The Lonely House (Lowndes)/Chapter 4

HEN Lily awoke four hours later it took her a moment or two to realise where she was.

Jumping up, she drew back the curtains, and opened the window wide. Twilight was falling, and the stretch of heath-covered hillside looked dark, almost forbidding. She felt suddenly cold, and shivered as she drew back into the barely-furnished room.

Then she did her unpacking, quickly and methodically, and after a moment of hesitation put on a white gown. It was a white stockinette skirt and jumper, the sort of dress she would have changed into if she and Uncle Tom and Aunt Emmeline, in the old happy days, had been having some old friend to dinner. It was the first time she had worn anything but black since her aunt's death, and she felt a little pang of remorse as she took up a black ribbon and put it round her slender, rounded waist. She did not want the Countess to think that she had forgotten dear Aunt Emmeline.

And then Lily bethought herself that it was rather strange that Aunt Cosy had said nothing about eiher [sic] Uncle Tom or her own late step-sister. The girl could not help feeling that her unexpected arrival had put out both Aunt Cosy and old Cristina very much. But Cristina had quite got over it; somehow Lily felt that she and Cristina were going to be friends.

She was not quite so sure about Aunt Cosy! To tell the truth, the Countess was already a disappointment to the girl; she was so unlike Lily's recollection of her. She did not sufficiently allow for the great difference between her two selves—that between a shy, romantic child, and an observant, grown-up girl.

With regard to the man she knew she would be expected to call Uncle Angelo, Lily was quite unprejudiced, for she had never seen him, and had no idea what he was like. She hoped deep in her heart that he would be quite unlike Aunt Cosy.

She glanced at herself in the plain, discoloured mirror above the empty fireplace. Yes, her hair was quite tidy, and the long sleep had done her good. Already the magic change of scene was beginning to work. After all, she was not going to be here for very long—three months would go by very quickly, and it was pleasant to feel that she had, at any rate, two friends near by, for so she could not help considering Hercules Popeau and Captain Stuart.

Captain Stuart had asked her if she played tennis. There were tennis-courts of sorts at Monte Carlo—so he had said with a very pleasant smile. Like so many young Scots, he had a delightful smile. It quite transformed his keen, thoughful [sic], serious face.

At last she opened her door, and looked with some curiosity up and down the corridor. Four closed doors to her right evidently led into rooms which must have that wonderful view over which the Countess had waxed so enthusiastic. Lily was sorry Aunt Cosy hadn't given her one of those front rooms. It would have been nice to have had that beautiful view spread out before her, instead of only the bare mountain.

She walked lightly down the staircase, and then she waited a moment, wondering a little what she ought to do.

At last she opened a door which she knew led into the drawing-room. It was empty, and the blinds had all been drawn up, probably one of the windows had been left open, for the room no longer felt stuffy.

She walked over to one of the windows, and then she could not help giving a little gasp of surprise, for, walking so softly that she had not heard the cat-like footsteps, someone had followed her into the room and now stood, silent, by her side—

It was—it must be—Uncle Angelo!

Count Polda was a quaint, dried-up-looking little man. His body was very thin, and yet his pallid face was fat. He was looking at Lily with a fixed, considering look.

“Uncle Angelo?” she said shyly, and then held out her hand.

He took her little soft hand in both of his podgy ones.

“This is Lili?” he said in French. “Welcome to La Solitude.” And then he dropped her hand, and with the words, “You play Patience—hein?” he turned to the card-table, and began moving the cards.

“No, I've never played yet.”

“You will learn—you will learn.” Uncle Angelo spoke in a preoccupied tone. “It passes the time away,” he said, and, still standing, he played the Patience through. But he did not pull it off, and Lily had the uncomfortable sensation that he attributed his bad luck to her presence.

Suddenly he raised his voice: “Cosy! Cosy!” he called out fretfully.

The door was pushed open suddenly.

“Yes, my friend,” said the Countess. She also had changed her dress, and now wore a purple tea-gown, and a handsome if old-fashioned-looking necklace composed of various large, coloured stones.

