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."