The Lonely House (Lowndes)/Chapter 20

ND now, my good friends, you two had better take a turn in the sunshine, while I carry off Miss Fairfield to my sitting-room for a little rest and a little chat,”—so quoth the Marchesa Pescobaldi to her husband and to Count Beppo the moment lunch was over.

The had had déjeuner downstairs, in the hotel dining-room, and it had been a pleasant meal. And yet all the time, while eating, listening, and talking, Lily had felt uncomfortable—very unlike her usual eager, interested, happy self.

The Marchesa had come down to the dining-room dressed as if for going out, in the plainly-made black coat and skirt and elegant toque she had worn on the first occasion that Lily had seen her; yet once more the English girl was struck by her beauty. She was evidently older than Lily had at first thought, but of her pre-eminent loveliness there could be no doubt. Among the many exquisitely dressed, and, in many cases, very pretty and attractive women there, the Marchesa Pescobaldi looked and moved like a goddess among mortals.

By this Italian lady's side the English girl felt very young, very insignificant, and yes, very badly dressed, in her three-year-old black coat and skirt, and plain white linen shirt.

The other three talked a great deal during the meal. Even the Marchese, whom Lily did not really feel she knew at all, addressed a great deal of his conversation to her. Lily was told of a visit he had paid to England long years before, and of a delightful Derby Day experience, when he had won five thousand francs on an Italian horse, at ten to one odds!

Out of compliment to their guest, they all talked English, which the Marchesa spoke extremely well, almost as well as Beppo. Her husband made up for his lack of knowledge by his somewhat elaborate courtesy to the young lady who was his guest.

All at once, as they were sipping their coffee, something was said by Beppo which implied that he was not leaving Monte Carlo as had been arranged with his friends the next day. Perhaps he caught the look of surprise on Lily's face, for he remarked quickly:

“I have had news from Rome which makes it possible for me to stay on here for at any rate another ten days or so.”

Lily wondered why he hadn't told her this morning, but all she said was: “How delighted Aunt Cosy will be!”

“I hope that you will not be sorry,” he exclaimed jokingly, and Lily, smiling, shook her head. She had certainly enjoyed herself since Beppo's arrival at Monte Carlo. Also his presence had quite altered Aunt Cosy and made her much nicer.

After they had finished had come the brief advice—nay, it was a command—from the Marchesa to the two men to go out and to leave her and Lily for a while by themselves.

“Your rest and chat must not last too long if we are to have the drive we promised ourselves,” said Beppo. He took out his watch. “I will come up and fetch you at a quarter past two. I hope that by then both you ladies will be ready to start?”

“You need not come upstairs,” said the Marchesa quickly. “You can send us a message when you are ready. But pray give us a full half-hour! There's nothing more disagreeable than motoring just after a meal.”

A few moments later the lift was swinging Lily Fairfield and the Marchesa Pescobaldi up smoothly, almost noiselessly, to the top of the hotel.

As they stepped out of the lift the older woman affectionately thrust one of her jewelled hands through Lily's arm, in almost schoolgirl fashion.

“Now that we are alone,” she exclaimed, “I want to tell you that I hope you and I, Miss Fairfield, are going to be friends! May I call you Lily? It is a sweet, a delightful name—pure and simple, as I am sure you are yourself. Will you call me by my name too, dear? I am called Livia.”

“It is very kind of you to want to make friends with me—Livia,” said Lily shyly. “I have always longed to go to Rome some day.”

“But, of course, it is because you will live in Rome that I want us to be friends,” said the Marchesa, rather quickly.

As she spoke she withdrew her hand from the other's arm, and, opening a door, she stepped back to allow Lily to pass through into a very light, gay-looking sitting-room in which were many bowls and vases filled with exquisite flowers.

“You see,” she exclaimed, “how both my husband and Beppo spoil me!”

By far the most beautiful thing in the room was a big nosegay of white lilac, rising from a blue jar which was in itself a thing of beauty.

The Marchesa went up to the lilac and sniffed at them delicately.

“This was Beppo's gift to me this morning,” she said. “He went out after seeing you, and got them for me—partly, I suppose, to console me for the fact that he will not be our escort back to Rome to-morrow!”

While she spoke she went on moving about the room, and Lily suddenly told herself that her companion was like a beautiful, restless, untamed animal. Her wonderful eyes—they were like pools of light in her pale face—were darting this way and that. And again the English girl asked herself with a kind of apprehension whether the Marchesa had indeed the fatal maleficent gift, which the superstitious believe may bring sorrow, and even shame, on those its possessor loves best?

