As for M. Popeau, who was looking about him trying to find out if any
changes had taken place in five very long years, he was telling himself,
for perhaps the thousandth time in his life, what very queer, odd people
the British were!
He liked them, even better than he had done when, as a young man, he had
met with a good deal of kindness in England. But still, how queer to
think that a nice girl—a really nice girl—should permit such a stranger
as was this Captain Stuart to call on her—without any kind of proper
introduction. He hoped her Italian friends—or were they relations?—would
not misunderstand. He feared they certainly would do so, unless she
pretended—but somehow he did not think she would do that—that the young
man was an old acquaintance, someone who had known her at home, in her
uncle’s house.
And then his quaint, practical French mind began to wonder whether
Captain Stuart was well off—whether his affections were already
engaged—whether, in a word, he would, or would not, make a suitable
husband for this so charming girl?
Sad to say, M. Popeau’s peculiar walk in life during the war-worn years
had made him acquainted with the fact that it sometimes happens that
quite delightful-looking Englishmen are capable of behaving in a very
peculiar manner when in a foreign country, and when in love!
He turned around abruptly. Captain Stuart was already some way off; and
the Frenchman’s eyes softened as they rested on the slender figure of
the girl now standing by his side. She looked so fresh, so neat, too—in
spite of the long, weary, dirty journey from Paris.
Lily, who, when she thought of her appearance at all, was rather
disagreeablely aware that she was clad in a pre-war coat and skirt,
would have been surprised and pleased had she known how very well
dressed she appeared in this middle-aged Frenchman’s eyes—how much he
approved of the scrupulously plain black serge coat and skirt and neat
little toque—how restful they seemed after the showy toilettes and
extraordinary-looking hats worn by the fair, and generally eccentric,
Parisiennes with whom fate brought him in constant contact.
A victoria drawn by two wiry-looking, raw-boned little steeds dashed
down upon them. M. Popeau put up his hand, and the horses drew up on
their haunches.
Giving the porter a very handsome tip, M. Popeau helped Lily into the
carriage and then got in himself. “La Solitude!” he called out to the
driver.
The man pointed with his whip to the mountain sky-line.
“Twenty-five francs,” he exclaimed, “and that only because I wish to
oblige monsieur and madame! I ought to ask fifty francs. It’s a devil of
a pull up there!” He rapped out the words with an extraordinary amount
of gesticulation.
Lily had had some trouble in following what he said, but her experience
with the Belgians stood her in good stead. A pound for what she believed
must be a short drive? That seemed a great deal.
She turned in some distress to her companion. “Pray don’t come with me,”
she exclaimed. “The man will take me there all right. I quite understood
all he said.”
“Of course I’m going to take you there,” said M. Popeau. “My lunch will
taste all the better for a little waiting. But you? Will you not change
your mind and come and lunch at the Hôtel de Paris, mademoiselle?”
Poor Lily! She felt sorely tempted. But she shook her head.
And then something rather curious happened. A taxicab passed slowly by.
M. Popeau stood up and hailed it. He took out of his pocket-book a dirty
ten-franc note. “Here, my friend,” he said, addressing their astonished
driver, “it is too great a pull for your gallant little steeds, so we
will take that taxi. Help me to transfer the young lady’s luggage.”
No sooner said than done, in spite of a very sulky protest from the
taxi-driver, who had not the slightest wish to take on a new fare. He
had brought a party out to Monte Carlo from Mentone, and was going back
there.
“You should be glad, very glad indeed, my good boy,” exclaimed M.
Popeau, “to have the chance of earning twenty-five francs by a few
moments’ drive. Come, come, be amiable about it! You know perfectly well
that you are bound to take me by the law.”
“Not in Monaco,” said the man sullenly. “The law is not the same in
France as in Monaco.”
“If you are a Monegasque,” exclaimed M. Popeau, “then you must be well
acquainted with my friend, M. Bouton.”
The man’s manner changed, and became suddenly cringing.
“Aha! I thought so!” M. Popeau turned to Lily. “My friend Bouton is
Police Commissioner here,” he observed significantly.
“Where do you want me to go?” asked the man, in a resigned tone.
“To La Solitude.”
Without any more ado the taxicab turned round and started at a speed
which seemed to Lily very dangerous. It was a whirlwind rather than a
drive. But once they had left the beautiful gardens, and were through
the curious network of town streets which lie behind the Casino grounds,
the man slowed down, and soon they were breasting the hill up what was
little more than a rough, dry, rutted way through orange groves and
olive trees.
