Royal Purple (6 page)

The Countess replied with emphasis that something very serious had upset her, and then lifted her eyeglass and surveyed him through it with a deliberate but somewhat more interested leisureliness.

“You are the assistant to the head waiter, yes?”

The young man bowed again.

“Yes,
madame
.”

“You do not look to me as if you are very experienced, and a
maitre d’
ho
tel
should have years of experience. How long have you been here at the Splendide?”

“A year,
madame
.”

The old eyebrows arched.

“Only a year? And before that?”

“I had two years at the Ritz in Paris. And before that a couple of years in New York.”

The Countess’s bright eyes expressed half-mocking approval.

“So very cosmopolitan! And you are not English, are you? What are you?
...
French, Italian? No; you are not French, or Italian!”

“No,
madame
.”
he agreed
.

To Lucy, who was watching with a suffocating feeling of excitement in her breast—for this was the man who had saved her from a jewel thief the morning before, and whom she would never have associated with hotel work!—there was something cold and disdainful in his brooding dark eyes, and the
corner
s of his mouth turned down in faint derision.

The Countess subjected him to a very long look, and then she made a slight gesture with her hands and shoulders and indicated the venison.

“At least you know something about good food? This kind of thing is good for kitchen staff, but not for hotel guests! You will remove it, and see that I have something eatable. Convey my surprise to the chef that he should permit such a dish to find its way into the dining-room!”

“But certainly,
madame
,”
the young man said, with smooth affability, and signed to his underling to remove the offending course. Then, as the Countess was putting up her lorgnette to regard him afresh, he turned to Lucy and bowed to her too.

“Good evening,
mademoiselle
,”
he said, very softly. “I hope you have had no more unpleasant encounters since I saw you safely to your door the other day?”

L
ucy blushed vividly, and almost stammered. “N-no. Nothing like that.”

“And you have quite got over the shock of being selected as a victim by a jewel thief?”

“Oh, yes
...
thank you?”

The Countess stared.

“What
is
this?” she asked amiably. “Lucy, do you mow this young man? If so, please be so good as to introduce him.”

But Lucy was quite unable to introduce the assistant head waiter at the Splendide, having no idea at all of his name, and he came to her rescue and introduced himself. He bowed very formally in front of the Countess and said that he was Paul Avery, and that he was fortunate enough to have been of some slight assistance to her young companion the day before. With his eyes on the Countess’s rings, that sent out shafts of multi-coloured fire every time she moved her bony hands, he added that Miss Lucy had had quite a nasty experience. It was perhaps a fortunate thing for her that he had happened to be on hand at the time!

“Dear me,” the Countess said, looking up at him steadily. “I’ll admit I have heard something about this, but it never occurred to me that Lucy’s rescuer was a modern knight-errant. A Sir Galahad who calls himself Avery! There is a beautiful obscurity about it that rings positively untrue, and I hope you don’t expect me to believe that you were born Paul Avery.” She waved a ringed hand imperiously. “Sit down and drink a glass of champagne with us. Or isn’t that permitted when you are on duty?”

“I’m afraid it isn’t permitted,
madame
.”

“A pity,” observed the Countess, taking a sip of her own champagne. “Because I would have liked to put to you a lot of questions. However, you must come and see us one evening and take a drink with us then. I have no doubt you are fully aware that we live at number twenty-four Alison Gardens,” with a distinctly meaning glance at Lucy.

Lucy flushed, but Paul Avery neither accepted nor declined the invitation. Instead he stood aside while the waiter who had carried away the venison returned with the abject apologies of the chef, and the promise of something highly delectable that would arrive in a matter of minutes.

The Countess, mollified immediately, beamed amiably, and Avery bent over Lucy and enquired whether her trout was exactly as she liked it. Lucy, who couldn’t remember the last time she had had trout, looked up at him shyly and assured him without hesitation that, from her point of view, everything connected with the meal was superb. And then to her astonishment she heard him enquire in that soft undertone of his:

“Do you ever go to Kensington Gardens?”

“Oh yes,” she answered. “Practically every afternoon.”

“Then be there tomorrow afternoon at three. A young friend of mine will be sailing his new boat in the Round Pond. You’ll find it worth watching.” Lucy put back her head to look up at him, and his eyes were very dark close above her. She thought they were smiling. The Countess fairly clucked with satisfaction when her fresh dish of venison arrived, and after that she purred continually throughout the meal, declaring that she must have been inspired when she decided they should dine that night at the Splendide. In future they would dine there at least once a month, and if she could afford it they would lunch there occasionally too.