“Mr. Ponting will soon be here now,” said Uncle Angelo. “Is not that so? Is everything prepared?”

“Certainly, my friend.” Aunt Cosy spoke with a touch of impatience. “Cristina and I have got everything ready. I think you will have a good dinner. And so will our dear little Lily”—she drew near the girl, and put a big, powerful arm caressingly round Lily's shoulders. “There was nothing to eat in the house when this dear child arrived! But to-night there is a banquet. The friend who is coming to dinner is going a long journey,” she said smilingly, “and so we want to give him what in England is called a good send-off.”

Uncle Angelo looked round at his wife. “An excellent expression,” he said slowly.

The Countess took her arm from Lily's neck. “Is it not a beautiful view?”

And Lily, in heartfelt tones, replied, “Indeed it is, Aunt Cosy!”

The vast expanse of evening sky was turquoise blue, the sea a deep aquamarine; and the trees, grass, and huge geranium blossoms just outside on the terrace had turned to soft greys and purples.

Suddenly Lily bethought herself that she had not yet asked after the son of the house. “I hope you have good news of Beppo?” she said a little timidly.

And then, to her surprise, there came over Aunt Cosy a curious transformation. It was as though she became again what Lily remembered her as having been in those far-away days at Epsom. She became cordial, affectionate—the touch of affectation which so disagreeably impressed her young companion slid off from her as if it were a cloak.

“How nice of you to remember him!” she exclaimed. “What talks you and I used to have about him, little Lily! My beloved Beppo! How I long for you to see him. But I fear he will not be here for some time. Perhaps after the New Year he will come and spend a week with his old father and mother. He is the best of sons!”

She turned round and said something very quickly in French to her husband, the purport of which was: “Lily has just asked me about our beloved son. I have been telling her what a good fellow he is.”

Lily was touched to see how Uncle Angelo's fat, placid face altered.

“He is an excellent boy,” he said quaintly. “The King of Italy thinks much of our Beppo. Some day Beppo will be what you call a—what?—a great man! He is already adding lustre to our name.”

“How sorry he must be that he was not well enough to fight,” said Lily shyly.

“He saw the Front,” said the Countess quickly. “He was there for two whole weeks. I will show you his picture in uniform.”

She left the room for a couple of minutes, and then came back with a photograph in her hand. “Is he not handsome?” she said eagerly.

Lily gazed at Beppo Polda's portrait with a good deal of interest. Yes, he had grown up into a very good-looking young man. He had his mother's good features, and he was evidently tall. Yet he was fairer than Lily supposed most Italians were.

“He is very English-looking, is he not?” said the Countess in a pleased voice.

“English-looking?” repeated Lily, surprised—to her eyes he looked singularly un-English-looking, but then perhaps that was owing to the way in which his hair was cut.

“My grandmother was an Englishwoman,” went on the Countess, “that is why I am so fair, that is why Beppo himself is fair—fair and tall. Beppo is considered one of the handsomest men in Rome. To-morrow I will show you a picture of Beppo on his horse. He is one of the great hunters, is my boy,” said the Countess proudly. “He is quite in the English set. There is no body exercise in which he is not an adept—he can even play cricket.”

Lily smiled. She liked Aunt Cosy much better than she did a quarter of an hour ago.

“Aunt Cosy?” she suddenly exclaimed. “Uncle Tom gave me fifty pounds in banknotes, and I think I had better ask you to keep the money for me. You can give me £5 from time to time.”

“Fifty pounds! But how dangerous, dear child! There are many brigands about, especially since the war ended.”

The Countess held out her hand, and Lily took the little leather case out of her bag.

“Angelo, where shall we keep this dear child's money?”

“In here,” he said briefly, and going over to the ebony and ivory cabinet he unlocked it. Then he took the leather case and placed it in one of the drawers. Finally he shut the two folding doors of the cabinet and locked it up, putting the key back into a shabby purse which he had taken out of his pocket.

“I hope our friend Ponting has not elected to spend his last evening in the Rooms,” he said uneasily. But his wife answered, “No, no! Were that so we should have heard. Ah, there he is!”

