The Lonely House (Lowndes)/Chapter 13

ILY got up from her simple luncheon with the agreeable knowledge that she was free to do exactly what she liked for the next three hours.

Aunt Cosy had a way of continually asking her what she was going to do next, which was annoying to a girl who had always planned out her day very much as she thought best. Now she remembered that Uncle Tom had ordered a number of picture papers to be sent out from England each week, and that the first big batch had arrived this morning.

Gathering the heavy, rolled-up parcels together, she went out of doors, and sat down in one of the comfortable wicker chairs which had been her first gift to the Count and Countess.

How still, how beautiful, how exquisitely peaceful was the scene round, above, and below, the terrace of La Solitude! No wonder she was beginning to feel marvellously better....

She had been reading for rather over an hour when there broke across the intense, brooding quietude of the early afternoon the hoot of a motor. She glanced at her wrist watch. It was only one o'clock—Beppo's train would not be in for a long time. But Captain Stuart had said something—when they had bidden each other good-bye yesterday—about their meeting again to-day. Perhaps he had come up to make some suggestion about tennis or golf? If so, how fortunate it was that Aunt Cosy was out!

Lily stood up and stepped down on to the lawn, quite unconscious of the eager, welcoming, happy look on her face.

All at once there emerged from the path leading up through the orange grove a tall, dark young man, wearing white flannels and a straw hat. For a moment she felt a shock of deep disappointment, for it was not Captain Stuart—a moment later she told herself that it was, it must be, Beppo Polda!

Lily Fairfield made a delightful picture as she stood on the grass below the terrace, a delicate yet vivid colour coming and going in her cheeks, her lovely, fair hair uncovered, for she had not troubled to put on a hat. Thus, even apart from a very special reason he had for feeling interested in her—and he had such a very special reason—Count Beppo Polda felt extremely attracted to the pretty stranger.

He took off his smart straw hat with a graceful gesture, and, speaking in remarkably good English, though with a strong foreign accent, he exclaimed: “Have I the honour to greet Miss Fairfield?”

He held out his hand and fixed on her a pair of brilliant penetrating eyes.

As he came close up to her, Lily felt a most curious sensation creep over her, a mingling—if it be not a contradiction in terms—of attraction and repulsion. Of attraction, because, though she was not the kind of girl to set much store by looks, Count Beppo was so extraordinarily handsome: of repulsion, because he was so very like his mother! Lily though hardly conscious that it was so, was beginning strongly to dislike, as well as fear, the woman whom she called “Aunt Cosy,” and that, though she often tried to feel grateful for the Countess's undoubted, if often fussy, kindness to her.

Count Beppo had all his mother's good points; her tall, upright figure, her clear-cut features, and her one-time thick, curling hair. From his plain, short father, he had inherited that indefinable look of race which generally, though not always by any means, implies in its possessor a long pedigree. He also possessed what is, in most countries a rare gift—that is, a most beautiful speaking voice. Just now he was in the pink of physical condition, very unlike the still war-weary young Frenchmen Lily sometimes saw walking about Monte Carlo, or playing on the wind-swept golf course.

Taking the hand the girl held out to him, the young man respectfully lifted it to his lips. Now this was the first time Lily's hand had ever been kissed by a man, and she thought it a pretty, if rather a singular, custom.

They stood talking together for a few moments while Count Beppo explained in his full, caressing voice how he had always longed to meet Miss Fairfield, ever since his mother had told him of her many delightful qualities, when he was still a boy, years ago, after the Countess had paid her memorable visit to England!

Lily felt just a little embarrassed, as well as rather thrilled. She had never met anyone in the least like this young man before! Then she bethought herself of the Count and Countess. And how about Count Beppo's luggage? He had nothing in his hand but a Malacca cane set with one large, pale-green turquoise. Held by a young Englishman, the cane would have looked foppish, and a trifle absurd: but, somehow, it seemed in perfect harmony with the rest of Count Beppo's smart, rather dandified appearance.

“And now,” he said at last, “I suppose I must go in and greet my papa and mamma—or are they having a siesta? If yes, perhaps I may linger in Capua yet a little longer,” and he smiled down, very delightfully, into Lily's pretty face.

“Didn't they meet you?” she exclaimed. “They were expecting you by the two o'clock train!”

Her companion laughed. “I gave them what you in England call 'the slip'! I arrived at Monte yesterday!”

“Yesterday?” Lily was much surprised.

“I have put up at the Hidalgo Hotel,” he went on. “It is very select and comfortable.”

Lily remembered the hours she and Cristina had spent in making what was evidently the real spare room of La Solitude pleasant and habitable from the point of view of a highly civilised young man. Also, it must be confessed that she felt a little disappointed. Life at La Solitude was sometimes very dull!

