CHAPTER XXII
MARGARET SETTLES THE QUESTION
Harry Talfourd hurried Margaret Wallace into the street as fast as circumstances permitted, while the guests at Mrs. Lamb's were looking at each other, exchanging whispers, asking what had happened, what the thing which had happened meant. A few seconds after the hostess' departure the crowded rooms were filled with the buzz of voices, which rose higher and higher until it became a pandemonium of noise. Mrs. Lamb's "At Home" had resolved itself into chaos.
Outside in the street Mr. Talfourd did not find it easy to get a cab; the chaos within was already beginning to make itself felt without. The whole roadway was a confusion of vehicles. Perceiving that it was inadvisable to stand still, since they immediately became the cynosure of curious, and even impertinent, eyes, Harry marched resolutely onward, holding the girl tightly by the arm. They had to go some little distance before they could find a four-wheeled cab which would condescend to give them shelter.
So soon as they were in, Margaret drew back into the corner of her seat with a movement so eloquent that Harry seemed to hear her shiver. He was silent, trying to collect his thoughts. He was as much at a loss as any of the excited people they were leaving behind. When he spoke it was lightly, as if he desired to make as little of the matter as might be. He was conscious that in the farther corner, as far away from him as she could get, was the girl he loved, in a mood wholly unlike any that he had known before. He was fearful of what might be coming next. So he endeavoured not to be serious.
"This promises to be a night of adventure. Did you ever see such a scramble for cabs? People were rushing out of the house as if it were on fire. We'll hope there'll be no accident before they've finished. What did you think of Mrs. Gregory Lamb? Something must have occurred to upset her equilibrium; she showed quite a new side of her character." Margaret was still. He seemed to hear her breathe; he wondered if it were possible that she was crying. He put out his hand, touching hers gently with his finger-tips. Although she did not repulse him she remained impassive, not in any way acknowledging his caress. "Meg, I hope you're not worrying yourself about that woman's behaviour. She's not quite responsible, I fancy. She certainly wasn't to-night, but there was nothing that need trouble you."
"I am wondering what she meant."
"Meant? My dear child, she meant nothing, absolutely nothing. She's a trifle mad, that's all."
"I'm not so sure. I believe she did mean something."
"What on earth makes you think that? What could she mean?"
"I can't explain. At present I don't understand myself; but I shall-I know I shall. Only I'm afraid."
"Afraid! Sweetheart, don't talk like that! You make me feel as if I had done something I oughtn't to have done."
"You have done nothing. Still I wish you hadn't introduced me. I asked you not to."
"But, Meg! the whole thing was your own proposition; the whole idea was yours from first to last."
"Yes, I know; but then I didn't understand."
"What didn't you understand?"
"I hadn't seen her."
"You hadn't seen her? Meg, have you ever seen Mrs. Lamb before?"
"Never."
"Has she ever seen you?"
"That's what I'm wondering; that's what I'm trying to make out."
"It's a very mysterious business altogether; and the way you're taking it seems to me to be not the least mysterious part of the whole affair-and I can't say that I'm fond of mysteries. However, as some one or other says in a play, though I'm afraid I can't tell you what play, 'Time will show'."
When they reached Margaret's rooms they found that Frank Staines and Mr. Winton had arrived already, and were waiting for them at the street door. They all went up together. So soon as they were in the room Mr. Winton asked his question-
"Well, Miss Wallace, is Mrs. Lamb to create Lady Glover?"
Had he put to her an inquiry on the answer to which the whole happiness of her life was dependent, it could hardly have moved her more.
"Never! never! never!"
She repeated the word three times over, with each time an additional emphasis. Mr. Winton, probably accustomed to strenuous utterances on the part of ladies to whom the theatre was the chief end and aim of their existence, appeared to be entertained by her intensity. Putting his hands behind his back he regarded her with smiling face.
"And isn't she to produce the play? – that is, if she's willing to do so if she's not to be allowed to play in it?"
"She is to have nothing to do with it-nothing."
"You appear to have arrived, Miss Wallace, at a decision which is final and conclusive, and to have done so in a very short space of time."
