A Duel Part 16

"That was me. I was imitating your voice, Nannie. You see I thought it might frighten him more than mine--and it did."

"My voice! Do you mean to tell me that that rasping, creaking screech was meant to be an imitation of my voice? I'd like to know whoever heard me talk in that way."

"Why, Nannie, I'm hearing you talk that way now. Don't you know your own musical accents when you hear them?--and me giving you a taste of them to your face!"

Laughingly, Isabel treated Nannie to another imitation of her curious nasal utterance then and there, and was out of the room before the old lady had recovered sufficiently from her astonishment to p.r.o.nounce a candid criticism of the impertinent performance.

From Nannie Isabel descended to the master of the house, to be greeted by some very similar inquiries.

"What's been the meaning of all this uproar?" Isabel repeated the lie she had told Nannie. "That was no man's voice I heard.

It was a woman's, and I could have sworn one I knew."

"I expect the voice you thought you knew was Nannie. I was favouring the ruffian with as close an imitation of her genial tongue as I could manage."

"That's not what I mean. I heard you imitating Nannie. Will you swear it was a man at the door?"

"Of course I'll swear it. Whatever do you mean?"

"What was he like?"

She seemed to consider.

"He was rather tall and very broad, with a big red beard. He had a cloth cap on the back of his head; his coat over his arm; and he carried a huge stick--about as undesirable-looking a person to encounter on a lonely road as you could very well imagine. I should know him anywhere if I saw him again. Do you recognise him from my description?"

"I do not. I heard nothing of any man speaking, the voice I heard was a woman's."

"Of course it was; I tell you that that was me imitating Nannie.

Don't you understand?"

"It was neither your voice nor Nannie's. It was one I have heard too often, and know too well, ever to mistake for another. I could have sworn it was hers; I could have sworn I heard her p.r.o.nounce my name. I was not dreaming--I could not have been.

That I should lie here, chained and helpless, and she almost within touch of me! Why didn't Nannie go down to the door?"

"Nannie?--she's as helpless as you are."

"Where are those two servants?"

"I sent them out on an errand long ago."

"So that you've had me at your mercy, and if it was her, you've had her also. That G.o.d should permit it! If you are lying to me--and I believe you can lie like truth!--may you soon be consigned to h.e.l.l fire, to rot there to all eternity."

"If the worst comes to the worst, that's a trip on which I hope to follow you."

"Swear to me by all that you hold sacred--if there's anything!--that it wasn't Margaret Wallace at the door."

"Margaret Wallace!--are you stark mad?"

"I believe you're tricking me! I believe I heard her voice! I believe I heard her p.r.o.nounce my name!"

"If I had thought that you could have got such an idea into your head as that, I'd have thrown the door wide open, and invited that murderous ruffian to walk upstairs to you. Then you would have seen how much he was like Margaret Wallace--that is, if she's anything like the picture which you showed me. You've been talking and thinking so much about Margaret Wallace that you've got her on the brain. Do you think that if it had been her I wouldn't have brought her right up to you? You're very much mistaken if you do. I'm no saint, any more than you are, but I'd no more rob a woman of her happiness than you would--perhaps not so much. You did try to rob her, and you got me to be your accomplice--blindfold, as it were. If I'd known what you've told me this afternoon I'd have seen you--and old Twelves!--the other side of Jordan before I'd let you make a tool of me. Now that I do know, I won't rest quiet till you've put her back into the position in which she was before. Here's that will I spoke to you about. It's the same as the one which was spoilt, except that it leaves me five thousand pounds. Five thousand pounds will be of no consequence to her, while it will make all the difference in the world to me. After the way in which you've treated me I ought to have something, and that's the something I mean to have."

Taking out the will which left everything to Margaret Wallace except the 5,000, she held it out in front of Cuthbert Grahame.

He read it through.

"That seems all right. Will you help me sign it?"

"Of course I'll help you sign it--now if you choose, though I've dated it to-morrow, because I thought that would give you a chance to think things over. I tell you that I shan't rest till that girl's back into her own again." For some moments he was silent, then he said--

"Perhaps I was mistaken."

"Mistaken about what?"

"Perhaps it wasn't her voice I heard."

"Man, I tell you you were dreaming."

"Perhaps I was. If you'd driven her from the door you'd hardly bring me a will like that directly after. Even if you'd let her in, you might have guessed that she wouldn't have wanted to rob you of your five thousand."

"Of course she wouldn't, any more than I wanted to rob her. We women are not so bad as that, whatever you men may think."

"Put the will under my pillow--gently--with her miniature. As you say, I'll think things over. Maybe I'll sign it to-morrow."

CHAPTER XII

SIGNING THE WILL

Cuthbert Grahame did sign his last will and testament on the morrow, though hardly in the fas.h.i.+on he intended. The way in which he was tricked was this.

Before the woman who called herself his wife went down to her breakfast she paid him a morning call. He had had a more restful night than usual, so that he was in an exceptional good-humour.

The sight of her seemed almost to give him pleasure. She was all smiles and sweetness, which were real enough, since she hoped to be shortly in possession of a boundless stock of happiness. He began on the subject directly he saw her.

"I'll sign that will of yours."

"That's right; so you shall. But won't you wait till after breakfast, then we can have up Jane and Martha to be witnesses."

Jane and Martha were the two serving-maids whose absence yesterday had been so opportune.

"I'll wait. You'll have to have me propped up a little higher; I shan't be able to sign like this."

"I'll see to that; I'll do everything I can." And she did. She communed with herself as she ate a substantial meal. "Propped up? I'll see he's propped up high enough, I promise him--the higher the better. He can't be propped up high enough for me. It seems a dangerous game to try to change one paper for the other right under his very nose, but I fancy I know how it can be done--and with complete impunity. If he could move so much as a finger it might be difficult, but propped up as he'll be he'll be wholly at the mercy of my two hands. I think they're skilful enough for the job they've got to do." Spreading out the second sheet of paper on the breakfast-table in front of her, she studied it carefully, with every appearance of complacency.

"Such a little difference and yet so much--only the subst.i.tution of one word for another, and all the world is changed. I think 'whom I have acknowledged to be my wife in the presence of Dr.

Twelves and Nannie Foreshaw' is a positive stroke of genius. It commits me to nothing, and establishes my position, because while he admits his desire to claim me for his wife, there is no reference to any wish on my part to have him for a husband. The only trouble will be to prevent his noticing the difference in the appearance of the two papers, which, however neatly I've done it, is the necessary consequence of inserting those few words. But I think I know how to manage that."

She did; she credited herself with no capacity which she did not possess. In every respect she proved herself to be fully equal to all the requirements of the occasion.

She returned to Cuthbert Grahame's bedroom so soon as she had finished breakfast, the personification of brisk, hearty good-humour.