“I suppose some letter you wrote was lost in the post. I know that your mother thought you were going to stay here.”

Beppo looked at her with a rather funny look, and then lowering his voice slightly, he exclaimed: “La Solitude is a delightful place—but the last time I stayed here I said to myself, 'Never again!' You see, I'm used to being able to take a hot bath whenever I feel like it! Then theres another reason. If I stay at La Solitude it becomes a delicate matter for me to join the Club! The rule is absolute with regard to land owners in Monaco; none of them may play either in the Casino or at the Club.”

“You know what mamma is like,” he went on confidentially. “If I had told her that I was going to an hotel, there would have been endless discussions and long letters—for my dear mamma is a great letter-writer! I intended to send up a note this morning, but I was having such a splendid game of tennis;” he smiled a little self-consciously. “I was playing a single with the Spanish champion! So I really could not tear myself away!”

Lily felt suddenly revolted by Beppo's callous indifference to the disappointment he had inflicted on his devoted father and mother.

“I think you ought to go down into the town now,” she said firmly, “and try to find them. It'll be a dreadful blow to them if they go to the station and find that you are not there.”

“I'll tell you what I'll do—I'll send down Cristina!” She asked herself why the deep caressing voice had such a curiously attractive lure about it.

And even as he spoke her name the old waiting woman appeared at the open drawing-room window. Joy flashed into her face, and a moment later his arms were round her neck, and he was kissing her affectionately.

A few seconds ago Lily had felt as if she hated Beppo for his selfishness, and utter lack of consideration for his parents. But now she saw that there was, after all, a very kindly side to his nature.

With one arm still round Cristina's shoulders, he turned to the girl and smiled, not a trace of embarrassment on his handsome face.

“Cristina is my second mamma!” he exclaimed. “She was my darling, kind nurse—as kind to me as the nurse in your Shakespeare's beautiful tragedy, 'Romeo and Juliet' was to her sweet girl.”

He turned, and repeated what he had said in Italian, and a little colour came into Cristina's pale, sensitive face.

“Mademoiselle does not know our language,” she said in French, and then she added something in Italian.

He turned laughingly to Lily. “She tells me that I have a rival in her heart? You have made a conquest, Miss Lily! Cristina is hard to please where young ladies are concerned.”

There was no contradiction from Cristina, and he went on, shaking his finger at the old woman: “Never shall I forget bringing a beautiful lady to call on my mother! She was beautiful, but alas! her cheeks were too pink, her lips too red, her hair too yellow, to please the holy Cristina. So Cristina was very, very cold to the charming creature!”

Though Cristina knew no English, she evidently guessed what he was saying, for she shook her head and again said something in Italian.

“She says that you are not at all like the naughty ladies of to-day—that everything about you is real, and that you are more like one of the beautiful saints of old. And now,—turning to Cristina and speaking in French—“Miss Lily and I wish you to do something for us, dear friend. We want you to go down into Monte Carlo and find papa and mamma. Just say that I have arrived—you need not say anything more. Let them think that I came by one of those de luxe trains that arrive in the morning.”

To Lily's surprise Cristina made no objection. “In a few moments I will be gone,” she said.

As she turned away Beppo called out after her: “Cristina? You might go to the Hidalgo Hotel before finding my parents. Get the first-floor valet—he's a very decent fellow, an Italian—to give you my dress clothes. I'll dress up here, in the delightful room which mamma has had prepared for me, and which I am not going to occupy—or at any rate not yet! And Cristina? Tell the valet to order a motor to come up for me at—let me see, you're early folk, aren't you, and the Club's open late—well, let's say half-past ten, and then I can spend a pleasant hour at the Club before turning in.”

He took a bundle of notes out of his pocket and put them in Cristina's hand. “I'm very poor just now! But you must see that we have a good dinner to-night. And buy a pretty bouquet for Mademoiselle!”

Cristina smiled more joyously than Lily had ever seen her smile, as she nodded her head wisely.

When she had gone: “I wish mamma was more like Cristina!” he exclaimed, with a funny kind of look. Lily could not help smiling. There was certainly something attractive about Beppo Polda!

The hour that followed seemed to go by very quickly—more quickly than any hour the girl had spent since her arrival at Monte Carlo.

The young Count had plenty to say for himself; also he managed to convey how much he admired her—Lily. At once he had claimed relationship. Soon he called her “my pretty cousin,” and instructed her to call him “Beppo.” He also told her, which amused her, that he and his mother always talked English when they were “talking secrets.” “We shan't be able to do that now,” he said, laughing.