Lily looked out of the window, near which she was still standing, and in the now growing darkness she saw a tall figure come striding across the lawn.

The Countess opened the long French window, and Lily stepped back, instinctively, to allow her to greet her visitor.

He was a big, fair, loose-limbed man, and over his dress-clothes he wore a big, sporting-looking coat.

There was a quick interchange of words. She heard the stranger say, speaking with what seemed to her an American accent, “You'll have to be angry with me, Countess, for I've come to say that I can't stay to dinner.”

And an exclamation of something like sharp displeasure did come from the Countess's lips.

“I know I've behaved badly—but there it is! Some fellows have persuaded me to spend my last evening with them. You've been so kind to me I felt as if I must come up and tell you myself. I've got a carriage waiting for me down there.”

Both the Count and Countess expostulated more angrily than seemed quite civil. And then the Countess called out rather imperiously: “Lily, come and be introduced to our friend, Mr. George Ponting.”

The girl came forward, smiling a little, as the visitor stepped over the threshold of the window.

He held out his hand, and Lily noticed that he was wearing a gold bangle. “Why, who are you?” he asked abruptly. “And where did you come from?”

Lily was amused. “My name is Lily Fairfield,” she said. “I come from England. I arrived to-day. I'm going to stay at La Solitude for some time.”

“We had promised her such a delightful evening in your pleasant, amusing company,” said the Countess vexedly.

Mr. Ponting looked disturbed and sorry. “I didn't know you had asked a lady to meet me,” he muttered.

He kept looking at Lily—it was rather a pathetic, hungry kind of a look. “It's a long time,” he said, “since I've spoken to a young English lady. To my mind, foreigners don't count—I only care for the girls of the Old Country.”

And then the Countess began to speak, kindly, persuasively. “Why not stop, Mr. Ponting? It will be better for you than having—what is the word?—a rowdy evening, and perhaps losing more of your good money.”

“The path of true wisdom would probably be not to join those chaps to-night, eh, Countess?” He looked oddly undecided. “It does seem nice up here,” he muttered.

“Dear friend, do me the pleasure of staying! Do not throw us over. See, my little Lily is longing for you to stay! My husband will go and pay off your driver.”

And so it was settled, almost in a few moments, that Mr. Ponting would stay and dine at La Solitude.

The Count stepped out of the window, then he called out, “Shall I tell the man to come Lack for you at about half-past ten?”

“Yes. I'll be obliged if you will. There's a good train at eleven into Nice. I'm sleeping there to-night, and am off across the blue sea to-morrow.”

Already the Count was disappearing down the path through the orange grove.

“Will you excuse me for a few moments?” said the Countess. “Lily, will you entertain Mr. Ponting?”

She shut the door, leaving the two young people alone together—not that Mr. Ponting was a young man in Lily's eyes. As a matter of fact he was rather under than over forty.

“They're awfully kind people,” Mr. Ponting began at once in a confidential tone. “They've been ever so good to me the fast few weeks! I'm a lonely chap, and the first time I came up to this cute little place, well, it was like heaven after the sort of gang I'd got in with down there.”

“I suppose you're American,” said Lily politely.

“American?” he coloured, slightly offended. “No—not I. I'm British, for all I come from Pernambuco.”

He went on talking eagerly, evidently liking the sound of his own voice, and delighting in his attractive listener.

After a very few minutes Lily felt as if she knew all about Mr. George Ponting. How, though he had spent all his youth building up a good business in Pernambuco, he had started for the Old Country on August 6, 1914. How awfully lonely he had felt in England, not knowing a soul. But how he had been all right once he got out to Flanders. How, though three times badly wounded, he was now as sound as a bell. Finally, how he had come to the Riviera to see a little of the world before going home and starting work again, and how he had found a pal, a splendid chap, who was sailing with him from Marseilles to-morrow night!

It was a simple, usual little story, no doubt, yet it touched Lily, and made her manner very kind.

Suddenly Mr. Ponting took out of his pocket a shabby shagreen case. He opened it and held it out to her. On the worn black velvet lay a small gold box, exquisitely chased in different coloured golds.

