The Key (Morley Roberts)/Chapter 8

He had sat down by the fire in his room when he went up-stairs, and had fallen asleep in the big armchair. When he woke, which he did very suddenly, it appeared to him as if he had slept for many, many hours. But the fire still burned warmly, and when he took out his watch he found it but a little past one. He knew very well that if he went to bed now he would not sleep, and looked round for a book. There was nothing in the room but a Bible, a prayer-book, and “Hymns Ancient and Modern,” and Hector was hardly in the mood for real or derived Hebrew literature.

“I think I'll creep down again and do some more work,” he thought. “After another hour I might sleep. I wonder that I slept at all.”

He went down-stairs quietly in the dim light of one shaded lamp that lit the staircase. The silence of the hours seemed oppressive; it was accentuated rather than otherwise by the dying roar of the town. It might have been a house of the dead. Aye! and it was. Sir George was even yet the dominant character there, for his virtues and his sins endured and influenced the living still.

He opened the door and beheld a light and the two women. Anne, seated on the rug, with Felicia nestling against her on the other side, looked up and smiled back at him.

“Do we surprise you, Mr. Durant?” she said lightly.

“I'm still young,” answered Hector, “but I have so often received instructions not to be surprised at what the women folk do that it begins to have an effect.”

“Felicia and I had a lot to say to each other, and my fire went out. So we are here. Say you are pleased. He ought to be, Felicia, ought he not?”

Felicia murmured something, and Anne felt her tremble.

“Of course I'm pleased,” said Hector. “I couldn't sleep, and have come down to work again. It's often so in a new bed. But you certainly ought to be between the sheets. What will the doctor say?”

Anne made a mouth prettily.

“Oh, what he gave me certainly wasn't an opiate. I never was so wide-awake.”

“But Felicia is to travel to-morrow,” said Hector.

“Perhaps that excited me,” said Felicia faintly.

“You've never been abroad since you came from Barbados, have you?” asked Hector. “Nevertheless, imagine what Lady Hale would say. What would she say, Lady Anne?”

Anne laughed.

“It would begin with 'Felicia, Felicia, my dear-r-r, what does this mean?' But she's a darling, and we won't tell her, if you won't.”

“You may rely on me,” said Hector. “But, come, what have you two been hatching? May I ask, or was it nothing but feminine confidences?”

“I suppose you may call it the last,” said Anne.

“On my soul, now I see you together like this,” said Hector, smiling, “I'd no idea you were such friends. But when one finds two women on a hearth-rug late at night or early in the morning there's little doubt they're friends.”

“Oh, Felicia and I are friends,” said Anne.

The girl breathed in her ear: “Good God, Anne, will he stay?”

Anne pressed her arm.

“We've got lots to tell each other yet, you know,” she said lightly.

Hector laughed.

“I see you want me to go, but I refuse. I feel responsible for both of you, and if you are ill in the morning, and Felicia is seedy, a nice time I shall have with my friend Courtney. I really think you ought to go to bed, you two.”

He smiled down on them benignantly.

“You can't assure our not sitting up till dawn up-stairs,” said Anne.

“Well, no, I can't, but I feel sure I ought to stop you sitting on this particular rug.”

“What about yourself? You ought to be in bed, too.”

“Oh, I often work late at night. And to-morrow night I shall sleep.”

“You—you are not going to work, Hector, are you?” asked Felicia.

“That's what I proposed,” said Hector. “However, if you'll go, Felicia, I'll promise not to do too much.”

If she would only go and leave Anne, he thought, but she clung to Anne, and still trembled and was utterly helpless. And while Anne talked pleasantly her mind faced the situation and sought a way out of it. If only they could get Hector out of the room! What a fool the girl had been, and how unlucky! But for her there would have been no difficulty, for by now the letters would have been destroyed and done with. Anne thought now of a thousand things she ought to have done. She had done her best, and it seemed utterly clumsy and inadequate. She had had the letters in her hand, but had yielded them again to chance. She felt sick and ill, her mind would not work, and she felt that at any moment Felicia might break down and scream.

