The Lonely House (Lowndes)/Chapter 18

ILY sat waiting in the brilliantly lighted vestibule of the Hotel Hidalgo. In her grey chiffon evening gown, and charming black and white cloak, she looked a sufficiently arresting figure to cause many admiring eyes to turn towards her as people passed through on their way to the dining-room.

The party were to dine at seven sharp in order to be in good time for the gala performance at the Casino, and Lily had arrived about five minutes before the hour fixed; but now it was nearly half-past seven, and they were not yet back from their drive. She began to grow impatient.

Poor Lily! She did not feel particularly happy this evening. After the amusing and exciting days she had just gone through, to-day had dragged by dully and wearily, the only interlude being that unpleasant visit to Uncle Angelo's odious acquaintance. She was glad indeed not to be dining at La Solitude to-night. The Dutchman's manner had been so insultingly familiar till she had mentioned Uncle Tom's nice friend, the Baron Van Voorst. Mr. Vissering was evidently an awful snob!

During the whole of the afternoon there had seemed to rest a heavy load of depression on the Lonely House. Aunt Cosy was impatient and restless, while Cristina, obviously ill at ease, kept sighing long, sad sighs. As for Count Polda, he had disappeared about four o'clock, to return a little before six laden with the costly makings of a luxurious cold supper. She, Lily, had helped Cristina to prepare the dining-room; then she had dressed, putting on for the first time her beautiful grey chiffon evening gown, and magpie cloak. But, alas! with no delightful little bag to match.

While waiting for the car which was to take her to the Hotel Hidalgo there had again been some discussion as to what time she would return that night.

“Understand, my little Lily, that I desire you to stay to the supper after the play. Beppo would be terribly disappointed if you did not do so!” So had said the Countess firmly, and Lily had answered, truthfully enough, that she would like very much to stay to supper. She had never been out to supper after a play, but many of her friends in England had sometimes talked as if the supper rather than the play was the most amusing part of an evening's entertainment—and if amusing in London, how much more amusing at Monte Carlo!

At last a quaint-looking little man approached her, and, bowing low, observed: “Do I speak to Miss Fairfield?” And then he went on: “I have to tell you, Mademoiselle, that Count Beppo Polda and his party have had a breakdown in the mountains, forty miles away! The Count found a house where they allowed him to telephone, and the message has just come through. He is greatly distressed, and suggests that Mademoiselle should have a little dinner here, and that then we should arrange to send Mademoiselle home with one of our chambermaids. There is no hope of Count Beppo being in time for the gala performance to-night. I can dispose of the tickets, if you approve that I do so.”

Lily felt sharply disappointed. But she blessed Beppo for his kind thought. She was hungry as well as tired, and it would be such a comfort to have dinner here, at the Hotel Hidalgo, and then go back to La Solitude. If that odious Dutchman was still there she could slip up to her bedroom without going into the drawing-room, leaving Cristina to explain later to the Countess what had happened.

Conducted with ceremony by the manager to a little table in the dining-room, Lily enjoyed a most excellent meal. If only Papa Popeau and Angus Stuart had chosen the Hotel Hidalgo to come to this evening how delightful it would have been! She longed to tell Captain Stuart that she had had his letter....

By the time Lily had finished her meal most of the other diners had left. Again the manager himself escorted her to a car, in which she found a respectable-looking, elderly Frenchwoman already seated.

“I should like to pay for my dinner,” she said a little awkwardly.

The man shook his head. “If I allowed Mademoiselle to do that, Count Beppo Polda would indeed be angry with me!” he exclaimed.

As they rolled quickly along, the woman by Lily's side began talking in a pleasant, easy way. She explained that she was the head chambermaid of the Hotel Hidalgo, and as such had special charge of the Marchesa Pescobaldi's apartments. She spoke admiringly of Count Beppo. And then she startled Lily by saying something which made it clear that the good woman believed that the young lady by her side was his fiancée.

Lily felt annoyed, and very much taken aback. But as the actual word had not been spoken, she did not feel that she could put the woman right. Still, she did rather go out of her way to say that she was related to Count Beppo's mother, and that she was only here, at Monte Carlo, on a visit.

When they reached the clearing among the olive trees which, to Lily, always recalled that terrible morning when she found poor George Ponting's body—she pulled five francs out of her purse, and put it into the chambermaid's hand.

“I will be sure and tell Count Beppo that I brought Mademoiselle quite safely home,” said the woman meaningly.

Lily made her way slowly up the broad path through the little wood. There was a brilliant moon, and as she emerged on to the lawn she saw the long, two-storeyed house almost as clearly as if it was daylight. So absolute was the stillness that Lily, with a sense of relief, told herself that the eccentric guest had surely gone.

All the windows opening on to the terrace, as was always the case in the evening, were tightly closed, and shuttered too. That meant that she must go round to the front door.

She rather dreaded what she believed was certain to happen—the Count's quiet surprise at her early return. Aunt Cosy's vociferous lamentations and expressions of regret at Beppo's accident among the mountains, and Cristina's sympathy with her, Lily's, disappointment. There was a chance that the Count and Countess, who were fond of going early to bed, had already retired. If so, she might postpone the story of what had happened till the next morning.

While these thought were passing quickly through her mind, one of the drawing-room windows opened very quietly, and Cristina walked out of it. She looked curiously ethereal and ghostly in the moonlight, and her small face was white and drawn. She put her finger on her lips.

“Hush!” she whispered. “I thought I heard footsteps, so I peeped out and saw that it was only you, Mademoiselle.”

“Yes,” whispered back Lily. “Count Beppo had a breakdown, and couldn't return in time for the play, so I've come home. Are the Count and Countess upstairs yet?”