"I have."
"The matter is placed beyond the pale of my discussion?"
"It is."
Mr. Winton turned to Harry with a little gesture of amusement.
"Then, Talfourd, we shall have to seek for another capitalist, and as that is not a bird which is easy to find, 'The Gordian Knot' will have to be shelved for a still further indefinite period. Let's trust that some of us will live to see it produced."
In her turn Margaret faced Harry with an air of penitence.
"I'm so sorry, but I would rather that it were never produced at all than that it should owe anything to that woman-and you know how I have set my heart on its success."
He tried to comfort her, as if the loss were hers.
"'The Gordian Knot' won't spoil by keeping; don't let it trouble you a little bit; dismiss Mrs. Lamb from your mind as if she had never been. She's nothing to you, or to me, or to any of us; she's just-like that!"
He snapped his fingers in the air, as if by the action he expressed her valuation. Margaret answered with an enigmatic smile.
"Like that? I don't think she'll be to me like that-ever."
"But, my dear girl, why not? why not?"
"Ah! that I cannot tell you, because I don't know. But I shall know, and, when I do, I daresay I shall wish I didn't."
Harry threw up his hands in the air as if it were a case which baffled him. Frank Staines, who had been listening with a twinkle in his eyes, observed-
"I understand, Miss Wallace, that your appearance at Mrs. Lamb's furnished the occasion for quite a dramatic interlude".
Margaret moved her shoulders, as if the recollection made her shudder.
"I'd rather not talk about it, if you don't mind-thank you very much. I'm awfully sorry to turn you people out, but-I think I'd like to go to bed, if I may."
When the three men found themselves in the street Winton said to Harry-
"Miss Wallace's idea does not seem to have been altogether a success".
Harry did not reply at once; when he did his tone was a little grim.
"I'm not so sure. My own impression is-though if you were to ask me I could not tell you in so many set terms on what it's founded-that we're well rid of the lady, and that we are rid of her I think there's very little doubt."
Frank Staines remarked-
"If the lady's mad, or if she's subject to fits of madness-and if she isn't I don't know what she is-it's just as well that you've discovered it before it was too late".
Judging from their silence that seemed to be the opinion of the others also.
The next morning Miss Wallace was distinctly in an uncommunicative mood, as Miss Johnson, who paid her a very matutinal call, found, whereupon the young lady expressed herself with characteristic frankness.
"Really, Meg, I've known you for quite a time, and I was just beginning to think that you were a really Christian person, but now it's actually bursting on me that you can be nothing of the kind. You sit there, mumchance, looking all sorts of things and saying nothing; and if there can be anything more exasperating than that, I should like to know what, it is. You promised, last night, before you went to Mrs. Lamb, that you would tell me everything that happened-I'm sure something did happen, by the looks of you-yet the more I ask you questions, the more you won't answer them. Do you call that being as good as your word? I don't-so that's plain. I'm disappointed in you, Margaret Wallace."
Margaret smiled, a little wanly.
"I hope you'll forgive me, Dollie, please! but I can't talk to you just now, and especially about last night. Ask Harry, or Mr. Staines, they'll tell you everything, and perhaps a little later I will myself, but just now I really and truly can't."
Dollie, eyeing her shrewdly, perceiving she was in earnest, bowed to the inevitable.
"Very well; I shouldn't dream of asking anything of Mr. Frank Staines, he might treat me even worse than you are doing. But it's possible that I may put a few questions to your Harry. The fact is that if some one doesn't tell me something soon I shall simply burst with curiosity. I have never concealed from any one that curiosity's my ruling passion-it's the case with all literary persons, my dear! Meg!" – she went and put her arm about the girl's neck, and the tone of her voice was changed-"if anything horrid happened at that woman's, never mind; after all, horrid things don't really matter, they generally turn out much better than they seem. I once had thirteen MSS. rejected in one week, and yet I bore up, and I planted them all before I'd done with them. I've never seen you look like this before, and I don't half like it. I always make you the heroine of all my stories, because you're the best plucked girl I ever met; so buck up, and stop it as soon as you conveniently can."
