A Duel Part 9

"Suppose I do, would you propose to spend them with me?"

"I should do as I like."

"I begin to suspect you'd try to. Let me put the case in another way. What would you want to leave this house and never re-enter it again?"

"Twenty thousand pounds."

"Is that your lowest figure?"

"It is."

"Thank you. I will give the matter my careful consideration. In the meanwhile may I ask you to leave me for a time? My conversational powers soon become exhausted; with them I am apt to become exhausted too. A little rest might do you good."

"Listen to me. I came here so that you and I might understand each other."

"We have gone some distance in that direction, haven't we?"

"I don't think you have, or you wouldn't talk to me like that.

It may be clever, and cutting, and that kind of thing, but I don't like it. I'm your wife, your equal, more than your equal, since you're lying there like a log, already more than three parts dead. I'm the mistress of this house; this room is as much mine as yours."

"Is it?"

"It is. That's what you've got to understand. When I choose to leave it I will, but not a moment before. So don't you order me about, because I don't intend to let you, and there'll be trouble if you try."

"Am I to understand when I ask you to leave the room, my bedroom, in spite of your courteous hint of a moment back, that you refuse?"

"You are; you bet you are. And you're to understand more than that; you're to understand that if you're not careful what airs and graces you take on with me, I'll stuff a handkerchief into your mouth. Then we'll see what you'll do next. A helpless lump like you to talk to me--your lawful wife!--as if I were nothing and no one. I'll soon show you."

"Will you? Maybe you'll first be shown a thing or two yourself, my lady!"

The tones were familiar. They were not those of the man in the bed. Looking round Isabel found that Nannie was glaring at her from the other side of the room.

CHAPTER VII

A TUG OF WAR

Perceiving that Isabel made no reply, Nannie addressed her again, with both in her manner and her words perhaps a superfluity of truculence.

"What for have you left your room and come here disturbing Mr.

Grahame, you bold-faced hussy?"

Nannie's appearance and the vigour of her speech, both of which were probably a trifle unexpected, seemed to take Isabel somewhat aback. It was not unlikely that a rapid debate was taking place in her mind as to what exactly was the _role_ it was most advisable that she should play.

One point was obvious, that the moment had come when it would have to be decided, possibly finally, just what position in the household hers was going to be. If she was to be its real mistress--as she had boasted that she was, and would be!--then it was out of the question that Nannie should be allowed to speak to her in such terms as she had just employed. How was she to be prevented? In her own way Isabel was not a bad judge of character. In the course of her short life her adventures had been so many and various that it had grown to be a habit to measure herself against nearly every one with whom she was brought in contact. Nannie was a dour old Scotchwoman. Isabel was perfectly conscious that she was not likely to be subdued--to the point to which she desired to bring her--by words alone. She herself was wholly devoid of scruples. As to self-respect, she was incapable of realising what it meant. She had been brought up in a school in which that sort of thing was not taught. Her early days had been spent among women who were quite as ready to resort to physical force as the men, which was saying not a little. As she had grown older she had never hesitated to use her muscles when her tongue was beaten. She was quick to perceive that this was a case in which she would have to use her muscles again, if she did not wish to degenerate into something worse than a figure-head in the house which she aspired to rule.

The only question she had to decide was whether she would be a match for the Scotchwoman. It would be worse than vain to challenge conclusions if she was likely to be proved the weaker.

Brief consideration, however, persuaded her that there was but little fear of that. Her ankle was against her, and the fact that she had been inactive for a fortnight. But, on the other hand, though tough and brawny, Nannie might be old enough to be her grandmother. Even though handicapped by her ankle, Isabel did not doubt that she excelled her both in sheer strength and in agility, while as to knowledge of how to make the best of her powers she was convinced that, as compared with her, the other was nowhere.

She resolved to bring the question as to who was to be mistress to an issue then and there--if necessary, in the presence of the man in the bed. Instead of answering Nannie she put a question to him.

"Who is this objectionable old woman?"

"My housekeeper."

"Then, perhaps, you'll tell your housekeeper that, where I'm concerned, if she can't keep a civil tongue in her head and mend her manners, she won't be your housekeeper long--or mine either."

"Hadn't you better tell her so yourself?"

"Does that mean you're afraid to?"

"Never interfered in the housekeeping since the day I was born, nor with Nannie either. She's always run this house as if it were her own."

