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.