Miss Johnson had not departed very long before Margaret had another visitor-Dr. Twelves. He found her much more talkative than Dollie had done.
CHAPTER XXIII
MARGARET RESOLVES TO FIGHT
So soon as the doctor appeared in the doorway Margaret ran to him with outstretched hands, in her voice a curious, eager note.
"I knew you'd come! – I knew it!"
The doctor took her soft hands in his well-worn ones, regarding her from under the pent-house of his overhanging brows with his keen hawk's eyes, which age had not perceptibly dimmed, as if he sought for something which he fancied might be hidden in some corner of her face.
"Did you? How did you know it?"
"I don't know; but I did-I was sure."
"Maybe you've the gift of second sight. I've heard it said it was in your father's family."
"I wish I had; it would be the most useful gift I could have just now."
"Would it? How's that? Maybe you knew I'd come because you wanted me."
"Wanted you! Doctor, don't you feel unduly flattered! But there's no one in the world I wanted half so much as you."
"Is that so? Then it's queer, because I just happen to be wanting you nearly as much. But before we fall to talking come to the light, and let me see your face. There's something there which puzzles me, which I've never seen on it before; it's sure I am it wasn't there the other day."
Taking her by the arm he would have led her to the window, but she placed her hand against his chest and stopped him.
"No, no, doctor, you mustn't take me to the light, and you mustn't look at my face either. I'd rather you turned right round and look at the wall. There's quite a pretty paper on the wall, and some drawings of mine which you'll find deserve your very closest attention. I just want to talk to you, and I want you to talk to me, and answer some questions which I'm going to ask-and that's all."
"And that's all? I see. And I'm not to look at your face? Good. It's prettier than the paper, and far more deserving of attention than the drawings, but far be it from me to quiz a lady when she'd rather I didn't. Yet before you start the talking-perhaps when you've started you'll be slow to finish-let me say a word. You remember what you told me about that visit you paid to Cuthbert Grahame-that last visit when they wouldn't let you in?"
"It's exactly about that I wish to speak to you."
"Then that's queerer still, because it's about that I've come to talk. You told me that it was Nannie Foreshaw who refused you admission, and that she poured some water on you; and I told you that I didn't see how she could have very well done that, since, at that very time, she was lying, with her leg broken, in bed. When I left I wrote and asked her what she had to say. I've had an answer from her, and here it is." He took an envelope from his pocket, and from the envelope a letter, speaking all the time. "You'll bear in mind that Nannie's not so young as she was, and that, of late, things have fared ill with her, as they have a trick of doing when one grows old. She's had a broken leg, and that's no trifle when the marrow's getting dry in the bone; and her master-whom she'd had in her arms even before he'd lain in his mother's-had come to his death in a way that wasn't so plain as it might have been. She's never quite got the better of that broken leg; she walks with a stick, and she'll never walk without one; and she'll never be rid of the thought that, when Cuthbert Grahame died, though she was only just above, she couldn't get down to him, or shut his eyes, or see him before he was put in his coffin, or stand by his grave when he was buried. That thought troubles her more than the other. Between the one and the other, and the stress of advancing years, she's not so good a penwoman as she used to be. And so it comes about that this letter which I have here was not written by her own hand, though I have no doubt that they're just her own words which are set down in it."
Unfolding the sheet of paper he proceeded to read aloud.
