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.