Vice and Virtue (11 page)

“All keys of this type have that depression. And all have a number of teeth, which fit into notches inside the lock. But this one, the skeleton, has the depression at the end, but only one tooth, at the top. That is why it is known as a skeleton key – it has not the flesh of the true key.”

Aurora strove to understand. “So, inside the keyhole, these teeth make the lock turn, which unlatches the door. Is that correct?”

“Quite correct,” nodded Edward.

“So when you put the skeleton key in the keyhole, how can it work, if it has no teeth?”

“Because it
bypasses
the notches the teeth are supposed to fit into, but latches on to the pin at the end. When you turn the key, the pin and the barrel of the lock turn, and the door opens.”

Aurora stared at the skeleton key. “So can anyone make a key like this, which will fit any door lock, by filing off the other teeth?” she asked incredulously.

“That is, in theory, true,” said Edward. “Though in practice it does take some skill. But that is why such locks only appear on things of little value.”

Aurora nodded. “Such as our door.” She considered for a moment. “Or a writing desk?”

“Exactly. At the first opportunity, try this key in the lock of that cabinet in the library. My family has no such piece of furniture; Josiah Deede must have brought it from Tavistock Street, so everything in it must belong to him or his children. No doubt he carries the key everywhere he goes, but has not added to the security of the desk by padlocking it. Perhaps his children also have keys.”

“I must be prepared to find nothing of interest,” observed Aurora despondently. “His private papers are more likely locked up in his office, or in a chest in his bedroom.”

“Perhaps.” Edward watched her turning the key round and round in her fingers. “But he regulates carefully who enters his house, and is very unlikely to suspect his daughter’s new friend. With a little luck this key will reveal something.”

“If it works,” said Aurora, scrutinizing the key.

“It will work. It was made by a craftsman.”

They regarded each other, Aurora with a frown and Edward with the hint of a smile. “I will ask no more questions,” she told him, weighing the key in her palm, “as it is plain I will get no answers. And I will keep this in a very safe place until I am called upon to use it.” She slipped the key down the top of her bodice. It felt cold against her skin, but secure against any intruder. “I promise you, Edward, I am as eager as you are for this deception to be over. I
will
find the truth.”

When she arrived at Mill Street on Friday, Joe Deede was from home. He had also been out on Wednesday, when she had accompanied Celia to Brunswick Square to take tea with the Clarences. Four days had now passed since she had last been in his company.

It seemed that she was expected to act as Celia’s friend, ready with flattery and gratitude whenever Miss Deede desired it, pandering to the girl’s vanity, self-centredness and ignorance, and that of her acquaintances. Celia treated Aurora pleasantly, but the notion that she considered her as a new distraction, to be discarded when another came along, was never far from Aurora’s mind. She told herself that was what rich girls were like; the Clarence sisters had displayed the same attitude. But this thought did not make it easy to bear so much of Celia’s company when she would have preferred a little more of Joe’s.

“Where does your brother go, that he spends so many hours from home?” she asked Celia nervously, fearing to incur more accusations that she must be madly in love with him.

But Celia responded with affectionately scornful laughter. “White’s, of course! Where he sits with his friends and chews the world to pieces, arguing and pontificating, as stubborn as a dog with a tough old bone. I thank God I can have no part of it.”

Aurora did not acquiesce. Coffee houses, with their unrestricted gathering of men and minds, had always seemed attractive to her. Celia might be glad that women were forbidden to enter them, but Aurora had far rather accompany Joe to White’s than sit in the parlour with his sister.

Her mission today, however, was to engineer enough time alone in the library to attempt to unlock the cabinet. To that end, she had brought back the books she had borrowed. She now put them on the worktable and handed Celia a note. “My brother thanks you for the loan of the books,” she said, “and sends you this.”

Celia made a great show of bashful astonishment as she unfolded the letter. “What a delightful hand!” she exclaimed as she read it. It was Aurora’s hand, heavily disguised, though the words had been dictated by Edward. “And equally delightful sentiments.” She looked up from the letter. “What a pity your brother is so ill. I am sure he is very charming.”

Aurora smiled. “A charming Protestant?”