“We must see to it that your friend Avery informs the chef that we require very special attention,” she added, her eyes, bright with the effects of champagne, bewildering Lucy as they studied her across the table and danced with a mixture of humour, appreciation and dryness. “It is always a good thing to have a friend at court, and now we have one here, it seems.”

She insisted on drinking a green chartreuse with her coffee, and before they took their departure sent her compliments to the chef and repeated her invitation to Avery to call and see them one evening when he was off duty.

“I have something very special that I will bring out to celebrate the occasion with,” she said, flushed with good food and the effects of chartreuse on top of champagne, and not entirely steady on her feet as he helped her adjust the lace stole about her shoulders. “A very fine old liqueur brandy that came out of Seronia thirty years ago!”

Very gravely he offered to see them into a taxi, but the old lady declined any assistance save Lucy’s arm.

“Lucy i
s
a good girl,” she said. “Her life is very dull, but she has some wonderful new clothes.” Her look swept over him, brilliant with mockery. “I’m sure she will enjoy the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. It is a pity her escort will be nothing but a waiter, but waiters, I understand, make their fortunes out of tips!” and she left a
c
risp pound note on the table which he could ignore if he wished.

Lucy was glad to get her outside and into the taxi. She had never known the Countess von Ardrath in such an elevated humour before, and she was sure the people who watched them go were entertained.

The Countess’s tiara had slipped rakishly over one eye, she walked erratically, and continued to talk loudly.

“What an evening!” she declared. “What a wonderful evening! I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, and the one thing I would have loved to see was the chef’s face when I returned that superbly cooked venison. It was just a gesture, you know! The sort of gesture I would have made years ago when I knew they expected it.” She sank back wearily on the seat of the
ta
x
i
.
“But these sort of things don’t seem to go down so well these days. That young man Avery’s face was positively disdainful! I wonder whether his pride was too great to allow him to pick up that one-pound note!”

CHAPTER VI

LUCY found out the following afternoon. She was waiting in soft spring sunshine beside the famous sheet of water in Kensington Gardens on which not only young people, but those of more mature years, sail boats and wait for them to cross to the farther shore with as much breathless excitement as if they were the Pilgrim Fathers themselves waiting to arrive in the New World, when she was joined by the graceful figure of Paul Avery, and together they watched the boats.

Lucy was wearing her new cream suit, and that morning she had paid a visit to a hairdresser and had her hair cut really short. It looked enchanting, and a special rinse had given it the appearance of living gold, but Avery frowned.

“What have you done to your hair?” he demanded.

Lucy explained.

“It was so long, and I couldn’t do anything to it.” Her eyes hung upon his hopefully, while the colour palpitated in her cheeks in case he was disappointed. “The Countess and I agreed that it wasn’t nearly fashionable enough, so I had it cut.”

“And the Countess has expended some of her two thousand guineas on you, and bought you some new
clothes?” touching the sleeve of the cream suit lightly.

She nodded.

“It was kind of her, wasn’t it?”

He shrugged.

“It all depends whether her motives were kind.” He indicated the swans, that were being fed by a group of tourists. “I’ve brought along some bread if you’d like to feed them too. It’s one of the things one does when one makes a trip to the Round Pond.”

But Lucy was afraid he hadn’t been at all impressed by her new appearance, and she had to find out.

“You—you do think I look much nicer than I did the—the first time you saw me, don’t you?” she asked, in her turn touching his sleeve.

He looked directly down at her, and he smiled. The sight of
hi
s hard and beautiful w
hi
te teeth set her heart fluttering.

“You look adorable,” he told her. “But then you looked adorable the first time I saw you.”

He slipped his hand inside her arm and drew her away from the pond.

“If you don’t want to feed the swans what shall we do
?
I’ve a whole free afternoon ahead of me, and if you’re not in any hurry we’ll spend it together, shall we?”

“And you won’t find that boring?” she enquired, looking up at
hi
m without any coquetry, but a lurking anxiety in her eyes in case he should change his mind about devoting so much of his time to her.

“I won’t find it in the very slightest degree boring,” he assured her with solemnity, and led her over to a seat that was bathed pleasantly in suns
hi
ne, and overhung by some tassels of feathery spring foliage, and invited her to be seated. “We will sit here for a while and get to know one another, and then we will find somewhere that will provide us with tea.”

