her seat. +</p> + +<p> +“I am only going to fetch my needlework,” said Ambrosia, who wished to +rob the occasion of all solemnity. +</p> + +<p> +But Oliver said, with some impatience, that she need not bother about +her work, but must remain and listen to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me, Oliver! Surely you cannot have anything very important to +say at this time of night! It is nearly eleven o’clock, and has been, +I know, a most fatiguing day for all of us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely not for you,” rejoined Oliver sullenly; “what have <i>you</i> had +to do, Amy, that has fatigued you so?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not what I’ve had to do, but what I’ve had to think,” replied +the young woman, “that I have found fatiguing; but if you have +something to say, pray say it, Oliver—do not keep me in suspense.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not making it particularly easy for me!” said her brother. +“You might guess that what I have to say is about Fanny.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia had guessed this: she was also right in supposing that she +was not making things very easy for him. She saw no reason why she +should do so: Oliver had never made things easy for her. +</p> + +<p> +“I was not able to explain myself in my letter,” remarked Oliver +harshly; “it was, of course, obvious that I could not; also obvious, I +suppose, that you should expect me to explain myself now.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia made a little gesture of weariness. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, Oliver, do not try to explain yourself—indeed, there is no +need! Why should you? You are your own master—of your thoughts, your +fortunes, and your person—and you have chosen this young girl. I know +nothing about her, but I can see that she is exceedingly—nay, +dazzlingly—beautiful, and that should be sufficiently your excuse. I +hope I shall like her—hope, even, I shall love her.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t,” replied Oliver heavily; “you don’t like her, and I don’t +think, or hope, that you will love her.” +</p> + +<p> +She was annoyed that he had seen her attitude towards Fanny. How +stupid and tiresome that she should have had such an attitude! +</p> + +<p> +“One must not go on first impressions,” she said hastily; “it is not +true to say that I don’t like her. I think she is odd and strange, +but, as I say, she is so beautiful——” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no need to repeat that, Amy—everybody can see that Fanny is +beautiful,” he said sullenly and petulantly. “You must be wondering, +though, why I am going to marry her. You know, and no doubt have +remarked, that I am double her age; and you know, and no doubt also +have remarked,” he added with some bitterness, “that she has been shut +up all her life and had very little opportunity of seeing anyone save +myself in the light of a suitor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Naturally,” replied Ambrosia stiffly, for it seemed to her as if her +brother was trying to force a quarrel, “everyone will have remarked +and noticed these things. Why should you take any heed of them? You +have made your choice, and I dare say nothing will influence you +against it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing will influence me against it, naturally,” he replied at once; +“but I should like to explain myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can you possibly explain such a thing?” asked Ambrosia, raising +her brows. “I could not explain why I am going to marry Luce—why +should you explain why you are going to marry Fanny? It is really +absurd, Oliver; you are, as I say, your own master, and you have no +need to think of me—after the spring I shall be off your hands. Only, +I pray you, do let us be as considerate as possible towards each other +while we are shut up here. The winter is very long and very lonely at +Sellar’s Mead, and we must all make the best of it.” +</p> + +<p> +But Oliver would pursue the subject. His sister could perceive that he +was desperately self-conscious about his marriage—terribly afraid of +making a fool of himself in the eyes of his neighbours. He continued +to talk at some length, with some violence and in a rambling fashion, +about the Countess Fanny—how he had found her, alone and, as it were, +unprotected, in the company of a most undesirable woman—a frivolous, +corrupt, worldly woman, this Madame de Mailly; and of how he had +fought the influence of this Madame de Mailly. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia yawned at last, and interrupted him: +</p> + +<p> +“Please don’t tell me all about it, Oliver. It’s quite apparent that +you have fallen in love with the girl, that you offered yourself as a +husband, and that she accepted you; and do leave it at that!” +</p> + +<p> +“But you said that she was odd and queer,” persisted Oliver gloomily. +“And I dare say those other three fools went away and said that she +was odd and queer, and are mouthing and gossiping over her and the +fact that I am going to marry her, and the fact that I brought her +back, and that we are staying here together all the winter. I don’t +know why you don’t marry Luce at once, Amy—then I could marry Fanny +immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that would be hardly decent!” cried Ambrosia. “Her mother has +been dead only about two months. Nay, it is impossible: an outrage on +all feelings, Oliver! And as for myself and Luce, you know that all +arrangements have been made for the spring, and that it would be +almost impossible to alter them now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bound up in customs and convention,” said Oliver, walking up and down +the room; and his sister laughed. +</p> + +<p> +It was indeed a curious remark for him to have made, for he himself +was a slave of customs and convention, to an almost absurd degree. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides,” she said, “it would be scarcely fair on Fanny herself—an +immediate marriage. She must get used to this country; she must get +used to her neighbours! Let her know a little bit, Oliver, what she is +letting herself in for!” +</p> + +<p> +“That is not a pleasant way of putting it!” he retorted, violent at +once. “ ‘Letting herself in for’—what do you mean, Amy?” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia rose and shrugged her shoulders wearily. +</p> + +<p> +“You know perfectly well what I mean. It is not altogether so pleasant +here, is it? It is certainly not lively, and the winter is a severe +test for anyone. There are hardly any women, and no girls. She must +either invite company here or get used to doing without it; in either +case it will take a little time and practice. Perhaps she has +friends—somebody in London. I should take her there for a few weeks, +if I were you, Oliver. Did not the Flimwels have some connections in +town? Surely her mother knew somebody; and her family—her father’s +family, I mean—I suppose they are of some pretension? Do be a little +reasonable, Oliver! You don’t expect her and me and you to remain shut +up here all the winter, do you, doing nothing but getting used to each +other’s characters?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall <i>not</i> take Fanny to London,” said Oliver sternly; “and don’t +put any such ideas or wishes into her head, Amy. We are going to +remain here till the spring, when we shall be married, and then we +shall continue to remain here—settle down here for the rest of our +lives; what else?” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly as you please,” said Ambrosia; “I merely gave you my advice. +You will do what you wish, and I suppose you will be able to make +Fanny do what you wish. As for myself, I am going away, as you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“But no farther than Lefton Park.” +</p> + +<p> +“A great deal farther than Lefton Park, I hope,” said Ambrosia +nervously. “I intend to take Luce away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you’ll take Luce—that’s it: he won’t take you. If you leave him +alone he’ll stay at Lefton Park. He’s absorbed in the place, and in +his lighthouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the lighthouse,” said Ambrosia, on a quick breath; “that’s just a +passing whim—a caprice; you don’t suppose a man like Luce will all +his life continue to be interested in the lighthouse on St. Nite’s +Point?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought he would,” retorted Oliver; “I should have +thought it would have got hold of him, and it wouldn’t be so easy for +you, as you call it, to ‘take him away.’ ” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia bit her lip with vexation: she was very sorry she had used +that expression, “take Luce away.” How weak and trifling it sounded! +And yet, how exactly it had expressed her intention and her feeling! +It would be she who took Luce away from St. Nite’s—not Luce who took +her! +</p> + +<p> +“I must leave the room,” she thought, “or I shall quarrel! How really +appalling that Oliver and I can hardly meet without quarrelling! Even +now, after he has been all these months away, the first thing we +stumble on is disagreement and dissension!” +</p> + +<p> +She rose, shaking out the folds of the glittering bright blue dress; +and, as she did so, the door opened and the Countess Fanny entered. +She had forgotten her bag, she said; and the three of them began +looking for this bag—a little affair of striped sarcenet with gold +beads on it, Fanny described it, which had been dropped somewhere +among the cushions. It could not immediately be found. +</p> + +<p> +“It has my beads in it,” she explained, “my rosary.” +</p> + +<p> +And Oliver, at that, rose from where he was stooping over the +cushions, and asked angrily what she still did with a rosary? +</p> + +<p> +“I like to say my prayers,” smiled the Countess Fanny, with a +brilliant and rather meaningless smile. “May I not do so, Oliver, even +though I am a Protestant?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you will say your prayers,” he replied, “but not with +beads! Amy, there is no need for us to search for this satchel if it +is only the beads it contains.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny said, in the same clear, unembarrassed tones: +</p> + +<p> +“It is more than the beads I wish. There is a pot of pomade there.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia had found the bag, and gave it to Fanny, again bidding her +good night, and trying to throw some tenderness into the simple +salutation. +</p> + +<p> +Billowing her pale skirts about her, the Countess Fanny moved +buoyantly towards the door. Oliver was opening it for her, and +Ambrosia chanced to notice his expression as he looked at the girl +while she passed before him. Ambrosia was shocked, was held by that +expression: everything was now explained. Oliver regarded her with a +greedy stare of insatiable passion; Ambrosia knew at once, with a +pang, that she had never seen such a look on Luce’s face. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch05"> +CHAPTER V +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">Ambrosia</span> rode to Lefton Park through a land wind that drove the +dense, grey clouds seawards. In the pauses of this wind a fine drizzle +of rain fell, and there was no colour in any of the rugged landscape. +Against her will, Ambrosia noticed the signs of neglect in the large +park: fences needed repairing, the trees required pruning—the +wreckage of last year’s tempest not yet entirely cleared away; the +gardens, that were neat but not very plentifully replenished with +flowers or shrubs; the house itself, an ancient structure, refronted +in the palladian style, looking dingy and sombre. It was a pity there +was not more money to spend on the place. Ambrosia had heard Luce talk +of a mortgage on the woods. Well, perhaps next year the clay-pits +would pay better, and the tin-mines give a return for all the money +that had been spent on them. The Leftons had been for two generations +unfortunate: their estate was on too lonely, too wild, and too +unproductive a portion of land; this rock-bound coast hemmed them in +from prosperity, it seemed—almost from civilisation. +</p> + +<p> +The interior of the stately house bore the same evidence of pinched +means. The splendid pictures, vases, and tables of basalt and +porphyry, the walnut and needlework furniture—these still remained, +but many of the larger rooms had been shut up, and everywhere were +evidences of discreet economy. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia found the old Earl where she usually found him—in his own +private room (cabinet, he called it) off the library. He collected +shells, and in this study of conchology passed most of his solitary +days. He was a man who cared little for society, and nothing for +affairs; an invalid of a gentle, temperate disposition, who held +firmly to all the traditions of his family and his class, but had +never had either the health or the energy to put these into practice. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia blamed the brave negation of his patient philosophy for much +that was so irritating in Luce. He had made—against his will, +perhaps, but none the less effectively—something of a recluse of his +only son, the child of his late marriage. +</p> + +<p> +The little room, which looked upon a lake in the park and an avenue of +trees, was lined with cabinets, shelves, and cases, all containing +shells or books of shells—specimens carefully labelled and indexed, +arranged in boxes and on cards. +</p> + +<p> +The Earl did most of this work himself, but there was an elderly man +who helped him—a Mr. Wilabraham, who had been Luce’s tutor, and now +called himself the Earl’s secretary. He was present when Ambrosia +entered the closet, and engaged in washing some shells in a glass bowl +of clear water through which the sand ran and settled at the bottom. +</p> + +<p> +The Earl was in his armchair, with his newspaper and his glasses +across his knee; he greeted Ambrosia with real pleasure, and +courteously dismissed the secretary. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia sat down by the little table, still scattered with the +unwashed shells, which emitted a faint yet pungent odour of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my dear,” said the old man kindly, “so she has arrived: now +tell me all about it. I feel guilty because I was not at the ferry +yesterday, but really I could not manage it.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, of course,” said Ambrosia dutifully; and the old man added with a +sudden smile: +</p> + +<p> +“But if it had been <i>you</i>, my dear, coming home, I dare say I should +have been there!” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia looked at him thoughtfully. He had an appearance at once +delicate and noble. There was a certain air of grandeur about him that +nothing in his secluded life had justified, and yet she trusted him as +implicitly as if he had proved himself again and again of the finest +and most reliable material; and she thought, with a certain pang of +despondency, how difficult, how almost impossible, it would be to +leave him—to take Luce away and leave him. And yet it would be more +impossible to wait for his death as a signal for freedom; they must go +away, be at liberty; their youth had that right—a certain freedom, a +little measure of liberty! Of course, they would come back; as long as +he lived they would come back to Lefton Park; but they must go away! +</p> + +<p> +She repeated this nervously in her heart. With the spring they must +leave Cornwall! +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t like her,” asked Lord Lefton, “eh?” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia had been afraid that he would immediately say that. She did +not quite know how to defend herself against a charge that was so +true. +</p> + +<p> +“It is all my fault,” she said; “there is nothing wrong with +her—nothing. But I have grown stiff and cold, shut up so long in +Sellar’s Mead, and this project of Oliver’s marriage was very +startling—a thing to which it is difficult to get used.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no great need,” remarked the Earl drily, “why we should, any +of us, get used to it; let Oliver go his own way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he will,” smiled Ambrosia. “He is his own master, as I had +to remind him last night; but still, no one can be utterly isolated in +his relationships. Oliver is self-conscious and agitated. He feels, I +believe, that he has made rather—well, he feels, perhaps, that he has +done a precipitous and perhaps foolish thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is she like?” asked the Earl; and Ambrosia said at once, shaking +out the folds of her dark blue riding-habit: +</p> + +<p> +“She is very beautiful—really beautiful. One reads and hears so much +about beauty, and one does not very often see it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It depends,” replied the old man, “what you call beauty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Beauty like that,” persisted Ambrosia; “really vivid and startling +beauty. She has it, I assure you—beauty of face and of bearing. She +is very finished, too—strangely so, for eighteen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dark, I suppose?” asked the Earl. “The Flimwels were always handsome. +I remember her mother as a child—she was really a beauty, also.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dark and flashing,” said Ambrosia, “with a swift, buoyant air, and +very graceful; oh, indeed, there is no flaw in her. But that was a +little startling at first—she is so composed. She speaks an excellent +English, yet she is in everything a foreigner.” +</p> + +<p> +“Foreigners,” remarked the Earl, “are all right in the proper place.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think,” said Ambrosia, with the faintest of ironic smiles, +“that you would call Cornwall, and this part of Cornwall, the right +place for such an one as Countess Fanny.” +</p> + +<p> +“A Roman Catholic?” queried the old man. +</p> + +<p> +“She was,” said Ambrosia, “but seems to have left all that very +lightly. She and Oliver both say she is a Protestant now—yet last +night she was looking for her beads. I don’t know; she has a worldly +way, as if no faith were of any great matter to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well,” remarked the old man, “it’s Oliver’s choice and Oliver’s +life, and, I suppose, from one point of view, a very good thing; your +brother and your husband, my dear Amy, will own all this part of the +country between them. But has this young woman no other friends and no +relations? It seems odd that she should have left Italy and come +straight here. Will she not have a few weeks in Town—perhaps a visit +to Paris—something before she marries Oliver and settles down at +Sellar’s Mead?” +</p> + +<p> +“I put all that to Oliver last night,” said Ambrosia; “and he—well, +you know what Oliver is—he was impatient, and even harsh, at the mere +suggestion. He says that Fanny is to remain with us till they are +married in the spring, and she herself told me (and in a most +unconcerned manner) that she was never either to return to Italy or to +go abroad—nay, that she was not to visit London, but to remain here! +What can one do? As you say, it is Oliver’s business.” +</p> + +<p> +“And so she is beautiful!” mused the old man, putting aside his paper. +“Beautiful, eh? I don’t quite like that. Beauty, you know, my dear, is +something apart—not for every day; especially foreign beauty.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know what you mean,” said Ambrosia; “and she sets it off too much. +She’s fantastic; her clothes are queer: very gay and brightly +coloured. Not quite the garments of a gentlewoman. I do not know how +she escaped observation on the journey—nor how Oliver endured it if +she did not escape.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver is certainly,” replied the Earl, “the last man who should +marry a conspicuous woman. In fact, my dear, I don’t think any man +should marry a conspicuous woman—not Englishmen of our class. We +don’t want beauty: not beauty like that—flashing beauty, as you call +it, of feature and colouring. Yours, my dear Amy,” he added, with a +courtly air, “is the type of beauty that is required in our country +and our position.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia did not deny the compliment. She knew exactly what he meant. +Neither the women of her house nor of his had ever been beautiful in +the way that the Countess Fanny was beautiful. Well bred, yes; +elegant, graceful, pleasing—but not beautiful. And she was quite +aware of his attitude, which was the usual attitude of the English +gentleman. Beauty was something rather to be avoided. It did not +belong to the gracious women who had ruled either at Lefton Park or +Sellar’s Mead. +</p> + +<p> +“She is well behaved,” said Ambrosia, “and it should not be very +difficult to get on with her. But she seems to me so cold. I could not +think of half the pretty speeches I had prepared, and yet she was +always smiling, but in a heartless sort of way. And yet, again, I have +no right to speak—I don’t know; why, she has only been in the house +a few hours. You must see her and judge for yourself, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t she find it dull here?” asked the old man. “They say it’s going +to be a stormy winter, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dull? So I should have thought, but she says she is used to seclusion +and loneliness. Evidently this castle outside Rome was in a very +isolated position, and, according to her account, she saw little +company.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is difficult and trying for you,” said the old man with sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia rose impatiently, and went to the window and stared out at +that grey prospect that smote her heart with a sense of gloom. +</p> + +<p> +“It ought not to be,” she said, “it ought not to be so difficult. It +is my fault entirely. I have allowed my spirits to sink—I do not know +why.” +</p> + +<p> +“Luce ought to be back to-day,” remarked the Earl. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia did not answer, but continued to stare, with fascinated eyes, +at the murky damp of the park and the lake, ruffled by the land wind. +Something was wrong between her and Luce just as definitely as +something was wrong between the Countess Fanny and Oliver. She could +not endure to suppose that they had drifted into this engagement +because they were friends of childhood’s standing, because they saw +each other so frequently, because neither had any rival. And yet this, +perhaps, was the bitter truth at the root of her lowering discontent. +If Luce had seen many other women, he might not have married her! And +if she had been wooed by other men, she might not have chosen Luce! +Ugly to think like this, for it tinged all her most cherished thoughts +with the darkness of disillusion. But she had lain awake nearly all +night, listening to the winds howling in the chimneys and past her +casement, and considering that expression that she had seen on +Oliver’s dark face as he opened the door for Fanny. That was love—or +passion? Which was the right word? She did not know; but in any case +it was a look that she had never seen on Luce’s face, though he had so +often turned to her in earnest affection and sincere admiration. But +that look—never! +</p> + +<p> +At the moment, she had endured a pang of surprisingly fierce jealousy; +but afterwards, under a colder consideration, she had wondered if this +was for good or evil, this fierce love, this violent passion which she +had seen depicted on her brother’s sombre face. Perhaps she and Luce +were better without it. Perhaps she was not the woman to evoke such a +turbulent emotion in the heart of any man, and perhaps Luce was not +the man to be so moved by any woman. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia did not know. She moved in webs and mists of inexperience and +ignorance, but she was troubled and disturbed, and she wished, with a +sudden foolish perversity, that she was not four—nay, nearly +five—years older than her future husband. +</p> + +<p> +The wind rose with a sudden gust that rattled the window-pane. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a merciful providence,” remarked the Earl, “that the lighthouse +has been finished before the winter.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Luce is not satisfied,” mused Ambrosia. “He still wishes to +labour and to contrive for the lighthouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is the question of the gas syren,” said the old man. “You know we +have already fixed one which, in thick or foggy weather, gives three +blasts; but that is not enough for Luce,” he added with a smile: “he +must think of a bronze wolf, which shall be hollow, and give the +signal through its mouth when the gale roars a blast in the metal.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that is fantastic!” smiled Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +“Like the Countess Fanny,” said the Earl. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia turned to the window. Behind her was a large print of +Winstanley Lighthouse of nearly two hundred years ago: a most +elaborate, grotesque, and fanciful building—all manner of projections +and contrivances, and a great flag at one side, and a weathercock in +the form of an iron standard on top, and the inscription “<i>Pax in +Bello</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Luce greatly admired this queer old print; but Ambrosia disliked it, +because it was part of this obsession of Luce in a subject that to her +was alien, and even repellent. Of course there must be lighthouses, +but it was unnatural for a man like Luce to devote his life to one of +them. +</p> + +<p> +The Earl seemed to guess her mind. He sympathised and even agreed with +her attitude towards Luce’s infatuation, but he had also a certain +pride in the lighthouse, which had been first erected by one of his +ancestors. Later, the cumbrous structure had been purchased by Trinity +House, soon after swept away, and re-built; but the position was among +the most exposed in the world, and even the new building had not been +able to withstand the incessant tempests, not only of winter but of +summer, which beat upon the precipitous coast. The Earl had strained +both his influence and his fortune to have the lighthouse of St. Nite +renovated. It had been placed in a new coat of granite three and a +half feet thick, and raised thirty-five feet higher, while an +explosive gas signal with a report every five minutes had been placed +there, as well as a new powerful lantern. +</p> + +<p> +The lighthouse was situated in the most dreadful and dangerous portion +of the coast, and at the end of a long bridge of rock called “The +Leopard,” which was covered, even in fair weather, by three feet of +water. +</p> + +<p> +Under the lighthouse, at the end of a long fissure in the rock, was a +cavern, and when the sea was very high the noise produced by the rush +and roar of pent-up air through this cavern was so great that the +keepers could hardly sleep. Legend said that one man, a newcomer, had +lost his reason when exposed for the first time to this terrific +tumult beneath the lighthouse. Legend and superstition, all in the +extreme dark, portentous and gloomy, clung to the Leopard’s Rock and +the Lighthouse of St. Nite’s, and for this reason the fishers and the +farmers alike regarded it with every feeling of awe and dread, and +Lord Lefton and his son had both thought that, in spending so much +time and money in giving so much heartfelt enthusiasm to the building +and maintenance of the lighthouse, they were not only saving the lives +of possible shipwrecked mariners, but also letting some light into the +darkened minds of the Cornish peasantry, by proving that to them none +but natural dangers haunted the Leopard’s Rock. +</p> + +<p> +The huge lights of the lighthouse illuminated, they hoped, more than +the darkness of the storm, and dispelled something of the blackness of +ignorance and grossness of the superstition, and proved that the +dangerous block of greenstone in the midst of an incessant swirl and +eddy of waters was but a human obstacle that human ingenuity could +overcome, and by no means tinged with any of the horrors of the +supernatural. +</p> + +<p> +The Earl now asked Ambrosia if she intended to go to the lighthouse +while the weather was still comparatively fair and calm; but the girl +replied no, she did not wish to visit St. Nite’s. +</p> + +<p> +“It depresses me,” she said; “it is gloomy and awful.” +</p> + +<p> +“But surely,” said the old man, “there is a certain comfort in the +light and the syrens—a sense of protection and security?” +</p> + +<p> +“To sailors, perhaps,” smiled Ambrosia faintly, “but scarcely to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would your little Italian friend care to go?” asked the Earl. +“Perhaps that would be a little point of interest for her before the +winter comes.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia wondered why he had asked that. +</p> + +<p> +“I should think,” she smiled, “that Fanny would be utterly +uninterested in anything of that kind.” And she added swiftly: “Of +course you must not think <i>I</i> am uninterested—Luce’s enthusiasm +should be enough to inspire one; but it is to me—well, the Leopard’s +Rock, St. Nite’s Head and all that part—I don’t know, but it rather +frightens me.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the winter, yes,” conceded the Earl. “But now, why, it’s grand and +sumptuous! I mean, if possible, to get down there. I should like to +see Luce’s wolf howling out his warnings across the ocean; I think +there is something quite splendid in that idea.” +</p> + +<p> +“But is it practical?” asked Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Luce ever practical?” asked that young man’s father; and Ambrosia +winced, for this judgment sounded to her like a disparagement, and she +could not endure even the slightest, most affectionate, disparagement +of Luce, for she was too near disparaging him herself—disparaging at +least some of his tastes and characteristics. She wanted to hear Luce +exalted and praised. +</p> + +<p> +“When,” she asked restively, “can you contrive to come over, sir, and +see Fanny—or shall I bring her here?” +</p> + +<p> +The Earl replied that he would drive over that afternoon. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch06"> +CHAPTER VI +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">When</span> Ambrosia returned to Sellar’s Mead, she found the Countess +Fanny in the drawing-room with her harp; she seemed very fond of this +most old-fashioned accomplishment, which Ambrosia had heard her mother +speak of as out of date. She wore what was, to the Englishwoman, a +most extraordinary dress of black and white striped silk, with green +ribbon; but it was useless to try to mitigate the fact that she was a +picture of exquisite loveliness, seated there in her fantastic, +flowing garments, at the elegant gilt instrument, which she had +brought, at much trouble and expense to Oliver, from Italy. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing Ambrosia, she took from her pocket a letter, and presented it +to her, saying, with her careless smile, that she had forgotten it +last night. +</p> + +<p> +“It is from Madame de Mailly,” she said. “Poor thing—she will be very +sad and lonely at Calais, and I think it would show very kind in you, +Amy, if you were, after all, to invite her here.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it is Oliver’s house,” replied Ambrosia; “and if he has +quarrelled with this lady, how is it possible for me to invite her?” +</p> + +<p> +Fanny made a little grimace, and fluttered her long fingers across the +harp-strings. +</p> + +<p> +“Must it always be as Oliver says?” she asked lightly. +</p> + +<p> +And Ambrosia replied: +</p> + +<p> +“No; I dare say in time it will be as <i>you</i> say; but, for the moment, +surely it is better not to provoke him? Indeed, my dear Fanny, I do +not see how it is possible for me to invite your friend here, in face +of Oliver’s command to the contrary. Shall I read the letter now?” she +added. “And do you know what is in it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I can guess,” replied the Italian girl, “but I do not quite +know. Yes, read it if you please—and tell me what my friend says!” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia tore the envelope, and took out the sheet of thin, foreign +paper. The letter was in a fine, flowing hand and a finished English. +</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p> +“<span class="sc">Mademoiselle</span>,—<i>No doubt you will think it peculiar that a stranger +should thus address you; but the circumstances, you must admit, are +peculiar also. I refer, of course, to the projected marriage between +my dear pupil and companion, Countess Francesca Sylvestra Caldini, and +your brother, Mr. Oliver Sellar.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“<i>In my judgment—and I do not lack experience and knowledge of the +world—this matrimonial arrangement is of the most foolish possible. +There is a vast disparity in age and a vast disparity in temperament.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I have endeavoured to make of the Countess Francesca an accomplished +lady, but it has been impossible for me to give her, at the age of +eighteen, the worldly wisdom which she would require to judge the +merits and faults of such a man as Mr. Oliver Sellar. She is, in +brief, thoroughly ignorant both of his character, his country, and his +position.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I am aware, of course, mademoiselle, that your brother is of a fine +presence, notable fortune, and of good family; but are these +sufficient to assure the happiness of my dear pupil? For I may add +that her heart is not touched. This you, no doubt, will soon perceive +for yourself. Nor can I disguise from you—indeed, it is the main +purpose of this letter to put it before you—that Mr. Sellar, +obviously smitten by one of those passions which are usually as brief +as they are violent, has importuned my pupil, the Countess Francesca, +into the acceptance of his hand with a persistency and an ardour which +have secured for him the present gratification of his wishes, and, I +fear and dread, a most unhappy future both for himself and the girl on +whom his choice has fallen.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Mademoiselle, it is a random affair, with passion on one side and +indifference on the other; and I must state that I consider that Mr. +Sellar has greatly abused his position by forcing his suit on an +unprotected and unadvised female.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“<i>There was, also, another circumstance which operated greatly in his +favour: the Countess Francesca’s parents had proposed a match between +her and her cousin, the Count Caldini—the present heir of the Italian +estate. This marriage, in every way desirable from a worldly point of +view, was certainly not likely to be agreeable to a lively and +beautiful young girl, for the Count Caldini is not amiable in +appearance, polished in manners, nor robust in health. Mr. Sellar goes +favourably by contrast with this unwelcome pretender, and by every +means in his power—and these were considerable, as we were all +enclosed in the castle together while the affairs of the late Countess +were settled—pressed his advantage.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“<i>The result you know, and, I have no doubt, mademoiselle, are as +dismayed at it as I am myself.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Mr. Sellar has already perverted the Countess from the faith of her +childhood, and separated her from the companion of her youth. After +enduring every possible disagreeableness during a long and tedious +journey, I find myself separated from my pupil—nay, I was almost +going to say my ward—and relegated to the obscurity of a lodging in +Calais.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I send you this letter through the hands of the Countess Francesca, +and I conclude it by entreating you to use every means in your power +to break off a match which I fear will be fatal to both parties +concerned.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“<i>The Countess Francesca Sylvestra Caldini has many friends and +connections on the Continent, any one of whom would be willing to +receive her at a moment’s notice should she decide, after all, to +leave England, which I cannot believe she would find genial to her +disposition.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I therefore, mademoiselle, shall remain for the present at this +address, in the expectation and the hope that you will write to me and +request my companionship and protection for the Countess Francesca, +which will be very willingly and affectionately hers until I can +escort her to the protection and guardianship of her friends.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Mademoiselle, pray take this letter both as a protest and as a +warning; I am, with many compliments,</i> +</p> + +<p class="rt1"> +“<i>Your devoted servant</i>,<br> +“<span class="sc">Hélène de Mailly</span>.” +</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p> +Ambrosia folded the letter up and returned it to its envelope, then +glanced at the Countess Fanny, who remained seated negligently by her +harp, idly plucking at the slackened strings. +</p> + +<p> +“Your friend is not in favour of your marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the Italian girl; “she quarrelled with Oliver, of course. +Oliver quarrelled with everyone in Italy; it is odd, is it not? I +suppose you would call him,” she added with her careless smile, “a +disagreeable man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why are you marrying him?” asked Ambrosia, stung to bluntness. “All +your friend says is quite true: you may read the letter, if you will.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no need for me to read it,” replied the Countess Fanny, “for +she told me herself all that she could possibly tell me on the matter; +used, I dare swear, every conceivable argument.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you remained unmoved?” asked Ambrosia. “Therefore, of course, +there is no need for us to speak about this any more. I shall answer +Madame de Mailly’s letter, and tell her that the whole matter is quite +out of my hands. You are your own mistress, of course. Oliver would +remain quite unmoved by any argument of mine. Madame de Mailly says +her letter is a protest and a warning—perhaps I ought to tell you +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“She told me so herself,” smiled Fanny. “It is a pity, is it not, that +she and Oliver should not have been good friends?” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia was silent. She picked up a painted hand-screen, and through +it gazed at the flickering flames on the hearth. It was all very well +for her so lightly to shake all this responsibility off her shoulders, +but perhaps this foreigner, this stranger, was right in the attitude +she had taken up. Perhaps it was not mere spite and malice, and the +result of her quarrel and disagreement with Oliver. Perhaps she felt a +sense of duty towards the girl, and perhaps, also, she (Ambrosia) +should have the same sense of duty. Could she, this foreign creature +of eighteen, realise what she had undertaken in promising to marry a +man like Oliver and spend all her life at Sellar’s Mead? It was +scarcely possible, and in that case was it not a bare duty of Oliver’s +sister to warn her, to try and set before her to what manner of task +she had put her hand? +</p> + +<p> +And yet, when she stole a covert glance at the Countess Fanny, and saw +her seated there, so negligent, so lovely, so fantastic, she found she +could not speak the words of cold advice and dry warning. There was +something in the vivid personality, in the vivid loveliness, that she +found unapproachable. It was the Italian girl who spoke first: +</p> + +<p> +“I hope it does not rain this afternoon, for I am to go riding again +with Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“You like riding?” asked Ambrosia mechanically. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—and I like this country too. It is so different from Italy, but +grand and stimulating, is it not? These rocks and the loneliness.… I +want, this afternoon, to go right down to the sea. There is a +lighthouse there Oliver says.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” answered Ambrosia. “We are all very interested in the +lighthouse. It has just been renovated—almost rebuilt—and there will +be a great test for it this winter, for everyone predicts great +storms.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have never seen a lighthouse,” replied the Italian girl with +flashing vivacity. “It must be most vastly exciting! May one visit +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” replied Ambrosia. “Lord Lefton was only this morning asking +if you would care to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I should care to go!” cried the Countess Fanny. “I should +like it above all things. It is out on the dangerous rocks, is it not, +with a marvellous view of the sea?” +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt it will please you,” smiled Ambrosia, “if you have never +seen anything of the kind before; but I have grown up with the +lighthouse and I am afraid it rather depresses me.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny laughed, and rose and tripped lightly to the +window, and gazed up at the lowering clouds. +</p> + +<p> +How lovely she was, Ambrosia mused, even in that cold, hostile light. +How delicious and grand and noble the lines of her head and throat, +the sweep of those black ringlets and the poise of those delicate +shoulders! How exquisite and graceful every movement! +</p> + +<p> +“You must find it all very chill and dark and foreboding!” remarked +the Englishwoman thoughtfully. +</p> + +<p> +But the Countess Fanny turned a flashing look over her shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I do not,” she said. “I find it—well, I don’t know—exciting: +that seems the only word. To be out this morning, and feel the wind +and the rain on one’s face, those clouds all hurrying out to sea… and +the rocks… and now, there is the lighthouse, right out there at the +end of the land, battling with the ocean… oh, how could one find it +dull or chill?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is my native place,” said Ambrosia, “but I find it depressing.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you will go away?” smiled the Countess Fanny. “Yes, I can +understand that!” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you will go away too,” Ambrosia could not resist replying. +“You won’t want to spend all your life in Cornwall.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe I think beyond to-morrow,” replied the Italian girl, +gazing again at the sky. “Does anyone? For the moment I am happy here; +I was tired of Italy and the castle, and that sunshine, so hard and so +continuous. Yes; I loved the place, but I was glad to get away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where did Oliver take you this morning?” asked Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +“Round the farms,” replied the Countess Fanny. “All over his estate +and up to Flimwel, which is mine. And that is odd, is it not—looking +at those strange lands and thinking: ‘Why, they are your own; that was +where your mother came from, where she was born.’ ” +</p> + +<p> +“You did not go to Flimwel Grange?” asked Ambrosia. “That has been +shut up so long that I think it must be rather dreary.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, we did not go so far. We saw the entrance gates, and they looked +very worn and rusty. But I must go—I want to go—and I do not think I +shall find it dreary,” she added. “It is my mother’s home, is it not? +I am not quite Italian, you know, but half Cornish. And now I must +write to Madame de Mailly. She will be looking for a letter from me, +and it would be rude in me and unkind, would it not, not to write to +her?” +</p> + +<p> +Speaking rapidly, moving swiftly, and smiling, she left the window and +the room. Ambrosia heard her running lightly upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +Almost immediately Oliver entered, and asked for her. +</p> + +<p> +“She has gone to her room to write a letter, I think,” said Ambrosia. +“I don’t quite know. It is nearly luncheon-time.” And she could not +forbear the thought that she would not be able, with much equanimity, +to endure months of this: Oliver’s constant enquiries after the girl, +if she was out of his sight for a single moment… no, it was too much +to ask of any woman to remain during the storm and gloom of a long +winter, shut up with indifference and passion! A man’s +scarcely-contained violence of emotion; a girl’s ignorance and +negligence and serenity.… +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia hesitated, then handed her brother the letter which she had +been given by the Countess Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you ought to see this,” she said, and hoped that she had kept +all malice from her voice and from her heart. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver took the letter ungraciously. +</p> + +<p> +“Whom is it from?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Madame de Mailly. She dislikes you. Oh, what a pity you had to +quarrel with her, Oliver!” +</p> + +<p> +He replied fiercely, snatching the sheet of paper from the envelope: +</p> + +<p> +“The woman was intolerable. I can’t think what Fanny’s mother was +about to have her! She has been divorced, I believe; in every way +unsuitable—a cynical, flippant, worldly woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“But accomplished, I think,” remarked Ambrosia drily. “And she seems +to have a sense of duty and a certain affection for Fanny.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing of the kind,” retorted Oliver. “She merely wishes to preserve +her own position. She was extremely well paid, and has been most +generously pensioned; but that is not sufficient. She wishes to obtain +a hold on Fanny, to get a footing here; and surely, even you, Amy, can +imagine what that would mean. An intriguing woman who hates me is to +be given a position of authority in my house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, you are right,” agreed Ambrosia sincerely. “It would be +quite impossible for her to come here, and she would never have +forgiven Fanny for leaving her religion. Still, need you have +quarrelled with her, Oliver? It makes it all seem so disagreeable and +harsh.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar did not listen to this. He was reading the letter, his +handsome mouth set bitterly, and his fine face flushed darkly as he +read the polished, acid sentences. +</p> + +<p> +“Presumptuous impertinence!” he cried at length, and, crumpling the +letter up, cast it into the fire. “The woman is false and dangerous, +and I was well advised in dealing with her firmly.” +</p> + +<p> +“One must allow for her affection for Fanny,” said Ambrosia. “I dare +say that it does all seem very—well—peculiar to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“And to you, too, I suppose?” asked Oliver haughtily. “I have no doubt +that you have judged me—aye, and all the neighbours also, Amy.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia stood her ground before his portentous scowl. +</p> + +<p> +“No one thought you would marry again so soon, Oliver,” she said, “and +certainly no one thought that you would marry someone so much younger +than yourself—a foreigner, a stranger. After all, we know nothing +about her at all.” And she could not resist adding: “Neither, I think, +do you. Probably you did not require to know anything about her—it +was sufficient for you to see her.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver turned away with the deepest impatience. Though Ambrosia’s +regard of him was cold, she admitted that he looked, in his +riding-suit, a manly, almost a splendid, figure; and she could believe +that Fanny might behold him in an attractive light. No doubt he had +one manner for his sister and another for the woman whom he was going +to marry, and yet there came into her mind, even at this moment, +directly and poignantly into her mind, that remark made by poor +Amelia: “Amy, I am not happy!” +</p> + +<p> +“When is Lucius coming back?” demanded Oliver. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know—to-morrow perhaps, or the day after. He is really +obsessed with the lighthouse. There is a scheme now for a bronze wolf, +that is to be hollow, and emit howls when the blasts blow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Folly!” cried Oliver. “Folly! Surely enough money has been spent on +that lighthouse! There is a foghorn now.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is more than a lighthouse to Luce,” said Ambrosia. “An ideal, a +symbol.” +</p> + +<p> +“An ideal? A symbol?” cried Oliver in disgust. “I hope, Amy, you will +knock all that nonsense out of Lucius when you are married!” +</p> + +<p> +This was Ambrosia’s own hope, but she detested to hear it voiced in +this harsh and unsympathetic manner. +</p> + +<p> +“You do not understand Lucius,” she replied. “Everyone,” she added +with meaning, “even those who most pride themselves on their strength +of character, are liable to infatuation.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver frowned sullenly. He understood perfectly the meaning of her +allusion. She knew that he was caught in the toils of an infatuation +for Fanny, a more perilous infatuation than one for a lighthouse. He +had not wished Amy to guess this, but it had been impossible to +deceive her, and indeed, what other reason could anyone suppose he had +in marrying this foreign girl? In his sullen pride and petulant +temper, Oliver Sellar had hoped people would believe he was marrying +the girl for her money, because the two estates marched, and Flimwel +would be a very handsome addition to Sellar’s Mead. But evidently he +had betrayed himself—at least to his sister, who was acute enough; +and probably to those three old fools whose company had been forced on +him last night. How tactless and stupid in Amy to ask those tiresome +old people the first night of his arrival—just as it had been +tactless and stupid in Amy to come to the shore with a brougham, not +to send his horse to the ferry; to think that he wished to be shut up +with Spragge and herself in that close carriage! +</p> + +<p> +He would be glad when Amy was married and away from Sellar’s Mead. In +many ways she jarred on him and irritated him. He thought now, with +vexation, that she and that young idiot, Lucius, would be well +matched. Pedantic, pragmatical—both of them! +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia broke in on his reserved and angry reflections. +</p> + +<p> +“Fanny appears interested in the lighthouse,” she remarked. “She says +you are taking her there this afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not to the lighthouse,” replied Oliver sullenly. “Near enough to see +it, I dare say. And of course she is interested, it is a great novelty +to her. She has never seen anything of that kind before. You ought to +be flattered, Amy, that Lucius has at least one admirer.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia ignored this. “Lord Lefton is coming over this afternoon,” +she said, “so do not keep Fanny out late.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord Lefton need not have troubled,” replied Oliver. “If he could not +get to the ferry yesterday, it is odd that he can get here to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“He means it most courteously and kindly,” said Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver replied that he did not think that the old Earl meant it in any +such manner. +</p> + +<p> +“It is just curiosity,” he said hotly. “I suppose everyone, for miles +round, will be coming to pass an opinion on Fanny, just because she is +a foreigner and I am going to marry her.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia knew what lay behind this bitter protest; he was sensitive, +almost ashamed, on this subject. He could not endure that anyone +should nose out the store he set upon the girl. His next words +confirmed the supposition on the part of Ambrosia: +</p> + +<p> +“It is perfectly natural that I should marry Fanny,” he said in a +guarded voice, “seeing how Flimwel and Sellar’s Mead march.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” smiled Ambrosia ironically. “Of course it seems perfectly +natural.” +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch07"> +CHAPTER VII +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">The</span> Countess Fanny had returned, considerably fatigued, from her +long ride. Oliver had gone to the stables, and Ambrosia was occupied +with some domestic affairs. The Italian girl therefore found herself +alone in the drawing-room. She sat down beside the fire without +troubling to change her elegant habit, threw off her hat, and clasped +her hands behind her long curls. She knew that her flowing attire, her +plumes and her veil, were out of fashion and not very suitable for +this country or climate; but she did not care in the least, for she +knew that these slightly fantastic garments were infinitely becoming. +</p> + +<p> +With graceful easiness she nestled into Ambrosia’s cushions and stared +into Ambrosia’s fire. She had not actually approached the lighthouse, +but she had seen it from a distance, and it haunted her imagination +and pervaded her memory. +</p> + +<p> +They had been testing the light; therefore she had been able to see +the red-orange and the blue-white of the lanterns, flashing every +second through the gathering gloom of the late autumn afternoon. She +had been able to hear, also, the faint distant sound of the angry +swirl of the waters across the Leopard’s Rock, where the waves always +boiled and eddied, even on a calm summer day—dashing to and fro on +the hidden ledges of greenstone. +</p> + +<p> +Luxuriously enjoying the warmth and the candlelight and the softness +of the silk behind her head, Francesca Sylvestra Caldini recalled with +pleasure that sombre, gloomy, and stormy scene. She did not find it in +the least depressing, any more than she found the grey landscape +depressing; it was all so new, all so exactly like Oliver Sellar +himself—dark, sullen, petulant, and strange, but exciting also! Oh, +yes—exciting. To feel the light rain on one’s cheeks, to sense the +high winds blowing the clouds above one’s head, the feeling of that +angry scene encompassing one—the jutting rocks; the dull furrows of +the barren fields; the gaunt and bare trees that appeared to have been +swept seawards in some portentous storm, and never to have recovered +their erect defiance of the heavens.… All like Oliver. Yes, it all +reminded her of Oliver, her English lover. So, too, he was dark, and +stormy, and difficult, and grim. Yet she could do what she liked with +him. That was the fascination. She had already learned how to make +that commanding voice stammer with emotion, that stern face flush with +hope and pale with fear, those powerful hands to tremble. She could +already play on Oliver Sellar almost as skilfully as she played upon +her harp; and that was amusing, like the landscape—both strange, +amusing, and diverting. +</p> + +<p> +She stretched and yawned, agreeably sleepy, pleasantly tired. She was +an excellent rider, and had had an excellent mount. It had been a +delicious feeling to trot along those roads beside Oliver, the dark +man in the dark landscape, the wind and the storm overhead and that +impetuous, sullen lover by her side. Francesca Sylvestra Caldini had +enjoyed that ride. And the glimpse of the lighthouse at the end, like +a glimpse of something beyond the usual ken of human eye, almost like +a glance into another world—that brilliant and flashing light, and +then the austerity of the winter evening.… That had been exciting, +stimulating. She would have liked to go nearer, to have seen the +lighthouse at close range, to inspect it, that strange building, out +there on the angry rocks, which, as Oliver had told her, were reported +to be haunted with evil things—the creation, no doubt, of man’s +frightened fancy, but none the less terrible and fascinating for that. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny was superstitious. She believed that the fancies +men created in their minds often left that narrow habitation and +walked the earth; and she would not have cared to go alone to the +Leopard’s Rock either in the twilight of morning or evening, and +scarcely in the full blaze of noon. But she would go there one day +with Oliver, and he would row her out to the lighthouse, and she would +inspect it, and stand beneath that light, and see it revolve, and hear +the harsh, strident screams of the seagulls that he had described, and +see them flutter by that light like moths around a candle; that was +odd and exciting. She smiled to herself, thinking of these great +birds, many of whom, her lover said, measured five feet across, from +wing to wing, beating against that gigantic light, and falling, +wounded or dazed, into the hissing sea. +</p> + +<p> +And then the cavern underneath it, where the wind howled in such a way +that a man had died of fear, and another’s hair had turned white in +twenty-four hours—shut up there alone, with that terrible roar and +boom of the pent-up wind in the long cavern beneath the lighthouse. +She would have heard that. She had a mounting spirit that had early +tired of sun and peace, and she thought now that, with pleasant and +sturdy company, she would have liked to spend the night in the +lighthouse, and behold the ocean spread around her—an unknown and +powerful domain—and hear the waves beating against the greenstone +rock, and listen to the wind threatening in his underground cave—that +would be surely magnificent, a fresh sensation, something different +from those long days, all hazed with golden sunshine, in the castle +outside Rome. Why, even in the winter there had been sunshine, of a +paler, less lucent, quality, perhaps, but still sunshine; and she +could not remember any storm upon the lakes, which had always lain +peaceful beneath a sky more or less vivid; a blue sky always blue, +sometimes a cerulean blue of summer hyacinth, and sometimes a pale +blue of the last speedwell; but always blue, and seldom clouded, and +then only with evanescent clouds, pale and tremulous in quality—not +clouds like these that she had seen this afternoon; and these, Oliver +had declared, were nothing. She must wait till the winter, he had said +grimly, and see then what a tempest on the Cornish coast really +meant.… +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny nestled more closely into the cushions and looked +into the fire, building there, after the manner of youth, many magic +castles, nameless habitations, and immemorial palaces, gilded with a +brighter glory than even the glory of the glowing coals; the glory of +a young and ardent imagination. +</p> + +<p> +The rose-gold of this firelight and of a few lit candles on the +mantelpiece was over her, and cast into shadow the heavy furniture, +and the big, clear water-colours on the walls, and the massive +curtains of stiff damask, and the diminishing mirror by the door, +which was framed in walls of polished mahogany. All these things, and +the Countess Fanny, lounging on the sofa, were in warm light. +</p> + +<p> +She liked the house as much as she liked the landscape, and as she +liked Oliver; and she could not understand why Ambrosia, whose native +place it was, should find it dull or distasteful. “But then,” thought +the Countess Fanny lightly, “poor Amy is not very young or very +pretty,” and, indeed, to an Italian imagination, the stately +Englishwoman was past her first youth, and had never been beautiful. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny was sorry for her, but in a light and careless +fashion; for as yet no deep feelings had been stirred in her young +heart. From Ambrosia her mind travelled to Madame de Mailly, in +Calais; and she was sorry about Madame de Mailly, and wished that +Oliver could have been pleasant to her. When they were married, she +thought, she would see that Madame de Mailly came to stay with them at +Sellar’s Mead, whether Oliver liked it or no. +</p> + +<p> +The door opened, and the Countess Fanny turned her head languidly on +the cushions, smiling her careless and accomplished smile, expecting +to see Ambrosia, with her keys at her waist, emerge through the +shadows; but it was not a woman, but a young man who advanced, and the +Countess Fanny sat up, shaking out her ringlets, which had been +crumpled beneath her cheek. +</p> + +<p> +A young man, a stranger; she rose, with her pretty composure, and +dropped her antiquated curtsey, at which Ambrosia had smiled without +much indulgence. +</p> + +<p> +The young man came into the warm blaze of the candle and firelight. He +seemed utterly surprised and amazed, and the Countess Fanny enjoyed +his surprise and amaze, for she knew that this was his expression of +his homage to her beauty. She had already seen, many times, such a +confusion on the part of those who first beheld her. +</p> + +<p> +She stretched out her hand gracefully, and said, still with that +rather meaningless smile: +</p> + +<p> +“I am Francesca Sylvestra Caldini, and residing here; you, no doubt, +are a visitor for Miss Sellar, or perhaps for Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am Lucius,” he answered, in some confusion. “You have, perhaps, +heard of me.” +</p> + +<p> +Ah, yes, she had heard of Lucius! This was the man who was going to +marry Amy. How much younger than Amy, she thought, picking up the +hand-screen and holding it between her face and the fire. How +different from any man whom she had pictured as likely to be marrying +Amy! +</p> + +<p> +She asked him to sit down, with a charming air of being hostess, and +reclined again among the cushions, and asked him if he would wait +awhile, as neither Amy nor Oliver were, it seemed, at leisure. +</p> + +<p> +He somewhat stiffly took his seat in the large armchair opposite; and +she was rather glad of these uncertain lights and shifting shadows, so +that she could study him, furtively, carefully, and as long as she +wished. It was very interesting to be able to have this keen scrutiny +of poor Amy’s lover; for already the Countess Fanny thought of +Ambrosia as “poor Amy.” +</p> + +<p> +Well, he was good-looking, she decided, but rather peculiar. Of +course, not nearly so good-looking as Oliver, but much, much younger, +and much, much more like an Englishman. Why, Oliver might have been an +Italian—several people thought he was so; or would have thought so, +she reflected with malice, if his manner had been more amiable and his +accent less atrocious. But for darkness, for a vivid look of swarthy +strength, he might have been Italian. This man, no; this man was like +the Englishmen whom she had imagined, the Englishmen of whom her +mother had spoken, and the Englishmen whom she had seen at Dover, in +London, and on the voyage. Yes, he was fair—inclined to be reddish in +his thick locks; smooth-shaven and pale, with a long face and +light-grey eyes. He was very elegantly dressed, with a precision that +Oliver despised. She liked his exquisitely swathed cravat, and his +cameo pin; his riding-suit was surely much more fashionable than the +riding-suit of Oliver, which had seemed to her very rough +indeed—almost like that of a farmer. +</p> + +<p> +Plainly he was embarrassed; plainly he did not know what to talk +about; and why was this? Because, of course, she was beautiful; so +much more beautiful than he could possibly have expected to find her. +He had come prepared to discover a Countess Fanny, a poor little +foreign girl, but he had not been prepared to discover a beauty. So +the girl read him, and she laughed with pleasure, and asked him +gracefully if he had lately seen the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +“I rode there this afternoon with Oliver,” she said. “Perhaps you know +that I am going to marry Oliver, and he is taking me about to see +Cornwall, which is, I suppose,” she added, smiling, “to be my home.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius had become instantly interested at the mention of the +lighthouse, and he answered at once: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Countess Fanny—for I suppose that is what I am to call you——” +</p> + +<p> +In the pause, she said: “Why, you may call me what you please. I +suppose it will be ‘Fanny,’ will it not, if you marry Amy.” +</p> + +<p> +She unconsciously stressed the “if,” but he did not appear to notice +that, nor, indeed, could he very well have given any sign if he had +done so. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems bold to call you ‘Fanny,’ ” he said with a smile, “on this +our first meeting.” +</p> + +<p> +He was still feeling embarrassed and confused, but was making a +gallant attempt to disguise this awkwardness. +</p> + +<p> +“And I am indeed flattered that you are interested in the lighthouse, +for that is very—well—dear to me; almost my own work—mine and my +father’s,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it?” she cried with animation. “That is indeed diverting! I never +heard that, though, now I think of it, Amy did say something—yes, she +said that you were very interested in the lighthouse; but I had +forgotten. Now you must take me there, will you not? One day quite +soon.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius laughed uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you really want to see it?” he asked. “I suppose it is a great +novelty to you; but I have been brought up—well—in sight of the +lighthouse, and for months thinking of nothing else. We get the most +terrible winters here—you would hardly believe, the storms and +tempests last sometimes for weeks together.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” she said, with a kindling voice and glance, “I have heard of +it, and it pleases me very much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pleases you?” he asked curiously. “Coming from Italy and sunshine?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just because of that, perhaps,” smiled the Countess Fanny. “One +wearies of the sun.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose so, but I have been so little abroad,” he said doubtfully. +“My father is a great invalid, and I do not care to leave him for +long. It is to make his apologies that I am here to-day. He should +have come to welcome you to St. Nite’s, but this afternoon he found +himself most unwell; and, as I had just arrived from London, I thought +that I would come instead, and beg you to forgive him.” +</p> + +<p> +At the end of this speech, which the young man made rather stiffly, +the Countess Fanny laughed, and clasped her hands round the long folds +of her riding-habit, which fell across her knees. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, la, la!” she cried. “Make no matter about that. I dare say you +think it very tiresome in me to come here like this, and to be going +to marry Oliver! People don’t like foreigners in England, do they? I +have been told that several times already, and, though I am half +English, I dare say no one remembers that.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius was startled by her plain speaking, as Ambrosia had been +startled, but touched by it in a way that Ambrosia had not been +touched. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely,” he exclaimed, “no one has said anything about not liking +foreigners to you! We are very rough and uncouth here, but not, I +think, as rude as that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, not said it!” she replied lightly, “but one senses it, and I +think it’s amusing.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is very gracious of you,” he replied, “to take it as amusing; but +believe me,” he added, with an earnestness that overcame his +awkwardness, “you must never think that anyone round here, even the +roughest, intends any discourtesy towards you. It would be +impossible.” +</p> + +<p> +She knew what he meant, but pressed him to explain the meaning. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“You know,” he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, she knew: it was because she was beautiful. He had been impressed +with that beauty from the moment he had seen her. The Countess Fanny +was quite aware of that. Impressed just as Oliver Sellar had been +impressed when he had come into that large, grey room at the castle, +hung with rather worn tapestry, where she had sat at her harp and +looked at him across the room. Yes, she had seen Oliver Sellar +impressed and moved as this young man was impressed and moved. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, it was very pleasant and agreeable to be so lovely, and see so +often the reflection of that loveliness in the eyes of men! But this +was Amy’s lover—she must remember that; and she stretched herself and +yawned, pitying Amy, pitying the young man. +</p> + +<p> +He had risen, and stood by the mantelshelf, and she looked at him +under her lids, and observed his beauty and his strength. He was not +so massive as Oliver, but oh, much more graceful, she thought, with a +far finer air of breeding. +</p> + +<p> +“It is odd that you should be interested in the lighthouse,” he said, +with an accent of excitement, “for I am afraid that Amy begins to be +quite bored with it. I dare say I talk of it a great deal too much, +but to me it is entirely fascinating—even absorbing. I have a scheme +now for a fog-signal—a large bronze wolf or leopard—perhaps it +should be leopard, as it is the Leopard’s Rock—through which the +winds will howl and give a warning when a gale blows.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny clapped her long hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, that is splendid!” she cried in deep delight. “I should like +above all things to hear your wolf howling through the storm!” +</p> + +<p> +“That is what father says,” smiled Luce, “but I do not know yet +whether it is practical. I have been to London to see engineers about +it, and they have made trouble, and nothing yet has been really +decided.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it is decided,” asked Fanny swiftly, “that you take me over the +lighthouse? And you must do that soon, before the bad weather comes, +for everyone is predicting great storms.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I will take you over the lighthouse,” he answered +instantly. “Of course I will take you anywhere you wish.” But then he +seemed to reconsider his words, and, with a slight change in manner, +added: “But Oliver will wish to take you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver,” smiled the Countess Fanny, “is not, I think, so interested +in the lighthouse as you are. We came in sight of it to-day, as we +were riding, and he was dry and brief about it, and seemed to think it +is no matter for a woman’s enthusiasm.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nevertheless,” replied Lucius quietly, “when he hears that you wish +to go, he will wish to take you. Perhaps I may come too, and point you +out one or two curiosities in the structure.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must come too,” she answered, “for I can see that the lighthouse +means a great deal to you, and nothing at all to Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now how did you know that?” he asked curiously. +</p> + +<p> +She smiled, and shook back her ringlets. Of course she knew it, in the +same way that she knew she looked entrancing by candlelight. +Intuition, Madame de Mailly had called it—a woman’s intuition; a +useful quality, and one that served very well to baffle the men. She +had maddened Oliver with it often enough before now. +</p> + +<p> +He did not press her for a reply; he seemed to read that in her smile +and her glance. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia entered the room. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch08"> +CHAPTER VIII +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">The</span> year darkened down to implacable gloom and rising storm; day +after day of sombre weather set in. The winds, menacing during the +day, rose to gales during the night. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Lefton was not able to leave his room and pay his promised visit +to Sellar’s Mead, although his curiosity to see the Countess Fanny was +extreme. Nor could he satisfy himself from his son’s account: Lucius +had very little to say of the Italian girl, and no opinion to express +as to the desirability or the reverse of her marriage with Oliver +Sellar. Even when the Earl asked, “Is she really as beautiful as Amy +declares?” Lucius had no definite reply to give. +</p> + +<p> +“She will be married in the summer,” he remarked once shortly, “nay, +in the spring, I believe, and Amy and I shall be abroad; there is no +occasion for us to concern ourselves with her very much.” And he +appeared absorbed in his lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar himself waited on the old Earl, but not from him, +either, could Lord Lefton obtain any satisfaction. Oliver was taciturn +and sombre, and only referred briefly and replied drily on the subject +of the Countess Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +“I hear she is very beautiful,” said the old man courteously; and +Oliver at once and harshly demanded: “Who told you that, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Amy,” replied Lord Lefton. “Amy, perhaps, would say that out of +kindness, but I believe she meant it. You should not resent it, +surely?” +</p> + +<p> +But Oliver did not wish to have the Countess Fanny’s beauty stressed, +it seemed. +</p> + +<p> +“She is well enough,” he admitted shortly; “a common Italian type, +sir—dark and slender; yes, a pretty young girl, you might say; and I, +of course, am very devoted to her. But you must admit that it was a +great inducement that the two estates marched. I have rented the land +for years now, and it will be very gratifying to know that they are my +own.” +</p> + +<p> +This was meant to deceive the old Earl, and to an extent did so. He +questioned Lucius as to the position when Oliver had gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it really for the land or for the girl?” he asked. “I mean, is he +honestly in love with her, or is it merely a <i>mariage de convenance</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius replied abruptly that he did not know. It was all a sealed +matter to him, he declared, nor was Amy any wiser. +</p> + +<p> +“The girl seems happy, light, and even excited.” +</p> + +<p> +“A rattle and a coquette, I suppose?” smiled the old man. “Well, well, +I should think if she survives this winter she can survive a lifetime! +Shut up here with the storms, with Oliver——” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s Amy,” said Lucius quickly. “Amy is always there, you know, +and a houseful of servants. She has brought her own maid with her.” +</p> + +<p> +Lord Lefton thought these remarks very curious. He did not wish to +probe into the inner meaning of them. And that afternoon he had a +chance of judging the Countess Fanny for himself, for she rode over +from Sellar’s Mead, buoyant, with her accomplished smile and her +careless air, and trailed, in her fantastic riding-habit, straight +into the old man’s closet, where he was busy with his shells, washing +them, indexing them, examining them through a microscope. