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."

"She set the monster Argus who had one hundred eyes to watch. Knowing this, Zeus sent Hermes to lull him to sleep with his lyre and when he was asleep to kill him. Hera was angry when she learned what had happened and placed the eyes of the dead monster in the tails of the peacocks."

"Is that why the feathers are unlucky?"

"Are they? When I come to think of it, I fancy I have heard something of that nature."

So he could not tell me more than that. I thought to myself: It is because of the eyes. They are watching all the time ... as Argus failed to do. Why should Miss Lucille worry so much because the eyes are not there to watch for her?

The mystery deepened. What an amazing house it was, having a ghost in the form of a long-dead nun as well as a magic fan with eyes to watch out for its owner. Did it, I wondered, warn of impending disaster?

I felt that anything could happen in that house; there was so much to discover and, in spite of the fact that I was plain and only asked because there was no one else to be a companion to Lavinia, I wanted to go on visiting the house.

It was a week or so after the incident of the fan that I discovered I was being watched. When I rode in the paddock I was aware of an irresistible urge to look up at a certain window high in the wall and it was from this one that I felt I was being observed. A shadow at the window was there for a moment and then disappeared. Several times I thought I saw someone there. It was quite uncanny.

I said to Miss Etherton, "Which part of the house is it that looks over the paddock?"

"That is the west wing. It is not used very much. Miss Lucille is there. They always think of it as her part of the house."

I had guessed that might be so and now I was sure.

One day when I took my horse to the stable, Lavinia ran on ahead and, as I was about to return to the house, I saw Ayesha. She came swiftly towards me and, taking my hand, looked into my face.

She said, "Miss Drusilla, I have waited to find you alone. Miss Lucille wants very much to speak to you."

"What?" I cried. "Now?"

"Yes," she answered. "This moment."

"Lavinia will be waiting for me."

"Never mind that one now."

I followed her into the house and up the staircase, along corridors to the room in the west wing where Miss Lucille was waiting for me.

She was seated in a chair near the window that looked down on the paddock and from which she had watched me.

"Come here, child," she said.

I went to her. She took my hand and looked searchingly into my face. "Bring a chair, Ayesha," she said.

Ayesha brought one and it was placed very near Miss Lucille.

Ayesha then withdrew and I was alone with the old lady.

"Tell me what made you do it," she said. "What made you steal the fan?"

I explained that Fabian was a great Roman and that Lavinia and I were his slaves. He was testing us and giving us difficult tasks. Mine was to bring a peacock fan to him, and I knew there was one in that room, so I came and took it.

"So Fabian is involved in this. There are two of you. But you were the one who took it and that means that for a while it was in your possession ... yours. That will be remembered."

"Who will remember?"

"Fate, my dear child. I am sorry you took the fan. Anything else you might have taken for your game and no harm done, but there is something about a peacock's feathers ... something mystic ... and menacing."

I shivered and looked around me. "Are they unlucky?" I asked.

She looked mournful. "You are a nice little girl and I am sorry you touched it. You will have to be on your guard now."

"Why?" I asked excitedly.

"Because that fan brings tragedy."

"How can it?"

"I do not know how. I only know it does."

"If you think that, why do you keep it?"

"Because I have paid for my possession."

"How do you pay?"

"I paid with my life's happiness."

"Shouldn't you throw the fan away?"

She shook her head. "No. One must never do that. To do so is to pass on the curse."

"The curse!" This was getting more and more fantastic. It seemed even wilder than my father's version of the maiden being turned into a white cow.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because it is written."

"Who wrote it?"

She shook her head and I went on, "How can a feather fan be unlucky? It is, after all, only a fan, and who could harm the one who had it? The peacock whose feathers it was must be dead a long time ago."

"You have not been in India, my child. Strange things happen there. I have seen men in bazaars charm poisonous snakes and make them docile. I have seen what is called the Rope Trick when a seer will make a rope stand on end without support and a little boy climb it. If you were in India you would believe these things. Here people are too materialistic; they are not in tune with the mystic. If I had never had that fan I should be a happy wife and mother."

"Why do you watch me? Why do you send for me and tell me all this?"

"Because you have had the fan in your possession. You have been its owner. The ill luck could touch you. I want you to take care."

"I never thought for an instant that it was mine. I just took it for a while because Fabian commanded me to take it. That was all. It was just a game."

I thought: She is mad. How can a fan be evil? How could someone turn a woman into a white cow? My father seemed to believe this though, which was extraordinary. At least he talked as though he believed it. But then the Greeks were more real to him than his own household.

"How can you be sure that the fan is unlucky?" I asked.

"Because of what happened to me." She turned to me and fixed her tragic eyes on me, but they seemed to be staring past me as though she were seeing something which was not in this room.

"I was so happy," she said. "Perhaps it is a mistake to be so happy. It is tempting the fates. Gerald was wonderful. I met him in Delhi. Our families have interests there. They thought it would be good for me to go out for a while. There is a good social life among the English and the members of the Company ... that is, the East India Company, and we were involved in that. So were Gerald and his family. That was why he was out there. He was so handsome and so charming ... there could never have been anyone like him. We were in love with each other from the first day we met."

She turned to smile at me. "You are too young to understand, my child. It was ... perfect. His family were pleased ... so were mine. There was no reason why we should not be married. Everyone was delighted when we announced our engagement. My family gave a ball to celebrate the occasion. It was really glittering. I wish I could describe India to you, my dear. It was a wonderful life we had. Who would have guessed that there was a tragedy waiting to spring up on us? It came suddenly ... like a thief in the night, as it says in the Bible, I believe. So it came to me."