“I think we will sit over here,” said her hostess at last. “But first, my dear Lily, excuse me a moment. I will take off my toque, for it is heavy. Even the best Parisian modistes have now lost the art of making a hat sit lightly on the wearer's brow. I shall be more comfortable without it. I have a headache. Yesterday's adventure in the mountains was very tiring.”

She left the room, and Lily, who had been sitting down, got up and walked, hardly knowing what she was doing, over to a big writing-table. One of the drawers was open, and she could not help seeing that within the drawer was the wrapper of the parcel she had brought for Beppo.

The Marchesa came back. “We will sit in the window,” she observed, “so that while we talk we can enjoy the glorious view.”

She pushed two easy chairs toward the bow window, so arranging them that while she herself was in the shadow, Lily's face was in the full light.

“And now,” she said, “sit down! We have not got very long. I think that Beppo did not like leaving us alone, eh? Men are like that. They detest realities, they do not like the truth!”

Lily would have liked to combat this rather unkind view of the stronger sex, but her hostess was speaking with a kind of suppressed energy which made her feel she could not interrupt.

“Yes, I am all for the truth! I do not believe in the French proverb, 'All truth is not good to say,' and I know that English people always tell the truth?”

She gazed with an eager, rather questioning, look into the girl's open, guileless face.

“Do not think me impertinent,” she said suddenly, “but before I go away there are one or two puzzles which I wish much to solve, and you, Lily, alone can help me to solve them. I beg you to believe that I shall be asking these questions in no spirit of idle curiosity, but because for many years past Beppo Polda has been”—she hesitated, and then she went on firmly—“the closest friend of my husband and myself. Can you wonder that I want you and me to be allies?”

She stopped speaking. It was clear she wanted Lily to say something—but what was there to say?

“I know you have been very kind to Beppo,” said the girl earnestly. “Aunt Cosy spoke very gratefully of your kindness to him the day I first met you.”

That was perhaps somewhat stretching the truth. But still, it was the truth.

“My kindness to her son has not made the Countess love me, Lily,” said the Marchesa drily. “That woman hates me! Again and again she would have liked to have done me an injury; again and again, not lately, but in the past, she has tried to detach Beppo from his best friends.”

Lily began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable. She knew that what the Marchesa said was perfectly true—Aunt Cosy did not like the Pescobaldis. But that was none of her business. When all was said and done she, Lily Fairfield, was really a stranger to them all.

The Marchesa was looking at her intently, evidently willing her to speak again.

“Of course, Aunt Cosy is a very peculiar woman,” began the girl awkwardly. “She is so devoted to Beppo that one feels she would be jealous of anyone he really cared for. The other day I could not help feeling that she was actually jealous of dear old Cristina!”

“She has reason to be jealous of Cristina,” said the Marchesa slowly, “for Beppo, very rightly, is devoted to that noble woman, who has given up her whole life to him. Do you suppose Cristina would stay one moment with the Countess were it not that it gives her the opportunity of being of service to Beppo—and of seeing Beppo?”

Lily was amazed at the bitterness with which these words were uttered.

“Still, after all, Aunt Cosy is Beppo's mother, and she does love him with all her heart!” she said impulsively. No wonder Aunt Cosy disliked the Pescobaldis if they hated her so, and perhaps tried to set her son against her.

“If you are wise,” said the Marchesa impressively, “you will see very, very little of the Countess Polda during the course of your future life. She is likely to live to be a very old woman, and she will wreck your happiness if you are not careful.”

Lily stared at the speaker with astonishment and discomfort. What did this beautiful, sinister-eyed woman mean by saying that?

“You know—or perhaps you do not know—that Count and Countess Polda are not really my relations,” she said at length. “I am only staying with them till February or March. They are very kind to me, but I don't suppose, once I have got back to England, that I shall ever see them again.”

“Surely Beppo is not going to live in England after he has married you?” exclaimed the Marchesa in an agitated voice.

She started up from her chair, and gazed down into Lily's upturned face.

“Oh, Lily!” she cried. “Do not ask that of him! It would be a terrible sacrifice! Believe me, he would never be happy, however rich, in England. He's an Italian through and through! I do not say this to you because of my own strong sentiments of affection for him, but because it is the truth. If you do not care for Rome, then live in Venice, or in Florence—nay, even Paris would be better than London, for Beppo!”

Lily also got up. She felt exceedingly angry.

“I am not going to marry Beppo.” She uttered the words very distinctly. “I cannot imagine what can have made you think such a thing? Why, I have only known him two or three days!”

She felt not only very angry, but also disgusted. In fact, so violent was her emotion and her surprise that she found herself trembling all over.

