CHAPTER XI
HOT WATER
A hand was raised on the other side of the door and brought smartly against the glass. The whole panel shivered; 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 glass shivering in the door below. Rushing into the bath-room, snatching 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 supposititious 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 attitude 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 passed 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 document 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 space 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 analogy 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?"
"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 pronounce 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 pronounce 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 God should permit it! If you are lying to me-and I believe you can lie like truth! – may you soon be consigned to hell 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 pronounce 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 fashion 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 substitution 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.
"Now are you ready? Shall we get to business? Is the will still underneath your pillow? Shall I get it out?" She took from its resting-place the paper which he supposed himself to be about to sign. With the aid of some pillows she raised him to a more upright position. Then she spread the paper out in front of him. "You see, there's the will. Is that just as you want it to be?"
He read it through.
"That's all right."
"Then I'll call up Martha and Jane to act as witnesses, and then you'll be able to sign it in their presence." She called up the two girls, who came up rubbing their hands on their aprons. She said to him, "Hadn't you better explain to them what it is you want them to do?"
He explained.
"I'm going to make a new will. Mrs. Grahame," – he paused; one almost suspected him of a desire to give the name satiric emphasis-"has been drawing up a will at my dictation. I'm going to sign it. I want you to act as witnesses of my signature. Stand close to the bed so that you can see what I am doing. My dear" – this was to Isabel; again there was the hint of an ironical intention-"if you will bring me the will which you have been so good as to draft for me I won't keep these young women a moment longer than I can help."
She brought him the will-or, rather, a will. It was spread out on a slope, and covered with a sheet of blotting-paper on which she kept her fingers to prevent it slipping. Only the last four lines were visible-"it is my wish shall be paid to her, free of legacy duty, within seven days of my being buried". What went before was hidden; the familiar conclusion seemed to be all that he cared to see. Leaning over him, raising his right arm, as gingerly as if it had been a piece of delicate porcelain, she placed his dreadful, helpless fingers somehow about a pen. He spoke to the two girls.
"As you know, I can do nothing by myself, so Mrs. Grahame, at my request, is going to guide my hand so as to enable me to sign my will. You understand, it is I who am signing it, not she."
It was a strange signature-"Cuthbert Grahame," in big, sprawling letters; some of them unattached to each other, all slanting in different directions. The owner of the name, however, seemed to view the result with undiluted satisfaction.
"That's my signature-clear enough for any one to read. Now I want you two girls to attach your names as witnesses to the fact that I have signed my will in your presence."
Isabel removed the slope to the writing-table against the wall. Then each of the girls wrote her name in turn. When they had done so they left the room. So soon as they had gone Cuthbert Grahame spoke to Isabel.
"Now let me have a look at that will of mine in its finished condition. Thank goodness it is done. It's a weight off my mind-a relief for which I have to thank you."
Isabel stood at the writing-table, looking down, with a smile on her face, at the paper he had signed.
"Do you say that you want to see your will now that it's all signed, sealed and finished?"
"Yes; didn't you hear what I said? Then I want you to put it under my pillow. I'll show it Twelves when he comes. He'll laugh when he sees it."
"I expect he will laugh. Is Dr. Twelves coming to-day?"
"He said something about it. If not, then he'll be here to-morrow. It will keep till then."
"Oh yes; it will keep till then."
"What are you waiting for? Why don't you bring the will? Don't I tell you I want to read it again?"
She went to the bed, the sheet of paper extended between her two hands.
"Here's your will, Mr. Grahame; by all means read it again."
He read it, once, twice, then again. Then he tried to speak. It seemed that his voice failed him. It was not pleasant to notice the stammer which seemed to mark his struggles for breath.
"What-what folly's this? That's not the will I signed."
Her eyes were dancing with laughter. There was a merry ring in her voice, as if she was in the enjoyment of an excellent joke.
"Oh yes, it is."
"It's not the one you drafted."
"Oh yes, it is."
"It isn't the one you showed me just now."
"Isn't it? Are you quite, quite sure?"
"Of course I'm sure! It's a trick! – a fraud! This is not my will!"
"But, dear Mr. Grahame-I noticed how you called me your dear! – it is your will. Here's your signature, attested by two witnesses. After all, there's only a slight difference between the one you saw and this."
"A slight difference, you-you-!"
In his efforts to find an expletive to fit the occasion, his struggles for breath became greater. She went gaily on.
"The only difference is that I get everything instead of Margaret Wallace, and that instead of my five thousand pounds she gets five farthings. Surely the trifling substitution of a few words won't matter to you in the least, Mr. Grahame."
It seemed that it mattered a good deal. After a tremendous effort he regained some portion of his voice, enough to enable him to burst into a string of expletives.
"You-you-! You-! It's a fraud! a-fraud! It's a swindle! Don't you flatter yourself that it will stand! Don't you think I'll let it stand! Wait till Twelves comes, then I'll show you!"
"Wait till Dr. Twelves comes? Suppose he never comes?"
"What do you mean? What are you doing with that pillow?"
"Suppose Dr. Twelves never comes, what is to prevent this will from standing?"
"What are you doing with that pillow, you-!"
"I'm going to stop your saying such dreadful things. It pains me to have to listen to such language."
She snatched away one pillow from beneath his head, and then a second. She had propped him in such a way that when he was deprived of their support his head fell back, and there recurred the scene of the previous afternoon. He began to choke; his unwieldy frame was shaken by convulsive efforts to breathe; stertorous gasps proceeded from the region of his chest. He presented a dreadful spectacle.
The sight did not seem to in any way affect the woman who was standing by his bed, with the pillows still in her hand. She pressed the bolster farther up his back so that his head declined at an acute angle; applying her palm to the point of his chin she forced it lower still. Then she said-
"I'll place the will as you wished me, Mr. Grahame, under your pillow".
She placed it there, under the single pillow which remained; then she left the room.