Corner House — Chapter V, In the Morning Room; Chapter VI, A Visitor
CHAPTER V. IN THE MORNING ROOM.
The house seemed suddenly to have developed into a place of horrors.
Hetty had never been quite happy there.
She had always distrusted and been a little afraid of Countess Lalage.
There was something inscrutable about her face, a Satanic suggestion behind her brilliant beauty.
There were little signs, too, that only a woman notices.
It was as if the girl had found herself in a house of criminals.
It was all wonderfully refined and luxurious, a perfectly appointed house, but after a year there Hetty knew absolutely nothing as to the past of her employer.
She flew up the stairs headlong with that blind unreasoning terror upon her.
A big clock suddenly striking two went off in her ears like a rifle shot.
She caught a glimpse of her own face in a mirror.
Was that white scared visage her own sunny, happy face?
Without ceremony she darted into Countess Lalage's bedroom.
The lights were still up, and the mistress of the house was brushing out her long black hair.
She was cool and collected enough now.
"What is the meaning of this?"
she demanded.
"A man in the morning room," gasped Hetty.
"A man with a horrid crooked nose and hands all over queer orange spots.
Shall I alarm the house----" "Come with me," Leona Lalage replied.
"You are dreaming.
Of course, there is no man in the house.
Come along."
There was no sign of fear or dismay or anything else about the woman in white with the long black hair streaming over her shoulders.
Yet she was annoyed, and her brains were working quickly.
It was quiet in the corridor, save the little fretful whine from the child for something to drink.
"Ah, you have been down for Mamie," the Countess exclaimed.
"She had one of her turns again.
Give the poor child some of that soda-water and then follow me.
Be quick."
Mamie drank greedily and thirstily.
Then her head dropped and her eyes closed.
With her heart still beating furiously, Hetty ran down the stairs.
There was nobody in the morning room but Countess Lalage.
She was smiling in a contemptuous manner.
"I have been in every room," she said.
"There is positively nobody there.
I shall have to send you away for a change of air.
If you have no further dreams to tell me we had better go to bed."
Hetty had nothing to say.
She was tired and worn out, and the cool contempt of her employer was galling.
The Countess came into her bedroom presently; all her coldness had gone.
She was the winning, gracious woman now as the world knew her.
She had a little medicine glass in her hand.
"I am sorry I spoke harshly to you just now," she said.
"Drink this.
It is my own pet mixture of sal volatile and a spirit of my own.
It will act like a charm on those frayed nerves of yours."
Hetty drank the mixture gratefully.
The few kind words were soothing.
If there was anything really wrong the Countess could not have behaved like that.
Her head touched the pillow, something delicious and warm seemed to float over her, and she was sound asleep.
Leona closed the door behind her with a snap.
She was alert and vigorous as a general in action now.
She passed downstairs swiftly but firmly, and into the morning room.
One by one she snapped up the electric lights till the whole room was bathed in a golden glow.
"Now, you scoundrel, come out," she cried.
The heavy curtains parted and the figure of a man emerged.
He was short, yet powerfully made, with a curious twist from the hip as if he were deformed in some way.
Ragged hair fringed his chin and lips.
His long nose was crooked on one side; his equally long hands were covered with great orange freckles.
An object of mistrust and suspicion everywhere.
The man's eyes were perhaps the worst part of him--dull, red, and bloated, full of a certain ferocious cowardliness.
They were the eyes of a man who drank to excess.
The red rims twitched.
"None of that with me," he growled.
"Do you know who I am, Countess Lalage?
I am Leon Lalage, Count of the Holy Roman Empire, and your husband.
Incomparable woman, you cannot alter that fact.
For better or worse, for richer or poorer, till death do us part!"
Death was near parting them now if the gleam in Leona Lalage's eyes meant anything.
She would have given half her splendour, years of her life, to see that man lying dead at her feet.
If she could have slain him and safely disposed of his body she would have done so.
"How did you get here?"
she asked curtly.
"How did you find me out?"
The man laughed silently, horribly, his body twisting as if set on wires.
"Never mind that," he said hoarsely.
"I did find you out, and here I am.
Oh, it was a cunning plot of yours--so near and yet so far away.
And as much brandy as I could drink so that I might drink myself to death, and after that perhaps a handsome monument testifying to my virtues.
But I'm not going to stand it any more, I'm not going back there."
No reply for a moment, nothing but a quick heaving of the broad bosom, a livid play like summer lightning in the dark eyes.
The man lighted a cigarette and puffed it noisily.
"I've got you, my lady," he said hoarsely.
"Last time we parted you were not so comfortable as you are now, a troisième and a few francs per day out of the cards when the police were complaisant.
Here you have everything.
There are a score of things that I could pawn for enough to keep me going for months.
Ma foi, but you must be very rich."
