The Lonely House (Lowndes)/Chapter 25

LOVE you, Lily—love you passionately! Why should you be offended at my saying this? Surely you can understand that we Southerners are not like cold, calculating Englishmen? We say what is in our heart. You laughed just now when I told you that you had been my ideal woman for years, and yet, Lily, it is true!”

Beppo's voice was broken with what seemed to be real tears, and Lily, in spite of herself, felt moved and thrilled by his ardent words.

It was the first evening of the young man's stay at La Solitude, and the two were alone in the garden. After dinner it was Lily who had suggested that they should go out of doors. She had done so quite simply, thinking that the Count and Countess would, as a matter of course, come out too. But they had both stayed in the stuffy salon, only opening one of the windows for a moment to watch with eager, benign eyes the two young people go off together, alone, into the moonlight, to the right, where there was a grass path which led to the confines of the little property.

It was there, pacing up and down almost within earshot of the house, that Beppo, soon throwing away his cigarette, had begun pouring out ardent declarations of love....

At first Lily had tried to treat what he said as a joke, or as a half-joke, but he had soon forced her to take him seriously, for he became more violent, more passionate in his utterances.

Now she was just a little frightened. How would she ever get through the next few days, if whenever they were alone Beppo talked and, what was far worse, acted as he was now doing? For suddenly he had seized her hands, and now he was pressing burning kisses on their upturned palms.

Perhaps he realised he was frightening and offending her, for, with that curious mixture of real ardour, passion, and cool, calculating intelligence, which is so marked a trait in most Southerners, he suddenly dropped her hands.

“Forgive me!” he cried pathetically. “I have been precipitate and selfish to-night. You are so good in allowing me to be your friend! It is well to begin with friendship when one aspires to love.”

And, as he had expected her to do, Lily eagerly met him half-way.

“I have always hoped you would be my friend,” she said sincerely. “Ever since I came here, ever since Aunt Cosy began talking about you to me, I hoped that if ever we met we should be real friends, Beppo.”

“I too hoped it,” he said earnestly. “Do you remember that drive we took, only a few days ago? As we talked I felt that my soul and your soul were one! We spoke so intimately; we said so many things that as a rule a young man and a young woman do not say to one another!”

“I don't quite know what you mean,” said Lily uncomfortably.

“Surely you remember my telling you how little I understood papa and mamma? Should I have said that to one I did not trust? And then you told me of your lonely childhood, Lily,”—his voice dropped; it became very soft and caressing and gentle—“and I felt that we were truly friends henceforth!”

“Yes,” she said slowly, “I enjoyed that drive very much. And it's quite true, Beppo, that I do like you very much more when you are—what shall I say?—sensible, than when you talk as you did just now.”

“My pure angel!” he exclaimed ecstatically. “You do not know what it means to me to hear you speak like this!” He added in a lower tone: “It shows me what, of course, I already knew—that no man has ever made love to you, my exquisite Lily. You are a fragrant flower, who, till now, has bloomed alone!”

And though Beppo's words seemed to the girl walking by his side exaggerated, and even absurd, he uttered them in such a serious way and again Lily felt oddly touched. Poor Beppo! Perhaps he had never had a chance of a straightforward, happy friendship with a French or Italian girl.

They were standing now at the extreme end of the grass path. From there, in the daytime, was a beautiful view of sea, sky, and coastline, towards France; and Beppo began telling her some curious stories of his ancestors, who had been almost as great people through the ages, when the Riviera belonged to Italy, as were the Grimaldis on their frowning rock.

At last, at her suggestion, they turned and walked slowly back to the house. The Countess had sat up for them, and as they came into the salon, she looked eagerly into Lily's face, only to see, with disappointment, that the English girl looked her usual quiet, unemotional self.

After Lily had gone upstairs, Beppo lingered on a moment or two with his mother, and at last he answered the mute inquiry in her eyes.

“I think I have made a good beginning,” he whispered. “But, mamma, it is no good being in a hurry with Englishwomen! They do not understand! They are frightened and made uneasy if they are what the English call 'rushed.' But that, mamma, is no disadvantage in the long run.”

“In the long run?” echoed his mother, puzzled.

“A man does not wish the damsel who is to be his wife to be too forthcoming,” he said, quoting an old Italian proverb.

She nodded. What Beppo said was perfectly true.

