The Key (Morley Roberts)/Chapter 7

by Morley Roberts

 

CHAPTER VII.

Before Lady Anne had finished her dinner, she received her medicine, and Lady Hale measured it out for her. As she had never taken bromide of potassium in her life, the drug had its full effect on her. She felt as if some one had poured cold water over her mind, and in less than half an hour she felt strong and calm and steady. She needed to be, indeed, for Lady Hale was the worst nurse that could be found. She chattered continually and never remained still.

Hector, who had hoped for a few minutes alone with Anne, soon saw that any such notion was baseless. And over and above Lady Hale, there was Felicia, who watched Anne closely.

“Confound Felicia!” said Hector crossly. “If I were a vain man I should think she had her eye on me. A pretty thing that would be with good old Tom sweet on her. I don't believe she knows her own mind.”

His psychological instincts were sound enough. The only thing that Felicia really knew was that she hated Lady Anne. The girl was naturally of a very jealous disposition. When Courtney was closeted with Anne she hated Anne and loved the doctor. Now that Hector, whom she believed in love with Anne, was there with her, she hated Anne still more and returned to an old fancy again.

But Hector comforted himself. “To-morrow the old lady and Felicia will go,” he said, and besides such comfort, he had a word left in his mind by the kindly Courtney.

“I believe Lady Anne is sweet on you, old chap,” the doctor had said as he went.

“Oh, nonsense,” Hector had replied. Nevertheless, he felt warm all through and happier than he had been for years. Lady Anne was back in London for the winter, and so was he. If it were true, after all, that she loved him, he could endure Lady Hale and Felicia for a time.

By half-past ten Lady Hale insisted on Anne's going to bed.

“There's a fire in your room and a hot-water bottle in your bed, my dear,” she exclaimed, “and if you don't go and are not quite well to-morrow, imagine the scene I shall have with the dear doctor in the morning. The man is an atrocious despot, as most doctors are. However, we are all very fond of him, are we not? You think him a dear, I'm sure?”

Anne acknowledged warmly that he was very kind.

“I liked him very much,” she said.

“The woman that marries him will be very lucky,” cried Lady Hale. “Some say never marry a doctor, but not I. I should feel so safe with one close at hand, you know. And now say good night, and I'll take you up. I suppose you won't go to bed yet, Hector?”

“I think I'll do a little work at some of the papers,” said Hector. “Besides, I've got a thing of my own to finish.”

“Well, then, we'll leave you at once. The night before we travel we must all sleep well. Good night, dear Hector.”

Hector shook hands all round. He looked Anne straight in the face. And she did not meet his look. But any lover can extract consolation from such reluctance, and he was not unhappy. It did not disturb him to see that Felicia appeared displeased with him. If all were well at last with him and Anne what did even a hostile world mean?

He sat down by the fire and dreamed till the clock struck eleven. Then he got up, lighted a cigarette, and sat down to the desk. His mind ran on the past.

Here he was again under the roof which had been Sir George Hale's. He was going to write the man's biography. He went all over his life with him and remembered what an extraordinary fascination he had. People said he had been wasted on the governorship of an outlying island of the empire. His gifts were such that a great and dangerous embassy seemed his due. With such an outer aspect of bright carelessness and courage, and such fine insight into the character of men and women, and such powers of persuasion, Heaven-sent and instinctive, he might have adorned any court in Europe and served his country well.

Hector knew that he himself possessed gifts of intuition that are not common even in the sex that sometimes claim them, but he felt that Sir George had baffled him and played with him. Even when the secretary's wits had been sharpened by jealousy he had never pierced Sir George's guard, never discovered what he thought of women. But though Hale had beaten him, out-maneuvered him, and, perhaps, laughed behind his back, he had hardly seen one glance of the eye, or heard one word or tone which suggested that Hale loved Lady Anne, in the old Barbados days when they all met at Bridgetown.

