"I'm sorry," I began.
Then Lady Harriet came in. She looked like an avenging goddess and my knees suddenly felt as though they would not hold me.
Fabian had risen from the sofa. "What a fuss!" he said. "She was my slave. I commanded her to bring me the fan."
I saw the relief in Miss Etherton's face and I felt a spurt of laughter bubbling up. It might have been mildly hysterical, but it was laughter all the same.
Lady Harriet's face had softened. "Oh, Fabian!" she murmured.
Ayesha said, "But the fan ... Miss Lucille's fan ..."
"I commanded her," repeated Fabian. "She had no alternative but to obey. She is my slave."
Lady Harriet began to laugh. "Well, now you understand, Ayesha. Take the fan back to Miss Lucille. No harm has been done to it and that is an end to the matter." She turned to Fabian. "Lady Goodman has written asking if you would care to visit Adrian for part of the summer holiday. How do you feel?"
Fabian shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.
"Shall we talk about it? Come along, dear boy. I think we should give a prompt reply."
Fabian, casting a rather scornful look at the company which had been so concerned over such a trivial matter as the borrowing of a fan, left with his mother.
The incident was, I thought, over. They had been so concerned and it seemed to me that there was something important about the fan, but Lady Harriet and Fabian between them had reduced it to a matter of no importance.
Ayesha had gone, carrying the fan as though it were very precious, and the two governesses had followed her. Lavinia and I were alone.
"I have to take the chalice back before they find we had that, too. I wonder they didn't notice, but there was such a fuss over the fan. You'll have to come with me."
I was still feeling shocked, because I had been the one to take the fan, which was clearly a very important article since it had caused such a disturbance. I wondered what would have happened if Fabian had not been there to exonerate me from blame. I should probably have been banned from the house forevermore. I should have hated that, although I never felt welcome there. Still, the fascination was strong. All the people in it interested me ... even Lavinia, who was frequently rude and certainly never hospitable.
I thought how noble Fabian had looked pouring scorn on them all and taking the responsibility. Of course, it was his responsibility, and it was only right that he should take the blame. But he had made it seem that there was no blame, and that they were all rather foolish to make such a fuss.
Meekly I followed Lavinia to another part of the house, which I had never seen before.
"Great-Aunt Lucille is in the west wing. This is the east," she told me. "We are going to the Nun's room. You had better watch out. The Nun doesn't like strangers. I'm all right. I'm one of the family."
"Well, why are you frightened to go alone?"
"I'm not frightened. I just thought you'd like to see it. You haven't got any ghosts in that old rectory, have you?"
"Who wants ghosts anyway? What good do they do?"
"A great house always has them. They warn people."
"Then if the Nun wouldn't want me, I'll leave you to go on your own."
"No, no. You've got to come, too."
"Suppose I won't."
"Then I'll never let you come to this house again."
"I wouldn't mind. You're not very nice ... any of you."
"Oh, how dare you! You are only the rector's daughter and he owes the living to us."
I was afraid there might be something in that. Perhaps Lady Harriet could turn us out if she were displeased with me. I understood Lavinia. She wanted me with her because she was afraid to go to the Nun's room alone.
We went along a corridor. She turned and took my hand. "Come on," she whispered. "It's just along here."
She opened a door. We were in a small room that looked like a nun's cell. Its walls were bare and there was a crucifix hanging over a narrow bed. There was just one table and chair. The atmosphere was one of austerity.
She put the chalice on the table and in great haste ran out of the room, followed by me. We sped along the corridors and then she turned to regard me with satisfaction. Her natural arrogance and composure had returned. She led the way back to the room where, a short time before, Fabian had sprawled on a sofa and I had fanned him with the peacock-feather fan.
"You see," said Lavinia, "we have a lot of history in our family. We came over with the Conqueror. I reckon your family were serfs."
"Oh no, we were not."
"Yes, you were. Well, the Nun was one of our ancestresses. She fell in love with an unsuitable man ... I believe he was a curate or a rector. Those sort of people do not marry into families like ours."
"They would have been better educated than your people, I dare say."
"We don't have to worry about education. It is only people like you who have to do that. Miss Etherton says you know more than I do, though you're a year younger. I don't care. I don't have to be educated."
"Education is the greatest boon you can have," I said, quoting my father. "Tell me about the Nun."
"He was so far below her that she couldn't marry him. Her father forbade it and she went into a convent. But she couldn't live without him, so she escaped and went to him. Her brother went after them and killed the lover. She was brought home and put in that room, which was like a cell. It has never been changed. She drank poison from the chalice and she is supposed to come back to that room and haunt it."
"Do you believe that?"
"Of course I do."
"You must have been very frightened when you came in for the chalice."
"It's what you have to do when you're playing Fabian's games. I thought that since Fabian had sent me the ghost wouldn't hurt me."
"You seem to think your brother is some sort of god."
"He is," she replied.
It did seem that he was regarded as such in that household.
When we walked home, Miss York said, "My goodness, what a to-do about a fan. There would have been real trouble if Mr. Fabian hadn't been behind it."
I was more and more fascinated by the House. I often thought of the nun who had drunk from the chalice and killed herself for love. I talked of this to Miss York, who had discovered from Miss Etherton that Miss Lucille had become quite ill when she discovered that the peacock-feather fan had been taken away.
"No wonder," she said, "that there was all that fuss about it. Mr. Fabian should never have told you to take it. There was no way that you could know. Sheer mischief, I call it."
"Why should a fan be so important?"
"Oh, there is something about peacocks' feathers. I have heard they are unlucky."
I wondered whether this theory might have something to do with Greek mythology and if it did my father would certainly know about it. I decided to risk a lecture session with him and ask.
"Father," I said, "Miss Lucille at the House had a fan made of peacock's feathers. There is something special about it. Is there any reason why there should be anything important about peacocks' feathers?"
"Well, Hera put the eyes of Argus into the peacock's tail. Of course, you know the story."
Of course I did not, but I asked to hear it.
It turned out to be another of those about Zeus courting someone. This time it was the daughter of the King of Argos and Zeus's wife, Hera, discovered this.
"She shouldn't have been surprised," I said. "He was always courting someone he shouldn't."
"That's true. He turned the fair maiden into a white cow."
"That was a change. He usually transformed himself."
"On this occasion it was otherwise. Hera was jealous."
"I'm not surprised ... with such a husband. But she should have grown used to his ways."