Perhaps one reason why Lily liked Beppo so much was that he was such a pleasant surprise! Somehow, while looking forward to seeing him, she had felt sure he would be a disagreeable, supercilious young man. She was astonished to find how quickly she felt at ease with him. More than once during that first hour of their acquaintance the thought of Angus Stuart flashed into her mind. How would those two get on, she wondered—perhaps not so badly, after all?

Beppo, in spite of his appearance, was more like a child than a man, so Lily decided within herself. He had a happy child's self-confidence and belief that everyone was going to be kind to him. But he was like a spoilt child; though that, she decided, was his mother's fault.

Just as she was thinking this, they heard the sound of wheels on the little clearing below. Lily got up from her wicker chair and, to her surprise, Beppo took her hand as if to help her, and then kept her hand within his and looked down ardently into her eyes. With a sensation of surprise, she told herself that he was not a child at all, but a very determined man! There was a look on his face which made her feel suddenly uncomfortable.

She freed her hand from his rather quickly, and he said: “Forgive me! But I cannot help remembering that we shall not be alone together again for a long time. Do you realise, Cousin Lily, that we have been alone—quite alone—up here, in this lonely place, for sixty full minutes?”

“Of course I do,” she answered, blushing a little. “But I never thought about it.”

“I remembered it,” he exclaimed, “every minute of the time! And I couldn't help being sorry we were not greater friends than we are—yet.”

He said those words in a low, meaning tone, and somehow that little interchange of words spoilt the girl's pleasant feeling of being at ease in his company. Why had he said that? She hoped he was not going to try to flirt with her! Lily would have been very much surprised, and even indignant, had someone told her that Count Beppo Polda had been doing nothing else since they had first met one another an hour ago.

Even so, she felt just a little nervous as she saw the three figures emerging slowly from the orange grove; but the Countess said not a word as to her son's having disappointed her with regard to the time of his arrival; and she pretended to think it quite natural that he should be staying at an hotel. With regard to that, however, Beppo had the grace to say a few apologetic words, explaining, what he had not told Lily, that some friends of his were staying at the Hidalgo, and that he had promised long ago that when these people came to Monte Carlo he would be one of their party.

Lily made more than one effort on that afternoon to leave Beppo alone with his parents. Surely they must have things to say to one another, after their long separation? But both the young man and his mother seemed determined that she should stay with them all the time.

At last she went up to dress for dinner, and she had put on the pretty muslin dress Aunt Cosy so much admired, and had wished her to put on that morning—when, opening the door of her room, she suddenly heard Beppo's voice coming from below.

He was speaking, very sternly and decidedly, in English.

“A promise is a promise, mamma! I absolutely counted on that money. I had hoped to stay with you till the New Year. As it is, I must go back to Rome in a very few days.”

Lily heard the murmured answer: “If you should receive the money within, say, a week, could you then stay on?”

“Certainly I could.”

And then some one—probably the Countess—walked quickly across to the door of the small sitting-room at the bottom of the staircase, and shut the door. Lily felt sorry she had heard so much, or so little.

Now, for the first time, it did strike her as very strange that Beppo should look so well-to-do, so entirely the idle man of fashion, while she knew the money his parents received from her as their paying guest meant so much to them. Once or twice the Countess had spoken to her as though Beppo was concerned with big business affairs; but if that were so, how could the small amount of money his mother might, or might not, send him, make the slightest difference to his movements?

On going downstairs, Lily went into the kitchen to see if she could help Cristina. The old woman was standing there, a smile on her face. She looked extraordinarily happy. She took hold of the girl's hand.

“How do you like our Beppo?” she said eagerly. “He is so kind, so generous, and so very, very handsome—do you not think so?”

Lily laughed. “Yes, I think he is very handsome,” she said frankly. “And very like his mother.”

“No, no!” Cristina frowned. “He is like his grandfather, the Count's father. He was a beautiful man, and a friend of the first King of Italy.”

Beppo's coming had quite changed Cristina: she looked much more alive, and talked in an eager, decided way.

“Can I help you at all?” asked Lily.

“Everything is ready! I did not use any of the child's money. I gave it him all back. The Count and Countess had already bought everything. We shall have a feast to-night!”

“I'm sorry he's not staying here,” said Lily slowly.

Cristina gave her a curious look. “You ask him to come!” she exclaimed. She evidently thought that Lily was sorry for her own sake. As a matter of fact, Lily was now only sorry for Aunt Cosy's sake.

“I think,” she said quietly, “that Count Beppo ought to have arranged to stay here, as his parents wished him to do.”

But Cristina shook her head decidedly. “No, no,” she answered, “he would not be happy here. He likes what we call 'the English comfort,' my little lady.”