“Turn your head round,” said M. Popeau suddenly, “and then you will see,
my dear lady, one of the six most beautiful views in the world, and yet
one which comparatively few of the visitors to Monte Carlo ever take the
trouble to climb up here and enjoy.”
Lily obeyed, and then she uttered an exclamation of delight at the
marvellous panorama of sea, sky, and delicate vivid, green-blue
vegetation which lay below and all about her. Monte Carlo, with its
white palaces, looked like a town in fairyland.
Up and up they went, along winding ways cut in the mountain side. Even
M. Popeau was impressed by the steepness of the gradient, and the
distance traversed by them.
All at once the taxi took a sudden turn to the left and drew up on a
rough clearing surrounded by old, grey olive trees. The atmosphere was
strangely still, and though it was a hot day, Lily suddenly felt
chilly—a touch, no doubt, of the mountain air. There crept over her,
too, a queer, eerie feeling of utter loneliness.
“Your friends have certainly well named their villa! Even I, who thought
I knew the whole principality of Monaco more or less well, never came
across this remote and lonely spot.”
“This is the most convenient point by which a carriage can approach the
villa,” said the driver turning round. “The house is not far—just a few
yards up through the trees.”
“All right. Get down and help me carry the lady’s luggage.”
The man loaded himself up with Lily’s small trunk, and M. Popeau took a
big Gladstone bag she had had on the journey. “Please don’t do that!”
she exclaimed. “The man can come back presently for the bag. I’ll give
him a good tip in addition to the twenty-five francs.”
“Nonsense!” said M. Popeau, quite sharply for him. “Of course this cab
is my affair. It’s going to take me back to the Hôtel de Paris. I intend
to give the driver thirty francs—I had no idea it was as far.”
At the top of a row of steps cut in the rocky bank was a wicket gate, on
which were painted in fast-fading Roman letters the words “La Solitude.”
The cabman opened the gate, and the three passed through into a grove of
orange trees. Soon the steep path broadened into a way leading straight
on to a lawn which fell sharply away from the stone terrace which formed
the front of a long, low, whitewashed house.
In a sense, as M. Popeau’s shrewd eyes quickly realised, La Solitude had
an air of almost gay prosperity. It was clear that the bright green
shutters, those of the six windows of the upper storey and those of the
windows which opened on to the terrace, had but recently been painted.
Two blue earthenware jars, so large that they might well have formed
part of the equipment of the Forty Thieves, stood at either end of the
terrace, their comparatively narrow necks being filled with luxuriant
red geranium plants, which fell in careless trails and patches of
brilliant colour on the flagstones.
Built out at a peculiar angle, to the left of the villa, was a
windowless square building which looked like a studio.
Lily was surprised to see that every window on the ground floor of the
house had its blind drawn down, and that above the ground floor every
window was shuttered. But that, as any foreigner could have told her,
had nothing strange about it. Most people living in Southern Europe have
an instinct for shutting out the sun, even the delightful sun of a
southern winter day. Still, to Lily’s English eyes the drawn blinds and
closed shutters gave a deserted, eerie, unlived-in look to La Solitude.
As they all three stood there, M. Popeau and the driver having put down
the luggage for a moment on the hard, dry grass, the first sign of life
at La Solitude suddenly appeared in the person of a huge black and white
cat. It crept slowly, stealthily, round the left-hand corner of the
house, intent on some business, or victim, of its own, and rubbed itself
along the warm wall.
Lily felt a little tremor of surprise and discomfort. It was an odd
coincidence that she should have seen in her dream-nightmare just such a
cat as was this cat now moving so stealthily across her line of vision!
“The front door is to the right,” said the driver.
They walked along the terrace, and Lily began to feel very much
distressed and worried. Supposing the Count and Aunt Cosy had gone off
on a week-end visit? Would their servants have left the house entirely
alone? She feared the answer to this question might easily be “Yes.”
The entrance to La Solitude was just a plain, green-painted door let
into the bare house wall.
M. Popeau rang the old-fashioned iron bell-pull, and its strident tone
seemed to tear across the intense stillness which enveloped them; and
then they waited what seemed to all three a considerable time.
“I think,” said M. Popeau, smiling suddenly all over his fat, pale,
good-natured face, “that you will be compelled to come back with me and
eat that good luncheon ordered by Captain Stuart, Miss Fairfield!”
But even as he said the words the door opened slowly, and an old woman,
dressed very neatly in a faded blue print dress, with a yellow silk
bandana handkerchief tightly wound round her head, stood, unsmiling,
before them.
M. Popeau took command.
“This young lady has just arrived from England to stay with the Comte
and Comtesse Polda,” he said pleasantly.
