A Duel Part 15

"It's no part of yours I'll ever take again. Are you going?"

"I only want to talk to you. If you'll only open the door I promise you I won't try to get in if you don't want me to."

"I can have all the talk I want with you as we are. Will you be off?"

"Won't you let me have one look at you, Nannie, and give you just one kiss?"

"I'll have none of your kisses, and I never want to look at you again till you're lying in your coffin."

"Nannie! there's something about the way you talk which I don't understand. It's not you to speak to me like this. I insist upon your opening the door. I don't believe Cuthbert Grahame ever told you not to--I know him too well to think that's possible. I shall keep on ringing and knocking till you do open, and so I tell you."

"Then you'll keep on some time, I promise you that. I know what Mr. Cuthbert's orders are better than you. If I was to empty his gun at you I'd only do what he'd wish me to."

"Nannie! But, Nannie, I've come all the way from London. It's a very long way, and costs a deal of money, and nowadays I haven't much money, as you know. You're not going to send me back like this."

"Is it the fare back to London that you're wanting? If it's to beg you've come, I'll give you the fare out of my own pocket, so that Mr. Cuthbert may be rid of you in peace."

This time in the girlish voice there was a ring of unmistakable indignation.

"Nannie! you're a wicked old woman! I believe that you've some wicked scheme in your head of which Cuthbert Grahame knows nothing. You sound as if you were capable of anything. If you don't let me in this moment I'll get in without your help."

"How are you going to do that, pray?"

"Do you think I can't? I'll soon show you! If you think I'm still a foolish girl to be tyrannised over by you, you're very much mistaken. I won't believe that Cuthbert Grahame doesn't wish to see me till he tells me so with his own lips."

CHAPTER XI

HOT WATER

A hand was raised on the other side of the door and brought smartly against the gla.s.s. The whole panel s.h.i.+vered; the blow would only have to be repeated two or three times to destroy it altogether. Whipping the key out of the lock, Isabel hurried up the staircase, slipping it into her pocket as she went. Although she had no fear of an entry being made, she was very far from desirous of being seen. That would involve the discovery of the fraud she had been practising. If Miss Wallace learned that it was not Nannie who had been addressing her in such uncompromising terms, it was scarcely likely, even if driven by force from the house, that she would leave the neighbourhood without effecting her purpose of seeing Cuthbert Grahame. So Isabel, determined that that should not happen, resolved to adopt extreme measures.

When she gained the top of the stairs she could already hear the gla.s.s s.h.i.+vering in the door below. Rus.h.i.+ng into the bath-room, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a couple of pails which the not too tidy maids had left there, and filling them at the tap, she strode with them to the landing-window which overlooked the entrance. She had filled them at the hot-water tap, and the steam came against her hand.

"It isn't very hot," she told herself. "There's just enough sting in it to make her a little warmer than she is already."

The window was wide open. She peeped out to see that the girl was immediately below. Balancing both pails on the sill she turned them over together. That the contents had reached the mark was immediately made plain by the cries which ascended from below.

"Nannie! Nannie! you've scalded me! you've scalded me!"

Isabel replied, still taking care not to allow so much as the tip of her nose to be seen through the window--

"I'll scald you again in half a minute--you'll find the water's boiling next time, I promise you. What's more, I'll take Mr.

Cuthbert's gun to you, as he bade me. You shameless hussy! to go breaking his windows because he won't have you set your foot inside the house that you've disgraced!"

This diatribe from the supposit.i.tious Nannie was followed by silence below. Isabel, who found the suspense a little trying, was half disposed to venture on a glance to learn what was taking place. Unmistakable sounds, however, arose just as she had made up her mind to run the risk. Margaret Wallace was crying. Presently she exclaimed, in tones which were broken by her sobs--

"I'm going, Nannie. You needn't trouble to get Mr. Cuthbert's gun, nor to wait till the water's boiling. Whatever Mr.

Cuthbert's orders may have been--and I know I've used him badly, and deserve anything from him--I never thought you'd have treated me like this. I've never done you any harm, and you've always pretended that you loved me. I hope you'll never regret driving me away like this from the house that has always been a home to me! Oh, Nannie! Nannie!"

The girl uttered the last two words in such poignant tones that Isabel thought it extremely possible that they penetrated to the woman to whom they were actually addressed. After a moment's interval footsteps were audible below. Then, as Isabel drew back behind the curtain, she could see through the loophole that Margaret Wallace was returning whence she came. She moved with a very different step to that which had marked her approach. Her feet seemed to lag, her head hung down, and she kept putting her hand up to her eyes to relieve them of blinding tears. Her att.i.tude was significant of the most extreme despondency.

Apparently some remnants of her pride still lingered. It was probably those fragments of her self-respect which prevented her from once looking round to glance at the house from whose precincts she was being so contemptuously dismissed.

