“And 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.
They 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 not 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 be 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:
“MY DEAR SON,
“Here is some of the money I promised you. I have more, but I am
afraid to send it in this way.
“YOUR MOTHER.”
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.