Nevertheless, although a man's intellect is beaten his instinct may be true. Hector had always felt that but for Hale Lady Anne could have loved him. Had she loved Sir George? He rose from the desk in agitation and paced the room. Then he stood for a long time in front of the great portrait. He studied it with extraordinary care, and recognized at last the salient features of the artist's work.

“You beat him, too,” said Hector. “You beat Sedgwick on his own ground. You sat to him, the great vivisector of human character, the shamer of fools, the analyst of pretension, and he has been gloriously defeated. By God, you were a great man, Hale!”

Would it be impossible for such a man, if he had intended it, to conquer such a woman as Anne? With a sinking of the heart Hector recognized that it was more than possible, aye, likely!

With a flash of intuition that almost appalled him he saw a great truth. With such a man as Hale, as brave as a tiger (they knew that in India), as subtle as a serpent (they could speak in the Colonial Office), and as handsome as a king of men, he might have conquered any woman without her even loving him. There's the great feminine antinomy, after all.

“If—if she did succumb!”

He looked at Hale again, cool, sublime, beautifully arrogant and victorious.

“Damnation, I can't even hate you!” said Hector. “Not though it may be true! Oh, how you triumph there!”

He triumphed magnificently. There was no meekness in him. He had never whined about his soul, never feared. He had warmed both hands at the fire of life, surely, and had drunk the cup of death with dignity.

“I could forgive her anything,” said Hector.

He sat in front of the dying fire for a long time with his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees. Outside, the wind moaned a little, and the sound of the London traffic relented, and presently the deep-toned clock upon the mantelpiece struck twelve. The house was very quiet. It seemed asleep.

“I ought to be asleep myself,” said Hector. “But I'm in the house with Anne. It's the first time I ever slept under the same roof.”

He did not move yet. Some of the dying coals broke and tumbled through the bars; the ticking of the clock grew more audible. Then the wind moaned again and some of the furniture cracked loudly. The quiet of the house seemed broken again, but he was quiet as a stone, thinking with wide-open eyes that saw nothing. He heard nothing, not the sound of London, nor the persistent clock, nor the moaning of the wind, nor light steps on the stairs. A man dies to the world at such an hour; his inward vision views his own heart and comes back wiser.

She came in lightly and fearfully by the other door that lay in darkness. Only one lamp with a shade burned on the desk. She saw him motionless and stood in silence with her hand upon her heart. Her knees trembled, but indeed she was strong; a powerful calming drug poured peace on her, even then. He seemed very lonely; in his attitude there was a hint of desolation, and her woman's heart yearned over him, as if he were a little child. So ancient she felt that dark hour; for all the loving hearts of women are coeval with the birth of ancient love. A little more, and she could have run to him and fallen at his feet and twined her arms about his neck and have called him her child and her king; her king of men. And the strong dead looked on triumphantly.

She kept within the shadow behind the wall that showed this room had once been two. She leaned upon it for a moment and weakened in her steady purpose, now upon the verge of achievement. Should she not tell him? Oh, this weary need of strength that women should not need!

But she saw him move at last and look up at the portrait. He turned and she crept close to the wall, and then went out by the open door again, and hid in the dark passage. She heard him sigh. He came out after her, and, closing the library door, went up-stairs very slowly. She saw his lips move as he went. His strong dark face was soft and gentle.

When he was in his bedroom, she went back swiftly to the library and shut herself in. Then she waited, crouching by the dying fire that lighted her feebly. His footsteps sounded overhead already. He might come down again. If he did, it would be easy to hide from him, so long as the cabinet was still untouched. And even now she had to find the key again, the key she had thrown away for safety when she fell that evening. Already it seemed long ago; it was the desperate resort of some dim yesterday.

As she thought of it she heard Hector cease moving. He was either sitting down or already in bed. She rose and looked for the key, and found it at once against the wall in the far corner. Till she found it she had not known how much she feared to lose it. Again she crouched by the fire. She must give him a little time yet.