“Pretty thing, isn't it?” he said complacently. “'Twould do for stamps—that's what I said to myself, though I believe it was what people used to keep snuff in—queer idea, wasn't it?”

“Yes,” said Lily, smiling; “I think it is the prettiest little box I've ever seen!”

He opened it, and showed her engraved inside the lid the words, “Mon cœur a toi. Ma vie au Roi.”

“Say!” he exclaimed. “Will you have it? Just as a souvenir, you know!”

Lily shook her head. She could not take so costly a gift from a complete stranger.

”I know it's good,” went on her companion quickly, “for a chap who they say is a big Paris curiosity-dealer offered me five hundred francs for it this afternoon. I got it in a queer way. A poor old soul whom I noticed playing at the Rooms—the sort of woman who isn't up to Club form—came up to me last evening and asked if I'd give her a hundred francs for it. I'm sorry now that I only gave her that much! It must be worth a good bit more than five hundred francs if a dealer offered that for it.”

He was still holding out the little shagreen case. “Look here,” he exclaimed again, “you take it—do!”

Lily shook her head decidedly. “I shouldn't care to have anything so valuable, for I've no place to keep anything of that sort here,” she said a little awkwardly. “I've even had to ask the Countess to keep the money I brought from England.”

“Is that so?” he exclaimed. “But this little box isn't as valuable as all that! Do take it, Miss Fairfield.”

But Lily shook her head again, even more decidedly than before. “Honestly, I'd rather not,” she said firmly.

“All right! I'll just give it to the next pretty girl I meet.” he looked hurt and angry.

“Please forgive me!” Lily was really sorry. Was she making a fuss about nothing? And yet—and yet she knew that the box was worth twenty pounds at least.

The door opened. “Supper is quite ready,” said the Count, in his refined, rather mincing voice. “The Countess awaits you in the dining-room.”

The curious, windowless apartment was lit by candles set in four cut-glass candlesticks on the table itself, and by two silver candelabra on the sideboard. Silver bowls full of delicious hot soup were standing ready on the round table, but the rest of the meal was cold.

The waiting was done deftly and quickly by Cristina; she had put on a lace cap and apron, and she looked a quaint and charming figure, in spite of her age. But Lily was concerned at her look of illness and fatigue. Cristina to-night was terribly, unnaturally pale.

Mr. Ponting, who sat opposite his host, did not need much entertaining, for he did all the talking, and ate but little of the delicious cold lobster soufflé and big game pie which had followed the soup. But, as the meal went on, Lily could not help noticing uncomfortably that the visitor was drinking very freely the three kinds of wine.

Count Polda did not take any wine himself, but he often got up and helped his guest generously. The Countess also took wine, but in strict moderation. Once she offered her guest water, but he shook his head.

Lily grew more and more uncomfortable. She wished Mr. Ponting would eat more and drink less! She herself was dreadfully hungry, and she was the only one of the four there who made a really good meal. Rather to her surprise there was no sweet, only some fine fruit, and again she was the only one of the four who took any of it. And then, at last, Cristina brought in coffee. Lily refused to take any. She fancied it might keep her awake.

For perhaps the tenth time Mr. Ponting had begun a long, somewhat incoherent speech with the words: “And now I'll tell you a yarn,” when Lily saw Aunt Cosy make her a little sign, and she got up.

The visitor looked up with a rather dazed look. “Why,” he said thickly, “going already?”

“Only to the salon,” said the Countess smoothly. “You and the Count, dear friend, will follow us presently.”

She motioned Lily out in front of her rather mysteriously, and then she shut the door.

“Foolish fellow!” she exclaimed, and there was a touch of harsh contempt in her voice. “But still he is amiable, and the Count, who is a student of human nature, is amused by such a man as Mr. Ponting.”

Lily said nothing, but she felt annoyed. It was horrid of Aunt Cosy to speak like that of kindly, grateful Mr. Ponting.

The Countess went on: “It is sad to see such a fine young man drink too much!”

Lily felt depressed, almost miserable. No man when in her company had ever become even slightly the worse for drink. A touch of resentment with the Count came over her; why had he gone on filling up Mr. Ponting's glass?

