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.

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.