“Sit down, Lily,” said the Marchesa slowly. “And forgive me for what I said just now. I do not speak English really well; I ought to have said 'if you marry Beppo.' It is, after all, a possibility—is it not? It would be absurd to deny—surely you do not deny—that he is in love with you? That is why I said that about the Countess.”

But Lily, even in the midst of her agitation, could not help noticing that the Marchesa's manner, as well as her voice, had changed; there was no longer in her words the thrill of sincerity that there had been.

“I'm sure that Beppo is not in love with me,” said the girl firmly. “He has not known me long enough to fall in love with me. He has a pretty, coaxing, kind of manner”

“He has indeed!” broke in the Marchesa sarcastically, but Lily was determined to finish her sentence.

“But his manner is just as pretty to Cristina as it is to me,” she concluded.

She felt as if she were on the brink of tears. How dare this foreign woman insult her so!

And then something else happened which amazed the English girl more than any of the other amazing things which had gone before.

The Marchesa Pescobaldi sank gracefully upon her knees, and from that lowly posture she looked up into Lily's face. She clasped her hands together, and there seemed to be nothing affected or even out of the way in the gesture. The surprised girl felt that now, again, the woman kneeling there was quite honest, quite sincere.

“Forgive me!” exclaimed Livia Pescobaldi. “Forgive me, Lily! I see that I have offended and distressed you—that I have outraged your modesty. But you must remember that we Italians fall in love far more suddenly than do the cold-blooded English and the calculating French. I saw at once that Beppo was fascinated—also that the Countess Polda, who never acts without a motive, was quite willing, nay, desirous, that you and he should become good comrades. So I put two and two together, as you say in England. I see now that in this case my two and two made five—not four, as I thought! I apologise with deep humility for having said what I did.”

As Lily still remained silent, the Marchesa went on pleadingly. “Come, be generous! The English are generous. It is one of their finest qualities.”

“Of course I forgive you,” said Lily, trying to smile. “Perhaps I was silly to be so—so put out! I know what you say is true—that foreigners fancy themselves in love very easily.”

“Not foreigners only,” said the Marchesa, rising slowly, gracefully, from her knees. “Would you be surprised to learn, Lily, that an Englishman once travelled with me in a train for three hours, and that before the end of the journey he had asked me—nay, implored me—to marry him? He thought I was a young girl, yet at that time I had already been a wife six years!” She laughed mirthlessly.

Lily exclaimed, “Oh, but you are different! You are so very, very beautiful!” She said the words from her heart, and they touched the older woman.

“You are generous!” she said, “generous and kind, little Lily. And now that we are friends again, I want to ask you one more question. It is an indiscreet and impertinent question, but I ask you to answer me truthfully. You can do so more readily if, as you tell me, you are not really related to the Count and Countess Polda.”

“A question about them?” Lily said hesitatingly. “I don't expect I shall be able to answer it. I know Aunt Cosy and Uncle Angelo so very little.”

The Marchesa went on as if she had not heard the interruption.

“I want to ask you,” she said impressively, “how the Countess Polda makes her money? I say the Countess Polda, for the Count, as you can see, is a mere cipher.”

“The Countess Polda does hot make any money,” replied Lily quickly and confidently. “Little as I know about them, I do know that!”

The Marchesa's question had shocked the girl. In some ways Aunt Cosy was not a nice woman, but she never pretended to be better off than she was. In fact, she often spoke of her own and the Count's changed fortunes. It was strange indeed that one who was by way of being an intimate friend did not understand how really poor the Poldas were.

“In one sense, of course, I know that they are poor,” said the Marchesa Pescobaldi impatiently. “Every time I come to Monte Carlo I miss something from La Solitude. We went into the drawing-room for a moment last night, and I at once saw that there was only one ebony cabinet where there used to two. Next time I come doubtless the mirrors will have gone! Yes, I realise that in a sense the Poldas are poor. But what I want to know is, where do they get the money with which they supply Beppo?”

She looked very searchingly at Lily Fairfield. And, as in a flash, Lily remembered that strange, painful interchange of words she had overheard between Beppo and his mother on the day of his arrival—how he had taunted her with not having sent as much money as he had expected. But for that she would have denied absolutely that Aunt Cosy and Uncle Angelo could ever send Beppo money.

“You know, I suppose, that at irregular intervals they do send large sums to their son?”

“No, I did not know that,” said Lily.

She spoke in no very determined voice, and the Marchesa, looking at her flushed face, made up her mind that she was not telling the truth.