Isabel watched the defeated mien which characterised the girl's whole bearing in the moment of her humiliation with a smile of triumph.

"That's one to me. It's on the cards that it's the one that's going to win the game. I guess she's feeling pretty bad. It can't be nice, if your pockets aren't too well lined, to come all the way from London just for this. I daresay she meant to do the conscience-stricken act--tell him how sorry she was, ask his forgiveness, have an affecting reconciliation, and all that kind of thing. I expect she was drawing pictures of how it all was going to be as she came along in the train. I rather fancy those pictures won't get beyond the outline. She'll be trying her hand at sketches of another kind as she goes back again. I wonder how she'd feel if she knew how she's been bluffed by an insolent adventuress, and that Nannie hadn't had a hand in the game at all. She'd feel pretty mad! I wonder how Nannie feels if she so much as guesses at what's been going on. I'll give the old lady a call; and I'll call on Mr. Cuthbert Grahame. But before I do that I think I'll write a few lines on a sheet of paper--on a couple of sheets."

Before she quitted her post of observation the unhappy girl had vanished from sight. Isabel waited for some minutes after she had disappeared lest something should transpire which might cause her to change her mind and return. As time pa.s.sed and nothing more was seen of her, Isabel decided that she had gone for good. Descending to the dining-room, seating herself at a writing-table, Isabel drew from a drawer two large sheets of paper, similar to the one contained in the envelope which Cuthbert Grahame had instructed her to take from behind the sliding panel. On one of these sheets she wrote, in her large, bold, round hand, a facsimile of the will which marriage had rendered invalid.

"I give and bequeath all the property of which I die possessed, both in real and personal estate, to Margaret Wallace, absolutely, for her sole use and benefit." When she had finished she surveyed what she had written, then added--"With the exception of five thousand pounds in cash, which I give and bequeath to Isabel Burney, and which it is my wish shall be paid to her, free of legacy duty, within seven days of my being buried".

"That only needs his signature and the signatures of the witnesses. Shall I date it, or leave the date open? I think I'll be safe in dating it to-morrow. Now for another doc.u.ment very much like it, but not quite, though as far as appearance goes it must be as exactly like it as it can be conveniently made."

She then wrote on the second sheet what was, with some slight, but important, differences, an exact reproduction of the words she had written on the other.

"I give and bequeath all the property of which I die possessed, both in real and personal estate, to Isabel Burney"--she hesitated, then wrote--"whom I have acknowledged to be my wife, in the presence of Dr. Twelves and Nannie Foreshaw, absolutely, for her sole use and benefit"--she hesitated again, and this time added--"with the exception of five farthings in cash, which I give and bequeath to Margaret Wallace, and which it is my wish shall be paid to her, free of legacy duty, within seven days of my being buried."

"That also needs but the signatures and--a little ingenuity."

She had made them, in all respects, so much alike, fitting into the same s.p.a.ce the extra words on the second sheet that at a little distance it was easy to mistake one for the other. "Now we'll tear up that old thing, which my appearance on the scene was so unfortunate as to spoil, and we'll put the new will in its place--with its brother."

She did as she said, folding up the two sheets in precisely the same creases, putting them into the one envelope. Then she went upstairs to see Nannie.

The old lady's leg bade fair to be a long time healing, nor was a cure likely to be hastened by her impatience and general unwillingness to take things easily. So soon as Isabel put her head inside the room, Nannie, sitting up in bed, aimed at her a volley of questions.

"Why haven't you been here before? What's all the clatter been about--like as if the house was coming down? Such ringing and hammering I never heard the likes of. What's been the meaning of it all? Where's them two girls? Why didn't one of you open the door, like as if it was a Christian house? Why did you suffer such a hubbub--enough to disturb the countryside? Who's been talking in a voice like a cracked tin trumpet?"

It occurred to Isabel that the last a.n.a.logy was unfortunate, since a "cracked tin trumpet" was a not inadequate description of the screech in which Nannie herself was even then indulging.

The old lady presented a peculiar spectacle--in a huge, ancient nightcap, tied in a big bow beneath her chin; a vivid tartan shawl about her shoulders. The visitor replied to the whole of the inquiries with an unhesitating lie.

"Nannie, do you know that a dreadful man's been begging, and trying to force his way into the house. If I hadn't turned the key just in time I don't know what would have happened." She did not, but the happenings would have run on different lines to those which she suggested. "As it was he broke the front-door window, and I had to pour a couple of buckets of water over him before he'd go."

"A man been begging, and trying to force his way into the house!

Such a thing's never happened in all the days I've known the place."

"I daresay I expect it was some one who's heard that you were confined to your bed, and thought that I might be easily tackled. He's found out his mistake."

"Where's them two girls?"

"I've sent them on an errand. Perhaps he knew that too, and that made him bolder."

"I thought I heard a voice I knew."

"That must have been mine."

"Yours! I haven't heard a sound of you. Who was it screeching?"