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.”