"Then the sooner she understands that she's not going to do so any longer the better it will be. If you won't make that plain to her, then I will. Now, my woman, remember that I'm your mistress, and that I'll stand impertinence from no one--least of all from a servant of mine. Leave this room at once; I'll talk to you when we're alone."

Nannie seemed to be surprised almost into speechlessness by the other's att.i.tude and manner of addressing her. It was a second or two before she could find words with which to ill.u.s.trate her feelings.

"Of all the brazen impudence! That a nameless besom, picked up from the roadside in the middle of the night, should have the face to speak to me like that! And you to call yourself Mr.

Cuthbert's wife! Why, you're nothing but a shameless trollop!

And though the doctor said that Mr. Cuthbert was to be kept as quiet as possible, if needs be I'll take you out of this room in my two arms, as you well know I did before. So out you come before I make you!"

"Go it, Nannie!"

The mocking encouragement from the man in the bed was to Isabel as the final straw. She did not allow him to range himself, before her face, on the woman's side. From words she proceeded to measures. Traversing the room with a rapidity which wholly ignored the twinges which proceeded from her injured ankle, she planted herself immediately in front of Nannie.

"Are you going to leave this room, or am I to put you out of it?"

"Me to leave Mr. Cuthbert's room, and ordered out of it by you!

It'll be you that'll be put out of it, and that pretty quick, you----"

Isabel did not wait for her to finish; she antic.i.p.ated the volley of compliments which had no doubt been intended to follow by straightening her left arm in the most approved fashion, and striking the other full on the nose with a vigour and unexpectedness which caused the old woman to lose her balance and go toppling over on to the floor. Before she had a chance to recover, Isabel had the door wide open, and began bundling the still prostrate Nannie unceremoniously through it. She was conscious that words were proceeding from the man in the bed, but what they were she neither knew nor cared. It was not her intention, if she could help it, to continue the proceedings in his room. Having got the other out of the room somehow, she shut the door behind her, determined to let him know as little of what was to follow as circ.u.mstances would permit, at any rate till all was over.

Then she waited for Nannie to rise, which she did with an agility which did credit to her years. As the other had possibly foreseen, the old woman was beside herself with rage. She rushed blindly at her opponent, who was at once cooler and more experienced in little discussions of the kind. Although hampered by her ankle she had no difficulty in evading the other's mad onrush, at least sufficiently long to enable her to receive her with a hail of blows directed impartially at her face and body.

The proceedings had only lasted a few seconds, and were waxing momentarily warmer, when they were interrupted by some one who ascended the stairs. It was Dr. Twelves. As was only natural, being very far from edified by the spectacle by which he was confronted, he raised his voice to remonstrate.

"What does this mean? Have you two women gone mad, that you behave like drunken fishwives? Nannie!--Mrs. Grahame!--shame on you!"

Nannie, who had been severely pommelled, and had so far got much the worst of it, abstained, for the moment, from her attempts to return some of the marks of esteem with which she had been presented, and proceeded to vouchsafe some sort of explanation.

As, however, she talked at the top of her voice, which failed her badly, and had to stop at uncomfortably short intervals to gasp, it was rather difficult to make out what she said, and when that was done it was not easy to join her observations with each other and supply them with a meaning.

"Put me out of Mr. Cuthbert's room!--ordered me out!--hit me in the face, that had never been laid hands on by any but my mother!--knocked me about as if I were an old rag-bag!--a bold-faced besom that's nothing in the world but the clothes she stands in!--and less character than that!--before I've done with her I'll strip her to her impudent skin!"

Nannie proceeded to do it. The attempt could scarcely have been called successful, because no sooner had she brought herself within the reach of the other's dangerous left arm than she received a smashing blow in the face which sent her staggering backwards. The course of the combat had brought her near the head of the stairs, uncomfortably near, as the event immediately showed. Before she was able to recover herself, reaching the topmost stair, she went crashing down it on to the doctor who stood remonstrating below. Luckily for him he was on the bottom step but one, so that he had time to move somewhat aside before she was in his immediate neighbourhood. As it was she sent him cannoning with uncomfortable violence against the wall, while she herself came toppling on to the landing with a bang which shook the house.

Silence followed--a speaking silence. Above was Isabel, a really striking figure, as, with flushed cheeks, flaming eyes, clenched fists, straightened arms, she stared down on her victim in the depths below. The doctor, more startled than hurt, seemed to be in two minds what to do or say. With one eye, as it were, he looked at Isabel up above, and with the other at Nannie down below. At last he spoke, addressing himself to the triumphant figure up above.