Corner House — Chapter I, The House Next Door; Chapter II, Hetty
CHAPTER I THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR
A brilliant light streamed from the open doorway of No. 1, Lytton Avenue, making a lane of flame across the pavement, touching pinched gaunt faces that formed a striking contrast to the dazzling scene within.
Outside it was cold and wet and sodden, inside was warmth, the glitter of electrics on palms and statuary and flowers, a sliding kaleidoscope of beautiful dresses.
A touch of this grateful warmth came soft and perfumed down the steps, and a drawn Lazarus huddled in his rags and shivered.
"What's all this mean?"
he growled to an equally indigent neighbour.
There was a clatter and clash of harness as carriage after carriage drove up.
"This ain't quite Park Lane, guv'nor."
"Anyway, it's the fashion," the other growled hoarsely.
"I ought to know because I used to be one of them before the accursed drink--but that is another story.
Ever heard of the Countess Lalage?"
"Oh, that's it.
Lovely woman with a romantic history.
Rich as thingamy, been proposed to by all the dukes what ain't married already.
Read it in one of the evening papers."
Poverty and want were jostling with well dressed content on the pavement.
It was one of the strangest and most painful contrasts that can be seen in the richest city in the world.
And the contrast was heightened by the meanness of the Corner House.
Black, dark, deserted, grimy shuttered windows--a suggestion of creeping mystery about it.
Time ago the Corner House was the centre of what might have been a thrilling tragedy.
Some of the older neighbours could tell of a cry in the night, of the tramping of feet, of a beautiful woman with the poison still in her hand, of the stern, dark husband who said never a word, though the shadow of the scaffold lay heavily upon him.
Since then the Corner House looked down with blank shuttered eyes on the street.
None had ever penetrated its mystery, nobody had crossed its threshold from that day to this.
The stern dark man had disappeared; he had locked up his house and gone, leaving not so much as a caretaker behind.
Strange that this dark, forbidding house should stand cheek by jowl with all that was modern and frivolous and fashionable.
Even in the garden behind Lytton Avenue the corner house frowned with sightless eyes out of its side windows, eerie and creeping in the daytime.
But the heedless throng of fashionables recked nothing of this.
The Countess Lalage was their latest craze.
Who she was or where she came from nobody knew nor cared.
She was young and wonderfully beautiful in a dashing Southern way, her equipages were an amazement to the park;
she must have been immensely rich, or she would never have entertained as she did.
There must have been a Count Lalage at one time, for generally a pretty little girl rode with the Countess, and this child was her daughter.
The Countess spoke casually of large South American concessions and silver mines, so that Oxford Street and Regent Street bowed down and worshipped her.
She had purchased No. 1, Lytton Avenue, just as it stood from an American millionaire who had suddenly tired of Society.
Paragraphs in the cheap Society papers stated with awe that the sale had been settled in five minutes, so that on the spot this wonderful Countess Lalage had signed a cheque for more than two hundred thousand pounds.
She stood now at the head of the marble staircase, a screen of palms behind her, receiving her guests.
If she were an adventuress, as some of the critics hinted, she carried it off wonderfully well.
If so she was one of the finest actresses in the world.
A black silk dress perfectly plain showed off her dark flashing beauty to perfection.
She wore a diamond spray and tiara; a deep red rose at her breast looked like a splash of blood.
Truly, a magnificent woman!
She had an easy word and a graceful speech for every one.
An old diplomatist, watching her earnestly, went away muttering that she must be to the manner born.
Her smile was so real and caressing, but it deepened now, and the red lips quivered slightly as a bright-eyed, square-headed young man came up the steps and bowed over her hand.
"So you came, after all, Dr. Bruce?"
she said playfully.
She pressed his hand gently, her eyes were soft and luminous on his face.
Any man whose affections had not been pledged elsewhere would have felt his pulses leaping.
"Why?"
"Need you ask?"
Gordon Bruce said gallantly.
"You are my patroness, you know.
Your word is final in everything.
And since you declared at a fashionable gathering that Dr. Gordon Bruce was the man for nerve-troubles I have found it necessary to hire a second horse."
The dark eyes grew more caressing.
A more vain man would have been flattered.
To be the husband of Countess Lalage meant much, to be master of all this wealth and splendour meant more.
But the quiet elation in Bruce's tones was not for the Countess, if she only knew it.
The flowing tide of satin and silks and lace sweeping up the staircase swept young Gordon Bruce along.
He passed through the glittering rooms faint with the perfume of roses.
There was a dim corridor full of flowers and shaded lights.
Gordon Bruce looked anxiously about him.
A
glad light came into his eyes.
CHAPTER II. HETTY.
The figure of a girl rose out of a bower of palms and ferns and stood before Gordon Bruce with a shy welcome in her violet eyes.
Just for a moment Bruce found himself contrasting this fresh English beauty with the Lalage Southern loveliness to the detriment of the latter.
There was a purity and sweetness, a wonderful tenderness of expression about Hetty Lawrence that had always appealed to Bruce.
He had known the Countess Lalage's governess for years.
He admired her independence of character, too, though on the whole he would have preferred her taking the home that her uncle Gilbert Lawrence, the great novelist, was ever urging upon her.
But she would have a home of her own soon.
"Gordon, I am so glad you have come," she whispered.