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir,” she cried as she entered, “you would not come to see me, +and so perforce I am come to see you. I have heard a great deal about +you, and surely it is time that we should make a certain +acquaintance.” +</p> + +<p> +She watched him to see in his old face the effect produced by her +beauty, just as she had watched Oliver Sellar, and, later, Lucius +Foxe. +</p> + +<p> +Her effect, now as then, was unfailing. She saw the admiration, the +kindness, and the goodwill at once in the fine old countenance before +her. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I had no idea,” he said, rising with difficulty from his +invalid’s chair, “really no idea! Well, well, my dear, why didn’t they +tell me that you were a beauty—a great beauty? And yet,” he said, +taking her hand and patting it, as she smiled delightedly up at him, +“now I come to think of it, Amy did tell me, but somehow I didn’t +quite realise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I think that very kind of you!” said the Countess Fanny. “Really +charming and delightful of you, Lord Lefton—a pretty compliment; and +I love compliments!” +</p> + +<p> +“But you didn’t come here to get compliments, eh? But to give pleasure +to an old man.” +</p> + +<p> +“To make your acquaintance,” said the Countess Fanny, dropping her +little, old-fashioned curtsey. “Indeed, sir, I could not any longer +stay away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not bored, are you?” he enquired, with a trace of anxiety in his +voice. “You don’t find it dull at Sellar’s Mead?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dull! Oh, no, not in the least dull! I like it—the greyness and the +dark, the grandeur and the storms!” +</p> + +<p> +Lord Lefton laughed at these peculiar expressions. +</p> + +<p> +“Then perhaps you will enjoy our long, severe winter, eh, my dear? I +am afraid there are a great many storms and tempests in store for us +before the spring.” +</p> + +<p> +She seated herself beside him, and picked the shells up in her +delicate fingers, and laid them in her delicate palm, and looked at +them with a warm admiration and a fastidious appreciation that +delighted Lord Lefton. +</p> + +<p> +“You collect these? Oh, that is charming! What a delicious occupation! +And you wash them—do you?—in that bowl of crystal-clear water! You +see the sand fall to the bottom, and the colours brighten into lustre, +that is indeed diverting!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think so?” he asked, enthralled. +</p> + +<p> +But now her attention was distracted by something else. She placed the +shells carefully back on their trays, and darted round the room, and +stopped before the fantastic drawing of Winstanley Lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +“That is a very old print,” the Earl informed her, “and one of our +earliest lighthouses, built by a very brave man; though he had, as you +perceive, a fanciful turn. But it was blown down in a storm. In those +days engineering was very crude. We have a lighthouse here, I dare say +you have seen it in the distance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have seen it,” replied the Countess Fanny, still looking at +the fanciful print; “but I have not been over it, though I want very +much to do so; and presently it will be too stormy.” +</p> + +<p> +“But surely,” exclaimed the old man, “Lucius would take you any time, +and with the deepest of interest and pleasure! Why, Lucius is absorbed +in the lighthouse—spends hours there every day!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Lucius!” replied the Countess Fanny serenely. “But Oliver does +not wish me greatly to go. He, you must know, sir, does <i>not</i> spend +hours every day at the lighthouse, nor is he greatly concerned with +it.” +</p> + +<p> +The old Earl smiled at this plain speaking. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver must not be selfish,” he remarked. “He must indulge you; it is +something that you consent to remain here all this winter, and do not +wish to go to London, or to Paris. You have, of course, friends in +both places?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have friends and connections and relations,” replied the +Countess Fanny, turning, with her back to the print, and elegantly +gathering up the riding-habit with her left hand. “Yes, dear sir, I +have all these, and I have a dear companion—a certain Madame de +Mailly,” she added with a smile, “who is even now waiting for me at +Calais, in case I should change my mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Change your mind about what, my dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“About marrying Oliver, and staying in England, of course,” said the +Countess Fanny, with her careless smile. “Madame de Mailly thinks that +I cannot long endure such seclusion, and such limited company; and you +must know, sir, that she detests Oliver, and has violently quarrelled +with him. So far, my mind remains fixed; I desire to stay in Cornwall, +and to marry Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver,” smiled the old man, “should be very flattered, and reward +your complaisance and your preference, my dear, by making everything +as comfortable and as pleasant for you as possible. I think he should +take you to London; here there is no society, and indeed but little +comfort. I, as you may see, am old and sick, and there remains +only——” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucius,” smiled the Countess Fanny; and the name fell oddly into the +room between them, like something definite; and the Earl was silent, +and put his thin, wrinkled fingers to his mouth, and looked down on +the floor. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, there was Lucius—Lucius, more or less her age, and so much +younger than Amy. Why had she said the name just like that? She must +be very coquettish or very innocent. The Earl could not decide which.… +</p> + +<p> +“Lucius,” continued the Italian girl in the same light tone, that was +yet so polished and controlled, “is much more agreeable than Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen much of him?” asked Lord Lefton cautiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no! Very little. I have only been here about ten days, and, of +course, when he comes to Sellar’s Mead, he is with Amy; and I must be +with Oliver.… Why, I scarcely have a word with him, or I should have +pressed him to show me the lighthouse, but perhaps, dear sir, you will +do that on my behalf.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that what you came here for?” smiled the old Earl. +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed—I came to make your acquaintance,” she replied, with an +earnestness that he sincerely believed to be purely candid. “I wished +to see if you were like Lucius; and so you are! I wished to see the +house that Lucius lived in, and it’s just like the house I thought it +would be! Not quite so large as my castle, you know, but something the +same—so many large rooms, and gloomy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is gloomy,” said the old Earl with a smile. “I can’t do what +I would like to with the place, my dear. It is built for a large +family and a large staff of servants, and I have neither.” +</p> + +<p> +“But perhaps,” she replied, “Lucius and Amy will have both.” +</p> + +<p> +“They won’t have very much money, my dear,” he answered. “Amy is +scarcely an heiress, and poor Lucius will not have a very rich +inheritance; but I dare say they will do well enough, and probably +make it a great deal more cheerful than I am able to do. Do you like +Sellar’s Mead?” he added abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes; I like it very well, and everyone makes me very comfortable +there; but best of all I like to ride out. These dark days, these +sombre skies, the storms, you know—it fascinates me. I should like,” +she added impetuously, clasping her hands, “to be in the lighthouse +during a storm.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, that is a dreadful experience which will turn some men’s wits; +you must not wish for anything as awful as that, my dear!” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I suppose,” she replied with a light sigh, “I shall always be +safe and guarded! There will always be Oliver there to see that +everything runs smoothly. And I should consider myself very +fortunate—should I not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Is Oliver calling for you now?” asked the old Earl. “You surely are +not riding back alone?” For the light was already beginning to fail, +and he looked anxiously at the darkening squares of sky and landscape +beyond the tall window. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Oliver does not know I am here; neither does Amy. I went away +while both were occupied. Oliver spends a great deal of time with his +agent and on the estate; the farm, he says, has been neglected while +he has been away. And Amy has the house: it is astonishing what she +finds to do in the house. At the castle we did hardly anything at +all—and all seemed to go well enough!” +</p> + +<p> +“Amy is a prudent and a thrifty housewife,” said the Earl. He smiled +as he added, “I dare say you have not much concern in these matters +yet?” And he looked at her curiously, for he knew the exacting and +precise tastes of Oliver, and how these had always been tended—tended +and pampered—first by his mother and then by Amy, and then by an +excellent staff of servants, who were quite likely not to remain when +the Countess Fanny was their mistress. How would Oliver’s love—or +Oliver’s self-interest, or whatever it was that was inducing him to +marry this girl—stand the strain of her carelessness and her +incapacity in household matters? For the Earl did not doubt that she +was both indifferent and incapable in those directions; and, now that +he had seen her, he thought with compassion of her future, and, with a +certain indignation, of Oliver. Why, the man was old enough to be her +father—as the catch-phrase went. He had really no right to have +snatched her away like this from her own home and people! He was +convinced that her heart was untouched where Oliver was concerned. +Yes, after these few moments’ conversation, the old man, though not so +very wise nor so greatly experienced, was assured in his own heart +that the girl before him was not in love with any man, nor greatly +moved by Oliver Sellar. It was an odd, a rather uncomfortable, +situation. +</p> + +<p> +He felt concerned for the girl, for her beauty had moved him +profoundly; whereas to Amy it had been an obstacle to an understanding +and a mutual kindness, to the old Earl it was no such thing, but a +bond and an incentive to friendship. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius came into the room, with a roll of drawings on blue paper in +his hand. +</p> + +<p> +The girl said at once: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, will you ride home with me? It is getting late and dark, and I do +not care for the roads without company—especially when it’s +twilight.” +</p> + +<p> +The old Earl answered for his son, who did not instantly reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he will go with you, my dear. Of course. And tell them all +how kind you have been, in coming to see an old man; and I hope you +will come again, and quite soon—and earlier in the day, so that you +can stay longer. I dare say that there are still some things here that +you would care to see.” +</p> + +<p> +For answer she stooped, with the prettiest of foreign gestures, and +lifted the veined old hand and kissed it. +</p> + +<p> +“I am so glad that I have come!” she said, with a simplicity that was +in contrast to her usual slight affectation. “It has been very +pleasant to know you; I thought you were nice, but you are even nicer +than I had thought. Is not that the right way to put it in English? +But ‘nice’ always seems to me a silly word.” +</p> + +<p> +The old Earl laughed, and affectionately stroked the lovely hand that +was laid on his. +</p> + +<p> +“But now you must go at once, my dear, because I don’t want you either +distressed by rain or frightened by the wind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Frightened!” she said, with a little lift in her voice. “But I like +the wind, and I came on purpose!” +</p> + +<p> +“But you don’t want to ride home alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” she said. “I thought that Lucius would see me home.” And the +old man remarked how strange it was to hear his son’s name on this +stranger’s lips. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius had not spoken yet. He had set his roll of plans carefully down +beside the cases of shells, and now the Countess Fanny perceived them, +and took them up. +</p> + +<p> +“Are these to do with the lighthouse?” she asked eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he answered, with a slight stiffness; “but you must not look at +them now. It is late, and we must go at once; and, in any case, I fear +that you would not understand them.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him directly. +</p> + +<p> +“You have not taken me to see the lighthouse,” she said; and Lord +Lefton interposed: +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you must take her to see the lighthouse, Lucius. You ought +to be delighted that she is interested. I believe you bore most +people, but Fanny is kind enough to say that she really wants to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I want to go—on a stormy day, if possible.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius laughed uneasily, and said he feared that was not possible, but +that on the first possible occasion they should go—the four of them; +she, and of course Oliver, and he, and of course Amy. And the Countess +Fanny said, with the slightest intonation of malice: +</p> + +<p> +“Of <i>course</i> Amy, and of <i>course</i> Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +They were mounted, and riding through the park. The wind was rising +with steady and mournful force, lifting the boughs of the bent trees +and spreading them out like stiff tresses against the grey of the +twilight. The lake was full of shadows, and appeared fathomless, and +as soon as they had passed the house was blotted into one massive dark +shape. +</p> + +<p> +“It will be a wild night,” remarked Lucius; and the Countess Fanny +asked: +</p> + +<p> +“How much more daylight have we?” +</p> + +<p> +He was startled by this, and asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean now?” +</p> + +<p> +And she replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—now!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I think the light will hold for another hour—perhaps an hour +and a half. It gets dusk like this, you know, but not immediately +dark. Why do you ask? There is, in any case, plenty of time to reach +Sellar’s Mead.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was not thinking of that,” she answered at once; “I wish to go +somewhere before we go home, and I was wondering if there was time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where do you want to go?” he asked curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“The churchyard,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“The churchyard?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; you see, all my mother’s people are buried there, and I would +like to go. I have not been yet. I asked Oliver, but he said it was a +dreary pilgrimage. I have not been to Flimwel Grange, either, perhaps +you will take me there one day, if Oliver will not.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius did not answer, and the girl added: +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you think all this queer, and yet, I hoped that you would +not be so ready to think me queer.” +</p> + +<p> +He replied at once and impetuously: +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I don’t think you queer. I don’t think anything queer, +really; we will certainly go to the churchyard, if you wish—it is not +far out of the way, and is a reasonable request. Why not? After all, +even if it gets dark,” he added, as if arguing with himself, “we can +get lanterns in the village, the church is quite close to the +village.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know—I have seen it, I have been past, but I want to stop, and +dismount, and go into the churchyard, and find those monuments of the +Flimwels, my mother’s people. Please take me,” she added on an +imperious note, “and don’t question me. That is why I asked +you—because I thought you would take me immediately, and not question +me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will certainly do so,” said Lucius gravely; and they did not speak +again until they had reached the village, which lay, cosily enough, +nestled into the hollows of the precipitous rocks and hills, in a cove +which stretched down to the shore, six or more miles from St. Nite’s +Head and the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +“We could leave the horses at the vicarage,” suggested the Countess +Fanny; but Lucius said no, it was not necessary to rouse Mr. Spragge, +who might be curious as to their visit, and even offer them his +company as guide. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not want that above all things,” she answered impatiently. “I +want to go alone—that is, with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean that you would really like to be alone?” said Lucius, +“for I can wait at the gate; and yet, how are you to find your way?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not mean I wished to go entirely alone, but with you,” she +replied. +</p> + +<p> +They dismounted at the lych-gate, and Lucius took the two horses to +the blacksmith’s house, that was not far from the church, and then +returned to her to where she waited in the blackness of the porch. +Lights were already showing in the low windows under the deep thatches +of the cottages in the village street; the steady, livid gloom of the +heavens increased. Against this rose the squat, dense greyness of the +church, and near it the blackness of an enormous yew, which spread its +impenetrable shadows over the huddled gravestones. A wind swept round +the tower, and smote them as they left the shadow and shelter of the +gate. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but it’s cold!” cried the Countess Fanny, laughing. “And I like +it, you know—the wind and the cold and the dark!” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius did not answer; he led the way down the long brick path between +the bleak, sodden, damp grass that grew in patches round the +headstones. He had brought a storm-lantern with him, and he stopped +and lit this when they reached the church porch. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch09"> +CHAPTER IX +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">They</span> entered the church, where they could scarcely have found their +way about had it not been for the light of the lantern that Luce +carried. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid,” he said, “that it will be, after all, too dark to see +anything, and we had best be turning towards Sellar’s Mead, lest we be +benighted on the road.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny said she wished to stay, and remarked how beautiful +the beams of the lantern were—like the long, regular rays of a +star—playing upon the pillars, the funeral hatchments that hung +thereon, and the mural tablets beyond, just picked out, gleaming with +a black or white lustre of marble in the almost complete darkness of +the long aisle. +</p> + +<p> +“But you will not be able to see anything,” remarked Lucius; and he +held the lantern a little higher, so that he, at least, could see +something; and that was the face of the Countess Fanny, which seemed +to have a peculiar and glowing radiance in this funereal darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“How odd,” he thought uneasily, “that she should wish to stay here now +at an hour so sombre and in a place so gloomy, alone with a stranger. +And more peculiar yet that she should not appear in the least +distressed by this experience, but elated—almost joyful.” +</p> + +<p> +He asked her if she had been here before; he had noted that she had +not attended last Sunday’s service, and he had thought, at the time, +that this must have been a matter of some vexation to Oliver Sellar, +and even to Amy. It was rather conspicuous for them to come to church +without their very notable guest, who was to be of such importance in +the social life of St. Nite’s.… +</p> + +<p> +“No, I have never been here before,” replied the Italian girl; and +then she, also, referred to last Sunday. “I would not come to the +service, you know; I knew how I should be stared at, and that is +rather disagreeable, is it not? I do not think that anyone really +approves me—they think that I am peculiar. Miss Drayton almost said +so, and so did the vicar’s wife. They asked me if I were going to +continue to wear these foreign clothes, and they did not say it very +kindly; although I think they were trying hard to be kind all the +time.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure,” replied the young man warmly, “that nothing in the way of +unkindness could have been meant; but, of course, no one here has ever +seen anything like you.” (“Nor I either,” he added to himself, +“neither in London nor in Paris.”) +</p> + +<p> +It was not peculiar that she startled a Cornish village, when she +would have been remarked in the finest society of any capital. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver should take you away,” he added uneasily. “You will find it +very dull here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Everyone says that,” smiled the Countess Fanny, “but indeed I do not +find it dull at all.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment she had no air of finding anything dull. She seemed to +illuminate even this lugubrious and dreary building. She showed, in +those long, dim lantern rays, with all the poise and grace and vivid +loveliness of a spring-time flower against the dark lines of the +pillar and the darker lozenges of the funeral hatchments. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are the Flimwel graves?” she asked, as lightly as if she spoke +of some pleasing and commonplace object. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius Foxe winced from this careless expression, which seemed to show +him how little she understood of anything. Even he, not so much older +than she was in years, was startled, almost repelled, by such a light +and indifferent attitude to life and death; an attitude even more +careless than that of a child who is unfrightened by the dark, and +tales of ghosts and goblins. +</p> + +<p> +But the Countess Fanny seemed impervious to any such fanciful or +mysterious terrors. She moved with her light, buoyant step down the +gloomy aisle, and Lucius Foxe followed her, holding the lantern. +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at the mural tablets, the urns and draperies, the skulls +and crossbones, the weeping figures, the long Latin inscriptions; +sometimes she paused, and with a fine finger traced the half-effaced +letters, striving to discover the name of Flimwel. +</p> + +<p> +It was there often enough, and he must pause and hold the lantern up, +that she could read the lists of the pieties, charities, and virtues +of her ancestors pompously engraved on tablet and scroll; and his name +was there also—frequently enough, too—and she must read that out +aloud, again and again, half laughing: “ ‘Lucius Foxe,’ ‘Lucius Foxe’; +how many of them, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“This is a sad place,” replied the young man, “and I seldom come +here—and never with pleasure!” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny replied that she did not think it sad at all. +</p> + +<p> +“We all of us must die,” she remarked, with her brilliant smile, “and +why should we fear to contemplate death?” +</p> + +<p> +“But these”—he was surprised into a familiar and intimate form of +address—“but these are curious sentiments for so young a woman!” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been well educated,” said the Countess Fanny. “Madame de +Mailly taught me many things that young women do not usually know.” +</p> + +<p> +She had reached the altar now, and stood there curious, glancing up +and down the steps—at the tablets with the Commandments, the +alabaster statue of the knight in armour who knelt here in perpetual +adoration, the altar itself, which cast now a feeble glimmer from the +gold metal and candlesticks thereon. Hot-house flowers from Lefton +Park drooped in the chill, bleak air. Their whiteness had a ghastly +and a deathlike look. +</p> + +<p> +“So this is a Protestant church,” mused the girl; “and I am a +Protestant now. When we stopped in Paris, Oliver insisted on that. I +went to the Protestant church there, at the Embassy, you know. It was +all odd, and Madame de Mailly was very angry indeed. But what does it +matter? Madame de Mailly herself always taught me that one should +never be a bigot.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man endeavoured to rouse himself from a state of drowsy +fascination; the scene and the girl seemed alike unreal. Never before +had he been in the church at such an hour, alone with such a +companion. He had always been sensitive to the thought of death, which +thought was associated very intimately in this peculiar spot—in this +church where all his ancestors lay beneath his feet when he came there +to a service. +</p> + +<p> +He had, in his extreme youth, often been assailed by terrible visions +of what lay beneath those smooth stones: mouldering coffins, decaying +skeletons—all the hideous panoply of decay; and it was astonishing to +him to behold this foreign girl, a stranger, so unaffected by an +atmosphere which to him had always been full of dread and gloom. So +serene was she, so flashing with life, that she seemed to the young +man like a symbol of resurrection herself—a flower, a lily-bell, +growing from a grave. Standing on the altar steps, and glancing round +at the half-hidden memorials of the past, she said: +</p> + +<p> +“Is it not strange to think that, with them, it is all over, and with +us, scarcely begun?” +</p> + +<p> +“That thought does not depress you?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she replied. “Madame de Mailly used to say that if one permitted +oneself to be depressed by the thought of death, who could ever be +joyful? These people all had their day; and now it is your turn and +mine.” She must unintentionally have coupled their names, yet the fact +that she had done so gave the young man a curious pang, a deep thrill. +He moved away from the altar steps, and the withdrawal of the lantern +left her in darkness; and from that darkness he heard her voice: +</p> + +<p> +“So little time for any of us—eh, Lucius? Such a small life!” +</p> + +<p> +“But we can plan it,” he answered uneasily. “We can plan our lives so +as to make the best of them.” +</p> + +<p> +“But we cannot,” she said, descending from the altar steps and coming +beside him. “We cannot plan our love.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him without embarrassment, and added almost immediately: +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me about the lighthouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“The lighthouse?” repeated Lucius stupidly. “This is hardly the place +in which to talk about the lighthouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I want to hear; and what time do we ever get alone?” she +answered. “There was a promise that you should take me to the +lighthouse, but with every day the weather’s more stormy. Don’t you +want to take me there?” +</p> + +<p> +He parried that, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Why are you so fascinated with the lighthouse?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why are you?” she countered. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, with me it is different! My family first built that +lighthouse—quite a long time ago. It was theirs, you know; and they +made a great deal of money out of it, with dues and tolls: and that +seemed wrong to me—almost like blood money. Well, that was before my +time, then the place was bought by Trinity House. It is one of the +wildest and most lonely in the kingdom, you know, once it had been +swept away.” He began to talk with some animation, forgetting the +place in which he stood. “There is nothing, I think,” he continued, +“like the ocean, nothing quite so grand and mysterious. I have felt a +different man when I have been out on the rocks or in the lighthouse; +and what more sublime symbol could anyone wish than that light, held +aloft through the storm, giving protection and safety? I am interested +in engineering also,” he continued hurriedly, as if making an +explanation which must be made. “I should like to build bridges, and +palaces—yes, and hospitals also, great buildings of all kinds, but I +have had very little training, and my schemes are not at all +practicable.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl did not answer, and Lucius Foxe concluded hastily: +</p> + +<p> +“But, of course, you cannot be interested in all this—to you the +lighthouse is just a curiosity.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said, “no! Why will you not take me there?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will take you there if you wish,” replied the young man uneasily. +“We must ask Oliver about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver!” said the Countess Fanny. “Is Oliver to be the master in +everything?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” answered Lucius Foxe, “that so you have decided, since +you are to marry him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can make him do as I wish,” replied the girl with animation. +</p> + +<p> +“Then make him bring you to the lighthouse,” said Lucius, and added +immediately: “It is getting very cold here, we’d better return.” +</p> + +<p> +She followed him slowly down the aisle between the high pews and the +higher pillars, and the funeral hatchments and the mural tablets, all +emblazoned with the arms and names of the dead. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think there will be any great storms this winter?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Everyone says as much,” he replied. “There is hardly a winter here +when there are not storms. Two oceans meet round this point, and it is +most exposed to winds.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to be in a storm!” said the Countess Fanny. “All my life, you +know, I have lived in the sun, and peacefulness.” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t care for it,” he smiled. “Oliver ought to take you to +London: you have friends there, of course?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes—and in Paris, too; but I wish to remain here.” +</p> + +<p> +They had left the church, and come out into the little porch, which +darkened over them. The last bleak, lurid light of day glimmered on +innumerable white headstones and stone vases, swathed with stone +drapery, on the railings round ponderous altar tombs, and on the +immemorial blackness of the mighty yew, which blotted out in its +shadow yet more glimmering graves. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” said the Countess Fanny, “that they will bury me here. I +shall be ‘Fanny Sellar’—a name on one of these stones.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do not say that,” cried the young man at once; “don’t talk of such a +thing!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not—did you think I was immortal?” +</p> + +<p> +And he replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Just now, it seemed to me you were! At least, I cannot think of you +and death in the same breath.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I shall be old,” she answered, “and not pretty any more; and then +no one will regret me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you would not stay here!” he murmured. “I really cannot endure +for you to stay here!” +</p> + +<p> +“Amy,” she reminded him, “has been here all her life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Amy belongs to the place,” he answered. “She is part of St. Nite’s. +But you come from another country—almost from another world, I +think.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny serenely accepted this extravagant speech: +</p> + +<p> +“I believe I do!” she said. “But Amy—yes, of course, you are taking +Amy away, are you not, in the spring? And I am staying behind.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not answer, but preceded her down the brick path, lighting her +way by that raised lantern. The long beams picked out tombs, one tomb +after another, during their progress. He observed the names, the +dates, the bleak harshness of the grey stone. The wind met them, and +fluttered her long ringlets and the plume in her hat. He heard her +laugh excitedly in the gathering twilight, which to him was so full of +menace and even spite. +</p> + +<p> +“It is too dark for us to ride home,” he said, in rising agitation. +“You must go and stay with the Spragges, while I send for a carriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to ride home through the dark,” said the Countess +Fanny, pausing at the lych-gate. +</p> + +<p> +The little yellow crude lights of the village gleamed, scattered +beneath them; the village street wound down to the cove. Above them, +light vaporous clouds whirled to a stormy confusion, and as they +paused, looking upwards both together, by a common impulse, these +clouds were torn apart, and in the rift appeared the crescent of the +new moon, icy cold and unutterably far away. +</p> + +<p> +“A gate,” murmured the Countess Fanny; “we are standing in a gate—at +the entrance to something—and holding a lantern. True, is it not?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very fanciful,” replied the young man uneasily; and then, +after both looking at the moon together, they looked at each other in +that dim, uncertain and treacherous light, just touched with colour by +the edges of the lantern beams which shone from a down-hung hand. His +life had always been very quiet and monotonous; neither at home, at +school, nor at college had he made many friends nor attracted much +attention towards himself; and, even when he had gone abroad, it had +been in a modest manner, for he was neither much impressed nor much +impressed anyone else. Everything about him had always been ordinary; +he had been restricted by the lack of means suitable to his position, +and by a lack of energy and vigour in his own character: content with +Lefton Park of his ancestor; content with attendance on a sick father, +and dutiful visits to dutiful relatives; content with his dreams, +clustering round the lighthouse, his fancies and caprices and whims, +gathering round the lighthouse; content to drift into that engagement +to Ambrosia Sellar. +</p> + +<p> +As he lingered here now, gazing at the dark foreign girl, whose +brilliant face was so near to his own, all these reflections rushed on +him, bringing with them an amazing sense of his own futility, his own +stupidity. He felt as if he had hitherto lived in a dream or trance, +and that the awakening was painful unto agony. +</p> + +<p> +The girl watched his clear grey eyes falter under the reddish brows, +and a faint colour stain that long, smooth, pale face, so precisely +set off by the exact folds of the white neckband. +</p> + +<p> +“How the wind is rising!” she cried joyously. “It is rising high, high +above the clouds. Look—it seems as if it would sweep even the moon +out of place.” +</p> + +<p> +As if he were painfully endeavouring to break a spell, the young man +withdrew his fascinated regard from her. +</p> + +<p> +“We cannot ride back now,” he said; “it would be too dangerous.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the danger is all!” she answered. “What is anything if there is +not a risk to it? Why, we are risking all in even being alive!” +</p> + +<p> +This was a new philosophy to Lucius Foxe. He had always been taught, +and had always accepted, the doctrines of prudence and safety. He had +always believed, as he had told the Countess Fanny, just now in the +church, that a man can plan his life; and she had countered with the +remark, “We cannot plan our love.” His blood had stirred to that, as +it stirred now to her speech of risk and danger. It might be that she +was right, and he a sluggish fool, with his conventions and +prejudices, with his prudence and foresight, with his acceptance of +the easiest and most immediate path. +</p> + +<p> +“But I cannot risk your safety,” he smiled, with an effort to cover +his own roused emotion, “by taking you home now through the darkness +and the wind, the road is not too good, and we might easily have an +accident.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you always so cautious?” she flashed. “I should not have thought +it, you know! Cautious and young—that is not admirable in you.” +</p> + +<p> +“They will be wondering what has become of you,” murmured Lucius. +“See, the blacksmith is at his door, with the horses: he also is +surprised that we have been so long in the church.” +</p> + +<p> +“And yet we have not been long enough,” said the Countess Fanny. “We +have really seen nothing, and I must come again.” +</p> + +<p> +They crossed the steep village street down which the wind was rushing +in its impetuous travelling to the sea. They could just hear the boom +of the surf on the rocks beyond the cove. +</p> + +<p> +“You must go and stay with Mrs. Spragge,” said Lucius, “while I send +for the carriage.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not appear to hear these words; at least she took no heed of +them, but stood there in the rough street, listening to the wind and +looking up at the wild storm clouds, the cold serenity of the night +heavens beyond, and the icy slip of moon, like a splinter of ice +indeed in those remote regions beyond the clouds. +</p> + +<p> +She had taken off her hat with the long white plume, and her hair was +fluttering away from her face, down towards the sea—caught in the +tempestuous passage of the wind. Lucius would not look at her. He went +to the blacksmith’s door, and spoke to him hasty and ill-considered +words about the horses, suggesting first that they rode at once, and +then that it was not fit for a lady to return at this hour. +</p> + +<p> +“She can wait in the vicarage,” he said confusedly, “and I will go to +Sellar’s Mead and have the carriage sent.” +</p> + +<p> +And then he decided differently from that, and asked if there was a +messenger—someone who could ride at once to Sellar’s Mead. +</p> + +<p> +The blacksmith stood humbly, listening with an air of deference to +these contradictory orders; yet for all that Lucius thought he +detected a leer in the man’s coarse face, and he blamed himself +bitterly for this predicament. Of course they should never have +stopped to go into the church. Of course he should have taken her home +immediately. This careless, brilliant girl had induced him to act most +foolishly. His present dilemma was solved for him by the sudden +appearance of Oliver Sellar, who had ridden up to the village to +discover the whereabouts of the Countess Fanny. He had taken the +precaution to bring the carriage with him. As he drew rein at the +blacksmith’s, Lucius beheld at once that he was in a violent temper. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch10"> +CHAPTER X +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">The</span> next morning the Countess Fanny did not appear at the +breakfast-table, and Ambrosia guessed that there had been a scene +between her and Oliver the night before; but, as she looked at her +brother’s dark, scowling face, she decided to say nothing of the +matter, and to accept the non-appearance of her guest as the most +natural thing in the world. Perhaps, indeed, it was the most natural +thing in the world in the life of the foreign girl; though to Ambrosia +it was a very peculiar occurrence indeed. Never, save in the case of +rare sickness, had she been absent from the formal breakfast table. +</p> + +<p> +From the first moment that she had seen her guest, she had expected +some such jar as this; of course, a lively, arrogant, and impetuous +girl would not be able to regulate her ways exactly to the liking of a +man like Oliver. She was sure to vex him sorely by too much licence +and too much exercise of liberty; and Ambrosia’s only surprise and +vexation at the episode arose from the fact that Luce had been +involved in it. Of course she was able instantly to understand <i>how</i> +he had come to be involved in it; when the Countess Fanny had paid her +late and unexpected visit to Lefton Park, it would have been +impossible for Luce to do anything save to offer to escort her home; +and, no doubt, not easy (though here Ambrosia was not so full of +excuses for her betrothed) for him to refuse to take the Countess +Fanny over the old church. Imprudent and indiscreet, Ambrosia thought +that action. He might have seen that it was only the wilful whim of an +impetuous girl, and have refused so late and so injudicious a visit, +which gave Oliver some handle for his temper. +</p> + +<p> +Luce was sure to ride over that morning, and give her his account of +the whole affair. It was a pity that he had to be concerned in it at +all; she had feared that from the first—that she and Luce would be +dragged into Oliver’s quarrels and Oliver’s grievances. +</p> + +<p> +Cool and indifferent behind the tea-urn, she turned over her morning +paper. She was not going to sympathise with Oliver, nor even to be his +confidante. No doubt he would very much like to pour all his +annoyances and irritations into sympathetic ears; but Ambrosia had +resolved to regard all his grievances coldly. Why, anyone—even a +fool—could have told him what was in store for him with a girl like +Fanny. With such a marriage, arranged so hastily and in so peculiar a +fashion: nay, in a fashion more than peculiar; a fashion indecorous, +according to Miss Drayton and Mrs. Spragge. They had hinted as much to +Ambrosia, and Ambrosia had been forced, in her heart, to agree; though +on her lips had been every loyalty towards her brother. But she knew, +with perfect clarity, that a certain convention had been outraged by +Oliver when he had brought home this girl as his future wife, and that +another convention was being outraged by him in this insistence in +keeping her in Cornwall, in his own house, during the long months of +their betrothal, during the forced seclusion of the tempestuous +winter. He should have allowed the girl to go, under the chaperonage +and protection of friends and relations, until such time as they could +be married, or he should himself have left Sellar’s Mead, or, as a +third alternative, he should have permitted Madame de Mailly to +accompany her pupil to England. +</p> + +<p> +As things were, the girl was oddly isolated, in a peculiar position, +heightened, of course, by her peculiar appearance and manner; and +Oliver himself was to blame. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia, therefore, now, when she lifted her eyes from the dull +news-sheet, studied him coldly—almost with hostility. She did not +intend to endure, during those dreary, dark months ahead of them, any +scenes with Oliver. She could very well surmise what had passed last +night. Oliver had left his horse in the village, and ridden back with +Fanny in the carriage: a thing he detested doing, and a thing which +would by no means have improved his sour mood. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius had not accompanied them, and if there had been the least +goodwill or good humour on Oliver’s part, Amy knew that he would have +done so. He was well used to the road, and did not mind riding to and +fro at any hour of the night, or under any circumstance of wild +weather. But Luce had not come, and Oliver, of course, was responsible +for that. If Oliver was going to quarrel with Luce—Ambrosia shrugged +her shoulders and bit her lip, endeavouring to force her attention on +the paragraph which she held beneath her gaze—if Oliver was going to +quarrel with Luce, why, how intolerable! She could not see herself in +the rôle of universal peacemaker. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver rose heavily, seeming to make as much noise as was possible in +doing so. He pushed back his chair roughly, and shook the table. He +was a massively built man, and clumsy in everything he did. +</p> + +<p> +“If Fanny begins complaining about me,” he said heavily.… +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia put her paper down with a quick gesture of temper. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Oliver,” she cried, “please don’t draw <i>me</i> into it! Of +course Fanny will complain about you, if you have been rude and +disagreeable. I suppose she is not infatuated to that extent—as to +accept everything with meekness.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know that she’s had to accept anything disagreeable?” he +challenged. “Of course you women always stick together, I shall have a +pleasant life of it, it seems to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing will be ever pleasant to you, Oliver,” replied Ambrosia, +“unless you cultivate a better temper. You know perfectly well there +was no harm in yesterday, why, the girl must sometimes go out by +herself! I cannot be always ready to accompany her—nor you, I +suppose. And even if it was a little late, there was no harm done! +Luce was with her.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver did not answer this, and Ambrosia was conscious of an immediate +tension in the air at the mention of that name. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, of course, there had been a quarrel with Luce—perhaps a quarrel +that would make it difficult for him to come to the house. How +intolerable Oliver was! She rose impatiently, brushing down the stiff +folds of her silk gown. She was expecting some violent outburst from +her brother, in which case she intended to leave the room; but Oliver +contained himself, and answered, not without difficulty: +</p> + +<p> +“Amy, you must not try to come between me and Fanny, for I will not +tolerate it. She is quite wild and impetuous, and knows nothing of our +ways and customs. I must, of course, train and shape her; and do you +not interfere with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not interfere,” replied Ambrosia; “neither shall I help you.” +And though this was not in the least a favourable moment for such a +comment, she could not resist adding: “You know, Oliver—everyone +thinks it very peculiar that she should be here at all: both of you +under the same roof like this, during a long engagement. It is +scarcely fair to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is ‘everybody’?” retorted Oliver sullenly. “A few old women in +the village, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Useless to argue,” replied Ambrosia, “you know perfectly well what I +mean; but it is a detail, really. Nothing would matter if you could be +more good-natured.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-natured,” sneered Oliver. “That’s a woman’s word for a fool; she +expects a man to be a fool when she tells him she wishes him to be +good-natured. You want to have your own way in everything, and that +the man is to dance to every tune you choose to call, if he does not, +he is a brute, and disagreeable.” Again he added, not without dignity: +“I must beg you, Amy, not to encourage Fanny.” He left the room +gloomily. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia said resolutely to herself: +</p> + +<p> +“I will not be drawn into the position of peacemaker. Nothing is more +odious; and, of course, however hard I strove to make things pleasant, +they would quarrel just the same. I will not interest myself in, or +exhaust myself with, the affair at all. I will go my own way, and just +try to put the months through somehow till the spring.” That was very +glibly said. Would it be so glibly accomplished? She could not resist +staring out of the window, at that dark, iron-grey country, at those +bent, leafless trees, and those high clouds, tumbled by an incessant +wind. Well, every day there was a number of small, insistent duties; +things that appeared of no importance, and yet were indispensable—all +the machinery for the smooth-running of this complicated household +depended upon her; there was plenty to occupy her; she must fix her +attention on these incessant duties. +</p> + +<p> +Yet to-day she was reluctant to take them up. She did not wish to +interview the housekeeper, to give out the stores, to visit the +still-room, to pack baskets for the poor and write notes to Mrs. +Spragge and Miss Drayton; no, she had no heart for any of these +things. Her mind went back to last night, and to Luce. Would he come +to-day? How detestable to have to count one hour after another, +wondering if he would come! Of all things, Ambrosia was frightened of +waiting, terrified of suspense. Neither did she wish to write to him. +No, in every detail she would have had him the pursuer, and herself +the pursued, indifferent while he was ardent. Well, she must try to +forget him; there was no other way; and probably, when she was +absorbed in her small, regular duties, he would be there, and +everything would be different. +</p> + +<p> +He was at least her lover—yes, at least he coloured her life for her. +Without Luce the days would be unendurable. And she resolved that when +he came she would be kinder than usual, and listen with interest, even +if he wished to talk about his lighthouse. She would even promise to +go and visit the lighthouse—that would please him very much; for +hitherto she had been rather contemptuous of the new work there, and +quite careless as to all the points in which he was so passionately +absorbed; but she felt now that she had been harsh in this, and she +would be so no longer. She would endeavour to see something of what he +saw in the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, there was Fanny. She remembered that with a start. Of +course, she must go and see Fanny. The girl had not even pretended +illness; she had merely sent down a message by her maid that she would +like her breakfast in bed. Not to vex Oliver, not to encourage the +girl, but as a plain matter of duty, she must go and see Fanny; and +that little visit would be an excuse also for putting off the routine +of the day, which, this morning, seemed more than usually distasteful. +</p> + +<p> +This was the first time that she had entered her one-time bed-chamber +since the stranger had occupied it. Hitherto, she had said, rather +fastidiously, her good-nights on the threshold. Now, as she entered +the room, once so poignantly familiar, she saw that she scarcely +recognised it—Fanny and her maid between them had so altered +everything, and put about so many curious objects, taken from those +immense trunks which Fanny had brought with her from Italy. +</p> + +<p> +The bright, clean chintz had gone, and been replaced by lengths of +handsome, yet faded, silk, embroidered with gold and silver threads. +There were a great many cushions about; vases and bowls of porcelain +and glass; and a long, painted wooden coffer, set, oddly, in +Ambrosia’s eyes, at the foot of the bed. There were silk scarves and +shawls, and strings of bright beads, and trinkets that looked very +alien to Ambrosia, scattered almost everywhere; flounces of lace and +French books; and, amid all this luxurious finery, the startling +black-and-white of an ivory and ebony crucifix hung beside the bed +between the two pale water-colours of English flowers which Ambrosia +had placed there to please her guest. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia noticed the rosary of corals and crystal which Fanny had had +in her bag on the night of her arrival, and which she had been looking +for in the drawing-room. Ambrosia thought ironically of that +conversion of Fanny’s which Oliver had so pompously announced to +everyone. +</p> + +<p> +The girl was no longer in bed. She was seated by the fire, wrapped in +a flowing gown of white silk, which made the hair, falling on her +shoulders, appear ink black. She was embroidering, with nervous +fingers, with a length of vermilion silk, a faded strip of orange +canvas; she seemed a queer, unfamiliar figure to the Englishwoman, who +could not infuse much friendliness into the manner with which she +asked her how she did. +</p> + +<p> +“I am quite well,” said Fanny, with her quick frankness, “but I did +not want to meet Oliver, I dare say you guessed as much.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia said yes, she had guessed as much; but added: +</p> + +<p> +“Really, you know, my dear Fanny, it is stupid of you to quarrel with +Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps,” said the Italian girl, “it is stupid of him to quarrel with +me!” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia did not like the note of temper in that. She held to her +resolution of the breakfast-table. +</p> + +<p> +“Really,” she replied, as pleasantly as possible, “I cannot be a +peacemaker, you know; it is very awkward for me to be between you two +like this. You will have to make your quarrels and conciliations +without me.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny had dropped her embroidery, and was staring into +the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” added Ambrosia, “I know that Oliver is very +overbearing—sometimes harsh, but you could have spared all this if +you had let us know that you were going to Lefton Park yesterday, the +country is very wild and lonely, and you are a stranger, and you might +have been lost.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had Lucius with me,” said Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but we did not know that; and I dare say,” added Ambrosia, +speaking quickly to conceal a certain hurry in her breath, “that in +Italy you were not allowed out alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had Madame de Mailly,” said Fanny, “and if she were here now, of +course she would go with me everywhere. But you and Oliver are always +busy, are you not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not always!” Ambrosia found herself in a position of defence. “Not +always, Fanny! Of course, we cannot neglect everything—Oliver has +been away six months, and there is a great deal for him to do; and I +always have my duties in the house. You should be learning them, you +know,” she added negligently. “You will be taking them on in the +spring.” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke without interest, for in reality she did not greatly care +whether or no the girl made a success of the housekeeping at Sellar’s +Mead. She excused herself for this indifference by the consideration +that whatever Fanny did, Oliver would not be pleased. Neither his +mother nor his sister had been ever able to win his full approbation +for the domestic arrangements of Sellar’s Mead; it was therefore quite +impossible that Fanny Caldini would be able to do so. +</p> + +<p> +The Italian girl answered quickly, with her brilliant self-assurance: +</p> + +<p> +“But of course I can learn all that in a day or two—there is no need +to bother about it now, and it is not very interesting, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have had to find it so,” smiled Ambrosia. “I dare say it is very +dull and monotonous, but it is the work that women have to do. I could +never manage Lefton Park if I had not learned to manage Sellar’s +Mead,” she added; and felt the words were in the worst of taste, yet +could not withhold them. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes, of course!” said the Italian girl. “You will be mistress of +Lefton Park, as you call it, and that is a much bigger house than +this, is it not?” +</p> + +<p> +“There are not so very many servants, there is not very much money,” +said Ambrosia gravely, “and that makes it all so much more difficult. +One must be economical without being mean. There will be no chance for +show or splendour, but there may be decorousness and good management.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucius is so young!” cried the Countess Fanny with a sigh; and +Ambrosia blushed hotly and at once. +</p> + +<p> +“What an odd thing to say!” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“It came into my mind,” said the Italian girl indifferently. “I +thought of that picture you called up of economy and good management +in a place like Lefton Park, and Lucius, so young.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is not the owner of Lefton Park yet,” said Ambrosia, trying to +control herself. “I dare say the Earl will live for a great many +years, and by then Lucius will be trained for his position, if that is +what you mean.” Nothing could have vexed her more than this reference +to the difference between her age and that of Lucius, for so she took +the girl’s remark “Lucius is so young!” She had never said “<i>You</i> are +so young!” +</p> + +<p> +“Trained for the position,” repeated the Countess Fanny. “I suppose +that is what he meant yesterday, when he spoke about planning his +life.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is what we all must do,” replied Ambrosia, relieved that Lucius’ +conversation had run on such sensible lines. +</p> + +<p> +“But I answered,” smiled Fanny, “ ‘We cannot plan our love.’ And that +rather throws our schemes out, doesn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sometimes,” replied Ambrosia nervously, “but not always, you know. +After all, love and duty do, frequently, go hand in hand! There aren’t +so many of us who crash to a tragedy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame de Mailly,” remarked the Countess Fanny, “used always to say +that when the passions met the conventions there would certainly be a +tragedy.” +</p> + +<p> +“We all know that,” replied Ambrosia with some stiffness. +</p> + +<p> +“But I can tell you something worse,” cried Fanny, turning in her +chair and looking at her with those almost unnaturally dark, brilliant +eyes, “and that is when passion meets passion.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia was startled, and even affronted. She had never discussed +these subjects with anyone, and certainly did not intend to discuss +them with a woman so much younger than herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver will not care to hear you talk like that,” she said, smiling; +“it is that spirit in you that he will complain of most.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver does not matter to me,” replied the Countess Fanny carelessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver not matter to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. For I do not intend to marry him.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia laughed at the childishness of this. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t carry these petty quarrels too far,” she said. “That is petty +in you.” +</p> + +<p> +The Italian girl, unmoved, persisted: +</p> + +<p> +“I do not intend to marry Oliver.” +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch11"> +CHAPTER XI +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">Ambrosia</span> was almost incredulous of the extreme vexation that this +attitude on the part of Fanny promised. To have been only ten days in +the house, and to have already arrived at this pitch, a deep and +petulant quarrel with Oliver! Oliver would be to blame, no doubt; but +that did not make the position any the less galling to Ambrosia. She +endeavoured to be cool and amiable. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, you must not take Oliver so seriously,” she smiled. “I do +not know what happened, but I dare say he was unendurable, but you, +who seem to have so many accomplishments, will be able to overlook +that. You are no raw schoolgirl, my dear Fanny, to be so easily +affronted.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not think that I am affronted,” replied the Italian girl +candidly. “Really, he said nothing to offend me, but I have decided to +make an end of the whole affair. A lady may, I suppose, change her +mind. Madame de Mailly always said so.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you would convict yourself of an almost incredible lightness!” +said Ambrosia. “You have engaged yourself to Oliver; you have come +over here to his house; everyone knows about it—oh, of course it is +unthinkable! You <i>must</i> marry him! I am sure, Fanny, you will see +that. Do not talk so easily and so carelessly of breaking off anything +as serious as a matrimonial engagement.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I cannot marry him!” replied the girl resolutely. “Indeed I +cannot! I did not know him, I was scarcely aware of his character +until yesterday. Last night he behaved with the greatest harshness. I +have been doubtful, ever since I got to Cornwall, whether I could +marry him, you know, but I thought I would say nothing about it. In +Italy everything seemed different.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you do, after all, dislike the country,” said Ambrosia, “though +you would not confess it? You do find it all grey and grim and dull?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” replied the Countess Fanny; “I am not speaking of the country, +but of Oliver. You may have noticed his behaviour to me, it has not +been gracious. And worse than his behaviour, there is something +else—his greedy, staring looks, the way I must be always with him, +never out of his sight.” +</p> + +<p> +At this Ambrosia stiffened. +</p> + +<p> +“You did your best to turn his head, I suppose,” she remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, I expect I did,” replied the Italian girl, with her +careless, brilliant smile. “That was amusing, but a man must not let +you see that you have turned his head: that is bad breeding.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is bad breeding,” retorted Ambrosia, “too flagrantly to play the +coquette and the rattle. If you have flirted with Oliver, you really +must take the consequences. He is very fond of you—I can see that, +however unkindly he may appear to behave, believe me he is very fond +of you.” +</p> + +<p> +But the Countess Fanny shook her shoulders, and made a little grimace, +and said that she did not think “fond” was the word. +</p> + +<p> +“He has a passion for me,” she said, “and I do not understand it nor +care about it. I am rather like something he has bought—a toy or an +ornament or a trifle, something that he must look at and handle and +get tired of, he really does not understand me at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is a very sudden conclusion, it seems to me,” remarked Ambrosia, +aghast. “And you have such an air of self-assurance.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is too old,” continued the Countess Fanny, in her light, +relentless accent, unheeding this protest on the part of Ambrosia. “He +is really old enough to be my father, is he not? Everyone round here +has said so; you know that. Everyone has thought how grotesque for us +to be married.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you did not think so yourself, in Italy.” +</p> + +<p> +“No; matters were different in Italy. Madame de Mailly was there, and +she provoked me into opposition. Every time she said anything against +Oliver, I was the more resolved to admire him, and I could not, on any +occasion, have married the Count—my cousin.” +</p> + +<p> +“But even yesterday you gave no hint of this decision, of this swift +change of mind!” cried Ambrosia in dismay. “What a situation you put +us all into! If you will not marry Oliver, how can you remain here, in +this house?” +</p> + +<p> +“How not?” answered the Italian girl. “Are you not my nearest +relations?” +</p> + +<p> +“But do you think,” asked Ambrosia angrily, “that Oliver can endure to +live in the same house with you, knowing that you have jilted him?” +</p> + +<p> +And again the Countess Fanny, with a heartless tone in her voice, +asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be impossible!” said Ambrosia heavily; and she began to walk +impatiently and restlessly up and down the over-furnished, +over-heated, and perfumed room that had been so transformed from its +chill simplicity by the light fingers of the Countess Fanny and her +sprightly maid. +</p> + +<p> +Outside was the dark grey, and the bare trees, and the wind; one would +not get away from that—no, not for months to come. +</p> + +<p> +The spring seemed further off than it had seemed yesterday. What a +ridiculous situation was she now required to face. This queer, +capricious, heartless girl, and the undoubted passion of Oliver. +</p> + +<p> +Leaning her elbow on the window-sill, and looking out on that bleak +prospect lit with such a livid light of colourless and concealed sun, +she said: +</p> + +<p> +“Have you told Oliver?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have had no opportunity to tell him. I felt too disordered to face +him this morning,” replied the Countess Fanny, who appeared, however, +perfectly composed. “And last night he would not listen. He was very +angry, he did not wish me to go out alone nor be back so late, and he +did not care to see me with Luce.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is absurd!” Ambrosia felt herself forced into this protest. “He +would have been pleased to see you with Lucius. Of course, of course, +it was not that that made him angry. He was glad you were in such good +hands.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny laughed. Her embroidery fell from her knee, and she +picked it up and smoothed it out, and laughed again; and yet it was +not a laughter of humour or happiness, but sounded sad, and even wild. +</p> + +<p> +“If you will not marry Oliver,” said Ambrosia—and there was a hint of +wildness in her falling voice also—“you must go home; you must go +back to Italy. You cannot remain here.” +</p> + +<p> +“But my land is here,” replied the Italian, “the land that Oliver +rents—Flimwel; I have not been taken to see that house yet. I would +like to stay. I want to see the storms; I want to go over the +lighthouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“All these are childish whims,” said Ambrosia sternly, “and bottomless +caprices, and have nothing to do with the matter in hand. That is +between you and Oliver. And I must not—do you hear me, Fanny?—I must +not, I will not, interfere! I have indeed no key to the situation; I +do not know what passed between you and Oliver when you were abroad, +nor even,” she added, “what passed between you last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is all simple,” was the negligent reply. “I rather liked him; at +least, I did not dislike him; and he was different from the other men, +and it seemed amusing to make him very fond of me. And then, you know, +he importuned me very much.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia recalled Madame de Mailly’s letter, which had contained this +same accusation. All the same, she turned with temper upon Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +“You confess to a great frivolity and lightness,” she declared. “I +should not say too much, if I were you, of it being amusing and +diverting to make a man fond of you. I suppose you would also call it +amusing and diverting to break his heart, and upset his whole life.” +</p> + +<p> +To this, after the shortest of breathless pauses, the Italian girl +replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Am I, then, to break my own heart, and upset my own life? Do you +really think it wise for me to marry Oliver? Do your friends, or +anybody here, really think it wise? Does even Oliver himself,” she +added impetuously, “think it wise?” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia had no reply immediately ready to this. She was caught up in +the toils and complications of an impossible situation. She blamed +both Fanny and Oliver; she could scarcely blame herself—she had been +outside it from the first. Even if she had made a desperate +contradiction when the scheme was put before her, in Oliver’s dry +letter from Italy, no attention would have been paid to her protest; +and she did not know the Countess Fanny well enough to know if her +resolution were genuine and sincere or but a passing humour—merely +the result of a lovers’ quarrel. Oliver she did know, and the depth +and obstinacy of his passions when they were aroused; but this girl +remained to her as a stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“I must leave it all alone,” she admitted wearily. “There is really +nothing I can do. You had better get up and dress, and see Oliver, +Fanny, and explain everything to him; but I really cannot have you in +the house if you are going to refuse to marry him—not both of you. I +will keep you, with pleasure, till the spring; but Oliver must go to +town or abroad. But I hardly think that you would care to remain here +alone with me, and it seems much more natural that you should return +to Italy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall remain,” smiled Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia winced before that smile, and was irritated with herself for +doing so. Why should she flinch before this strange creature, this +alien, who probably, after all, was to mean nothing in her life, who +would most likely return whence she came, to foreign lands? +</p> + +<p> +Yet Ambrosia, still leaning in the window-place, and still looking at +that iron-bound prospect of grey and bleakness without, said what she +had never meant to say: +</p> + +<p> +“Since when did you take this resolution to be done with Oliver?” +</p> + +<p> +And she heard what she did not wish to hear—the reply of a few words +only: +</p> + +<p> +“Since last night.” +</p> + +<p> +As she spoke the Countess Fanny rose, and crossed the room with her +swift and joyful step, the folds of white silk billowing round her +tall, slender figure, the long locks of black curls shaking on her +slender shoulders. She went to her dressing-table and took up a case +of keys, and handed them to Ambrosia, saying, sweetly enough: +</p> + +<p> +“These are yours again now. Oliver gave them to me—the keys of your +jewels, you know, that belonged to your mother. Somehow I did not care +to wear them.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia had noted that, and admired it as a delicacy in Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +“And here is his ring,” she said, taking a large diamond from her +finger. “All this must go back to Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“But not by me,” said Ambrosia. “I certainly cannot be your +intermediary in this most painful matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I will give them to him myself,” said Fanny; but there seemed a +slight faltering in her serene courage, in her careless indifference +of manner. “But he is apt to be violent,” she added; and Ambrosia +guessed, for the first time, that she was secretly afraid of Oliver, +and she remembered what the girl had just said, and what Madame de +Mailly had stated in her letter: that Oliver had importuned the girl, +exerting all his strength of character, all his violence of temper, +all the massive darkness of his personality to dominate and overawe +her. Really, after all, one ought not to blame Fanny. It had been +Oliver’s fault from the beginning. +</p> + +<p> +So Ambrosia spoke with a certain warmth of affection: +</p> + +<p> +“You must not be afraid of him. If you really feel that you can’t go +through with it, you must be frank about it. Of course, you have been +in fault, but then, so has he. You must not be afraid of him!” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny would not confess to fear. She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“You are right,” she said. “I have been in fault, and therefore—well, +it is not a pleasant thing to do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a day or two,” suggested Ambrosia. “Let this quarrel blow over, +and think about the thing in cold blood.” +</p> + +<p> +But the girl put the keys and the ring apart from her other trinkets, +and, shaking her head again, said: +</p> + +<p> +“Never, never can I change my mind!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you must go away,” urged Ambrosia. “It is the only possible +thing to do. Of course you must see that!” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny, however, declared that she intended to spend the +winter in Cornwall. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps Oliver will go away,” she suggested. “Perhaps he will be glad +to do so.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it is his home,” said Ambrosia, in some indignation. “It is his +place, and he has a great deal to do here. He loves Sellar’s Mead +above everything. It is really you, Fanny, who should go away.” +</p> + +<p> +At this the Italian girl laughed, but in melancholy fashion. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, I will go to Flimwel, then,” she said. “I will send for +Madame de Mailly, and live there: that will be quite proper and +decorous, will it not?” +</p> + +<p> +“But the house has been shut up for years!” cried Ambrosia. “It is +damp and in decay and disrepair, and almost, I believe, unfurnished!” +</p> + +<p> +“That does not matter. I have some money; I will get the place +furnished, and there I will go and live, and enjoy my Cornish winter +after all.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia tried to cure herself of a pang of apprehension by the +reflection: +</p> + +<p> +“This is only a mood or a whim. Probably by to-morrow she and Oliver +will be the best of friends again, and have forgotten everything about +this.” And aloud she said, in a tone that she strove to render as +ordinary as possible: +</p> + +<p> +“You had better dress and come downstairs, Fanny; it looks odd in you +to remain here. One does not want the servants to gossip.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do they ever do anything else, however one behaves?” smiled Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia felt rebuked, and was vexed that she should so feel. It was +really impossible for her to be intimate and friendly with this queer +girl. +</p> + +<p> +She went downstairs rapidly; mid-morning now, and Lucius had not come. +Why must she notice that? Of course, she was upset by this scene with +Fanny—a ridiculous, whimsical creature. Best not to say a word about +it, but to hope that the thing would end as soon as it had begun, and +that never would she talk of breaking off her engagement again. +</p> + +<p> +There in the hall was Oliver, sullen and fuming because Fanny had not +yet appeared. +</p> + +<p> +“You were unkind to her last night, no doubt,” remarked Ambrosia, “and +it shows most foolish and ill-natured in you, Oliver. Surely she was +safe enough with Lucius, and it was quite natural that she should wish +to turn into the church!” +</p> + +<p> +“When <i>I</i> asked her to go there,” said Oliver, “she refused; and if I +were you, Amy, I should not be so pleased at this intimacy with +Lucius.” +</p> + +<p> +“How ridiculous!” cried Ambrosia sharply. “You must control yourself, +Oliver, and not make these jealous insinuations. As for Fanny, I think +she is still out of humour with you, but she is coming down +immediately, and will speak to you herself. It is most odious for me, +I can assure you, to have these perpetual scenes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have a quick tongue,” replied Oliver grimly. “You do not help to +smooth things over, do you, Amy?” +</p> + +<p> +She felt convicted of meanness, of lack of generosity, and the ready +tears came into her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Oliver dear,” she cried, “I do not mean to be like that—not to +be hateful! But it is all so difficult. I have felt in a confusion—a +sense of tension—for some time now. While you were away it was a +strain, and now you have come back it is confusing! Forgive me! I will +do my best! And do you use a little kindness and softness towards +Fanny, for she, I believe, can ill endure harshness.