"'Dear Mr. David'-she's called me that these forty years, and before that it was Master David, and it doesn't seem as if she could break herself of the habit, though, mind you, I'm an M.D. of Edinburgh University, and legally entitled to the prefix 'Doctor,' which is more than can be said for a good many that's called it. 'It's beyond my thinking'-it's very colloquially written is this letter, which makes me the more sure that it's just her words which are set down in it-'It's beyond my thinking how you could have supposed that I could ever have turned my darling away from the door? – I never supposed anything of the kind, but that's by the way-'and refuse to let her in? My dear Miss Margaret! Mr. David, if I were dying I'd open the door if I knew that she was there-ay, I believe I would climb out of my grave to do it.' You observe what exaggerated language the woman uses? That's her all over. 'And to think that it should have been her on the day of which you speak-that awful day! I'll never forgive myself now that I know it.' That's her again. 'And, Mr. David, I'll find it hard to forgive you either.' That's the woman to a T-logical. 'If you'd never brought the creature to the house none of it would ever have happened, and my darling would never have been denied the door. And hot water thrown on her sweet head! How slow is the judgment of God!' Observe how she flies off at a tangent. 'Now I'll tell you the whole story. That day as I was lying in my bed, where she had laid me, I heard a great clatter in the house. When, after it was over, she came up to see me, I asked her what it was about. She said that a strange man had come begging to the house, and had tried to force himself into it, but that she had had to imitate my voice, to make him think it was me that was talking to him, before he would go. The insolence of her, that she should try to imitate her betters, and tell me of it to my face. And now it seems that it was no strange man at all, but just my darling who had come begging to be let into her own home. That wicked woman! Tell my sweet, when you see her, Mr. David, just how it was. And tell her if I had known it was she I would have crawled down, if it had been on my hands and knees, to undo the door, and bid her welcome. And say to her that there's none dearer to me in all the world than she is, and well she ought to know it. There is one prayer I offer constantly, that I may be spared to see her sweet face again, and hold her in my arms, and listen to her dear, soft voice. There is much more that I would say, but it cannot be written; it is only for her and for me.' Then the old woman goes off rambling; there is more, but nothing to the point. Here is her letter; you may read it for yourself if you like; there are tender messages by the yard. You'll see that that is not the epistle of a woman who would drive you from her door."
"But I don't understand. Who does she mean imitated her voice?"
"The woman who called herself Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame."
"Who called herself Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame? I've heard something about some woman, but nothing that was at all plain. Tell me who she was, and how she came to call herself by his name."
The doctor told, as succinctly as he could, the story of the woman he had picked up by the wayside; how, though he had found her helpless, she had proved herself to be more than a match for them all. Margaret listened with eyes which grew wider and wider open. When he had finished she broke into exclamation.
"Then Nannie is right; it was through you that it all happened."
He resorted to his favourite trick-he stroked his bristly chin, as if the action assisted him in the search for an appropriate answer.
"In a measure, young lady-in a measure. My original intention was to perform an act of mercy. You would not have had me leave the creature there in the night to perish. The whole business is but an illustration of the truth of how great events from little causes spring."
"To give her assistance, shelter-that was right enough; but, according to your own statement, you were responsible for that mockery of marriage."
The rubbing of the bristles went on with redoubled energy.
"I might say something on that point, but I'll not; I'll just admit I'm guilty. And I'll do it the more willingly because there hasn't been a day on which I haven't told myself that if there's a creature on God's earth that needed well and regular hiding that creature's me, because of what I did that night. I did a great wrong, a great folly, and a great sin. Margaret, though I am old and you are young, I am ready, if you wish it-and you'll be right to wish it-to humble myself in the dust at your feet. My only consolation is that in His infinite mercy, ultimately, there may be forgiveness even for me." He paused, then added, with in his voice and manner a suggestion of utter self-abasement which was in itself pathetic, "And the worst I've still to add".
"The worst?"
She shrank from him, with what seemed to be a gesture of involuntary and almost unconscious repulsion.
"Ay, the very worst. Only don't draw yourself from me like that, lassie-for the love of Christ; for I'm but a poor old man that's sinned, and that's very near his end, and that would do all he can to repair his sin before death has him by the throat."
"I-I didn't mean to be unkind, but-what were you going to say?"
"One thing's about his money-Cuthbert Grahame's money. Several times he spoke to me about you-more than kindly. I believe he had it in his mind-as I had, and have it, in mine-to repair the wrong he'd done you. I have reason to think that it was his intention to leave you at least a large portion of his fortune, to re-make the will I had helped him break. I believe that, with one of his cranky notions to be revenged on her for the part she'd played, he communicated his intention to her; that he went so far as to instruct her to draw up such a form of will as he required. My own impression is that she either actually did do this, or pretended to, and that, when the time came for him to affix his signature, she performed some feat of jugglery, which, under the circumstances, was easy enough, and so got him to sign a document which expressed the exact opposite of his wishes."