"I have stolen away for half an hour as Mamie is better.
If she wants me I have told the nurse----" "She can't want you half so badly as I do," Gordon laughed as he bent down and kissed the shy lips.
"And that queer little creature will have to learn to do without you altogether before long.
Four new patients today, Hetty.
And I have taken the house in Green-Street."
"Can we really afford it?"
Hetty asked anxiously.
Bruce kissed her again.
He loved that little pathetic, anxious look of hers.
He spoke confidently of the time when Harley Street should be theirs.
There was a strength and reliance about her lover that always comforted Hetty.
"I shall be glad," she whispered, after a thoughtful pause, "glad to get away from here."
"That's flattering to me.
But I thought you liked the Countess."
Hetty glanced fearfully around her.
Nobody was near--only the palms and the scented roses could hear her confidences.
"I have tried," she confessed, "and I have failed.
She fascinates and yet repels me.
There is some strange mystery about her.
Gordon, I feel sure that there is the shadow of some great crime on her house.
It sounds weak, hysterical, perhaps, but I can't get it out of my mind."
"But, darling, the Countess has been a good friend to me."
"I know.
You are strong and ambitious, and she is helping to make you the fashion.
But has it ever struck you why?"
"Perhaps it is because she has the good taste to like me," Gordon laughed.
"Because she loves you," said Hetty, in a thrilling whisper.
"Because her whole heart and soul is given over to a consuming passion for you.
There is a woman who would go any length to win a man's love.
If a husband stood in the way she would poison him; if a woman, she would be destroyed.
Gordon, I am frightened; I wake up in the middle of the night trembling.
I wish you had never come here; I don't know what I wish."
Gordon looked down into the troubled violet eyes with amazement.
Surely he would wake up presently and find that he had been dreaming.
Countess Lalage with all the world at her feet, and he a struggling doctor.
Oh, it was preposterous!
And yet little words and signs and hints unnoticed at the time were coming to his mind now.
"I wish you hadn't told me this," he murmured, uneasily.
"It would have been far----" He paused.
From overhead somewhere came the sound of a frightened, wailing cry, the pitiful call of a child in terror.
Hetty was on her feet in a moment, all her fears had gone to the winds.
"Mamie," she exclaimed.
"Of course, nurse has crept off to the rest of the servants.
Poor little wee frightened soul."
Hetty flashed off down the corridor, and was gone leaving Bruce to his troubled thoughts.
Just before going, Hetty stood on her toes, and kissed her lover lightly on the lips.
It was, perhaps, a goodnight caress, for there was a chance that she might not return.
There was a sound at the top of the corridor, just the suggestion of a swish of silken drapery, and Gordon Bruce half turned.
Under a cluster of electric lights stood Leona Lalage; she must have seen everything.
It might have been fancy, it might have been a guilty conscience, but just for the moment Countess Lalage seemed transformed into a white fury with two murderous demons gleaming in her dark restless eyes.
Then her silk and ivory fan fell from her hands, and Gordon hastened to recover it.
When he looked up again the mask of evil passions was gone.
The Countess was smiling in her most fascinating manner.
Gordon could not know that the long filbert nails had cut through the woman's glove, and were making red sores on the pink flesh.
He did not know that he would have stood in peril of his life had there been a weapon near at hand.
"You must not flirt with my governess, Dr. Bruce," she said.
"I would have given a great deal not to have seen what I saw just now."
The rebuke sounded in the best of taste.
Gordon bowed.
"I have a good excuse," he said, "in fact, the very best.
As I told you some months ago, I have known Miss Lawrence for years.
We have always understood one another, but because I was in no position to marry nothing has been said.
Won't you be the first to congratulate me on my engagement?"
"Then fetch me an ice.
By the time you return I shall have thought of something pretty to say.
Ah, I have pricked my finger.
The ice, my dear boy, the ice.
The finger will not hurt till you return."
Her hand had shot out grasping for something to steady herself on--the whole world spun around her.
She had given her whole passionate, tempestuous soul to this man; she had never dreamt that she could fail to gain his love.
She had never failed before, she had only required to hold up her hand.
.
.
.
She clasped the stem of a rose passionately.
The cruel thorns cut into the soft white flesh, but there was pleasure in the very pain.
Another moment and she would have flashed out her secret and despair to the world.
For the moment she was crushed and beaten to the earth.
Yet she spoke very quietly and evenly, though the effort brought the blood thrilling to her temples.
She was alone now; she could give vent to her passionate anger.
She smashed her fan across her knee, she tore her long gloves into fragments.
Dimly, in a mirror opposite, she saw her white ghastly face, and the stain of blood where she had caught her lips between her teeth.
"So I have to sit down and submit to that tamely," she murmured.
"You little white-faced cat, you pink doll, so you are going to get the best of me.
We shall see; oh, yes, we shall see.
If I could be somewhere where I could tear myself to pieces, where I could scream aloud and nobody could hear!
If I could only face him now and smile and say honeyed words!
Tomorrow, perhaps, but not tonight.
Even I have my limits.
.
.
.
He's coming back!"
One glance at the dim mirror and Leona Lalage flew down the corridor.
The music of the band was like the sound of mocking demons in her ears.
As she flew up the stairs she could see the blank windows of the Corner House staring dreadfully in.
Then she locked the door behind her and flung herself headlong down on the bed.
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