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia, dreading to extend the interview lest this pleasant note +should not last, hastened away, taking her keys from her girdle and +hurrying to the servants’ quarters. These little daily duties, these +little monotonous and insistent tasks, must occupy her now, so that +she did not watch the clock for Lucius, nor interfere between Oliver +and Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar waited impatiently in the wide hall, leaning against the +newel post—a sombre and a dark figure. +</p> + +<p> +It was not long before the Countess Fanny came down the wide, shallow +stairs, a black lace scarf thrown carelessly over her stiff, striped +green and white sarcenet dress, her coral bracelets clasped round her +fine wrists, and her coral combs in her black hair. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you not now wear,” asked Oliver at once, “some of the +ornaments I have given you?” +</p> + +<p> +She passed him lightly, with a tantalising swiftness. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, don’t tease!” he said harshly. “I am sorry about last night, I +dare say I went too far; but you put me into a great anxiety, and you +must never do that, Fanny, for when you do, I become so desperate I +hardly am responsible for my actions or my words! Come, don’t tease, +but be friends again!” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke with a rough articulation and profound emotion, but Fanny, +without answering, sped into the parlour, which was almost dark in the +shadow of the big cedar on the lawn, which blotted out the bleak and +pallid light of the winter’s morning. Oliver followed her light, gay +presence, which did indeed seem to irradiate that dark and sombre +room. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Fanny! Won’t you speak to me?” He was pleading now, she moving +farther away from him, panting a little, until she could move no +farther, but must pause by the wall and turn there and face him, +laughing a little defiantly, more defiantly at herself and her own +tremors than at him and his advances. +</p> + +<p> +“But you will not care to hear what I have to say,” she said +breathlessly. “Let it go for the moment; indeed, Oliver, I wish you +well. I am sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is enough!” he replied at once. “No need for more!” +</p> + +<p> +He had put out his large white hand as if to touch her, but she had +slipped away, still trying to carry the moment with a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver, you know we have made a very great mistake. We were never +meant to get married—I dare say we both knew that from the first.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t torment me, Fanny,” he replied harshly, “or I shall become +angry again.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I do not speak to torment you—only to let you know what I have +told Ambrosia just now, that I have decided—oh, believe me, quite +decided—that we cannot be married.” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed, and she had always—even in the early days in +Italy—disliked his rare laugh, which broke up his face to +disadvantage. He was not very handsome when he smiled or laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come!” he said, with an effort to be good-humoured; “you must +have your jests, I suppose. But it’s gone far enough. We won’t talk +any more about it. I’ve told you I’m sorry for last night; let it go +at that. Would you like to go into Truro, or even, for a few days, to +London? Have you got enough clothes and trinkets? I should have +thought I bought you enough in Paris and Florence, but, if you want +any more, you shall have them.” +</p> + +<p> +Fanny had her hand in the little satchel that hung at her waist by two +silver ribbons, in a coquettish style; out of this she took the ring +and the keys that she had set apart on her dressing-table half an hour +before, and offered them to him with a coolness which concealed a good +deal of courage; for she was afraid of him, and had always been +afraid, though never so afraid as at this moment. But she was true to +her own resolution. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, I am not going to marry you, Oliver,” she said, with an +attempt at her usual negligent indifference, “and here are your keys +of the jewel-boxes, which must be taken from my room to-day; and your +ring. And please be kind about it! I was wrong, of course, but when I +said I would marry you I did not understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you understand now?” he demanded in a thunderous rage. “Who +has told you to understand anything? What are you talking of? Do not +provoke me, Fanny, I beseech you!” +</p> + +<p> +“And I beseech you—oh, set me free!” she cried, in a voice that was +beginning to break. “It was all a game of play, I never meant it +seriously!” +</p> + +<p> +He made some passionate exclamation under his breath, but she could +not, did not, wish to hear. +</p> + +<p> +“I will leave your house!” she cried hastily, “unless you wish to go +away.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will go to Italy?” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“No; I want to stay in Cornwall.” +</p> + +<p> +“And why do you want to stay in Cornwall?” he flamed; “and how can you +stay here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go to Flimwel Manor—I’ll have that opened and furnished. I’ll +send for Madame de Mailly——” talking rapidly and fiercely. +</p> + +<p> +He swept away her words by a coarse interjection. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk like a fool, Fanny!” +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch12"> +CHAPTER XII +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">Lucius Foxe</span> had been at the lighthouse for two days. He rejoiced in +being in this manner cut off, as it were, from the land, and almost, +as it seemed to him, in the midst of the ocean. Two engineers were his +companions, as well as the usual lighthouse-keeper and his boy. The +young man knew that he must soon return, or his father and Ambrosia +would be vexed that he had so long delayed upon the lighthouse; and +yet, for hours and hours, he put off giving orders for the boat. +</p> + +<p> +There was really nothing for him to do on the lighthouse. The +engineers good-humouredly tolerated the presence of the young lord, +who took such an interest in their work and was the son of the man who +had so generously contributed to the success of it, but still, there +was nothing that Lucius Foxe, at the best but an amateur engineer, +could do. The lighthouse was complete, and his bronze wolf had proved +a failure, and quite unable to support the fury of the winds. +</p> + +<p> +He had long since been told it probably would be a failure, but he had +persisted with his model, and a slight sense of flat disappointment +had stung him when the prophecy of the uselessness of his design had +been fulfilled. Instead of this fantastic beast, which was to howl his +warning with every blast that blew, a gas engine had been fixed, with +a powerful detonator. +</p> + +<p> +St. Nite’s Lighthouse stood a few miles out at sea, at the end of the +long spit of rock called the Leopard’s Rock, which was always covered +to a depth of several feet by the sea, and a quite impassable way for +ships. A lighthouse had stood there since 1760; it had been erected at +the expense of the then Earl of Lefton, who had received, in exchange, +heavy dues on the passing shipping. Lucius was glad that neither he +nor his father made money out of the lighthouse, but had, instead, +been able to contribute towards the cost of it. He was proud of the +lighthouse, which had just been recased in cement, and was now one of +the finest in England, rising, from the base to the lantern-room, a +height of 117 feet, and from high-water mark to the centre of the +lantern, 110 feet; yet even so, already, although the gales had been +mild compared to those that were likely to assail the lighthouse in +the winter, the waves had flung their foam with a rattle against the +lantern-panes, and on one occasion even lifted the cowl off the top, +so that the water poured in and extinguished some of the lamps. The +sea-birds, too, continued to dash themselves against the lantern, and +to drop, dead or dying, on the sharp rocks on which the heavy base +rested. Yet the engineers believed that these massive blocks of +granite, arranged after the plan of Smeaton in his great work at the +Eddystone, would withstand the fiercest storms, even of the Cornish +coast; and they were extremely elated that they had been able to +complete the lighthouse before the tempests of winter set in with +their implacable fury. +</p> + +<p> +Already the seas were running heavily, and the waves plunging high, +and the long fissure underneath the lighthouse began, when filled with +perpetual winds, to emit that rush and roar which had always so +impressed and even terrified the keepers of St. Nite’s Lighthouse. But +as yet the lighthouse had been put to no very severe test. Sometimes, +as the engineers and the keepers and Lucius well knew, the full force +and fury of the Atlantic would beat upon it: two channels commingling +with the ocean would meet here in one fierce assault. Lucius from his +childhood had often ventured down to this spit of land, and from the +precipitous rocks of the shore watched the old lighthouse withstand +the fierce fury of the outswell and the inrush of the ground swell of +the main ocean, raging and beating upon the valiant and stately +structure. Even in summer the billows always came tumbling and raging +in thunder over the ridge of the Leopard’s Rock, dashing impatient +spray nearly to the summit of the land cliffs. Here and there a jagged +rock pierced these swirling waves, and that would make a hideous +whirlpool, all foam and whirl, waves running together and leaping high +with the shock across this dangerous channel. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius had been excited by the reports of the commissioners, who had +just visited the lighthouse and pronounced it a magnificent structure +but perhaps the most exposed in the world. What would they say, he +thought with pride, in the winter, when the rolling seas sent their +spray over the top of the lantern? This lantern was the great pride of +the engineers. It was illuminated by colza oil, and gave an alternate +white light and red light revolving every half-minute, which in fair +weather was visible for seventeen miles. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius, walking round the gallery outside the lantern, was inspired by +the hope that perhaps this winter, however terrible for storms, would +pass without a wreck upon these ghastly coasts. He could not remember +any year when there had not been some disaster on St. Nite’s Head. One +year, three steamers had gone to pieces; out of sixty-five sailors and +passengers on one ship only three escaped from the wreck. +</p> + +<p> +Everyone on board the other two was drowned. Lucius could just recall +that most horrible of all catastrophes, when the Hamburg mail steamer +went ashore in this perilous neighbourhood with the appalling loss of +331 lives; and further back there was the tradition that, during the +seventeenth century and the wars with France, no less than four +British warships, going to pieces and perishing on these horrible +rocks, split like eggshells among the masses and fragments of granite. +The <i>Vulture</i>, the <i>Hythe</i>, and the <i>Thunderer</i> were the names of +these boats, and legends were still strong on this coast, of drowned +sailors and soldiers being cast ashore for days, and the peasants, +farmers, and fishermen being enriched by inlaid weapons, guns, swords, +bullion, and heartily replenished sea chests; while, if local tales +spoke the truth, these rocks, known as the Leopard or the Devil Rocks, +were haunted by hundreds of unshriven ghosts. +</p> + +<p> +“But that is over,” thought Lucius; “we shall have no more deaths on +this coast!” And he smiled confidently, with the confidence of +visionary youth. +</p> + +<p> +He paused now, leaning against the high rail, with his back to the +desolate sweep of murmuring waters, and looked up at the inscription +he had caused to be put on the large stone steps; that over the door +of the lantern on the east side, which read: “24th August, 1856: <i>Laus +Deo</i>,” this he had copied from the old design of Winstanley Lighthouse +on the Eddystone. +</p> + +<p> +Well, he must return now: Ambrosia would be waiting for him at his +father’s house; he knew that they were both jealous of the time and +attention he gave to the lighthouse, and now there was no longer +excuse for so much absorption in St. Nite’s Point and the new +structure there. Everything was complete, and he—well—he had never +been of much use, and now he was not required at all. +</p> + +<p> +He would like, if possible, to take one of the watches during the +winter. He wondered if Ambrosia and his father would consent to that; +one family, the Tregarthens, had for generations been hereditary +keepers of the lighthouse, and the present representative was an old, +sullen, and violent man, who was usually accompanied by one of his +sons. The elder of these had, however, lately gone to Canada, and the +two younger appeared, oddly enough, more interested in farming than +the sea. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius thought there might be a good excuse and a fair opportunity for +him to accompany old Joshua Tregarthen during one of the winter +watches, which were for a period of three weeks. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius entered the lantern-room; there was a seat all round the vast +centre lamp with the reflectors. Descending from this by the +ladder-like stair, he entered the first bedroom, which was plainly +furnished with cabin-beds, drawers, and lockers; and then again into +another, exactly the same, each with two windows; the third was the +kitchen, with fireplace and sink, two settles with lockers, a metal +cupboard, a rack for dishes; and fourth was a parlour or office, where +papers and documents were stored; and underneath two store-rooms, one +for food, one for water; and beneath this, on the foundation-courses, +a huge tank for the accommodation of oil. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius put on his hat and cloak, and left the lighthouse and stood +thoughtfully on the little ledge of rock, looking out to sea—that +grey, immense expanse of fluttering sea—and then across the rocks +where the waves met and boiled, to the dark stretch of the +sand-coloured land. +</p> + +<p> +St. Nite’s Head was six miles or more from the village, and the only +people who lived here were a handful of fisher-folk, mostly occupied +by the work of the lighthouse and the lifeboat: rough, sturdy people, +of a Spanish-looking complexion—descendants of wreckers and smugglers +who yet had, for many years, been faithful to their tremendous task. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing could have been more lonely and desolate than this scene, with +the little huddle of cottages just discernible in the crook of the +land beyond the Leopard’s Rock, protected by the rising cliffs from +the full force of the gale, and yet, to an alien mind, scarcely +inhabitable in winter. +</p> + +<p> +The seagulls were flashing and swooping round the lighthouse. Lucius +thought that if he put out his hand he could have touched them, and +yet they were gone so swiftly that this was impossible. He almost felt +their wings brushing his face, and yet in a second they had passed. +</p> + +<p> +The boat was in waiting; the engineers were already in it, and a +fisherman with the oars. +</p> + +<p> +As they rowed to the land, Lucius looked continually back at the +lighthouse. He was fascinated by it, and proud of his family’s share +in its construction. The more proud, perhaps, as he was not really +Cornish by descent, and had always been looked upon as something of an +alien here: yes, even now, though it was two hundred years since the +Foxes had inherited, through the female line, this remote property. +</p> + +<p> +Neither their name nor their appearance was Cornish, and never, Lucius +believed, would they be regarded as one with the people; but they had +done this—they had identified themselves by the building of that +lighthouse with that dreadful coast, with this remote gloomy part of +England. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius wished that he could have paid every penny of the expenses of +the lighthouse, but that would have been impossible. Still, it was +something to have given up the dues; something to have used influence, +such influence and power as they possessed, to urge Trinity House to +rebuild the lighthouse, and to themselves have contributed, out of +their limited means, towards the expenses. He envied old Joshua +Tregarthen, who had been left behind with one of his sons for the +three weeks’ watch. +</p> + +<p> +The old man lived almost perpetually in the lighthouse, only coming +ashore for a day or so, when his place would be taken by a second son +and a boy. But he was old now, and beginning to ail, and Lucius +reflected that they must name someone else to take his place, or at +least to take longer watches in turn with him; though the old man had +been obstinate in his claim to be left in the lighthouse all this +winter, and extremely jealous of the suggestion that anyone else +should be employed in this important work. But the engineers had +warned Lucius that the old man would not much longer be able to +support the continuous fatigue of watching in the lighthouse; also +that he was somewhat difficult in the matter of the new invention of +the gas syren, and the very elaborate lantern; and Lucius had found +another fisherman, who was willing to go out to the lighthouse and be +trained, and would presently do so, however much old Joshua Tregarthen +disliked it. +</p> + +<p> +The boat put in by the huddled cluster of houses, and the three men +made their way to the small inn, called curiously the “Drum and +Trumpet,” in memory, it was supposed, of the numbers of dead sailors +and soldiers who had been washed up on this shore after the wreck of +the three battleships. +</p> + +<p> +It was the man who kept this inn who was willing to be trained to +attend the lighthouse—who had, indeed, already accepted the job of +lighthouse-keeper—and Lucius turned into the inner parlour to speak +to the man, to urge him to go out immediately, while the weather still +held moderately fair, and learn the business of attending the lantern +and the signal. +</p> + +<p> +The rough, low parlour seemed very dark as he entered it, straight +from the bleak, whitened light of outside, and he peered into the +shadows and raised his voice a little: +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Reuben, Reuben, where are you? I want to speak to you!” +</p> + +<p> +He had thought the parlour empty, but a woman moved from the window, +where she had been blocking some of the feeble light; and he saw at +once, with amazement and dread, that it was the Countess Fanny, in her +riding-habit and plumed hat, holding a little whip in her gauntleted +hand. +</p> + +<p> +“You have come here?” he exclaimed stupidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” she answered. “Is it so far?” +</p> + +<p> +And he replied, amazed. +</p> + +<p> +“Not so far, but odd that you should come!” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not seen you,” she replied, “since that day in the churchyard, +that is nearly a week ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there anyone with you?” stammered Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“No; and no one knows that I am here. But I found my way somehow, the +roads are not so rough, and it is but six miles, is it not?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius Foxe looked away. He took off his hat, and his fine, clear +profile and the thick reddish hair, damp from sea-spray, clinging to +his forehead and cheeks, was clearly presented to the Countess Fanny +as she moved from the window and suffered that pale winter light to +fall over him. +</p> + +<p> +“You have been thinking of nothing but the lighthouse!” she said; and +he answered, still without glancing at her: +</p> + +<p> +“Believe me, I have been thinking a great deal of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You never came to Sellar’s Mead,” said the Countess Fanny, “and I +have been most terribly unhappy! I must see you and speak to you. I am +so alone, and have no one to advise me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why did you come here?” he asked uneasily. “It will look very odd +in you, and Oliver—you know how angry he was last time.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is because of Oliver’s anger that I am here now,” she replied. +“Oliver is unendurable, and I am afraid of him.” +</p> + +<p> +At that Lucius glanced at her swiftly. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you want to go away?” he asked. “You wish to return to Italy?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t want to go away,” said the Countess Fanny, “unless it +were to Flimwel Grange. But they won’t allow me to do that!” Her high, +eager voice rose on a note of distress, and Lucius said, hastily and +uneasily: +</p> + +<p> +“Hush! You must not talk about these things here! The two engineers +are outside, and the fisher-people. Make this but an ordinary visit, +and later we will talk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you ride back with me?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, of course, but I fear you will get but a poor reception if +Oliver does not know.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—nor Amy either,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +The young man blenched at this name, and said impetuously: +</p> + +<p> +“We cannot, must not remain here! Come out into the open. You must +meet these other gentlemen. We must put a good face on it—of course, +you should not be here.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a breach of decorum, no doubt,” admitted the girl, “but I am +not of that temper that can sacrifice all my happiness to the +conventions.” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke so desperately that Lucius, though he wished to bring the +conversation to an end, was forced to ask: +</p> + +<p> +“What has befallen? Has something disastrous happened?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have told Oliver that I cannot marry him,” said the Countess Fanny, +“and he will not accept that decision.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that is monstrous!” cried Lucius impulsively. “Of course he must +accept it!” +</p> + +<p> +Then he checked himself, and threw open the door, terrified of this +secret conversation. +</p> + +<p> +The engineers had already left the inn, and were on the shore, +superintending the packing of their luggage into a rough farm cart. +They were to stay that night with the old Earl, and in the morning to +take the ferry and so reach Truro and the train. +</p> + +<p> +“This lady has come to see the lighthouse,” said Lucius awkwardly, +“but of course it is too late to-day for her to make this visit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, why?” cried the girl. “It looks so near, and the sea is so calm!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is two miles away,” smiled one of the engineers, “and one cannot +go there direct because of the dangerous channel across the Leopard +Rock; one must go round, and that will take a while—especially with +the tide against one, as it is now.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny took no heed of these words. She stood on the rough +wet shore, and stared out, fascinated, at the lighthouse, which soared +grey into the lighter greyness, granite against a winter sky, while +beyond, the jagged rocks rose perilously out of the ash-coloured ocean +that murmured to and fro round the base of lighthouse, rock, and +cliff. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius stared at her as she stared at the lighthouse. He could not +immediately command this moment. She had said that she was not going +to marry Oliver, and it had been as if a load of lead was lifted from +his heart. As clearly as if she now spoke the words, he heard in his +mind the sentence she had uttered in the old church, among the ancient +graves: “We cannot plan our love!” +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch13"> +CHAPTER XIII +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">Lucius</span> and the Countess Fanny rode back side by side across the +sombre landscape. The engineers had taken the shorter way to Lefton +Park. They were alone on the desolate road, which finally reached St. +Nite’s village and Sellar’s Mead. +</p> + +<p> +She had spoken little to him, save to commend the lighthouse, and +once, as they passed a lonely farm, to say that, on her way there, she +had stopped and spoken to the people. +</p> + +<p> +“You should not have done so,” said Lucius. “They are wild and +ill-conditioned folk, disregarded here, where none are too civilised. +They have the worst of reputations. You should not have entered their +house.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny had smiled, and said that the woman had been very +kind, and that she had nursed the baby by the fire, and given it a +jewel from her wrist. +</p> + +<p> +“She gave me a drink, and set me on the right road. I have no ill will +against them; and they are horribly poor! The land here is miserable, +is it not—sterile and bleak?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not in the spring,” said Lucius, but heavily. “There are primroses +then—masses of primroses.” +</p> + +<p> +“Even on the graves, I suppose?” said the Countess Fanny; and for a +while they rode in silence. +</p> + +<p> +The young man knew that he must break that silence; he must discover +how she stood in her relations to the Sellars, and what her plans +were. She had declared that she could not marry Oliver; what, then, +did she propose to do? And yet he had no right to question her, and he +did not dare ask her why she had ridden down to the Leopard Rock—to +seek him out or to look at the lighthouse? In sheer wilfulness or in +despair? And while he conned over all possible manners of speaking to +her on this subject, it was she who broached the matter in hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to me, Lucius!” she said suddenly, turning slightly in her +saddle and speaking to him directly. “I am not going to marry Oliver; +and yet he terrifies me. Now, tell me what I am to do!” +</p> + +<p> +“You must leave Sellar’s Mead, of course,” he answered nervously, “and +immediately. He can put no obstacle in your way.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I do not wish to leave St. Nite’s,” she replied. “Besides, I do +not think he would let me. He will not accept my decision, Lucius. He +says I am a child and a fool, and do not know what I say, and that he +will hold me to my promise. And I have conceived such a disgust for +him,” added the girl with a shudder, “that I cannot endure that he +should approach me; and that infuriates him the more. He says I am a +flirt and a rattle, and turned his head for fun. And of course it is +true; but one does not expect——” she stopped abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +They were on a desolate stretch of land on top of the cliff, riding +inward from the coast; barren burrows and bending trees and sad +horizons and grey skies encompassed them. Not in all the prospect +could they discern one blade of grass. They rode slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“What of your friend, Madame de Mailly?” asked Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah—she? She writes to me frequently, but I think that Oliver will +endeavour that I shall not get her letters any more, for I was +imprudent enough to show him the last one, in which she said much ill +of him. She has come to Brest now, which is so much nearer than +Calais; and there she is living in discomfort, for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you must go to her!” urged Lucius. “Or you have friends in London +and Paris. It is of course ridiculous that you should remain here if +you wish to go!” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to remain here!” she persisted. “I like the country. I want to +spend the winter in Cornwall; but I also want to get away from Oliver. +Tell me—what shall I do?” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver felt helpless before this appeal, and it was the last of +appeals before which he would have wished to appear helpless. The +situation seemed to him both intolerable and to admit of no solution. +Well he knew and greatly he dreaded the black, implacable temper of +Oliver Sellar. The man loved the girl—in what measure of love it did +not greatly matter; he loved her, or felt for her a passion that he +would term love; and he would not let her go. How then was he, Lucius, +the betrothed of Amy, to rescue the Countess Fanny from this terrible +predicament in which she had so lightly involved herself? He had no +mother or sister, or near female relative, to whose care he could +relegate her—to whose advice he could implore her to listen. Who was +there in the village? Miss Drayton, Mrs. Spragge—all those +conventional old women who had disliked her from the first.… He +thought perhaps Madame de Mailly might be asked to St. Nite’s; but +where could she lodge? Her presence would be but an added vexation and +an increased scandal. +</p> + +<p> +“Ambrosia,” said the young man, “Ambrosia seems your only friend. What +does <i>she</i> suggest?” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny answered mournfully: +</p> + +<p> +“Did you not see that she disliked me from the first?” +</p> + +<p> +He had seen it, but he knew that it was not usual to talk of such +things, and, with some reproach, he told the girl so. +</p> + +<p> +“But why ignore it?” she asked, with her cold candour. “It is very +important to me; if Amy liked me, everything would be so much easier. +Amy stands apart—says she is not to be tormented with any of it. She +does not like Oliver, either. I think,” added the girl with a certain +passion, “that no one likes Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why?” asked Lucius distractedly, “did you engage yourself to +him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Out of lightness and some malice,” she confessed; “because Madame de +Mailly provoked me on the subject; because it was amusing to have so +stern and gloomy a man devoted to me—and I did not wish to marry the +Count, my cousin, and remain in Italy. It seemed very exciting and +diverting to come to England. Can’t you understand?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius could scarcely understand—he was too young and too +fastidiously minded. But he could sense something of the situation she +wished to convey, and it made him shudder. +</p> + +<p> +“You must get away, then, quickly—you must get away at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how?” she asked. “Who will save me from Oliver?” +</p> + +<p> +“I must speak to him,” murmured Lucius. “I will speak to Amy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Amy is angry with you,” remarked the Countess Fanny mournfully, +“because you have been so long away; for three days she has watched +the clock for your coming, and still you have not come nor sent a +letter. And when she heard you had gone to the lighthouse, she was +much vexed; she does not like the lighthouse, you know!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is the last of it,” replied Lucius uneasily. “I shall not go there +again.” And he remembered his cherished project of spending one of the +winter watches out in the lighthouse. That must go, with so much else; +it seemed that he was no longer to be his own master, now he was +betrothed to Amy. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll speak to my father,” he said; “he will help.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your father likes me well enough,” smiled the Countess Fanny, “but I +do not know if he will help me, because, of course, he will be +thinking of you.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius wanted to say, “How are you and I connected—in his mind or in +anyone else’s?” But he could not speak these words. Slowly they rode +together across this desolate landscape, and stared at each other now +and then, when they were not occupied in guiding their horses over the +rough road. +</p> + +<p> +How strange she looked, even now, in her quiet riding-habit. How alien +to this grim landscape. Yet something of her bright, flashing radiance +was subdued. Something of the light arrogance of her manner was gone. +She still bore herself with a negligent gallantry, but this now seemed +forced. Lucius observed, and observed with terror, that there was a +change in that gay, careless creature whom he had met for the first +time in the parlour of Sellar’s Mead, seated so radiantly among her +cushions, smiling so indifferently, with such finished pride and cool +self-assurance. What emotions had changed her? He believed, and yet +dared not believe, that this emotion was fear. +</p> + +<p> +“I will come with you at once to Sellar’s Mead!” he said impulsively. +“And speak now, immediately, to Oliver, if you wish.” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“No; you must not do that. Something terrible might happen if you did +that. I do not wish you to come to Sellar’s Mead at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I must do so—to see Amy, if for no other reason!” +</p> + +<p> +“Amy can wait till to-morrow. Ride over to-morrow! But I cannot +endure—nay, you must not persist, Lucius—I cannot support our joint +arrival to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re afraid of Oliver!” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, then,” he continued desperately, “this expedition, which must +vex Oliver to the heart? He will detest the thought of your riding +alone so far, and you know he dislikes the lighthouse!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I had to,” she said; “I wanted to see you! And I heard that you +were leaving the lighthouse to-day, and there was a chance, was there +not?” +</p> + +<p> +“But it has done no good,” he said impatiently, “has it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No good!” she repeated. “I don’t know, but I had to see you. I wanted +to tell you. I didn’t want someone else to tell you. From me you get +the truth, you see—that I can’t marry Oliver, that he inspires me +with repugnance. If you had heard this from Oliver or Amy, they would +have told you that I was whimsical and tiresome and malicious, just +doing all this to upset their peace; they can’t believe—Oliver won’t +believe; and Amy, I think, has no feeling.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius felt impelled to make some show of loyalty towards Amy. +</p> + +<p> +“Amy is not cold,” he protested. “She disguises her emotions, that is +all; it is our English way, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny gave a hard smile, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you must champion Amy, for you are going to marry her—in +the spring, is it not? Ah, holy heavens! Where shall <i>I</i> be in the +spring?” +</p> + +<p> +They had come now to where the roads divided, one going to Lefton Park +and one to Sellar’s Mead, which lay about two miles apart; and there +they paused at the cross-roads, side by side on their patient horses +in that universal, damp, windy greyness, in that slight sea-wind +ruffling the curdled clouds above their heads, and looked at each +other and trembled, neither knowing what to say. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll come with you,” he declared at length. “Whatever happens, I’ll +come with you. You’re not to go back alone. See, it is getting dusk +again, and Oliver is sure to be angry! Probably he is already +searching for you.” +</p> + +<p> +But she was firm in her desire to return to Sellar’s Mead alone. +</p> + +<p> +“I will give Amy a message from you,” she said. “I will say you are +coming to-morrow. That will be true, will it not? And to-morrow you +need not see me, if you wish, for now I am generally in my own room. +There is Luisa, my maid, for company, and books, and my needlework.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius sensed something ghastly behind these simple words; a far from +pleasant picture, that, the girl shut up in her own room; and why? to +be rid of Oliver.… +</p> + +<p> +“Tell your father,” she added in earnest tones. “Tell him of my +trouble, and get his advice. There is no need to plague him—but ask +him what I should do.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it is so clear,” cried Lucius, “what you should do. You should go +away.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what should I do?” she said, with a sudden break in her voice, +that had been so clear and brave, “if Oliver will not let me go away? +Oliver is my guardian, you know, and has all my money and all my +affairs till I am twenty-one.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius had never considered—indeed, had scarcely known—of this +aspect of the case, and it appalled him. But he exclaimed instantly: +</p> + +<p> +“Of course Oliver can’t abuse that power. There are your other +relations and friends. But it is grotesque for us to discuss this—if +you wish to leave Sellar’s Mead, of course you must leave.” And the +young man looked at her anxiously, with straining eyes, and no +confidence in the bravery of his own words. She intently returned his +regard. Her eyes were abnormally large and dark in her pale face, and +the black ringlets that fell beneath her hat were ebon itself in the +colourless light. +</p> + +<p> +She pulled off one of her gloves and gave him her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye!” she said. “And come to-morrow to see Amy, and ask your +father about my case; and, indeed, there is no more to be said!” +</p> + +<p> +Indeed, there was no more that he could find to say. He was baffled. +He wished to linger there with her; he wished to return to Sellar’s +Mead with her; and yet, perhaps she was right. She seemed to have more +command of the moment than he could possibly possess. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye!” he repeated, and clasped her hand closely. It was cold +within his cold fingers, and she drew it away, and rode past him and +down the lane which led to the estate of Sellar’s Mead. +</p> + +<p> +Why had she come? he mused bitterly, looking after her retreating +figure, and hoping that she would glance back; but she did not—she +rode resolutely away. Why had she come? There was no sense or reason +in that visit—that long ride to the lighthouse, just to say these few +words, just to tell him that she could not marry Oliver Sellar: a +thing that he would soon have heard, or have guessed, for himself. No +sense or reason. But was there anything else? “We cannot plan our +love!” He turned, and rode away to Lefton Park. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny proceeded so slowly and reluctantly on her way that +the landscape darkened about her, and straight drives of rain began to +fall from the clouds, ceasing from their hurrying flight with the +dropping of the wind. She did not mind the splash of the raindrops in +her face, nor even the gathering sombre gloom of the winter twilight; +as she approached nearer and nearer to Sellar’s Mead, she rode more +slowly. +</p> + +<p> +At last the house rose before her, blank and bleak, with the straight +façade and the narrow windows and the porticoed door, and the bare +parterres in front, and the barren, leafless park on either side. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny left her horse at the stables, which were some +little way from the house, and went her way on foot underneath the +bare trees, where the wind made a rocking in the branches, and the +rain dripped from one bough to another. The faded grass of last summer +was sodden beneath her feet. Now and then she moved through a wet +litter of dead leaves. There were lights in the house—pleasant orange +lights of lamps and candles, glowing in nearly all the windows. It +seemed suddenly much colder; the rain was like ice on her face. +</p> + +<p> +She turned into the iron gates that separated the garden from the +park, and moved with her reluctant steps between the shrubs and +laurels and bays and tamarisks which had been planted to keep out some +of the wind, but which now rustled, dry and withered, an inadequate +shelter from winter storms. +</p> + +<p> +As she entered these gates, she saw a man waiting for her, holding a +storm-lantern, and it reminded her of Lucius, and the storm-lantern he +had taken with him into the church; but this was not Lucius—it would +be, of course, Oliver, and she paused. +</p> + +<p> +The man, perceiving her, came forward, and the Countess Fanny observed +that it was not Oliver either, but the man Jeffries, his servant, sent +to look for her, no doubt. And she was passing on with a smile, but he +stepped in front, impeding her way. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you been looking for me?” asked the Countess Fanny, surprised at +his stopping her. +</p> + +<p> +“Everyone has been looking for you, my lady,” replied the man, in a +whisper. “And it were best if you went in, if I might be so bold as to +suggest it, by the back way, and straight up to your room. You could +do it, you know,” he added anxiously, “by the servants’ staircase.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why,” said the Countess Fanny, “should I use the servants’ +staircase? What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“The master, my lady—he’s angry, like a wild thing, hardly in his +right senses, as you might say; and I don’t think it would be wise for +you to meet him just now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” cried the Countess Fanny, and stood still, gazing at the man, +who continued to talk vehemently and anxiously, urging her, with +respect and terror mingled, not to cross Oliver Sellar’s path just +now. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been to see the lighthouse,” said the girl slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“That won’t make it any better, my lady. He’s no love for the +lighthouse; and it’s your going out alone again, and at this time of +day—and now it’s nearly dark.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“Did Miss Ambrosia send you?” she demanded. +</p> + +<p> +The man shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“No, my lady—I made bold to come on me own. And the housekeeper, Mrs. +Nordon, and Julia, the maid—they both thought you should be warned; +and it being my own idea too, I said I’d do it, come what may.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not Amy, then,” reflected the Countess Fanny. “She had no such care +of me, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“My lady, the groom who saddled your horse has lost his place, so +maybe I’ll lose mine; but I had to give you this warning. If you slip +round the back Julia will let you in, and you could be in your room +unobserved.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny replied: +</p> + +<p> +“I am much obliged—you are very kind; but I will go in by the front +door.” +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch14"> +CHAPTER XIV +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">The</span> manservant stepped aside, though not without a murmur, earnest, +though whispered, of warning; and the Countess Fanny proceeded through +the windy dusk up to the blank façade of the large dark house. +</p> + +<p> +The door stood open, and a large shaft of light fell from it across +the exotic and withered shrubs that bordered the beds of the terrace. +Slowly, reluctantly, and yet without faltering, the girl entered the +house. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia was standing by the open door of the brilliantly-lit parlour, +and she gave an exclamation, that did not seem wholly one of pleasure +and relief, when she saw the Countess Fanny. Then she immediately +repeated the warning which the girl had already received from the +frightened manservant. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver is in a most violent temper,” she whispered, “and it were wise +for you to go directly to your room.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny did not reply. She took off her wide-brimmed hat +and put back her long, black ringlets, which had been blown by the +evening wind; and Ambrosia, exasperated by this silence, added: +</p> + +<p> +“Was there any need for you to do this—for a second time to ride out +like this? You know very well this is not the proper thing, and that +it very much disturbs Oliver; and it is the second time, my dear +Fanny, that you have treated us like this!” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot for ever remain in the house,” replied the girl quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, but you can go out in the ordinary way, and with some company! It +certainly looks odd and perverse in you to pass the day in your room, +and then to ride out like this, without telling us where you are +going.” +</p> + +<p> +“I went to the lighthouse,” said the Countess Fanny. “I am tired; it +is a good many miles there and back.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia put her hand to her forehead, and repeated dully: +</p> + +<p> +“To the lighthouse? What do you mean? You are crazy indeed!” +</p> + +<p> +“I wanted to see the lighthouse,” explained the Countess Fanny +patiently, yet with a blight over her usual flashing manner; “and no +one would take me, so I went alone. There was no wrong in it. Indeed, +you must not consider me harshly!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, there is no wrong; but now it would be well if you went +upstairs. Indeed, it would not be wise to see Oliver now.” +</p> + +<p> +Then she asked the question that she loathed to take upon her lips: +</p> + +<p> +“Did you see Lucius? I believe it was to-day that he was to leave the +lighthouse. Perhaps you knew that, and went there to see him?” she +added, with a forced smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I knew that,” replied the girl, “and I did go there to see him, +and I met him, and he rode with me as far as the cross-roads; and he +sent this message to you, Amy—that he is coming to-morrow morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am obliged,” said Ambrosia stiffly and dully. “This is all very +extraordinary, Fanny, and I am rather without words.” She did not +approach the girl, or look at her, but she made a little gesture with +her pretty hand towards the wide, shallow stairs, and repeated: “You +had better go, and I will try to make your peace with Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny moved slowly towards the stairs, and then +hesitated, and then turned back and held out her hands, and took those +other cold, reluctant hands in hers, and exclaimed, with more passion +than Amy had yet heard her use: +</p> + +<p> +“We should be friends! Do, I pray you, let us be friends! It would +look very strange if we were to quarrel; above all things I do not +wish us to quarrel!” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope we <i>are</i> friends,” replied Amy still dully. She found it +impossible to evoke any response in herself towards this affectionate +impulse on the part of the other woman. +</p> + +<p> +“But help me with your brother!” cried the Countess Fanny earnestly, +still clinging to Ambrosia’s unresponsive hands. “Help me with him!” +</p> + +<p> +“How can I do that if you continue to provoke him?” cried Ambrosia, +vexed. “My position is very difficult.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what is mine?” asked the Countess Fanny proudly. “Is not that +also difficult?” +</p> + +<p> +“But you created it yourself,” said Ambrosia reproachfully. “Remember, +I do not know how you behaved in Italy—though I can guess. Now, +please go upstairs before he comes in and finds you here, for I cannot +support any more scenes of violence and temper.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny dropped her hands, but continued to plead with her +impetuously. +</p> + +<p> +“But you must see there are no such scenes; you have some influence, +surely? You are his sister; you have lived with him always. You know +what the dispute is between us; I have told him that I cannot marry +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he will not believe that,” said Ambrosia nervously, “and it all +creates a disturbance and a scandal; and if you were willing to marry +him when you were in Italy, and even the first week that you were +here, how is it that you have so suddenly changed your mind? It all +seems to me,” she added, on a rising note of hysteria, “to date from +that day when you went to the church with Lucius—that quarrel you had +with Oliver then. But do go, I pray you, or I shall say what I did not +mean to say. The days here are very long and trying, and I—I cannot +always control myself.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny took no notice of this storm of words. She gazed at +Ambrosia, and again said mournfully: +</p> + +<p> +“You will not, then, help me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot help you,” said Ambrosia, and she turned into the parlour, +and closed the door on the other girl’s face. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny stood alone in the wide hall; with an impulsive, +foreign gesture she wrung her hands, and then she turned to mount the +stairs. If she had meant to escape, she was too late, for she had not +passed the newel-post before the front door, which still stood ajar, +was pushed open, and Oliver Sellar entered his house. +</p> + +<p> +The girl paused on the lowest step of the stairs, and, half turning, +gazed seriously at the man. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you are back at last!” he exclaimed; and he, like his sister, +spoke without pleasure or relief. +</p> + +<p> +“It is not so late,” replied the Countess Fanny quietly, “and I have +not been so far—only to see the lighthouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“And to meet Lucius, I suppose,” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I saw Lucius. He was leaving the lighthouse, and he rode home +with me as far as the cross-roads,” replied the girl lightly. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar unbuttoned his coat and flung off his hat. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to speak to you,” he said hoarsely; “come into my room and let +me speak to you.” +</p> + +<p> +She came, with no sign of fear, to his side. The heavy, powerful man +seemed enormous in the narrow space of the hall. His massive face was +strained and livid. Against the unnatural pallor of his complexion his +hair looked horribly dark, the grey on his temples like ashes. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny studied him coldly, and paused before she was quite +close to him. He picked up her hat, that she had dropped on the floor, +and put it next his own. +</p> + +<p> +“Dishevelled,” he muttered, eyeing her. “Blown by the wind, wet with +the rain, well, and you must go down to St. Nite’s Head, and find +young Lucius, eh?” Then he asked: “Where is Amy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Here, in the parlour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then come with me into my room.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you are going to scold me, it is better I went upstairs, as Amy +advised.” +</p> + +<p> +“Amy advised that, did she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—said that you were in a vile temper, and that I should get +scolded.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her with gloomy rage. +</p> + +<p> +“Then why didn’t you go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I am not afraid!” said the Countess Fanny, gallantly holding +her ground. “But I will come with you into your room, Oliver, and hear +what you have to say. It will not make any difference.” +</p> + +<p> +Without answering, he flung open the dining-room door, and she +proceeded down that empty chamber, where the silver and china and +glass were already set out on the gleaming mahogany table, and a fire +gave a cheerful light on the wide hearth. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar opened another door, and showed her into a room where +she had not been before—the room where he did most of his business, +and which was fitted up as a small library or business-closet. Here, +also, was a fire, and here was a heavy desk, and a multitude of books, +and some sporting prints and engravings, and a gun hanging on the +wall, and an old fat dog, asleep on the hearth. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down,” said Oliver Sellar grimly. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny sat down, gracefully and negligently, on one of the +rough, worn leather chairs. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar lit the lamp that stood ready to his hand on the desk. +He took a long time over this simple task, which gave him an +opportunity to endeavour to control himself—a task which he had to +admit, in his own heart, he found well-nigh impossible. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny shaded her face with her long fingers and her long +ringlets from the glow of the fire which was so near, and waited. +</p> + +<p> +“Understand this, once and for all!” he said, at length. “You must +conduct yourself differently—do you hear me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t threaten me,” she replied in a low voice. “Please, Oliver, +don’t threaten me!” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you expect me to speak to you?” he demanded. “What am I to +make of your behaviour? I always knew that you were light and +capricious, but I was not prepared for this!” +</p> + +<p> +“Neither was I,” she replied sincerely. “Believe me, Oliver—neither +was I!” +</p> + +<p> +“But it is your fault, Fanny; yours entirely. I have not changed, but +you have!” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she replied with the same earnestness, as if she pleaded with +him, “I have not changed. You have just said that you always knew I +was light and capricious; well, I am the same now. Why should you have +expected constancy from a creature so flimsy and thoughtless?” +</p> + +<p> +He bit his lip at that, and struck the table with his closed hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t fool with me,” he said, “don’t palter with words. Cease this +game you play, for I’ll not endure it!” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not my master,” she replied, yet still in a gentle, +conciliatory tone. “Remember that, Oliver!” +</p> + +<p> +“Remember that you promised to be my wife!” +</p> + +<p> +“But that was a fiction!” She seemed to entreat him. “That was an +amusement, a gay diversion—you surely guessed as much! I said yes, +and yes, and yes again, because you importuned me, because Madame de +Mailly advised me against you, because I was, as you say, light and +frivolous, because—oh, because of a thousand things! But that is over +now, and you must let me go! Oliver, I have come with you here now to +entreat you to let me go! Do not force me beyond a point. I warn you,” +she added with a certain wildness, “not to force me beyond this +point!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is no question of forcing,” he answered thickly; “I hold you to +your word.” +</p> + +<p> +She drew away, nearer to the blaze of the fire, farther from the anger +of the man. +</p> + +<p> +“That is a gross way of putting it,” she said. “I am not used to such +an attitude! I have said that I am inconstant and capricious! I take +all the fault, all the blame, Oliver. But now you must let me go!” +</p> + +<p> +“Never!” he replied violently. “Never! I will not be so put and played +upon by a foolish girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I am a foolish girl,” she entreated, “you—a man like you—are +better rid of me! If it is my fortune you want,” she added, “you may +have it; take all the lands that you rent; I still have money enough; +and I need so little.” +</p> + +<p> +“You need so little!” he flared out. “You are the most extravagant +piece I have ever met. What is this play-acting, what is this pose you +take up? Your fortune is nothing to me, and you know it. Your estates +have no interest for me, and you are aware of it! It is you I want! +You took good care of that in Italy, didn’t you? You made me want +you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I did; see, I am striving to be honest. Yes, I dare say it +was not fair, Oliver; but I had never thought that it was a sin to be +a coquette, or that men would take it amiss if one strove to make them +admire one.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he ejaculated, struggling hard to express himself with some +moderation, “that was the teaching you got from that Madame de Mailly. +A false, worldly woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was wrong,” she admitted. “I was wrong. Accept my contrition, +Oliver! Indeed, I did not understand!” +</p> + +<p> +“What,” he asked violently, “makes you understand now—eh? Why this +sudden change of mood and complexion?” +</p> + +<p> +She did not try to defend herself against this invective, but, rising, +said, on a panting breath: +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver, I cannot marry you—recognise that, and be a good friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll never recognise it!” he answered, impetuously and stubbornly, a +flash of fury in his black eyes. “I’ll never even deal on the matter; +you’re promised to me, and that promise stays! I’m your guardian, +remember, and I shall exert my full authority.” +</p> + +<p> +“You cannot force me,” murmured the Countess Fanny. “And surely, +Oliver, you can be a little kind!” +</p> + +<p> +“Kind!” cried the heavy man scornfully. “Kind! Who am I to be talking +of kindness?” Again he struck his hand upon the table, and then cried, +with exceeding bitterness: “It is Lucius! It’s that fool and fop, +Lucius!” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny cried out as if she were hurt indeed. +</p> + +<p> +“You must not use that name—you must not say that!” +</p> + +<p> +And he, for the first time since they had been in the room alone +together, appeared moved by her protest, and caught up the other +violent words that were on his trembling lips. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” he muttered; “I had no right to say that! Of course Lucius +could have nothing to do with it, of course not! I did not mean to say +it, Fanny—the name slipped out; I have been grossly tried! This is +the second time you have done this—escaped away from me into the +dark; and each time you’ve chanced to meet Lucius.” He laboured with +his words. He contrived a ghastly smile. “And of course it could have +nothing to do with Lucius: that was only a coincidence, was it not?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry,” she said timidly, “to see you moved!” +</p> + +<p> +At this faint indication of tenderness, he turned instantly towards +her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Fanny, you know that you move me! You know that you have this +power over me! Don’t abuse it, I entreat you!” +</p> + +<p> +She blenched away from his nearer approach. She rose, and stood behind +the chair, keeping it in front of her with her back against his rows +of heavy books. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel kindly towards you, Oliver; indeed I do,” she said. “I want us +to be friends. But you must not talk any more of our marriage. That +was all a wild jest, a stupid mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk like that, Fanny! You know that you can do anything with +me; and I, I’ll give you all you want. I’ll take you away from here if +you find it dull—if you don’t get on with Amy; there’s London; +there’s Paris—or back to Italy: where you will! But don’t be unkind +to me, Fanny, for God’s sake don’t be unkind!” +</p> + +<p> +The black, sparkling eyes were at once compassionate and terrified. +This entreaty seemed to alarm her more than his frenzy. Closer and +closer she drew against the bookcase. She stared at his powerful and +energetic hands, clasping and unclasping nervously on the worn back of +the leather chair. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t let you go, Fanny!” he muttered. “I don’t intend to let you +go—understand that! See,” he added with distressing emotion, “I will +be gentle and kind; I will do anything you wish—behave as you desire! +I did not mean to be angry to-night; it was only fear for your safety. +You don’t know the country, and it was getting dark, and—well—I am +jealous of every moment that you are away from me. Can’t you +understand it, Fanny? I dare say you understand nothing yet, but be +patient—wait; don’t indulge these whims! Have some pity! You must +know how it has been with me from the first moment I saw you, and I am +not so facile or impressionable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me,” she murmured, “but it cannot be. Oh, Oliver, you +distress me very much! Please let me go!” And with a lithe, swift +movement she tried to pass him and the chair and gain the door. +</p> + +<p> +This movement towards escape half maddened the man already wrought +almost beyond control, he was instantly after her, and with a certain +exultant pleasure in the exercise of his strength, had caught and +detained her, gripping her brutally by the shoulders; and at this +powerful touch her control was gone also, and she began to struggle, +endeavouring to push the massive bulk of him away with her long, slim +hand. +</p> + +<p> +“See,” he said fiercely, “you can’t free yourself!” And, his passion +inflamed by the feel of her struggling fragility clasped firmly in his +two hands, unable to resist his long pent-up and fierce desires, he +began to kiss her neck and cheeks, though she violently turned her +head away. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be a fool, Fanny!” he whispered hoarsely. “Don’t be a tiresome, +vexatious little fool!” And between every word he kissed her the more +greedily for her frantic efforts to be free of him. The Countess Fanny +wrenched and writhed in his harsh grasp, and gasped out words which, +as they forced themselves on his understanding, made him let her go, +so suddenly that she almost fell. +</p> + +<p> +“I loathe you!” she had stammered, with all the bitter accent of clear +truth. “I detest you. You are repellent to me; if you do not let me +go,” she added, “if you do not release me, I will make a scandal by +calling Amy and the servants!” +</p> + +<p> +But he had set her free before she had finished her sentence, and she +fell upon the door and stood there panting, and endeavouring to +re-arrange her habit, torn across the breast and about the neck by his +violence. Her shoulders were aching where he had clutched her. She +felt outraged, sick, humiliated. At least she had always, so far, been +able to keep him at arm’s length; throughout all the comedy of their +engagement he had never done more than press a kiss upon her brow or +cheek. But this! As she recovered from her immediate fright, she +stamped her foot in haughty rage. +</p> + +<p> +“Never—do you hear, Oliver?” she exclaimed; “never, never!” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he answered hoarsely, “you detest me, do you? And I am repellent +to you? You don’t suppose I am going to take any notice of these +girlish rages, do you? Go upstairs and stay upstairs, keep out of my +sight, and do not suppose that I shall give any heed to your brittle +fancies! Nay, nor concern myself with your furies! I’ll marry you +first and tame you afterwards!” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny, with all the force of her Italian temper, which +was usually concealed under such a pretty gloss of courtesy, replied, +in the extreme of violence: +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll die first!” and flung herself out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +The man’s impulse was to follow her instantly and subdue her on the +spot; but the habits of a long convention were too strong for him. It +was his house. There was Amy there, and the servants. Decorum and +restraint encompassed him. His passion was out of place, and he must, +as best he could, conceal and control it. +</p> + +<p> +With a groan, he flung himself into the chair where she had sat, and +put his distorted face in his trembling hands. +</p> + +<p> +How endure it? How break her? +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch15"> +CHAPTER XV +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">Ambrosia</span> could not sleep that night, because of the gale flying past +her window; for the tempest had broken with fierce violence, and, +after a day that had been of a grey stillness and a mere low muttering +of wind and a mere cold slash of rain, there was now a roused fury +abroad. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia was familiar with these gales, which often began at this time +of the year and did not cease till the winter was past. As she lay in +bed, listening to this onslaught of the wind, it seemed to her as if +the whole house, square, ponderous and solid as it was, shook before +these ferocious charges of the elements. +</p> + +<p> +The wind always made her nervous and excited, and to-night she would +have been nervous and excited without the wind. Last evening had been +dreadful, and had exhausted her, body and soul. She had felt it her +duty to speak to Oliver about Fanny; take Fanny’s part, and champion +her, or try to induce her brother to adopt some reasonable attitude +towards the strange girl. Of course Ambrosia herself admitted that +Fanny had behaved very badly, with the greatest lightness and +frivolity—perhaps with something that could be given a worse name +than either lightness or frivolity. But there still remained a certain +standard for Oliver; there were things he must not do, and things he +must not say. +</p> + +<p> +Opening the parlour door, earlier in the evening, she had seen the +Countess Fanny sweep upstairs in a whirlwind of rage and fear, and she +had seen Oliver standing at the dining-room door, staring after her +with a hideous expression on his face. +</p> + +<p> +She had not spoken to him then, because she had felt it would be +useless to do so; and also, perhaps, because she was a little +frightened. Nor had there been any conversation on this subject during +their gloomy meal, served with all pomp and pretension, and in a +melancholic silence in the big dining-room, in which two people seemed +so lost and so insignificant. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia had decided to speak to Fanny before she spoke to Oliver, to +try and sift out from the girl exactly what had happened, and what was +likely to happen; and so, after the dreary meal, she had gone upstairs +and endeavoured to see Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +The Italian maid had refused her admission to her guest’s room, and +not with the greatest of courtesy. Rebuffed and humiliated, Ambrosia +had returned to the dining-room, in a haughty and an irritated mood, +resolved to have matters out with Oliver; and Oliver had been greatly +displeased to see her again. He had believed she had retired for the +night, and he was sprawling in a low chair by the fire, heavily +drinking port. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver, like his father before him, could be a hard drinker on +occasion. Ambrosia was used to this. She knew that he was a solitary, +not a convivial, drinker, and that seemed to her doubly disgusting. +There was some excuse for intoxication in a large, cheerful company, +at a gathering of friends or acquaintances; but there seemed no excuse +for a man to sit alone by the fire, heavily fuddling himself from +solitary bottles. And this was what Oliver did, and what his father +had done before him. Of course, it had never made much difference to +Ambrosia; she had simply withdrawn from these scenes, and if either of +the men had been found, prone on the hearth or under the table, by the +servants in the morning, it had never been much business of hers, for +she had never seen it; and usually, when she saw Oliver flushed and +his eyes glazed and his temper more than ever uncertain, she departed +with an extra note of hauteur in her manner, and an extra glimpse of +reproach in her dark eyes. +</p> + +<p> +But to-night she did not leave him, but sat down on the other side of +the large, mahogany table, keeping that shiny expanse of wood between +her and her brother, resting her elbows thereon and her cheeks in her +hands, and looking at him with distaste and malice across the +lamplight. And then she had spoken to him about Fanny—spoken rapidly +and coldly. She heard the shrewish notes becoming accentuated in her +own clear voice, and she disliked shrewishness in a woman; and yet she +could not control herself. She went on, till she rose to heaping +invective on her brother, blaming him for an intolerable situation and +a scandal that could not long be concealed. +</p> + +<p> +She had pretended not to understand what the Italian maid, in broken +English, had flung at her when she had just now gone to Fanny’s room. +She had understood, just the same; with Southern exaggeration, the +maid had spoken of bruises, of wounds on her mistress’s shoulders, and +in screaming excitement had accused the master of the house of being +the cause of these. +</p> + +<p> +Amy now reproached her brother with this, and voiced all the +bitterness of her degradation in the fierce, cold words she used. +Oliver had listened in a tormented, sour silence, as a man might +listen to the buzzing of a wasp that he is too languid, or too idle, +to brush away. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia had wished he would speak—give her some answer. She detested +the sound of her own angry voice. She knew that she was playing a part +which was not a pretty or a graceful part for a woman to play. She +knew that if Lucius heard her he would disapprove—Lucius, who was so +sensitive to the least inflection of scolding or temper in a feminine +voice. +</p> + +<p> +But still she could not stop: she began to speak of Fanny—without +enthusiasm, indeed, with reluctance, she tried to champion the girl. +She spoke of her with what justice she could muster, and pointed out +her intolerable situation, continually reiterating: “Oliver, you must +let her go! Oliver, it is scandalous to detain her here! Oliver, you +cannot force yourself on her if she will not have you! Whatever she +has done, she is free!” Still Oliver had made no reply. His only +movement had been to refill his glass and swallow the contents. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop drinking!” Ambrosia had cried at last, at the end of her +control. “Listen to what I say!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m listening,” Oliver had replied; and his voice was a grumble in +his deep chest. +</p> + +<p> +“Then answer me.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no answer; go upstairs and get to bed!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are intoxicated!” Ambrosia had replied in angry disgust. “It is +useless for me to talk to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you hold your peace, then?” he retorted sullenly. +</p> + +<p> +“It was my plain duty to remonstrate with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, now you have done your duty,” he had snarled, “and you can go! +Go at once, I say!” And he had leant forward in his chair with a +menacing gesture. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia had risen, nauseated with herself and with him, filled with +despair and disgust at the whole position. +</p> + +<p> +“I will ask Lucius to speak to you in the morning,” she had said, more +to give herself courage than to threaten him; for she well knew that +Oliver was not easily menaced. +</p> + +<p> +She was not prepared for the outrageous reply that her challenge had +provoked. Oliver had sworn at her—as grossly, Ambrosia thought, with +a shudder, as if she had been in a pot-house—and added in a raucous +voice: +</p> + +<p> +“You railing shrew! Don’t you understand the part that Lucius has in +this? Twice she has gone out to meet him!” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” cried Ambrosia. “No! You must not dare to say that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and yes, I say!” he had cried violently. “Do you think you are +such a beauty as to hold him against a girl like Fanny?” And he ended +on a groan, and put his face in his hands. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia had stood rigid. A dozen sentences had paused on her lips and +died away without her having the force to pronounce them. She had +stared dully at that heavy, bowed figure of her brother. She ought to +have felt some compassion for him, but she could not do so, for he had +brought this on them both. Why did he need to go to Italy and bring +this girl home? Could not he have had more dignity and self-control +than to unleash this wild, ungovernable passion for a worthless +rattle, a light flirt? Of course, what he said of Lucius was +grotesque, absurd! And yet it had been most moving to hear him say +it.… +</p> + +<p> +So, as he would not speak and she could not, she had left him, and +gone wearily upstairs. It seemed her plain duty to endeavour to visit +Fanny again, but she had found the door locked; once, twice, thrice +she tried the handle. Yes, it was securely locked, and as well that it +should be, she thought grimly! Fanny must go away immediately, of +course—but where? Oliver was her guardian; that was dreadful! But +there were other people—those relatives in Italy. Oh, the girl must +go, and at once—anywhere! +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia felt her head aching. She sat alone in her room, listening to +the wind, which was rising even then, and turned over a dozen hectic +schemes to be immediately rid of Fanny—like one might plan and plot +to be rid of a pretty snake that one had suddenly found lying coiled +in one’s path, that one dared not touch for fear of a fatal sting. +</p> + +<p> +How to be rid of it, by some craft or subterfuge, without provoking a +venomous stab which might mean death? +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia dwelt on the simile of the snake: pretty, yes; graceful and +vivid, crested and glossy; but fatal—ah, fatal! +</p> + +<p> +“I will write to Madame de Mailly,” thought Ambrosia desperately. “To +those Italian relations; to her lawyers—anyone, anywhere! But she +must go!” +</p> + +<p> +As the wind rose still more impetuously, her harassed thoughts ran on +another matter. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad that Lucius has left the lighthouse; it is merciful that he +will not be there during this storm. Perhaps he would not have been +able to get off if he had stayed till to-morrow; and to-morrow he is +coming here, and I shall see him; and I must speak to him most +moderately and carefully about Fanny. Oh, yes, I must be most just +towards Fanny!” And she clenched her hands unconsciously, in the +effort that even the contemplation of being just to Fanny cost +her—this exotic, incomprehensible creature, suddenly cast in the +midst of them. +</p> + +<p> +Then she had gone to bed, and endeavoured to sleep; but uselessly. +For, apart from the agitation of her heart, there was the agitation of +the storm without, ever growing and increasing, whirling and battling +round the house and seeming to shut them off from the rest of +humanity—the three of them shut up there, with their roused passions, +their unsubdued tempers, and their irrevocable destinies. “Oh, God, +have pity on me!” prayed Ambrosia. “Don’t let me be drawn into +anything vile! Don’t let me behave contemptibly!” And in the darkness, +and the swirl and rattle of the wind, the self-contained woman left +her bed and knelt in her long nightgown beside that bed, and prayed as +she had, since her childhood, been taught to pray: “Whatever happens, +may I not behave ignobly!” But there came no response from the noisy +darkness. “It is my fault,” thought Ambrosia wretchedly. “I am too +torn by earthly emotions to listen to any divine comfort!” And she +returned to her bed, and lay there tossing on the pillows, trying to +count the booming rattles of the wind against the panes of her tall +windows. “If I could have liked her!” she thought in remorse. But +something within her answered mockingly: “How could you like her, when +she came to rob you of all you had?” “That is her business,” Ambrosia +answered back. “She was made—well—made to rob. She only follows her +destiny, and I must follow mine. I should not hate her: perhaps if I’d +liked her; perhaps if I’d been kinder—but it all happened so +swiftly!” +</p> + +<p> +Yes, that was part of the horror of it: it had all happened so +swiftly, like a storm in summer-time, like thunder and lightning out +of blue skies. All her life, for twenty-seven years, things had gone +placidly and serenely; she had been discontented, no doubt; bored, +melancholic, weary of monotony and calmness and quiet emotions and the +perpetual round of exact and small duties. She had sighed and +lamented, but everything had been in a minor key. The days had gone +round without any serious interruption to their stiff austerity. Her +mother and father, her brother who had gone to India—all quiet +people, or people who maintained an appearance of quiet, as she had +maintained such an appearance herself. Passions and emotions had been +hardly allowed to be spoken of: there was Oliver’s evil temper always, +but that had been a thing that must not be discussed. And Oliver had +gone from home—and here, at this pause in her thoughts, with a +shudder Ambrosia recalled the words of Amelia, Oliver’s wife: “Amy, I +am not happy!” +</p> + +<p> +And she had been gay, simple and affectionate as a girl; poor Amelia. +Ambrosia could recall her on her wedding-day—how excited and +light-hearted she had been, how pretty she had looked, in her bonnet +lined with orange-blossom. But Oliver had blighted her as he now was +blighting all of them. It was all Oliver’s fault! +</p> + +<p> +She clenched her hands under the bed-clothes. Yes, it must be Oliver’s +fault! She should not, must not blame Fanny, any more than she would +have blamed Amelia. But Amelia had drooped—had pined and died. Fanny +would not do that. She would struggle; she would try to escape; she +would assert herself. She might beat herself to death, in a frenzy of +passion, against the bars of her imprisonment, but she would not droop +and die behind them—of that Ambrosia was sure. +</p> + +<p> +The tempest increased with the ragged, pale, and bitter dawn, when +Ambrosia, heavy-eyed and with an aching head and trembling limbs, rose +at last and went to the window, and looked out with a shudder of +distaste at the devastated landscape. She saw that several trees had +been blown down in the park, and lay there desolate with their twisted +roots stiffly pointing upwards, while the heavens were one wild tumult +of clouds. +</p> + +<p> +Her first thought was: “Perhaps, as the weather is so wild, Lucius +will not come to-day.” And her second: “What am I to do about Fanny?” +</p> + +<p> +There was one obvious duty to perform: to maintain decorum, in which, +all her life, she had been so exactly trained. Everything must be as +usual. To that creed she sternly held. The servants must suspect +nothing—or, rather, one must assume they suspected nothing. Though, +of course, since yesterday they had learned a great deal, if not +everything. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver’s scene with the groom had been sufficient to apprise them all +of his relations to the Countess Fanny. Still, no lack of propriety +should come from her: she would be seen, as usual, in her place, and +in front of the servants she would treat Oliver as usual. She must +induce Fanny to come downstairs, and not sulk in her room; or else she +must proclaim her definitely ill, and bring Dr. Drayton there. There +would be a certain comfort in that—to have Dr. Drayton. Perhaps she +might ask his sister to come and stay with them; there would be +another personality in the house, and one that would be definitely on +Ambrosia’s side, against both Oliver and Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +So Ambrosia dressed carefully in her dark morning gown, and precisely +fixed the lace collar and cuffs and fastened the big cameo at her +throat, and draped over her shoulders a cashmere shawl that her +brother had sent from India, and combed back her ringlets into a +tortoiseshell comb, and went downstairs into the dining-room and took +her place behind the heavy breakfast equipage. +</p> + +<p> +Everything looked exactly as it had looked yesterday, and for so many +more yesterdays before that: the fire burning cheerfully with big, +glittering coals, the silver and the glass and the china on the +mahogany, sparkling in the light of it; only, to-day no letters or +papers—the storm, of course, had been too fierce. Often in the winter +they would go for weeks together without any news of the outer world. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia was relieved when Oliver entered the room, sullen and +heavy-eyed, but with some manner of formal civility over his temper. +He vented his rage on the weather—almost as if he thought Ambrosia +could have helped the tempest—and on the service, which he certainly +<i>did</i> think she could have helped. Everything was wrong. Ambrosia did +not answer; she was so well used to everything being wrong. +</p> + +<p> +At last he asked abruptly if she had seen Fanny that morning. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you must go up to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have sent up her breakfast,” said Ambrosia; “and last night she +would not see me.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you will not go up, I shall.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do not be impossible, Oliver!” +</p> + +<p> +“Go up and see her, and bring her down,” he answered violently. “How +long do you think I am to endure this sort of play-acting?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is more a question,” said Ambrosia coldly, “of how long <i>we</i> are +to endure <i>you</i>, Oliver! I shall, of course, make immediate +arrangements for Fanny to leave the house.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver laughed; and even in Ambrosia’s own ears, her statement had +sounded feeble. There were a great many difficulties—and some of them +were almost insuperable—to be overcome before the Countess Fanny +could depart from Sellar’s Mead. +</p> + +<p> +To quiet her brother, and in some way her own conscience, she went to +Fanny’s room, and was again denied admittance; nor could she get any +coherent statement from the excitable maid as to the girl’s condition. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing to be done. “One can hardly force the door, of +course!” Ambrosia reminded herself bitterly; and even Oliver was at a +loss. He might storm and fume as he would; he was powerless. +</p> + +<p> +By the middle of the morning, when there still had been no sign from +Fanny, nor any response to Ambrosia’s enquiries at her door save a +string of ejaculations, reproaches, and exclamations from the maid, +Luisa, a sudden suspicion came into Oliver’s dark and stormy mind. He +hastened round to the stables. He had given the most strict orders +that the Countess Fanny must never again be allowed a horse, but it +occurred to him that possibly she had bribed the grooms, or one of +them, at least—perhaps even the man whom he had dismissed yesterday. +He was still perhaps hanging round Sellar’s Mead, and in spite and +vengeance had helped the Countess Fanny to escape. For that was the +word that now formed itself, unconsciously enough, in Oliver Sellar’s +mind. Escape—the girl was surely trying to escape! +</p> + +<p> +The storm smote him as he left the house, and the strong man was +buffeted back by it, and almost swept off his feet, so mighty and +stupendous was the wind that howled round the blank façade of +Sellar’s Mead. He made a furious exclamation as he noted his trees +blown down. No doubt a power of damage had been done to his estate +during the night; and on any ordinary occasion he would at once have +ridden round the whole of his domain, noting the devastations of the +storm. But, maddening as these misfortunes were, he could not now +consider them. He hastened round to the stables, bending before the +wind. +</p> + +<p> +The horses were all there, and the groom declared that the Countess +Fanny had not been near them since yesterday, when she had left her +horse on her return from her visit to the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +“Did she tell you,” asked Oliver, “that she had been to the +lighthouse?” +</p> + +<p> +And one of the men said yes, the lady had mentioned that she had been +to St. Nite’s Head; and a fine sight it was. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver returned to the house, and on his way he was stopped by one of +the under-gardeners, who told him, with a certain deferential fear, +that the young lady—the foreign lady—had left the house about two +hours ago, on foot. He had seen her and spoken to her. She had hurried +across the garden, through all the wind and wet, and had run—fled, as +you might say—through the park. He had seen her, and been alarmed +lest one of the crashing trees should have fallen on her; for even now +the old oaks were being uprooted by the violence of the wind. +</p> + +<p> +With a bitter oath Oliver flung back into the house, and threw himself +up the stairs and hammered on the door of the Countess Fanny’s room. +And when the terrified maid opened it and saw his face, she confessed, +in an access of terror, that her mistress <i>had</i> left the house some +hours ago, on foot and alone. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch16"> +CHAPTER XVI +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">Mrs. Trefusis</span>, the housekeeper at Lefton Park, looked with dismay +and hostility at the figure standing in the portico, blown upon and +ruffled by the continuous stormy wind. It was a second before she knew +this guest to be the foreign young lady from Sellar’s Mead, whom she +had from the first disliked and mistrusted: the young lady whom they +called the “Countess Fanny”—but was no such thing in the eyes of Mrs. +Trefusis, but a nameless foreigner who deserved little consideration. +</p> + +<p> +The girl’s shawl and bonnet were wet, and her long skirt draggled at +the hem from traversing the wet grass of the park and the muddy roads +of the country-side. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Trefusis marked, with increasing disapproval, her ungloved and +ringless hand, and soaked shoes, which were of the finest kid. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to see Mr. Lucius Foxe,” said the girl, as if wholly +unconscious of anything peculiar in either her looks or the manner of +her visit. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean Lord Vanden, ma’am,” replied the housekeeper severely. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes—that is his title, is it not? I did not quite know how you +called people here. Can I see him, please—and immediately?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not think so, ma’am,” replied Mrs. Trefusis grimly. “His +lordship is not, I believe, in the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I will wait for him,” replied the Countess Fanny, still without +the least trace of self-consciousness. “Perhaps I could see the Earl?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, ma’am, that you cannot; the Earl is not at all so well this +morning; he had one of his heart seizures last night, and there are +two doctors there. Lord Vanden has been very occupied with that. It +was difficult, in the storm yesterday, to get someone over from Truro, +his young lordship being on the lighthouse, and all that. Indeed, +ma’am, you cannot see either the Earl or Lord Vanden this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I can come in?” asked the Countess Fanny haughtily. “I cannot +wait here in the wind and the rain. I have walked over two miles from +Sellar’s Mead, and I am most exhausted; I have had no breakfast, +either. Pray let me pass, and get me some refreshment!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Trefusis was too well trained to be able to resist a tone of +authority on the part of a superior. She moved aside, but with an ill +grace, and allowed the Countess Fanny to enter the wide hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is there a fire?” the girl asked. +</p> + +<p> +“In the withdrawing-room, I suppose, ma’am,” said Mrs. Trefusis, +vexed. “I perceive that you are very wet and blown, and it is indeed +wild weather for a young lady to be abroad.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are times,” said the Countess Fanny, “when the weather, however +wild, is of no moment at all. Is this the door?” And she opened that +at her right, which led into a large room, where, however, no fire was +burning. +</p> + +<p> +“The room beyond,” said Mrs. Trefusis, stiffly and crossly, and +without offering to conduct this, to her, most unwelcome guest. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny took no further heed of her, but crossed the long +room which, with the green panels, indigo tapestry, and a few black, +sombre pictures, was gloomy enough on this dark morning. But in the +room beyond was a fire. It was a smaller chamber, and one more +frequently used by the inhabitants of Lefton Park; and there, at this +moment, was Lucius, discontentedly turning over a pile of papers and +letters at a little desk which stood in front of the one small, +uncurtained window. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny gave a joyful exclamation, and stepped forward +lightly, holding out her hand as if unconscious of any possibility of +rebuke or rebuff. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Lucius!” she exclaimed. “So that cross old woman did not tell +the truth after all! You <i>are</i> here! I thought you would be. It is a +very stormy morning for anyone to go abroad. Why,” she added +hurriedly, on a panting breath, “I saw the trees fall even as I came +through the park at Sellar’s Mead; and the wind is terrible—I could +hardly keep my feet sometimes, and had to crouch against the hedges +till the gusts went by. I think my shawl is torn,” she laughed, “and +my bonnet is battered—see!” She snatched it off, and her black +ringlets fell in a cloud on to her shoulders. She dashed the bonnet on +to a chair and took his reluctant hand in hers; for he was standing +and staring at her with dismay, not untouched with horror. +</p> + +<p> +“What has happened, Fanny?” he stammered. “What has happened?” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed again, and approached the fire, holding out her stiff, +cold fingers to the genial heat. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at my shoes—they are soaked, and even split! What shall I do, +Lucius? I have never walked so far before, and I thought these shoes +were so stout; and see, they have been no use at all. And yet I had to +put them on because they are so pretty! One cannot help choosing a +pretty thing if one has it—can one?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you are wet!” he cried. “And will be ill, I must send for Mrs. +Trefusis, or one of the maids.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, don’t do that,” she smiled, “for Mrs. Trefusis was very cross +with me. She did not want to let me in—said that you were abroad, and +that the Earl was ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is quite true that my father is ill,” replied Lucius uneasily. +“When I arrived yesterday I found that they had sent for another +doctor, besides Dr. Drayton; but that is of no matter now—you must +change your shoes, and have some hot milk or cordial.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like something,” said the Countess Fanny; “I have had no +breakfast this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“No breakfast! What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean that I cannot eat anything more in Oliver Sellar’s house,” she +replied. +</p> + +<p> +He rang the bell. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Fanny—what has happened? What sort of a tangle are we involved +in?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” she replied. “I can scarcely tell if it is a tangle or +not. You see, I told Oliver some days ago that I could not marry him. +I told him that I had been wrong—light, a flirt and a rattle, as he +calls me; but I was quite honest, really. From the moment that I knew +I couldn’t do it, I said so. And he would not accept that; he said +that I must stay there, and marry him in the spring; and last night he +was very angry because I had been to the lighthouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew he would be!” cried Lucius. “You should have let me come with +you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it would have been worse,” she said candidly. “He was so angry +that his man, Jefferies, met me in the drive and told me to go in the +back way; but of course,” she added simply, “I could not do that. I +went in and faced him—and he was terrible!” +</p> + +<p> +“What did he do?” breathed Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“First there was Amy. Amy blamed me. Amy said I provoked him and +destroyed everyone’s peace; but he provoked me first, by refusing to +let me go out, by refusing to accept my decision that I could not and +would not marry him. But Amy was hard and unkind. She shut the door in +my face, and left me there in the hall; and then Oliver came in, and +asked me into his room, and of course I went.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Oliver—Oliver—surely he——” stammered Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“He behaved very badly,” said the Countess Fanny calmly. “He lost his +temper and his manners. I think he is rather a dreadful man. He ended +by taking me by the shoulders and shaking me. I don’t want to talk +about that—but I have never been treated in that manner before, and, +of course, I shall not return to the house.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius did not trust himself to speak. Mrs. Trefusis had come, in +answer to the ring, and he was glad of her appearance, for it gave him +a few moments’ respite. +</p> + +<p> +He asked, hurriedly and nervously, for refreshment for the Countess +Fanny, and for shoes and stockings—surely the maids had something? +Could she not be taken up to one of the bedrooms? +</p> + +<p> +But here the Countess Fanny interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“I will remain here, if you please. Pray do not look so disagreeable +and angry with me, Mrs. Trefusis, but just bring me these things that +Lord Vanden—is it not?—has asked for, and I shall be greatly obliged +to you.” +</p> + +<p> +The housekeeper left the room in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“How unkind everyone seems here!” remarked the Countess Fanny coolly. +“All the women, I mean—so harsh and severe!” +</p> + +<p> +“She thinks it odd that you are here,” murmured Lucius. “Of course, it +<i>is</i> strange: you should have thought a little, Fanny. I cannot save +you from yourself, it seems.” +</p> + +<p> +“You too are dry and cold to-day!” cried the girl with vivacity. “I +should have thought you would have been glad to see me—distressed, +but glad! Are you not glad to see me sitting here?” +</p> + +<p> +Glad! He had always thought of her as a branch of flowers, as a +bouquet of brilliant red roses; and in this old house, which so long +had been dull and monotonous to him, she was indeed like colour and +radiance and melody; all life, every second, seemed to move to a +different music when he was in the presence of the Countess Fanny, so +lovely and so self-assured, so intent upon her own brilliant business +of being beautiful, so radiating life—life at its fullest and most +wonderful, blown in from the storm, from the greyness and the dark, +like a brilliant butterfly, or a gorgeous bird, helpless but gallant. +But he must keep his head—he must think of the best for her and for +Amy. He had to drag Amy into his thoughts; that was a plain duty—and +he had been always trained to put his duty first. +</p> + +<p> +“Fanny,” he said hoarsely, “we will think of something to do; you +shall not be forced to do anything that you do not wish to do. Believe +that. Confide in us, my father and me—we will think of something. You +shall go back to Italy, or to your friends in London or Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I,” she replied, “wish to stay here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stay here, in Lefton Park?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said. “I like your father; he likes me: and you——” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius looked away. +</p> + +<p> +“I like you too, Fanny; but you cannot stay here!” +</p> + +<p> +“How odd and cold you are!” she said wonderingly. “Are you afraid?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” replied Lucius gravely, “I am afraid!” +</p> + +<p> +“Of what?” she challenged. +</p> + +<p> +“Of what may happen to you,” he answered; “and there’s Amy also.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Trefusis did not return; in her stead she sent a maid, who was +far more respectful, and even sympathetic. She had brought Fanny her +shoes—her own very best, she said, but hardly good enough for the +young lady. +</p> + +<p> +“These are very pretty,” said the Countess Fanny, gracious at once in +response to this courtesy. “And I will buy you another pair—blue kid, +if you will, with silver ties; that will be pleasant, will it not? And +I see you have brought me some milk and cakes; I shall be very glad of +those. You are a kind, sweet girl, and I am greatly obliged to you.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl blushed violently, and gave the brilliant foreigner a look of +worship. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said the Countess Fanny to Lucius, “you may look out of the +window, if you please, and I will change my shoes; otherwise I fear I +may get a chill, and perhaps a sore throat, and that would be very +disagreeable.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius moved obediently to the window, and stared out at the greyness +of the sky and the park, where he seemed to see the wind, like a +visible thing, rushing over the tops of the trees and bowing them +beneath its progress. +</p> + +<p> +The maid changed the young lady’s soaking shoes and stockings, and put +on those of her own; and again the Countess Fanny thanked her, with +her graceful, self-confident manner. And then they were alone again, +and she said to Lucius: +</p> + +<p> +“Come back to the fire now. See, they have brought me some breakfast, +and I feel revived already.” +</p> + +<p> +In that moment or two when he had stood by the window, he had +endeavoured to formulate some plan of conduct. This was a difficult +and unexpected situation, and he was totally unprepared to meet it; +but there must be some way out. He had always been taught that—that, +whatever the situation, there was some strong and honourable way out. +But here he could not, for the moment, find it. He was too young and +inexperienced, and his emotions too disturbed. In those brief moments +he had been conscious of nothing but the greyness without and the rush +of the embattled wind, and the sweep backwards of the bare trees under +its onslaught. +</p> + +<p> +No, he had not been able to think of anything honourable and sensible +and just. Bitterly he regretted the illness of his father. It was +impossible for him now to disturb the old man. Agitation or a shock +might be fatal to him. He could not, in common humanity, plague his +father with this affair; he must settle it alone and by himself. He +had no friends here; nor was it, in the face of this intense tempest, +easy to communicate with anyone. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny drank her milk and nibbled her biscuits with as +serene an air as if she had been mistress in her own house. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel safe and happy and free here,” she declared. “It has been +dreadful at Sellar’s Mead, shut in my room, and with that horrible +face of Oliver’s always so dark and scowling, so staring and greedy; +and Amy pinched and grim. Horrible, I say!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but Amy is your friend,” he protested. “Amy would help you! Amy, +I am sure, you misunderstand.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him directly, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t pretend to me, Lucius—you don’t love Amy, you know; and I +don’t think Amy loves you! That was also a mistake, was it not?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius could not answer. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny rose. She seemed to be suddenly impressed by the +reluctance of Lucius, by his hesitation and half-heartedness, and she +said, almost haughtily: +</p> + +<p> +“Why are you so dull and slow?” +</p> + +<p> +The young man answered that challenge with almost equal haughtiness: +</p> + +<p> +“Because of what I may not say; but because of what you, I think, can +very well guess!” +</p> + +<p> +“You love me, don’t you?” asked the girl, in the same proud tone. +“Several men have loved me, and out of them all I choose you. I have +come to you now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Fanny!” he groaned. +</p> + +<p> +“Why should it distress you so? I am well-born and well-dowered; I +shall make you quite a good wife. I am not such a fool as Oliver says; +not now, since I have met you. For I love you, Lucius, and you must +have known it from the moment you first saw me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t wish to know it,” replied the young man desperately. “I +don’t wish to know it now. We must not talk like this, Fanny. I dare +say you only do it to try me; I must think of it like that!” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t believe what I say?” she asked, wide-eyed. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Fanny, of course not!” replied the unfortunate young man, hardly +knowing what he said. “I think you play with me, make a game of me, +and it is all impossible and dreadful! I must think of Amy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must think of Amy before me?” she demanded. “What is Amy to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is the woman I have promised to marry,” he replied. “One can’t +forget that so easily.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Amy will set you free when she knows,” said Fanny, with surprise +at his protest. “Amy can find someone else, she is much older than +you, and, as I say, you don’t love her! Why, it is impossible that you +should love her! But you do love me, I can’t be mistaken in that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Fanny,” broke in the young man desperately, “you must not talk so, +and I must not listen! We are involved in a lunacy! You shall not +marry Oliver—I will see to that, but I can’t break my bond to Amy, +that is out of the question. You must not stay here, I should be doing +you a wrong to allow it. You must leave, and at once, Fanny,” he added +sternly. “You don’t understand this country, you don’t know what you +are doing.” +</p> + +<p> +She went pale under his stare. +</p> + +<p> +“I would not have believed you would have spoken to me so!” she cried. +“It seems impossible, when I have come to you like this. What do you +think I am going to do, then? Are you sending me away?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he returned, “I am sending you away, Fanny!” +</p> + +<p> +“Where do you think I am going?” +</p> + +<p> +“You must, of course, return to Sellar’s Mead. Amy is there; that is +enough!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said the girl; “oh!” And she turned away to the fire. No further +word or sound than that. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius continued speaking, rapidly, thickly; he felt that he had done +a difficult, almost an heroic thing, and that encouraged him. He was +denying his own heart and passions as he had denied hers; he strove +now to justify himself—spoke of honour, and plighted words, of +conventions and obligations, of scandals to be avoided, of gossip to +be quenched. He told the girl that she must return to Sellar’s Mead, +and leave the house decorously with the full countenance and +protection of relatives and friends; said that she could trust in Amy, +and even, to an extent, in Oliver. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver is a gentleman,” he answered, trying to impress this fact upon +himself as much as upon her. “You are, after all, safe with Oliver, +even if he does lose his temper.” +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny stood with her back to him during this agitated and +broken speech, with her hands upon the mantelshelf, staring into the +fire. At length she turned round, and said swiftly: +</p> + +<p> +“There is no need for you to make any more of this pragmatical +discourse, I understand your meaning very well. I have come to you and +you have turned me away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, not that, Fanny, not that!” he cried in despair. “I am trying to +do my best for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are trying to thwart our destiny, it seems to me,” she said with +a bitter smile. “I do not understand you, you are quite right when you +say that I do not understand this country.” +</p> + +<p> +“Love is not all the business of life,” said the unfortunate young man +gloomily. +</p> + +<p> +“It is all <i>my</i> business,” said the Countess Fanny. Then she added +coldly: “So you say I am to return to Sellar’s Mead?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can see nothing else,” said Lucius; “at least for a few days—till +something can be arranged. It is impossible for you to remain here.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him strangely, intently, with her fingers laid lightly +on her bosom, and her eyes sparkling with a deep passion. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” she said at length; “I will return to Sellar’s Mead. Do +you go and get the carriage, and take me back with all propriety. Amy +is expecting a visit from you to-day, and that will do very well, will +it not?” +</p> + +<p> +The distracted young man replied faintly that he did not think it +would do very well, but it was the best they could do, and he would +immediately order the carriage. +</p> + +<p> +“It can somehow be glossed over, no doubt,” he said; and she, smiling, +said: +</p> + +<p> +“How much you think of those things—glossing over!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is for your sake,” he replied hoarsely. “I have to think of you, +for myself, of course, it does not matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Order the carriage,” said the Countess Fanny in an expressionless +tone. +</p> + +<p> +She moved from the room, and he behind her, they stood side by side in +the other long, green chamber, so dark with tapestries and pictures, +and that cloudy light of the stormy day without the tall windows. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess Fanny had picked up her bonnet, and now put it on and +tied it under her chin. +</p> + +<p> +“Go at once,” she insisted in a still tone. “I will wait for you in +the corridor without.” +</p> + +<p> +He was hesitant, baffled, reluctant; he scarcely knew what to do. +There happened to be no servants in the hall, and he left her there +while he went in search of one, and to find his own coat and hat, +thinking also, in a confused manner, of a warm wrap for her. Her shawl +was still damp, and he had noticed how storm-beaten was her bonnet, +with the pretty wreaths of red flowers hanging limply on the silken +straw. What to do for her? Oh, heavens! How to look after her? The +problem was too acute. +</p> + +<p> +When he returned to the hall, ten minutes or so later, Mrs. Trefusis +was there, but not the Countess Fanny. He immediately and peremptorily +asked after the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“She has gone, my lord,” replied the housekeeper, with an air of +hostility and surprise. “As soon as you left the hall, I entered it. I +saw you, sir, departing, she at once left the house. I watched her +across the park, but she is now out of sight.” +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch17"> +CHAPTER XVII +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">It</span> was another quarter of an hour before Lucius could get his horse +out, mount, and ride across the park; and in that ride there was no +sign of the Countess Fanny. Not the distant flutter of a pale shawl +amid the bare trunks nor even a footprint on the soft ground: nothing +that his anxious and frantic gaze could discern; and, when he had left +the park, ridden out of the high gates which she must have passed +through a short time before, there were several roads in front of +him—one straight ahead, across the pasture-land belonging to his +father; one either side, running to the rocks and cliffs (for here the +point of land was only a few miles wide, and either side reached the +sea). +</p> + +<p> +A wild fear knocked at the distracted heart of Lucius Foxe. He could +not decide which way to take. Surely she had returned to Sellar’s +Mead, and that would be straight ahead! And yet the road was level +across the uplands, and he could discern, sharp as his young eyes +were, no trace of a figure in the grey distance. How swiftly she must +have gone, with the haste of passion, of despair, perhaps of fear! He +groaned, and clenched his teeth. If she had intended to return to +Sellar’s Mead, why had she not waited for him and the carriage? The +day was still terrible; at intervals the rain splashed down from the +low, tumultuous clouds, and the wind hardly ceased. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius stayed his restless, nervous horse, and stared about him, in +the grip of this terrible indecision. Which way had she gone—which +way? Or was she, even still, behind him? Lagging, perhaps, in the +park! She might have done that—turned aside; and yet it would be +difficult for her to hide behind those bare trees. There was the +summer-house—did she know of that? He did not think so; and yet he +hesitated, wondering if he should turn back and see if she was hiding +in the summer-house. Yet that thought was dreadful, too—she, so +bright, so self-confident, so lovely, hiding amid the storm. +</p> + +<p> +She had come to him, and he had sent her away. How cruel and heartless +he must have appeared, with his narrow ideas of right and duty, with +his sense of the conventions and his horror of scandal. She so bold +and passionate! And he had rejected her. +</p> + +<p> +What, after all, <i>was</i> Amy? Less than dust in the scale against <i>her</i>! +</p> + +<p> +He took the straight road at length, urging his horse to a gallop +across the grey landscape. Of course he must overtake her; it would +not be possible for her to evade him, on foot and, by now, weary—ah, +poor child, weary. +</p> + +<p> +He thought, with the bitterest remorse, of those soaked shoes, of that +neglected breakfast—for she had scarcely touched the milk she had +been so glad to see; of the poor, pretty wet bonnet, of the shawl that +had been slashed in struggling with the wind; and she, so delicate and +fine, so luxurious and fragile, exposed to this horror of cold and wet +and sleet, and this bleak and formidable country. +</p> + +<p> +He came within sight of Sellar’s Mead, and still he had not seen her. +If she had taken this road, he must, by now, have overtaken her. He +paused, again in the clutches of a dreadful indecision. Should he go +up to Sellar’s Mead and alarm them? That, surely, would be the right +and natural thing to do. Oliver should help in this pursuit; it was +Oliver’s business more than his, after all. And then he caught back +that reflection. Had she not repudiated Oliver? he demanded of himself +fiercely. No; Oliver had no right—no more right than he. Whatever +happened—even if Amy took her brother’s part—Oliver should not be +allowed to annoy her; nay, scarcely to approach her again. +</p> + +<p> +He did not want to go to Sellar’s Mead now; did not want to face Amy. +That was selfish and unkind in him, he knew; Amy must be terribly +distressed—she must have found out by now about the flight of the +Countess Fanny. It was his duty to go and comfort Amy; yet he could +not do it. Could not do anything but continue this wild search for the +girl through the storm. +</p> + +<p> +He did not think, in his nervous remorse and terror, that she could +long survive the inclemency of the day, and her own emotions working +upon her from within. She would be faint, she would be exhausted. She +might have to drag herself behind one of these barren hedges, into one +of these water-logged ditches, to die. +</p> + +<p> +He turned his horse, and was riding back to his own gate to take one +of the other roads when he heard hoofs behind him, and, looking +backwards over his shoulder, saw another horseman: Oliver Sellar, of +course. Lucius waited. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar had perceived him, and galloped up alongside and drew +rein, and stared at him after the driest salute—stared at him with +the bitterest antagonism. +</p> + +<p> +“Why are you here?” he demanded, with scarcely a pretence at courtesy. +</p> + +<p> +“I am looking for the Countess Fanny,” replied Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“I also search for her,” said Oliver; and the two men stared at each +other in the lurid light of the bleak, grey heavens. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar was more than pale. He seemed to Lucius to be the colour +of ashes: a dead greyness in the complexion as in the hair that showed +beneath his low-crowned beaver. Massive and grim, he sat his powerful +horse, and gave out an atmosphere of vast fury before which the +younger man instinctively recoiled. It seemed to him that he had never +known Oliver Sellar till this moment, and he wondered how he had ever +tolerated him. He had not liked him, of course: he did not know of +anyone who ever <i>had</i> liked Oliver Sellar; but he had tolerated him, +and from this moment he would tolerate him no more.… +</p> + +<p> +“What did you do to her?” he cried hoarsely. +</p> + +<p> +“What have you done with her?” replied Oliver grimly. +</p> + +<p> +And Lucius closed his eyes and gave a gasping sigh, trying to command +himself. If he were not careful he would say too much—he would betray +her and himself. The Countess Fanny must be saved—not only from this +man, but from the least flick of the tongue of scandal. +</p> + +<p> +“She came just now,” he said in laboured tones. “The Countess Fanny +came to Lefton Park.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew that,” interrupted Oliver fiercely. +</p> + +<p> +“She came to see my father,” continued Lucius, staring now, not at the +other man, but over his horse’s head; “and it was not possible for her +to see him: he is ill—seriously ill, I am afraid; and I—when I +found—when <i>she</i> found, I mean—that my father was ill, she was +coming back with me, of course. I ordered the carriage, and left her +for a moment or so in the hall. When I came back, she’d gone!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all a lie!” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius scarcely appeared to notice this, the strongest insult that +anyone had ever given him. He replied, in the same difficult tone: +</p> + +<p> +“No, it’s the truth. I’m looking for her now. Don’t quarrel with me, +but help, you go one way, and I’ll go the other. This is a dreadful +day for her to be abroad.” +</p> + +<p> +But Oliver did not stir. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did she come to you?” he asked thickly. “This is the third time!” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Lucius; “no, you don’t know what you’re talking about, you +mustn’t say or think such things! She has not come to me three times.” +</p> + +<p> +“Once you were with her in the church,” stormed Oliver; “once she went +to the lighthouse to meet you, and this morning, when I had taken the +precaution to lock up all the horses, she must go on foot to find you, +eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you did that!” cried Lucius. “Locked up the horses, did you? +That’s why she had to fly on foot. Don’t you understand that your +cruelty has driven her to this? She is frightened of you, Oliver!” +</p> + +<p> +“I would she had been a little more frightened!” the big man replied. +“Frightened enough to keep her place, the hussy! Are you going to let +her entangle you, you young fool? Don’t you see that she’s an artful +minx—one of those foreign pieces, brought up by that Frenchwoman? She +can’t see a man but she must try to make him lose his head; aye, and +succeed, too, nine times out of ten!” +</p> + +<p> +“She only asked to be allowed to go,” said Lucius. “I can understand +what you feel about it. She said herself,” he added, with a deep +compassion for the ravaged face of the other man—he might loathe +Oliver, but he could feel sorry for him—“she said herself that she +had not behaved well, but she has had that kind of upbringing, as you +say. You must let her go now, Oliver. Listen, I am trying to speak +moderately and quietly, I don’t want us to quarrel, for Amy’s sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“Amy!” said Oliver, violent and sneering together. “Better leave Amy’s +name out of it, I should think!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” asked Lucius, very pale. “Best bring her name in, I think. She +is the only one who can do anything for Fanny, she must look after +Fanny till we can find somewhere to send her. You must let her go from +Sellar’s Mead, Oliver. It is impossible for her to stay there—you +must see that for yourself. It really was always impossible, but you +insisted. She knew nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“She knows more than you think,” cried Oliver bitterly. “She is not +the innocent she seems to be—a flirt, I say, experienced with two +seasons at Rome. Girls marry at fourteen in Italy. She’s accomplished +enough!” +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake,” said Lucius, with a cry of almost insupportable +pain, “let us leave this ranting, and try to find her. I suppose you +have some tenderness left, however you are disgusted with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tenderness!” Oliver flung the words back at him as if he would fling +back an insult. “Tenderness is not my feeling for the girl, she’s +mine, and I mean to have her,” he added coarsely. “I’m going to marry +her in the spring, whatever she, or you, or any of you say.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’re not,” answered Lucius coldly. “Put that out of your head, +Oliver, not only are you not going to marry her, but she is to leave +Sellar’s Mead immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver leaned forward from his saddle, thrusting his face close to the +shrinking face of Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“Did she come over to Lefton Park whining to you?” he demanded. “Did +she come telling you tales about me?” +</p> + +<p> +“No tales,” replied Lucius, with trembling lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Did she say she had taken an aversion to me, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not even that, she said that you had not behaved well last +night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, she told you about last night, did she? I might have known—the +foreign jade, the sneaking piece! Go to you with tales of me! I’ll +break her, body and spirit, yet!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk like that!” cried Lucius wildly, “for even as you speak +she may be broken, body and spirit, by another power than yours.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar seemed to blench at that. He, too, looked round the +wild, desolate, grey-coloured landscape, those bleak, rotting hollows, +those iron-coloured distant hills and rocks. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are we to search for her?” he muttered. “Where? Perhaps by now +she’s crept back to Sellar’s Mead. I’ll go and see.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think so,” said Lucius. “I don’t think she would return +there. I was such a fool as to have been taken in by her; she became +meek, all in a moment; said she would come with me—therefore I left +her. I can see now that she thought I was betraying her in taking her +back, and therefore she has fled.” +</p> + +<p> +A poignant cry broke from Oliver Sellar. +</p> + +<p> +“My God! What are we going to do? Where are we going to search?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everywhere!” replied Lucius. “She can’t have gone far on foot!” +</p> + +<p> +Then the two men stared at each other, forgetting their enmity. +</p> + +<p> +“But there’s the sea!” said Oliver. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, the sea!” muttered Lucius. “But why do you speak of that? She +wouldn’t go to the sea!” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s so wild,” said Oliver. “When she’s in a passion—of course, you +don’t know. I’ve seen, in Italy.” +</p> + +<p> +“We must sound the alarms,” said Lucius. “We must send everyone out, +searching. We haven’t so many more hours of daylight. The storm grows +worse.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s the scandal,” said Oliver bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve got past caring about the scandal, it seems to me,” returned +Lucius. “We may say she has gone for a walk, in her queer foreign +fashion, and maybe has lost her way. That’s natural enough—it will +have to serve, at least, he added impatiently.” +</p> + +<p> +The two men separated on that. Oliver dashed back to Sellar’s Mead—no +trace of the girl there. Lucius returned to Lefton Park—no trace of +her there. No glimpse of her, no message. Both the men scoured the +country in different directions during the next couple of hours, and +neither found the Countess Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +By then their apprehensions were so acute that there was no longer any +talk of concealment. Both the servants from Sellar’s Mead and those +from Lefton Park were sent out in search of the foreign lady who had +so strangely disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +With the darkening down of the day the storm increased in violence; +the sound of the frantic billows hammering on the precipitous rocks of +the coast was borne far inland; even in the sheltered ravine where the +village was placed, slates were torn off the roofs and chimneys flung +down, while the huge elms and oaks in the park were here and there +still uprooted and cast groaning on the ground. +</p> + +<p> +By the time the dusk fell, the whole population of St. Nite’s—that +is, all the men and boys—were abroad with lanterns, searching for the +Countess Fanny; and the old vicar had gone into the church and put up +prayers for the safety of the girl. It was no night for anyone to be +abroad, let alone for one like the Countess Fanny to be abroad. +Fisher-folk searched the coast—the rocks and caves. She might, they +said, have wandered there, or fallen, and be lying with a wrenched +ankle at the bottom of some cliff; might have tried to walk along the +shore, and been cut off by the tide; might have struck inland, and +been lost in the utter loneliness of the fields and hills. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius had not been yet to see Amy. Amy could understand that. She +tried to be reasonable and just. Of course he would need to search for +the Countess Fanny: that was understood. Of course, in a moment so +terrible, he would have no time for her: that also was understood. Yet +there were little creeping flames of doubt and jealousy, of disgust +and disappointment in her mind. Why had the girl flown to Lefton Park? +Why must Lucius be so utterly and entirely absorbed in the search for +her? If she, Amy, had come first in his heart, surely he would have +found time to come and see her? Oliver also—it was not pleasant to +see him so rapt in this obsession; he could think or talk of nothing +but the Countess Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +Twice he had returned, and snatched a little food, but not for that +reason—only to ask if, by any chance, the Countess Fanny had +returned; and, when Amy had said no, he had given her a black look, as +if the fault were hers, and, dark and formidable, ridden off again. +That day he had tired out three horses. +</p> + +<p> +It had not taken them long to ascertain that the girl could not have +left the village. No horse had been hired, nor had the one public +coach, which was kept at the inn, left the place; no one had left the +village the whole of that short winter day. +</p> + +<p> +The ferry was impassable; the small steamer not running; and it was +impossible to reach the little town of St. Lade without using the +ferry, just as it was impossible to reach the railway at Truro without +going to St. Lade. +</p> + +<p> +Wherever the girl was, she must have reached there on foot, and how +far could she get on foot, exhausted as she was already, in such +weather as this, wandering over an unknown country? +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar had ridden down to the lighthouse. The few cottages +there were searched in vain. None of them had seen or heard anything +of the Countess Fanny, though they very vividly remembered the visit +of the girl the day before. +</p> + +<p> +On his way back from the lighthouse, Oliver stopped at the one +desolate, miserable farm which lay in that bleak and uncultivated +district. These were wild people, with an evil reputation, who lived +there—people who were the descendants of smugglers and wreckers, and +were themselves suspected of being capable of both these practices. +Oliver detested them, and had again and again endeavoured to get them +removed; but, by some odd chance, their little bit of land was +freehold, and they remained there in defiance of the lord of Sellar’s +Mead. +</p> + +<p> +When he enquired now about the Countess Fanny, they stared at him with +stupid malice, and said they had never seen such a lady; but one of +the younger women struck in and said yes, yesterday <i>she</i> had seen +such a lady, who had come in and been pleasant to the child, and given +it a jewel; and she showed a little turquoise, set with pearls, that +the Countess Fanny had yesterday hung round her baby’s neck. But +to-day, she said, she had seen no one, nor was it very likely that +anyone should come to their wretched and desolate habitation. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver knew this was true; he had only asked in despair. He turned +away now sullenly, with an evil and a formidable look for the +inhabitants of Pen Hall Farm. +</p> + +<p> +When he reached home again he was, for all his strength, exhausted, +and had to throw himself into the chair by the fire, drinking brandy +heavily in the hope of keeping up his powers so that he might again +pursue the search, even through the night. +</p> + +<p> +“This is madness, Oliver!” Amy said sharply. “Leave it now to other +people; they are doing all that can be done—they know the coast, at +least, better than you, and I am sure the girl is safe somewhere,” she +added bitterly. “What is likely to have befallen her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hold your tongue!” said Oliver savagely. “You would be only too glad +if she never was seen again, I dare say. But it is different with me. +I won’t be treated like this—I won’t be cheated, I tell you!” +</p> + +<p> +“But if she has run away from you,” Amy reminded him, “you cannot drag +her back by force.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, can’t I?” asked Oliver violently. “You don’t know what you’re +talking about. Hold your tongue, woman—hold your tongue!” +</p> + +<p> +Julia, the maid, came into the lamp-lit parlour with a frightened air. +A fisherman was without, she said. He had brought something to show +Mr. Sellar. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, heavens!” cried Amy. “Not something dreadful!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, miss,” said Julia, white-lipped, “that you’d call it +something dreadful; it’s just a bonnet and a shawl.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver had staggered to his feet, and come round the dark, gleaming +expanse of the mahogany table. +</p> + +<p> +“Show it to me,” he said hoarsely. “Show it to me.” +</p> + +<p> +But there was the fisherman in the doorway, standing wet, halting, and +awkward; and in his big rough hands was a pale cashmere shawl, and a +little bonnet of fine Tuscan straw, with flat wreaths of red flowers +on it, all wet and bent and tattered. +</p> + +<p> +“I found them on the rocks, sir,” he said awkwardly; “down there by +Pen Coed Cove.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Oliver Sellar did a dreadful thing. He snatched the bonnet and +shawl, and tore them across, with his big trembling hands, and +screamed: +</p> + +<p> +“Damn you! Damn you all!” and dropped, in a convulsive fit, across the +table. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch18"> +CHAPTER XVIII +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">The</span> storm had darkened down earth, ocean, and sky to one lurid yet +colourless gloom; the wind was incessant, a north-easterly gale, +continuous day and night, rattling and pounding against the cliffs, +ravaging the land. The few scattered inhabitants of St. Nite’s village +and St. Nite’s Point kept to their houses, and shuttered them well at +night, for the cold was formidable, and bit to the bone; to walk +abroad was like struggling through freezing water, and this quality of +cold seemed to have a quality of blackness also, and to be a visible +entity, as the wind also seemed a visible entity. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia, shivering at the windows of Sellar’s Mead, thought that she +could see them—cold and wind—abroad like two giant ogres, blowing, +from the smitten heavens, chilly disaster upon the shuddering earth. +</p> + +<p> +With a courage at once cold and nervous, she kept up the routine of +her large, silent house. They were well supplied against storms, well +used to long and dreadful winters, by no means dependent upon the +ferry for any communication with the world. She could keep her precise +household running without worrying about the hope of the comings and +goings of wagon and ferry. No detail of her exact management was +interfered with; day by day she occupied herself with that. Everything +was smooth and elegant. The table was loaded at the appointed time +with glass and silver and lace and finely-cooked food, and abundance +of luxurious provisions. The rooms were warm and lit, and finely kept, +the servants moving about noiselessly, each in his appointed place, +doing his appointed duty. +</p> + +<p> +And she was upstairs and downstairs with her keys and her books and +her lists, giving out the store, sorting the linen, visiting the +still-room, testing the preserves, superintending the cooking, sending +out blankets and firewood and food for this or that sick or bedridden +person; and always conscious of the wind, beating not only round her +house but round her heart, she thought. +</p> + +<p> +There had never been any more news of the Countess Fanny since the day +when the fisherman came into the parlour at Sellar’s Mead, with her +bonnet and shawl in his hand; and it was now into the third week from +her disappearance. +</p> + +<p> +Everyone agreed, in shocked and scandalised whispers, that the foreign +young lady was dead now; there could be no other solution of this +mystery. Was it not enough that her garments had been found on the wet +and slippery rocks? There was nowhere on this wild promontory where +she could have been so long hidden; there was nowhere on this wild +promontory where she could have escaped. It was known, beyond all +possibility of error, that she had not left St. Nite’s either on foot +or in any manner of conveyance. She had disappeared as completely as +some bright, gay land-bird, blown out seawards by the storm and +drowned in the first surge of the advancing billows. +</p> + +<p> +On the ninth day, the fisher-folk had ventured out, for all the rage +of the tempest, to watch for her body being cast up; for they held +strongly to that superstition that on the ninth day all dead are +returned from the sea. But the body of the Countess Fanny had not come +back. +</p> + +<p> +An accident, said the few gentlefolk—the vicar and the doctor and +their womenkind. An accident, said Ambrosia and the old Earl—what +else could it be but an appalling accident? The wilful and impetuous +girl had gone out alone on that wild morning, and she had walked along +the rocks. From the first, they all remarked, these had seemed to have +a fascination for her: witness her interest in the lighthouse, placed +on the most stormy of these precipitous crags. +</p> + +<p> +She had proceeded along the rocks, enjoying, no doubt, the spray on +her face and the wind in her ears, and the light of the tossing clouds +above her, and the flash and glitter of the shrieking sea-birds; and +then she had slipped, and before she had recovered herself, been +washed away and dashed to death against the grey stone, and carried +out to the sea, and lost for ever.… They decided that she must have +died instantly—without a single moment of terror, they hoped. So they +pronounced upon the end of the Countess Fanny. Only old Miss Drayton, +the doctor’s sister, asked timidly: +</p> + +<p> +“Why did the poor thing take off her bonnet and shawl?” And there had +been a little pause when she asked this, and no one had looked at the +other. +</p> + +<p> +But Ambrosia had spoken, with a hard nervousness. “She was very fond +of doing that—taking off her bonnet and swinging it by the strings, +and letting the air blow through her hair. She was very wild, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“She seemed to me very elegant and accomplished,” remarked Mr. Spragge +mildly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, she was that!” said Amy with a heightened colour. “But wild, +too, you know—and she liked the storm. And she took off her shawl, I +suppose, for the same reason. It cumbered her—it must have been wet +and heavy.” +</p> + +<p> +The vicar’s wife remarked quietly that it was a very cold day for +anyone to take off a shawl and bonnet, however wet. +</p> + +<p> +“Without that amount of protection she must in a moment have been wet +to the skin, chilled to the marrow, hardly able to move.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” answered Ambrosia, with pale defiance, “there is no other +explanation; she must herself have taken off the bonnet and the +shawl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” murmured the vicar, as one who blenched before a dreadful +thought; and a dreadful thought there was abroad amid that quiet +company, talking, as it were, from one to another: the thought that +the Countess Fanny had committed suicide, had deliberately cast +herself into the ocean—had run down to the shore with that intention. +Otherwise this absence was incomprehensible. She was not a fool; they +all knew she was not a fool! Why should she have climbed down with +difficulty and pain? For she must have had both difficulty and pain to +scramble down the face of that cliff, merely to wander around wet +rocks over which the foam was surging. It seemed an unlikely thing for +even a daring, high-spirited girl to have done, and to have done alone +and on a dark and stormy morning. Then, too, to take off her bonnet, +however wet, and to cast aside her shawl, however soaked.… Why should +she have done that, save that she was throwing aside an impediment to +her own death? Easier to leap into the water without those +encumbrances.… +</p> + +<p> +Uneasy and still defiant, Ambrosia remarked: +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps the shawl and bonnet were torn from her when she was in the +water, and cast up again.” And the others agreed, without conviction; +each saying: “Perhaps—it may have been so,” or shaking their heads. +</p> + +<p> +It was impossible for any of them to seize that dreadful thought and +make it tangible. Besides, there was no reason why that bright young +creature should have committed suicide. Why, of course, the idea was +absurd! Rich and young and healthy and lovely? Of course, it was +ridiculous! Lucius Foxe might know, and Oliver Sellar might know, that +the Countess Fanny had a reason for destroying herself, and Ambrosia +might horribly guess; but these people were without any clue that +might lead them to such a dark conclusion. Therefore it passed for an +accident—the young girl had been drowned. +</p> + +<p> +No one asked the opinion of the fishers and the farmers, and what they +said among themselves no one enquired. She had vanished—that was the +hard fact against which all their speculations beat in vain—utterly +vanished, in a way that no ordinary death could have made her seem to +vanish. There was no fair body to look at once again, take farewell +of; no solemn funeral scene of last adieux; she had gone as suddenly +as she had come, and to many of them it seemed like an impossible +dream, the whole episode, from the moment when she had stepped ashore +from the ferry-boat, with her bright veil fluttering and her fantastic +shawl clasped over her bosom, walking lightly, buoyantly, with her +brilliant smile and her lovely face—alien to all of them; by most of +them resented, by none of them liked. And now she had disappeared—in +the minds of most, become like a vision. +</p> + +<p> +“We can do nothing,” said Amy doggedly; “we must go on. She is a +stranger to all of us, and we cannot spoil our lives because of it.” +But she spoke in defiance, not only of the others, but of her own +heart; for she knew, only too bitterly well, that nothing that the +Countess Fanny could have done would have given her the importance her +disappearance gave.… +</p> + +<p> +Lucius was changed, and Oliver was like a man possessed. Both of them +ignored her; even from her lover she received but a lame and +perfunctory attention, and Oliver regarded her as a mere part of the +machinery of the house. Both of them were absorbed, utterly absorbed, +by the thought of the dead woman, by the wild quest to prove that she +was not a dead woman. Ambrosia hardened herself. There was a debt +owing to the living, she told her tormented heart. She would not +remember that she might have been kinder—no, she would not let +herself dwell on that, even in the lonely darkness of the stormy +night, when the wind rushed and battled past her windows. +</p> + +<p> +She had done what she could, she reminded herself with cold obstinacy. +There was no use in making a heroine of the girl because she was dead. +She had been light and obstinate, wilful and passionate—everything +that Ambrosia detested and had been trained to avoid. She had caused +malice and mischief. Whatever Oliver had done, he had not done +anything to justify her flight to Lefton Park. Of that Ambrosia was +sure. She could not speak of that last interview with Oliver; she did +not dare. But she assured herself that it had been nothing so +dreadful. The girl had exaggerated; the girl had indulged her temper, +her wilful fury. Ambrosia had marked her when she was in a rage: a +fury—that was what she was—a vixen! +</p> + +<p> +Lucius had little indeed to say of that morning visit to his house. He +declared that the Countess Fanny had come to see his father, having +heard that the old man was ill; and that it not being possible for her +to be admitted into the Earl’s presence, he had entertained her for a +little while, and gone to order the carriage and equip himself to +escort her back to Sellar’s Mead; but, while he had gone, she had +disappeared. Mrs. Trefusis added her evidence. And when she told this +secretly to Ambrosia, as she did on the occasion of that lady’s first +visit to Lefton Park after the tragedy, she gave the whole episode a +very different flavour. +</p> + +<p> +“The young lady, ma’am,” said Mrs. Trefusis, with look and accent +emphasising what she said, “was in a fair taking; she was wet through +when she came here, and quite wild, though she spoke very haughty, and +would take no hint from me, though that was an odd time for her to be +calling. And she didn’t ask for the Earl, ma’am, but for Lord Vanden +himself. And when I told her she could see neither, she pushed past me +in a manner, and went into the drawing-room and found Lord Vanden for +herself; and then she must change her shoes and stockings, and he in +the room! I had to send the maid down with some. His lordship asked me +himself. And she must demand breakfast, though she touched little of +it, I will say.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia never gossiped with servants, even with such a servant as +Mrs. Trefusis; but she did not refuse to listen to this, only salving +her pride by making no comment on it. And when Mrs. Trefusis had +finished her relation and mouthed over every scrap of evidence against +the decorum and propriety of the Countess Fanny, Ambrosia merely said +drily: +</p> + +<p> +“She did not know our ways, Mrs. Trefusis. She had been allowed to go +about very freely. I dare say she found nothing odd in coming over +here that morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“She must have known it was odd, ma’am, to ask for his lordship,” +objected Mrs. Trefusis, with pursed lips. “That’s the same law in +every country, I take it, ma’am; I’ve been abroad myself, and never +heard any different—only that they was more strict than we are, +begging your pardon, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“We must not criticise her,” said Ambrosia coldly. “She was our guest, +and now she is dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that doesn’t seem to be an end of her,” grumbled the housekeeper. +“Everyone talks and thinks of nothing else. I’m sure I’m sick of it, +like I am sick of the storm—again begging your pardon, ma’am!” But +she knew that Ambrosia would not take offence at what she said; she +knew that Ambrosia would understand that her words were meant for +championship for herself. Mrs. Trefusis and a good many others +sympathised more with Ambrosia than with the Countess Fanny. She, at +least, was one of themselves. That was one great point in her favour. +And she had been engaged to Lord Vanden before the Countess Fanny +came. And that was another point in her favour, in the eyes of all the +women, at least. +</p> + +<p> +“She’ll never be found now,” sighed Ambrosia; “it is past reason to +hope it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Past reason to go on searching for her!” said Mrs. Trefusis drily. +“And yet that’s what the gentlemen still do, day and night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know it,” replied Ambrosia. “My brother is obsessed. In all +weathers, in all seasons, he must be abroad searching. Oh, Mrs. +Trefusis! I sometimes feel as if I could not any longer endure it! +Always this searching, day and night, hardly pausing to eat or +sleep—I fear for his reason or his life!” She caught herself up, as +if she were afraid of having already said too much, and asked +hurriedly: +</p> + +<p> +“Where is Lord Vanden now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Out riding, ma’am,” replied Mrs. Trefusis grimly. “Riding up and down +the coast.” +</p> + +<p> +“Looking for her, I suppose,” said Ambrosia dully. +</p> + +<p> +“Looking for her ghost, I should think you might say. That’s all he’ll +meet now!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should her ghost come to him?” demanded Ambrosia. “Let us be +quiet, Mrs. Trefusis; we talk wildly.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s enough to make anyone talk wildly,” replied the housekeeper. +</p> + +<p> +“If the wind would only stop!” sighed Ambrosia. “Come, we must not +talk any more. I will go upstairs and sit with the Earl till Lord +Vanden returns.” +</p> + +<p> +She went up the wide stairs slowly. This was to have been her house. +Keenly had she counted on being mistress here; she knew all the +pictures, all the tapestries, all the pieces of furniture, that yet +remained to the impoverished estate of Lord Lefton. Why did a chill +assail her as she thought of those expectations now? Nothing was +altered, nothing was changed: in the spring she would marry Lucius. By +the spring surely they would have forgotten the Countess Fanny. Not +forgotten her—she caught herself up on that word. No, they would not +have forgotten her, but by then they would be reconciled. +</p> + +<p> +The old Earl had risen to-day, and was in his little favourite closet +off the library. A small room, but it was the easiest to heat and +light in this big, bare, draughty house, which did not possess much +comfort in the winter. +</p> + +<p> +He greeted Ambrosia with a real and tender affection. He could see how +dreadful was her part in this, and he had noted, with a deep alarm, +the change in Lucius since the Countess Fanny had disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +He was arranging his rosy shells in boxes, placing the minute +specimens in cotton wool, and when he saw Ambrosia, he paused at once +in this occupation, and asked anxiously: +</p> + +<p> +“No news?” +</p> + +<p> +And Ambrosia replied: +</p> + +<p> +“No news!” taking the chair opposite him, and languidly untying her +bonnet-strings. +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to give up asking that question,” said the old man. “It +becomes foolish. How could there be any news, after nearly three +weeks?” +</p> + +<p> +“But they,” said Ambrosia with a pallid smile, “they will go on +searching!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the old Earl, “yes; I think it is time they stopped. It +will become a madness. The poor, poor creature has gone, and it were +best to display some resignation. Have you told her relatives?” he +asked. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver will have no one told. He is convinced that she is alive, and +that he will find her. And of course he is wise—there is no need to +raise an alarm or a scandal while there is the least possibility.” +</p> + +<p> +“But is there,” asked the old man cautiously, “any longer the least +possibility?” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not think so, but Oliver will not be convinced.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver must pull himself together,” said the old man. “Get him to +come and see me, my dear—or Mr. Spragge. There is a point beyond +which these things are lunacy. God help us all if Oliver gets beyond +that point!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, God help us all!” said Ambrosia. “For I do not think he can long +preserve his sanity.” +</p> + +<p> +“He was very fond of the girl,” said the old man in a shaking voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Fond!” replied Ambrosia. “I do not know that that is the word. His +feelings—” she paused—“one does not often speak of these things; but +I do not think it was love that Oliver had for poor Fanny, but +passion.” +</p> + +<p> +“There should be no difference in the terms,” said the old man. +</p> + +<p> +“But I believe there is,” said Ambrosia. “I believe he is not so much +sorry for her death as furious that he has been cheated.” +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch19"> +CHAPTER XIX +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +“<span class="sc">This</span> must not go on any longer,” said the old man absently, yet +with unconscious love fingering the boxes with his frail treasures. +“Her other guardian, her uncle, should be informed. There should be +notices in the paper; there must be a question of property, too. One +detests to mention these things, but the poor child must have had an +heir. She was, I believe, of some notable wealth. To whom does this +go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver will know,” replied Ambrosia dully. “I do not. I suppose to +these Italians, since there are no further English relations. You see, +the country is so unsettled there, and in such a difficult state, that +her mother, being an Englishwoman herself, greatly desired her to have +the shelter of England, and to live on her English estate; for I +believe the Caldinis stand neither well with the Pope nor the +Archduke. They are, of course, Italians without any foreign blood +whatever, and are not likely to come over here.” +</p> + +<p> +“They will sell the estate, I suppose,” said the old Earl. “They +should be told, I think,” he added, “in sheer justice. It will look +odd, and perhaps worse than odd, if they find this death has been +concealed so long.” +</p> + +<p> +“But all the money owing to them from the first can be paid,” said +Ambrosia anxiously. “There is no question of that, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you done with her maid?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have her still,” said Ambrosia, with a shiver of aversion. “A most +impossible creature, crying on her mistress day and night, refusing +either to work or rest!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you send her home?” +</p> + +<p> +“She won’t go; besides, the weather—the ferry has been impossible +ever since Fanny disappeared.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she must be sent back,” replied the old man, with some energy, +“on the first chance. It is all very hard on you, my dear! After all, +the poor child was no friend or relation of yours. You did not even, I +believe, very much like her?” he added, frankly. “And that I can +understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I endeavoured to like her,” said Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my dear—I know, I know; but you did not find it very easy. She +was wilful and difficult, of course, and it was a very odd thing in +Oliver to bring her here like this.” Then he ventured to ask what he +had not ventured, in the first hurry and alarm of the tragedy, to ask +before: “Was there any quarrel—any severe disagreement with +Oliver—the night before? You may as well tell me, my dear child! It +might help one to come to some sort of a conclusion.” +</p> + +<p> +“There was a quarrel,” said Ambrosia; “I expect everyone guesses as +much, though no one is likely to speak of it; and she provoked +him—you know that I admit the violence of Oliver’s temper and the +disagreeableness of his manner—but certainly she exasperated him! For +the second time she went out alone, and on this occasion a long +way—down to the lighthouse where she had been forbidden to go. +Continually she had asked Oliver to take her——” +</p> + +<p> +The old Earl interrupted: +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t he? Why push it to this point, with a wilful creature like +that? Why shouldn’t Oliver have taken her? You should have advised him +to be a little more gentle, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver wouldn’t listen to me,” replied Ambrosia with some warmth. “I +spoke to him, and got abused for my pains. I asked him to be +considerate and gentle, but it was useless. And, as I say, she +exasperated him. She refused to marry him—said she could not and +would not keep her word.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she was right in that—it showed honesty, anyway,” said the old +man quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“I know; but at the same time, you know, with a man like Oliver, and +his temperament… she had led him on in Italy; she admitted that +herself. She tried to turn his head, and seemed to think that was +nothing—part of her business.