Almost as if Aunt Cosy could see into the girl's mind, she exclaimed: “The second time our friend dined here I said to Angelo, 'We will not let him have so much to drink.' But he actually got up, again and again, and went to the sideboard and helped himself. So Angelo, who is nervous about his beautiful decanters—they are very rare and could not be replaced under hundreds of francs each—Angela made up his mind that he himself would pour out what our guest insisted on having!”

“It is indeed a pity,” said Lily in a low voice.

She hated this talk about their guest, and she dreaded the thought of his reappearance in the drawing-room. It was therefore with relief that she heard the Countess suddenly exclaim: “And now you had better go upstairs and get a good long night's rest, dear child. Are you not sleepy?”

“Yes,” said Lily. “I do feel sleepy. That's why I didn't take any coffee.”

The Countess opened the dressing-room door. “Cristina?” She spoke for once in quite a low voice.

The old woman emerged at once from the little passage leading to the kitchen. “Yes,” she said. “Does Madame la Comtesse want anything?”

And again Lily was struck by Cristina's deathly pallor.

“Bring a glass of water for Mademoiselle”—the words were uttered very curtly.

And then, rather to Lily's surprise, there came a touch of color in Cristina's pallid face. She turned away, then came back a few moments later with a glass of water in her hand.

“Thank you very much,” said Lily gratefully. This was a kind thought of Aunt Cosy.

“I have got a candle already lighted in Mademoiselle's room," said Cristina.

Holding the glass of water, Lily turned to Aunt Cosy to say good night.

“Take care!" cried the Countess sharply. “You might spill some of that water over my dress. I will not kiss you to-night, dear child, but I will make up for it to-morrow!”

It was clear she was anxious to get rid of the girl before the two men came out of the dining-room, and Lily went off, quickly, upstairs.

Her bedroom looked dreary and uncomfortable, very unlike her pretty, bright room at The Nest.

She walked over to the little table by the bed where stood a lighted candle, and began drinking the water. It had a slight taste, and holding it up to the light she saw that it was cloudy. She put it down without drinking any more. After all, she did not feel very thirsty.

She glanced round her—how dark and gloomy the room looked! It smelt stuffy and airless. She turned and pushed aside the heavy curtains and saw the window was closely shut. She opened it, top and bottom. Ah, that was better!

And then she looked at the little travelling clock Uncle Tom had given her the first time she had left The Nest on a visit, years ago. It was just after ten—later than she thought—still, she must unpack the rest of her things.

She had just finished doing so when she heard the noise of a door opening and shutting downstairs. That must be the Count and Mr. Ponting leaving the dining-room. How long they had stayed there !

There came the sound of another door opening and shutting—that of the drawing-room. And then Lily suddenly bethought herself with some dismay that she had no idea when the Count and Countess had breakfast, or at what time they would like her to be called. Surely she ought to ask Cristina?

She walked over and opened the door of her bedroom, and at once she heard a voice from below call out, “Is that you, Lily? Do you want anything?”

There was a note of apprehension and surprise in Aunt Cosy's accents.

“I only want to know what time breakfast is.”

“If you will ring, Cristina will bring you a cup of coffee, English fashion.”

The Countess actually came up the staircase. She looked flustered and ill at ease, and was gazing at the girl with a disturbed expression. “I hoped you would have been asleep by now, dear child,” she said.

“I had to finish unpacking,” Lily said. “I suppose Mr. Ponting is just going? Do remember me to him—I didn't say good-bye to him, you know.”

“I will—I will!” said the Countess hurriedly. “Good-night, and sleep well.”

Something—she could not have told you what—made Lily open the door after she had heard the Countess go down the steep, narrow stairs.

And then all at once there came Aunt Cosy's loud hearty voice: “Good-bye, Mr. Ponting, good-bye—and good luck!”

The words echoed through the quiet house. And Lily, now suddenly feeling very, very tired, after the many adventures of the day, undressed, said her prayers, and blew out the light. She was glad to feel that her first day at La Solitude was over, and that a long, quiet night lay in front of her.