As the clock sounded the half-hour, she rose, turned up the lamp upon the desk, and, with a firm hand, fitted the key to the lock of the cabinet and opened it. As she unclosed the door she looked at the great portrait. The man did not mind, but she trembled. This was the house of his secret soul that even she had never known.

The first thing she touched before she saw any packets was a sheet of paper, put so that the first that opened the cabinet should see it. It was in the strong script of him who had been her lover, written in the days of his strength. It said:

These papers are to be burnt unopened by Hector Durant, whom I trust utterly, or, in case of his death, by the other executor whom I shall appoint.

It was signed boldly and dated three years back. Even in these few words the strength and wisdom of the man were visible, in spite of his one weakness—the keeping of dangerous papers. He had, he said, trusted Hector utterly. This the dead man declared. By such a phrase he had bound Hector a hundred times to faith with him. If Hector had failed to read him he knew Hector well.

Yet if he trusted him so greatly why had he sent her the key? She knew the answer. People said that women could hide things from men, and she was a woman. But this was George Hale who had read hearts like open books, since he had known the love of women and the jealousy of men. Perhaps he knew she loved Hector. Oh, surely he would know it!

She laid that paper aside, and hastily, feverishly, went through the other packets. She found a dozen heavy parcels of letters there, and her cheeks flushed suddenly with angry shame. She had known, but had not known all this. There was one packet marked with three initials that she started at. She knew them, they were a most rare collocation of letters, marking loudly the name of a very great lady whose reputation was like a crystal.

Hale had written something under the initials in a small script. “She sought occasional relief from the weight of a good reputation.” That was him all over. There was another packet marked: “For this relief much thanks.” Another: “My estate is the more gracious, but hardly so valuable to my heirs.” And a third with the bitter superscription “A kitchen Messalina.”

Then she found her own, marked A. P., with the date of their meeting and the date of their parting, and the one word “Eheu!” She knew it meant “Alas.”

Then in front of her was another packet. She saw the initials on it, “F. St. J.”

“Ah,” she said, “I knew it!”

They were the initials of Felicia.

From the very first moment that they met, Felicia and her mother having been a month in Bridgetown before her, the girl had been visibly and most abhorrently jealous. Before Anne came Felicia had been the tiger's pet; he had played with her, fooled her, made her adore him. Suddenly her beauty went out, as stars go out at moonrise, at Anne's fatal advent. Hale turned to the dawn of the moon and left the little miss to her bread and butter, caring nothing if she had learned to savor other aliment. What he would have done, might have done, had Anne never come between her and bright apparent danger, the woman never knew. It appeared now on opening the cabinet that he had been voracious and catholic in his tastes.

Felicia might have pleased him for a while. But pretty though she was, even beautiful, her beauty was nothing to that of the young violet-eyed goddess, proud, curious, and innocent, whom her brother, without any suspicion, entrusted to the wonderful epicure of beauty and to the careless invalid Mrs. St. John, when he went for a while to British Guiana.

But all the time the angry girl's eyes had been fixed upon Anne. Her own awakened instincts spoke truly to her, instincts called into life by words apparently careless, yet so admirably judged and suited to every case by the blue-eyed master of women.

And here under Anne's very fingers were proofs of her enduring folly. She had written much to Hale, more, far more, than Anne herself had done. There was a minute's satisfaction in Anne's heart; for sometimes she had feared Felicia, and she knew it.

“No, no, I'll burn them, too.”

She turned to the fainting embers of the fire, and as she sank upon her knees she saw Felicia standing within ten feet of her. The girl, clad like herself in a dressing-gown, showed unconsciously her bare neck low to her bosom, which heaved passionately. Her clenched hands were by her side; her mouth was open, her eyes furious. For one long moment Anne's heart failed her, and she rose to her feet and faced the girl. Upon the hearth-rug lay her own letters and Felicia's.

“What are you doing here?” asked Felicia. Her voice was low and harsh.

Anne wavered a little.

“Oh, Felicia!”

“What is it you are doing?”

Anne shivered.

“You—you see!” she said at last.

“You've got the cabinet open; you are a thief!” said Felicia.