Celia shrugged her slim shoulders. “I suppose so.” She sighed, letting the letter fall into her lap. “But you know, Aurora, I sometimes wonder if I will
ever
be permitted to have a suitor. Father is so strict.”

“You are young,” said Aurora soothingly. “There is plenty of time for a young man of the Catholic faith, whom your father considers suitable, to turn up.”

Celia did not look convinced. “I hope so. But you are younger than I, and you have got Joe.”

“I have not ‘got’ Joe!” protested Aurora. “I have met him but once!”

Celia responded with a knowing look. “Twice, actually.” She folded up the letter and put it in her workbox. Aurora wondered if she would reread it later, letting loose her dreams of the non-existent Edward Drayton. Guilt swept over her. Spying on Josiah Deede might suit her nature, as Edward had pointed out, but this deception of his artless daughter did not.

“May I borrow some more books for Edward?” she asked.

“Of course.” Celia laughed briefly. “Any man who writes such an elegant letter may borrow as many books as he chooses!”

“Thank you,” said Aurora, standing up. “I will take these back down and bring some more up, and then, perhaps, we could go for a walk? It is another beautiful day.” She thought quickly. “While I am downstairs I could tell Harrison to bring our cloaks, and save you calling him. You have better things to do than run after servants.”

Celia was satisfied with any suggestion that implied she was important. “You are so good, my dear. Always thinking of me.” She drew her workbox towards her. “I will get on with my work.”

Or read that infernal letter again, thought Aurora. “I will not be many minutes,” she assured the girl, and, with the books under her arm and the skeleton key nestling between her breasts, she walked quickly downstairs to the library and closed the door behind her.

She put the books on the table. Taking the key from her bodice, she slid it into the keyhole in the front of the writing desk, pushed it as far as it would go, and tried to turn it. Nothing happened. She tried withdrawing it a little; she tried turning it the other way; she tried lifting it as she turned, then depressing it. But it would not budge, and the desk remained locked. Frustrated, Aurora tried the key in the lock that secured the top drawer, immediately under the hinged front of the desk. To her amazement it slipped in as if made for the purpose, and turned as if newly oiled.

There was nothing of interest in the drawer. Writing paper, sealing wax, a dusty collection of old quills, a long-unused snuffbox right at the back. The key also unlocked the next drawer, and the bottom one. In none of them was anything that could be remotely connected with Henry Francis, or indeed with anyone. No letters, documents, money, forged wills, incriminating objects of any kind. It was as she had said to Edward: Josiah Deede kept his important papers locked up in his office, under a locking system less easily breached.

Why would the front of the desk not open, though? She stood there frowning, and a dim memory came to her of something her father had once told her. “Hidden in plain sight” was the expression he had used to describe to her and an equally fascinated Flora how God created certain animals with clever markings so that they could hide from predators. A speckled bird in a laurel bush, a stoat in the snow – no one could see them although they were there all the time.

She felt gingerly at the back of the top drawer, moving the paper, the stick of sealing wax and the quills out of the way. When she tried to do the same to the snuffbox, however, she found she could not. It was fixed, either to the bottom or the back of the drawer. Her body tensing, she tried to pull the entire drawer out of its casing. It would not move. She had heard of this: cleverly made hiding places in seemingly innocent pieces of furniture. Just as with the speckled bird and the white-coated stoat, someone was sure that what they had hidden could not be seen – unless a more determined predator than usual should be looking.

Carefully, she pushed, pulled, and eventually twisted the small wooden box. It was not a box at all; it had never held snuff. It was actually a turning mechanism that opened the back of the drawer. She knelt down and felt with trembling fingers for a further mechanism – a lever, a key, something she was sure was there, which would lead the way to the locked upper compartment of the desk.

Suddenly, she had it. She was not sure how, but her exploring hand had touched something that had operated some kind of spring. To Aurora’s utter surprise, the entire hinged front of the desk opened about an inch, remaining propped there, ready to be lowered from the outside. She inspected the keyhole. It was false, a mere ornament covering a smooth hole with no pin for the skeleton key to attach itself to. The upper part of the desk could only be unlocked by someone who knew how.

This was Josiah Deede’s personal hiding place.

