The Key (Morley Roberts)/Chapter 2

As half Lady Hale's house was shut up and the drawing-room swathed in white, she and Felicia St. John sat in the library. It was an admirable room, with a big window looking on the park. Over the fireplace was a portrait of Sir George which had been painted by Sedgwick. For once, perhaps, the infinite penetration of that painter had been at fault. The technique was admirable; the brushwork a joy to the connoisseur; the color delightful. Yet there was a certain satirical aspect about the face which suggested that the sitter had said to the artist, “Get below the surface, if you can,” for Hale's aspect was rarely satirical.

He had achieved success by a splendid and kindly simplicity which was often boyish; his laughter rang true. His bright eyes and unwrinkled brow spoke, to all appearance, nothing but the truth. But perhaps, the painter had succeeded, after all. At least, it seemed he had understood that Hale did not tell everything. In ten sittings he had discovered almost as much as Hector Durant, who had spent years with the man.

And in twenty years Mary Hale had discovered nothing. She was perfectly simple, deliciously naive, utterly artless; an admirable specimen of a much-admired English type. Clever people really loved her conversation. There is no doubt that Sir George had loved it dearly.

So even did Felicia St. John, who, without being quite stupid, would undoubtedly never set the Thames on fire. She was pretty, dark-eyed, and twenty-three. Her mother, now dead, had been an old friend of Sir George's. Both of them had spent some months in Barbados after the hurricane and earthquake drove Lady Hale to England, and now that Hale and Mrs. St. John were both dead, Felicia was Lady. Hale's friend rather than companion. They were now waiting for Hector and for tea.

“Have you finished the letters, Felicia?” asked Lady Hale, as she sat in front of the fire. Felicia was at the big desk at the other end of the room.

“I'm doing the envelopes,” replied Felicia.

“Tut, tut,” said Lady Hale, folding her fat hands on her lap, “tut, tut, my dear, you should always put the letters into envelopes as you write them. My dear husband was very positive that in no other way could one avoid the most disastrous complications. He said, dear, that there was nothing more awful than ending the wrong letter to the right person. I mean the right letter to the wrong person. No, perhaps I didn't mean that, either, but, at any rate, he said, in his joking way, that to send two ladies the wrong love-letters was a thing that one never forgot.”

Felicia agreed that it might be very awful.

“I've done now,” she added.

“The letter to Smith and the check to Wickins and the letter to Mrs. Simpson?” asked Lady Hale.

“Oh, yes, all of them,” yawned Felicia.

“She's the sweetest creature, and so charitable,” mused Lady Hale. “I've often seen her carry little puddings to the poor of Kensington without gloves. And now we'll settle about the keys, Felicia. Mr. Durant will be here any minute. I almost wish we weren't going away. But when dear Doctor Courtney shakes his microscope—or is it a stethescope?—at me and says, 'Go to the Riviera' in his most determined manner, what can I do but go? But now about the keys. Have you got them?”

“They are here on the desk,” replied Felicia, as she rose.

“Then I'll sit with my back to you, and you can fit them, dearest,” said Lady Hale. “I cannot bear to come and help you. My husband would never let me touch his papers, and if I saw any of his writing I should positively burst into tears. He was such a tidy man, so careful about everything. You try the keys, Felicia.”

The girl tried the keys one after the other and at last fitted one to the top left-hand drawer.

“I've got one open.”

“What is in it?”

“There's some string, a lot of portmanteau-straps, an old Bradshaw, and a broken paper-knife,” said Felicia. “Oh, yes, and there's a book with flies in it, for fishing, some corks, a corkscrew and a French novel by Maupassant, and a prayer-book.”

Lady Hale nodded.

“Ah, to be sure; he was very careful about little things. You may give me the prayer-book presently, Felicia. And the next?”

“In the next,” said Felicia, “there's a novel by—by Gautier, 'Mademoiselle De Maupin,' three old pipes, and a bundle of prescriptions.”

“You may give me the prescriptions presently, Felicia,” said Lady Hale. “And the next, darling?”

Out of the next drawer Felicia got some cracked golf-balls, a box of water-colors, together with a Russian grammar, the earthenware bowl of a Turkish narghile, a railway door-key, and a pair of socks. As she named each article successively Lady Hale nodded. But when Felicia came to the pair of socks she started.

“A pair of socks! Dear me, what could he have meant by putting them there? I wish I could ask him. But But when Felicia came to the pair of socks she started. [sic]

“In the one underneath there are two whisky-flasks, a cigar-case with his initials on it, and two photographs, one of you and one of a dancer, I think, judging from the costume,” said Felicia dryly.

“Describe the costume, Felicia,” Lady Hale placidly.

Felicia said that she couldn't describe it.

“It's nothing to speak of,” said Felicia.

“Ah, he had the greatest love for the stage in all its forms,” said Lady Hale. “We met first at private theatricals when I was playing Ophelia. I did it beautifully. You may put the dancing-photograph in the fire, and give me mine presently. Proceed, Felicia.”

When the girl opened the next drawer she found nothing but papers and a duster, and told Lady Hale so.

“A duster,” exclaimed Lady Hale. “Oh, how that reminds me of the past. When I was first married to him he allowed me, but no one else, to dust his desk, but after we had been married five years he grew more and more nervous about his official papers, and at last I yielded and gave him a duster for himself. I wonder if it is the same one.”

Felicia held it up disdainfully, between one finger and her thumb. It was absolutely black.

“It looks like it, I must say,” she declared, with a sniff.

Lady Hale shook her head mournfully.

“Well, you may give it to me presently,” she said. “And now have you opened them all, dear?”

On the other side of the desk placed against the wall there was a Chippendale cabinet.

“That's all the drawers that are not filled with papers, but what about the cabinet? Is that to be opened?”

Lady Hale turned and looked at it.

“You might fit the key, dear, but don't open it. I know it contains most important documents, dating from the time when he was in the Bahamas, and in Malta, right up to the time we were in Barbados, where you first met him. He often told me that only Hector or his other executor was to open it. Still you might see if the key is on the ring with the others.”

Felicia tried, and tried in vain, and said so.

“Nonsense, child, it must be there,” cried Lady Hale. “I'll try it myself, though I feel almost wicked to be doing it.”

She failed, too, and gave the keys back to Felicia.

“After all, I dare say Hector has it in his own possession. I feel sure he has, Felicia. And even if he hasn't, it won't be difficult to get it open. But he'll be here in a minute, I'm sure; and if he isn't, we must have tea, child. Give me the photograph and the socks and the duster, Felicia, and I'll put them with my other treasures.”

She bustled away with them, and when Felicia was alone she closed the drawers and went to the fireplace above which Sir George's portrait hung. She looked up at it for a full minute and then sighed.

“She never knew anything about him, and doesn't now,” she said.

As she spoke she heard a hansom stop outside the door in Park Street, and, going to the window, saw that Hector Durant had come.