“Child, child——”

Felicia came toward her. “I'm not a child, and never was since you knew me. I—I understand you.”

Assuredly she was no child then. It was frightful to see her. Her face was distorted with unyouthful passions.

“You don't,” said Anne, “you don't! I've a right to do what I have done. Sir George——”

“What about him? This was his house. It is now his wife's.”

She spoke with savage intent. Her words were proof of knowledge, proof of a desire to wound.

“He had things of mine, papers,” said Anne thickly.

“What papers? Oh, I can guess. Were they not your letters?”

“Yes.”

“Letters you steal into his house for, letters you open that cabinet for, at midnight! Oh, but how ill you must have been to-night, Lady Anne. You liar!”

Anne put up her hands to her bosom.

“Felicia, Felicia, you don't know what you are saying. Sir George meant me to have those papers. He sent me the key himself—oh, he did!”

“Sent it to you, you, his——”

Anne said: “For God's sake, girl!”

But Felicia was past herself, pitiless.

“His mistress,” she cried.

“That's not true, not true,” cried Anne helplessly. “Cannot one write to a man—oh, have you never done it?”

She bent forward, and knew she had pricked the girl. There was a flicker in Felicia's eyelids.

“Oh, but I never came to that, nor did I come to a friend's house and lie, and stay and creep down-stairs at night and open shut doors, and steal. This night I couldn't understand you—I wondered. Just now I found your room empty, and here you are, here!”

“Oh, you always hated me,” cried Anne. “What did I ever do to you but good?”

Felicia started. “You do me good? What good, woman?”

And Anne turned her eyes to the great portrait in its pride. Felicia's eyes followed hers, and Anne stepped closer to her.

“Girl, you know!”

They faced each other in silence, and Felicia knew that the other woman understood.

“Oh, no, that's not true,” she said, stammering.

“It is, it is,” said Anne, insisting.

Felicia flared out with; “What is true?”

And in a low voice Anne answered: “I saved you, Felicia.”

“Saved me from what?”

“You know,” said Anne, “you are a woman. You know what I saved you from. This night you are proud and strong because I saved you. Oh, look me in the eyes and say it's not true!”

But Felicia could not look her in the face.

“It's a lie! I never was in danger, not I, not I! Give me those papers. They are not yours. I shall give them all to Hector.”

He slept overhead, and at that moment was the man she thought she loved, and Anne trembled.

“Not that, Felicia.”

The girl cut her deep, mercilessly. “You dare to love him now!”

Anne gasped. “I—if I dare, why not? Because I wrote something I'd rather he did not see? Others have done that. Have you never written what you wouldn't like published abroad, girl?”

Felicia answered, lying stubbornly, that she never had. She had been meek with Hale and had never imagined for one instant that her letters could have been kept.

“I shall tell Hector. He'll not marry you. Give me those papers.”

Anne stood in despair.

“Do you think he loves you? Do you love him?”

Felicia flared out again and lost her discretion, though she kept her voice low.

“You'd take him, too?”

“Too!”

“Yes, you! Sir George was my friend, and you came and took him from me. I don't care what you think. I was very fond of him, he was good to me, and you came and he hardly spoke to me again. And now—oh, you'd take Hector.”

“He does not love you, be sure of that.”

Felicia raged. “Oh, did I say I loved him? But he's our friend, mine and Lady Hale's, and you'd marry him, if you could, you—you! I tell you, give me those letters! If you don't I scream and raise the house. 1'll go up and call Hector.”

Anne cried out again: “For God's sake, Felicia, listen to me.”

“I'll not listen, give them to me. You won't? Then I'll call Hector, this very moment!”

Anne snatched the two packets from the rug and ran before her to the door. Her eyes were blazing now, and very suddenly Felicia shrank back from her.

“You fool,” said Anne, “you fool!”

Felicia stammered, and Anne was dominant. She was utterly desperate.

“Oh, I could kill you, girl. And think, think, if I've found my own letters, don't you think I've found others?”