Lily got up long before Beppo was astir, and her heart was soon singing for joy, for she had gone to meet the postman, and had received her first love-letter.

Angus Stuart had compromised with his conscience by having no beginning to his letter, but he had not been able to keep back what was now filling his heart, and to Lily it was a perfect letter. He had added a long postcript [sic]: “I had no intention of trying to see you to-day, but Papa Popeau is determined to see Count Beppo Polda at close quarters, and so I couldn't prevent his making the proposal that we should all meet at lunch.”

There had also come for her an elaborate little note from M. Popeau proposing that the whole party at La Solitude should meet him and Captain Stuart at the Golf Club, and lunch there with them to-day.

Lily could see no reason why they shouldn't all be together, and she did so long to see her lover. There was no fear that Angus would betray himself, though secretly she would have liked to tell Beppo the truth. She had felt such a hypocrite last night!

Then, for the first time, it suddenly struck her as strange that Angus Stuart had not enclosed the little statement as to himself which he had pressed her so earnestly to send to Uncle Tom. However, that was a very small matter! For her part, she had no wish he should ever send it to her. She had quite made up her mind. Even in the very unlikely event of Uncle Tom not approving, nothing he could say would make the slightest difference to her!

Thrusting the letter of her lover in her bodice, and with M. Popeau's note in her hand, she went slowly back to the house, just in time to see Beppo, clad in a wonderful-looking dressing-gown, going, with an air of deep disgust, into the kitchen on his way to his bath. She could hardly help laughing outright.

What a very singular creature he was! What a mass of contradictions! During dinner the night before there had been mention of a hunting expedition he had taken the spring before, during which he had endured, or so he hinted, untold hardships—and yet it was clear that he found the trifling discomforts associated with life at La Solitude almost intolerable.

Lily Fairfield felt very happy as she went out into the garden to wait for the others to come down. The day had opened radiantly well for her, and she could not help putting down a little of her feeling of happiness and content to the presence of Beppo Polda. Not only the Count and Countess, but Cristina also, seemed transformed. It was as if the atmosphere of the lonely house were changed, making all those in it happy—no longer gloomy, preoccupied, and anxious.

When Aunt Cosy came down, Lily handed her M. Popeau's note, fully expecting that she would say, in her decided way, that she could not go to the Golf Club, and that she did not suppose the Count would care to join the party either. But—“It will be a pleasant expedition for us all, Lily! We have only once gone up to the golf course since it was laid out. How glad I am that Beppo had the good thought of ordering a taxi to come this morning. It would have been quite impossible for me to walk.”

Her satisfaction at the thought of the forthcoming expedition was apparently shared by Uncle Angelo, but Lily at once saw that Beppo was not at all pleased. He obviously would have preferred going up to the Golf Club with her alone; but, still, he fell in with the plan and he made himself very pleasant during the drive.

M. Popeau had ordered an excellent luncheon, and was himself in exceptionally high spirits. The only two members of the party who did not contribute much to the general conversation were Angus Stuart and Count Polda, but they were both, by nature, silent men.

To Lily's secret relief, Beppo behaved perfectly. He paid her, that is, no more attention than was due to this mother's guest. And when, after luncheon, the younger members of the party played a round in company with some English people with whom M. Popeau had made friends at the Hôtel de Paris, he rather went out of his way to be attentive to a young married woman. Even so, Lily and her lover were not able to exchange more than a very few words alone together. Still, those moments were very precious.

Poor Angus Stuart! Lily could not see into his heart—could not divine, closely as she felt in sympathy with him, how he longed to be with her, far away from all these tiresome people. All he said was: “Will you be coming down to the town—I mean alone, as you used to do—during the next two or three days?”

Lily shook her head regretfully. “I'm afraid not! But Beppo Polda isn't going to stay very long at La Solitude. He's mixed up in some big money scheme, and he will have to go back to Rome in a few days.”

The young man's face darkened as she mentioned Beppo, and Lily saw the change in his face.

“It's all right!” she said quickly. “He's been really very nice. But—but I do wish you'd let me tell him!”

“No,” he said sharply. “I beg you not to do that” and then under his breath he whispered the word, “darling”; adding, “You see, I don't want anyone to know till you've heard from your uncle. Oh, Lily” and then he muttered, “Confound it!” ferociously for the Countess was coming towards them with a very determined look in her face.