“What are you going to do?” she asked. “Is it more papers?”

Hector nodded.

“It's strange how they accumulate. Before I can get to work, I've to read a thousand things. I'm not only a biographer, you see, but a wretched executor!”

“And what does an executor do?”

“Everything,” said Hector. “He's a kind of legal continuation of the man himself, a legal substitute to accomplish all the testator ought to have done and didn't. He has to pay a man's debts and settle up with the world in general, and I understand he usually gets a lot of hard work, and a great deal of abuse, and a hundred pounds. But sometimes he don't get the hundred pounds.”

“Are you to get it?”

“Sir George was generous. I'm to have two hundred and fifty,” said Hector.

He stared into the fire, and there was a little silence. Anne felt Felicia trembling dreadfully, and, turning round, caught the girl's eyes. They were wild and haggard. She frowned at her, and moistened her own dry lips.

“Oh, be wise,” she breathed.

“Let's go,” whispered Felicia. “In a moment I shall scream.”

Could Anne stay if Felicia went? She knew it was impossible. And if she said a word to indicate that Felicia was not well the girl would break down. It was almost on her lips to ask Hector to get a glass of water, when she saw a carafe on the side-table. He could get it there. How could she send him from the room? She asked that a thousand times and got no answer. There was a feeling of paralysis upon her very limbs; her mind was unequal to the strain. And still Hector did not speak.

She found him looking at her.

Something, not himself, certainly not his conscious mind, made him feel there was a strangeness in her. Perhaps it was her voice, light as she made it. In mental agony which becomes physical most subtly, the voice may reveal what even the eyes do not disclose. Her mouth dried up, and he knew it. She saw his eyes ask inward questions, saw them become curious, alarmed, and alert. And all the time Felicia trembled.

“You're not really well,” said Hector.

“Oh, yes.”

“No,” said Hector. “You are not yourself yet. How wrong of you to come down! Yes, it was!”

He saw that Felicia did not speak. That was very curious, for she was a great talker, if, like Lady Hale, she said little all the time.

“Do you know it's getting on for two o'clock?” he asked.

They looked up at the clock, and then up at Sir George.

“Yes, it's late, but I can't sleep yet,” said Anne unsteadily. She was in terror. Could she send Hector up-stairs to her room for something? What was there, oh, what was there? She could think of nothing.

He knew her mind was desperately at work, and his keen eyes searched her. Why was she like this? His instincts sought out things for him. She and Felicia were such great friends this midnight, were they? That evening there was no friendship in Felicia's eyes or voice. Was this something connected with Sir George? He looked once more at the proud portrait, and then at the desk, and at the cabinet. His eyes were keen. He saw something, and started. Anne's eyes followed his, and saw what he saw. When she had shut the cabinet she had left the edge of. one of the papers showing. Hector knew that this was something fresh.

“God!” said Hector to himself. He did not understand, but he had hold of a clue. His face altered and grew stern, and Anne's heart stopped beating. He turned to her again, and his face softened. Yet once more it hardened, since it found her undecipherable. Yes, there was something to read, but he could not read it. All the jealousy that had wakened in his heart earlier in the night was aflame once more. This woman had some secret, a secret that the dead man was master of. Then the deep-toned clock struck two. He rose suddenly, went to the cabinet, twitched at the paper, and turned again to them.

“You must really go.”

His voice had lost its natural melancholy music. He was stern and harsh. The two women quaked and rose, for they were beaten.

“Yes,” said Anne,

He looked her in the face steadily, and tried to read her. She was very pallid, and dark shadows ringed her violet eyes. To his unasked questions she gave inscrutable answers. What she spoke was sorrowful without any words.

“Good night,” she said. And Felicia's lips moved only. She clung to Anne as she went. And Hector stared at them as they left him. What did this mean, what did it mean? As they reached the door, that he did not open for them, they saw him frown heavily, look away from them, and put his hand upon the very drawer in which the stolen letters lay. He sat down and drew it open slowly.