“We did not expect the lady till the day after to-morrow. Please come
this way.”
She spoke quite civilly, but there was no glimmer of welcome on her
thin, drawn-looking face. M. Popeau noticed that her intonation was
pleasantly refined.
The driver put down, just inside the door, the luggage he had been
carrying, and went off back to his taxi, while Lily and M. Popeau
followed the old woman down the corridor. She opened a door to the left,
and stood aside for the strangers to pass through into what seemed at
first a completely darkened room. But with the words, “I will go and
tell Madame la Comtesse you are here,” she went and drew up one of the
opaque yellow blinds.
Lily Fairfield, tired, hungry as she was, looked round with an eager
sensation of curiosity, and, to tell the truth, she was exceedingly
surprised and interested by what she saw.
The drawing-room of La Solitude was indeed strangely furnished and
arranged—to English eyes. Considering the size of the villa, it was a
large room, long, and in a sense lofty, with four French windows opening
on to the stone terrace. As the windows were all shut there was a
slightly muggy, disagreeable smell in the room. The old Italian
furniture, arranged stiffly round the room, was upholstered in faded
tapestry which had obviously been darned with skill and care.
The whitewashed walls were hung with faded Turkey-red cloth, a fact
which, to Lily’s eyes, added to the strangeness of the room, though, as
a matter of fact, this material is a very usual, if old-fashioned, wall
covering, in all French provincial towns and country houses. It formed a
not unsuitable background to a number of mediæval and eighteenth-century
portraits.
M. Popeau, who was looking round him with almost as much interest and
curiosity as his young companion, realised, even in the poor light, that
there was not what would be technically called a good—that is, a
valuable—picture in the room. But he also told himself that they were
genuine family portraits, proving that Count Polda—for he took the
striking, sometimes sinister-looking, long-dead faces staring down at
him to be the Count’s ancestors—had a right to his title.
Between the windows hung two superb gilt mirrors in beautiful carved and
gilt wood floreated frames. They, and an ebony and ivory cabinet, were
the only things of real value in the room. A shabby card-table, on which
there lay, face upwards, some not very clean patience cards, stood near
the farthest window.
There came the sound of quick steps in the corridor. The door opened,
and Lily Fairfield beheld, for the first time for over ten years, the
woman who had produced such a brilliant, lasting impression on the quiet
Epsom household.
“My dear child! What a surprise! We were not expecting you till——” and
then Countess Polda stopped short, for she had suddenly realised that
there was someone else in the room besides her young kinswoman.
M. Popeau advanced, and bowed in that queer, cut-in-half way which Lily
thought so quaint and funny. “Forgive my intrusion, Madame,” he said
civilly. “I have been Mademoiselle’s travelling companion from Paris,
and as I am very well acquainted with Monte Carlo, while she is quite a
stranger to this beautiful part of the world, I thought it best to
escort her to your hospitable house.”
While this colloquy was going on Lily was feeling more and more
surprised, for somehow Aunt Cosy looked utterly different from what she
remembered her as having looked twelve years ago. She had then appeared
to Lily, a child of nine years of age, a very smart, fashionable-looking
lady, wearing beautiful clothes. She now looked slightly absurd.
Meanwhile M. Popeau told himself that the Countess must once have been
extremely handsome. He judged her to be about sixty, but she was tall,
well built, and looked strong and active—in a word, younger than her
years.
She wore a plaid skirt, one of those large patterns dear to the
Parisienne’s heart. Her plain white blouse was cut like a man’s shirt
and gave her, to a foreigner’s eye, an English look—as did also the now
old-fashioned tie-cravat which she wore pinned to the blouse with a
large emerald pin. The pin attracted M. Popeau’s attention, for it was
set with an emerald which was, in his judgment, of considerable value.
Doubtless it had belonged to the Count’s father. It was the sort of
tie-pin a foppish man of wealth and position might have worn in the
early thirties of the last century.
But what in a very different way impressed both Lily Fairfield and M.
Popeau was the Countess’s singular-looking face and peculiar eyes. Her
face, with its good, clearly-marked features and finely-drawn if
narrow-lipped mouth, was of a most unbecoming colour, a kind of dusky
red, which M. Popeau knew to mean some form of heart trouble. One of her
eyes was green, the other blue.
She wore a curious and most elaborate “front,” bright chestnut-auburn in
tint, consisting of masses of tight little curls. It was evidently the
sort of coiffure which had been worn when Countess Polda was a young
woman. Now it gave a touch of the grotesque to her appearance, the more
so that when she turned round to shut the door it became apparent that
she also wore what used, many years ago, to be called a “bun.”