"I have not £20 of ready money in the world."
"Give me carte blanche and I will put that right for you.
I bear no malice.
Reverse the positions and I shall do my best to put you out of the way.
But I am not going back there any more."
"What do you propose to do, then?"
"Retire to the Continent.
Tomorrow you let me have £500 as a guarantee of good faith.
Then I leave you--for the present.
After that you can marry the young doctor who has won your affections and be happy--for, say a week."
Leona Lalage's white teeth came together with a click.
It was good for the man that she had no weapon in her hand.
It was hard work to keep down the tornado of passion that filled her.
It seemed hard to imagine that she had once loved this man.
Heavens!
what a fool she once was.
"You know too much," she said quietly.
"If that fool Giuseppe had done his duty you would have gone down to your drunkard's grave in ignorance.
But you are not going on the Continent tomorrow or the next day.
Fool, fool, have you not lived long enough to know that all that glitters is not gold!
For the moment I am living on my reputation and the splendour of this house.
Not one penny have I paid for it.
People hold documents and title deeds of mine that are forgeries.
I have a grand coup that may come off, and again it may fail.
For the moment I am penniless."
The man nodded.
The woman was speaking the truth, and he knew it.
"And in the meantime what do you propose to do?"
she asked, swiftly.
"There is but one thing for it," the man responded.
"There is ever before my eyes the fear of the police.
Therefore I go back to my prison house till you are ready.
But I have escaped once, and I shall escape again.
Play me false, and I will come out and denounce you before a whole crowd of your painted butterflies.
I could say to your medical Adonis----" "Be silent," Leona Lalage hissed, "take heed lest you go too far.
Begone, get back to your kennel, anywhere out of my sight.
Do you think I want to keep you near me an hour longer than is necessary?"
He was gone at last; the hall door closed behind him.
His footsteps echoed on the pavement a few yards and then stopped.
After that the whole world seemed to be wrapped in silence.
It was nearly dawn before Leona Lalage crept into bed.
She carefully locked away some papers that she had almost committed to heart.
There was triumph in her sleepy eyes.
"Freedom and revenge," she murmured.
"What good words they are.
Tomorrow!
Well, tomorrow shall be my destruction or my Waterloo!"
CHAPTER VI. A VISITOR.
On the whole, Gordon Bruce was persuaded that the world was a pleasant place to live in.
He had youth and intellect and ambition that looked likely to be satisfied.
Two years before he had recklessly ventured his small capital on a suite of ground floor rooms in Duke Street, and for some little time he had had a hard struggle to keep up appearances, and pay the instalments as they came due on his somewhat showy furniture.
But it had all come right in the end.
He had had a little luck, but his great good fortune, or so it seemed, was when he had been called in to attend little Mamie Lalage.
The Countess was just beginning to swim then upon the high tide of popularity.
That the woman in her passionate, headstrong way had fallen in love with him Bruce never dreamt.
It was only Hetty's woman's eyes and woman's instinct that had found the truth.
But the Countess was the fashion, and her doctor looked like being the fashion, too.
A Duchess had taken him up; she had firmly persuaded herself that Bruce had saved the life of one of her children.
From a hundred or two, Bruce suddenly found his income expanded to as many thousands.
No wonder that his dreams were pleasant as he lay back smoking a cigarette after dinner.
There was only one drawback--most of those two thousand pounds were on his books.
Well, his credit was good.
If he could lay his hands upon a hundred or two now, he would begin to furnish the house in Green Street at once.
Then when the season was over he and Hetty could be married.
Yes, on the whole Gordon Bruce's cigarette just then was an enchanting one.
There was a ring at the hall and a servant came in.
Gordon hoped that it was not a patient.
He was dressed for a party, where he hoped to meet Hetty; not a grand affair, but a few friends in Gilbert Lawrence's luxurious chambers.
Bruce looked at the card in his hand.
"I wonder who Herr Max Kronin is?"
he muttered.
"Ask the gentleman in."
He came, a mild-looking elderly German, heavy grey moustache, and eyes hidden behind a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles.
He was slow of speech and gasped a great deal as if he had some trouble at his heart.
"You wished to speak to me," said Gordon.
"Pray sit down."
The elderly stranger did so, and immediately the atmosphere was impregnated with an odour of strong tobacco.
"It is not as a patient I came," he said.
"I take the liberty to occupy some of your valuable time.
If you are in one hurry--" "Not in the least," Bruce replied.
"I have half an hour at your disposal.
Your case----" "Ach, but I have no case, I am not what you call a patient.
It is another matter--a matter of sentiment."
Gordon bowed again; evidently a lunatic of the harmless type.
"Some days ago you bought a picture," Herr Kronin proceeded.
"It was a small picture of the early Dutch School, signed J. Halbin.