She lowered the front of the cabinet. As expected, behind it she saw many compartments and small drawers. The compartments were all empty. Aurora opened each drawer. Empty too. But she was convinced that no one would go to this much trouble to conceal something unless there was something to conceal. She felt at the back of each drawer, prodding the corners, searching for another spring. And at last, on the fourth drawer she tried, she found it. The back of the drawer tipped forwards, and Aurora’s fingers closed around a folded piece of paper, apparently a letter, with a broken seal.

How long had she been in the library? Celia must not come downstairs looking for her. Aurora thrust the letter as far down her bodice as her corset would allow, replaced the back of the drawer, shut the drawer, and pulled up the hinged front with its false keyhole. She had just done this – her hand was still on the top corner of the cabinet – when she heard the door open behind her.

“Why, Aurora, what are you doing?” came Celia’s bewildered voice.

Aurora turned. Joe had followed his sister into the room, and was flicking his eyes from Aurora, to the bookshelves, to the table, to the cabinet. He was not bewildered like Celia; he was suspicious. Aurora searched fruitlessly for an explanation of her position. Then, as smoothly as a prompt from the side of the stage, her mother’s voice floated into her head. “When all else fails, girls, swoon.”

She let out a quiet shriek and fell to the floor. Luckily her hat came off, or she would have squashed it. For authenticity, she had to fall quite hard, and the stone floor of the library, uncarpeted where she stood, was not forgiving. Her hip bone would have a bruise tomorrow.

She heard her name cried out in both a female and a male voice, and then Celia’s alone, very agitated, instructing her brother to carry Aurora to a chair. “Harrison!” she called down the passage to the kitchen. “Bring water! Miss Drayton is not well!”

Aurora felt herself lifted and held against Joe Deede’s body. He set her down, and she heard the man-servant’s footsteps on the flagstones. Harrison must have given his mistress a glass of water, as a wetted handkerchief soon dabbed Aurora’s forehead and a feminine hand took hers.

“How pale she looks!” observed Celia. “She must be worn out, poor thing. Watching her brother’s condition worsen day by day must be a terrible strain. And you know, Joe, they have no mother or father!”

Joe did not reply. Aurora kept her eyes closed, trying not to think too hard about what his expression might be like and trying to fathom the situation in which she found herself.

It was surely impossible that these two concerned young people had been privy to their father’s crime. It must be Josiah Deede – the intolerant convert, the disloyal friend and the possessor of a very sophisticated hiding place – who alone was guilty.

The paper she had found must be of great importance to him. It was bound to reveal something. She would carry it back to Edward like a trophy. And perhaps, long before the allotted month had passed, she would be free.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, opening her eyes. She was sitting on a wooden chair, placed against the wall of the library. Joe sat next to her, close enough for her to feel his warmth and smell the familiar odour of wig hair.

“You fainted,” said Celia, looking very relieved. “I wondered why you were leaning on the writing desk. You must have suddenly weakened, and were unable to support yourself. If only Joe had caught you before you fell!”

“Such foolishness,” said Aurora. “I am so sorry.”

“Not foolishness.” Joe took the glass of water from Celia and handed it to Aurora. “Fatigue. Here, sip this.”

“And then you must come up and have some tea,” added Celia. “I hope you are not going to be ill, for we are going to Spring Gardens tomorrow.”

“You are very kind.” Aurora sat up and looked around for her hat. “I shall be recovered in no time.”

Celia handed her the hat. “Are you well enough to stand? Lean on Joe.”

They made their way upstairs slowly, Aurora hanging on Joe’s arm. As he settled her in his father’s chair with her feet on the footstool, she saw on his face the kind of affectionate possessiveness she had last seen on Edward’s when he had kissed her at the wedding and Eleanora had started to cry. “Thank you, Joe,” she said.

There was a timid knock, and Missy, the pretty, neatly clad housemaid, came in with a laden tea tray. She was followed by Harrison bearing a steaming kettle, which he placed on a trivet in the hearth. When the servants had quitted the room, Celia used a small key she wore on a chain about her waist to open the tea casket. Aurora watched, thinking of the pride of place her mother’s tea casket – a box inlaid with ivory – took in the parlour at home. Tea was too expensive to be left in the kitchen for servants to steal.