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Title: The Countess Fanny
A Cornish sea piece (1856)
Author: Marjorie Bowen
Release date: February 2, 2026 [eBook #77839]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Hodder and Stoughton Limited, 1928
Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COUNTESS FANNY ***
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]
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