Felicia went pale as white paper.

“Others, others?”

“Yes, others, written to him by other poor fools than myself, letters by other women, letters by other girls, by young, foolish girls who might now be living in his home!”

Felicia looked round for a chair and stumbled into it.

“You mean——”

“I mean you.”

The girl whispered through white lips:

“Mine!”

Till that moment Anne had believed the girl's letters had been nothing, had contained nothing; she had been prepared to hear Felicia laugh at her and say:

“Oh, mine. I'll give them to Hector myself, to Lady Hale, if you like.”

Now suddenly she knew better, aye and worse, and though her heart was glad, even at this moment of her unexpected triumph, she was sorry for the poor, weak fool before her.

“Mine to him!”

Felicia whispered the words in a collapse. Till then she had kept her color, and the fierce audacity of her eyes as well, though Anne had been wan as foam. If Anne had paled there had been bitter reason; now, with a thousandfold less cause, Felicia showed her native weakness.

She tried to recall what she had written to Sir George, what of childish folly, what of jealousy and nascent passion curiously and almost vilely blended. Perhaps, indeed. there was nothing evil in them, only folly, for she had been so young. Yet she remembered the very night before Anne Pulleine had landed in Barbados, the night when Sir George had taken her in his arms in a starlit darkness, odorous with tropic flowers, and kissed her only half-reluctant mouth. Of this she had spoken in her letters, aye, and had vented her jealousy of Anne. And again her memory failed her; who could say what else she had written? Her mind was dark and very much afraid. She hated Anne, and Anne knew, perhaps had already read the letters.

“Give them to me,” she said suddenly.

Anne's impulse was to give them. They were not hers, they were this poor fool's, and the fool wanted them, and whimpered. But though Anne was generous and forgiving, she knew how much she was hated, and then the thought of a swift instant told her to restrain her desire. The combat was not over yet. She knew that if Felicia had nothing to fear she would be remorseless. At any rate, she feared it. Though she hated the fight and loathed it, she must this hour set her foot on Felicia's neck or never feel in safety henceforward.

“Oh, give them——” said Anne doubtfully.

“Yes, yes.”

“And if I do?”

She saw Felicia brighten, but discerned in her eye a flicker of sullen fire.

“If I do, what will you do, Felicia?”

An older woman, one accomplished, an actress, might have fooled Anne now. Felicia, lacking subtlety and the power of self-control, spoke in unconvincing accents.

“I'll—I'll say nothing.”

After all, Anne was no weakling. She had lived and suffered, had seen the world, and knew it as a woman may. She judged most rightly that at the back of this deceit and this violence lay real weakness. Suddenly she passed Felicia, put both packets of letters on the desk, and faced the girl again. She looked at her with searching and bitter contempt.

“If I gave your letters you'd betray me the next moment, Felicia.”

Felicia protested feebly, and more feebly.

“Rather than that, I'll go up now and wake Hector and bring him down and tell everything about myself and you,” said Anne passionately. “And he shall tell Doctor Courtney.”

Felicia flinched and then held up her hands. She looked desperate. But Anne went on:

“He loves you and you love him——”

“I don't,” said Felicia. “No—how dare you?”

“Oh, yes, and you don't love Hector. If you did could you marry him if he doesn't love you? You think I love him. What if I do? He won't marry me unless he loves me. You think, because you hate me, that you can harm me. If there's harm to be done do you think I'll wait for you to do it, you poor, wretched girl? No, no, I'll go to him myself this very instant. Shall I, shall 1?”

“No, no,” said Felicia, panting, “no!”

“I'll go to Lady Hale, too. Oh, I will do even that!” said Anne.

She stared at Felicia hard, but the girl could not return her look. She stared past her at the desk where the letters lay. Suddenly she flushed dark crimson and sprang at Anne, and, half-thrusting her aside, grasped at the packets. But Anne was just as strong as she, and got her by the waist. Both reeled up against the desk, and at the same moment loosed each other and put hands upon the letters. Felicia broke away with one packet and stood panting and triumphant. Anne glanced down at the one she held, and smiled even then, though she held a hand to her bosom. Felicia saw her smile, and looked at the packet she held, and turned white again. They were not her own, but Anne's. The initials A. P. were very plain to read.