"Do you mean that he thought he was leaving me his money when actually he was leaving it to her?"
"That's about the truth of it-I believe it strongly. I am persuaded that the will she produced she got from him by means of a trick. But that is not the worst."
"Doctor, you're-you're like the old fable, you pile Pelion on Ossa."
"I believe that when she had got the will into her possession, all signed and witnessed, she was confronted by the fact that exposure of its contents might render it invalid at any moment. That is probably what would have happened, and in a very short time, so that to make sure, she killed him then and there."
"Killed him!"
"I am convinced that Cuthbert Grahame was killed by the woman who called herself his wife, and that within ten minutes of the signing of his will. She propped him up with pillows, then, by suddenly withdrawing those which supported his head, she let it hang down, and so choked him. In order to avoid suffocation it was always necessary to keep his head well raised, a fact with which no doubt she had made herself acquainted."
"Doctor! But was there no inquest?"
"Certainly; and I gave evidence. But what could I say? I had no proof-not an iota. I could only express my conviction that it was impossible for him to have moved the pillows himself; and I did. I doubt if that bare statement had any effect upon the verdict. She was a very clever woman."
"Clever! you call her! – clever! If you are right she was an awful woman-you mustn't call her clever. That sort of thing's not cleverness."
"Isn't it? I don't know what it is then. If we had realised her cleverness from the first we might have been prepared for her; she might have met her match. It is only by fully recognising the fact that we have to deal with an uncommonly clever woman that we shall have the slightest chance of getting the better of her, and bringing her to book."
"Bringing her to book! Doctor! where is she? Is she at Pitmuir?"
"That's not the least strange part of the whole strange business-where she is. I've been wondering if it's a sign that God's finger has been slowly moving to set on her His brand. The young gentleman in whom, I presume, you take a certain amount of interest, since, one day, you design to honour him by allowing him to make of you his wife-Mr. Harry Talfourd-told me that he acts as secretary to a lady."
"I know."
"The lady's name is Lamb-Mrs. Gregory Lamb."
"Yes."
Margaret, as she uttered the word, was conscious of a catching in her breath; she herself did not know why.
"Mrs. Gregory Lamb is the woman I found by the roadside; who told me that her name was Isabel Burney; who called herself Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame; who juggled into existence the will under which she inherits; who murdered the man out of whom she got it by a trick."
Margaret was silent, curiously silent. Then she drew a long breath, and she said-
"Now I understand".
The doctor was struck by something in her intonation which was odd.
"Just what is it you understand?"
She repeated her own words.
"Now I understand. The veil which seemed to obscure my sight is being torn away; things are getting plainer and plainer. She was not mad, as we thought; it was we who were ignorant. Doctor, I believe that the finger of God, of which you spoke just now, has moved already."
"It is likely. It is some time since I looked for it to move, but He chooses His own time. As for what you say about your understanding, to me your words are cryptic-unriddle them, young lady, if you please."
Margaret, in her turn, told her tale: of her visit to Mrs. Gregory Lamb; of its abrupt and singular termination. The doctor listened with every sign of the liveliest interest.
"As you observe," he cried, when she had done, "it would seem that the finger of God has moved already. She knew you although you did not know her, and the sight of you was as though one had risen from the grave; it filled her with unescapable terror."
"It's difficult to explain-I've not been able to explain it to myself until this minute-but I did know her, that is, I felt as if I ought to know her. Directly Harry pointed her out to me, something struck at my heart and set me trembling. I don't often tremble, but I did then. It was as if I were confronted by some dreadful danger, which had threatened me before, and from which I had then only escaped by the skin of my teeth. And yet I don't know that the feeling which affected me most strongly was terror. No, I don't think it was. It was something else-something which I can't describe. I believe-doctor, I believe it was hatred. I hated that woman with a hatred which was altogether beyond anything of which I had dreamed as possible, of which I had supposed myself to be capable. I don't hate people as a rule; I don't remember ever having met any one whom I seriously disliked. I do think that in almost every one I have come across I have seen something which I liked. But-in her! I didn't want Harry to introduce me, to take me nearer, because I was filled with what seemed even to me an insane, indeed a demoniacal desire to kill her where she stood."