“Lily!” she exclaimed. “I wish you would explain to me this strange game? I feel that you, dear child, with your clear mind, will be able to make me understand it.”

Angus Stuart scowled at the speaker, and she caught his look and put a black mark against him—or, rather, she added a black mark to the several she had already registered with regard to this disagreeable, plain, young Scotsman who apparently thought he had a chance of beating her son at the great game at which Beppo had always been an expert and a lucky player, and he, Angus Stuart, a mere tyro—the human game called Love.

Why, even if Lily had received and sent on that peculiar dry statement and formal covering letter which she, the Countess, had burnt in the empty grate of her bedroom yesterday, there was time enough for Lily and Beppo to be engaged and married ten times over before an answer could have come to it from Tom Fairfield.

The only perfectly happy and contented member of the whole party was Hercules Popeau.

He was intensely interested in what he regarded as the drama now being unfolded before his eyes. He had no doubt at all that the Count and Countess Polda intended their son to marry Lily Fairfield. He was equally convinced that they would fail. Also, though Angus Stuart had not said anything to him, his practical refusal to discuss what he and Lily had talked about during their long night walk to La Solitude, made him certain that something had been settled between the two young people.

Count Beppo's attitude interested and rather puzzled him. Was the young man playing a double game? His manner to Lily was simply civil and deferential. Indeed, it was hard to believe that the Beppo Polda of to-day was the same Beppo Polda who had showered such extravagant compliments on the girl at the Club two nights ago. The shrewd Frenchman wondered whether Lily Fairfield had confessed to an understanding with Angus Stuart—thus convincing Beppo Polda that she neither would nor could ever marry him. If so, the Count and Countess were evidently not in the secret.

About an hour later Angus Stuart and Lily were again alone for a few moments.

“I don't know how I shall be able to get through the time till you've heard from your uncle,” he said in a low tone. “Oh, Lily—I wonder if you know how much I love you?”

She was on the point of telling him that there was not the slightest necessity to write out that account of himself to which he had referred. And yet at the very back of her mind there was a good deal of surprise that he had not enclosed it in his letter to her that morning. He had made such a point of it—had said so very decidedly that they must not consider themselves engaged until Uncle Tom knew something about him, and approved

“I do so hate that fellow being in the same house with you!” he muttered.

Lily felt distressed. “He really is being quite, quite sensible!”

“I did notice that he behaved decently at lunch.” The words were said grudgingly. “If he hadn't, well”

He stopped abruptly, for the others were now moving towards them, and so he turned away.

It was clear, Lily admitted it to herself regretfully, that there would never be any love lost between Angus Stuart and Beppo Polda. And then, perhaps because the sun was shining, because she was near her lover, because everything seemed to be going just as she wanted it to go, Lily cast a little tender thought towards Beppo Polda.

She did like him! She couldn't help it! But perhaps it was just as well that henceforth their paths would lie far apart. She knew she could never, never make a friend of any man whom Angus really disliked.

The days that followed were like a happy dream. Every morning brought Lily a letter from Angus Stuart. In the sunshine of his new-found happiness the ice of the young Scotsman's reserve broke down, and his long letters filled her with delight, though she sometimes found it impossible to read the new one right through till she had locked herself in her room at night—for, somehow, she was never alone!

Beppo was her shadow—so much so that one day, to her annoyance, Cristina observed with a smile: “I once read a book when I was a young girl, Mademoiselle. It was called 'The Inseparables.' You and the young Count remind me of the title of that book.”

On the fifth morning of Beppo's visit Lily made up her mind to go off to the Convalescent Home, and she actually did slip away before the young man was down. But she had only been at the Home an hour when she was told that a gentleman wished to see her, and in the hall she found Beppo smiling, and a little apologetic.

“It is such a lonely walk,” he explained, “that mamma thought I had better come and fetch you.”

She made him wait a full half-hour while she finished the letters on which she was engaged, and then on the way back to La Solitude she rebuked him gently:

“You know, whatever Aunt Cosy may do, that in England girls always go about by themselves. It's absurd to say that it isn't safe here—it's absolutely safe! I've never met a man, woman or child who looked as if they would harm a fly! Before you came to La Solitude I constantly went down to Monte Carlo by myself, and more than once I came back during that strange change that takes place each afternoon, and which only seems to happen here—I mean when it's daylight one moment and night the next”

“You will have plenty of time for your good works when I've gone back to Rome,” said Beppo firmly. He added, after a moment's pause: “You would not deprive me of one minute of your company if you knew how much it meant to me.”

