Hettie of Hope Street

by Groves, Annie

  Hettie listened to him, her heart pounding.

  ‘Come, this is no place to talk about my plans for you, Hettie.’ As he spoke he took hold of her hand in his own, its warmth sending shocking thrills of pleasure up her arm.

  But when he hurried her towards the door, she drew back hesitantly. ‘Where are we going? What…’

  ‘I am taking you to the Ritz for that dinner I promised you,’ he told her, adding carelessly, ‘I have a suite there, and we can dine there in private without having to endure the world and its dog coming to our table to trouble us with its questions. Oh, Hettie, Hettie…You don’t know how happy you have made me. All those doubters who claimed that Princess Geisha would dig a big hole in my pocket are now having to eat their words. All my life I have followed my hunches and all my life I have been rewarded for doing so, but never as magnificently as on this occasion. And it is all thanks to you and that voice of yours.’

  He had opened the door and was hurrying Hettie through it and down an unfamiliar corridor. ‘This will take us to my private exit from the theatre. I know you will not want your friends to see you leaving with me.’ He squeezed her hand tenderly. ‘See, Hettie, how well I know you already and how I think of you? The first thing we must do now is arrange for you to have proper singing lessons. I have been looking into it already.’ He opened a small door that led on to the street where a large shiny motor car was waiting.

  ‘The Ritz, please, Hudson,’ Hettie heard him instruct the chauffeur, and then she was being handed into the vehicle.

  ‘Singing lessons?’ she asked Jay uncertainly. ‘But…’

  ‘Yes. Your voice needs no training for the part of Princess Mimi, Hettie, but you are capable of so much more. I have already spoken with Archie and I have commissioned him to compose an operetta especially for you. And it will open not here in London but on Broadway. What do you think of that, my little song thrush?’

  Singing lessons. Broadway. Hettie could scarcely take it all in. They had reached the Ritz, but they were not to enter the famous hotel by the main door, Hettie noticed as the chauffeur opened the car door for her.

  ‘I told Hudson to drive us round to the side entrance.’

  A side entrance it may well be, but there was still a uniformed doorman to open the door for them and someone to escort them along the elegantly decorated corridor with its gilt mirrors and wall lights to the waiting lift.

  Carpets so thick that she felt as though she were sinking into them muffled the sound of Hettie’s heels as they were escorted to a pair of double doors, and Hettie’s eyes widened to see Jay yet again slip some money into the palm of the man waiting to be dismissed, as he had done to all the others.

  Once she was inside the suite, though, all she could do was stare at her surroundings. ‘I have never seen anything like this before,’ she whispered to Jay.

  ‘The hotel was designed to look like a French country house, in the style of Louis XVI,’ Jay explained, smiling at her. ‘Let me show you the whole suite, starting with the main salon.’

  From the small ante-room they were in, with its eau-de-Nil painted wooden panels into which were set heavily gilded mirrors, a pair of double doors opened into the room Jay had referred to as the ‘main salon’. Almost timidly Hettie stepped into it, whirling round as she tried to take in every aspect of its wonderful décor. On the ceiling there was a painting showing all manner of smiling cherubs holding garlands of roses, its design echoed in the carpet beneath her feet. Swags of gilded plasterwork ornamented the delicately coloured panelled walls, and the chairs and sofa were covered in such a fine fabric that Hettie wondered that anyone would dare to sit on them.

  Above the elegant marble fireplace there was a heavy gilt mirror, and a fire burned in the hearth filling the room with delicious warmth. Heavy velvet curtains covered the pair of high windows, in front of which stood a mahogany desk.

  ‘Oh, it is all so very pretty,’ Hettie exclaimed in awe.

  Jay laughed. ‘Ah, but you are far prettier, little Hettie.’

  Blushing, Hettie dipped her head, hoping he would put the heat in her face down to the warmth of the fire.

  ‘And see, here is a dining room,’ he told her, throwing open yet another pair of double doors which led into a smaller oval room decorated in the same style as the salon but containing a mahogany dining table. ‘And beyond this is a small corridor which leads to the bedroom and bathroom.’

  ‘Oh.’ Instinctively Hettie drew back and turned around to face the salon.