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia could not keep all the bitterness out of her voice, but she +was irritated by the way the old Earl smiled indulgently, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, with that face, I am not so sure, my dear, that it wasn’t her +business.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was her face to excuse everything?” demanded Ambrosia proudly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she had more than her face,” mused the Earl, “She was a very +radiant and gay and lovely creature, my dear. There was something most +uncommon about her, I must admit, and I suppose, in the brightness of +her youth, she had a certain licence. After all, it’s generally +supposed to be the man’s business, you know, he’s got to take the risk +of having his head turned, as you call it. He’s got to try and keep +his self-control with a young creature like that. There must have been +a few, you know, who were very willing to have their heads turned.” +</p> + +<p> +“So she reminded me,” said Ambrosia coldly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she was frank, anyway,” smiled the old man, “poor creature. I +dare say she’d have been a very good wife, after all, they often are, +you know, my dear. Their own beauty and their own power intoxicates +them a little when they are very young, but afterwards they become the +dearest and most loyal creatures.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is the man’s point of view,” remarked Ambrosia drily. “You also, +I think, were quite entranced by the Countess Fanny.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well,” he replied, “I didn’t see very much of her. But she did +seem to me a very radiant sort of girl, and very finished, too, her +manners were very pretty to an old man. I believe she was warm-hearted +underneath all her coquetries, and I can’t quite bear, even now, to +think of her out on those rocks, and——” +</p> + +<p> +“It was an accident,” exclaimed Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +The old man peered at her. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you interrupt me like that—with that word? Of course it was +an accident; who says anything else?” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe,” murmured Ambrosia, looking away, “that many people think +a great deal else; you must have heard those rumours, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the old man stoutly. “No one would have dared to say +anything like that to me. Of course I know quite well what you mean, +but I have no reason to suppose it true.” And he added, with an air of +authority: “Have you?” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia was silent. +</p> + +<p> +“If you have any such grounds,” added the old man sternly, “I shall +find it very hard to tolerate your brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why blame him?” flashed Ambrosia. “What of her, and her part in it?” +</p> + +<p> +The old man looked at her sharply, and with some indignation; a faint +flush tinged his fragile cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“Her part in it?” he repeated. “I marvel at you, Amy, speaking so +ungenerously. She was a girl, not eighteen years old, and he a man of +forty and over; he’s alive, at least, and she’s dead; you must know, +as well as I, my dear, that a young girl so full of vitality as she +was, so lovely and so eager, must have been most bitterly moved to +drown herself on such a morning as that morning when she disappeared.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia rose. +</p> + +<p> +“I never suggested she drowned herself!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, but that is what you were insinuating. That, according to you, is +what many people think, and dare not say; and yet you would have +Oliver free from blame. And <i>I</i> say,” added the old man with a certain +violence, “that if that poor child <i>did</i> drown herself, Oliver is +little better than her murderer!” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” asked Ambrosia, speaking with stiff lips. +</p> + +<p> +“You know what I mean,” replied the old man. “Oliver must have +persecuted her. You said that she didn’t wish to marry him. She wanted +to get away, I suppose; and he wouldn’t let her. You spoke just now of +passion, and not love. Well, it all bears a very ugly complexion, my +dear, and I wish—I wish for your sake—that you had not had to stand +by. I wish,” he added deliberately, “that you had been able to save +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“So do I,” murmured Ambrosia faintly. “So do I! There was nothing I +could do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose not; but it’s a pity you had to keep silent, Amy. You might +have told me. Between us we could have got her away. You might have +taken her up to London—over to her friends—this Madame de Mailly, +who seemed so devoted. You might, surely, my dear, have done +something. You need not have stood by and kept it all quiet, and +allowed Oliver to persecute that poor creature, that impetuous child, +even if she was light and a flirt.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia found herself forced to defend her actions of the past, and +she did this hurriedly and tremulously, with a rather frantic +defiance. +</p> + +<p> +“How was I to know, how was I to guess? I could not tell that she was +not playing with Oliver. He brought her home; she affected to be in +love with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did she?” interrupted the Earl. “Did she? I never guessed that from +her demeanour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she was going to marry him, anyhow, she did have a free +choice.” +</p> + +<p> +“There again,” said the old man, “I wonder! Oliver was shut up with +her in Italy. I don’t suppose anyone cared very much to rescue her +from him. I dare say they all thought it a very good match; and she +didn’t know what she was doing—that was obvious, I should think.” +</p> + +<p> +“What made her suddenly know what she was doing?” demanded Ambrosia, +with her bosom heaving angrily. “Why should she suddenly realise that +she had an aversion to Oliver, after having declared she would be his +wife?” +</p> + +<p> +“Did she say that?” demanded the old man. “Did she say she had an +aversion to him?” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia was sorry she had made that admission. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, so she said, it was all over very briefly—a question of days, +she couldn’t suddenly have been driven desperate in a few hours like +that. I told her, again and again, that if she wanted to go away she +could go, but what could I do on the moment, with the storm, and +everyone so far away, and no other woman to help me? Miss Drayton and +Mrs. Spragge both disliked her,” added Ambrosia with emphasis. +</p> + +<p> +“Just as you did,” said the old Earl. “Well, I wish I’d known—for +your sake as well as for hers. It is a most unpleasant tale, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I am in a most unpleasant position,” cried Ambrosia. “Since she +went away—since she died, whichever it was—I have not known a +moment’s respite. Oliver is like a lunatic, a beast cheated of its +prey. Yes; that’s not a pretty simile, but it’s what Oliver reminds me +of! He can hardly contain himself. He had a fit or stroke, that night +they brought her clothes in—that night that stupid fool of a +fisherman had to come in with her shawl and bonnet. And now he’s +always out, even in that fierce storm days ago, Oliver was out and on +the cliffs.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the act of a lunatic, certainly,” said the old Earl. “How +could he have hoped to find her then?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, but he can’t rest; he has no respite, day or night, as +I have no respite day or night. God help us both! Where are we? Why +did this woman ever come?” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me,” remarked the old man shrewdly, “as if Oliver were +tormented by something else, besides his love; and that’s his +conscience.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s absurd to blame him for that!” protested Ambrosia with violence. +“Absurd! Why will you not listen to what I tell you? Again and again I +had assured this impossible girl that I would stand by her and be her +friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“It may have been on your lips,” replied the old man, “but did you +show it in your actions? You admit yourself that you disliked her, and +all the women here disliked her, you say; she was the alien, the +interloper, and none of you understood her nor wished to understand +her. She couldn’t help it, poor child—that she was so beautiful, and +clever-headed, no doubt. Eighteen years! Eighteen—think of that, Amy! +Ten years younger than you!” +</p> + +<p> +He could not have made any remark that would have been more +distasteful to the woman who listened to him. Amy bit her lip to keep +back some uncivil and coarse reply. +</p> + +<p> +The Earl sighed, unconscious of the deep offence he had given, unaware +of the bitter tumult in Amy’s racked soul; but feeling that the +conversation was becoming dangerous, and wishing to be just. It was +hard on Amy, of course, very hard; and there was that other aspect, +that he had not dared to dwell on, but had just felt round +cautiously—the place of Lucius in this story. But he might as well go +a little into this now, for he must know where he stood, for the sake +of all of them—and particularly for the sake of Amy, who seemed so +unhappy, and looked so distracted and even ill. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did she come up here that morning?” he asked gently. “I’ve never +quite been able to understand. Was it because this was the only house +she knew of? She didn’t come here, I hope, Amy, for protection.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should she have come here for protection?” replied Ambrosia +haughtily. “I was at Sellar’s Mead, and her own maid, and other +women—she didn’t require protection.” +</p> + +<p> +“You take my meaning a little too easily,” remarked the Earl sadly. He +thought how painfully ready Ambrosia had been with her defence. With +everything that Amy said, he seemed to be brought nearer some hideous +conclusion. The girl had seemed frightened, had seemed frantic. She +had run through the storm to his house for protection, and she had not +received it; and she had gone away desolate, and drowned herself. Good +God! Help him from coming to this most hideous conclusion! +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” he said hastily, “I must not think that, of course; why +should she have been afraid? Oliver wouldn’t frighten her, surely, +surely.” +</p> + +<p> +“She had a wild, fierce temper,” said Ambrosia rather shrilly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” murmured the Earl. “A pity that Lucius couldn’t have +detained her. I was unwell that morning, but I would have made an +effort to see her. Something might have been done—she shouldn’t have +been turned away.” +</p> + +<p> +“She wasn’t turned away,” said Ambrosia hotly. “Lucius was bringing +her back to us; she was left waiting in the hall a moment or two, and +in that moment ran away.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” remarked the Earl slowly, “Lucius was taking her back to +you. Well, if she was afraid of Oliver, that was the strange thing to +do in turning her away, I wish he’d let me know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Trefusis watched her go,” said Ambrosia. “<i>She</i> saw nothing +unusual about her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Trefusis is a hard woman,” said the Earl, and almost Ambrosia +was forced to take this as a challenge, and to say wildly: “I suppose +you think I, also, am a hard woman!” But she controlled herself, and +bit her lips to keep that impassioned sentence back. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucius has been much moved,” said the Earl sadly. “I have noticed a +great change in him. And so have you, no doubt, my dear. He has it on +his mind, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she might have thought of that,” retorted Ambrosia bitterly. +“She might have considered, in her temper and her passion, what she +was inflicting on others.” +</p> + +<p> +“But we are not concerned with that,” said the old man gravely. “We +have to search our consciences for what we inflicted on her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have nothing to reproach myself with,” said Ambrosia coldly; “nor +has Lucius. And you might consider, sir, how this has blighted <i>our</i> +lives. This stranger has come amongst us, and with her wilfulness, and +then her tragedy, has blasted life for us!” +</p> + +<p> +The old man took no heed of this. Instead of offering any sympathy to +Ambrosia, he asked quietly: +</p> + +<p> +“Has Lucius told you exactly what she said, that day she came here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and it’s been repeated a thousand times. Every detail of the +episode is worn by now,” replied Ambrosia impatiently. “She merely +asked for you, and for a change of her shoes and stockings, and for +some breakfast; nothing else. And he, of course—what else could he +do?—was for taking her back at once to us; and she acquiesced, and +then slipped off behind his back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know all that,” said the Earl patiently. “But is there +anything else—something that he would tell to no one but you?” +</p> + +<p> +“He has never given me any other version,” said Ambrosia deliberately; +“and what else could have passed between them? She was not in the +house above ten minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Trefusis,” remarked the Earl, “said she was here over half an +hour; and there’s a great deal can be said in a half-hour, my dear. +They could hardly have talked of nothing but the storm for that time! +Lucius, no doubt, is fearful of betraying her; but I think it would be +fitting if he disclosed to you exactly what she said, and it were more +reasonable that you asked him that yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia sat down at the table covered with shells and boxes and +drawers, with the bowls of water and cotton wool and tweezers. She +felt sick at heart, and trembling in her body. +</p> + +<p> +“I must return now,” she said. “I must go home. Lucius is long abroad. +He may be riding up and down the cliffs all day. I won’t wait any +longer.” +</p> + +<p> +The old Earl was moved by the note of despair in her shivering voice. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear child,” he said, in tender affection, “don’t think I am +indifferent to your suffering. I know what it must be to you. It is +terrible for all of us. Don’t think I meant to reproach you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sometimes,” Ambrosia replied wildly, “I reproach myself, but it is +all unavailing—reproaching or defence.” She languidly picked up her +bonnet. She had, indeed, no desire to wait for Lucius, after all. What +use was it again to see that distracted face, to listen to those +distracted sentences, to know and feel that his whole being was +absorbed, not with her, but with the Countess Fanny? To receive his +perfunctory courtesies and his forced attentions—useless and +humiliating. And the day was darkening again. How short they were, +these winter days. And the wind was rising. How stormy they were, +these winter days. She must ride back home, and take up her round of +duties at Sellar’s Mead. +</p> + +<p> +But the old Earl implored her to stay. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t go, my dear, don’t go! Lucius must want to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think,” she replied dully, “that Lucius will notice if I am +here or not.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you haven’t had your tea,” protested the old man. “You can’t +leave without tea; and Mr. Spragge is coming in, too; he wants to see +you. We all feel you mustn’t be shut up too much alone at Sellar’s +Mead!” +</p> + +<p> +As he spoke, Lucius entered, and did not, indeed, at first seem to +notice Amy. It was to his father he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“No news? Useless, useless!” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you expect?” asked the old man mildly. “It’s too late now +for news. Have you not seen that Amy is here?” +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch20"> +CHAPTER XX +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">Lucius</span> turned to Ambrosia with but a mechanical recognition. +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me!” he said absently. “I did not at once notice you.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” thought Ambrosia bitterly, “you do not notice if I am there or +not! Your mind and your heart and your soul are too occupied with +another woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Amy is very distressed,” remarked the old Earl, looking anxiously at +his son. “All this is very difficult and terrible for her, Lucius; you +must not forget that. In your search for one who is lost, you must not +overlook one who is beside you. Your first duty,” added the old man +deliberately, “is, after all, towards Amy.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius appeared startled by this, roused and bewildered. He glanced at +his father, and then at the young woman, and seemed about to speak, +but bit his lip and was silent. +</p> + +<p> +Amy felt that this was a moment when she might with justice put in +some plea for herself. After all, for nearly three weeks she had +remained silent, always standing apart before the thought of the +Countess Fanny. Now, surely, the time was ripe to rouse Lucius from +this useless, hopeless obsession.… +</p> + +<p> +“Need you search any more?” she asked, glancing timidly towards him. +“Is there any good to be done by this, Luce? It is straining the +nerves of all of us; at home I have Oliver, and when I come here +there’s you… and nobody talks or thinks of anything else. Now, after +three weeks, there cannot possibly be any hope.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t remind me of that,” replied Lucius hoarsely. “Don’t say there +can’t be any hope—there is, there must be!” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucius, you talk wildly,” put in the Earl sternly. “It is not in any +human probability that there is any hope left of finding Fanny now. +You know that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t admit it,” insisted Lucius defiantly. “No, sir; I declare +that I won’t admit it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” demanded Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +“Because,” said the young man with difficulty, “it is too dreadful a +thought. Surely, Amy, for you also it must be too appalling a +reflection—the thought that she is dead, really <i>dead</i>!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is horrible, of course,” agreed Amy; “a tragedy, and an unexpected +one. But why should it be so appalling to either of us? Lucius, she +was a stranger!” +</p> + +<p> +The young man opened his lips as if to give a vehement denial to this +statement, then put his fingers to his mouth and was silent, turning +moodily away towards the fire. She noticed that he still wore his +riding-coat, and that it was wet. Of late he had become very negligent +in his attire; never before had she seen him carelessly dressed, but +now he seemed indifferent as to his appearance. Out day and night on +the cliffs, day and night out in the storm, his eyes so tired, his +lips so strained, and the hollows in his cheeks perceptible to her as +he stood there, with the firelight giving him a false colour.… +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll make yourself ill,” she exclaimed impulsively, “and to no +purpose! Oh, Lucius, forget her!” +</p> + +<p> +“There comes a moment,” remarked the old Earl, kindly but firmly, +“when reason must step in, or madness will follow.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius answered with his back to both of them, and his voice shook +with passion. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t believe she’s dead.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia endeavoured to command her painful emotions at these words, +to speak gently and even with sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t believe it either, Lucius. I’m praying for her every +day—that she may be, by some miracle, somewhere, alive. But let us be +calm about it. Cease this wild search! Listen, my dear, as your father +says, to reason. How could she possibly be concealed anywhere now? How +can you, by riding or tramping the fields and cliffs all day, hope to +find her? Just think of it, Lucius—where could she be?” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s got away, perhaps,” he said sullenly. “Got on to the mainland, +somehow.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you know,” said the Earl firmly, “we have made enquiries; +hopeless and desperate as they were, we have made them; at +Truro—beyond—even as far as London. It is out of the question, +Lucius, to suppose that she has got away from St. Nite’s. Why, we know +that no conveyance left the village that day. Oliver denied her a +horse, and there was nowhere else she could get one. Besides, she +would have been most conspicuous, even supposing she <i>had</i> picked up a +horse, a solitary woman on a day like that—dressed as she was +dressed. It’s out of the question, Lucius; with all respect for your +distraction, one must maintain some common sense.” +</p> + +<p> +“If she were dead,” returned Lucius, “I think that I should know it.” +</p> + +<p> +With an effort, Ambrosia allowed this to pass. +</p> + +<p> +“I am going home now,” she murmured; “there is no object in my +remaining here. You have nothing to say to me, I perceive, Lucius.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will go back with you,” he said in a perfunctory manner. “I won’t +come up to the house; I don’t wish to meet Oliver. He is too uncivil.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not meant personally to you,” said Ambrosia eagerly. “He has +been like that ever since the tragedy; he is scarcely in his wits.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not think you should be left with him,” interposed the Earl. “It +is too much for you, Amy; you will find your nerves giving way. You +should come here; Mrs. Trefusis will make you comfortable.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how can Oliver live there alone?” protested his sister. “It is +impossible; he cannot look after himself. I doubt if the servants +would remain, if I were not there, standing between them and him! No, +my duty is to Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +She thought, even as she said the words, that too much of her life had +been duty. Duty had been almost an indulgence with her; duty, and +never anything else. Perhaps if she had not been so full of duty about +her relations with Lucius, they would have been happier. She could +recall now, and with an intense, bitter regret, that when they had +first been betrothed he had urged her, in a wealth and hurry of +feeling, to marry him then, and go away. There had been duty +then—duty to Oliver, duty to the old Earl, duty to a sense of +decorum, propriety. She had crushed down the feeling which had +responded so eagerly to his. She had thwarted her own intense desire +for escape; and where were they now? Staring at each other stupidly +over the ashes of a dead affection! +</p> + +<p> +“I am taking Mr. Spragge back with me,” she added dully. “I have asked +him to come and speak to Oliver. We can’t go on like this. I shall +send for a doctor, too. You know, when he had that last seizure, three +weeks ago, Dr. Drayton thought he was in a dangerous state.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll come with you,” repeated Lucius mechanically. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“I have the carriage,” she said. “Don’t inflict yourself with our +company. Stay here with your father—he needs you. You look tired, +Lucius, very tired.” +</p> + +<p> +“No rest,” said the old man anxiously. “He will certainly make himself +ill, but it is useless for me to talk. I wish the storm would cease; +there is something in this incessant wind which is maddening to +everyone. I hope Mr. Spragge can help you, my dear; he is a wise man, +and when need be a brave one.” +</p> + +<p> +Amy stooped, and allowed the old man’s trembling lips to kiss her cold +cheek. Then she left the cabinet and went downstairs, followed by +Lucius. They had to traverse the green drawing-room, and there she +paused; and Lucius must pause too, though he shivered in doing so, for +the last time he had been through this room with a woman he had been +with the Countess Fanny, and he must recall that now, and seem to see +her radiant, vivid figure there beside him, instead of the sombre +personality of Ambrosia, in her dark dress and black veil and bonnet, +which was like half mourning; for it had seemed to Amy only suitable +to wear a half mourning since the disappearance of her young cousin.… +</p> + +<p> +“Lucius,” she said now earnestly. “Will you not speak to me candidly? +Your father asked me only just now what you had told me of this last +interview with Fanny; and what could I say—for you have told me +nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“There was nothing to tell,” he muttered, looking past her and out on +to the wild prospect of the park, across which he still seemed to see +that buoyant figure hurrying away into the void. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us leave that excuse!” said Ambrosia, in a quiet voice of +resignation. “Mrs. Trefusis knows that she was here over half an hour. +Something must have passed in that time; your father thinks so, and so +do I. Oh, Lucius, won’t you tell me? We are supposed to be going to be +married in the spring, and there is no confidence between us.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius moved to the window, and put his brow against the window-pane +and stared down on the ground, so that his back was towards Amy. +</p> + +<p> +“She asked me,” he said, speaking slowly and with difficulty, “to save +her from Oliver; that was all there was in it, Amy. She said that she +could no longer support Oliver, and that she was frightened of him; +and I——” +</p> + +<p> +“And you sent her away,” said Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t force me to repeat it,” he cried. “I urged her to return to +Sellar’s Mead.…” +</p> + +<p> +“And you did right,” replied Ambrosia quickly; “of course you did +right. Why should you reproach yourself with that, Luce!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” he asked bitterly. “Because I sent her to her doom; that is +why. Don’t you see it, Amy? She wouldn’t go back—she preferred to +die.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is all very high-flown,” said Ambrosia impatiently, “and all +impossible, too. The girl must have been half out of her wits if she +destroyed herself on so slight a thing as that. Oliver——” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, don’t tell me about Oliver,” interrupted Lucius. “I don’t care +to think about it. She said very little to me, but since she has gone +away I have thought about it a great deal. I acted like a fool and a +coward, and abandoned her when she had appealed to me; and sometimes +I think, Amy, that I can’t go on living much longer with that thought +in my mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cast it out, then,” urged Ambrosia, coming up behind him and touching +his unresponsive arm. “Put it out of your mind—don’t consider it any +more; for it is folly… the girl had nothing to fear from Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t continue speaking of her as ‘the girl,’ ” said Lucius, nervously +and irritably. +</p> + +<p> +“What am I to call her, then? She was a stranger to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Lucius did turn and look at her, with reproachful eyes, and said +what the Earl had said upstairs in his little closet; but did not say +it with the same temperance and kindness: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Amy! Couldn’t you have saved her? Did you want to stand by and +allow that to happen? It seems incredible; you must have known, you +must have guessed—you, another woman, and living in the same house +with her—could you not have seen to what a pass she was being +driven?” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia closed her eyes. A deep chill pervaded her whole frame. +</p> + +<p> +“I did what I could,” she replied, forming the words even while +thinking what a commonplace and stale excuse that was. “I never +realised anything was happening that she could take so seriously. I +still don’t think that Oliver did anything or threatened anything that +could have driven her to extremities.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius put his hand to his forehead with a touch of weariness. +</p> + +<p> +“No use our discussing it,” he said. “I am sick of words; I am sick of +everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“It ought not to spoil our lives,” ventured Ambrosia, in sinking +tones. “You might think a little of me, Lucius. What did your father +say just now—that your first duty was to me?” +</p> + +<p> +But as she heard her own words echo in the large room, she knew how +hopeless, how bitterly useless, it was to remind anyone of a detested +duty; and that was what she had become to Lucius—a detested duty. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” said the young man hastily. “I know it must be difficult +for you, and I understand. I will try to put it out of my mind.” But +the very way in which he said these words showed that he would never +be able to put the Countess Fanny out of his mind. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to have no remorse on her account,” urged Ambrosia. “I wish +I could make you understand that. If anyone should feel remorse, it is +Oliver; and even in his case I think it is unnecessary. She had only +her own wilful temper to blame.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t censure her,” cried Lucius hotly. “I’ll not endure that, Amy. +There was nothing wrong in her—nothing; it was we—we were all wrong +from the first.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia could not altogether resist a reply to this, although she +softened the instinctive fierceness of that reply. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose, then, Fanny had a right to be a flirt and a rattle and a +featherhead?” she remarked. “Playing fast and loose with Oliver, with +first her ‘Yes’ and then her ‘No’!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence. Ambrosia did not wish to break that silence. Yet +she found herself saying, almost against her own volition: +</p> + +<p> +“Unless you know of some reason, Lucius, why she should have changed +her mind.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius did not speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps,” continued Amy, “it dates from that day when she met +you—when you were together in the churchyard. That seems the +beginning of it. Perhaps, Lucius, you know something about it after +all.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke now, and stubbornly. +</p> + +<p> +“I know nothing about it whatever,” he declared. +</p> + +<p> +“Then why should she tease your conscience?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I was the last to see her,” said the young man hurriedly. +“Because I had the responsibility of sending her away.…” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia could say no more. She also felt weary; weary to faintness. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, Lucius,” she said abruptly, and left him; nor did he make +any effort to follow her, and when she looked back to the door he was +still standing there, leaning against the high window-frame and +staring out across the wintry prospect of the park. +</p> + +<p> +She entered her brougham, and the horses proceeded slowly on the wet +road to the vicarage; and there she found Mr. Spragge waiting for her. +He stepped into the carriage beside her, and they turned back to +Sellar’s Mead. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia sat mute in her corner, wondering how far she should confess +to the clergyman the true state of affairs. Very likely he knew +everything. Very likely everyone in the village knew everything! But +did it do to put all this into words, even to him? Pride and prudence +alike forbade. She would not reveal her heart. The heart of Oliver he +would soon see for himself. +</p> + +<p> +She even endeavoured to put matters upon a plain and practical +footing, by laying her gloved hands on the old man’s knee, as they +proceeded down darkening roads with the windy trees blown to and fro +above their heads on the high fields, and saying: +</p> + +<p> +“Dear sir, I fear greatly for Oliver! This tragedy has almost +overturned his brain. He is not in any manner normal, and I scarcely +care to be alone with him at Sellar’s Mead—alone, that is, with the +servants. They are, you now, all terrified of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“You should have a companion,” said Mr. Spragge anxiously; “someone +must come and stay with you, if you cannot induce him to go away. That +would be the best of all—if he were to leave St. Nite’s Head.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that,” said Ambrosia mournfully, “is the last thing he will do. +He is as if chained to the spot, rooted to the ground. Nothing will +induce him to abandon this piece of earth where she disappeared.” +</p> + +<p> +“If her body could only have been found,” said the clergyman gravely; +“if we could have laid that at rest, we might have laid at rest the +demon that possesses your brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“The demon!” replied Ambrosia, startled at that word. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me, Miss Sellar, that it is no less; a disappointed and +an outraged demon possesses your brother, and we must do our best to +lay it. The event has been dire, the shock great; but nevertheless it +must be met with Christian resignation and fortitude, or disaster will +ensue.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is what I am afraid of,” shivered Ambrosia, huddled in the +corner of the darkened interior of the carriage, “disaster—I seem to +feel it in the very air I breathe, and oh, this tempest, this endless +tempest.…” +</p> + +<p> +“It is no more,” said Mr. Spragge heavily, “than we get every winter; +but now, of course, it seems more appalling, with this tragedy so +fresh in our minds.” +</p> + +<p> +As they approached Sellar’s Mead—Ambrosia could see it from the +window when she leant forward—she turned again to her companion, and +asked, with a fresh access of dread and terror: +</p> + +<p> +“You can stay with us to-night, dear sir, can you not?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge replied that he could stay that night, and other nights if +necessary; there was no one who had greater need of him in his small +parish, and one or two good neighbours had offered to go and stay with +his wife. +</p> + +<p> +“We are really very cosy and comfortable in the village,” he said, +“for all the tempests and storms; and while I can be of any use to +you, Miss Sellar, I will remain here.” +</p> + +<p> +The darkness had almost closed in as they passed through the gates of +Sellar’s Mead, and the wind was rising higher for another night of +angry elements and dreadful weather. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia thought with horror of Luce; standing there alone, in that +empty, cold drawing-room, staring out upon that empty, cold park, +thinking of Fanny.… She ought to have been with him, not with Oliver; +yet it had been impossible for her to stay, for he did not want her, +and she could bring him no manner of comfort.… +</p> + +<p> +She preceded Mr. Spragge into the parlour. Everything here looked +cheerful and radiant enough. The lamps were already lit, the fire was +sparkling on the hearth, the mahogany gleaming in these varied lights, +every picture in place, seats drawn up round the fire, cushions and +easy chairs, and even a bowl of hot-house exotics, Roman hyacinths and +tuber-roses and violets, standing in a glass vase on the little +<i>papier mâché</i> table, filling the warm air with an elegant perfume. +Nothing had been neglected; there was no hint here of a ravaged or +desolate household. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge commended Amy for her good management. +</p> + +<p> +“You, at least, have not let shock and grief get the better of you, my +dear. You have shown some courage and resignation”; and Amy wanted to +cry aloud, “But I do not love her, and those two men do.” +</p> + +<p> +But she smiled, and answered the old man’s compliment with some +amiable comment, and sat down, and took up her work-basket and opened +it, and stared into the padded satin lining, and selected a thimble +painted with a wreath of roses and cupids, and a little pair of gilt +scissors, and idly turned these small objects over in her gloved +hands; and then put them back again, and said, with a start: +</p> + +<p> +“What am I doing—I haven’t taken my outdoor clothes off! Will you, +sir, excuse me for a moment?” +</p> + +<p> +The old man said: +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, my dear, of course; I am very comfortable here! And where +is your brother?” +</p> + +<p> +Amy jerked the long wool-embroidered bell-pull, and Julia came at +once. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is your master?” demanded Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +And Julia answered that the master was still abroad; dark as it was, +he had not yet returned. +</p> + +<p> +“This must be stopped,” muttered Mr. Spragge. “He will meet his death +one of these nights, out in a storm like this, along those dangerous +cliffs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Every night the same,” said Ambrosia dully. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch21"> +CHAPTER XXI +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +“<span class="sc">You</span> see,” said Ambrosia hurriedly, “to what I am exposed; I come +from Lefton Park, and there I find Lucius abroad, searching for Fanny, +and I return home, and Oliver is abroad, searching for Fanny. It is +beyond all reason—an obsession, as you observe, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge could not be unaware of the emotions which must be +agitating Ambrosia, and which he considered she was making a very good +show of concealing. Though his lips and his ears were sternly sealed +to gossip, yet it was impossible for him not to know, even from +glances and intonations, that everyone was remarking on the assiduity +that Lucius showed in searching for the lost girl and his ardour in +the quest, which seemed by now to everyone hopeless; she had been +really no concern of his, and though his anxiety and distress had been +for a while excused by the fact that he had been the last person to +speak to her, that excuse did not hold any longer, and it seemed, as +Mr. Spragge very well knew, to everyone wholly unnatural in Lucius to +continue this desperate search for the Countess Fanny. The absorption +of Oliver in his grief was allowed to be normal, and wholly excused; +he was the missing girl’s betrothed, and her guardian. Both his love +and his responsibility would be hard hit. But Lucius had no real part +in the affair, and Mr. Spragge was afraid that his behaviour was +causing a great deal of gossip, and even scandal. But he could hardly +speak of this to Ambrosia, though he threw as much sympathy as +possible into his voice, as he replied: +</p> + +<p> +“It is indeed most painful for you, Miss Sellar, and everyone will +sympathise with you; a most ghastly thing to have occurred, and I +greatly admire the fortitude with which you have met it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fortitude!” echoed Ambrosia. “I feel all to pieces!” +</p> + +<p> +“You do not show it,” said Mr. Spragge encouragingly; “you put a very +good face upon it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me,” cried Ambrosia, holding out her cold, trembling hands to +the warmth of the fire, “tell me, do you not feel convinced in your +own heart, sir, that she is dead?” +</p> + +<p> +The clergyman answered, gravely and deliberately: +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I do; I can come to no other conclusion. Think round the +subject as one will, and reflect upon every possible aspect of it, one +can indeed come to no other conclusion but that; the unfortunate young +lady is dead, and the fact should be met with a decent resignation.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope,” replied Ambrosia, “that you will, dear sir, use your utmost +influence to persuade Oliver to meet it with a decent resignation; for +indeed I know not how long I may continue to endure this atmosphere of +despair and agitation.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar now violently entered the placid and polished room. He +was booted, spurred, wet, and muddy, and Ambrosia could not forbear a +fastidious glance of disgust at his appearance. She was forced, no +doubt, to allow him a certain latitude at present, but she disliked +the absorbed negligence which brought him into her drawing-room +straight from the stables. +</p> + +<p> +He gave her no greeting, and he looked, gloomily and without welcome, +at the clergyman. +</p> + +<p> +“You have had your ride in vain,” asked Ambrosia dully, “of course. I +have brought Mr. Spragge home with me, Oliver. He has promised to stay +with us a little while—I am very lonely here, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good evening,” said Oliver coldly. +</p> + +<p> +Not disturbed by these rude manners, the good clergyman said mildly: +</p> + +<p> +“I did not wish to intrude upon you, Mr. Sellar, but your sister +somewhat earnestly desired my company.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, very well,” said Oliver distractedly, “but I fear you will +find me but a sullen host just now. There is only one thing in all my +mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“That I can understand, Mr. Sellar. This has been a great tragedy, a +great shock to you.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver glanced at him with contempt. Such insipid and formal +condolences irritated him. Over everyone with whom he had any power, +he had set the command never to mention the Countess Fanny, though he +was searching for the girl all day and often a great part of the +night, no one was to murmur her name or to refer to her disappearance; +and now Ambrosia, provoking woman that she was, had brought this +wandering old man here to go over the tale, to make a scandal and a +gossip of it, to probe into his feelings, which he wished above all +things to conceal. +</p> + +<p> +Pride gave him the strength to make an effort to reply to Mr. +Spragge’s remark. +</p> + +<p> +“It is my plain duty to search for the Countess Fanny,” he remarked +darkly. “She was not only my promised wife, but my ward. I have all +the responsibility in the matter. It was my house she left, and she +was under my protection.” +</p> + +<p> +“But surely human resource and human ingenuity are exhausted now,” +replied the clergyman mildly. “There are limits, my dear sir, to what +any mortal may accomplish.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if she is anywhere on St. Nite’s Head, I must, in time, find +her,” replied Oliver with fierce stubbornness. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” cried Ambrosia, “that he will not realise that she is +lost.” +</p> + +<p> +“I realise that she is lost,” said Oliver gloomily. “For weeks I’ve +realised nothing else.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” remarked Mr. Spragge, “what you must realise is that she is +dead; and one of my reasons for this visit is to suggest to you that +some monument be put up in the churchyard or the church.” +</p> + +<p> +At these words, Oliver’s face, already pallid, dark, and ravaged, took +on an expression and a hue livid and terrible. +</p> + +<p> +“She is not dead,” he declared hoarsely. And then he said the same +words that Lucius had said such a short time before: “If she were +dead, of course I should know it!” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia cast a despairing glance at Mr. Spragge, but the clergyman +did not see this look, which seemed to appeal to him for +commiseration, for he was gazing at Oliver, fascinated by the man’s +look and appearance. +</p> + +<p> +The clergyman had had a long life, but not very much experience, and +he had never before seen anyone in the grip of a violent passion. He +thought, as he looked at Oliver Sellar, of the old Greek fables of men +possessed by furies; for like a fury, he thought, must be the +vehement, convulsive feelings that shook and rent the soul of Oliver +Sellar. The man was frenzied by a wild rage, frantic with thwarted +passion, furious with a fierce jealousy—cruel, insatiable, bitterest +jealousy; the most ghastly of all jealousies—the jealousy of Death. +All his hopes, all his fancies, must now be in his distracted mind as +a mockery and a torment. Lost, all lost! Swept away by the dark ocean +which had seized his bride; baffled, outwitted, triumphed over, +scorned by Death. The conventional comforts, the usual props and stays +of religion, the talk of Christian resignation and trust in the Most +High with which Mr. Spragge had come armed, now failed him as he +stared at Oliver Sellar. In the agony of the man’s eyes, the grim set +of his features, the very hunch of his shoulders and the clench of his +hands, the atmosphere he gave out, the clergyman felt agony—agony of +soul and agony of body; and how was he, with his platitudes, his +formal commonplaces, to deal with that? +</p> + +<p> +The old man shivered. He wished that he had not come to Sellar’s +Mead—he would do no good there, might, even, provoke that demon of +fury with which Oliver Sellar was battling. +</p> + +<p> +Even now he seemed to be forgetful of those other two, both of whom +were regarding him so earnestly. His look showed where his thoughts +had flown—out into the storm, out on to the sea; with his mind he was +still searching for Fanny. And still Mr. Spragge could not speak. The +atmosphere of this dark personality in such dark torment was too +powerful for him. He stood motionless and trembled. And then he turned +his glance away; his dimming eyes could not endure the spectacle of +such unbearable pain. Yes, the dismal and awful atmosphere of this +room was engulfing him more and more. He began to see things with the +eyes of Oliver Sellar—be engrossed in that most horrid mystery, that +terrible tragedy of the death of the Countess Fanny. He wished he had +not come to Sellar’s Mead. +</p> + +<p> +But Ambrosia spoke, and her words were like the breaking of a spell. +The old man startled. She was beside him, and had laid her hand on his +arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you speak to him?” she pleaded. “Why are you quiet, sir? See +how he stands there, like a man possessed.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge tried to rouse himself to say something appropriate and +friendly, but his words came unwillingly and stiffly. He was too much +under the influence of that dark, silent, staring figure by the +chimney-piece. +</p> + +<p> +The old man endeavoured to rouse himself—call up his beliefs, which +had been so easy to hold to in placid times, which had supported him +very well until he came to a crisis like this. He had always been able +to deal adequately with ordinary troubles—sickness or domestic grief; +but this was beyond him here; the agony of Oliver seemed to him to +pass the ordinary agony of humanity, and to come into the province of +the devil. +</p> + +<p> +Still, he must rouse himself. How mean and shaking a thing was his +faith, if it fell before the first assault like this. And he was +startled that in his thoughts he had used the word “assault,” for who +had attacked him? Oliver had said nothing.… +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia waited, glancing from her brother to the old clergyman. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” said Mr. Spragge, moistening his thin lips, “I should be +showing but a fickle temper and a hollow faith were I not to speak to +you now as I had resolved to speak to you when I entered your house.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver did not move or reply, and before that dark, implacable +presence, Mr. Spragge winced again. But Ambrosia’s hand tightened on +his wrist, and she whispered hoarsely, under her breath: +</p> + +<p> +“Speak to him, sir, speak to him!” +</p> + +<p> +The old man continued in a steadier tone: +</p> + +<p> +“I will admit that, until I saw you now, Mr. Sellar, I had hardly +realised the extent of your trouble, nor the torment which is +consuming you as by a slow fire; and the spectacle of your suffering +made me a little stay my hand. Yet for your own sake, for your +sister’s sake, and for the sake of all of us, I must speak, to entreat +you to a decent resignation.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver turned: +</p> + +<p> +“To what am I to resign myself?” he demanded hoarsely; and even under +those dark, sunken, shadowed eyes staring him down, Mr. Spragge found +the courage to reply: +</p> + +<p> +“To the loss of this girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will never resign myself to that,” replied Oliver, with a ghastly +grin worse than any frown, “for she is not dead—only lost; and I am +resolved to find her. Do you not think a man may do as much, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“This is not a moment to boast of your humanity,” replied the +clergyman. “It is all in the hands of God; and though you may think me +preaching, yet, if you will but use your reason, Mr. Sellar, you will +see that I speak the bare truth. We are all in the hands of God. What +can you do against this black mystery which has suddenly engulfed all +your happiness? Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver ground his teeth. +</p> + +<p> +“Do not rage,” said the clergyman. “It is so, we are all of us puny +before the unfathomable gloom of this tragedy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You cannot console me,” replied Oliver fiercely, “and I will scarcely +endure to be reprimanded. I find no comfort in any of these +platitudes; I am past smooth phrasing, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is no platitude nor smooth phrasing, sir,” replied Mr. Spragge +with dignity. “I would suggest to you some measure of control and +resignation; whether or no you will bear to hear the name of God, it +must be clear, even to your obstinate mind, that there is some Hand in +this whose power you cannot fathom.” +</p> + +<p> +“More the devil, I think,” groaned Oliver, “to take her away like +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Call it the devil if you will,” returned the clergyman. “It is +something against which you strive in vain, and by indulging in this +sense of grief, you will not only overset your own reason, but will +confound your friends. Regard your sister now, how she is overwrought +and overwhelmed by this.” +</p> + +<p> +In reply, Oliver gave Amy a thunderous regard. +</p> + +<p> +“We won’t discuss her part of it,” he said shortly, “and I entreat +you, sir, to forbear your homilies, which but exhaust yourself and do +me no manner of good.” +</p> + +<p> +The clergyman continued to exhort him, in mild and earnest tones. +</p> + +<p> +“Consider, sir, your age and station. You are no boy, to indulge these +fantasies; there is a responsibility attaching to you—a name and +estate. There is your sister to consider. She is to be married in the +spring. Must all her prospects be blasted by this?” +</p> + +<p> +Again Oliver gave his sister a bitter, black glance. Mr. Spragge +continued hurriedly: +</p> + +<p> +“Leave aside those higher Powers that you do not desire me to name; +say nothing of resignation and fortitude, and submission to divine +ruling; think of yourself, sir, in a social sense. Frenzied tempests +of unappeasable grief give cause for scandal in the place. It is now +nearly three weeks——” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver interrupted vehemently. +</p> + +<p> +“But people have been lost for longer than three weeks.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know about all that; it may be so. But taking all the +circumstances here, it is incredible to me and to every other person +of sense who has considered the matter that the lady still lives.” +</p> + +<p> +“So I have told you for days,” urged Ambrosia. “You hear what Mr. +Spragge says, Oliver, and so says the Earl, and so all of them.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Lucius?” asked Oliver, with a cunning reflection. “Does he say +so?” +</p> + +<p> +“What matters the opinion of Lucius?” demanded Ambrosia wildly. “Why +bring in the name of Lucius? Oh, Oliver, do let us be sane about all +this! Fanny is dead. She is gone. Let us plan our lives without her!” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver did not seem to hear these words. He began pacing up and down +the room with his hands clasped behind the skirts of his heavy coat, +his glance bent downwards. And he began to talk in rapid, uneven +tones, as if he cared not who listened, nor, indeed, was aware that +there was any one in the room besides himself. And the old man and the +young woman glanced at each other with horror, for they feared that +these were symptoms of a breaking mind—that horrid muttering of +Oliver’s, and his uneven pacing up and down. +</p> + +<p> +“I went to that Pen Hall Farm,” he said, “where she went in once, you +know—on her way to the lighthouse. They admitted that. They’re wild +rogues up there; they’ve always defied me. I’ve had my doubts of them. +I thought I’d go again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Heavens!” said Ambrosia. “You never thought that Fanny would be +hiding there! It’s incredible, it’s unthinkable! Do not let such ideas +get into your head, Oliver!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, I don’t know!” he muttered. “I went there again. +They’ve still got her jewel—the jewel she gave the child; some +Italian fal-lal; the child is wearing it round its neck yet. I made +them go over her visit, word by word.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was the day before,” protested Ambrosia. “That has nothing to do +with her disappearance.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had my doubts of them, I had my suspicions,” continued Oliver. “I +thought she might be there. I searched the place out. But then, the +scoundrels! I’ll get them off the land somehow, they’ve got a sick boy +there, tramped up from Falmouth, coughing and choking by the fire, in +rags. The filthy, diseased brat! I’ll have them turned off, freehold +or no; they’re a plague-spot to the neighbourhood!” +</p> + +<p> +“But why should you speak of it now?” asked Ambrosia. “What has that +got to do with the search for Fanny? What has it got to do with any of +us—we all know about Pen Hall Farm. They have been there for +generations.” +</p> + +<p> +“He scarcely knows what he has said,” whispered the clergyman. “He is +exhausted, mind and body.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver suddenly paused in his uneasy pacing up and down. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t we have dinner?” he demanded gruffly. “Can’t we have some food? +I want to be off again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Again? To-night? Oh, Oliver, you must not.…” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you I’m going out again, immediately. I’ve thought of +somewhere else to search. What a fool I was not to think of it +before!” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia was now alarmed beyond concealment. She wrung her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Somewhere else to look—what do you mean, Oliver? As if every inch +had not been searched!” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s somewhere where no one has been,” said Oliver with a cunning +look. “And that’s Flimwel Grange—her own house. No one thought of +that, did they?” +</p> + +<p> +“Flimwel Grange?” said Ambrosia, in accents of horror. “But this is +lunacy, Oliver! Why should she go there? She could not have lived +there for three weeks—that’s only an empty house, so long shut up. +Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t go there!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going,” he replied violently, “and at once. Do you hold your +tongue, Ambrosia, and leave me in peace or I’ll say things you won’t +care to hear, nor I to speak! I give you some fault in this, you +know!” +</p> + +<p> +“That is ungenerous in you,” said Mr. Spragge. “You should not, sir, +blame your sister. And you, I pray you, show a little charity and +patience.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver glared at him angrily. His black brows were pulled deep over +his eyes; his pale lips twitched convulsively. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not intend to preach to you,” said the clergyman steadily, “if +you wish, I will go with you to Flimwel Grange. It were better, since +you are set on this expedition, that you should at least have a +companion.” +</p> + +<p> +At this suggestion, the look of hate cleared from Oliver’s gloomy +face. He gave a long, heaving sigh, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I would like a companion! If you are prepared to leave at +once.…” +</p> + +<p> +“I will certainly go with you, and at once,” declared Mr. Spragge +firmly. “Let us, however, conduct the matter with common sense. We +will take some refreshment, and you will change or dry your clothes; +and, as the night is so wild, we will go in a carriage, not on +horseback.” +</p> + +<p> +He half expected to be met by a further outburst from Oliver; but +instead, the tormented man regarded him with a sudden wistfulness in +his expression, and muttered: “Thank you, thank you!” +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch22"> +CHAPTER XXII +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +“<span class="sc">You’ll</span> agree, then, that she’s not dead,” Oliver had asked +anxiously. “You’re willing to believe that she’s alive, hidden +somewhere, and to come with me to search for her at Flimwel Grange?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge had agreed, for he believed that he had to deal, now, with +a man not wholly in his right mind, and he feared for Oliver Sellar’s +reason if he were strenuously opposed. He believed that the only help +he could give him and Ambrosia would come from gaining his confidence +and proving himself a friend to these wild fancies and delusions which +Oliver Sellar cherished. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia had taken him aside and protested about this +expedition—protested against his self-sacrifice in accompanying +Oliver on a night like this, with such a storm abroad, and to that +lonely house. +</p> + +<p> +“It is not far away,” said the old man, “and I have often been out in +a storm before; and I am quite well and stalwart, and if we take the +thing reasonably, it will harm neither of us. Why, my dear, it is but +a question of a mile-and-a-half drive, and looking over an empty +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what good will it do Oliver?” she urged. “It is only encouraging +him!” +</p> + +<p> +“It will get me into the confidence of Oliver. Who knows but that I +may be able to say a word in season, and to persuade him to some peace +and tranquillity?” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia did not reply. She gave orders for a hasty meal to be +prepared, for Oliver would not wait till the usual dinner-time; and +then she returned to her drawing-room and took out her sewing. So she +was to be left again—even the old clergyman was to be swept into this +wild search for Fanny. She must sit there alone by the +fireside—pondering, wondering, examining her own heart, struggling +with her own feelings.… +</p> + +<p> +Oliver had taken Mr. Spragge into his own private room—that little +closet beyond the dining-room where he had interviewed Fanny the last +time that he had spoken to her; the room where he now always passed +the brief time that he was in his house. +</p> + +<p> +On the bureau were the cases containing his mother’s jewels, which +Ambrosia had handed to Fanny, and Luisa, the Italian maid, had handed +back on her mistress’s disappearance. Among them, though Mr. Spragge +did not know this, was the heavy engagement ring which he had given +Fanny in Italy, and a necklace of Etruscan gold, and a <i>rivière</i> of +diamonds which he had purchased for her in Paris. +</p> + +<p> +The two rooms which she had occupied during her short stay at Sellar’s +Mead were now locked up, and Oliver kept the keys with these other +treasures. He had given severe orders that nothing was to be touched; +none of her possessions was to be put away. All the fal-lals and +trifles left upon her dressing-table, her clothes still hanging in the +press, her shoes on the floor, her vases and ornaments in the places +where she had left them.… +</p> + +<p> +When he had given these orders, he had said: +</p> + +<p> +“At any moment she may come back, at any second she may return; and +everything must be in readiness.” +</p> + +<p> +Now he rang the bell, as was his usual evening custom, and, when the +maid came, gave her the key of these apartments, saying: +</p> + +<p> +“See that all is prepared, and a large fire lit. It may be that +to-night the Countess Fanny comes home. I am going abroad, and +possibly I shall bring her back with me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge listened in dismay to these instructions, which the maid +received with respectful impassiveness. +</p> + +<p> +When she had gone, Oliver took a piece of paper from his pocket, and +showed it to the clergyman. +</p> + +<p> +It contained a list of the clothes the Countess Fanny was wearing on +the day of her disappearance. +</p> + +<p> +“Two of them are here—two of those items,” said Oliver; and he opened +a drawer in the bureau. Mr. Spragge observed, with a shudder, the +crushed straw bonnet with the wreaths of dark-red flowers, and the +torn, pale cashmere shawl which Fanny had worn the day she had +disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“Those were found on the rocks, you know,” said Oliver. “She’d been +walking on the rocks, and cast them down. It was her manner, you know, +to take off her bonnet whenever she could, and let the wind blow +through her hair. But, for the rest, she wore these.” +</p> + +<p> +And his heavy hand and pointing finger indicated to the clergyman the +list carefully compiled from Luisa’s instructions as to the attire of +the lost girl. +</p> + +<p> +“A dress of dark-green cloth with steel buttons, and underclothing of +Indian lawn with Valenciennes lace; a tippet of blue and white striped +sarcenet with a silk fringe; a cameo brooch, set in foliated gold, and +carved with a head of Medusa; a pair of bracelets and a necklace, in +wrought coral, fashioned to appear like grapes, and set in gold; a +comb to match; a rosary of gilt beads and lapis; a reticule—yellow +velvet—containing beads, handkerchief, a half-finished purse of +netted silk, some charms and holy medallions.” +</p> + +<p> +The clergyman read the piteous list. He did not know what to say, yet +plainly Oliver was waiting for him to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“None of these things has been found,” he faltered. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Oliver, “not one.” +</p> + +<p> +“How should they be?” thought Mr. Spragge, with deep pity, “when they +are all with her at the bottom of the sea?” And he marvelled at any +passion being deep enough to create so bottomless a hope as that +nourished by Oliver Sellar. And he noted that the unfortunate man was +drinking heavily. +</p> + +<p> +He hardly touched the food that was brought him, but the wine he drank +in copious glassfuls, one after the other. No doubt he had been +drinking like this ever since the girl was lost. He foresaw a dark +future for Oliver Sellar if the Countess Fanny was not found; and +indeed it was impossible that she should be found. +</p> + +<p> +Then a fantastic thought came into the old man’s mind. Supposing, by +some miracle, that she <i>was</i> found; what then would the situation be? +She had run away from Oliver—that was clear enough. So that, even if +she returned, as it were from the grave, what use to this dark, +tormented man sitting beside him, since she would reject him? Better, +almost for Oliver Sellar that the Countess Fanny should be dead! +</p> + +<p> +They set out on their senseless journey, and the old man bowed and +shuddered a little, used as he was to tempestuous weather, at the +blasts of the wind that blew up out of the darkness and smote him as +he waited on the porch for the carriage. What a night and what an +errand! +</p> + +<p> +The stout horses and the willing coachman, knowing the road so well, +and skilful in his driving, soon brought them through the tearing wind +and the onslaught of the rain to the gates of Flimwel Grange, which +lay just beyond the confines of the estate of Oliver Sellar, who +rented the house with the land, but had never troubled to endeavour to +find a tenant for it, nor for years crossed its threshold. +</p> + +<p> +When the Countess Caldini, Fanny’s mother, had been asked what she +wished done with the house where she had spent her own childhood, and +of which she was now the sole heiress, she had replied indifferently +enough from Italy, saying it might be shut up until such good time as +she could return to England, where it was always her intention, she +had declared, to return sooner or later; but she had been absorbed in +the troubles of her distracted country—the shifting policies and +incipient rebellions of Rome and Florence and Turin—and she had never +come back to her native country, though it had been her dying wish +that her daughter should do so, and for that reason she had left +Oliver Sellar as her child’s guardian, hoping that he would take her +back to Cornwall. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge could remember when the Grange had been inhabited. He had +come to St. Nite’s just before the marriage of the Englishwoman to the +Italian, whom she had met in London during her first and only season +there. +</p> + +<p> +The Count Caldini had come to England to endeavour to rouse interest +in the cause of the Italian patriots, and, in the drawing-room of some +well-wisher to his cause, he had met the beautiful young Cornishwoman +and married her immediately, and taken her away, never wishing her to +return; and soon after the father and mother had died, and the Grange +had been shut up. +</p> + +<p> +Flimwel Grange was an ugly and pretentious house, recently built on +the site of an old mansion, some parts of which yet remained; but the +façades were of sham Gothic, heavy and gloomy, with a square tower at +one side. +</p> + +<p> +Beneath this tower was an archway, and there they left the carriage +and horses in some sort of a shelter. The driving rain was incessant, +and the wind seemed to increase in volume every moment. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver had the keys and a lantern, and Mr. Spragge, bending before the +gale, followed him round to the front door. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver flashed the lantern over the blank façade of the house. All +the windows were shuttered. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely,” thought the clergyman to himself, “he has, indeed, lost his +wits to suppose that the poor child can be in there, or can, indeed, +ever have been in there! What a madman’s quest is this!” And he almost +regretted his complaisance in accompanying Oliver Sellar on such a +journey. +</p> + +<p> +But Oliver was already unlocking the front door, and Mr. Spragge was +glad to follow him, even into the gloom of that deserted mansion; for +it was some shelter against the rising rain and the cold wind. +</p> + +<p> +He wondered, as Oliver closed the door behind him, to whom the house +now really belonged. He was not quite sure who was the heir of the +Countess Fanny—but Italian, no doubt; the uncle or the cousin; and he +thought uneasily, as the Earl had thought, that these people should be +apprised of the death of their young relation, and informed as to +their inheritance of her property. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver held the lantern aloft, and in the long beam looked up the +stairs, which rose straightly before them, and disappeared into +darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“I should hardly have recognised the place,” murmured Mr. Spragge. +“How different it looks from when I last saw it! They had it very +prettily furnished, I used to think, and kept it very well.” +</p> + +<p> +“The furniture was sold,” said Oliver absently, “and the proceeds sent +to the Countess Caldini. She always wanted money for her husband’s +cause. Fanny, you know, has not very much.” +</p> + +<p> +This was the first time the clergyman had heard the dower of the +Countess Fanny referred to. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver continued: +</p> + +<p> +“Her cousin and her uncle inherit the estate, and she has nothing but +a little money in cash and this estate. It is not worth such a very +great deal.” +</p> + +<p> +He still spoke in a distracted tone, and seemed entirely absorbed in +gazing up those empty, dusty stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge was glad that he had said this, for it did show that at +least he had had no mercenary motive in his ill-judged and hasty +engagement. +</p> + +<p> +“We will search every room,” said Oliver. “Do you go one way, and I +another.” +</p> + +<p> +“We have only one lantern,” objected Mr. Spragge, “and I can scarcely +hope to find anything in the dark. Let us go together, sir; the house +is not so large, and we have ample time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” assented Oliver, “we’ll begin on the ground floor. There +are two drawing-rooms and a parlour or so, I believe; it is long since +I was in the house, and I have forgotten.” +</p> + +<p> +He opened the door on his right as he spoke, and Mr. Spragge +accompanied him on this sombre, and to the old man useless, +pilgrimage. +</p> + +<p> +It did not take long to satisfy even Oliver that no one was lurking in +the rooms, for they were completely unfurnished and square, without +any recesses or cupboards. The one object in each was the ponderous +stone mantelpiece, and all was open and bare to the most casual +scrutiny. Perhaps, hoped Mr. Spragge, this emptiness would give him +some manner of shock, and prove to him the futility of this dismal +search. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver trudged impatiently from one room to another, disturbing the +dust and sometimes the rats and mice, who scampered away at the sound +of his noisy tread. Everything was covered with dust; in some places +the plaster had fallen; in others the damp had come in, and lay in an +ugly green-black blotch, bloomed with mildew, all over the +drab-coloured walls. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver flashed his lantern into every corner. He tried the shutters; +they were all firmly bolted, and it was quite clear, from the +thickness of the dust upon the sills, that they had not been recently +disturbed. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go upstairs,” said Oliver grimly. “After that we will go down +into the basement, the kitchens and cellars.” +</p> + +<p> +“As you please,” said Mr. Spragge. He was again struggling against +that pervading miasma of despair and gloom, like the breath of a +demon, given out by the tormented personality of Oliver; here, alone +with him in this empty and gloomy house, he felt it even more strongly +than he had felt it in the comfortable drawing-room at Sellar’s Mead. +The man was possessed, surely! +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge thought there was something monstrous in his +looks—something dark and menacing and inhuman, almost as grotesque +and horrible as the big, wavering shadows cast behind him by the +lantern that he carried; the jet black hair and whiskers, with those +plumes of white upon the forehead, that grimly set face and those +sunken, flashing eyes; the whole aspect of the man inspired the +clergyman, not only with aversion, but almost with terror. +</p> + +<p> +They went upstairs, and the boards creaked beneath their tread. +</p> + +<p> +“She was interested in this place, you know,” said Oliver quickly, and +more as if speaking to himself than caring about his companion; “she +even wanted to live here. She asked me to bring her over to see it, +but I never did.” +</p> + +<p> +“She would wish to see her mother’s house, of course,” replied the +clergyman feelingly. “That would be natural enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“And she might have come here,” insisted Oliver, looking down with a +grin over his shoulder, at the clergyman following—a demoniacal grin, +Mr. Spragge thought, with a shudder in his heart. “Why should she not +have come here? That would have been a natural place for her to hide, +would it not—her mother’s old home?” +</p> + +<p> +This was so horrible and so grotesque that the clergyman decided not +to reply to it. How impossible to point out to one of the temper and +mood of Oliver Sellar the absurdity of anyone hiding in the house and +surviving there for three weeks. And he began to speculate as to what +Oliver Sellar would do when he discovered that he had been cheated in +his hopes yet once again; when the disappointment of finding the house +empty indeed broke upon him with full force. Would he lose control and +have some fit, some seizure? Would he be thrown into an even deeper +gloom, an even more sombre despair? Or would he, Mr. Spragge, be able +to enforce on him a lesson of resignation and fortitude? +</p> + +<p> +The clergyman endeavoured to brace himself so that he could give +strength and consolation to this soul in torment. But how futile +seemed all his possible administrations to one so frantically +possessed as Oliver Sellar! +</p> + +<p> +Now they must make a progress through the upper rooms, one after +another, flashing the lantern’s long beams into the corners, fingering +the dust on the sills, looking at the rusty bolts in the shutters, +flinging open empty cupboards and gazing into the blackness therein. +</p> + +<p> +“I meant to have furnished this as a wedding-present for her,” said +Oliver. “I could have made it very pretty, could I not, sir? The rooms +would really be charming.” And he grinned again. “Think of them, done +up with silver paper and sprigged muslin, with roses here and there. +Could they not be made very delightful to a young lady’s taste?” +</p> + +<p> +“God have pity on you!” thought Mr. Spragge, with deep compassion. +</p> + +<p> +“She should have had a whole suite to herself,” continued Oliver, +speaking rapidly. “With an aviary. She would have liked that—gilded +wire cages, with pretty birds in them, like she had in Italy; and +flowers always. There is a good soil, here at Flimwel. I could have +grown a number of flowers—under glass, of course, sir. She loved +exotics.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, this a very fine house,” said Mr. Spragge hastily. “Very +fine indeed, no doubt.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will have the decorators in to-morrow,” cried Oliver. “I will send +to London, to Paris, for painters and gilders. I will give it to her +as a wedding-present—eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I beseech you, sir,” cried Mr. Spragge, laying a hand on his arm, “to +control yourself, and speak reasonably. You should not have come to +this place—perhaps I was wrong to sanction it.” +</p> + +<p> +“We are to be married in April, you know,” replied Oliver wildly, “but +I think by April they can have it ready, can they not?” +</p> + +<p> +They had now entered another room, and Oliver gave a sudden fierce +exclamation. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +A small object was lying in the middle of the floor, and as Oliver +seemed incapable of moving, Mr. Spragge hurried forward and picked it +up. It was a small coral bracelet, wrought in a design of grapes and +vine-leaves. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch23"> +CHAPTER XXIII +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">Mr. Spragge</span> felt himself engulfed in horror. Never, till that +moment, had he known what real terror was. All his previous +convictions as to the end of the Countess Fanny were blown aside by a +breath of sheer dread, and wild and awful speculations took their +place. Had she been to this house? Was such a conclusion possible? How +explain this ornament, lying here in the middle of the empty room on +the dusty floor? And for the first time there crept into the +bewildered mind of the clergyman the ghastly thought that possibly the +girl had met with foul play. He could not think of anyone on St. +Nite’s Point who was capable of such a crime; but possibly some +stranger, possibly some wandering sailor, for the sake of those few +trinkets that she wore… he dared not pursue the thought, but stood +with the broken bracelet in his hand, looking down at it. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar was looking at it also. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” he said quietly, “she <i>is</i> here somewhere. I thought so, +did I not?” +</p> + +<p> +The clergyman could not immediately answer; he was trying to control +his own racing thoughts, to steady his own beating heart. Never had he +been smitten with such utter amazement. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you sure this is hers?” he asked unsteadily. “Let us keep our +heads, and exercise our reason. Can you swear that this is hers?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said Oliver; “one of the set, two bracelets and a +necklace. I showed it you on the list, did I not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven support us!” murmured the clergyman. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver had taken the bracelet now, and was examining it keenly. The +clasp was broken, and a great deal of dust lay in between the fine +pieces of coral which formed the leaves and berries. +</p> + +<p> +“It has been here some time,” he remarked. “Now we must search the +rest of the house.” And he slipped the bracelet into his pocket, with +a calm that was, to Mr. Spragge, very horrible to behold. +</p> + +<p> +The clergyman had indeed no stomach for any further search. It did not +seem to him possible to follow Oliver any longer on such a ghastly +quest, after this discovery of the bracelet. She might be in the +house—yes, but how? Murdered, buried in a cellar, for all he knew. +That was surely the only possible solution for such a discovery. She +had been trapped and decoyed to this lonely house, or dragged there +after she was dead. The clergyman’s brain reeled under the ghastly +images that were forced upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“We’d better go and get help,” he said, trying to detain the other man +with a trembling hand. “Better have someone else in this. We can’t +undertake any more alone.” He suggested wildly that they should get in +the coachman, forgetting that it was impossible for the man to leave +the horses. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver took no heed of any of this. He thrust it all aside as a cloud +of irritating words that had no meaning. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on,” he said, “or leave me. Go outside and wait in the carriage +if you will. I desire no further company.” And he advanced with his +lantern, leaving Mr. Spragge in darkness. Sooner than be abandoned +thus, the clergyman followed him. +</p> + +<p> +They now went up a further flight of stairs and explored the attics. +Nothing there. Then down again into the basement—the great kitchen, +offices, and beneath them the cellars. Clinging, noisome damp filled +these underground rooms, and Mr. Spragge found it difficult to +discover the courage to descend into them. He recalled with what dread +and dismay he had read of atrocious murders, where the victim was +hidden in cellars, or under the stones of yards and kitchens. Even +though he had read such things in the cold print of formal accounts in +newspapers, he had not quite believed them; his mind had glanced away; +he had dismissed the whole fearsome subject; and now, was it possible +he was himself going to be brought face to face with some such +atrocious incident? +</p> + +<p> +He scarcely dared to glance round the cold blackness of the kitchen, +so dimly illuminated by the rays of the lantern that Oliver held +aloft. But there was nothing: dark emptiness was all. +</p> + +<p> +So in the other rooms—the servants’ parlour, the china closet, the +offices; one after another empty—bare shelves, bare cupboards. Mr. +Spragge’s nerves began to recover from the jangling shock they had +received from the discovery of the bracelet. After all, it must be +some extraordinary coincidence. Perhaps it was not the bracelet of the +Countess Fanny, but some ornament that had been dropped there when the +house was stripped of its furniture—not so many years ago, after +all.… He tried to reassure himself by this reflection. No, the +bracelet could not have belonged to the Countess Fanny. There was +nothing here; she had not been murdered and buried in any of these +horrible underground rooms, nor could she, by any stretch of +imagination or fancy, be supposed to be alive and in hiding in such a +place as this desolate mansion. +</p> + +<p> +“Come away now,” he said, endeavouring to speak sensibly and +moderately. “We can return to Sellar’s Mead, and you can show the +bracelet to the Italian maid. She can tell you if it is really the +belonging of her mistress. After all, it’s a common pattern; I’ve seen +many ladies wearing such ornaments.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I know,” said Oliver, in tones that chilled Mr. Spragge’s heart, +“that this is Fanny’s bracelet, and Fanny is somewhere here.” +</p> + +<p> +Again he must proceed through all these underground rooms, flashing +his light into every nook and corner, opening every cupboard, eyeing +the windows. +</p> + +<p> +Here, as on the other floor, all was bolted and secured. Rain and damp +had entered, but nothing else could possibly have done so. The rusty +bolts had been long in place; the wooden shutters were stout. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver now proceeded down the long stone passage which led to the back +door. Rats fled before them, startled by the light. At the sound of +those scampering feet Mr. Spragge shuddered with disgust and terror. +Most heartily now did he repent of his encouragement of Oliver to +visit Flimwel Grange, and he looked desperately at his companion, +hoping for some flicker of emotion on that dark, inflexible face. +Surely the moment would come when Oliver would break down and declare +“I can’t go on!” +</p> + +<p> +There was no sign of this. Undeterred and grim, Oliver proceeded on +his progress round the deserted house. +</p> + +<p> +The back door was as secure as the front door; a most thorough +examination revealed that it had not been tampered with. Oliver stood +erect, pausing. He had at last been brought to a stop, because there +was nowhere else where he could very well turn any longer. Mr. Spragge +waited, shivering; hoping every moment that he would say: “Let us now +return to the carriage.” But what Oliver did say, at length, was +something totally different from this. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a window open somewhere,” he remarked. “I feel a blast of +cold outer air.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” muttered the clergyman fearfully. “How can you feel that, +Mr. Sellar, when everything here is like ice?” +</p> + +<p> +“But there is a window open,” persisted Oliver, “in that direction.” +He made a motion with his free hand towards the left of the passage, +and then strode down it. Mr. Spragge, from a sense of duty and also +because he did not care to be left there without the light, was at his +heels. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to him that it was impossible for Oliver’s perception to be +so delicate as to be able to perceive an extra blast of cold in what +was so chill already, and it was with a horrible surprise that he +discovered that his companion had been correct in his surmise. One of +the windows in the passage was open; that was to say, it was broken. A +shutter had been wrenched back, and the glass smashed; the fragments +of splintered wood and broken glass lay on the stone floor of the +corridor. +</p> + +<p> +The window-frame had been latched, but it was easily possible to +unlatch it from the outside, and when it was so open the aperture was +sufficiently large for anyone to have entered the house—anyone, that +is, of not too great a bulk. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” said Oliver; “someone has been here.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is indeed dreadful,” murmured the vicar, sick at heart. “What +are we to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was she,” said Oliver unheedingly. “She came through here.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” protested Mr. Spragge vehemently. “Don’t nourish such ideas, +sir, I entreat you. This has been some wandering vagabond who broke +through to get a night’s shelter.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that bracelet?” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll call it part of his spoils; they get such things, you know.” +The clergyman’s voice faltered. He could not think of what words to +choose. +</p> + +<p> +“None of this has anything to do with the Countess Fanny; I beseech +you to believe that! Have we not already searched every part of the +house?” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver proceeded along the stone-flagged passage. There was, indeed, +nowhere else to look. The long and exhaustive search had only produced +these two results—the broken window and the coral bracelet. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go outside and look beneath the window,” said he sombrely; and +after some difficulty he contrived to pull back the creaking bolts of +the door and to open this on to the yard or garden at the back of the +place. +</p> + +<p> +As he did this he was met by a blast of wind that blew in howling, and +raged in triumph through all the empty rooms. So violent and icy was +this wind that Mr. Spragge bent his head towards it, and even then +felt his breath choked in his throat at the fury of this onslaught. He +could hardly keep his feet as he followed Oliver Sellar out into the +blackness, which the lantern only so faintly dispersed. +</p> + +<p> +They searched beneath the broken window, but again their search was +fruitless. It was impossible now to tell if the ground had been ever +disturbed by human footsteps—so wet was it, so beaten upon by rain +and the rush of the water from one of the choked gulleys of the house +which fell here in a steady stream, turning the small bed of earth +that edged the flagged yard into a lake of mud about a tangle of dead, +sodden weeds. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, you can see, nothing,” murmured Mr. Spragge. “Shall we not +now, sir, return? Ambrosia will be getting anxious. We have been a +long time away.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver sighed. He seemed impervious to the elements—to the cold, the +wind, the dark, the rain—and stood there, holding his lantern and +staring at the broken window, absorbed in thoughts the clergyman did +not dare to guess at; nay, he tried to put from his own mind what was +probably passing in the mind of Oliver Sellar. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us think, sir,” he said tremulously, “of those at sea to-night; +this will be ghastly weather at sea. Let us contemplate the +misfortunes of others, and that will give us the humility to endure +our own.” +</p> + +<p> +Baffled, mute, and terrible, Oliver Sellar continued to stare at the +broken window, and made no reply. It seemed impossible to touch him by +any reference except to his own loss. He was living in a world of his +own creation—a world, Mr. Spragge thought, inhabitated by demons. +</p> + +<p> +At length, with another long sigh, Oliver turned away, and, in a +moody, absent voice, said: +</p> + +<p> +“We will come again to-morrow. I do not see what more we can do +to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked round the house, bending before the blast, making their +way with difficulty to the arch where the carriage waited. +</p> + +<p> +During the ride home Oliver Sellar did not speak a word, but remained, +with arms folded and head sunk on his breast, in his corner, wrapped +in his overcoat, with his hat pulled down over his sullen brow. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been of no use,” thought Mr. Spragge, miserable with the sense +of his own inadequacy. “This is the first time that I have been called +upon to help anyone, and I cannot do it.” +</p> + +<p> +It was late when they returned to Sellar’s Mead—even later than the +clergyman had feared it would be; but Ambrosia was sitting up for +them. She had, as usual, performed her housewifely duties perfectly. +There were fires in all the rooms. She herself, with her air of +decorous patience, sat in the large drawing-room before the hearth, on +which a kettle was elegantly steaming. A table was beside her—a small +table on which were cakes on a silver stand, biscuits and sandwiches, +glasses, and various bottles of wine, besides a tea-service; all +looking so homely, comely, and pleasing in the red light of the lamps. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge wondered why he noticed, with such a poignant clarity, all +these ordinary and familiar details. +</p> + +<p> +“It must be,” he thought, with a shudder, “because of the contrast +they make with the bleak, black desertion of Flimwel Grange.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia glanced from him to Oliver. The clergyman noted with +compassion how strained and lined was her face; she looked almost an +old, almost a plain, woman. +</p> + +<p> +“You must both be very exhausted,” she remarked quietly. “It is a +terrible night.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver did not answer this formal greeting; he thrust his hand into +his pocket, and then held it out to Ambrosia—the coral bracelet on +the palm. +</p> + +<p> +“Fanny’s!” exclaimed Ambrosia. Then, on another breath: “Where did you +find it?” +</p> + +<p> +“At Flimwel Grange,” said Oliver. “In the middle of the floor of one +of the upper rooms.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Ambrosia, shrinking back, cried: +</p> + +<p> +“It can’t be hers!” +</p> + +<p> +“There was a window broken at the back,” added Oliver. “Quite +possible, you see, for someone to have entered there. It would not +take very much strength or skill to wrench the shutter and break the +glass and lift the latch. She has been there, Amy; Fanny has been to +Flimwel Grange.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, heavens,” cried Amy, with a sick look. “What do you mean, Oliver? +What can be the meaning of it? Why should she go there? You—you +didn’t find her?” she added, in sinking tones. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said Mr. Spragge hastily, seeing that Ambrosia had sensed +the same horror as he had sensed; the ghastly, unspeakable possibility +of a slain and murdered Fanny. “No, no, my dear; nothing at all—just +this bracelet, and the broken window. As I tell your brother, it would +be quite possible that some wandering vagabond, some sailor, has +pushed his way in there to sleep the night; and the bracelet—it is a +common pattern.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is Fanny’s,” said Oliver. And he returned the ornament to his +pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not ask Luisa?” said the vicar, on a faint hope that the bracelet +might have been proved not to be that of the missing girl. +</p> + +<p> +Amy shook her head. She did not wish the extravagant hysterics of the +Italian maid introduced into the matter; she knew too well that that +was Fanny’s bracelet. She had noticed it again and again on her fine +wrist. +</p> + +<p> +Moving mechanically, and with an almost unnatural composure, she +proceeded to make the tea and to offer it to the two men. She must do +something, and these domestic actions came very naturally to her. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge drank the beverage gratefully. He was exhausted and +disturbed beyond measure. The events of that evening had been a great +shock to him, and inexplicable.… +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia folded away her needlework into the mother-of-pearl inlaid +satinwood work-basket, and locked it, and hung the key on the ring at +her waist, and then poured herself a cup of tea and drank it. After +she had performed these trivial actions, she asked her brother: +</p> + +<p> +“What will you do to-morrow, Oliver?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us pray for resignation,” murmured Mr. Spragge humbly. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall find her,” said Oliver. “Some day I shall find her.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge looked at the tormented man with grave and fearful +compassion. +</p> + +<p> +“God help you!” he said sincerely. “God, in His mercy, help you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver,” implored Ambrosia earnestly, “think of this—however much +you dislike to be reasoned with on this subject, think of this—if she +is alive, she is hiding from you; she does not want you to find her; +and if she is dead, it must be that you vex her spirit by this refusal +to leave her in peace. Don’t you think she would hear you crying on +her, day and night, and be troubled in her grave?” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver appeared impressed and startled by this. For the first time for +many days he gave some personal attention to his sister, and looked at +her keenly. +</p> + +<p> +“Aye, aye,” he muttered. “I think even if she were at the bottom of +the sea she would hear me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then leave her in peace,” said Mr. Spragge. “We know not what we do +when we so trouble the repose of the dead. She might come back, sir, +in some form that you would shudder to behold! While you search for +her body, you might be brought face to face with her soul.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want her soul,” returned Oliver. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge had known that; there was nothing spiritual in the passion +of Oliver Sellar for this foreign girl; it was her body for which he +searched, her body that he wanted, her body of which he had been +cheated.… +</p> + +<p> +“The wind rises,” said Ambrosia, glancing towards the curtained +windows. “For three days now they have been trying to fetch old Joshua +from the lighthouse; his leave is overdue.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes, the lighthouse,” said the vicar. “I had forgotten. We may be +thankful that there has been no wreck.” +</p> + +<p> +“The winter is young,” remarked Oliver, with a horrid grin, as if he +would have liked to have thought of the coast strewn with wreckage, +fragments of great ships, and tattered bodies. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t remind me of that,” replied Ambrosia nervously. “Indeed, I do +not know how I am going to live through it.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver pushed aside the cup of tea which Ambrosia had placed behind +him, and instead poured himself out a large glass of port. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go to bed,” said Ambrosia rising. She turned to the clergyman. +“Your room, sir, is ready.” She knew what it would be now; Oliver +would sit there for hours—perhaps till the dawn—piling coal on the +fire, drinking, silent, taking no notice of her if she were in the +room, not missing her if she went out of the room; merely keeping the +blaze on the hearth replenished, and drinking; until, in the morning, +they would find him in a sodden sleep, tumbled in a chair. So did he +spend too many nights after these days of frantic and hopeless search. +</p> + +<p> +And now there was the added horror of the coral bracelet for him to +brood over; the horror that Ambrosia had put out of her own mind. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge followed her to the door. He did not think that he could +any longer endure the company of Oliver Sellar. +</p> + +<p> +Then, to the surprise of both, Oliver spoke, without changing his +attitude, nor looking at them. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go to Lefton Park,” he said. “Perhaps, after all, Lucius knows +where she is.” +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch24"> +CHAPTER XXIV +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">Ambrosia</span> had not answered when her brother had made that dreadful +remark about Lucius—when he had stared at her and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps Lucius knows where she is.” +</p> + +<p> +She had been about to make some passionate reply when Mr. Spragge had +touched her hand and given her an imploring look that seemed to say +“You deal with a man whose mind is broken. Take no heed of him. Do not +cross him by a contradiction, at least!” +</p> + +<p> +So she had left the room in silence; nor had the clergyman spoken, +either. But Oliver Sellar, staring after them from his easy chair by +the hearth, had laughed heavily. +</p> + +<p> +When they were outside in the passage, Ambrosia had turned to the +clergyman, and demanded, with almost uncontrolled agitation, what he +really made of the episode of the coral bracelet found in the empty +Grange? +</p> + +<p> +“Was it hers, do you think, sir? How did it get there? And what +solution do you suggest to this profound mystery?” +</p> + +<p> +“None,” replied the clergyman, shaking his head. “Whichever way you +look at it it seems impenetrable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is your conviction that she is dead shaken?” demanded Ambrosia +fearfully. +</p> + +<p> +Again the old man shook his head, deeply troubled, almost confounded. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely she must be dead!” he murmured. “No, I cannot say that I have +the least hope that she is alive. As for the bracelet, there may be +some quite commonplace solution. Some of her trinkets might even have +been found, with the shawl, and kept by the fishers; they’re wild +people here, you know, with strange ideas of morality and honesty; and +one of them may have stolen these trinkets.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” said Ambrosia impatiently. “Yet I do not think that, +either, for they knew that they would have got a good reward by +bringing them to Oliver. And even so, how should it get into Flimwel +Grange?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, someone had broken in; that was obvious,” said the clergyman. +“The window was broken and wrenched back. Of course, this wild weather +has destroyed all possible trace of footsteps, but someone had broken +in, and that person must have had the bracelet in his possession and +dropped it there by error.” +</p> + +<p> +“The clasp is broken,” said Ambrosia fearfully, “as if it had fallen +from her wrist.” +</p> + +<p> +But Mr. Spragge declared hurriedly that he could not and would not +believe that the Countess Fanny herself had been in the abandoned +mansion. +</p> + +<p> +“What possible reason could there be for her to go to such a forsaken +place? Indeed, Miss Sellar, what possible reason could there be for +her to remain hidden? If she is alive, she is doing a very terrible +thing. She must know the pain and agony she is inflicting on several +people; but no, let us dismiss any idea so cruel and fantastic. She +had no motive, either.” +</p> + +<p> +But Ambrosia muttered: +</p> + +<p> +“I fear that she was in dread of Oliver. She was very passionate and +wilful, and I think she is quite capable of hiding from him. And might +it not have been that she had the curiosity to go to that house, and +get into it and look round? It was her mother’s house, you know, and +she often expressed a great desire to see it; but it was so desolate +and dreary a place that we were in no eagerness to take her there; +though I believe that Oliver had some scheme of furnishing it for her +and giving it to her on their wedding as a surprise.” +</p> + +<p> +But such a solution of the profound mystery of the disappearance of +the Countess Fanny did not seem feasible to Mr. Spragge. Indeed, he +declared, correcting himself, it was not so profound a mystery after +all; the girl had plainly been drowned. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think she drowned herself?” asked Ambrosia, with her fingers +to her lips; and Mr. Spragge did not answer. He did not know enough of +the story to declare an opinion on this dreadful matter; but, from his +late observation of Oliver Sellar, he thought it was possible that he +had terrorised the girl, even perhaps to the point of suicide. Surely +remorse—deep and unavailing remorse—was one of the furious passions +now devastating the soul of Oliver Sellar. Mr. Spragge thought so, at +least; but it was not for him to say so. +</p> + +<p> +He tried to give what conventional comfort he could to Ambrosia, and +he noticed dismally that the girl seemed as impervious to his formal +consolations as her brother had been; she smiled absently, pressed his +hand, thanked him for his good offices, and went to her room. +</p> + +<p> +As Mr. Spragge entered his great chamber, he noticed that the wind had +dropped, and, going to the window, discovered that the clouds had been +torn aside from the dark, midnight blue of the sky, and that a few icy +stars sparkled in the upper air. In this cessation of the supreme +violence of the storm he found a slight comfort. If they could, +somehow, get through this dreadful winter and to the spring, why, +surely, with the fresh budding of the trees and the new coming of the +flowers there would be some hope for all of them—even for Oliver +Sellar.… +</p> + +<p> +In the morning, the change of weather still held. A veiled sunshine, +even, lay abroad on the rugged landscape. The cold was sharp indeed, +and the ground bitter with frost; but, despite the rigorous cold which +bound the barren earth in icy chains and the dreary spectacle of the +storm-lashed trees, it was some relief that the doleful wind had +ceased to howl, that the enraged heavens had spent their fury; joyless +and gloomy as was the day, at least it was a pause in the long rage of +the storm. And the clergyman preferred the raw and chilling damp mists +that hung above the rimed fields, heavy and oppressive as these were, +to the incessant slash of the rain borne upon the tumultuous winds +which had for weeks devastated the landscape. +</p> + +<p> +He therefore considered the prospect with some thankfulness, and +watched the pallid beams of the sun endeavouring to disperse the +sullen fogs that lay across the park. +</p> + +<p> +He hastened downstairs, thinking to himself that even Oliver Sellar +must feel the influence of this fairer day, must feel enlivened by the +sight of the sun. +</p> + +<p> +He was both surprised and amazed to see Oliver already booted and +spurred, standing in the open doorway, when he descended the stairs +into the passage hall, cold with the rawness of early morning. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Mr. Sellar, you’re not going abroad so soon! And it is no fit +day for riding with this hoar frost.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver gave him a sullen and malignant glance. +</p> + +<p> +“My horse can hold the road,” he replied drily. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge came to his side in the open doorway, and peered, +shivering, out into the universal and boundless cold. The fog seemed +to be thickening in the distance into large banks of sombre cloud. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall have snow,” shivered the clergyman, “but I am glad the wind +has dropped; they will be able, perhaps, to change the watch at the +lighthouse now.” He ventured to add: “Where, sir, are you going?” but +he did not carry his temerity so far as to look at Oliver. He could +not yet support the spectacle of unendurable anguish that the strong, +sombre man presented. +</p> + +<p> +He had hoped that the comparative fairness of the day, the comparative +serenity of the sky, would have blunted the keen edge of the calamity +of the Countess Fanny’s disappearance; but he observed no change in +the demeanour of Oliver, who, glancing at him with indifference tinged +with contempt, said: +</p> + +<p> +“I am going to Lefton Park, to see Lucius.” And so walked away, +without looking back, leaving the clergyman in the open doorway. +</p> + +<p> +The clergyman turned back into the breakfast-room, closing the door +behind him. Useless and only vexatious to argue with Oliver: he must +do what he could to console Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +He found her stately and composed behind her breakfast equipage, her +hands folded in her lap, her hair smoothly banded, her long face pale +but resolute. +</p> + +<p> +“He has gone to see Lucius,” she said; and Mr. Spragge replied: +</p> + +<p> +“I know—I have just met him. I feel most inadequate to your needs, +but indeed I can do nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia merely smiled at this confession of failure from that man +from whom she had hoped so much; it had been foolish of her to hope +anything at all; she might have known that Oliver’s case was beyond +any human ministrations. +</p> + +<p> +“Useless to preach resignation and humiliation to him,” she sighed. “I +also can do no more; I must sit aside and leave it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry for him,” cried Mr. Spragge. “One may take an illustration +from the storm. The tree that disdains to bend is dashed headlong to +ruin, while those that are flexible before the wind elude the +widespread havoc. It is presumptuous in humanity to provoke the +Almighty by a refusal to submit to his decrees.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia turned her head sharply, and listened to the sound of hoofs +on the hard ground without. He had gone, then. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver rode to Lefton Park, rode cautiously and with precise care. He +had that amount of command of himself, for all his depressed fury. He +would not mar his design by any trivial accident. Carefully he guided +his cautious horse over the iron-like ridges of the road. Pendants of +ice hung on the bare trees and the low hedges. Every battered weed was +outlined in white. Although the wind appeared to have almost died +away, and was now little more than a chill breeze, great banks of +snow-clouds advanced heavily, one with the fog, which they appeared to +absorb, and were closing over that pale space of upper air, and +obscuring the tremulous white radiance of the sun. +</p> + +<p> +When Oliver reached Lefton Park, he was at once admitted into the +presence of Lucius. The young man was alone, finishing his breakfast. +He greeted Oliver awkwardly, and said at once that his father was +ill—at least not so well to-day—and that he had passed an anxious +night. +</p> + +<p> +“How long,” asked Oliver grimly, “since your nights were other than +anxious?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius glanced at him covertly, and asked, in a hurried tone, why he +had come—if there was any reason for his visit. +</p> + +<p> +“It is early,” he said. “You are, perhaps, on your way somewhere; or +do you bring a message from Amy?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think,” replied Oliver grimly, “that Amy will have any more +messages for you. She has, at least, sent none by me.” +</p> + +<p> +He continued to stare the younger man down, who continued to glance +away. Lucius had all the appearance of illness. He had never been +strong, and his delicate constitution had not been able to support the +anxiety and hardships of the last three weeks, the continual riding +abroad in all weathers, the harassing vexations of the fruitless +search. The glow and lustre of youth had disappeared from his fair +countenance; his eyes were bloodshot and shadowed, and the brightness +of his fair hair showed up the faded dullness of his complexion. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar noted all this with satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“You also have suffered,” he remarked. +</p> + +<p> +It was the first time the two had spoken alone together since the day +when they had met on the road outside Sellar’s Mead, the day when the +Countess Fanny had disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver put his hand into the pocket of his coat, and fingered the +coral bracelet he had found last night at Flimwel Grange; and Lucius +again nervously asked: +</p> + +<p> +“Why have you come here, Oliver. What is there to say?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know that there is anything to say,” replied the other man +coldly. “But I wanted to look at you. It’s a long time since you and I +looked at each other, Lucius.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nearly three weeks,” was the quiet reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going to continue the search?” demanded Oliver; and Lucius +was silent. He put his fine, thin hand before his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think she’s dead?” persisted Oliver, leaning forward a little. +</p> + +<p> +To this Lucius did reply: +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Neither do I,” replied Oliver, “and I think you know where she is.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius gave him a melancholy and a compassionate look. +</p> + +<p> +“You must be lunatic to say that,” he remarked, “or else think that I +am lunatic.” +</p> + +<p> +“You helped her to escape,” persisted Oliver. “You’ve got her hidden +somewhere. You could do it—after all, it wouldn’t be so difficult for +you to smuggle her right out of the place and up to London; or over to +Italy, for all I know—there’s been time enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake,” cried the young man desperately, “do not let your +mind wander into such channels! I would to heaven that what you say +were true; but consider: if it were, would you then see me in the +state in which you now behold me?” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver stared with more intensity; he seemed to be impressed by that. +</p> + +<p> +“Aye, aye,” he muttered to himself; “there’s something in that, of +course. Yet—yes, I believe you know where she is!” +</p> + +<p> +“I can scarcely find the interest to deny so fantastic a charge,” +replied Lucius wearily. “Suspense and jealousy have broken your brain, +my dear Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jealousy, did you say?” cried the older man. “Now why do you bring +that word between you and me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Lucius, striving hard to speak moderately and +temperately; “I should not have used it, of course; there is no need. +You were her guardian and her promised husband, and I had little right +even to help in the search for her. Yet you know why I did it—because +I was the last to see her.” +</p> + +<p> +“What would I not give,” cried Oliver Sellar, fearfully, “to know what +passed between you then!” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius replied hurriedly: +</p> + +<p> +“You might have heard every word of it. There was nothing but the +impetuous talk of an undisciplined girl. As you know, I was about to +bring her back.” He winced as he said these words; they were followed +in his own mind by a dreadful sentence: “Yes, I was about to bring her +back to you; and that caused her death!” +</p> + +<p> +“So you say,” said Oliver cunningly, “so you say; yet I still believe +you know where she is, and you have her hidden somewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Heavens above!” cried Lucius, with a sudden flare of nervous +impatience, “do you suppose that I should have done the thing +secretly? You couldn’t have forced her, after all; if I had wanted to +I could openly have taken her away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Could you?” asked Oliver quietly. “But you’re not the man to do it, +are you?—you’re afraid of scandal, and Amy. I think you would have +chosen some quiet way.” +</p> + +<p> +“You read me wrong,” cried Lucius, struggling for serenity. “I was not +afraid. I wished to behave honourably. So, too, did she. There was no +dishonour or trickery in her mind. In everything she was honest and +open. She did not come here at night, but in the morning, in the broad +light.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did she come?” demanded Oliver. “She was running away from me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Lucius, “she was running away from you. That was your +shame. I sent her back to you; and there’s <i>my</i> shame.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you do it?” asked Oliver, intently and curiously. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius’s most bitter answer was on his lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I did not then realise that I loved her.” But he would not +speak these words to Oliver Sellar; not because of fear, but because +they seemed a profanation in such a presence, and because of Amy.… He +meant to keep faith with Amy; he had to keep faith with the women, one +living, one dead. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver stared at him, lowering, scornful. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll find out!” he muttered. “I’ll find out! And soon, too. Look to +that, Lucius, for I mean to find out!” +</p> + +<p> +“I pray to God you do!” replied the young man passionately. “Life has +become a sick and sour thing to me since she went away.” +</p> + +<p> +“And yet she was a stranger to you,” sneered Oliver. “You hardly knew +her at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“She was young, and very beautiful,” said Lucius, “and, as you say, a +stranger, that made it more poignant. Something so different coming +among us, and then going so swiftly, so mysteriously! She lingers like +an echo in the air now, I cannot believe but that I shall open the +door and see her seated before the hearth, or leaning at the window, +or look across the park and see her coming under the trees. She was +here so short a time, yet the memory of her is more than vivid.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>My</i> memories,” snarled Oliver; “mine, not yours!” +</p> + +<p> +“She left you,” answered Lucius, “and came to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re coming very near to it,” cried Oliver; “very near to a +confession!” He smiled, sneeringly. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve no confession to make,” replied the young man; “and as for the +search, I have given it up. Continue if you will, but it is the way of +lunacy. There is nowhere else left to look. I have my duties to +perform, my life to take up. I shall not ride abroad any more +searching for the Countess Fanny.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I,” replied Oliver, with smouldering fury, “shall never cease to +search for her.” +</p> + +<p> +“God give you good speed,” said the young man wearily. “God grant that +you may find her! As for me, I am going to-day down to the lighthouse, +to see if they have brought old Joshua off. It is a little calmer. The +wind has almost ceased. I thought of going on the next watch myself, +with the young fisherman who has the turn. Then you and Amy will be +free of me for a week or so, and perhaps when I come back to the land +everyone will feel more at ease and peace.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver did not reply to this. He frowned, looking both baffled and +ferocious. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, also, perhaps,” added Lucius, “you will believe that I do not +know the whereabouts of the Countess Fanny: a suspicion that I beg you +to breathe to no one, for it does wrong to all three of us; and surely +you at least can forbear to bandy her name about.” He turned away as +if to leave the room. Oliver stayed him by asking passionately: +</p> + +<p> +“Do you believe that she has destroyed herself?” +</p> + +<p> +Cold and quiet, the young man faced that question—one which had never +been absent from his mind during the last three weeks. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot answer that,” he said in chill tones. “I leave that to you, +Oliver, and to your conscience. You can answer it better than I.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar did not wince before this accusation and challenge in +one. He seemed, indeed, scarcely to hear it, but stood pondering, +biting his under lip. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius had no clue to his thoughts, but he seemed to be considering +some course—turning over a possible decision. At length he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll come with you; I’ll ride down to the lighthouse also. Why not? +As you say, let us give up a useless search. We must be resigned, like +Christian men, as that ranting old fool told me last night. Let us, +then,” he added with a wild laugh, “be patient and hopeful; it is near +the season of peace and goodwill, is it not? We will go together to +the lighthouse, you and I, and see to the comfort of the men. It has +been a severe watch for that old fellow, and nearly a week over his +time, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius looked at him, suspicious, hostile, not able to pierce his +meaning. He must take what Oliver said on the surface, and on the +surface there was no objection to his words. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, we will go together,” he said coldly. “It will be a long +and difficult ride to-day, but I am resolute to visit the lighthouse +before the dusk.” +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch25"> +CHAPTER XXV +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">When</span> the two sullen and ill-assorted companions, who had preserved a +cold silence during their journey, reached the little creek where were +a few fishers’ huts and houses by the extreme of St. Nite’s Point, +they found that the waves had not subsided. One day of calm had not +been sufficient to check that long-continued fury of the ocean. +</p> + +<p> +The lighthouse was still difficult of approach, but a boat had +ventured out, and had brought, after some difficulty, Joshua and the +young man who had been with him off the lighthouse; but, what was +sufficiently amazing, they had not taken anyone on to the lighthouse, +which was, for a few hours, untenanted. +</p> + +<p> +The two gentlemen discovered the situation to be this. The young +fisherman who was in training to be the new keeper of the lighthouse, +and was to share the watches of old Joshua Tregarthen during the +winter, had been stricken with sudden illness. A chill had followed +exposure to the storm, and he lay now sunk in delirium. The question +had therefore arisen, among the remaining inhabitants of the little +cluster of cottages in the cove, as to who was to take old Joshua’s +place? One or two men had volunteered, but half-heartedly. None of +them had any experience. Joshua had suffered both in his health and +his temper from the long confinement of nearly a month in the +lighthouse, and was by no means disposed to return there; and his +companion, the fisher-lad, flatly refused to do so. He had suffered +considerably from the violence of old Joshua’s temper, and had no wish +to renew that experience; and his description of the appalling +loneliness of the lighthouse, of the howl and tumble of the wind +underneath, the ocean sweeping up and sending spray to the very glass +of the lantern, the darkness and gloom and terror of the whole +experience, had done much to make the others dubious about +volunteering for this strenuous duty. +</p> + +<p> +It had finally been decided to relieve old Joshua while the weather +was set comparatively fair, and to send up to Lefton Park and ask the +advice of Lord Vanden as to who should take the next watch. Such a +messenger had actually been sent, and Lucius must have missed him on +the road, for the fisher had gone on foot and by the fields. +</p> + +<p> +Here was a situation that took the minds of both the men, for a brief +while at least, off their own tragedy. There were only a few hours of +daylight remaining, and possibly only a few hours of calm sea. Indeed, +the immense track of foam over the Leopard’s Rock looked dangerous +enough even now. The light must go up to-night. +</p> + +<p> +Old Joshua stepped up to Lucius, and sullenly said that he would +return to the watch, though he begged he might have another boy; the +inefficiency of the last lad, he declared, had been unendurable, nor +was the lad willing to return with him. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius looked anxiously at the old man, who showed plainly the strain +of his long vigil. He was more than seventy years of age, and +appeared, in the eyes of Lucius, utterly unfit for the renewed charge +that he offered to undertake. +</p> + +<p> +“I had better go, my lord, old and feeble as I be,” said Joshua +gloomily. “There’s no one here that knows the job. There’s no one here +can undertake the work, now young Mathews is taken sick. Who would +have looked for that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I had a man coming over from Falmouth and another from Truro,” said +Lucius, “both of whom would have been willing to undertake the work; +one of them has been trained. But the storm has prevented them—they +have not reached us yet. I, of course, never reckoned on the fact of +young Mathews’ sickness”; and he might have added that he had been so +absorbed in his quest for the Countess Fanny that he had scarcely +thought of the lighthouse at all, nor been the least troubled as to +who would follow old Joshua as keeper. +</p> + +<p> +The fisher-folk gathered silently round the two gentlemen on the +beach. The light was waning rapidly; the snow-clouds helped to darken +the sky. The boat, loaded with provisions, was ready on the water’s +edge in the shelter of the only cove where any boat could be +reasonably beached. Round the base of the precipitous coast the surf +still boiled and thundered, and across the hideous ridge of the +Leopard’s Rock lay that dangerous expanse of whirling foam. +</p> + +<p> +“The storm be coming up again,” muttered one or two of the men. “Maybe +it will be a month or six weeks for anyone who goes out there now;” +and another wondered if the thing was safe—said that the lad who had +just come back had felt the structure shake beneath him when the storm +was at its height. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius heard this remark, and checked it sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s nonsense, of course! The building will stand the sharpest +storm that has ever blown—the highest sea; but we want someone, not +only with courage, but with a little knowledge and experience; someone +who can work the syren and the lantern.” +</p> + +<p> +“There be no one,” said old Joshua, not without a sullen pride. +“Though I was looking forward to me Christmas on shore, and a +rest—I’ve had bouts of illness, and my knees are so stiff I can +hardly get up and down the stairs—still, my lord, I am willing to go +back if some lad will come with me to help.” +</p> + +<p> +But no one would. The violence and the gloom of old Joshua were too +well known. It had been increasingly difficult to find anyone to +accompany him on his watches; since the son who had been his usual +companion had gone to Canada, no one had readily taken his place as +his father’s companion on the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar, who had watched the scene and listened to the +discussion without much interest, now said harshly: +</p> + +<p> +“Offer them double pay, and then they’ll go! They’re only standing out +for a higher price.” +</p> + +<p> +This remark was bitterly resented by the independent spirit of the +Cornishmen. They looked with indignant dislike at Oliver, who was +intensely unpopular with everyone. This injudicious remark only +confirmed them in an obstinate refusal to go on the lighthouse. Fair +words might have induced them to take up this unpleasant duty; foul +ones never would. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius looked out long and intently towards the sea, and gazed at the +lighthouse which was the fruit of so much enthusiasm and exertion on +his part, and in some degree paid for by his father’s and his own +ill-spared money; many dreams and ambitions, and visions and hopes of +youth had been by Lucius Foxe woven into the structure of the +lighthouse, which now rose up, grand and stately, dark against a +denser darkness, but bearing no lights in the cresset. +</p> + +<p> +“I will take the watch myself,” he said. “I had intended—yes, really +intended—to share it in any case. I thought that Mathews would have +been going, and I would have gone with him; but now I will go +alone—or perhaps there is some man who will come with me.” And he +looked round the crowd. +</p> + +<p> +There were some protests, but much relief at Luce’s suggested course. +He was familiar with the lighthouse; he knew how to work the lamps and +the syren; he knew a great deal more about it than they did; he had +lived there for weeks on end at one time. They looked upon him as a +great engineer, and considered his amateur knowledge of these matters +most profound. Oliver, when he heard his offer, had looked at him +instantly and sharply, and now stared at him through the encroaching +dusk. +</p> + +<p> +“What about your father?” he demanded, “and Amy? Do you care to leave +them so long?” he added with a sneer. +</p> + +<p> +“You must explain to them,” replied Lucius, unmoved. “It will be only +three weeks; and, even if the tempest returns, a month, say, at the +outside. By then——” He did not finish the sentence, but Oliver knew +what he meant. “I leave everything to you,” he added; “it is your +affair and your duty, as you have reminded me; and now you have it +entirely in your own hands. You will know where I am—on the +lighthouse.” He gave a wan smile. “There will be no possibility for me +to leave the lighthouse without your knowledge.” And he thought that, +by his action, he would be able to persuade Oliver that he knew +nothing of the whereabouts of the Countess Fanny. He thought that this +hideous canker eating into the already half-crazed mind of Oliver +would be at least removed. He could not be jealous of a man shut up on +the lighthouse of St. Nite’s Point. He could not think that a man who +chose to go to such a place would know anything of the whereabouts of +the Countess Fanny. There could be, in these circumstances, no +possible collusion or intrigue between them. As for his father—and he +had instantly and rapidly considered the situation with regard to his +father—the Earl would understand. He would write to him before he +went to the lighthouse; write, too, to Amy. They would be safe; they +had everyone to look after them. It was Providence that there should +be a deliberate chance for him to go on to the lighthouse. It seemed +now a useful, almost a necessary, thing for him to do: not a whim, or +a piece of bravado, but a plain duty. +</p> + +<p> +One of the fishermen said: +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a young lad that would be glad to go with you, sir, in the +inn, now—tramped up from Falmouth, I think; just wearing a suit of +slops; a kind of castaway, I suppose. He wanted a job; he was willing +enough to go, even with old Joshua here—temper or no temper! Give him +the chance, as he’s a waif, and willing, and no one else wants to go. +The money don’t mean to us what it does to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Lucius indifferently. “I care not whom you send, as +long as I have some companion. But we had better depart at once, +before the darkness descends and the waves rise, so that I may light +the lantern immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +The little group of gossiping idlers now broke into action. The +remainder of the provisions was brought down and packed into the boat. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve no clothes,” remarked Lucius with a smile; “and there’s no time +to send for them. Pack up a few vests and socks and shirts. For the +rest, the place is well stored I know,” he added, “for I thought of it +myself. Oliver”—and he turned to the dark, gloomy figure behind +him—“I pray you take these two letters—one to Amy and one to my +father. I will write them immediately in the inn.” He thought of his +horse, and added: “I will ask for a groom to be sent over; meanwhile +the horse will do very well here in the stable.” And he commended the +beast to the charge of the men in the inn. +</p> + +<p> +Under the defaced and flapping sign of the “Drum and Trumpet,” he +entered the tiny, dark inn, where one small oil lamp lit the shabby +parlour; and on the threshold of this parlour he paused and shuddered, +for he remembered how he had stood there once with the Countess Fanny; +and he tried not to consider—for the pang would have been too +awful—what he would have given if he could have stood there with her +now. +</p> + +<p> +The brother of the owner of the inn, the sick Mathews, had followed +him into the parlour, and pointed out respectfully the boy crouched +over the hearth, saying: “There, my lord, is the lad who is willing to +go on the lighthouse with anyone who takes the watch. Perhaps you +would like to ask him a few questions. He came up from Pen Hall Farm a +day or two ago and is staying here. He pays honestly for his keep, but +has come to the end of his money.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is it?” asked Lucius indifferently. “Some poor waif tramped up +from Falmouth, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it, my lord. One of these boys looking for work—a castaway, +maybe, or one escaped from an orphanage. But he’d answer your purpose +well enough, I dare say. Between you and me, my lord, there aren’t +many others that are willing to go, even if you offered double the +pay. We always left the lighthouse to the Tregarthen family; it was +only my brother that was willing to take it on. The others aren’t +prepared, you’ll understand, my lord,” added the man, as a kind of +rough excuse. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, very well!” said Lucius impatiently. “It doesn’t matter to +me, I assure you. I will take the boy. It’s only just to have some +manner of companion. I can wait on myself.” +</p> + +<p> +The man crossed to the boy by the hearth. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, my lad,” he said, “wake up! A gentleman’s going to take the +watch on the lighthouse, and you can go with him if you wish. You know +the pay and the conditions, and you said you’d like the job.” +</p> + +<p> +The boy coughed, and answered in a harsh, hoarse voice that he would +certainly be willing to go on to the lighthouse at any moment they +might ask him, grateful for the chance of earning a few shillings. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius gave him an absorbed and indifferent glance. He saw, in the +uncertain light of the fire and the lamp, a tall, thin boy of perhaps +sixteen years of age, dressed in a rough suit of slops, much muddied +and stained, with a black kerchief round his neck and a cloth cap on +his head. His face was so deep a brown that Lucius half-suspected him +of being partially of coloured blood, and that was likely enough, for +he might have come from some foreign ship putting in at Falmouth. He +looked miserable, and continually coughed and shivered. A mug of beer +and a fragment of bread and cheese was on a stool by his side. He ate +and drank at intervals. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve never been on a lighthouse before?” asked Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir; but I’ve been on ships, and I’m willing and obedient; I’ll +do whatever you tell me, sir.” The boy kept his face averted, and +stared into the fire. He seemed greedy for heat and light. +</p> + +<p> +“Where do you come from?” asked Lucius kindly. “They say you’ve been +staying at Pen Hall Farm. Those are very wild, rough people.” +</p> + +<p> +“They were kind to me,” said the boy. “I’d tramped up from Falmouth, +looking for work, and there wasn’t any of course, it being +winter-time. They took me in, and I was ill with a cough—and they +nursed me. They told me that there might be work here at the +lighthouse, so I came; and I’ve been two days waiting for them to get +the keeper off. They told me to-day they’d managed it, and I shall be +glad to go with you, sir, and I’ll do my best.” At the end of this +somewhat husky speech, the boy coughed violently again, and huddled +closer over the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor wretch, he’s ill!” thought Lucius. And it flashed across his +mind that this might be an added burden on the watch; and yet, it +would be harsh to refuse to take him—hardly possible. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s half-starved, I suppose,” thought the young man. “Release from +anxiety and good food may put him on his feet. Anyhow, I’ll take him.” +And he said aloud: “Think no more about it, my lad, but get together +whatever you have, and prepare to accompany me at once. I have just +these two letters to write.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have nothing to get together,” replied the boy; “only a few things +in a handkerchief.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; that will do—there is everything on the lighthouse.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius took out his notebook, and, seated by the table, scribbled his +two letters; one to Amy and one to his father, the first guarded and +the second frank. The old Earl understood his situation. He would +sympathise with his resolution. As for Amy, he did not know how Amy +would take it. Ill, no doubt. But for her, too, it was the best thing. +It would silence all gossip, all rumour; would put an end to any +possible violent scenes between him and Oliver; it would stay Oliver’s +foul and restless suspicions; it would clear the good name of the +Countess Fanny of any possible suspicion as to his complicity in her +disappearance. +</p> + +<p> +When he had finished the letters, Lucius reflected that he could +scarcely trust them to Oliver. The man was in no state to have any +business confided to him. It was quite possible that he might destroy +them both, and in any case refuse to deliver them, or perhaps read +them. In the present condition of his mind, Lucius could not trust +Oliver; and he called the host in and confided the letters to him, +asking him to see that they were sent over as soon as possible on the +following morning. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius then called for a glass of wine, and sat at the table by the +window, forgetting that he was not alone, entirely oblivious of the +insignificant presence of the boy crouching over the fire. He was glad +of this chance to go on the lighthouse; it seemed, indeed, +heaven-sent. New energy, new courage, and new hope flowed through his +veins, where for the last few weeks the blood had run so sluggishly +and painfully. There was something deliberate and definite for him to +do. He had loved the lighthouse, and that ancient love revived in his +breast now. +</p> + +<p> +He looked out on the darkening waters, at that stretch of foaming +surf, a livid white in the failing light. He did not fear any coming +storms or tempests. He would like to be on the lighthouse, shut away +there amid the utmost rage of the elements, tending his light and his +signal, saving, it might be, hundreds of lives every night. +</p> + +<p> +He did not dread the thought of a prolonged watch. What would it +matter if he were shut up there a month or six weeks? He would be at +peace, away from the mute reproaches of Amy, away from the smouldering +violence of Oliver, away from the whispers and glances of pity, of +reproach, of wonder, away from the flicks of gossip and scandal, alone +with his stern and unrelenting duty, occupied by a great +responsibility. +</p> + +<p> +He felt his spirits rise almost to the point of exultation. The +fishermen appeared in the door and said the boat was ready, and were +there any more instructions or commands from the young lord? And +Lucius said: +</p> + +<p> +“No; if the boat is equipped in the ordinary way, that will do for +me.” +</p> + +<p> +They said it was; and the crew of seven ready to take him out. +</p> + +<p> +The ocean was more quiet even than it had been during the day. Away +from the hidden reefs and pitted rocks it would be quiet enough, and +there would be no difficulty in going out to the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you ready, boy?” asked Lucius of the crouched figure by the fire. +</p> + +<p> +The boy lifted the beer mug and drained the last of the contents. +</p> + +<p> +“Aye, sir, I’ve been ready this long while,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“If you drink so much beer,” smiled Lucius, “it will make you +sleepy—that and the keen air together. We have work to do out there +to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll love that; I’ll love work, and to be on the lighthouse,” replied +the lad. +</p> + +<p> +At that moment Oliver Sellar entered the inn parlour. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, Oliver,” said Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +The boy put down the mug and rose; Lucius glanced down at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s this?” demanded Oliver. +</p> + +<p> +The boy adjusted his scarf and cap to protect his face from the cold. +</p> + +<p> +“A lad from Falmouth,” said Lucius, indifferent, “who is going to +accompany me on the watch.” +</p> + +<p> +And the three of them left the inn together. +</p> + +<p> +“This is an odd thing for you to do,” said Oliver sullenly. He seemed +not satisfied but startled by Lucius’ conduct in taking the watch at +the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius did not answer, and without further word to Oliver he and the +boy got into the boat manned by the seven fishermen. It was pushed +off, and was soon riding the waves. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar remained on the darkening shore, and looked across the +darkening sea and watched the speck of the boat disappear. Silent, +sombre, his arms folded across his breast, he remained staring after +the boat. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch26"> +CHAPTER XXVI +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">Long</span> after the fishers had retired into their houses and shuttered +their windows against the cold, Oliver Sellar remained on the beach, +staring through the dark, twilit air at the distant, wave-beaten rocks +which bore the now hardly discernible lighthouse, crowned with its +cresset of red fire—the fire which Lucius had lit and which he must +tend for so many days to come. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver felt lost in a void; the escape of Lucius affected him only +less powerfully than the disappearance of Fanny. He had the same sense +of being cheated—of frustration; of clutching at the air in useless +fury and impotent passion. Fanny had gone when he had been sure of +her; he had been thwarted there in his most poignant and powerful +desires; and now Lucius had gone, not into the blackness of any +imponderable mystery, but out there on to the lighthouse, where no man +would be able to speak to him again, perhaps, if the storm returned +again, for many weeks to come. And he, Oliver, was left lonely, even +more lonely than he had been since the tragedy of Fanny; for now hate, +as well as love, had first assailed then escaped his grasp. +</p> + +<p> +He assured himself that he had grown to hate Lucius for this many day +past—nay, from the first; from that evening when he had ridden up to +the village to find the two of them in the purple twilight together in +the village street. He had certainly begun to hate Lucius then; and +that hate had grown and nourished and battened on his dead love, as a +weed might grow out of the corruption of a murdered flower. In some +manner, not yet formulated in his dark mind, he had meant to vent his +suppressed emotions on Lucius; he had meant to make him smart and +bleed for the loss of Fanny. Half he had believed his own furious +accusation that Lucius did really know of the whereabouts of the girl; +half he had utterly disbelieved it; that ugly suspicion had eddied to +and fro in the tumult of his mind. But, in any case, he had believed +that Fanny had favoured Lucius, and he had meant to make him pay for +that—somehow, some way; he had meant to torment him—weak, sickly +youth that he was, in the eyes of a man like Oliver.… +</p> + +<p> +And now he had escaped; he had gone. The land was clear of him. It was +almost as if he had never been. Why, he might not return at all! A +great tempest might sweep the lighthouse away, as lighthouses had been +before swept away.… The winter was to be long and fierce, they all +declared; they might not be able to get out to him—he might starve +there, as men had starved before in lighthouses. He had gone +impetuously, without much thought or precaution, taking no one with +him but that half-witted, half-diseased lad. +</p> + +<p> +And one night they might look across the waste of water at the cruel +rocks and see darkness in the lighthouse cresset. So Lucius would +escape him—his wrath, his revenge.… There would be nobody on whom to +vent his thwarted passions. +</p> + +<p> +He had never thought of this. It had taken him utterly by surprise; +during that long, cold journey down to St. Nite’s Point, over the +frozen roads, Lucius had said nothing. Again and again he, Oliver, had +glanced at that pale, composed profile above the upturned collar of +the greatcoat beneath the low beaver hat, and seen no expression +except a difficult fortitude in that face. But, all the while, Lucius +had been thinking of this—of escaping to the lighthouse; for he had +himself declared that that had been his intention, even without this +accident of the young man’s sickness, to take the watch. +</p> + +<p> +No one came to speak to Oliver Sellar as he stood on the shore; they +glanced at him now and then through the chinks of the shutters, and +one came to the door of the inn and peered at him to see if he was +still there, through the thick, gathering dusk; but no one interfered +with him. They disliked him too much, and were, in a sense—rough and +brutal as they were themselves—too much afraid of him to venture to +speak to him. If he liked to catch his death of cold there, they +thought, he might, for all they cared. They had no sympathy for him in +his tragedy. They had had but a glimpse of the young lady, but they +were sure she was too good for him, and had drowned herself rather +than marry such an ill-mannered, foul-tempered, brutal, violent man as +was Oliver Sellar. +</p> + +<p> +They knew well enough the general talk and gossip: such things travel +fast even in wild and isolated communities. Rough and full of +superstition as they were, they very accurately sensed his feelings as +he stood there, staring out at the lighthouse; they could perceive his +rage at the escape of his rival. +</p> + +<p> +“She beat him,” grinned one woman. “She was a brave girl; she got the +better of him, even if it was by jumping into the sea!” And another +said: “If he stands there much longer in the dark, he’ll see her +ghost! And he won’t care for that. Maybe she’ll come up beaming with +light across the water, and pass him by, or point downwards to where +her grave is now! That won’t be a pleasant thought for him to take +home with him!” Then they looked at the lighthouse, and were glad to +see how bravely the lamp shone across the night. +</p> + +<p> +At last Oliver Sellar dragged himself away from the lonely shore. It +was now too late to ride home. He spent the night, gloomy, silent, in +proud isolation, at the dirty little inn. There was no one who could +take a message at that late hour, and many were the wonders and +distresses and speculations in the village of St. Nite as to the +whereabouts of the two gentlemen during that long winter night. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia thought they were both searching for Fanny. She believed that +they had returned to Flimwel Grange; and Mr. Spragge, who was still +her companion, was for setting out and seeing for himself if either of +the two men was there. +</p> + +<p> +She detained him. She had proved his uselessness. He could do nothing +with Oliver. Why should be expose himself, poor old man—she +thought—for nothing? +</p> + +<p> +So she begged him to remain with her, and keep her company by the +fireside which now seemed so desolate. +</p> + +<p> +There came messages from the Earl, who wondered why his son had not +returned. But they could give him no news. +</p> + +<p> +It was only well into the morning that a man came up from St. Nite’s +with two letters, and the account of how Lucius had gone out to the +lighthouse to take the next watch. +</p> + +<p> +Of these two letters, one, at least, was perfectly understood. Lucius +had written only a few lines to his father, but the Earl read between +them. He could sense accurately what had been in his son’s mind when +he took this sudden decision, a decision which he (the father) +applauded. It was better for Lucius to be away on the lighthouse. This +was an honourable and a safe course. It would cut him clear of all +implication in the disappearance of Fanny. It relieved him of the +wearing and harassing position he had been in. It silenced all gossip. +It precluded the possibility of any disgraceful quarrel with Oliver. +</p> + +<p> +And the Earl had no misgivings as to his son’s safety. Lucius knew +more of the workings of lanterns and foghorns than the average +lighthouse-keeper. The lighthouse had just been rebuilt, was +up-to-date and well equipped. Even if the storm continued, the Earl +would be in no distress as to the safety of Lucius. He would enjoy it, +too; he had always been obsessed with the lighthouse and loved the +sea; nor did he shrink from storms. Therefore, the old man was more at +ease about his son than he had been for many weeks past. +</p> + +<p> +It was not so with Ambrosia. She saw at once the banal formality of +the little note of excuses. She did not even believe in the sudden +sickness of Mathews; she thought it all a subterfuge on the part of +Lucius, in a frantic attempt to get away from her, to indulge in peace +his rhapsody of grief for the Countess Fanny. And then, the +loneliness… three weeks at least without seeing him, without hearing +from him.… She could not say that there had been of late much pleasure +in his company, and yet she had this bitter sense of desolation when +she found she was relieved of it. Had she ever loved him? She did not +know. She could not yet answer that question. Did she intend to +relinquish him? That also she did not know. But she did know that she +had looked forward to her marriage with him as a release from her +present life, and now all that seemed a withered hope. +</p> + +<p> +What would the spring bring to her beyond the fresh leaves on the +trees, the sunshine in the air, and the flowers on the earth? Nothing, +it seemed. She had spent too many barren springs to be able to +contemplate yet another with equanimity. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve lost Lucius,” she said to herself, and mechanically crumpled up +the note and threw it on to the logs blazing on the hearth. “That +girl, by her death, has taken him away. Yes, if she’d lived, I believe +he’d have stayed faithful to me, but by dying she has him.” +</p> + +<p> +As Ambrosia turned over the various fragments of her embroidery that +she was putting together with her careful hand, so she turned over, in +her careful mind, the various fragments of pleasure that must now be +forgone—the title; to be mistress of the big place; to go abroad; to +go to London; to have another life and new interests; to have a +husband, young and adoring; to have children, and her place in the +ordinary world—all these things must be put aside. And presently she +folded up her needlework and put that aside in the green-satin-lined +box. One must be resigned; one must be decorous; one must play one’s +part and pray, though one prayed to a stone wall, though one prayed to +an empty sky, still one must have the name of God on one’s lips, bow +one’s head and be dutiful! It seemed to her now as if she had been +training all her life for this one moment of disaster and +disillusion.… For what other purpose had she been taught all this +self-control, all this ladylike deportment, save that it might help +her in such a moment as this? +</p> + +<p> +She found the courage to look ahead down the years, and saw them +stretched before her in one intolerable, grey monotony, ending in a +tomb in St. Nite’s Church—what else, what else? Her youth was almost +passed. Soon she would be thirty—an old maid, prim and shrewish, +fussy in her ways, intolerant to the young, ruling her household, +looking after the poor, going to and fro the church, making Oliver +comfortable… yes, she supposed that Oliver would continue to live +here, and she would continue to make him comfortable, for years and +years; each year like to another as a pea in a pod; and all +futile—all weary as a string of tired horses plodding homeward. +</p> + +<p> +“What will Luce do? Ah, my heart! What will Luce do? He’s young; he’ll +recover—he’ll go away! He’ll find another bright girl somewhere; +she’s not the only beauty in the world. He was so young and had +remained so shut up here—such a dreamer, too, with his head full of +radiant fancies. But he’ll go away, and find another one. But you +won’t—you’ll be always here by the hearth, with the household keys at +your waist and your head full of important trifles; your hands busy +with petty duties, growing old beside an ageing, soured man! Perhaps +Oliver will become insane, and you, out of pity, won’t tell anyone, +but will stay there administering to him. He will drink; more often +than not he’ll be intoxicated in the evening, and sometimes in the +morning. He’ll be harsh and cruel—never for five minutes civil. He’ll +abuse you, and say you were the cause of it all. He’ll say you might +have prevented it, might have saved her; but that you didn’t—that you +were sour and jealous; that you hated her for being so beautiful. And +you’ll be quiet, for you’ll know that half of it, at least, is true, +and that you did so hate her, and that you were so jealous of her. As +the years go on, and he can bear to talk of it, he’ll tell you that +Luce loved her; he’ll speak of all his jealousy of Luce. But you +mayn’t do so; you mayn’t say a word about it, because you’re a woman, +and well-bred! You’ll have to endure it, deep down in your heart, go +on with your fine stitching, your measuring out of food, your making +of jam and preserves and your mending of linen, your going to the back +door to listen to the tale of the poor, the whines of the indigent! +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody may condole with you, for you have had no open loss; nobody +can say they are sorry for you because you had a lover and he left +you; people will be compassionate behind your back and respectful to +your face; and in the middle of such respect and such compassion, you +will freeze and wither till you will be ugly within and without.” +</p> + +<p> +So Ambrosia, sitting quietly by the fire in the handsome, +well-appointed room, with her capable hands clasped on her black silk +lap, saw her own situation and her own future. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spragge left Sellar’s Mead—where, indeed, he could help no +one—and returned to his parish. Dr. Drayton came over to see +Ambrosia, but, warned by her guarded manner, got no further than +formalities. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, it was very well that Lucius had gone on the lighthouse; oh, +yes, indeed, the most natural thing to do—she was glad that he had +done it. The storms had subsided; maybe, after all, they would have a +fair Christmas; and it would only be three weeks—yes, strange that +the man Mathews should be taken ill!” +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Drayton himself had gone over to see him. There was not much +chance of his recovery. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar had returned, and had said nothing of Lucius. Neither +had Ambrosia breathed his name. Life went on, grey and sober, in the +large grey, sober house in the middle of the desolate park and the +black landscape of St. Nite’s Point. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver was less violent. A moody calm seemed to have fallen on him. +But Ambrosia knew that this did not mean resignation. He was still +brooding bitterly, deeply—as well she knew—over his atrocious, +miserable, incurable wound. Never did he smile; and every day he rode +or walked abroad, wandering for miles over fields and cliffs and +roads; and he had traversed many, many times every square inch of +ground on St. Nite’s Point. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia did not attempt to detain him when he would set out upon +these expeditions, nor to argue with him as to the futility of this +hopeless quest; nor did she speak to him about the coral bracelet, +which he had never mentioned again. Only, in awe-struck whispers, she +had managed to ask Luisa, now reduced to weeping grief and quiet +resignation, about the bracelet which her mistress had worn the day +she had disappeared. And Luisa had said yes, there was a coral +necklace and two coral bracelets, made like grapes and vine-leaves. +</p> + +<p> +“A mystery,” thought Ambrosia; “well, let it go with all the other +mysteries. What does it matter—one inexplicable detail the more?” She +would interfere with nothing now; she had nothing to say against the +preparation of Fanny’s room every evening, the lighting of the fire, +the turning down of the bed and setting out of the bedgown, the +slippers… all those frail and pretty garments of pale-coloured satin +ruffled with swansdown; the lighting of the candles on the massive +dressing-table; the drawing of the curtains before the twilight. +Against this Ambrosia had nothing more to say. She was even used to +it. It caused her now no thrill of horror to pass that prepared room +when she left her own after changing her dress for dinner; it no +longer gave her a sense of dismay when, in the morning, Oliver went +and locked up those same rooms again and put the key in his pocket +there to rest till the evening. She was used to these things, and +supposed they would continue, night and morning, all the rest of her +life. +</p> + +<p> +Once she said to herself, staring at him across the immense table, so +rigorously and decorously supplied with silver and glass and plate: +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver is mad; but I don’t know it.” And then she thought: “What does +it matter whether I know it or not?” +</p> + +<p> +She went over once to see the Earl, and was pleased that the old man +was better in health, and even seemed serene and cheerful. He could +see—so he declared—nothing odd in Lucius’ departure for the +lighthouse; and he patted Ambrosia’s hand reassuringly as he said: +</p> + +<p> +“He will come back to you, my dear, a changed man—happier and more at +ease, I’m sure—and things will go smoothly for you again.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia did not trouble to shake her head or proffer a denial; but +she knew better than this. Never again would things go smoothly +between her and Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“It will be a quiet Christmas,” remarked the old man. He had intended +to have relatives to stay at Lefton Park; distant and not very +cherished relatives, but they usually came at Christmas and made a +diversion in the darkness of the winter season. But this year, no: he +had put off everyone under the excuse of his illness, but really +because of the tragedy of the Countess Fanny. He could not himself +endure, and he did not think that anyone who had known the lost girl +could endure, to see other young women moving lightly and carelessly +through the rooms where she had last trodden; see any affectation of +gaiety or lightness while they still mourned her.… Neither Lucius nor +Oliver would be able to support any festivities this Christmas, he had +known; and neither at Lefton Park nor Sellar’s Mead would there be +any. But it was dull for Amy. The kind old man admitted that it was +very dull for Amy. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucius will be back for Christmas,” he reminded her. “The watch is +over on the day before Christmas Eve. Look out for the 23rd, my dear; +Lucius will come back then, and, as I say, a changed man.” +</p> + +<p> +“If the weather holds,” said Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +“The light goes very well, they say,” remarked the Earl, with pride. +“Every night it’s lit, and exactly at the same time; Lucius is an +excellent keeper.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must go and see it,” said Ambrosia dully, and indeed she had often +thought that she would like to ride to where she could see that beacon +out at sea—the beacon that Lucius was tending. Yet something had kept +her from ever doing so. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to see it, too,” said the Earl, “if I could get abroad; +but I fear that is impossible until the spring.” +</p> + +<p> +How acridly these words echoed in Ambrosia’s ears.… “Till the spring” … +and they had once been the dearest of sentences, fragrant with +blossoming hope. +</p> + +<p> +What did she care now if the spring ever came or not? Her life looked +as if it would be one continuous winter. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Oliver abroad again to-day?” asked the old man timidly. +</p> + +<p> +And Ambrosia said: +</p> + +<p> +“Sir, he is every day abroad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still searching?” asked the Earl. +</p> + +<p> +“Still searching,” said Ambrosia. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch27"> +CHAPTER XXVII +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">About</span> four days before Christmas the storm returned, and the cloudy +damp, the sullen fog, the biting frost, the lowering skies, and the +desultory falls of snow gave place to a renewed rage of wind. The +north-eastern gale smote with undiminished force the whole of the +promontory of St. Nite’s Head, and on the day when the watch of the +lighthouse should have been relieved it was inaccessible through the +severe fury of the lashing waters; the waves were sweeping, high and +dreadful, over all the half-hidden rocks on the Leopard Ridge. This +dangerous channel was one sweep of whirling foam and tossing, gloomy +spray, through which it was sometimes impossible to behold the shape +of the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar had come down to the shore in the expectation of seeing +Lucius brought off. Both old Joshua, who had recovered during his +three weeks’ rest, and a young man, were ready to take the place of +Lord Vanden in the lighthouse, though Mathews was still an invalid. +But, as Oliver was told, as soon as he appeared on the stormy shore, +it was, of course, fools’ talk to think of any boat putting out in +weather such as this. It might be many days before they were able to +reach the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +The oldest among them prophesied weeks of continuous storm. +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll be safe enough,” they said among themselves. “The lighthouse be +stout. There’s provisions a-plenty there, and fresh water and coal and +oil; it’s all very well equipped—the young lord thought of that +himself. He’ll do well enough. It’s dreary for him though, at +Christmastime, and his father waiting.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver said nothing. He remained for two days in the little inn among +the cluster of wretched cottages on those precipitous rocks. He spoke +to no man, but daily watched the storm on the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s haunted,” said some; “he’s mad,” said others. But no one pitied +him, though his face was now hollowed as if the heavy bones had worn +away the flesh, and his hair, which had been so deep a black, save on +the temples, was now frosted with white, as if ashes had been +sprinkled on his head. +</p> + +<p> +There could no longer be any hope for the Countess Fanny; and people, +whispering among themselves—from Dr. Drayton and Mr. Spragge and +their women down to the fishers and the farmers and their +women—wondered if Mr. Sellar had written to her relatives abroad; +what he had done about her fortune; and if he would have the funeral +service soon read for her in the church, and a cenotaph put up in the +churchyard or the chancel. If he showed no sign of doing this by the +New Year, Mr. Spragge meant to speak to him. He no longer came to +church; nor had the vicar again visited Sellar’s Mead. Ambrosia came +twice a day on Sundays in her carriage and pair, decorous, +self-contained, with smooth brows and set lips; what she was enduring +no one knew, for she never spoke. And the servants at Sellar’s Mead +were as discreet as herself. +</p> + +<p> +Only the Italian maid, wailing for a priest, had come up to the +village once to see, in despair, Mr. Spragge—heretic though he might +be—and to cry out: “No wonder my poor mistress destroyed herself, for +that man is mad; mad, I tell you; and it is not fit that we should +live with him!” +</p> + +<p> +The vicar had hushed her; what was she—a foreigner, an hysterical +fool? No notice must be taken of what she said. He had sent her away +rebuked and silenced; yet in his heart there would lurk a horrid +suspicion that she had only spoken the truth. So many people were +beginning to whisper fearfully, one to another, that Oliver Sellar was +mad. He seemed to delight in the storm, to welcome the return of those +fierce gales which had been blowing when she disappeared—gales the +same as these, fierce and blustering from the north-east, smiting the +coast like a clap of giant hands on the bare rocks, buffet after +buffet, till even the iron-like land seemed to ring with the force of +the blows; wind that sent packs of clouds hurrying like hunted +creatures about the sky; but there were always other packs behind +them, and others and others; so that, however fast the wind blew, the +clouds came faster, and the sky was never clear of them. Solid as the +greenstone cliffs were, with an impenetrable solidity, yet they seemed +to shudder before the savage onslaught of the tempest, and the water +round the black jags of dangerous rocks was beaten and swirled and +tortured into towering columns of flying spray. Showers of stone were +hurled inland, and smote the roofs and walls of the tiny cottages, +nestled away as these were in a cove, and some distance from the sea. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar, standing on the shore watching the guiding light, his +arms folded on his breast and his greatcoat flapping round him, was +drenched with spray and soaked with gusts of rain, and beaten almost +into insensibility by these buffetings of the wind; but never did he +give up his vigil; in all weathers he was there, up and down, now on +the cliffs, now on the shore, now a little farther inland, now on +another point, farther out to sea—places where it seemed he could not +keep his foothold, where he could not wear his hat, but must go +bare-headed or muffle his head in his scarf—now climbing out on the +rocks as far as he possibly could, amidst the slimy seaweed and the +swirling eddies of foam, now moving round on the rugged coast to +another point, where perhaps he might have a better vantage ground, +here and there, now immovable for hours, now restless and hurrying to +and fro, but always with his eyes in the one direction, fixed on the +one object—the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +The fisher-folk respected him now as they had not respected him in his +prosperity and sanity. He was possessed, they said; he was haunted; +the demons had got him; the water-wraiths and the ghosts claimed him +for their own. His soul was no longer in his own possession. In their +gloomy and superstitious minds they argued that one might be a little +merciful to a man who was damned; and plainly Oliver Sellar was +damned—a lost soul, if ever there was one, who seemed to stand on the +chasm of hell, and to bend his head down and listen to the horrible +groans and sighs that rose from the smoky depths.… +</p> + +<p> +“He killed her, and he knows it,” they whispered to themselves. “She +loved the young lord, and he loved her. He tried to make her go back +and do her duty, and that was the end of it; she drowned herself +sooner than wed that man yonder.” So near the truth of it did these +rude people get. +</p> + +<p> +At night Oliver Sellar would come to the “Drum and Trumpet,” and sit +in the dirty little parlour staring into the fire—and drink, steadily +drink. Sometimes he would sit there all night, as had become his +custom in his own home, keeping the fire alight, never moving save to +pile on fresh coal and wood. Sometimes he would go to the small +bedroom allotted to him and sleep—or endeavour to sleep. But always, +with the late dawn, the bitter chill, the stormy winter dawn, he was +abroad again, huddled into his greatcoat, muffled round the throat and +head, and his hands thrust into his pockets—a massive, dark, +portentous figure—out on to the beach, staring at the lighthouse, +where the red revolving light would be still visible. +</p> + +<p> +Often he was there at the exact moment that it went out, the moment +when Lucius must be mounting the small stairs, going up to the +lantern-room, turning it out, checking the clockwork that moved the +revolving reflector. Even in the evenings, when he had abandoned his +search or his vigil on the shore, he would sit at the window always +and watch the beacon rising out at sea; and sometimes those who served +him, or crossed the parlour, would hear him counting to himself in a +low mutter: “<i>One—two—flash</i>; <i>one—two—flash</i>”—following the +movement of the light. A fine light, that worked well! Seventeen miles +out to sea it could be seen, they declared proudly; and this year +there had been no wreck. +</p> + +<p> +“They’ll spend Christmas there,” remarked the fisher-folk; and indeed, +on Christmas Eve, it was apparent that there was no hope of Lucius and +the boy getting off for many days yet. Even when the wind +subsided—and at present there seemed no sign that it would subside +immediately—there would be for several days a heavy swell of the +waters, always rough here with the undercurrents, forcing its way +between those hidden reefs and pitted rocks. +</p> + +<p> +One night when, despite the wind, the darkness seemed thick, as if the +tremendous foam and spray could not escape, but must densify the air, +they heard the alarm-bell or fog-syren, sounding from the slender, +dark shaft of the lighthouse tower. Accurately and precisely this bell +rang,—ten seconds of ringing, thirty seconds of silence, steadily, +exactly as it had rung when Lucius and the engineers had tested it in +the autumn. +</p> + +<p> +“The young lord does very well,” smiled the fishers with approval to +each other; “he knows his business, and is good at the work; but he’ll +be lonely out there, with nothing but that boy—yon poor waif from +Falmouth.” +</p> + +<p> +The rough man who kept the inn could not avoid saying that evening to +Oliver Sellar: +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you, sir, be returning home for Christmas? ’Twill be dreary for +your sister, alone there!” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver deigned no response, but he gave the man a look which forbade +any further questions, and effectually checked the expression of any +curiosity; whatever men might venture to whisper or mutter behind his +back, to his face they preserved a blank impassivity. +</p> + +<p> +On Christmas day, most of the inhabitants of the little colony made +their way inland to the church, and Oliver remained at the “Drum and +Trumpet.” Ambrosia was at church, and, seeing the fisher-folk from the +promontory there, she asked about her brother in a cool and +indifferent tone; and they, embarrassed and awkward, told her what +they could: that Mr. Sellar remained at the “Drum and Trumpet,” and +watched the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia smiled, and gave them a gift of money for their wives and +children, and passed into the church with her head high, and sat in +the old Earl’s pew, folding her hands in her lap, and listening to the +sermon with as much fortitude as if the storm had not been beating on +the granite walls of the church; as if the memorials of the dead were +not hanging around her on the cold stone; as if the pavings beneath +her feet did not cover coffins; and as if all love and hope were not +withered in her heart. That proud, cold face, in the shadow of the +black bonnet, set off by the dark shawl and pelisse, made the old +clergyman falter in his sermon. It was difficult to speak of peace and +goodwill with that tormented and courageous countenance before him. +</p> + +<p> +She was alone at Sellar’s Mead; she had refused his invitation, and +that of the Earl, to spend Christmas with them. “Any moment,” she had +said, “Oliver may return, and it would not be good for him to find the +house empty.” +</p> + +<p> +The old Earl looked puzzled also. It was impossible to sit beside +Ambrosia and not feel something of the essence of her tragedy. He had +been greatly disturbed by this new behaviour on the part of +Oliver—this journey down to the promontory and this vigil, watching +the lighthouse. He eagerly wished that the storm would abate, the +waters be quieted, and Lucius able to come ashore. He had begun to +miss Lucius very keenly. Never, since he left college, had the boy +been so long away. And he feared the consequences of so prolonged a +watch on one of such delicate habits and nervous constitution. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius was skilful and brave, cool and prudent; but the strain would +be very long. And he had no companion. In his impulsive rashness he +had taken no one with him but a half-witted boy, a waif from Falmouth. +</p> + +<p> +The fisher-folk from the Point took ale and cakes at the vicarage, and +then tramped back their six miles to their desolate homes, which they +only reached when the day was already darkening down. They found that +the ocean was swelling with an even more tremendous commotion. The +furious waves were heaving high, even over the summit of the jagged +teeth of the Leopard’s Rock. In their lashing fury they seemed to toss +themselves into the low and flying clouds; and, as they curled back +from the land, they seemed to reveal a frightful abyss, even the +capacious bed of the ocean itself, a doomful cavern, an opening gulf. +Vain and impotent seemed any human intervention before such a storm; +like a miracle appeared the beamy light of the lighthouse, showing +through this tempest, across these bursting seas. +</p> + +<p> +“Aye,” muttered old Joshua, “the young lord should never have done it; +I should have gone again. That’s no place for a delicate gentleman, a +night like this! What though he does know something of the +engineering? But is it not said of the Lord, ‘He holdeth the winds in +His fist, and the waters in the hollows of His hands?’ Unto Him let us +commend him!” +</p> + +<p> +A dark, shuddering group, they stood on the shore, fascinated by the +spectacle of the gale, and absorbed in staring at the light which +penetrated it. They were all roused by a sharp, fierce exclamation +from Oliver Sellar, who for days had not spoken to any of them, nor, +indeed, opened his lips save to mutter to himself. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s yonder?” he exclaimed. And they all looked where his heavy +hand pointed across the boiling waters. A fiery bolt, dreadfully +vivid, had darted across the sky; it was just visible through the +spume and smoke of the water, and the tattered fragments of dark +cloud. +</p> + +<p> +“A rocket!” exclaimed two of the fishermen together. “A ship in +distress!” added another grimly. “But who could put a boat out a night +like this? It would be dashed to pieces before it was launched.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is sending the rocket off?” demanded Oliver Sellar. +</p> + +<p> +And the fishers each returned a different answer; some said it was +from the lighthouse, and that the young lord had seen a ship and was +sending the rocket as an extra warning of rocks, in case the lamp was +obscured in the blizzard; and others said that it was the ship itself +sending the rocket off. +</p> + +<p> +Even while they thus disputed another came, rending the grey with that +long flash of scarlet. This stream of radiance showed its lambent +blaze for but a second, and then was eclipsed; but it was followed, +almost immediately, by yet another. Then again there was the universal +greyness becoming every instant deeper; and soon a pitchy black in +which not even the shape of the lighthouse could be distinguished, but +only—and that now and then—the flashing, revolving beacon on its +summit. +</p> + +<p> +Again the glancing flame; and it seemed to those straining ears of the +watchers that they could hear the crackle and whizz of that human +explosion amid all the powerful turmoil of the gale. +</p> + +<p> +“What do they say in the Book?” muttered old Joshua sullenly. “ ‘The +heaven shall pass away with a great noise.’ It is like that to-night; +never have I beheld such a tempest.” +</p> + +<p> +“We can do nothing,” said another. +</p> + +<p> +“But,” cried a third, “we may keep a watch, at least, in case someone +or somewhat be dashed ashore—if, indeed, it be a wreck; and like +enough it be!” +</p> + +<p> +“Who could be dashed ashore alive on such a night as this?” asked +Oliver Sellar, with a malignant look. “If any ship breaks on the +Leopard’s Rock to-night, it is death to all aboard her. This shore,” +he added, with an atrocious smile, “is like an antechamber to the +tomb; and standing here one may feel that one peers into the very +sockets of the eyes of Death.” +</p> + +<p> +Cowering under the shade and shelter of the cliffs, where the jutting +outlines of these afforded some protection from the gale, the hardiest +of the fisherfolk watched through the dark for the recurrence of the +rocket, but saw nothing more. Blind, blank, and furious was the night; +nothing was visible in that inky blackness but the lantern on the +lighthouse. Men recalled fearfully how their grandfathers had told +them how, on just such a night as this, the warships had gone down and +the dead soldiers been cast up on the beach the next morning; how, on +such a night as this, the old first lighthouse had been itself swept +away, and in the morning there had been no trace of it, nor was there +again ever any trace. And all of them thought of the young man and the +boy, shut up there on this dismal and tempestuous Christmas day. +</p> + +<p> +They could do nothing, and one by one returned to their homes to talk +over the terror of the storm and speculate on the meaning of those +rockets, flashing like ominous meteors through the hideous gloom and +darkness and noise of the night. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar remained the last of all, crouching and cowering under +the ledge of rock; for indeed it was almost impossible for him, strong +and heavy as he was, to keep his feet in the open. There he stayed, +staring out at that distant light: “<i>One—two—flash</i>; +<i>one—two—flash</i>”—steady, steady through the dark! +</p> + +<p> +Then he, too, left his shelter and his vigil, and, staggering across +the wet stones, made his way with pain and with difficulty to the +little cove where the houses lay, and so to the dreary parlour of the +“Drum and Trumpet,” where he ordered the window to be unshuttered and +took up his place to stare out again at the wild night and the beacon +on the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +When his supper was brought in, he asked in a peremptory tone: +</p> + +<p> +“Was that a wreck?” +</p> + +<p> +“Aye, sir, I should say so; but who can tell on such a night as this? +Maybe we’ll know in the morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Morning,” muttered Oliver Sellar, with a shudder; “is not the morning +even more detestable than the night, since it begins, instead of +ending another day?” +</p> + +<p> +After these words of desperate extravagance he fell again into his +black and malignant silence, drinking continuously and staring out to +sea at the beacon on the lighthouse. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch28"> +CHAPTER XXVIII +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">When</span> the dark morning dawned at last the inhabitants of St. Nite’s +parish could discover nothing of the meaning of the rocket of the +night before; and as the days went on they gradually heard news from +Falmouth that several ships had gone down in the severe tempest off +the Cornish coast, including a packet, a transport ship, and a French +barque—all of which had perished with all on board, and had only been +identified, by the spars and the portions of wreckage and the bodies +washed ashore. If any of these had sent up rockets the night before, +no one knew; nor could they judge if this signal had come from the +lonely occupants of the lighthouse. It was not repeated; and wind and +waves continued so high, and strove with each other with such unabated +violence, that it was quite impossible to think of reaching the +lighthouse; and so on, dark day after dark day, until the New Year was +there, and Lucius and his companion had been confined nearly six weeks +upon the lighthouse, beset by seas as heavy and as fierce as any man +could remember, even on this stormy coast. +</p> + +<p> +Several attempts were made to cross the boiling seas and formidable +reefs, but on each occasion the boat had had to return, and only with +difficulty had made that return. Casks of fresh water were floated out +to sea, in the hope that they might reach the lighthouse, and that +Lucius might be able to haul them up, or find them landed on the rocks +at the base of the lonely prison. Letters were also floated out in an +indiarubber bag, cast on the tempestuous waves in the vague hope that +they would reach the prisoners. In one of these the Earl prayed his +son to send up another rocket if he should have received the water and +the bag, and to strive to use the same means of communication with the +shore by enclosing a note in some indiarubber enclosure or bottle. But +no rocket came from St. Nite’s Lighthouse. The men sent by the Earl +watched in vain. +</p> + +<p> +Yet there was this supreme consolation; that every night, with the +dusk, the lantern was lit on the cresset of St. Nite’s Lighthouse. +Waves were now breaking on the lighthouse that could be seen in the +daytime to rise about twenty feet higher than the lantern, enveloping +the whole grim and stately structure in a fury of smoke and spray. +Reassured as he was by the constant lighting of the lamp, the Earl +was, however, convinced that his son was undergoing painful +privations; the provisions must by now have become scarce, if not +altogether exhausted; and he frantically endeavoured to send out food +by means of a rocket apparatus which was brought over from Falmouth. +But the lighthouse was too far, the sea too furious, and the rocks and +reefs too numerous, the attempt was a complete failure. +</p> + +<p> +The Earl then communicated his son’s plight to the warships which had +put into Falmouth Harbour, and one of these set out to render +assistance; but the sea was so rough that they could not approach +within any reasonable distance of St. Nite’s Point, and, after +standing by for twenty-four hours, returned to Falmouth without having +been able in any way to communicate with Lucius. The storm was +incessant and seemed to bow the spirits of men as it bowed the trees, +and lash their souls as it lashed the waves. Ambrosia went frequently +to Lefton Park to keep the Earl company; the old man’s confidence in +his son’s safety had now changed to acute anxiety which he struggled +in vain wholly to repress—he had for this only child, the child of +his old age, a more than common affection. Ambrosia, though so racked +with doubt herself, tried, with a dull sense of duty, to comfort the +father of Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“He is really in no peril, dear sir; it is only the long separation +makes one anxious—he has plenty of food and water, coal and oil; the +lighthouse was newly built, you know, and well-equipped.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” the old man would reply; “of course he has everything; and +he will enjoy it, too—he likes the storm and the responsibility. He +is doing a noble work and we should not worry about him at all, my +dear, at all, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver never came to Lefton Park, nor ever mentioned the old man. Amy +told the Earl the condition of her brother, and implored his pity. +</p> + +<p> +“In the spring,” the Earl replied, “you must go away—both of you.” +Amy smiled without answering. She believed that she no longer had any +feeling; surely, she pondered, if you chain down your heart too hard, +it died for lack of air and liberty? Surely if you repressed your +feelings with too firm a hand they withered and perished? She was no +longer conscious of active pain or burning passions—only of a dull +ache behind every duty performed and every formal word she said. She +was almost as lonely as Lucius must be in the lighthouse, moving about +that large house filled only by silent and half-frightened servants; +sitting in that drawing-room, by that fire, evening after evening, +with her account-books or her needlework, or some volume of +meditation, pious and useless, given her by Mr. Spragge; or sitting +there doing nothing at all, with her hands folded in her lap, staring +into the fire, and not even thinking, either, but drowsy with +melancholy. Ah! the long strain, the drab anxiety, the heavy gloom of +this hideous winter! The desolation and the dreariness, and, above all +and most bitter of all, the sense of utter futility! And Ambrosia held +to her worn heart the bitter sentence, “He also serves who only stands +and waits.” +</p> + +<p> +One day she found, and with a sense of shock, the first snowdrops in +the garden, half hidden beneath a black hedge of yew. Stark and even +unnatural they looked in their vivid whiteness against the rotting +grey of the earthy frozen beds; funereal, they seemed to Ambrosia, +those cold, pure bells drooping downwards, those pale blades of clear +green. +</p> + +<p> +“The spring!” she thought. “The spring at last!” +</p> + +<p> +She stooped and plucked these white flowers, and the thought ran +through her mind like a dart: +</p> + +<p> +“How delighted I should have been to see these. They mean the spring; +and now there will be no spring for me.” +</p> + +<p> +She took them into the house, and placed them in a little crystal vase +on her work-table; Oliver came in that evening, as he had not come in +for many evenings past; for now he nearly always spent his nights at +the “Drum and Trumpet” and St. Nite’s Promontory. +</p> + +<p> +“Strange to see you here,” said Ambrosia coldly, looking at those few +snowdrops which showed so alien in the warm darkening room. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver, looking at her as if he did not know to whom he spoke, +replied: +</p> + +<p> +“I think the wind is dropping. Perhaps by to-morrow or the day after +we can get to the lighthouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said Ambrosia, and was silent. +</p> + +<p> +A fierce excitement seemed to possess Oliver. His deep gloom, his +sombre dullness, seemed lit now by some violent emotion. It was a long +while since Ambrosia had seen any of his usual passions, his tempers +and furies flaming forth; and she glanced at him in surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it so much to you,” she asked, “that Lucius should be brought off +the lighthouse?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been waiting for six weeks,” he answered harshly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” demanded his sister; and yet she herself felt the question +futile. Why question Oliver? In everything he was like one bereft of +his wits. She had best be silent. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to see Lucius,” he said. “I want to know how he has fared. Six +weeks, you know, Amy; six weeks he’s been shut up there with this +continual tempest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it is kind of you to show this sympathy for Lucius,” remarked +Amy, a little softened by this unusual generosity in Oliver. “I did +not think you cared so much. I am glad.” +</p> + +<p> +The scowling smile that Oliver gave her scarcely confirmed her hopes +that he had been moved by any warm interest in Lucius, or any concern +for his safety; and when Amy spoke again, it was in a harder, colder +tone. Whenever she did make any gesture or speech or movement towards +warmness and confidence between them, he always chilled her thus, +either with a look or a word, harsh, black, and unpleasant. +</p> + +<p> +“It is useless for us to talk together, Oliver,” she said. “We can +really only endure things when we are both silent. I will not ask you +what you mean by this reference to Lucius, or why you have been so +absorbed in the lighthouse since he has been there. Why, you never +cared about the thing, never bothered about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s odd,” repeated Oliver sombrely, “it’s odd that he’s been there +six weeks.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very likely he’ll be ill,” shivered Ambrosia, “a changed and a broken +man, people are, I’ve heard, after these long watches in these +terrible gales, and perhaps he saw some of those wrecks—some of the +people may have been washed on to the lighthouse. Lucius may have had +ghastly experiences. We must expect to find him changed.” +</p> + +<p> +“I,” declared Oliver, “shall be in the boat that goes out to bring him +off.” +</p> + +<p> +“You?” she asked. “Now why is that? Yet I said I would not question +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to be the first to see him,” declared Oliver again. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia rose with a heavy sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“Still brooding on that grievance between you?” she said. “Still +jealous, Oliver? What do you think is before either of us, if you +continue to indulge this temper?” She expected no answer to this; it +had merely been a lamentation, a reproach that she was not able to +repress. She stood silent and listened, as so often, during the last +weeks, she had stood silent and listened. Yes, surely the wind was +dropping. The howl and the rush were less intense. +</p> + +<p> +“We tried to launch a boat again to-day,” said Oliver. “It was +hopeless. To-morrow there will be another attempt, and I believe it +will succeed; and I shall be in that boat, Amy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will accompany you to St. Nite’s Head,” replied Amy, “if there is +the least possibility of Lucius being brought off. Is everything in +readiness?” +</p> + +<p> +“In readiness!” sneered Oliver. “I don’t know what that old man, his +father, has not sent down there! He has half a retinue in waiting, and +I know not what mollycoddling comforts!” +</p> + +<p> +“He is right,” said Amy. “Lucius may be very ill. How unfeelingly you +always speak, Oliver!” +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. Drayton has been there all day,” continued her brother, “and +messages coming and going from the Earl. Well, I think the vigil of +all of us is at an end.” +</p> + +<p> +Amy could find no relief even in this prospect. Lucius would be +restored to a normal life, but not to her. Whatever he had endured, it +would not be to her he would turn for comfort; at least, so she +feared. But a faint hope did gleam in the darkness of her thoughts. +Possibly, just possibly, during that long confinement, during that +strenuous responsibility and peril, he might have forgotten the +Countess Fanny whom he had only known for so short a time. She had +said he might be changed: perhaps he might be changed in that manner. +He could turn again to her, and be the Luce with whom she had grown +up—the friend of her childhood, the lover of a year ago; who had been +so tender, so loyal and faithful. Perhaps, too, he would now have had +enough of the lighthouse. She had always had to share him with the +lighthouse; even before Fanny came, there had been that obsession to +fight. Possibly that was now over. He would not again, surely, want to +take the watch at St. Nite’s? +</p> + +<p> +The wind continued to fall, almost to die away; Ambrosia, sitting up +in her bed in her dark room, could hardly believe that she no longer +had that roar in her ears. +</p> + +<p> +With the morning came a stillness; the wind had gone. The sky was +pale, scarcely coloured, and looked hard; but it was illuminated with +a faded sunshine, and a little pallor of light lay on the bare park. +</p> + +<p> +To-day, then, she would see him; to-day they would bring him off from +the lighthouse. And she would be waiting on the shore, and see him +come out of the boat; and perhaps he would be terribly changed—poor +Luce! She shrank from that, and wished she need not go to meet him, +but wait at home. And yet that would be cowardly in her, and she did +not wish now to show a coward. There was just that possible hope that +he might really need her, might really look for her, ask for her, when +at length he found himself on the land again. +</p> + +<p> +Early that morning she accompanied Oliver to St. Nite’s Head. Nearly +all the male population, and many of the female, of St. Nite’s +Promontory, was there to see the boats launched that were to go and +rescue the lighthouse-keeper. The Earl had had sent overland, weeks +ago, a large and modernly-equipped boat brought from Falmouth, in the +hope that this would be able to dare the waves more successfully than +the small, rude affair which commonly served the lighthouse; but this +also had proved hopeless in the high seas. To-day, however, there was +every confidence that it could be launched. +</p> + +<p> +There were two men, also from Falmouth, who were prepared to take the +next watch. Never had the lonely, desolate little cove been so crowded +with people. The waters still ran high. To Ambrosia’s first dismayed +glance the task seemed yet impossible, there was such a spume and fume +of foam and spray round the Leopard’s Rock and dashing against the +precipitous cliffs of the mainland; but the fishers declared that +those who knew the treacherous reefs of the coast would find it +possible now to row out and finally reach the rock; and, if not +possible to land there, still, by means of ropes and pulleys or the +rocket, to get off Lucius and his companion. +</p> + +<p> +“We must not forget that poor boy!” said Amy to Dr. Drayton and Mr. +Spragge. “Is there someone to look after him? I hear he is a waif who +tramped up from the port.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, surely, surely,” replied the clergyman, “if no one else will take +him in I will myself, of course. I hear he was only a child.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucius will want to keep him in his service, I expect,” said +Ambrosia. “They must have grown very intimate and close, being the +sole occupants of the lighthouse for so long, together with so much +responsibility and danger. And Lucius is most affectionate and easily +moved to warmth of feeling.” +</p> + +<p> +“If the lad,” observed Dr. Drayton, walking up and down, shuddering +even in his greatcoat—for the cold on the shore was still +intense—“has done his duty all these weeks, he certainly deserves +some reward.” +</p> + +<p> +“He can train as a lighthouse-keeper,” suggested Ambrosia. “I doubt if +old Joshua will go again, I hear he had a stroke about a fortnight +ago, and that leaves only two men, since young Mathews is disabled +now. There should be a third in reserve, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your brother is going in the boat, I hear,” said Mr. Spragge, trying +to keep the surprise out of his voice. It was the first time that +Oliver Sellar had been known to concern himself with the peril or +distress of others, and the fishermen had scarcely been able to +conceal their amazement when he had declared that he wished to +accompany them to the lighthouse. +</p> + +<p> +“By God’s mercy we shall have some fair weather now,” said Mr. +Spragge, looking at a thread of sky behind the rugged outline of the +cliffs, that was tinged with a pure blue that seemed indeed to promise +something of the softness and warmth of spring. +</p> + +<p> +“The first snowdrops are out,” said Ambrosia. “I found them in the +garden yesterday.” +</p> + +<p> +“A good augury,” smiled the doctor; “a good augury, surely! But oh, +it’s still bitterly cold!” +</p> + +<p> +The new boat was now being launched. Oliver, in a fisherman’s +tarpaulin, was the first to jump into it. With hoarse cheers from the +spectators the boat was launched into the still angry surf. Ambrosia, +the doctor, and the clergyman went into the parlour of the “Drum and +Trumpet” to await its return, and to watch its slow and sturdy +progress in and out of the dipping waves. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch29"> +CHAPTER XXIX +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">With</span> every hour the violence and power of the sea abated and though +there remained a fury of foaming waves across the channel of the +Leopard’s Rock, the outer sea dropped from hour to hour to a more easy +serenity; and in the afternoon the lifeboat was seen returning across +the grey, placated waters. A cold tranquillity had overspread the +heavens. With the ceasing of the wind the sky was clear, the clouds +drifting to the sad-coloured horizon. And Amy, still watching from the +window of the “Drum and Trumpet,” could see the new moon, crystal +clear above the dark shoulder of the jagged cliffs. +</p> + +<p> +“There, madam,” remarked the innkeeper, who stood respectfully behind +the lady, “are those wild folk from Pen Hall Farm. It is not often +they come down to the shore when there are others about.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia glanced at the group his indicating finger pointed out—a +ragged, wild-looking woman with a child, and a burly, ferocious man. +</p> + +<p> +“They have a bad name, have they not?” remarked Ambrosia absently, +“but I suppose they have some humanity, and are interested in the +lighthouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I wonder they should come here, madam, when Mr. Sellar is about, +for they are very much in his bad graces. He is doing his best to +prove that their farm is not freehold, after all, and have them moved. +And it would be a charity to the neighbours could he succeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“They show an effrontery in coming in here now,” remarked Ambrosia; +for she knew that these people were indeed noted as thieves and +law-breakers, poachers and vagabonds. “But I do not think,” she added +coldly, “that my brother takes much interest in them.” +</p> + +<p> +But the innkeeper had replied that, while Mr. Sellar had been keeping +watch of the lighthouse from the “Drum and Trumpet,” he had +continually ridden over to Pen Hall Farm, to warn the inhabitants, no +doubt, of their trespasses. Ambrosia thought it odd in her brother to +have troubled his head when he was so concerned with other deep +matters, with such an affair as Pen Hall Farm. She thought it peculiar +that at such a moment as this, when they were waiting with so much +anxiety for the return of the boat with Lucius on board, that the +innkeeper should have troubled to mention this fact to her. Surely it +must have impressed him as very extraordinary. And she looked at him +keenly, wondering if there were something more behind his words. +</p> + +<p> +But the innkeeper’s face was blank, and he suggested to the lady that +they should now go on the shore and welcome the boat back. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia put on her pelisse and went out into the chill air. As she +passed the little group from Pen Hall Farm—a little group of whom no +one was taking the slightest notice—she glanced at the child, and +saw, gleaming on her woollen coat, the little trifle of turquoise and +pearls that the Countess Fanny had given her. And she turned away in +distaste, vexed that these people should be here at such a moment, +displaying such an ornament. Very likely that was the flimsy, +whimsical reason why Oliver had been over so often to Pen Hall Farm. +He knew that Fanny had stopped there and had given this trinket to the +child; and so he had connected these people with her name and drawn +them, as it were, into his infatuation. +</p> + +<p> +Amy lifted high her flowing skirts, and stepped over the rough beach, +and waited by one of the flat greenstone rocks, and watched the boat +coming in with difficulty through the breaking surf. +</p> + +<p> +The beach was crowded, and she remained apart from the others—apart, +even, from Mr. Spragge, who was so ready with his fluent consolations +and his conventional thanksgiving. +</p> + +<p> +Amy reminded herself that she was not going to meet Lucius, her +betrothed, the young man whom she was going to marry in the spring, +but a stranger: she must be quite prepared to meet a stranger. +</p> + +<p> +The fishers waded out into the surf to help the boat to land. Amy +scanned the occupants of this boat, but did not move from where she +stood, holding her fluttering shawl together on her breast, her veil +blowing out behind her—for the wind, such of it as remained, came +fresh and direct from the sea. +</p> + +<p> +The tide being in their favour, the boat beached without much +difficulty. Ambrosia saw Oliver sitting there in his oilskins, and the +fishers who had manned the boat, and there—yes, there was Lucius. She +recognised his comely figure, though she could scarcely see his face. +Everyone was crowding round the boat; she must go too. She could not +any longer remain apart; and she advanced slowly, holding her skirts +together and walking fastidiously over the large flat, wet stones. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius was one of the first to leap ashore and wade through the last +eddy of the surf, and so come out on to the beach close to Ambrosia. +He wore a rough suit of clothes which he had probably found in the +lighthouse, and which were much stained and worn; and this changed +him, in Ambrosia’s mind, as much as the alteration in his features. +</p> + +<p> +He was not pale as she had expected, but tanned and reddened by +exposure, and all the finer lines of his face appeared to have been +marred or effaced. The countenance was older, harder; there was now +not the least touch of effeminacy or delicacy about Lucius Foxe; and +in this altered visage the grey eyes showed much lighter and clearer +than Amy had ever remembered them to be: odd, pale-grey eyes, blank as +glass, it seemed to Amy as she held out her hand with an embarrassed +gesture, trying to force a warm and a natural welcome. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucius, at last! It seems as if you had come back from the grave!” +</p> + +<p> +“So I feel, Ambrosia,” he replied serenely. “I scarcely thought to +return at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” agreed Ambrosia hurriedly, “we were in great fear and dread for +your safety. This is indeed a great mercy, Lucius, and makes amends +for much. You must hasten to your father, for I fear he will hardly +survive the suspense.” +</p> + +<p> +“My father!” repeated Lucius strangely. “Yes, I must make haste to see +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re well, Lucius? You bore it without too great a strain?” +</p> + +<p> +“I had the light to look after,” replied the young man simply, “and +there didn’t seem time to think of anything else.” +</p> + +<p> +Others were coming up now, with congratulations and questions and +admiration. Amy observed that only Oliver remained in the boat and +made no attempt to leave it, but sat there motionless when the boat +was beached. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver would go to meet you,” she said, nervously. “Nothing could +restrain him. You have seen him and spoken to him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have seen him,” said Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” cried Dr. Drayton cheerfully, “we thought you would be dead, +sir! Or half dead, at least—starved and wasted; but it seems I am not +required after all!” +</p> + +<p> +“The food went very short, and I was scarce of water,” said Lucius, +“but I am not ill, thank you. As I said just now to Amy, there was the +light to look after, and somehow one didn’t seem able to think of +anything else. Thank God there was plenty of fuel and oil there; but +in future we must see that there are better supplies of food and +water, in case anyone else has to endure so long a vigil.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why doesn’t Oliver get out of the boat?” asked Amy. “Dr. Drayton, do +you go and tell him to get out of the boat. He seems like one amazed.” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor turned to (what the fishers had not dared to do) suggest to +Mr. Sellar that he now left the boat, which was beached. +</p> + +<p> +When he was thus directly addressed, Oliver Sellar rose, and made a +stiff movement as if to step over the side of the boat; but instead of +doing so, he collapsed and fell headlong, half on the shore. They +thought it was an accident, that he had lost his balance, all stiff +from the cold as he must be; but they discovered immediately that he +was insensible, and when the heavy big man had been dragged away to a +higher part of the beach, and the doctor bent over him, he said that +it was no accident, but a fit or seizure of the kind that Mr. Sellar +had had when the Countess Fanny’s bonnet and cashmere shawl were +brought in to Sellar’s Mead—nothing dangerous, but he must be carried +into the “Drum and Trumpet,” and left quiet for a while. And Dr. +Drayton remarked, with a smile, that it was odd that he had come to +attend Lucius and found himself so conveniently there to attend +Oliver. +</p> + +<p> +“I had feared a recurrence of this,” he observed, “on the least alarm; +but what alarm could Mr. Sellar have had just now?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was emotion,” said Ambrosia hurriedly, and very pale. “He has been +watching the lighthouse so long, you know; now the vigil is over and +Lucius is safe. That would be enough for one in the state of Oliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Been watching the lighthouse?” asked Lucius quickly. “Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“It obsessed him,” replied Amy. “He was thinking of you out there, I +suppose; I don’t quite know, Lucius. But he has not been home often +during the last six weeks; he spent his time here at the little inn, +watching your light, and wondering every night if you could get off. +We all wondered that, you know; but to one whose nerves were as raw as +Oliver’s—well, it might become an infatuation, you know, Luce.” +</p> + +<p> +Deliberately she gave him the old loving name, but he appeared not to +hear what she had taken on her lips. Surely he was as estranged as, in +her most despondent moods, she had feared. How flat and stale this +meeting seemed, after all these weeks of waiting, watching and +suspense. Not one spark of rapture to enliven them—not one flash of +relief or joy to bring them together. Chill and formal they stood +looking at each other on the wet beach, with the grey background of +rocks and sea and sky.… +</p> + +<p> +“I must not keep you from your father,” murmured Amy. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” added Mr. Spragge, who stood close to them, “I must take you +there at once. That was my embassy, you know, Lord Vanden: to take you +home immediately. Miss Sellar will come too, no doubt; the carriage is +ready a little way up the road.” Then he added: “Where’s the boy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes!” added Amy. “Where’s the boy? I had forgotten the boy—where +is he? Surely you owe him a great deal, and we must see that he is +properly looked after.” +</p> + +<p> +“The boy,” said Lucius, “is dead—drowned.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia recoiled, with an exclamation of horror. Not only was the +fact in itself dreadful, but Lucius had spoken in so stiff and brutal +a manner. +</p> + +<p> +“Drowned?” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +And Mr. Spragge said: +</p> + +<p> +“Why, this is very distressing, Lord Vanden! Poor lad! And how did it +happen?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have told all the people who came to take me off,” replied Lucius +stiffly, as if he did not wish to go over an unpleasant matter again. +“It was the night when the French barque went down—you must have seen +the rockets.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” they both said at once, “we saw the rockets.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that was the night. They put out a boat, and it was broken on +the rocks. I went down to see if I could save any of them, and I did +do so. I found men clinging on the rocks. The boy would come too, and +hold the lantern. The rocks were slippery… well, that’s all there is. +We tried to rescue him when he lost his foothold—the sailor that I +had pulled in and myself; but of course he was gone in a second. And I +suppose it is of no great concern to anyone,” added Lucius, “since he +was but a poor waif from Falmouth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” cried Ambrosia incredulously, “you’ve been alone +there—<i>alone</i> for all these weeks?” +</p> + +<p> +“Alone,” smiled Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very horrible!” shivered Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Lucius drily; “but do you know, it seems already so long +ago, and it happened so swiftly, and I knew so little about the boy, +that it does not seem to me now so horrible; and it was not a bad +death, was it?—for a poor wretch who had but little prospects.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you know anything about him?” asked Mr. Spragge. “Is there anyone +to whom we should give notice of his death—any relative whom we could +compensate?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know nothing about him,” said Lucius, proceeding up the beach, with +these two walking slowly either side of him. “Nothing at all. He told +me his name was Philip, and seemed to know no other; while I had him +he was a good, obedient boy, but of so little strength or capacity +that he was of not much use to me; and it was through his own daring +that he lost his life, insisting on coming out on the rocks to hold +the lantern.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Frenchmen—what happened to them?” asked Mr. Spragge. +</p> + +<p> +“The barque went to pieces, I believe,” said Lucius. “I saw no more of +her. I had the men on the lighthouse two or three days—I hardly +remember which—hoping the lifeboat would come, for the storm fell a +little after then, as you may remember.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mr. Spragge, “but the boat here is not strong enough; +that’s why your father had another boat sent over from Falmouth. +Without that we should scarce have reached you, even to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Other ships passed,” continued Luce, telling his tale without much +animation, and in a formal manner, “and I contrived a signal to one +and they sent a boat off; they were French also, it seemed, bound for +Brest; and they took on board my Frenchmen. We lowered them with rope, +and that’s the last I know of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well,” sighed Mr. Spragge, “I’m sorry for the boy!” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius asked who now was going to take the watch in the lighthouse. He +had seen the two men who had been left in his place; they had been +rowed out in the boat that took them off. They were strangers to him. +Mr. Spragge explained that they were new men from Falmouth, sent by +his father, since none of the fisher-folk was either willing to go or +capable of undertaking such a task as these long watches in the +lighthouse of St. Nite’s during this perpetual stormy weather. +</p> + +<p> +Amy stood wretched and irresolute; it was her plain duty to follow her +brother, who was being laboriously carried by four or five fishers +into the inn; but her wish was to go with Lucius. Perhaps all this +estrangement and formality was only the result of their first meeting: +here in public among all these people, on this gloomy, open beach. If +she could go with him to Lefton Park, surely there some kindliness, +some friendliness, would spring up between them! She had not +mentioned, of course, the Countess Fanny. She wondered if she should +do so—if it would be generous in her to say that there was no further +news of the girl; and yet he must surmise as much—probably he has +asked Oliver, or the men in the boat. +</p> + +<p> +Well, if he did not speak of her, perhaps so much the better. Perhaps +if he never took that name on his lips it might gradually leave his +heart, and they might be as they once had been, before the foreign +girl came to St. Nite’s Head. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you coming with us, Miss Sellar?” asked the clergyman, as they +reached the Earl’s carriage. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius did not second this request. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I should stay with Oliver,” said Amy sadly. Then, with an +attempt to move her one-time lover to some compassion she turned to +him and added: “I live a solitary life now; Oliver is sick, as you +see, and he is often afflicted in body.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Amy!” said Lucius, and yet without tenderness. “You also have +had your vigil. Come with us now—your brother is well enough with Dr. +Drayton.” But he did not speak in any manner to induce her to come, +but stood there indifferently, as if he awaited the pleasure of a +stranger to whom he owed courtesy—no more than courtesy. +</p> + +<p> +But Amy could not leave it at that. She must endeavour to break within +his guard, even if it were with weapons that inflicted a wound upon +herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing has been heard of Fanny,” she said, in a loud voice that was +almost shrill, and which made Mr. Spragge look at her in dismay. “She +has not been found, Lucius.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Lucius, “no—one scarcely hoped it, after all these weeks.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Oliver found something of hers—in Flimwel Grange, of all places; +he must go there one night, in one of his mad moods. And what did he +find, in one of the empty rooms, but one of her coral bracelets! +Perhaps you remember them, Lucius—she nearly always wore them—grapes +and vines in coral.” +</p> + +<p> +“A coral bracelet?” repeated Lucius, with every accent of alarm and +terror. “You say he found a coral bracelet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; what is there so odd in it, Lucius?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it extremely odd,” said Mr. Spragge, “and to be found in such +a place, too; it is a mystery that one cannot attempt to solve.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver has suffered,” remarked Lucius, in a calmer tone. +</p> + +<p> +“I think he will always suffer,” said Amy, “and that I must always +stand by and see him suffer. I will go to him now. Perhaps, later, you +will come to Sellar’s Mead, Lucius.” She held out her hand, and he +took it in his, which was, she remarked, so ruined and toil-worn and +scarred; different indeed from the smooth hands that she had long +touched. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, Amy,” he said; “yes, of course I’ll come soon. I’m +distressed about Oliver.… For the moment everything seems strange, you +know,” he added, in a half apology, “but we shall get it all adjusted +presently. I feel half deafened still, by the noise of the sea in my +ears, and the wind in that underground tunnel, and my eyes half +blinded with the dazzle of the waves—those white lines, you know, +always advancing towards you and always breaking at the foot of the +lighthouse, one after another. Well—for a day or two, then, Amy—and +forgive me!” +</p> + +<p> +He got into the carriage, followed by Mr. Spragge; she saw him droop +into an attitude of languor and apathy in one of the corners, and put +those two poor stained and roughened hands before his face. +</p> + +<p> +Well, so it was over, this long-promised meeting! After the suspense, +and the watching, and the waiting, they had met and parted again, both +like strangers. Estranged, estranged—he from her and she from Oliver; +that dead girl between them all, always. +</p> + +<p> +As she turned back to the “Drum and Trumpet,” she saw the three from +Pen Hall Farm, moving slowly away from the sea. Ferocious and savage +they looked, and they were talking together in excited though low +hoarse accents. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia could guess that they were talking about the boy, who had +lodged with them for a little while. No doubt they had come down there +to get some share of his reward, and were angered to find that he was +dead, and there would be no reward. She must see to it that something +was sent to them. Whatever they were, there must be no meanness over +this matter. They should have the boy’s wages, and perhaps more. +</p> + +<p> +She went into the “Drum and Trumpet,” to find Oliver still +unconscious. +</p> + +<p> +That night, the tempest began to rise again. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch30"> +CHAPTER XXX +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">The</span> storm blew again continuously for three days, and Amy made no +attempt to go over to Lefton Park. She remained in Sellar’s Mead and +nursed Oliver—or rather watched by Oliver, for he required no +nursing. Brought up on a wagon from St. Nite’s Promontory, he had +remained for twenty-four hours unconscious. Amy had stared, with +repugnance and dismay, at his prone, heavily-breathing figure, at his +senseless, flushed face, which was distorted and twitching. “A +stroke,” the doctor had said; and if he had a third it was scarcely +likely that he would survive it—a man of his habits, who drank so +heavily, and was now in such a continuous stress of bitter emotion. +And he did not fail to add the usual consolation of doctors, face to +face with such terrible maladies: “It is far better, Miss Sellar, that +he should pass away suddenly in one of these fits than survive +paralysed or senseless—a log for you to tend, perhaps for years.” +</p> + +<p> +For all the conventional courtesy of his profession, the doctor had +spoken without much pity or feeling. Ambrosia noted that, and it +reminded her of how little Oliver was loved, even from those who +obtained some advantage from him—even among his own dependants and +servants, who ate his bread and did his work, Oliver was not loved, +nor scarcely liked. +</p> + +<p> +No one would regret him if he should die; perhaps, as Dr. Drayton had +seemed to say, it would be better if he did not recover. What was his +life but an agony? +</p> + +<p> +She dutifully did what she could for him; she sat by his bed and +watched for returning consciousness; and there was the wind again, +howling and battling round the house, and no leaf yet on any tree, and +no flowers save those few snowdrops under the yew-tree hedge. Evenings +were longer now, and in the lengthening twilight the landscape looked +bleak as a bleached bone. +</p> + +<p> +One day Amy rode over to Pen Hall Farm, proceeding cautiously and with +difficulty along the frozen road. The wind had dropped a little, but +it made no difference to the desolation and coldness of the weather. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia had come reluctantly on this errand, but it was one she +scarcely cared to trust to a servant, and one she felt that must be +undertaken. She did not wish these people, wretched and outcast as +they were, to cherish any grievance against her or Oliver. Her pride +forbade that. Of course, it was Lucius who should really have thought +of them, since the boy had been his companion, and he paid the +lighthouse-keepers for any extra service. Yet she felt the +responsibility to be hers, in a way, for she knew that these people +hated Oliver, and that Oliver hated them. Odd that he should hate +anyone quite so insignificant, but there had been no other name, she +thought, for the curious passion with which he had spoken of them, and +the persistency with which he had ridden over here to menace and +threaten them. +</p> + +<p> +In the dirty kitchen Amy took out her purse, counted five gold pieces +on to the soiled table. +</p> + +<p> +“You looked after that boy, I believe, who was with Lord Vanden on the +lighthouse,” she said, “and he was swept into the sea by an accident, +as you have heard, no doubt.” +</p> + +<p> +They replied sullenly that they had heard it. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Amy, more and more hostile, as she perceived how +unwelcome she was, and what an antagonistic reception she was +receiving, “here is what I reckon to be his wages, and something over. +The poor child seems to have had no relations, nor can he be traced at +Falmouth. He was a stowaway on some ship, no doubt; therefore I have +thought that <i>you</i> should have this money.” +</p> + +<p> +She had expected to see her gold snatched up with avaricious greed; it +could not have been often, if ever before, that these people had seen +sovereigns lying on their table. But there was a pause, of hesitation +and reluctance. Men and women looked at each other, and then on the +ground. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think it enough?” asked Amy coldly. +</p> + +<p> +The grandmother, a repulsive old hag, replied malignantly: +</p> + +<p> +“We asked for nothing, madam.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are angry with me, I suppose,” said Amy, “because my brother is +trying to get this farm from you; but he will pay you a good price for +it, and you might do better somewhere else. The land is very poor, you +know; and you keep it all wretchedly,” she added. “I wonder you make a +living out of it. Since you will not work, why not let the farm go to +those who will make something of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s our land,” replied the man sullenly, “and we intend to remain on +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; that is, after all, nothing to do with me,” remarked the +lady coldly. “But here are these five gold pieces, if you care to have +them. I don’t wish you to cherish a grievance about that poor boy. I’d +like to do something for him, and for you, who looked after him. I +suppose he was scarcely able to pay for himself?” +</p> + +<p> +“He paid,” said one of the women. “He had a few shillings with him, +and he was always careful to pay his dues.” +</p> + +<p> +Still no one made any attempt to touch the money, and Ambrosia +shrugged her shoulders and turned to the door. Economical as she was, +she could not endure to pick up the sovereigns which she had so +negligently thrown down on that dirty table. +</p> + +<p> +“Take it or leave it, as you please,” she said, and went out and +mounted her horse by herself, and rode home. +</p> + +<p> +When she reached Sellar’s Mead, she found that Oliver had recovered +consciousness, and had been asking for her. She hastened at once to +his room, and found him sitting up in bed, looking ghastly, she +thought, for two days unshaven, with one side of his face slightly +dragged, his eyes sunken and bloodshot, the face bloodless beneath the +dark tan that had come from these long weeks of exposure to wind and +rain and keen air. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s Lucius?” he asked at once. +</p> + +<p> +“With his father, of course; I have not seen him since he left the +lighthouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“He hasn’t written?” asked Oliver, in a faint voice. “No +message—nothing from him at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing whatever, Oliver. You see, the storm has risen again.” +</p> + +<p> +“He isn’t ill?” whispered Oliver. +</p> + +<p> +“No; no, indeed, he is not ill. He is stronger than we thought. +Oliver. Dr. Drayton said this morning that he is very well; but the +old Earl is failing fast. But you, Oliver—how are you?” she asked +perfunctorily. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m well enough now,” muttered the big man gloomily. “Queer I should +be struck down like this twice—eh, Amy?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have to be careful,” said his sister. “Dr. Drayton says so. +You must not agitate yourself so much, Oliver, nor drink so heavily. +If you have this attack for a third time it may be fatal.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if it were?” he snarled. “Who’d regret me, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, indeed!” was on her lips; but she checked these harsh +and bitter words. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you find anything worth while living for, Oliver?” she asked, +rather desperately. “Can’t you make some effort to command and +restrain yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’ll make an effort,” he answered; “I want to see Lucius.” And +he added in rasping tones: “How is it between you and Lucius?” +</p> + +<p> +“As it has been for some time past,” she replied coldly. “Why do you +ask, Oliver? It must be clear to you that everything sentimental is +over between me and Lucius.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has he said so?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; he would scarcely say so,” replied Amy, with a bitter smile. “I +have not said so yet, either, for the moment was scarcely right, since +he had just come off the lighthouse and I was waiting for him. Then, +Oliver, I didn’t quite know; I thought perhaps—but it was hopeless; +he was as estranged as before.” +</p> + +<p> +“By what?” asked Oliver. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia would not feed his smouldering fury by mentioning the name of +Fanny. He only wanted her to say that name to give him an excuse for +an outburst of passion—of that she was well assured. He knew, as well +as she did, what had happened between her and Lucius. She would not +give him the gratification of discussing this hideous affair. +</p> + +<p> +“We are not suited,” she replied. “That is the usual excuse, is it +not?” And then, with a fierce desire to wound herself, she added: “I +am older than he.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver gave her no word of sympathy or compassion. He seemed not to +regard her point of view in the least, but to remain entirely absorbed +in his own brooding and gloomy thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +“What is Lucius going to do?” he demanded abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“How can I tell?” answered Amy wearily. “You had better go and ask +him, Oliver; but what concern, now, is it of either of us?” +</p> + +<p> +That afternoon there came news from Lucius. He wrote hastily, saying +that his father was very ill, and that had prevented him from coming +over to Sellar’s Mead, and prevented him still; but that, if they +would care to come to Lefton Park, the old Earl might recover +consciousness and would, indeed, be glad to see them. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to meet him over a death-bed,” said Oliver, when this +news was brought to him. “But do you go, Amy, if you wish.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will certainly go,” replied Ambrosia, for she had nothing but the +pleasantest and most tender recollections of the old man. But when, +that evening, she reached Lefton Park, the Earl was dead. He had +passed away dozing in his chair, in the little closet off the library, +surrounded by his shells, cases and boxes and trays of specimens, and +the clear glass of water into which he had dropped them to wash them; +dead so peacefully, beneath the print of Winstanley Lighthouse, amid +the shelves of books dealing with conchology. And everyone in Lefton +Park was mourning for the kindest and most patient of masters. And +again, when she heard the news, Ambrosia had the impression that +Death’s scythe was mowing a clear space round them, as the reaper cuts +the standing corn and leaves the last blades lonely. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius had little to say to her. No doubt he was greatly shocked and +troubled, though he was dry and tearless, and said little about his +father, save to remark that he was glad the tempest had dropped, so +that he could return home in time to see the Earl again. +</p> + +<p> +“And I can do nothing?” Ambrosia asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, my dear, nothing.” And then he asked about Oliver—if he +were yet recovered from his seizure. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Ambrosia, “he is better; Dr. Drayton says we must be +careful, or I, too, shall have Death in the house. But how is one to +be careful, Lucius, with a man like Oliver? I cannot cure his +heartache, nor make him cease drinking!” +</p> + +<p> +“Does he drink?” asked Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—heavily; almost every night, now. One could hardly expect +anything else. I think, Lucius, that his mind is broken!” +</p> + +<p> +And then Lucius said the name that she wished to say, but did not +dare. +</p> + +<p> +“Does he still grieve for Fanny?” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia answered: +</p> + +<p> +“Who else should it be but Fanny that he grieves for?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” replied Lucius, “I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you, too,” she longed to cry out, in an accusing voice. “What do +you think of but Fanny; even now, when your father lies a few hours +dead, you are thinking of nothing but her!” But she choked back this +bitter reproach, and took her leave with decorum. +</p> + +<p> +At the door he retained her hand a second between his own. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything is all right between us, isn’t it, Amy?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +She stared at him out of the shadow of her bonnet. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” she said, forcing a smile. “We must talk of that later +on.” +</p> + +<p> +And driving home she wondered if she should keep him to his word. To +be a countess, to be the mistress of Lefton Park… should she ignore +his hurt, and keep him to his word and marry him, and so be rid of +Oliver and get away? Or should she renounce him, bidding him remain +faithful to his lost love? Ah, the choice was odious! “Most women +would marry him,” thought Amy. “Why not? The other’s but a dead +dream—dead, dead!” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver recovered sufficiently to escort his sister to the funeral of +the Earl. He took his full part in the long and lugubrious ceremony. +Side by side, in ponderous and heavy mourning, brother and sister sat +in the dark church and listened to the service read by Mr. Spragge, +and looked round at the mural tablets and funeral hatchments on the +walls and pillars, and the congregation—all, like themselves, in +black—and then followed out into the bleak churchyard, and stood by +while the stone doors of the vault were unlocked and another coffin +was lowered into the impenetrable darkness of the interior; and then +rode back, in mourning coaches, the horses trapped in black, to Lefton +Park, where all the servants wore crape and the funeral meal was set +out in the long, green room with the indigo tapestries and the black +portraits, the room which the Countess Fanny had crossed the last time +that anyone had seen her radiant figure. +</p> + +<p> +The will was read, and there were little legacies for all of them, but +nothing for Ambrosia, “since, as my son’s wife, she will have all.” +And Lucius sat at the head of his table and did the honours of his +house gravely and without fault. Only his coarsened face and his rough +hands showed strangely against the unrelieved black of his clothes. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver had scarcely spoken to him, nor he to Oliver; but the elder man +stared at the younger continuously. Once or twice Amy had touched her +brother’s arm, saying, “Oliver, don’t stare so; it’s odd in you. +Whatever you have with Lucius, forget it now for pity’s sake!” +</p> + +<p> +When all the guests had gone save those relations who had been able to +reach Lefton Park in time for the funeral and were staying in the +house, Amy and her brother yet lingered; Amy would have gone, but +Oliver detained her, saying: +</p> + +<p> +“I wish to speak to Lucius; I want to see Lucius.” +</p> + +<p> +“But not to-day, surely?” protested Amy; but to that he gave no +answer. Nor did Amy endeavour to urge him further. She was busy with +her own thoughts, drowsy with a certain lassitude of melancholy and +reflection. The large house, and even life itself, seemed blank enough +without the kind old man. +</p> + +<p> +This loss in itself saddened her, and brought in its train reflections +which she must consider. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius was now his own master—the master of Lefton Park, and the +whole estate, and such influence and honour and money as there were. +There was nothing—Amy must face that—there was nothing to keep him +in Cornwall if he wished to leave. He might in a few days go away, and +she never see him again. If she released him, she believed that that +was what he would do; go away, and for ever. But, if she held him to +his promise, then he must marry her, and then she would go too; and +Amy, sitting there in her black shawl and bonnet, with her hands +folded in her lap, staring down at her white cambric cuff and her +prayer-book, had thought: “And I <i>will</i> hold him to it—why not? There +is nobody else now; even if he loved her, that’s over. I’ll marry him +and go away with him. I shall make him a good wife. I can’t be left +here with Oliver; I must escape, and he’s the only chance!” +</p> + +<p> +Always, from the first day that Lucius had spoken to her, from the +first day that there had been any understanding between them, this had +been in her mind: Lucius was a way of escape; but never had she put it +so crudely and even brutally as she put it to herself now, sitting in +that house of mourning. She would not let him go! She would not lose +her only chance.… She could not afford to do so; let more +highly-placed and better dowered women be generous.… +</p> + +<p> +When Lucius had a little leisure, he came and spoke to her, very +tenderly and affectionately; and she took instant advantage of that, +and, clasping his hands, said: +</p> + +<p> +“Lucius, can we begin again? I always counted on the spring, and it is +the spring now? Can you be a little composed?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her earnestly, and she turned away her face. She feared +that she was no longer pleasing to look at, and that even in the +shadow of her black bonnet he must see lines under her eyes and about +her mouth, and hollows in her cheeks. This long winter had rifled her +charms; too well she knew that. +</p> + +<p> +Turning from him, she must gaze out of the window, across the desolate +park. The snow was beginning to fall; the flakes appeared to drift +more up than down. +</p> + +<p> +“You must marry me soon,” said Lucius, “and we will go away.” +</p> + +<p> +And she made no demur, while her heart leapt to hear those words which +were like the grating of the key in the lock to some long-inured +prisoner. +</p> + +<p> +At last they left; even so, Amy found their departure was but a feint, +for Oliver must turn back, saying he had forgotten his gloves—must +leave her in the carriage and return to Lefton Park. +</p> + +<p> +The door was still open, and he made his way in, directly across the +long, dark-green drawing-room, where the food still stood on the long +table—the sherry and the cakes, the pies and the tea-urns—and +lightly and directly reached the little closet beyond, where the young +Earl stood, where they had left him a few moments ago. He was leaning +on the mantelpiece, contemplating a small object that he held in his +hand, and he did not hear Oliver open the door; nor did Oliver speak +or move, but stood there staring at him. And he was staring at what he +held—a small coral bracelet. +</p> + +<p> +Hearing an odd, choking sound which he thought to be that of some +animal, Lucius turned abruptly and beheld Oliver Sellar in the +doorway. The two black-clad figures faced each other, one so heavy and +grim, and one so slight and comely. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver pointed to the bracelet. +</p> + +<p> +“Hers!” he cried. “Her bracelet!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Lucius, in a still voice. “She gave it me the day she was +lost.” +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch31"> +CHAPTER XXXI +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +“<span class="sc">Why</span> have you come back like this to spy on me?” demanded the young +Earl. “What do you mean? You had better explain yourself. You’ve had +an ill look the whole day, though this was an odd occasion upon which +to endeavour to fasten a quarrel upon me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Her bracelet!” repeated Oliver, with an ugly smile. “You’ve got her +bracelet.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I’ve told you how,” said Lucius coldly. “The day she left she was +wearing them—you know that, I think; they were in the list of her +ornaments.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you let me put it there,” said Oliver, “knowing that you had it +all the while!” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not care to speak of it,” returned Lucius, “and that you may +well understand. The clasp of the ornament was defective, and she let +me take it when it fell. Why, she was careless about it, of course. I +said ‘I’ll get this mended for you—it’s a poor clasp!’ ” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t put me off like that,” said Oliver; “don’t put me off with such +rant, such lies! I found the fellow to that in Flimwel Grange—she +went there, and dropped it; both the clasps were defective, it seems; +I’ve got it now in my pocket.” And he took the ornament out of the +pocket of his black coat, and held it on his palm: the fellow to the +little bracelet of coral grapes and vine-leaves that Lucius held. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know,” remarked Lucius. “Amy told me. Again, why did you come +back to spy on me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wanted to speak to you,” said Oliver. “I’ve been ill—damnably ill. +A man can’t stand up against everything for ever, can he? And now, +finding you with that bracelet, there is the less need for me to +speak. She did not give it to you the morning she was lost.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius turned on him quietly, with the air of dealing with a man who +must be pitied for not being in his right senses: endured because his +brain is broken. +</p> + +<p> +“When, then, do you think I got it?” he asked, in tone of compassion, +“seeing no man has seen her since? You know she was wearing them that +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar looked on the ground, and said, in a low, raucous voice, +as if he were repeating a lesson learnt by heart: +</p> + +<p> +“I think she ran away to those people at Pen Hall Farm, and that they +hid her. I think that she and one of them went down to Flimwel Grange +and broke into the place. She had those mad whims, and a curiosity to +see the house. And there she dropped the bracelet—she was wearing +them, no doubt; she never could resist her fal-lals. Something made me +go to that farm, again and again; the people were sullen and +insolent—I thought half-witted; but I believe now she was hiding +there all the time.” +</p> + +<p> +“God help you!” cried Lucius impulsively. “For indeed your wits seem +to me to be turned. You know that what you say is an impossibility; or +should know it, if you preserved your reason!” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver continued to talk rapidly, his black, scowling brows bent +downwards and his hands clasped behind him. +</p> + +<p> +“That boy—the boy I saw coughing over the fire, the boy who went into +the boat with you, the boy who was shut up with you for six weeks, who +was drowned…” +</p> + +<p> +The younger man still continued to gaze with serene pity at his almost +inarticulate agony. +</p> + +<p> +“What has the boy to do with it?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“That was why,” groaned Oliver, putting his hands to his forehead, +which was damp with drops of pain, “I had to watch the lighthouse day +and night.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius stared at him with darkening eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“What was your reason for watching the lighthouse when I was on it?” +he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“The reason was that she was with you, and you know it, and I knew it. +I recognised her, even as she stepped into the boat; though my senses +did not realise it then, though I was like one stunned and dazed, yet +my heart knew it; but when I had grasped it, it was too late—there +was half a mile of water and the gale between us already.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius did not immediately reply. He deliberately and carefully +returned the bracelet to a small case, and the case to his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver was wiping his forehead with a large, black-bordered +handkerchief. Lucius remarked that his hair was now completely grey. +</p> + +<p> +“How sad,” he said at length, “that grief should so upset a strong +intellect, Sellar! You know that what you say—at least you should +know,” he added, in a yet softer voice. “Oliver, look at me! Do you +think—can you believe, that she and I were shut up in that lighthouse +for weeks?” +</p> + +<p> +“Alone for weeks,” returned Oliver, with a ghastly sigh that was half +a groan. +</p> + +<p> +“I pity you,” replied Lucius warmly, “if such a thought as that has +been your companion during all these stormy weeks. Believe me, it is +the wildest of all wild delusions!” +</p> + +<p> +“You lie!” cried Oliver. “She was there with you; and if she be +dead—I don’t know. Yet I think she isn’t dead, or I <i>should</i> know. +I’ve always felt that from the first—that if she were dead I should +have known it, and I never thought she was; I thought she had escaped +me and was in hiding somewhere—and so it proved to be.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius replied to him in a sterner tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver, I fear you wronged her while she lived; now she is dead you +wrong her more, with these scandalous surmises and bitter suggestions. +I pray you do not let them go farther than this room. Would you ruin +all that is left of her to ruin—her reputation?” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver made no reply to this, but strode a step nearer to the young +man, and made a gesture as if to seize him by the shoulders; but then +dropped his hand to his side. One of them still clutched the coral +bracelet that he had found in Flimwel Grange. +</p> + +<p> +“Was she drowned?” he asked. “Or did you get her off?” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you think,” cried Lucius, “if I had had her there, I could +have got her off in such a gale?” +</p> + +<p> +“There was the French boat,” said Oliver. “Your story of the French +boat; if that were true, you got her off then, I suppose. I dare say +you had money somewhere; everything can be done with money. There was +that Madame de Mailly waiting at Brest; you said the boat was bound +for Brest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did I?” interrupted Lucius hurriedly. “No, I didn’t say bound for +Brest, did I?” +</p> + +<p> +“You did,” said Oliver, coming yet closer. “You may have got her off +like that. I am going to the Continent to look for her there, and see +if that Madame de Mailly is still waiting, or if she’s flown +with—whom she waited for.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius turned away and stood with his back to him, resting his elbow +on the mantelpiece; but he did this in a thoughtful, not an insulting, +manner; and there was something in his air of gentle indifference +which did much to quell the fury of the other man, who for the first +time was pervaded with some doubt. +</p> + +<p> +“I had not thought you had taken it so,” he muttered. “I had thought +to surprise you into a confession, if I could see you face to face, +Lucius.” +</p> + +<p> +“Amy is waiting without, I think,” replied the young man, without +moving, “and you had best go to her, Oliver; and for God’s sake stop +this wild talk! Fanny is dead—to you and me and all of us she is +dead—and do you endeavour to show some resignation. I will forget all +you have said just now, as you must forget it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you still going to marry Amy?” demanded Oliver harshly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Lucius immediately; “there is no reason why that marriage +should be interrupted.” +</p> + +<p> +“She still cares to take you, then, after what she’s said to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“What did she say to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“That it was all over and done with, as I should think it would be!” +</p> + +<p> +“We are going to be married,” insisted Lucius coldly. “Do not plague +me any more, I entreat you, Oliver!” +</p> + +<p> +“And as to what I said?” demanded the elder man, “Do you still give me +a rank denial? Do you still say that that was a poor boy from Falmouth +whom you had on the lighthouse with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have been often enough to Pen Hall Farm,” returned Lucius; “I +hear your visits there have been frequent. You have tried to force +them to say something of what you are saying now to me. Did you +succeed?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; I could not get a syllable from any of them. They were firm in +the tale that it was a waif walked up from Falmouth.” +</p> + +<p> +“I also am firm in that tale,” said Lucius. “Should you stand here and +rant all day you would get no more out of me. Clear your brain of +delusions!” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re changed,” said Oliver, with a fell grin. “You’re not quite the +puny boy that went on board St. Nite’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had to change, or die,” replied Lucius. “And listen to this, +Oliver: if your wild, fantastic tale had been true, and she and I had +been together there all those weeks, she would have been none the +worse for it, and I much the better. For she was innocency itself.” +</p> + +<p> +At this Oliver laughed stridently and offensively. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come!” he cried. “If I stay here a moment or two longer I shall +drive you to an admission! You’ll agree with my tale, however wild, +fantastic and foolish you call it! You’ll say that you knew her almost +the same moment that I did. She got up from the fireplace in the +inn—at the ‘Drum and Trumpet.’ We were standing there in the +half-dark parlour, you by the window, I by the door; do you recall? +She got up, that ragged, coughing, haggard boy, with her face stained +with walnut-juice and her hair cropped, wearing a suit of cheap slop +clothes from Falmouth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop!” cried Lucius. “Stop!” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t stop! That was the moment. She looked straight at you, and +you knew her at once; and I—well, I knew her, but I couldn’t quite +grasp it for a moment. I let you go—I was dazed. You were swift then; +you saw it was she, and you took her away under my very eyes, under my +eyes! You hurried her down the beach and into the boat, and I stood +there like a fool—like a dunder-head—struck foolish! Then, as I say, +when you were right out at sea, a speck, it all came to me. That was +she—that was she whom I had seen lounging over the fire at Pen Hall +Farm. She’d made friends with those people—given them jewels for the +child. They hated me. Therefore they would have sympathised with her. +And you know it; even as I speak to you now, you know I speak God’s +truth!” +</p> + +<p> +“I know you rave,” replied Lucius firmly. “You’ve moped and brooded +over this, Oliver, till you know not what you say or do; and now leave +me in peace! Would you force such things on me on such a day? Why,” he +added, with the first flare of impatience that he yet had shown, “if +it were true do you think that I would admit it, even at the last +extremity?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll make you admit it one of these days!” said Oliver. “Or I’ll +choke the life out of you, Lucius! If you wish to be silent you’ll be +silent where we saw your father put to-day!” +</p> + +<p> +The door opened, and Ambrosia entered timidly. She was tired of +waiting in the carriage below. It was cold and the coachman had +complained, as he exercised his horses up and down, of the long wait +in the bleak, windy carriage-drive. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver, aren’t you coming?” she asked in a sinking voice. She looked +from one man to another, and saw their faces distraught and disfigured +with emotion. A light foam flecked Oliver’s pale lips, and his eyes +were sunk in his head. She saw in his strong, stiff fingers the coral +bracelet. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been cheated,” he muttered, “from the first—tricked and +cheated, Amy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say before her,” commanded Lucius, “what you have just said +before me. You can at least respect Amy.” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver glanced at his sister, and seemed to gain some measure of +self-control from the sight of her frightened face. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said, slowly and thickly. “This, perhaps, is not the time. +You’re more stubborn than I thought, but I shall get it out of you +soon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver, come away!” entreated Amy. “You can’t force any quarrel on +Lucius to-day—the day his father was buried! Oh, Lucius,” she cried, +turning to her betrothed, “please forgive him, for he is a very sick +man!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not sick,” muttered Oliver, “but fooled and cheated. What man +wouldn’t be half lunatic who has had to support what I have had to +support?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry for you,” replied the young Earl coldly; “yet be careful +what you say, Oliver!” Then to the woman he said: “Amy, take no heed +of him. He has just spoken to me most wildly. Shall I come back with +you to Sellar’s Mead? The storm is rising again, and he is scarcely a +fit companion for you.” +</p> + +<p> +But Oliver appeared to have regained a certain amount of self-control. +In quite a composed manner he made an ironic bow to the young lord, +and said: +</p> + +<p> +“My sister does very well with me, Lucius, I have nothing more to say +just now. But you may guess, perhaps, what I shall have to say when we +meet again!” +</p> + +<p> +He turned towards the door. Behind his back Amy stretched out her hand +to her lover. +</p> + +<p> +“Come over and see us soon!” she entreated. “You are my one hope, +Lucius!” +</p> + +<p> +Was this a fair appeal? That question ran in her heart as she spoke; +but she was past such fine honesty now. Fair or unfair, she would +cling to him. What else had she, and who should ask from her such +self-sacrifice as loneliness with Oliver? +</p> + +<p> +Lucius pressed her hand warmly. +</p> + +<p> +“I will come with you now,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +But she, with her innate propriety and sense of the conventions, +replied: +</p> + +<p> +“No, Lucius; it is not fitting that you should leave the house to-day. +I will go back. I have put in so many days at Sellar’s Mead,” she +added with a wan smile, “that one or two more will make no difference. +Come, Oliver, compose yourself!” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver Sellar made no word or sign of protest. For the second time +that day he left Lefton Park. This time he did not return, but got +into the brougham beside his sister, and rode in silence back to his +own house; and Amy wondered why, with a sort of hysteric fantasy, she +must think that he disliked riding in carriages, and remember that +day, which seemed a day in another life, when she had gone to the +ferry to meet the Countess Fanny, and had seen that brilliant, alien +figure come ashore, the apple-green bonnet and the striped shawl, and +all her beauty and her radiance, and had disliked her… and Oliver had +grumbled because they had brought the carriage and not the horse. Why +must she think of that now? Why must remorse trouble her, and she say +to herself: +</p> + +<p> +“If I had been kinder, it might not all have happened?” +</p> + +<p> +As they reached the park gates Oliver, waking from his gloomy +meditation, said harshly: +</p> + +<p> +“Lucius tells me that you and he are going to be married after all, +Amy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Amy nervously—she had been ready for that question—“we +are; and can you wonder, Oliver? I cannot wither here for the rest of +my life. I dare say it were a finer thing to refuse Lucius; for I know +he does not greatly care for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know,” interrupted Oliver, “that he loves Fanny. He always did +love Fanny, from the first moment he saw her!” +</p> + +<p> +“But Fanny is dead,” replied Amy, with a sob in her throat, clasping +tight her mourning shawl across her bosom. “And a woman cannot always +stand aside for the dead. I am alive, Oliver, and must grow old; and +there are so many years ahead—you and I in that lonely house. Oh, +Oliver, have a little pity and common humanity, and say that you +understand that I must marry Lucius and go away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fanny will be between you always,” said Oliver. “Do you think he will +ever forget her? Do you know what he was doing now, when I went +back—staring at her little coral bracelet. And how did he get it, +eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he not explain?” countered Ambrosia. +</p> + +<p> +“He said that she had given it to him the morning she disappeared; and +that’s a lie, no doubt!” +</p> + +<p> +“But how else could he have got it?” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver laughed in the darkness of his corner in the carriage. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t ask me that, Amy,” he replied. “Lucius’ll tell you, perhaps, +some day. I’m sorry for you if you marry Lucius!” +</p> + +<p> +Amy spoke hurriedly, more as if to justify herself to herself than to +her brother: +</p> + +<p> +“But they only knew each other for a few days! They’d scarcely met +alone, and he is so young, he will forget. It must already be like a +vision to him, and then, all those weeks alone on the lighthouse.…” +</p> + +<p> +“Alone?” sneered Oliver. “Alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, alone! You know it was quite early that the poor boy was +drowned. How dreadful for Lucius, out there in the storm. That, I +think, made him forget—made him forget me, perhaps—but her also.” +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t forget,” said Oliver, “He’ll never forget. And you’ll know +it if you marry him.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia did not answer. She had to check the wild, passionate words +that rose from her lips, lest she be altogether overcome, and seek the +relief that she had so long despised—that of bitter tears. +</p> + +<p> +When they reached home she went upstairs, and with something of a +shudder put off her mourning dress. There was no need for her to go in +her own house dressed in crape, though she must wear it abroad. She +had not been any relation of the Earl, after all. How it oppressed +her—these yards of mohair and crape and black bombasine! +</p> + +<p> +As she passed the door of the room that had belonged to the Countess +Fanny she saw that it was closed. Timidly opening it, she saw that it +was dark. There was no fire on the hearth, and all the foreign girl’s +trifles and ornaments had been put away. +</p> + +<p> +She called Julia with a touch of panic. +</p> + +<p> +“Julia—what’s this? Isn’t the Countess Fanny’s room to be kept ready +as usual?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, madam; master said that we were to stop that now, and put all her +things away. No fire and no light, miss, and the bed dismantled, as +you see. It’s a good thing, isn’t it, that the poor master, in a +manner of speaking, has come to his senses.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is convinced that she’s dead, then,” murmured Amy, shutting the +door softly. “He doesn’t expect her back.” +</p> + +<p> +She went downstairs. On the chair in the hall was Oliver’s tall black +hat, his weeper and his gloves and long black cloak. And in the +parlour was Oliver himself, still in his mourning suit, with the white +cravat and shirt, growing up his ruined, haggard face and his +ash-coloured hair; flung into the deep chair by the fire, drinking. +The red light reflected in the bottle of port and the glass of port +was like the redness of the Countess Fanny’s coral grapes. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch32"> +CHAPTER XXXII +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">Again</span> Ambrosia stood before her large, dark dressing-table, and, +with the keys in her hand, surveyed her mother’s <i>parure</i> laid out +precisely before her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +The spring had come, but it was not the spring of her dreams; she +wondered, without bitterness, if anyone ever had seen the spring-time +of their dreams. It was a chill, light, still season, like a pause of +exhaustion after the storms of winter. The first flowers had been +slain by frost. Ambrosia had marked the blackened violets and withered +daffodils rising from the iron-hard earth and the stunted grass of +last year. +</p> + +<p> +She still wore half-mourning for the Earl—purples and greys; but she +would soon change that—and for her wedding-dress. In a month’s time +she and Lucius were to be married, and they would go away from St. +Nite’s together, exactly as she had planned; and yet so differently, +from what she had planned.… +</p> + +<p> +She had not been able to release Lucius; indeed, in every possible way +she had bound him closer to her, appealing, she knew, to his +compassion and chivalry; nor had he given the least sign of wishing to +be released: but there was that between them—her feeling that she +should have let him go. She defied this feeling. She declared to +herself that she would not be intimidated by her own conscience; that +she would be, if not happy, at least secure, despite them all; if not +content, at least not thwarted. If she could never forget the Countess +Fanny, at least she could ignore her; and the same with Lucius. She +would never be able to probe the depth of his memories, but she knew +that he would never speak of them. They might be to some extent, she +dared to think, happy—as happiness was generally reckoned. +</p> + +<p> +She put on her jewels slowly. There was no one to dispute them with +her now; and she recalled the evening when she had refrained from +wearing them because she had realised, with a start that was almost a +pang, that they belonged to the Countess Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +She hoped now, almost with a sense of panic, that she had not grudged +them; there had been so little need to grudge Fanny anything, since +she was so immediately to relinquish all.… +</p> + +<p> +She sighed, staring at herself in the glass; not a beautiful woman, +but graceful and comely enough, and one who could wear handsome +clothes and stately jewellery. She would be a credit to the taste of +Lucius if she could not crown or satisfy the passions of Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s over now,” she said to herself, speaking aloud in the emphasis +of her thoughts; “it’s gone, with the storms of winter; and I must not +think of it any more. She came, and she went; and everything is as it +was, even with Oliver. Yes, I dare to think that even with Oliver it +is as it has been.” +</p> + +<p> +He had fallen lately into a sullen quiet, and most of his life had +been passed in a sullen quiet, so this was not remarkable. He seemed +scarcely more morose and melancholic than he had ever been; even as a +boy he had been sombre and gloomy, given to bursts of violence, and +sulky, brooding.… Ambrosia, living with him in such close intimacy, +might dare to say that she thought he had recovered from the shock of +losing Fanny Caldini. He went about his duties with grim efficiency. +Those who worked with him and those who served him found little change +in him; he was as he had been when he had lived there with his brother +and father, and as he had been later, when he returned home to inherit +the estate. He seemed older, certainly, and the two fits or seizures +he had had, had left a mark on his face; the right side was as if it +had been clawed and dragged, faintly yet distinctly out of place. And +with this defect his cold handsomeness was blemished. That slightly +sinister appearance which had always repelled his fellows was +accentuated. Yet, in everything else, one might say—thought Ambrosia, +still lingering by her mirror—that Oliver had recovered; and she +could, with a placid if not a pacified conscience, leave him. +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll be alone,” Mr. Spragge had said, almost fearfully. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia had said: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but he does not wish for company; and who would care to offer +themselves?” +</p> + +<p> +The clergyman had asked if the Countess Fanny’s relations had been +apprised of her death, and Ambrosia had said she supposed so. She had +ventured once again on the subject to Oliver, and he had said that all +those matters had been attended to; and with her own eyes she had seen +the letters coming from London, with the lawyers’ seal on them; and +letters from Italy, with the gaudy arms of the Caldini stamped in +yellow wax on the back. +</p> + +<p> +She went downstairs slowly and reluctantly, trying to capture the +sensation of pure delight with which she had gone downstairs a few +months ago to greet Lucius. There was to be one of her small +dinner-parties to-night—just the vicar and his wife, the doctor and +his sister, Oliver, Lucius, and herself. +</p> + +<p> +She had ordered the lamps to be lit early, though it was still light +without, for the spring twilight was bleak and drear, and the trees +were bare that showed against the pallid sky almost as white as +crystal. They had been robbed by the late severe frost of their early +leaves, and showed stark as winter. +</p> + +<p> +With an almost mechanical care, Ambrosia went round the table in her +rustling silk, examining the silver, the glass, and the napery, exact +and precise as usual. Always, through this most awful winter, she had +maintained this gallant decorum of outward appearance. That had been +in some measure her satisfaction and her triumph. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver was already in the room. She disliked Oliver in his black +evening clothes, with his black stock and his hair that looked now as +if it had been thickly powdered. His face was tanned and coarsened by +exposure to the fierce weather, and his lips were pallid. For all his +massive air of strength, he seemed to his sister a sick man. But she +would not touch on that—she would not in any way broach the tragedy +between them. She wondered sometimes if he kept the little straw +bonnet with the flattened wreaths of red flowers, and the torn +cashmere shawl; and wondered also as to the fate of the two coral +bracelets, one so oddly in the possession of Oliver, one so oddly in +the possession of Lucius; but she never spoke of these things, and she +tried to take her mind off them. And now, after her usual habit, she +talked of commonplace affairs to Oliver, in formal tones which she +strove to render affectionate. +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” she reminded herself nervously, “there is nothing now left to +make you think of the Countess Fanny; nothing whatever!” +</p> + +<p> +The maid had gone, well paid and lamenting. She had been packed off to +Italy, with all Fanny’s trunks and luggage, the harp, the trinkets, +the pretty vases, and silk hangings, all that useless encumbrance of +luxury which Fanny had insisted on bringing with her from Rome, and +which had cost Oliver so much vexation on the journey; all gone now! +Ambrosia had taken pains to be away from home the day that all these +things were loaded on to the wagons and taken down to the ferry. And +now the guest-chamber, which had once been her chamber, was exactly as +it had been, with cool, glazed chintz with raspberry and blue flowers +on them, the walls bare, save for pale water-colours of children and +flowers, the hearth upon which no fire was ever lit, and a +dressing-table with sprigged muslin over blue satin, on which no +ornaments were ever laid. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia wondered, “Will Oliver ever marry again? Will any other woman +ever inhabit that room?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius came early, and brought with him a large bouquet of exotics +from the glass-house at Lefton Park—fragile and delicate flowers, of +fantastic shapes and delicately stained with colour, with long Latin +names—aliens, which shed a faint, reluctant perfume in the warm room +and seemed already to be shivering to their death in this foreign +atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +But Ambrosia received them with gratitude, as she received any +attention, however formal and stately, on the part of her lover, with +gratitude. She knew so well, in the recesses of her soul, that the +debt was all on her side. He could do very well without her, but she +could not do without him; and her obligation was immense. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius had changed, too, since that six weeks he had spent on the +lighthouse during the tempest. No longer could she faintly despise +him, think of him as too youthful, too dreamy, too irresolute. He had +grown beyond her stature and beyond her judgment. If his essential +sweetness was more than before apparent, so was his essential strength +which, in a fashion, she had before missed. Fastidious and dilettante +as she had thought him (always she had been slightly contemptuous of +his passion for engineering, for the lighthouse), he had proved +himself to be as resolute and as valiant as any of those ancestors of +his who had fought on land or sea, or shown firmness and courage in +the council chamber. She herself realised, and she had heard others +remark, that not many men, inexperienced as he was, young as he was, +could have done what he had done, and done it coolly, without any +complaint or self-consciousness. She had imagination enough to +understand what those six weeks must have meant to him, tormented by +his passion for the lost woman, assaulted by the raging seas which had +devoured her, alone, after the boy’s death, for so many days, isolated +in the midst of the tempest.… +</p> + +<p> +Her manner with Lucius now was different—timid, at times almost +humble. She was thankful now for his mere kindness, where before she +had rather haughtily demanded his full love. +</p> + +<p> +They all sat down to the handsomely appointed table, reserved, +amiable, stately. Ambrosia caught a sight of herself; looking up +suddenly, she beheld herself in the round diminishing mirror, framed +in the Empire style, that her mother had bought in Paris. She saw +herself in the burnished silk and the heavy lace bertha, and <i>parure</i> +of jewels, and she thought vaguely: “That is I, sitting here at the +head of this table, with Oliver opposite and Lucius near me, and those +four other people who have known me all my life; and I am talking +quite pleasantly, and eating and drinking, and nobody says anything at +all about Fanny Caldini.…” +</p> + +<p> +After dinner they went into the drawing-room, where daffodils and +snowdrops and violets, disposed in the silver vases, gave out a chill +fragrance of spring in the fire-warmed room. +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia sat down before the tall, rosewood piano, with the red satin +quilted into an odd design underneath the lattice-work, and played and +sang while Lucius turned over the music. But she avoided any Italian +<i>aria</i>, though they were now so fashionable; nor did any of the +company ask for them. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver had said little during the meal, but this was not remarked, as +he was usually so taciturn and even sullen in his demeanour. +</p> + +<p> +While Ambrosia sang and played, he remained sunk in his chair, his +chin dropped into his cravat as if he were lost in dangerous dreams. +Then the doctor’s rather shabby little brougham drove up, and took him +and his sister and the vicar and his wife away; and there were +amiable, but rather formal, farewells, and some guarded talk of the +marriage and the future. +</p> + +<p> +Then the other three sat alone in the drawing-room, and heard the +sound of the horses’ hoofs going off into the distance. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver was drinking steadily, but as yet this appeared to have had no +effect on him. He rose now, and abruptly left the room, neither +speaking to nor glancing at Ambrosia nor Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“He still drinks too much,” murmured his sister, “and yet he seems +something recovered, don’t you think, Lucius?” +</p> + +<p> +She addressed him in that softer manner which she now used towards +everyone. Ambrosia had of late lost much of her self-assurance and her +hardness; she had been nearly overwhelmed by disaster and was humbled +by the good fortune of her escape. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver seems to me much as he ever was,” said Lucius carefully. “But +then, he is much shut away by himself. I am very sorry for Oliver,” he +added. “And you will leave him here alone, Amy?” +</p> + +<p> +She replied hastily, as if defending herself: +</p> + +<p> +“What else can I do?” And she said, as she had said to the clergyman: +“There is no one who would come and stay with Oliver; and Oliver will +not leave St. Nite’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, to each his destiny,” sighed Lucius. Then he added in a more +cheerful tone: “Perhaps as the years go by—that’s the great cure for +everything, eh, Amy—time?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at Amy closely as he spoke, then rose impulsively, and came +and stood by her chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Amy, I wanted to ask you: has Oliver ever said anything to you +about——” +</p> + +<p> +She knew the name he wished to speak and could not say, and she helped +him gently: +</p> + +<p> +“Fanny? Do you mean about Fanny? No, he has never mentioned her since +that illness of his, when you came off the lighthouse. A few days +after that”—she laboured with her words, thinking of that +conversation in the carriage, when Oliver had told her so violently +that if she married Lucius, Fanny would be always between them—“he +spoke of her death with great passion; but since, nothing!” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius gazed at her earnestly, trying to perceive if she spoke the +truth. As far as he knew, Oliver had never mentioned again that +violent accusation which he had thrown in his face on the day of his +father’s funeral; but it had often gnawed at his heart that he had, in +secret, expressed it to Amy. But now he felt assured that this was not +so. Amy was sad, but too tranquil to have been ever asked to consider +such a thought as that. +</p> + +<p> +“That is all, Amy,” he remarked; “I just wondered if he ever spoke of +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“There have been letters, as I think you know,” said Ambrosia, “from +the lawyers and from Italy. He has never told anything of it to me, +and I—well, why should I ask, Lucius?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, indeed?” smiled the young man. “It is over, is it not?” +</p> + +<p> +Now was the moment when she might have bared her heart to him, and ask +him what it had all meant to him, and told him of her sympathy and +loyalty and gratitude. But she would not do this; she remained +enclosed within herself, and merely repeated: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is over, Lucius.” +</p> + +<p> +“And we must take up life,” added the young man, with a gallant smile, +“and you must never think, Amy, that I was distracted from you—for +more than a little while.” +</p> + +<p> +She was startled at this. Was he, then, going to tear down those veils +which she had so carefully arranged over this most dreadful subject? +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, of course!” she agreed at once. “You would be distracted +by such a tragedy as that. That was only natural, was it not, Lucius? +You were the last to see her. I understood.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius looked at her very curiously, and smiled. She could not endure +either the glance or the smile, and turned her eyes away. He could +think her obtuse and foolish, vain and dull if he would, but he should +not bring this thing out between them and force her to listen to his +confession that he had loved the Countess Fanny… and she vowed then +that she would be such a wife to him that she would make him forget +that he ever had loved that strange, foreign girl, even for a few days +loved her.… Oh, could love be confined to a space of time? +</p> + +<p> +She waited, fearful that he would again try to speak—endeavour to +open his heart and make some confession—but he had been checked in +his attempt. +</p> + +<p> +He remained long silent, staring into the fire, and she venturing to +glance at his face, saw a secret expression there and knew that she +would often behold it on those dear features. +</p> + +<p> +When he did speak, it was to consult her about the choice of hotels +where they might stay in Paris, and Ambrosia knew that the danger had +passed—possibly for ever. It was not likely, she thought, that he +would again try to tell her that he had loved Fanny Caldini. Yet, even +in her relief, the woman thought that this, perhaps, was the worse +alternative that she had chosen; she had turned back his confidence, +and he would not offer it again. Were they not, then, though to all +outward appearances so loving and intimate, yet further estranged? If +she could have said “I know you love her; I know you love her still, +and I’ll stand by and do what I can,” would not that have given her a +better chance, brought them nearer? It was, anyhow, too late. +</p> + +<p> +Soon he took his leave. He was going to walk home. There was a moon, +and he liked that two miles along the cool road in the clear night. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver was not to be found, so the young Earl left Sellar’s Mead +without taking leave of his host. He carried no lantern, for the moon +was almost full, and there were no clouds in the cold sky. He did not +go directly to his home, but turned aside and took one of the lanes +across the fields which led to the cliffs, and mounted the swelling +ground until he reached a point where he could behold the sea, and the +distant flash, red and white, of the light on St. Nite’s Head, that +beacon which he had for six weeks kept alight with his own hands. +</p> + +<p> +The sea was calm now, curling its sluggish foam among the rocks below; +and the moon traced a path of silver on the water that seemed of +polished metal. +</p> + +<p> +The young Earl took a coral bracelet from his pocket, and looked at it +by the light of the moon, and was so absorbed in contemplating this +ornament that he did not hear any footfall behind him; only a shadow +passed across his path, causing him to look round: Oliver Sellar was +close behind him, hatless, in his evening clothes, and with the +distortion in his face most noticeable. +</p> + + +<h3 id="ch33"> +CHAPTER XXXIII +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +“<span class="sc">You</span> followed me?” asked Lucius quietly, returning the bracelet to +his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“Every step,” said Oliver. “You did not perceive me, did you, in the +shrubbery when you passed? You were so bemused that you never thought +there was anyone behind you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I never thought that you would follow me,” said the young Earl +quietly. “Why should I?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve forgotten, then, what passed when we last met, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, of course I’ve not forgotten,” answered Lucius. “But I have +discovered to-night, Oliver,” he added, with something of an effort, +“that you have not mentioned this to Amy; and for that I respect you. +You have not let that accusation, so wild and impossible, pass your +lips to any but myself, and I am grateful.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was not for your sake I kept silent,” said Oliver harshly, “but +because I wished to settle the matter myself, with no interference. As +for Amy, she’s a fool—or cunning; she’ll take you, knowing what she +knows!” +</p> + +<p> +“Amy knows nothing,” replied Lucius firmly. “What is there for her to +know? Do not again try to force these wild imaginings on me, Oliver. I +hoped that you had recovered from your insane delusions.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think of nothing else, day and night,” replied Oliver in low tones, +and with such agony in his look and voice that Lucius glanced at him +with a deep compassion. “What else should I think of—what else can I +ever think of?” Then he added fiercely, with a change of manner: “And +you—what do you do here now? You didn’t return home, you see; you +came to the cliffs. And there you’re standing, looking at the +lighthouse, looking at the sea, staring at her bracelet.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius drew back a step before this violence. +</p> + +<p> +“Take care,” he said quietly, “don’t go too far, Oliver. This is a +dangerous matter to broach in this dangerous place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aye, dangerous indeed!” smiled Oliver. “It wasn’t far from here, was +it, that they found her bonnet. I always admired those red +flowers—she looked well in crimson.… I thought of her like that, you +know—crimson flowers.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius was startled off his guard, for he, too, had thought of Fanny +Caldini as a branch laden with warm red roses, and he could recall how +this simile had come to him the last time she had been at Lefton Park, +sitting there by the fire in her damp clothes, with her wet shoes; he +had thought of her then, so vivid and beautiful, as a spray of crimson +flowers. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver,” he cried now, with a wildness in his accent, “our silence is +her best monument.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe, there’ll be years of silence, I think,” retorted Oliver; “but +meanwhile you and I must make our reckoning.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no reckoning between us,” replied Lucius sternly. +</p> + +<p> +But Oliver retorted violently: +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a dreadful reckoning. You had her on that lighthouse for +days, for weeks. You stole her away under my eyes. Either you’ve got +her hidden somewhere on the Continent, or you let her drown. Either +way you’re answerable to me. She was mine, I say! I might have endured +to be cheated by death, but not by you!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not sober,” said Lucius, breathing quickly. “You would not +have done a thing like this in your senses. You drink too heavily, +Oliver, you’ll bring on another attack.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look to yourself, and leave me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be glad when I’ve taken Amy away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Taken Amy away!” sneered Oliver sombrely. “That’ll be a pretty +wedding; some fine love-making there! She knows, I tell you; she +knows! And Fanny, dead or alive, will always be between you. I’ve told +her so.” +</p> + +<p> +“You told her that?” exclaimed Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; and she wouldn’t hear it. She’ll cling on to you at any price. +She hasn’t the courage to let you go. She’ll pay, poor wretch, she’ll +pay,” he added bitterly. “As the years go on I dare swear her agony +will be worse than yours.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius did not speak, but put his hand to his lips and stared out to +sea. +</p> + +<p> +“You think that you’ll gloss everything over by marrying Amy,” +continued Oliver violently. “You salve your conscience by that—doing +your duty, you call it—covering everything up. Well, you’ll have your +reward for all your respectability and dutiful behaviour. You and Amy +will come to hate each other, I have no doubt. That is, you would,” he +added, “if I gave you a chance.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius looked at him swiftly, sensing the meaning of this last menace. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean to kill you,” added Oliver. “For weeks my fingers have ached +to be at your throat. I mean to throw you down now on the rocks and +into the sea that you’re so fond of.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had thought,” whispered Lucius, “that you had some such intention. +I’ve seen it in your eyes several times.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was only waiting an opportunity,” said Oliver, “and now I’ve found +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius folded his arms on his breast. He knew that Oliver was +immensely his superior in strength, and infuriated even beyond his +ordinary powers by drink and long, brooding, violent passion. +</p> + +<p> +The place was completely lonely. There was no house nearer than Lefton +Park, which stood a mile or more away. He had no weapon against any +attack on the part of Oliver, and for all he knew Oliver might have +knife and pistol hidden on his person. Even if he had not, with his +bare hands he could murder Lucius. +</p> + +<p> +With contempt the young man said: +</p> + +<p> +“This will be a cruel thing for Amy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll not save yourself,” retorted Oliver Sellar, “by talking of +Amy. This is between you and me; we’ll leave Amy out of it. She’ll be +happier withering and pining at Sellar’s Mead than married to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Even if you hang for this?” asked the young Earl haughtily. +</p> + +<p> +“I shan’t hang,” replied Oliver, with a ghastly grin. “It will be an +accident—the same kind of accident as befell Fanny Caldini.… I’m +going to throw you over the cliff—you’ll be found there, dashed on +the rocks. And then I shall go home, and nobody will know that I left +the house to-night, and they’ll think that you were wandering here, +dreaming about Fanny Caldini, and lost your balance, like the fool you +are! I shall not hang for you!” He came closer to Lucius as he spoke, +and Lucius, drawing farther away from him, found himself nearer to the +edge of the cliff; and, as he did so, calculated coolly his chances of +escape. He thought that these were slight enough; nothing would be +likely to placate Oliver Sellar now, nor would he, Lucius, have the +strength to resist his murderous onslaught; there would be a brief +struggle before the strong man cast him down that drop of thirty feet +or more on to the sharp rocks beneath. But his heart scarcely beat the +faster for his peril. He reflected coolly that this was an odd and +sudden end to it all, and one unexpected; and his mind turned to Amy, +and the long lonely distress ahead of her; and then, oddly, to his +stranger cousin, who would inherit his name and his property.… If it +had not been for Amy, perhaps it was as well that it should end thus, +leaving another man, a more fortunate man, to carry on his line. +</p> + +<p> +“Oliver.” He spoke with proud indifference, staring with narrowed eyes +through the moonlight. “You’re behaving like a fool, you know. This’ll +only drive you into deeper madness when you think of it later on.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned and stood his ground a couple of feet from the edge of the +cliff, calculating as to whether, if he turned and ran inland, he +could escape Oliver. He might do so, for he was the younger and the +swifter; yet to do so would be like running away, and he could not +bring himself to do that. +</p> + +<p> +“Confess,” cried Oliver, standing close to him. “Confess that you had +her on the lighthouse—that you know where she is. Tell me if she was +drowned the night the French barque went ashore, or if you have her +hidden somewhere. Tell me that, and I’ll let you go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you, then, trust me to speak the truth now?” asked Lucius +scornfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Men generally speak the truth when there’s Death face to face with +them,” cried Oliver, bearing down on him. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know me,” replied the young Earl, “if you think I can be +frightened. Lie or truth—take it which way you will—you’ll get +nothing more out of me but what I told you in Lefton Park on the day +of my father’s funeral.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll see!” yelled Oliver. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius expected the flash of a pistol, or the gleam of a knife in the +moonlight; but there was neither. It was with his bare hands that +Oliver Sellar came at him, making for his throat with clawing, greedy +fingers. +</p> + +<p> +The young man threw out his arm to ward off this attack, and at the +same moment stepped swiftly aside, but he could not altogether evade +his assailant, who got him, if not by the throat, by the shoulders, +and shook him up and down, to and fro, snarling, screaming, raging +incoherently. +</p> + +<p> +“You fool!” panted Lucius, struggling frantically to wrench himself +free, and exerting more strength than he knew himself to possess. +“You’ll have us both over the cliff!” +</p> + +<p> +“Speak, speak!” screamed Oliver. “Tell me where she is; tell me if +she’s dead or hidden; confess you had her in the lighthouse!” +</p> + +<p> +Lucius did not answer. He was fighting with all his force to keep his +foothold, struggling not to be hurled to the ground or flung over the +cliff by this lunatic strength which attacked him so ferociously.… He +did not so greatly care if he died or no, but youth and health were +strong in him, and he thought of Amy with real affection and +tenderness, and desired to spare her this last tragedy. So he resisted +fiercely the grip of Oliver, and once wrenched quite away, leaving a +portion of his torn sleeve in the other man’s clutch. +</p> + +<p> +“You had her, you had her!” shrieked Oliver. “Confess that you had +her!” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” panted Lucius, “no!” +</p> + +<p> +Oliver did not, as he had expected, immediately attack him again, but +stood for a second rigid, with his distorted face turned up, and +bleached in the moonlight, with an unnatural, ashy pallor; there were +blood and foam on his lips, and his hands clenched stiffly at his +side; he seemed dead. Lucius remembered with horror the seizures to +which the wretched man had lately been subject, and cried out: +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake come away from the edge of the cliff—come away!” and +made an attempt to seize that dark, erect, convulsed figure. +</p> + +<p> +But Oliver turned, and struck out impotently, still rigid, still +convulsed, and fell to his knees, then to his side, and then was gone, +falling through the calm moonlit air. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius sank prone on the ground, and covered his face with his hands; +when he could compose his swirling, dizzy senses he rose and peered +over the face of the cliff. +</p> + +<p> +Oliver was lying below on the dark rocks, black and white in the +moonlight—black clothes, white shirt, white face—so distinct in the +moonlight. +</p> + +<p> +“He, and not I, after all!” thought the young Earl curiously; and he +began the painful descent of the face of the ragged cliff. +</p> + +<p> +When, torn, bleeding, and exhausted, he reached Oliver, he discovered +that he was dead, as he had known he must be dead from the moment he +had seen him topple over the cliff—had known and yet not quite +believed—dead… Oliver.… +</p> + +<p> +“Another secret,” thought Lucius quietly. +</p> + +<p> +He knelt beside the dead man with a certain tenderness. Oliver Sellar +looked grotesque in his precise evening clothes, flung there on the +wild rocks and lonely shore. +</p> + +<p> +Lucius searched his pockets, and took from one of them a coral +bracelet, which was the companion to that which he cherished himself; +and, with both these ornaments in his trembling hand, he sat down on a +rock near by, and by the light of the moon stared down on the dead +man. He thought: “Never again will he ask me about Fanny +Caldini—that’s over.” +</p> + +<p> +The gentle boom of the sea was in his ears, and when he raised his +eyes he could see the red and white flash of the lighthouse in the +distance. +</p> + +<p> +Another secret! No one need ever know; no one would be the better for +knowing. Another accident on these treacherous rocks… he had been +walking with Oliver on the cliff; Oliver had had a seizure and had +fallen over… a simple story; a likely, if tragic incident; no one +would doubt it, any more than anyone had doubted that other death he +had had to report, that other accident of which he had been the sole +witness, the end of that other victim of the sea—the youth lost on +the lighthouse rocks. +</p> + + +<h3 id="epilogue"> +EPILOGUE +</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +<span class="sc">Custom</span> had so schooled the lady that she seldom indulged in the +dangerous luxury of memory. But sometimes, when the music played, and +she sat, as now, idle in the theatre, vague images of years ago would +come into her mind. She was beside her husband in a box at the opera +in Paris, formal, composed, amiable, brilliantly yet modestly +dressed—an aristocratic Englishwoman, the wife of a successful +diplomat, the mother of well-bred children—the Countess of Lefton, by +all respected and admired; by none, perhaps, very warmly loved; but +that had not as yet been admitted by Ambrosia. She never said, even in +the innermost recesses of her heart: “My husband does not love me.…” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him now as he sat beside her—a distinguished, quiet, +stately man. She had no definite thoughts of her own, and she wondered +what his thoughts were. +</p> + +<p> +They very seldom went to Cornwall now—both Sellar’s Mead and Flimwel +Grange were let, the land farmed by others and the houses shut up; and +their visits to Lefton Park were brief and rare and always in full +summer. +</p> + +<p> +They lived mostly abroad, as Ambrosia had always planned to live +abroad; but, of all the countries they had been to, they had never +travelled to Italy, and there was good excuse in the revolutions, the +wars, and troubles in that disturbed South. +</p> + +<p> +But the music to-night was Italian, and one of the songs both these +people had heard lightly played on a harp, in the drawing-room in +Sellar’s Mead, ten years ago this winter: the winter that Lucius had +taken the watch on the lighthouse and Oliver had met with the accident +that had killed him; far away now, all of it, and they never spoke of +it, of course; and Ambrosia wondered why she must think of it +to-night. Simply because the melody was Italian, she supposed. They +never spoke of Italy, or of anything that came from Italy. That had +become a frosty custom between them, part of the eternal subterfuge +they played with one another, and to which they were now so used that +they were hardly aware that they played it—custom, “deep as life.” +</p> + +<p> +They had never quarrelled: that was the most deadly fact about their +life—that they were always courteous to one another, and never +disagreed; because they were keeping a pact which each had sworn to +themselves—a pact of gratitude on her part, and of duty on his, which +she maintained with fortitude and he with sweetness. +</p> + +<p> +The many clusters of radiant lights were kept lit during the +performance, and Ambrosia’s gaze wandered from the stage and round the +house; and finally rested on a party opposite, who occupied one of the +ornate boxes facing their own. +</p> + +<p> +Her attention was attracted by these people because the woman wore so +many diamonds—a <i>rivière</i> of brilliants round her white neck, and +falling in sparkling drops on her white bosom; a tiara of brilliants +in her smooth black curls; brilliants round her wrists; a very +beautiful woman—vivid, imposing, and splendid. An elderly lady and +two men were her companions; she sat before them, and rested on the +edge of the <i>loge</i> an enormous bouquet of deep crimson roses arranged +in a circle of white lace with long crimson ribbon, which hung over +red velvet and gilt tasselled cushions; and Ambrosia looked, +fascinated, at this profusion of luxurious flowers—crimson roses in +the midst of winter. And presently, when the act was over, she +remarked to her husband: +</p> + +<p> +“That is a very beautiful woman opposite; do you know who she is?” +</p> + +<p> +The Earl glanced across the theatre, and said no, he did not know who +the lady might be. He spoke with careless courtesy, and deep +indifference. +</p> + +<p> +A great many people were gazing at that beautiful woman, and when some +friends came into Lady Lefton’s box she asked them, “Who is the +gorgeous stranger?” and one of them informed her that she was a +certain Marquise de Marsac, the wife of a considerable noble, and, +they believed, Spanish by birth. She had certainly been for some years +in South America, and that was where her husband had met her. “He was +a very wealthy man,” added the informant with a smile, “as the lady’s +appearance might indicate.” +</p> + +<p> +Ambrosia gazed at the stranger again. She could not fathom her own +uncontrollable impulse to stare and stare at this woman. And then, +suddenly—and the knowledge was like a sharp pain in her body—she +knew why: for the lady opposite had turned her face full towards her, +and Ambrosia thought: “Why, she is like Fanny Caldini! Exactly like +Fanny Caldini would be now!” And she instinctively glanced at her +husband. +</p> + +<p> +He was reading his programme; Ambrosia could not bring herself to +mention that name, which had not passed the lips of either of them for +ten years. Besides, of course, it was absurd; a Spanish-American! How +could Fanny have escaped, and have remained for ten years concealed? +And what of her relations—that woman with her now? Why, she was +like—and Ambrosia smiled at her own oddity—she was like she had +imagined the faithful Madame de Mailly; and surely that was Fanny +Caldini’s very way of holding her head, and flinging back the long, +black curls? +</p> + +<p> +“You look very pale, my love!” remarked the Earl, suddenly turning +towards her. And then she had to say: +</p> + +<p> +“That woman opposite reminded me of someone—Of poor Fanny Caldini!” +And the name was spoken at last, after all these years. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes,” replied the Earl, still indifferently. “It is a common +enough type, you know; and then those red roses.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do red roses make you think of her?” asked Amy. “There were no +red roses then, you know, in Cornwall in the winter-time.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he admitted, “no; and yet there is that association in my mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“In mine, too,” said Amy. “Odd that they should be playing Italian +music to-night,” and she nearly added (but checked herself in time): +“when we have so avoided everything Italian.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is the music, perhaps, that brings up the likeness,” returned +Lucius, and Amy looked earnestly at his fine face—already, though he +was but little over thirty, too fine-drawn—a closed, a secret, a +resigned face. +</p> + +<p> +“She is very beautiful,” murmured Amy. “How those diamonds become her! +I suppose the elderly man is her husband, and that lady, perhaps, her +sister; an elder sister, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, too old,” remarked the Earl; and the man who had told them the +identity of the fair creature said no, she was only a companion, one +who had always been with Madame de Marsac, and was in her complete +confidence. +</p> + +<p> +The voluptuous music began again to fill the vast theatre. Amy felt +her head aching. She wished she had not come to the opera; she did not +care for these garish diversions. The routine of every day suited her +best: small duties, small cares, decorous conventions, elegant +company, a stately going to and fro of petty pleasures and petty +cares. Why need she tell herself now, defiantly, that she was happy? +Why need a flicker of passion that she had long hoped burnt out flame +up again as she looked at her husband, so remote and cool, as always +remote and cool. +</p> + +<p> +He was holding his programme up as if to shade his tired eyes from the +glare of the light; behind his programme he was looking at that woman +opposite, flashing in her diamonds, throwing back, with a white hand, +those long, black ringlets. +</p> + +<p> +Absurd! absurd! She must not let such a thought get hold of her, or +everywhere she might see the likeness of Fanny Caldini. Had she not +been married at an altar, beside which was a new marble tablet +inscribed: <i>To the memory of Francesca Sylvestra Caldini, drowned by +accident on these coasts, November</i> 13<i>th</i>, 1856? +</p> + +<p> +There were many Italian women of that type; she must remember that. It +had been the music and the roses. Italian! But this woman was Spanish… +well, then <i>Southern</i> women of that type. The music and the roses, of +course.… Italian music, and that little <i>aria</i> Fanny had played on the +pretty gilt harp that Oliver had brought, with so much vexation, from +the castle outside Rome, the odd association with red flowers—of +course she had heard Oliver say that, and that was what lingered in +her mind.… The girl who had come and stayed so short a time had been +like red flowers, he had said—red roses, in that unutterably chill +and stormy and distant winter. +</p> + +<p> +They left the theatre, and were delayed for a moment or so by the +brilliant crowd in the <i>foyer</i>. In that moment they were brought quite +close to the lady who had sat in the box opposite, and who was leaving +the theatre with her companions. Amy could still not forbear to stare +at her; seen close, she had more than ever the likeness of Fanny +Caldini—yet a woman, where that Fanny had been a girl; and stately, +where that Fanny had been wild. But how like! And Amy stood mute +beside her husband, glad of the press, the gay voices and the +laughter, and the formal, artificial air that encompassed them. +</p> + +<p> +As the stranger approached, she looked at them. She was holding that +close-packed bouquet of red roses high against her bosom; and then, as +she paused near them, higher still against her lips; and over it she +looked at them directly. And Ambrosia’s lips almost formed the word +“<i>Fanny!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +She pressed her husband’s arm, murmuring a request that he should take +her away, for the heat and the perfumes were excessive. The stranger +had just passed them, and was glancing back, still looking at them; +and Amy saw that the Earl was looking at her; no wonder in that; she +was a very beautiful woman, most extravagantly bedizened with +diamonds, the most voluptuously and gorgeously attired woman there; he +was not the only man who stared at her. For a second they looked at +each other across those red roses she carried, higher still now, so +that only her black eyes flashed above their crimson radiance.… For +that one second she and Lucius looked at each other… he had no +expression in his tired face. +</p> + +<p> +And then she had turned away, and, leaning on the arm of her elderly +escort, was gone down the wide stairs, the long, stiff train of her +crimson satin dress rippling behind her. +</p> + +<p> +“She is very beautiful,” murmured Amy timidly. +</p> + +<p> +The Earl did not answer; Amy had always been accustomed to feeling +outside his intimacy, but never had she had that sense so strongly as +she had it to-night.… He was a stranger—a stranger who was not +interested in her; she had never quite put that into words before. +</p> + +<p> +In the carriage she began talking about ordinary affairs; this was +their last night in Paris. He had a post in a city in Central Europe, +and it might be months before they would return here. She said she was +glad—she had grown to dislike Paris. It was so large and noisy and +garish. +</p> + +<p> +The Earl said yes; the excessive lights at the opera, and the flash of +jewels, tired one’s eyes and gave one a headache. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning, when taking leave of her acquaintances, Ambrosia had +the curiosity to enquire of them if they knew anything of Madame de +Marsac; and she was told that that brilliant and erratic lady had left +Paris early that morning. +</p> + +<p> +“She seldom stays long anywhere, and now, I believe, she is to return +to South America after spending the winter in the South.” +</p> + +<p> +They would not, then, meet again; and she must be careful. In no other +woman must she see a likeness to Fanny Caldini. For when she had +looked at that lovely woman last night, and then at her husband’s +face, expressionless, composed, alien, she had felt as if someone had +knocked on the lone structure of her life and sounded the hollowness +of all her supposed happiness, echoing in that hollowness the name of +Fanny Caldini. +</p> + +<p class="center mt1"> +THE END +</p> + + +<h2> +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES +</h2> + +<p> +Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. fisherfolk/fisher-folk, +Jefferies/Jeffries, newel-post/newel post, etc.) have been preserved. +</p> + +<p class="noindent mt1"> +<b>Alterations to the text</b>: +</p> + +<p> +Add ToC. +</p> + +<p> +Fix some quotation mark pairings/nestings. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter III] +</p> + +<p> +Change “The <i>stanger</i> was not in the least shy or self-conscious” to +<i>stranger</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter V] +</p> + +<p> +“their estate was on too lonely. too wild, and too unproductive” +change the period to a comma. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter VII] +</p> + +<p> +“She stretched out her hand gracefully. and said, still with that” +change the period to a comma. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter IX] +</p> + +<p> +“Well. that was before my time, then the place was bought” change the +period to a comma. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter X] +</p> + +<p> +“nay, in a fashion more than <i>perculiar</i>; a fashion indecorous” to +<i>peculiar</i>. +</p> + +<p> +(“Don’t carry these petty quarrels too far” she said.) add a comma at +the end of the quoted passage. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter XII] +</p> + +<p> +“a <i>hugh</i> tank for the accommodation of oil” to <i>huge</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“As clearly as as if she now spoke the words” delete the third <i>as</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter XIV] +</p> + +<p> +“defend herself against this invective. but, rising, said” change the +period to a comma. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter XIX] +</p> + +<p> +“She was a very radiant and gay and lovely creature. my dear” change +the period to a comma. +</p> + +<p> +“She didn’t come here, I hope. Amy, for protection.” change the period +to a comma. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter XX] +</p> + +<p> +“the sombre personality of Ambrosia. in her dark dress” change the +period to a comma. +</p> + +<p> +“Yet she found herself saying, almost against her own volition;” +change the semicolon to a colon. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter XXII] +</p> + +<p> +(“Very well”; assented Oliver, “we’ll begin on the ground floor”) +delete the semicolon and place a comma at the end of the first quoted +passage. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter XXV] +</p> + +<p> +“<i>They’r</i> only standing out for a higher price” to <i>They’re</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“bitterly resented by the <i>independen</i> spirit of the Cornishmen” to +<i>independent</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“going to take the watch on the lighthouse. and you can go with him” +change the period to a comma. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter XXVI] +</p> + +<p> +“to have children. and her place in the ordinary world” change the +period to a comma. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter XXVII] +</p> + +<p> +“with the late dawn, the bitter, chill, the stormy winter dawn” delete +the comma after <i>bitter</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“bringing with her from Rome. and which had cost Oliver so much” +change the period to a comma. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Chapter XXIX] +</p> + +<p> +(“Yes, yes,” they both said at once “we saw the rockets.”) add a comma +after <i>once</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +[Epilogue] +</p> + +<p> +(were hardly aware that they played it—custom, “deep as life,”) +change the final comma to a period. +</p> + +<p> +“as she looked at her husband. so remote and cool” change the period +to a comma. +</p> + +<p class="center mt1"> +[End of text] +</p> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77839 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/77839-h/images/cover.jpg b/77839-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..128eed0 --- /dev/null +++ b/77839-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..357ce80 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #77839 +(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77839) |
