The Key (Morley Roberts)/Chapter 4

Without doubt she was a very beautiful woman, even more beautiful than her mother, who had been a famous Irish beauty. She had the dark, rich complexion and dark hair that go with deep violet eyes in Ireland, and her features, if a little small, were exquisitely modeled. She walked, too, with perfect grace, and her figure, as Courtney owned, was admirable. But, after all, her greatest beauty was her eyes; they were pleading and a little sorrowful, and very, very wise with the knowledge of pain. Perhaps none but Courtney saw this. It was his business to know humanity, and no doubt when he did not love he was not blind.

“Oh, yes, she's very lovely,” he said. “Almost lovelier than Felicia. I can understand why the dear girl is a little jealous. It's very natural.”

He watched the newcomer embrace Lady Hale. She kissed her on both cheeks.

“Dear Lady Hale, I grieved so to hear”

Lady Hale wiped away a tear.

“I've had such sympathy, dear Anne.”

“I only knew two days ago in Marseilles. Oh, here's Felicia! How are you, dear?”

They did not offer each other a cheek, but shook hands. Felicia was as cold as ice, and Lady Anne looked nervous.

“There's something underneath. What does Felicia know?” asked Courtney. He watched Hector shake hands with her. Hector flushed and his voice trembled as he greeted her, and Courtney nodded, thinking. Then he found himself opposite Lady Anne while Lady Hale poured out a panegyric on him, on his kindness and care of poor, dear Sir George.

“I am very glad, then, to make your acquaintance, Doctor Courtney,” said Lady Anne, smiling. Her voice was music.

“If I were half as good as Lady Hale thinks,” said the doctor boldly, “I should almost say you ought to be, Lady Anne. But you mustn't believe her; Miss St. John knows me better and has her doubts about me. And as for Hector, there”

“I'll not give you away, Tom,” said Hector. “It's your admirable bedside manner.”

Lady Hale whispered loudly to Lady Anne that he was a rising man, and that the duchess said his manner was worth a coal-mine. This puzzled Lady Anne a little, as perhaps it might, but, nevertheless, it was obvious that she was rather pleased with the doctor, in spite of it. But when Courtney saw that Felicia drew aside and looked unhappy, he followed her and left the main talk to Lady Hale.

“Do you think her so beautiful?” asked Felicia.

Courtney was not fool enough to say what he thought, so he hesitated a moment.

“On the whole, yes,” he declared at last, “but I've seen many more beautiful.”

After all, the most beautiful woman in the world is happily the one that a man wants, and although Felicia was yet far from adoring Courtney, she was distinctly pleased at being told, even doubtfully, that she was lovelier than Lady Anne.

“She's been an invalid, I should think,” said Courtney.

“I never heard it, then.”

“Nothing nervous, ever?” he asked.

“Not that I know of.”

But he could see that Lady Anne was as nervous as a cat. Sweet as her voice was, there were odd breaks in it. As she took a cup of tea the cup rattled in the saucer. Her eyes wandered round the room curiously.

“She's looking for something,” said Courtney to himself. “And, of course, she doesn't know about me. I wonder”

He stood silent for a moment, and heard the others talk.

“When are you going, Lady Hale?” asked Lady Anne.

Lady Hale lifted up her hands.

“Call me Mary, dear, or I shall not be friends.”

“Mary, then,” said Anne, smiling.

“We are going to-morrow, my dear.”

“To-morrow!” exclaimed Anne. The doctor watched her very intently. She grew paler.

“Yes, to-morrow, my dear, and we leave Hector here to write the biography. It will be done in this room, in my dear husband's room. We leave to-morrow morning.”

Lady Anne's hands were clenched. Courtney saw the knuckles whiten.

“I hoped it wouldn't be for some time,” she stammered. “And is Mr. Durant staying here?”

Lady Hale nodded.

“So that he can have all Sir George's papers and books, you see, my dear. He's begun it already. I'm sure it will be a great book, Anne.”

Lady Anne turned and smiled almost mechanically at Hector.

“I'm sure it will,” she said.

“So great a subject, my dear, such scope,” urged Lady Hale, “and our life in Barbados, so black and picturesque, with tropical hurricanes and horrid earthquakes, and think of dear Bridgetown by the sea. You remember?”

Lady Anne remembered. Yes, she did remember.

“How strange that I never knew you till so long afterward,” prattled Lady Hale, “and now my dear husband has gone from us and from our dear England. He worked hard for his country, did he not? Few men without great influence did so well. But genius like his must rise. But to lose so kind and lovable a man is very hard.”

She wiped her eyes again and cheered up once more, and smiled at Hector.

“Dear Hector, who has been almost a son to me since he died, will do a noble book, I'm sure; won't you, Hector?”

“I'll do my best, you may be sure of that.”

“Perhaps, dear Anne, you could relate some incidents about him to Hector; some little anecdote illustrating his character, or some witty conversation, for he was very witty, wasn't he? Hector is collecting all his sayings, and while we are away I shall dictate my recollections to Felicia, and send them on daily. Even Doctor Courtney is going to help, I know; are you not, doctor? Even when he was dying he made jokes just like Charles the Second, though by no means the same kind of character. He was a wonderful man, was he not?”

They all said he was wonderful, and they did not say it to please their hostess. When Courtney went, a few minutes later, he said to Felicia:

“On my soul, she's right, Felicia, Sir George was a very remarkable character, so remarkable that I own I don't understand him even now. Was he really as good as Lady Hale makes out?”

Felicia's eyes were a little restless.

“Could any man be that?” she asked.

“Did you understand him?”

She shook her head.

“But you liked him?”

“Every one did.”

“Did Lady Anne?”

“She succumbed, like every one else, I suppose,” said Felicia.

And then Courtney went. But he held the girl's hand longer than any one's else.

“If I should be able to come to Cannes, Felicia, would you be sorry to see me?”

She seemed human again and young. When she spoke of Lady Anne she was a different creature.

“You know I shall be glad to see a friend.”

“A friend?”

But, after all, to be a friend is much, and Courtney was wise.

“Dear little friend, good-by!”

And when he got outside he wondered why she hated Lady Anne so.

“Mere jealousy, I suppose; mere feminine jealousy,” he murmured.

“But what about Lady Anne?” he said, as he let himself into his house in Green Street. “I suppose she got it! Nothing else could have brought her to the house! And good old Hector is clean gone on her. It's the oddest world, and no one knows his neighbor. If we all knew every one what an uproar there would be.”

Certainly he was wise, and perhaps would have owned that he was only one of the rest. But this would have been a mere general statement from which Felicia was to be excepted.