  She was definitely still a virgin, Jay decided, and his body tightened in eager male anticipation of its future pleasure.

  Princess Geisha’s success had exceeded his own wildest gambler’s dreams and Jay truly believed that by combining Archie and Hettie, his own discoveries, he could create a theatrical success like no other Broadway had ever known. The purity of Hettie’s voice – like the purity of her virtue – could not be denied. But with the right teacher her voice, and Hettie herself, could and would bloom into true magnificence – her voice for the delight of audiences, and Hettie herself for the far more private delight of one man alone: her lover. And Jay fully intended that he would be her lover. But not yet.

  ‘So many rooms for just one man,’ Hettie commented brightly as she tried to cover the confusion of her own feelings. ‘But then perhaps you are waiting for your wife to join you here in London.’

  Immediately Jay’s whole face tightened, and then darkened with anger. ‘My wife does not, and will not, leave New Orleans,’ he stated in a clipped, harsh voice.

  The very thought of his petulant, demanding wife bringing her unwanted presence to London and his life away from her was enough to remind him of all the reasons he had wanted to escape from her in the first place. Not that he needed reminding.

  Veronique was the spoiled and petted daughter of elderly parents, who had devoted themselves to her, unable to believe their good fortune in her birth when they had given up all hope of having a child. She had therefore grown up in a household where she was not just waited on hand and foot but worshipped and adored as well, and she had made it plain that she expected her husband to do the same.

  But Jay had never had any intentions of doing any such thing. When she had insisted on taking to her bed and remaining there after the birth of their second child, Jay had shrugged his shoulders and left her to her day-bed in an over-heated room that stank of stale air, over-perfumed female flesh and pug dog. He had no desire to listen to her unending complaints about her poor health and his own unkindness towards her.

  As a Catholic, it was impossible for him to divorce her even if he had wanted to; but her existence provided him with a useful barrier against any demands from his lovers to divorce her and marry them.

  The truth was that Jay thought of himself and behaved as though he were, in actual fact, a single man, and thus Hettie’s reference to his wife was not one he welcomed. Now, seeing from Hettie’s expression that his anger had distressed her, he shook his head and affected an expression of sorrow, as he told her, ‘My wife suffers from poor health and is confined to her bed, unable to travel.’

  Hettie felt mortified. ‘Oh I am so sorry,’ she apologised, immediately feeling guilty. She could understand now how much her comment must have distressed him.

  ‘There is nothing for you to apologise for,’ Jay assured her warmly, concealing how very pleased he was by the result of his small ploy. ‘You were not to know. I do not speak of it – or…her – very much…because…’

  ‘Because it is too painful for you?’ Hettie whispered sympathetically. ‘Oh, poor lady. How she must long to be restored to full health so that she might be with you.’

  Just in time Jay recognised that it might not be a good idea to awaken in Hettie too much sympathy for his wife. ‘You are kind, Hettie, but tragically your sympathy would be wasted on my poor Veronique. She barely recognises me any more, never mind remembers that I am her husband. In fact,’ he allowed his voice to drop to a confe
ssional murmur, ‘she cannot…we do not live…there is no longer that intimacy between us that should be shared by man and wife.’

  Jay’s mouth twisted sardonically. Well, that much was true. Veronique certainly did not recognise her duty to him as his wife, when it came to his husbandly rights, and had screamed at him that she never wanted him to touch her again after the birth of their second son.

  ‘Naturally I have made sure that she has the best of care, but her doctors say that it is best that she is allowed to have peace and quiet.’

  Jay had drawn a most affecting and distressing picture of his wife for her, and Hettie felt her eyes sting with compassionate tears. What a truly dreadful thing it must be for both of them that this poor wife could not be a true wife to him, and how noble of Jay to speak so caringly of her. Hettie’s heart swelled with emotion for him.

  There was a rap on the outer door to the suite.

  ‘Ah, that will be our dinner,’ Jay predicted.

  ‘I am afraid I am not really dressed for dining at the Ritz,’ Hettie admitted, as the doors opened to reveal a huge dinner wagon and several waiters.

  ‘Since we are dining here in my suite, it does not matter,’ Jay assured her jovially. ‘But don’t worry, Hettie, we shall make sure you have something pretty to wear before too long.’