“Well, Lily, whether you know it or not, it is so! They have ardently desired, ever since I knew them, that Beppo should marry a very rich woman” She stopped dead and looked straight into Lily's eyes. But the girl's expression did not alter; she evidently did not see into the speaker's heart—or could it be that she was very, very cunning, with a marvellous power of keeping her own counsel? The Marchesa could not make up her mind.

“Up to now Beppo has disappointed them,” she went on. “I have done my best—that I can swear! For, at any rate, the last three years I have done my best to find him a rich wife. Meanwhile, I do not say often, I do not even say at regular intervals, but now and again, Beppo receives from his mother a considerable sum of money. I have an important reason for wishing to know where that money comes from.”

Again she looked searchingly at Lily, and at last the girl answered in a low, reluctant voice, “Honestly, I can't tell you; in fact, I can hardly believe that they can ever give him what I would call a considerable sum of money. They live so very simply; they are so obviously poor.”

It made her uncomfortable that she and a stranger should be discussing the Count and Countess's private affairs in this way.

“What does their son think himself?” she said at last, “surely he must know!”

“Beppo has no idea at all,” said the Marchesa impressively.

Lowering her voice a little, she asked suddenly, “How much money have you lent the Countess Polda since you arrived at Monte Carlo?”

“I have lent Aunt Cosy nothing!” cried Lily vehemently. “She has never asked me to lend her a farthing!”

“Then where did she get the money she sent by you to Beppo this morning?” exclaimed the Marchesa imperiously.

“She didn't send me with any money this morning.” exclaimed Lily. “She simply sent Beppo a little parcel.”

“A little parcel?” mimicked the older woman. “And what do you think was in that little parcel?”

“I don't know,” said Lily, bewildered.

“Then I will tell you. In that 'little parcel' were twenty-five thousand francs in Bank of France notes! Do you seriously tell me that you had no idea of the very valuable parcel you were carrying? There was a letter in the parcel,” continued the Marchesa slowly, “and that letter I made Beppo show me.”

She walked across to the writing-table, unlocked a long narrow drawer, and took from it a letter:




 * “Here is some of the money I promised you. I have more, but I am afraid to send it in this way.

“.”

There was a pause.

“Then you had nothing to do with it? Will you swear that, Lily?”

“No,” said Lily quietly. “I will not swear anything. My word is good enough. I had nothing to do with it at all. Surely Beppo does not think I had?”

“I admit that the thought did not occur to Beppo. You see, he knows how often his mother has sent him money before. But it did occur to me.”

“And I suppose you thought,” said Lily slowly, “that I would not have lent the Countess the money were I not going to marry Beppo?”

“That is so. You see what passed in my mind exactly.”

The Marchesa felt rather surprised. Then this young English girl was not quite as simple as she looked?

There came a quick knock at the door, and Beppo, opening it, stood smiling before them.

“I've just run up to say that the car has come round. Are you ready? Have you had your rest and your secret talk?”

He looked sharply from the one woman to the other.

“Yes,” said the Marchesa. “And I think that we are friends for ever!”

As she turned to Lily there was an urgent appeal in her lovely eyes.

Lily answered a little shyly. “Yes, I hope we shall be real friends—always.”

And, oddly enough, in spite of the trying moments she had gone through, and in spite of the rather mixed feelings with which she even now regarded the Marchesa, she did feel that this strange woman would henceforth be more to her than a mere acquaintance.

Even so, as she followed the Marchesa into the lift, as she answered more or less mechanically Beppo's gay little remarks and questions, she felt bewildered and oppressed.

Lily Fairfield had always lived among very straightforward, simple people—people, too, who were conventional, who never indulged in intrigue. And now she felt that as long as she lived she would never forget seeing the beautiful Marchesa Pescobaldi sink down on her knees and beg so earnestly, so pathetically, for forgiveness.

Many strange thoughts jostled themselves in the girl's mind while the three made their rapid transit downstairs. Twenty-five thousand francs? A thousand pounds? She felt a little frightened when she thought of her somewhat lonely walk from La Solitude that morning. Aunt Cosy ought to have given her at any rate a hint that she was carrying something valuable!

As to how the money had been obtained, she, Lily, told herself that, after all, the Poldas must have some fortune of their own, if not very much. Take her own case. She knew that now she was twenty-one she could, if she chose to do so, sell out certain securities from which came her income. All that had been explained to her, very carefully, by Uncle Tom, and by his solicitor, Mr. Bowering, who had charge of all the Fairfield family business. No doubt the Countess, whenever she thought Beppo hard up, sold out certain securities, thus making herself, of course, the poorer, but doing it for her son's sake.