Probably, Gwenda decided, a very sound lawyer.
She stole a glance round the office — the office of the senior partner of the firm. It suited Walter Fane, she decided. It was definitely old-fashioned, the furniture was shabby, but was made of good solid Victorian material. There were deed boxes piled up against the walls — boxes with respectable County names on them. Sir John Vavasour-Trench. Lady Jessup.
Arthur ffoulkes, Esq. Deceased.
The big sash windows, the panes of which were rather dirty, looked into a square backyard flanked by the solid walls of a seventeenth-century adjoining house.
There was nothing smart or up to date anywhere, but there was nothing sordid either.
It was superficially an untidy office with its piled-up boxes, and its littered desk, and its row of law books leaning crookedly on a shelf–but it was actually the office of someone who knew exactly where to lay his hand upon anything he wanted.
The scratching of Walter Fane’s pen ceased. He smiled his slow, pleasant smile.
“I think that’s all quite clear, Mrs.
Reed,” he said. “A very simple will.
When would you like to come in and “& k” sign it?” Gwenda said whenever he liked. There was no particular hurry.
“We’ve got a house down here, you know,” she said. “Hillside.” Walter Fane said, glancing down at his notes, “Yes, you gave me the address…” There was no change in the even tenor of his voice.
“It’s a very nice house,” said Gwenda.
“We love it.” “Indeed?” Walter Fane smiled. “Is it on the sea?” “No,” said Gwenda. “I believe the name has been changed. It used to be St. Catherine’s.” Mr. Fane took off his pince-nez. He polished them with a silk handkerchief, looking down at the desk.
“Oh yes,” he said. “On the Leahampton road?” He looked up and Gwenda thought how different people who habitually wear glasses look without them. His eyes, a very pale grey, seemed strangely weak and unfocused.
It makes his whole face look, thought Gwenda, as though he isn’t really there.
Walter Fane put on the pince-nez again.
He said in his precise lawyer’s voice, “I think you said you did make a will on the occasion of your marriage?” “Yes. But I’d left things in it to various relatives in New Zealand who have died since, so I thought it would be simpler really to make a new one altogether– especially as we mean to live permanently in this country.” Walter Fane nodded.
“Yes, quite a sound view to take. Well, I think this is all quite clear, Mrs. Reed.
Perhaps if you come in the day after tomorrow? Will eleven o’clock suit you?” “Yes, that will be quite all right.” Gwenda rose to her feet and Walter Fane rose also.
Gwenda said, with exactly the little rush she had rehearsed beforehand, “I — I asked specially for you, because I think — I mean I believe — that you once knew my — my mother.” “Indeed?” Walter Fane put a little additional social warmth into his manner.
“What was her name?” “Halliday. Megan Halliday. I think— I’ve been told—that you were once engaged to her?” A clock on the wall ticked. One, two, one, two, one two.
Gwenda suddenly felt her heart beating a little faster. What a very quiet face Walter Fane had. You might see a house like that — a house with all the blinds pulled down. That would mean a house with a dead body in it. (What idiotic thoughts you do have, Gwenda!) Walter Fane, his voice unchanged, unruffled, said, “No, I never knew your mother, Mrs. Reed. But I was once engaged, for a short period, to Helen Kennedy who afterwards married Major Halliday as his second wife.” “Oh, I see. How stupid of me. I’ve got it all wrong. It was Helen–my stepmother. Of course it’s all long before I remember. I was only a child when my father’s second marriage broke up. But I heard someone say that you’d once been engaged to Mrs. Halliday in India — and I thought of course it was my own mother — because of India, I mean…. My father met her in India.” “Helen Kennedy came out to India to marry me,” said Walter Fane. “Then she changed her mind. On the boat going home she met your father.” It was a plain unemotional statement of fact. Gwenda still had the impression of a house with the blinds down.