Still, it was evident to M. Popeau that the person now standing before
him was what is called, in common parlance, a woman of the world. She
accepted his explanation of his presence with amiability, and expressed
in well-chosen, voluble French her gratitude for his kindness to her
young niece—he noticed she said “niece.”
“It is still to be Aunt Cosy, is it not, dear child?” she drew the
surprised Lily affectionately into her strong arms and kissed her on
both cheeks. “It will be very pleasant, very delightful, to me and to my
husband to have a young and charming girl about the house!” she
exclaimed. “We are no longer young—and the war has made us very
lonely——” She shook her head sadly. “No one would believe how it changed
Monte Carlo for a while. But now our old friends—English, French,
Italian—are beginning to return. Already the war is being forgotten like
a nightmare, a bad dream.”
They were all three still standing, and M. Popeau told himself that it
was time he had his own good luncheon—and time for his young travelling
companion to have hers. And then there came over the kind-hearted
Frenchman a slight feeling of discomfort. Would Miss Fairfield be given
a good luncheon, supposing the determined-looking lady who now stood
before him had already had hers, in the foreign fashion, a couple of
hours ago?
“I must be going,” he began. “We have had no food, any of us.
Mademoiselle, also, will be glad of her déjeuner.”
As only answer the Countess went over to the window of which the yellow
blind had already been drawn up, and with a vigorous movement she opened
it. “Ah, that is better,” she exclaimed. “_I_ have all the English love
of fresh air, but my husband—he fears for his pictures—for the
furniture! Look at our view, my little one—and you, too, Monsieur. It is
the most splendid view in Monaco!”
But M. Popeau was not bothering about the view. He was looking with some
concern at Lily Fairfield. She seemed a rather pitiful, lonely little
figure, standing there in this odd-looking room. Somehow he hated
leaving her there!
But the Countess was still talking, in that full, hearty voice of hers.
“My husband’s family is of Monaco”—she smiled and showed her strong,
good teeth. “In the fourteenth century they were almost as great people
as the Grimaldis. Then the Poldas lived in Paris, in Rome, but when we
lost our fortune, through unlucky speculations, it seemed simpler to
come back to the Count’s native place. Here we have lived—nay, here we
have vegetated—ever since!”
When she stopped to take breath, M. Popeau managed to get in his
good-bye. “I hope,” he said pleasantly, “that you will allow me to come
and pay my respects to you and to Mademoiselle? I will do myself that
honour to-morrow, Sunday.”
“We shall always be delighted to see you,” replied the Countess
heartily. “But it is a long climb. Still, kind friends sometimes take
pity on my loneliness. As for my husband, he is like a goat, he can
climb anywhere, he even disdains our good little Monaco carriages.”
“That reminds me that the taxi we had the luck to find is waiting out
there just below the orange grove. So I will go out this way,” and M.
Popeau walked out through the open window.
A few moments later there came the sound of the taxi turning round on
the clearing below—and an acute feeling of loneliness and of depression
stole over Lily Fairfield. She realised, suddenly, that she was tired
out.
The Countess shut the window firmly, and she pulled down the thick
yellow blind. Then she turned to her visitor. “Now,” she said, “now, my
little one, what is it you would like to do? I am for the moment very
busy.”
Her tone was still affectionate, still pleasant, but Lily felt a slight
diminution of cordiality. “Perhaps I had better ask Cristina to show you
your room. English ladies lie down a great deal, and you, my poor one,
have been ill.”
“What I should like,” said Lily falteringly, “is something to eat, Aunt
Cosy. I feel so hungry——” And as she saw a look of perplexity, almost of
annoyance, pass over her hostess’s face, she added hurriedly, “Anything
would do—some bread-and-butter—a cup of milk—or perhaps an egg.”
“I will see if there is any milk,” said the Countess reluctantly.
“Butter, I know we have none—there will be some, I hope, to-morrow
morning. As for an egg—yes, I believe Cristina did secure two eggs the
day before yesterday. Your uncle and I, dear child, follow the custom of
the country; we have our lunch at eleven. I should have expected that
you also would have had something to eat at eleven, even in the
train—but no matter, I will see what can be done.”
She went towards the door. “No, do not follow me”—her tone was
peremptory. “Stay here for a moment. You can be looking at the pictures;
they are of great interest and value—though, alas! the best were sold
long ago to an American millionaire.”
Then a most unlucky thing happened! Though the Countess closed the door
behind her firmly, the catch did not act, and it swung ajar. That being
so, Lily could not help overhearing the short conversation in French
that took place between mistress and maid in the passage outside.