A woman nursing a sick child, and the father looking on.
Not a valuable picture."
"Certainly not," Bruce agreed.
"I happen to know an expert who told me so.
It took my fancy and I gave ten pounds for it, which, I understand, is about a tenth of its full value."
Herr Max Kronin nodded approvingly.
"That is so.
Otherwise I should not be here tonight.
As pictures go, £100 is not much.
But that picture belonged to my mother's family--in fact, she is descended from the J. Halbin who painted it.
It was sold some years ago at a time of great distress.
We were sorry.
Sentimental, you say, but it would be a bad world without sentiment.
My sister, she never ceased to mourn over that picture.
When the good time comes she try to get him back.
But he has disappeared.
Picture my delight when I see him in a little time ago in a shop window.
I go home for my chequebook--for I am not a poor man, Herr Bruce, now--and I hurry back to the shop.
On my way I send a telegram to my sister to say the picture is found.
When I reach the shop you have beaten me by ten minutes."
Herr Kronin paused, overcome by deep distress.
His eyes behind the big glasses looked appealingly at Bruce.
"So you want to buy it from me," he suggested encouragingly.
"Oh, that is it, Herr Bruce, beyond doubt, that is it.
It will be easier for me, I shall not be so distressed, if you let me make a bargain with you.
Herr Bruce, I will give you £200 for the picture."
Bruce hesitated for a moment.
But why not?
The man was wealthy, and the picture was worth half what he asked, perhaps more, for experts are not always correct.
And £200 would mean the beginning of the furnishing of the new house.
Dim visions of a happy honeymoon rose before him.
"Very well," he said.
"You shall have the picture.
It is there on the sideboard wrapped up as my expert friend returned it.
Where shall I have the pleasure of sending it for you?"
"I will take him with me."
Kronin said eagerly.
"It will be good to feel that I have got him, that there will be no more cups slipped from ze lip.
Sentiment again!
But there is no sentiment about these banknotes, my friend."
He counted out forty £5 Bank of England notes on the table with a hand that trembled strangely.
He seemed restless and eager to be away now, as if fearful that Bruce might change his mind.
The whole thing might have been a dream save for the crisp crackling notes on the table.
"Never rains but it pours," Bruce smiled as he thrust the notes in his breast pocket.
"Tomorrow every penny goes for that wonderful lot of old furniture in Tottenham Court Road.
What a pleasant surprise for Hetty!"
It required some strength of mind to keep the secret from the girl, but Bruce managed it.
It seemed to him that Hetty looked a little white and drawn, but as the evening went on the happy look came back to her eyes again.
There was a small fernery at the back of the dining-room into which Gordon hurried Hetty presently.
"My dearest girl, what is the matter?"
he asked.
It was good to be with him there, to feel the pressure of his hand, and to look into his keen, resolute face.
With Gordon by her side Hetty felt equal to meeting any terrors.
Yet after the lapse of a few hours the whole thing seemed so vague and intangible that she hesitated to speak.
"Is it the corner house again?"
Bruce suggested playfully.
"Don't laugh, dear," Hetty whispered.
"The place haunts, me.
I never seem to be able to get away from the horrors of it.
And last night----" "Go on, darling.
I promise you not to laugh again."
By degrees Hetty told her story.
It was real enough to her, but to Bruce's practical mind it sounded unsubstantial and shadowy.
After all, she might easily have imagined the face at the window, and as to the man in the morning room, he had only been mistily reflected in a dim old mirror.
"But I should recognize him anywhere," Hetty protested.
Bruce thought that she would probably never have the chance, but he did not say so.
"Did Countess Lalage allude to it this morning?"
he asked.
"Not a word," Hetty admitted.
"She was glad to see me better; she breakfasted with Mamie and myself, and she was altogether charming, but----" "But?
There is much behind that word.
You don't like her, Hetty?"
"I am afraid of her; I mistrust her; she frightens me.
Call it prejudice if you like, but there is something wrong about that woman.
Did she find out anything about us last night, Gordon?"
"I had to tell her, of course," Gordon replied.
"She accused me of flirting with you, and I had to speak for your sake."
"And what happened after that?"
"Upon my word I forget.
Oh, yes.
She sent me at once for an ice, saying that she would think of something pretty by the time I returned.
She must have forgotten all about it, for when I got back she had vanished."
It was Hetty's turn to hold her peace now.
Leona Lalage had not felt equal to facing Gordon at that moment.
Even her iron will and resolution were not quite equal to the strain.
"If I was only out of the house," she said.
"If I was only out of that house."
Gordon bent and kissed the quivering lips.
His little secret was on the tip of his tongue, but he repressed it.
"It will not be for long, dearest," he whispered.
"Courage, darling."
If he had only told her; if he had only spoken then!