“These are yours,” said Anne.

She turned away from the girl to the fire. Felicia never moved.

“Don't you think we had better be friends, and burn them all?” asked Anne.

She went down upon her knees and put the red embers of the fire together and placed more coal on them. She took the bellows and blew them up into flame. Then she turned to Felicia again and pointed to the chair on the other side of the hearth.

“Sit down, Felicia.”

The girl sat down.

“If I give you leave to read mine, may I read yours?” asked Anne.

Felicia trembled, and Anne saw that she did.

“If you had known that your letters were in the cabinet and you had had the key, would you have taken them, Felicia?” she asked.

The girl did not answer.

“Would you, would you?”

“I—I suppose so,” said Felicia.

“Then was I so wrong? The key was sent to me. Was I very wrong?”

She spoke quietly, but with passion.

“I don't know,” said Felicia.

“If I hadn't dared Hector would have had your letters to-morrow, Felicia. He and Doctor Courtney are old, old friends. Men are very loyal to each other, especially against us poor women. He would have seen them, and might have told the doctor.”

There was a look on Felicia's face that spoke her mind, her fears and her relief.

“I've saved you that. Should you hate me because of the old days, Felicia? I never, never did you any harm. Speak the truth, did I?”

Felicia bent her head, her shoulders shook.

“No,” she sobbed.

Anne rose and put her hand upon her.

“Can you not say 'No, Anne?' I'm your friend, really.”

“No-o, Anne,” said Felicia.

And Anne sighed heavily, for Felicia was beaten now.

“Tell me, dear, don't you really love Doctor Courtney? He loves you devotedly, I know.”

Felicia sobbed like a child.

“I—I don't know,” she said. “Perhaps I do a little.”

“Ah, a little! He's a splendid man. After all, you did no harm, Felicia. Come, let us burn the letters together.”

It was a hard part that Anne played; it tried her to the uttermost. She felt sorry for Felicia, but in her heart was still bitter against her. Yet now the girl was broken; her passion was over; the best of her began to show again.

“Yes, yes, all of them,” she said feverishly.

She herself blew the fire up, while Anne took both packets of letters up and laid them on the desk. Then she went to the cabinet.

“Come here, Felicia,” she said, and Felicia came to her.

“There are many other letters from other people. We'd better burn them all, dear.”

“Yes,” said Felicia; “let's be quick.”

She was horribly nervous now.

“But there must be some papers in it when it's opened,” she said, “must there not?”

Anne nodded, and, opening one of the desk drawers quickly, took out a double handful of papers and put them in the desk. Then she replaced the note Sir George had written requesting them to be destroyed.

“It will take a long time to burn these,” said Felicia.

All the packets, some nine or ten of them, lay on the desk. Many were six inches thick

“We'll cut them open,” said Anne; shall we?”

“I'd rather take them up-stairs, don't you think?” said Felicia. “If any one came!”

But the house seemed very still.

“Very well,” said Anne. She locked the cabinet again and put the key in her pock Then she whispered:

“Open the door quietly and come back and take yours and some of the others. There's a good fire in my room.”

So Felicia ran lightly to the door and opened it, while Anne drew the packets together. The drawer from which she had taken the other packets was open below her. Suddenly she heard Felicia gasp, and, looking up, saw her running to her as white as death.

“Oh, Anne, Anne, what shall we do? Hector is coming down-stairs again! He's here, he's here!”

With one swift motion Anne swept all the letters into the drawer and shut it.

“Sit down on the hearth-rug,” she whispered.

As the door opened she sat down by the shaking girl and said aloud:

“My dear Felicia, it's an absurd thing, isn't it, to be talking all night when we might be in bed?”

And Hector came in, and seeing them there, started and then smiled.