While the girl was speaking her appearance seemed to gradually change, till, when she stopped, she seemed to stand before the old man like some rhadamanthine, accusatory spirit, ready to pronounce judgment and to execute the judgment which she herself pronounced. The doctor watched her with a visage which remained immobile, almost expressionless.
"Your words suggest a kind of justice which has become extinct-in politer circles."
"Yet justice shall be done! – it shall be done! I will see to it. I never did her a harm, nor wished her one. Yet she has done me all the mischief that she could, for wickedness' sake. If she killed Cuthbert Grahame, she should have killed me also, for, if I live, I will bring her to the judgment-seat. You say she is in enjoyment of the money which she won from him by a trick, and whose safe possession she insured to herself by murder-"
"Pardon me; to her that's the fly in the ointment. It's precisely the money which she hasn't got-which is doubly hard, since, to gain it, she did all that she did."
"I thought you said that she had it."
"She has the will under which she inherits, but, so far, she has inherited comparatively little. Did Grahame ever talk to you about his money?"
"In those latter days, when I began to be a woman, there were only two things about which he would talk, one was his money, the other his desire that I should be his wife. I loved him dearly! No daughter ever loved her father better than I loved him, but not like that! – not like that! When I said no, he would talk of his money, holding it out as a bait."
"Did he ever tell you how much of it there was?"
"He was always saying all sorts of things; I cannot remember all he said. I know he told me again and again that he had been saving his money for years for my sake, for me to use when I became his wife-his wife! He said more than once that there were fifty thousand pounds a year waiting for me if-if I would only say the word."
"Fifty thousand pounds a year? A nice little bait with which to cover the hook. Some girls would have swallowed the bait and never minded the hook."
"Doctor!"
"Calm yourself, young lady; don't blast me with the lightning of your eyes. I'm but saying what's well known to all the world. And did he say where that snug little income came from?"
"From his investments. He was always boasting of the lucky investments he had made."
"Did he ever tell you in what?"
"He wanted to often, but I wouldn't listen. I daresay he did mention some of the names, but I paid no attention and have forgotten them if he did. I hated to hear of his money. I knew what it meant to him, and I couldn't get him to understand that it didn't-and never would! – mean the same to me. His talk about his money helped to poison my life."
"One knows that to a young girl money has a way of not meaning so much as to some of us older folk, so I humbly ask your pardon if I seem to dwell on it too long. Yet I would ask you to cast back in your mind and think if he ever dropped a hint as to where the securities, the documents which represented these investments, might be found?"
"Weren't they at the bank? or with his lawyers?"
"They were not. Cannot you recall a hint which he may at sometime have let fall as to their whereabouts?"
She put her hands up to her temples, either to ease her throbbing temples or to aid her memory in its task of looking back.
"I can't think! I can't think! – not now! There are so many things of which I have to think, that they seem to have left me no power to think of anything else. Some day something which he once said may come back; I haven't forgotten much he did say to me; it's all somewhere in my brain, only I can't tell you just where-not at this very moment. At this moment I can only think of her."
"Of whom?"
The voice which made the inquiry was Harry Talfourd's. He stood in the open doorway with his hat in his hand. Perceiving that his appearance seemed to have taken them by surprise he proceeded to explain.
"I did knock-twice; but I presume that you were so much engrossed by what you were saying to each other that my modest raps went unheeded. I heard you say, Meg, in tragic, not to say melodramatic tones, that you can only think of her. Shall I be impertinent if I venture to ask who is the lucky person who so fully occupies your thoughts?"
"The lucky person, as you call her, is Mrs. Gregory Lamb. Harry, they say that in England the duelling days are over. They may be-that is, so far as so-called 'affairs of honour' are concerned-but for duels of another sort the day is never over. I am going to engage in a duel with Mrs. Gregory Lamb. You and Dr. Twelves here will be my seconds. I shall need all the assistance that seconds may honourably give to their principal, for it will be a duel to the death."