The India Fan Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.
    reat-Aunt Lucille is in the west wing. This is the east,she told me. e are going to the Nun room. You had better watch out. The Nun doesn like strangers. I all right. I one of the family.
    ell, why are you frightened to go alone?
    not frightened. I just thought you like to see it. You haven got any ghosts in that old rectory, have you?
    ho wants ghosts anyway? What good do they do?
    great house always has them. They warn people.
    hen if the Nun wouldn want me, Il leave you to go on your own.
    o, no. Youe got to come, too.
    uppose I won.
    hen Il never let you come to this house again.
    wouldn mind. Youe not very nice any of you.
    h, how dare you! You are only the rector 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 room alone.
    We went along a corridor. She turned and took my hand. ome on,she whispered. t just along here.
    She opened a door. We were in a small room that looked like a nun 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.
    ou see,said Lavinia, e have a lot of history in our family. We came over with the Conqueror. I reckon your family were serfs.
    h no, we were not.
    es, 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.
    hey would have been better educated than your people, I dare say.
    e don 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 youe a year younger. I don care. I don have to be educated.
    ducation is the greatest boon you can have,I said, quoting my father. ell me about the Nun.
    e was so far below her that she couldn marry him. Her father forbade it and she went into a convent. But she couldn 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.
    o you believe that?
    f course I do.
    ou must have been very frightened when you came in for the chalice.
    t what you have to do when youe playing Fabian games. I thought that since Fabian had sent me the ghost wouldn hurt me.
    ou seem to think your brother is some sort of god.
    e is,she replied.
    It did seem that he was regarded as such in that household.
    When we walked home, Miss York said, y goodness, what a to-do about a fan. There would have been real trouble if Mr. Fabian hadn 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