There was unveiled admiration and eager interest in the face of the older man, a middle-aged Frenchman named Hercules Popeau, and a kind of unwilling admiration in that of his companion. And yet Angus Stuart, captain in the London Scottish, was repeating to himself the quaint, moving Scotch phrase, “A guid sight for sair e’en.”
Lily Fairfield was certainly an agreeable example of what the cynics tell you will soon be a vision of the past—a delightfully pretty, happy hearted, simple natured, old-fashioned English girl—a girl who had “done her bit” in the Great War, and yet who was as unsophisticated as her grandmother might have been—though eager for any fun or pleasure that might come her way.
Lily’s horrid nightmare faded into nothingness. It seemed so wonderful, after having left a London dark in fog and rain, to find herself in this fairyland of beauty. On her left a brilliant sun gleamed on the softly lapping waters of the Mediterranean, while to her right the train was rushing past lovely gardens full of the exquisite colouring which belongs to the French Riviera alone.
Could it really be only four days since Uncle Tom had seen her off at Victoria?
Though neither of them had said much, each had known it to be a solemn parting, the end of a happy chapter which had begun when Lily was five years old. Sixteen years had gone by since the orphan child had arrived at The Nest, Epsom, to become the charge, and in time the beloved adopted daughter, of her father’s brother, a retired member of the Indian Medical Service, and his prim but kindly wife.
At first the war had not made much difference to The Nest and its occupants. Uncle Tom had taken over the practice of a resident doctor who had gone off to the front; and after the war had lasted two years Aunt Emmeline had at last allowed Lily to do some war work. This was not an amusing, exciting job of the kind so many of her young friends were doing, for it consisted in the dull business of looking after some Belgian refugees. Incidentally, she had thus acquired a good colloquial knowledge of French, a knowledge which should now prove useful.
The Great War closed a chapter in many a British girl’s life, but in Lily’s case it was death, not the war, that had done so. Aunt Emmeline, always so prudent and fussy, had caught influenza just after the Armistice, and had died in four days.
To the surprise of all those about her, the sudden ending of the war and her aunt’s death coming together had been too much for the girl. She was ordered a complete change of scene, and it was then that Uncle Tom bethought himself of a certain clever, good-natured, and energetic lady, the Countess Polda, who had been what old-fashioned people would call a connection of his wife’s.
It all hung on what was now very old family history. The Countess had been the daughter, by a first wife, of an Italian who had become, some forty years ago, Aunt Emmeline’s stepfather. Thus, while entirely unrelated, she and Countess Polda had for a while called each other sister. Each of them had married—the one an Englishman, Tom Fairfield, and the other a certain Count Polda, who belonged to what had seemed to her English connections a very extraordinary nationality, for he was a subject of the Prince of Monaco.
Some twelve years ago the Countess had written to know if she might come and stay at The Nest for a few days while paying a business visit to London.