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!”