She smiled with relief and delight.

“When we said goodbye to one another the other day I never even dreamed you would want to see me again.”

“Then it is obvious that you dream the wrong sort of dreams,” he said, and patted her hand. He took out his cigarette-case—an expensive gold case, she noted—and offered it to her, and when she refused, selected one himself. “Tell me,” he asked, a note of amusement in his voice, “how did your employer feel this morning, after her unaccustomed dissipation of last night?”

“Oh,” Lucy assured him, “she felt perfectly all right. I’m afraid she drank rather a lot of champagne last night, and she really oughtn’t to have had that liqueur afterwards, but she woke up this morning without any sort of a hangover, and she’s already planning another evening out.” She paused. “She’s dying to know whether you accepted the tip she left for you last night,” she said demurely, directing a sideways look at his ultra-expensive tailoring.

He produced a crisp pound note from a compartment of his note-case.

“There it is.” He held it up in the sunshine. “I’m not at all sure what I’m going to do with it. I don’t think I shall spend it
...”
A crinkle of amusement puckered the
corner
s of his eyes. “But I may have a little frame made for it one day.”

“Why?” she enquired, genuinely perplexed.

“For two reasons,” he told her softly. “Two very important reasons!” He put the pound note back in his note-case. “Now, Mademoiselle Lucy, I want to know the rest of your name. What is it? Mademoiselle Lucy—
?
”

“Gray,” she supplied.

He nodded.

“Somehow that is very suitable. And how long have you known the Countess von Ardrath?”

She told him: “Just over six months. I wanted a job, and the agency I went to sent me to the Countess.
She fascinated me right from the beginning, and I’ve simply loved working for her. Oh, I knew right from the start, of course, that she was horribly poor, but I was horribly poor too, so it didn’t seem to matter. And I think I’ve fitted in to the household fairly well. The dogs—who are not very good-tempered because they really are grossly overfed—took to me in a way they don’t normally take to strangers, and even Augustine accepted me. Nowadays I believe she thinks of me as part of the background, as important to the Countess as her huge four-poster bed, and the rich cakes she likes for tea—when she can afford them!”

“You say that you yourself are horribly poor,” he echoed her. “How long have you been poor, and why should this be so?”

“Because my father never made any money, and when he died there was little or nothing for me. He was a naval officer who enjoyed his life, but I don’t think he should ever have married, because I don’t think he was ever in a position to support a wife. However, my mother died when I was a mere infant, and my father
’
s sister brought me up. She was very good to me in her way, and I missed her terribly after she too died.”

“And that was when you decided to get a job?”

“Yes. I’d been training in a half-hearted fashion to work amongst children, but on the death of my au
n
t I had to do something quickly, and that was when I heard of the Countess. She really is an extraordinary personality. So proud of her birth, and so full of her memories that I’m never dull, because I love listening to her, and yet not really minding about the ugliness of twenty-four Alison Gardens, and the pinching and scraping that went on there until a few days ago.”

“When you sold the brooch?”

“Yes.”

He crossed one leg over the other, and she remarked the crease in his well-pressed trousers.

“And is it really true that she still possesses a lot of expensive jewellery? Apart from the brooch that was disposed of the other day?”

“Yes. But as I explained to you the other day Her Highness doesn’t look upon it as her own property. It is to realise funds for Seronia, and the cause of Seronia.”

“Her Highness being the last surviving daughter of the old King of Seronia?”

She looked swiftly sideways at him, and said, “Yes” again.

“I’m a
fr
aid I consider your employer is misguided in her championship of such a lost cause as Seronia,” Paul Avery observed, flicking ash from his
c
igarette with the tip of a long forefinger. “But one can’t help admiring an old woman who denies herself in order to make possible a
c
herished ambition. However, I think she would display sense if she allowed the bank to take charge of her jewellery, and I hope she will never again get you to try and dispose of some of it for her. You must refuse if she asks you to do that sort of thing again.”

“As a matter of fact, she is going to get Mr. Halliday to come and see her,” Lucy confided. “There are a few rings and other small pieces she has decided to part with, and because of what happened to me the other day she thinks it safer to ask Mr. Halliday to come to her.”

“That is belated wisdom,” Avery remarked.

Lucy looked sideways at him again curiously.