He said these words very simply and sincerely, without garnishing them with any absurd compliments. And again Lily felt touched. What an odd, queer being this man striding along by her side on the lonely hillside was! So boyish in some of his ways, so mature in others. Such a man of the world, and yet now and again so very simple.

During those days of Lily's life Monte Carlo might have been a hundred miles from La Solitude. Beppo did not seem ever to want to go into the town; he was quite happy at the Golf Club, or taking Lily for drives in the funny ramshackle little motor which he had hired for a week.

Two or three times Aunt Cosy had suggested that they should go down and have lunch or dinner in one of the big restaurants, but Beppo had refused.

“If we do that,” he objected, “I'm sure to come across people I know, and then my reposeful little holiday will be over.”

As for the Countess, she more than once said that she had never been so happy as she was just now.

Once, when they were alone together, his mother asked Beppo if he really must go back to Rome just yet, and he answered very seriously:

“You know, mamma, that the money you have so kindly given me should be invested so as to bring in the very highest return. My chance of doing that is to be in Rome with the man of whom I told you. But do not be afraid. I shall very soon come back. All is going well, if slowly.”

“I suppose you are wise in going slowly with Lily?” said the Countess doubtfully.

Beppo looked at her thoughtfully: “It is a great trial, but I have no doubt of the wisdom of my course, mamma. Believe me, clever as you are, I know women better than you do.”

And she answered with a smile and a sigh, “I do not doubt that, my Beppo! And, after all, there is plenty of time.”

“Yes, mamma. Thanks to your cleverness and goodness, there is!”

The Countess lowered her voice:

“Lily had a letter to-day from the lawyer. I asked her to show it to me. There is no doubt about the money. It is a fortune! Ninety-six thousand English pounds, according to what the man calls 'a rough estimate'; but she will not receive it yet awhile.”

“So much the better!” exclaimed Beppo. “You may laugh, mamma, but I am really and truly mad about her! Would that I were a millionaire, leading her penniless to the altar! Then would I scatter diamonds and pearls, rubies and emeralds, before her feet!”

His mother laughed. She could not help feeling a little twinge of jealousy, but still, she was becoming really very fond of Lily Fairfield.

Countess Polda, like so many people, was always apt to admire what belonged to herself, and she now regarded the English girl as being practically her daughter-in-law.

Even so, she noticed uneasily that Beppo was not making much way with Lily, and now and again there would come a moment of discomfort and doubt, when she would ask herself, with real uneasiness, whether the girl and Angus Stuart were in correspondence? There had certainly been no harm in the rather formal, dull letters the young man had written to Lily from Milan during the early days of their acquaintance. But Countess Polda did not consider it at all proper that a girl should be receiving letters from a member of the other sex. It seemed to her unfitting and unnecessary.

Twice, while Lily had been out with Beppo, the Countess had searched her room very thoroughly in order to discover whether there were any new letters there from Angus Stuart. She had found nothing but a couple of notes—one from a friend of Emmeline Fairfield, the other from a girl who had evidently been at school with her correspondent.

And so the days went by very quickly for all the inmates of La Solitude, until one day, at luncheon, Beppo suddenly exclaimed regretfully that a great Paris financier with whom he was in touch was to be in Rome four or five days from now, and that it was important he should see this man.

“I have sent off a telegram to find out exactly when he will be there,” he said. “I do not mean to be long away, mamma!”

The Countess saw a look of surprise, and not altogether one of pleased surprise, pass over Lily's face, and that look disturbed the older woman. Did Lily regret the probable quick return of Beppo?

The anxious mother began to wish ardently that something might be settled between the young people before Beppo left. Drawing her son aside, after luncheon was finished, she said, a little nervously: “I hope you are not going too slow, my boy. You do not seem to me to be making very much way with our dear little friend.”

But he said: “Leave it to me, mamma. I will choose the right moment! Do not interfere.”

Even so, when she stood by the little gate on which were inscribed in faint characters “La Solitude” and saw the two start off for what had now become their daily drive in the beautiful hilly country which lies behind Monaco, she had a sensation that something was going to happen, and she was filled with doubt, anxiety, and suspense.

How terrible to think that the future of so great and ancient a family as the Poldas should depend on the whim of a foolish girl of twenty-one!