  Now he was on familiar ground, Jay acknowledged. He had never yet had a mistress who had not been delighted to receive pretty pieces of jewellery and couture gowns. He was looking forward to taking Hettie to Paris and buying her gowns from Worth and Chanel, almost as much as he was looking forward to taking her to his bed and initiating her into all the arts of lovemaking.

  By the time she stepped on to a Broadway stage as the leading lady in his new musical, he wanted her to be ready for that role, and not an ingénue any longer.

  The hotel staff had lit the candles in the suite’s dining room and the waiters were standing ready to serve dinner.

  Extending his arm for Hettie to place her hand on, Jay smiled at her and invited, ‘May I escort you in to dinner, Miss Walker?’

  Jay made her feel as though she were gowned and jewelled like a duchess, Hettie marvelled gratefully as he led her into the dining room.

  As soon as they were seated he turned to the waiters and told them coolly, ‘Thank you, that is all. We shall serve ourselves.’

  When they had gone, Jay explained, ‘I don’t want our private conversation being gossiped about through every kitchen in London. I have already drawn up a shortlist of possible singing teachers for you, Hettie. There is one in particular who has taught at La Scala who I think will be perfect.’

  ‘La Scala? But that is an opera house,’ Hettie whispered. ‘And my voice is…’

  ‘Your voice is soprano lyric,’ Jay stopped her as he stood up and walked to the buffet table. ‘Will you have some of the beef, Hettie?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, please…’

  Just watching him carve the meat reminded her poignantly of Winckley Square and those happy Sundays at home when she had been a child.

  ‘I have checked with your old teacher,’ Jay continued as he handed her a plate heaped high with mouthwatering slices of meat. ‘And she confirms what I believe myself, which is that with the right teacher you can look to take on leading female roles instead of merely second female leads.

  ‘Think of it, Hettie,’ he urged, coming to her side and catching hold of her hands in his own, his whole face taut and bright with the golden glitter of his dream. ‘You will have the whole of Broadway at your feet, perhaps even be the must famous female singer Broadway has ever known.’

  ‘But why should you do any of this for me?’ Hettie asked him shyly later when they had finished eating. ‘There are any number of singers who…’

  ‘Any number of singers, perhaps, but only one you.’

  He paused as someone started banging loudly on the outer suite door, and a male voice called out, ‘Jay, it’s me, Harvey. Let me in, will ya? Come on, Jay, I know damned well you’re in there, and I’m not about to go away.’

  ‘I’m sorry about this,’ Jay apologised to Hettie as he stood up.

  As Jay opened the main suite doors, a short burly man thrust his way in, laughing loudly and triumphantly as he did so. ‘I knew it! I knew you were here even though those stuffed shirt jerks downstairs told me you weren’t. Who’ve you got here then, Jay? Some little sweetie, no doubt.’

  As he turned round and spied Hettie, he laughed again. ‘Say, she is a sweetie. Where have you been hiding her, Jay?’

  ‘Hettie and I were just discussing a private business matter, Harvey,’ Hettie heard Jay telling him.

  ‘Private business, eh? I’ll bet it was. Aren’t you going to introduce us?’

  A little grimly Jay did so, announcing curtly, ‘Hettie, allow me to introduce to you Mr Harvey Meyerbrock. Harvey, Miss Hettie Walker.’

  ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’ Harvey Meyerbrock began walking towards Hettie.

  Immediately, Hettie stepped back from him, unable to stop herself. Something about him repulsed and frightened her, though she could not explain even to herself just what it was. It was true that he wasn’t a handsome man like Jay, but it wasn’t his lack of good looks that made her recoil from him so much as the lascivious way in which he was looking at her, his shiny, too red lips parting as he slipped a wet tongue tip over them in a way that made Hettie shudder.

  ‘That’s enough, Harvey,’ Hettie heard Jay saying curtly. ‘Hettie is the seond lead singer in the operetta I’m backing, and I wanted to talk to her about the singing lessons I am arranging for her in order to improve her voice.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he smirked. ‘I get the picture, Jay. I know you, remember? Well, she is a dainty little morsel and no mistake. And when you’ve finished with her…’

  He hadn’t taken his eyes off her the whole time he had been speaking to Jay, and somehow he made Hettie feel that if she herself looked away he might actually physically pounce on her. The thought horrified her. ‘I must go,’ she told Jay unsteadily, her face still burning from being subjected to Jay’s friend’s uncouth remarks and his predatory scrutiny.

