A Duel Part 8

Once more he showed himself to be her match in the game of give and take. Hardly were the words out of her mouth than he endorsed them again, with what was almost like the semblance of a grin upon his blubber-like face.

"You are."

"And I propose to let you see that I'm your wife."

"No doubt."

"Your real, actual wife, not a puppet, a thing you can pull by a string."

"Quite so."

"You may imagine, perhaps, that I'm a mere dummy, an automaton, which can be set in movement only when you choose. If you do, you're wrong, as I intend to show you, Mr. Cuthbert Grahame."

"Precisely, Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame."

It seemed, for an instant, as if a torrent of words was trembling at the tip of her tongue, needing but a touch to set them loose; if so, the touch did not come. Turning, she went and stood by an open window; resting her hand on the sill she leaned out, as if she needed fresh air. She looked out on to a garden which was evidently of considerable size, but which sadly needed attention. The gra.s.s could not have been cut for months; it competed with weeds for possession of the footpaths. There were flowers, but they needed pruning; the weeds threatened to choke them in their own beds. Beyond, the ground rose; everywhere the slopes were covered with trees, pines for the most part--scarcely a cheerful framework to what was already bidding fair to become a scene of desolation. In spite of the sweet, clean air and of the brilliant suns.h.i.+ne, in her surroundings, as she saw them, there was a hint of something uncongenial, unfriendly, which did not tend to make her mood a gayer one.

While she still seemed to be absorbing the spirit of the landscape, Mr. Grahame's voice came to her out of the bed.

"I want to speak to you."

She heard him, but it was not until he had repeated the same sentence three times that she chose to favour him with her attention. Bringing her head back into the room she turned her face slightly towards the speaker.

"Well?"

"Why did you marry me?"

"Because I was told that you would be dead inside two hours."

Although the reply was brutal in its plainness, it did not seem to hurt him in the least--indeed, it seemed rather to amuse him.

"That's a poor reason. What were you to gain by my death?"

"Dr. Twelves told me that I should have twenty thousand pounds."

"Did he? I see. That was the bait. You're a ready-witted young woman."

"You mean that you think I'm a fool."

"Not at all; no more than the rest of your s.e.x, or, for the matter of that, of mine. We're all fools; only some of us are fools of a special brand. Who are you?"

"I'm your wife."

"You've told me that already. I mean who were you before you were my wife?"

She moved her hand to and fro, restlessly, upon the window sill.

"I've half a mind to tell you."

"Make it a whole one. Yours should be a story not without features of interest. Besides, a husband ought to know something about his wife."

She stood up straighter, her back to the window, looking towards the bed with gleaming eyes. It was evidently easier to provoke her to an exhibition of temper than him.

"I'll tell you nothing. I'm your wife; that's all I'll tell you; and that ought to be enough."

"It is--more than enough. You're an embodied epigram. I think I can guess at part of your story." The indifferent, almost a.s.sured tone in which he said it brought her near to wincing.

"My eyes are not so bright as they were--no, not so bright--but they're bright enough to enable me to perceive that you're young, and not bad-looking--after a sufficiently common type.

You appear to be one of those big, bouncing, bl.u.s.terous, bonny--four b's--young females who spring out of the gutter by the mere force of their own vitality; who push and elbow themselves through life with but one thing continually in view--self. You're probably ill-bred, ignorant, impudent and imbecile--four i's--four which are apt to go together--and, in consequence, blundering along rather than advancing by any reasonable method of progression, you'll keep tumbling into ditches and scrambling out again, until you tumble into one which will be too deep for you to scramble out of, and in that you'll lie for ever."

To hear him, in his dim, distant, uninterested tones, mapping out, as it were, a chart of her life and conduct, affected her unpleasantly. When he had finished she had to pull herself together before she could deliver a retort which she was conscious was sufficiently futile.

"I daresay you think yourself clever."

"I'm afraid you're disappointed. If I'm not altogether to be congratulated on having you for a wife, neither are you to be altogether congratulated on having me for a husband."

"Congratulated! My stars!"

"Exactly--your lucky stars. Come, I've drawn a little fancy sketch of the kind of wife you appear to me to be; tell me, what kind of husband do you think I am?"

"Think! I don't think; I'm sure you're a monster. You ought to be in Barnum's show--that's where you ought to be."

"That is your candid opinion? Your tone has the ring of genuine candour. It's an ill.u.s.tration of how one changes. Would you believe that once--not so long ago--I was remarkable for my good looks as well as my figure?"

"Tell that for a tale!"

"I'm telling it for a tale that is told--and over. It must have been a disappointment when you learned that I was not dead."

"It was. I could have shook old Twelves when he told me. Perhaps I'll do it yet."

"Will you? That will be nice for Twelves. I should like to be present at the shaking. You look as if you could shake him."

"I should think I could--shake the bones right out of his body.

I'm as strong as a horse--stronger than most men. I once thought of coming out as a strong woman, only I didn't fancy the training."

"Didn't you? By training do you mean clean and healthy living?

Is that what you disliked?"

She had already repented her lapse into the autobiographical.

"Never you mind what I mean."

"We won't; why should we? May I take it that you have got over the disappointment of not finding me dead, and have become reconciled to the idea of my living?"

"You don't look to me as if you would live long, considering that you're as good as dead already."

"You think so. We've not been long at arriving at that stage of perfect candour which, I fancy, marks the career of the average husband and wife. I think you're wrong. I am one of those beings who are very tenacious of life. I'm only fifty, whatever I may look. There's no real reason--your friend Dr. Twelves will tell you--why I shouldn't live another five-and-twenty years."

"I don't care what he says after what he told me. I'll bet you don't."