The question seemed superfluous, as otherwise they would have been in the room whence Cristina had just come. But the old woman shook her head.

“Sh—sh!” she murmured under her breath. And then she uttered the words, “Il y a du monde.” It is an untranslatable expression, which may be roughly rendered as, “We have company to-night,” the words being applicable to one visitor or to a dozen.

“Hasn't Mr. Vissering gone yet?” asked Lily. “How very strange, Cristina—he said he must go quite early. I'd better go straight up to my room,” went on the girl in a low voice. She stepped into the dark drawing-room. Where were the Count and Countess and their guest?

“The visitor came late,” murmured the old servant. “They are still in the dining-room.”

In a darkness made more dense by the moonlight outside. Cristina took Lily's hand, and together they crept very quietly into the corridor.

And then something curious happened. When they were about to go past the aperture which led into the dining-room, of which the door was wide open, the old woman stepped back and turned down the little oil lamp which lighted the corridor. Thus, for a moment, Lily was in darkness, while able to see clearly into the large, windowless room.

The Count and Countess were sitting one on each side of their guest. He, alone, had his broad, bent, high back to the door.

Coffee had evidently just been served. But what astonished Lily was the silence—not one of the three was speaking to the other. The Count and Countess, their heads bent forward, seemed to be listening intently—they had probably heard the sound of the drawing-room window, and of the door into the passage, opening and shutting.

Suddenly, as if moved by a common impulse, and still absolutely silent, as was also their strange guest, they both turned and gazed straight at the open door.

It was certain that they could see nothing, for Lily, standing in the passage, was shrouded in deep shadow. Yet on each of the faces now turned towards the hidden watcher was an awful expression of suspense and acute fear—more marked in the Countess's strong-featured countenance than in that of the Count.

“There is no one there; it must have been Cristina.”

Uttering these words in a low tone, the Countess got up and shut the door, and, as she did so, the sleeve of Lily's cloak was plucked by Cristina's thin fingers, and she was gently and silently pushed towards the steep staircase.

Lily crept upstairs, opened her bedroom door, and lit a candle. She felt excited and ill at ease. She wished that horrible old man would go away. What could he have said or done to make his host and hostess look like that? Had he some hold over Beppo Polda? Lily's heart was beating with a strange sense of vague disquiet and—yes—fear.

After she had got into bed she began to read one of her English magazines. Somehow she felt she could not go to sleep till the visitor had gone.

She had been reading for about a quarter of an hour when there came over her that peculiar sensation of being companioned which seems to have no reference to sight or sound. She looked up. The Countess was standing just inside the door, with a glass in her hand.

“Cristina has told me of this unfortunate thing that happened to-night. I'm so sorry,” she said in a low tone, “that you have missed the gala performance! I feel sad, too, to think of my beloved Beppo's disappointment. I've brought you up a glass of Sirop and water. I remember that you liked it the other day.”

“Thank you so much, Aunt Cosy.”

“Your Uncle Angelo is seeing off his Dutch friend,” went on the Countess, coming up close to her bed. She hesitated a moment. “He is—what do you call it in England?—yes, a rough diamond. So we were glad that neither you nor Beppo were here—Beppo is so very particular. Do not mention to my son that we had a visitor to-night.”

Lily took the glass from the Countess's hand and began sipping. Yes, it was certainly very nice; rather too sweet for English taste—like jam dissolved in icy cold water. She drank it all up, however.

“Sleep well, dear. We shall have Beppo out here early, full of apologies. Do not spoil those pretty eyes by reading in bed.”

As she uttered the word “bed” there came from outside the house, on the very steep and rough road which lead to the real door of the villa, the loud snort of a motor-car drawing up. Then the bell rang violently.

The Countess was so startled that she dropped the empty glass she was holding in her hand, and it fell, shivered in a dozen pieces.

She walked over to the bedroom door and opened, it, and at once Beppo's rather high voice sounded up the staircase. He was evidently telling his father what had happened to their party.

“It is only Beppo!” But the Countess still seemed extraordinarily disturbed. “I will go down and tell him that you are fast asleep, and that he must not make such a noise. I do hope he has not brought any strangers into the house! We are not prepared for visitors.”

She shut the bedroom door, and a few minutes later the girl, who had turned very sleepy, heard the car starting again.

When Lily awoke the next morning the strong morning light was filtering through the chinks in her dark curtains. She did not feel refreshed, for she had a bad headache. Perhaps the food at the Hotel Hidalgo had been too rich, and yet the other day she had felt all the better for a much more elaborate meal.

She jumped out of bed. It was late—a little after nine o'clock. Putting on her dressing-gown, she prepared to wend her way to the peculiar spot she used as a bathroom; but when she got to the kitchen Cristina barred the way.

“You cannot have a bath to-day, Mademoiselle. The Count bought some plants yesterday and put them into the bath. I dare not disturb them.”

And then Lily noticed something which very much astonished her—yet it was such a little thing! She perceived that the old woman still wore the rather elaborate muslin cap and apron which she was accustomed to put on only in the evening, and only when there was a visitor to dinner. Was it conceivable, possible, that Cristina had sat up all night? She certainly looked very wan and tired. Somehow Lily did not like to ask a question which she felt sure would not be answered truthfully, if what she suspected had happened. But something of what was in her mind perhaps showed in her frank face, for Cristina looked distressed, as if caught out in a shameful action.

“I will boil Mademoiselle an egg and make her a cup of tea,” she said nervously.

“No, no, let me do that! But, first, I will go upstairs and manage as well as I can with that little basin.”

Lily felt vexed. It was too bad of Uncle Angelo to have filled up the bath with plants, when he must know perfectly well that she used it every morning!