  ‘I’ll ring for someone to escort you down to the lobby and call you a cab,’ Jay told her.

  Inwardly Jay was cursing Harvey’s untimely arrival, but he knew from past experience that there was no point hinting to the other man that his presence was de trop because then he would only delight in remaining. Like Jay himself, Harvey was a gambler and an American, and he was also, or so he had claimed to Jay, involved in the making of silent movies. Harvey had struck up a friendship with Jay when they had sailed across the Atlantic together en route for England.

  Hettie could feel Harvey Meyerbrock’s hot greedy gaze on her body as Jay took hold of her arm and escorted her towards the door. Something about the way Harvey watched her reminded her of Mr Buchanan, only with Harvey Meyerbrock her awareness of being in danger was a hundred times stronger.

  ‘I’m sorry about this, Hettie,’ Jay whispered to her as they stood in the corridor. He had pulled the door to, so that Harvey could neither see nor hear them.

  ‘It was time for me to leave anyway,’ Hettie told him. ‘I don’t want to be late for rehearsal in the morning.’

  The lift had arrived and Jay watched as the bellboy helped her into it.

  ‘Cute little tootsie, Jay.’ Harvey grinned when Jay walked back into the room. ‘Wanna go shares?’

  ‘Miss Walker is a professional singer, Harvey,’ Jay told him coolly, ignoring the other man’s grinning mouth and knowing wink and continuing, ‘And, as I have already told you, our relationship is strictly business.’

  ‘Don’t give me that! There ain’t no way you would be wining and dining her up here if that were true.’ He laughed coarsely, and then shrugged. ‘Fine, keep her to yourself if you want.’

  ‘What are you doing here, Harvey?’ Jay asked him sharply. ‘What do you want?’

  Harvey gave another shrug. ‘I’d heard as how there w
as a big game coming off and I wanted to know if you knew about it.’

  Jay sighed. As he had quickly discovered, the really big money gambling in London took place in private, in the kind of gentlemen’s clubs where you needed blue blood and a pedigree longer than a prize bull to get so much as your nose through the door.

  ‘Right now the theatre is about as much gambling as I want to do,’ Jay told him firmly.

  ‘’Ettie, at last. I’ve bin worrying meself sick about you. Where the ’ell have you bin?’ Babs asked crossly when Hettie let herself into their shared room.

  ‘Jay Dalhousie wanted to see me,’ Hettie explained.

  ‘So I ’eard. But that were hours ago. Don’t tell me you’ve bin with him all this time,’ Babs demanded suspiciously. ‘It’s gone midnight.’

  ‘Jay…Mr Dalhousie…wanted to talk to me and, and so he invited me to have dinner with him.’ Hettie was almost stumbling over the words, her face a guilty red.

  ‘What? Where did he tek you?’

  This was something she hadn’t been prepared for, Hettie admitted as she struggled to be discreet whilst at the same time trying to calm Babs. ‘We had dinner at the Ritz hotel.’ ‘What? ’Ettie, for gawd’s sake, you didn’t let ’im persuade you to go back to ’is room with ’im, did you?’ Babs asked as sharply as a mother hen.

  Hettie’s expression gave her away.

  ‘Gawd, ’Ettie, ’ave you no sense?’

  ‘It wasn’t a room. He has a suite,’ Hettie defended herself swiftly.

  Babs looked at her in despair. ‘Haven’t you ’eard a word of what we’ve bin saying to Mary? What did he say to you?’ she demanded before asking anxiously, ‘’Ere, you haven’t let him have his way with you already, have you?’

  ‘No!’ Hettie told her, her face burning. ‘And it wasn’t like that anyway.’

  ‘Come off of it, ’Ettie,’ Babs told her scornfully. ‘It’s allus like that with men like ’im and girls like us.’

  ‘He wanted to talk to me about business. About my singing,’ Hettie insisted stubbornly, trying not to show how much Babs’s comments were upsetting her. ‘He says he wants me to have a singing teacher.’