Читать книгу A Duel - Richard Marsh - Страница 11

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Dr. Twelves showed no sign of either surprise or gratification. He looked at her dispassionately, almost apathetically, from under his overhanging eyebrows.

"Can you walk upstairs without assistance?"

"I'm afraid not. I don't think my ankle is any better."

He stooped down.

"It's swollen; it looks as if it were going to be an awkward business. Your boot and stocking will have to be cut away; but there's no time to do it now--moments are precious. You will have to wait until you're married. It's only on the first floor. Do you think you'll be able to get up with the aid of my arm and of the baluster?"

"I'll try."

"Might I suggest, before we start, that it would do no harm if you were to remove your hat and jacket. It would seem more in keeping."

She acted on his suggestion.

"I ought to wash and tidy myself; I know I'm all anyhow."

"Now you will do very well. Your future husband is too far gone to be able to tell if your hair is straight or crooked; at the point he's reached that sort of thing doesn't matter." When they had reached the landing at the top of the stairs the doctor said to her: "By the way, the name of your future husband is Grahame--Cuthbert Grahame. May I ask what yours is? It is just as well that he should know it."

She hesitated a moment.

"My name is Isabel Burney."

"Miss Burney, allow me to introduce you to Mr. Grahame's room."

He threw open the door of the room in front of which they had been standing. As he did so Isabel slipped off her left-hand glove, bringing with it, at the same time, her wedding-ring. Crumpling up her glove she squeezed it into her waistband, the ring inside it. On the doctor's arm she hobbled to a big armchair, into which she sank with a sigh of unmistakable relief.

The room in which she found herself, although low-ceilinged, was a spacious one. It seemed to her that all the furniture it contained was old-fashioned, a fact which, although she did not know it, increased its value perhaps a hundred-fold. She thought it simply dowdy. A huge Chippendale bed was in the centre of the room. In it, propped up on pillows, was the figure of a man which, if only from the point of size, fitly matched the bed. Leaning over him, on the other side, was Nannie, the old woman who had admitted them into the house. The doctor addressed himself to her.

"How is he?"

"About the same."

Although they had both spoken in a whisper their voices were audible to the man in the bed.

"Is that that old devil Twelves come back again?"

The tone was harsh, and it was obvious that the speaker spoke with difficulty, but the words themselves were plain enough. The doctor evinced no sign of annoyance at the other's somewhat uncomplimentary reference to himself; on the contrary, he chose to apply to himself the other's epithet as he answered:--

"Yes, it's the old devil back again, and, what's more, he's brought the young devil too--begging your pardon, Miss Burney, for speaking of you in such a manner. But it's the fashion in this house to use strong language, and always has been. Laird, I've brought the lady."

"Where is she?"

"At this moment she's sitting in your armchair. As I told you, she's sprained her ankle, which makes it difficult for her to walk, or even stand."

"Damn her ankle!"

"By all means. You should know more about that sort of thing than I do. You're nearer to it than I am."

"You think that hurts me?"

"Not I. I know that nothing hurts you. I doubt if even the torments of hell will trouble you much. You're past all hurting. Shall I tell Miss Burney she isn't wanted, and can go again?"

"What's her name?"

"Burney--Isabel Burney. At least, she says so."

"Isabel Burney, you are my wife; you're Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame. I acknowledge you as my wife, and I wish all men to acknowledge you also. Are you content that it should be so?"

"I am."

"You hear, Nannie? You hear, Twelves? You're both witnesses. I take Isabel Burney to be my wife, and she agrees."

"I hear. But does she take you for her husband--eh, Miss Burney?"

"I do. I take Cuthbert Grahame to be my husband in the sight of God and man."

Isabel had returned to one of her old faults--overemphasis. There was a theatrical intensity about both her manner and her words which was singularly out of place when compared with the matter-of-fact ribaldry which seemed to mark the husky utterance of the man in the bed. Its inappropriateness seemed to strike the others. After a perceptible pause the man in the bed wheezed--

"Leave God out of it". Presently he added, still more wheezily, "Come here, Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame".

The doctor moved towards her.

"Can I assist you, Mrs. Grahame, to your husband's side?" With the doctor's aid she gained the bed. "Laird, here's your wife; can you see her?"

Isabel saw the man whom she had taken to be her husband. The sight of him shocked her. She told herself that she had never seen a more dreadful object even in her dreams. His size was abnormal. Not only was he naturally a big man, but his frame had become swollen and bloated till it was monstrous--a horror to look upon. His head and face were covered with scanty red hair, which needed cutting. He had a huge head, and his neck was so short and thick that it conveyed a grotesque impression that his head sprang directly from his trunk. His whole form seemed to be afflicted with some sort of tetanus, so that he was rigid, immovable. He lay on his back, with his arms straight down at his sides. Through his parted lips came jerky, stertorous breaths. His eyelids were partially open, but only the whites of his eyes were visible; his own words made it clear that they were of little use to him as organs of sight.

"See her? No, I can't see her. I don't want to."

As he spoke a tremor passed all over him. His whole frame heaved; as if seized by a sudden convulsion he began fighting for his life. The doctor spoke to her.

"You had better go, unless you'd like to see the last of him. This is likely to be the end. He'll hardly win through another bout."

He moved towards the bed, Nannie joining him. Isabel was left to her own devices. Powerless to move far unaided it was all she could do to stagger to the nearest chair. In it she sat, waiting, watching, listening, like an unwilling spectator in some bad dream. It was a scene which she never wholly forgot. The dim light, the quaintly furnished room, the figures of the old man and woman bending this way, then that, as they struggled with the creature on the bed. What ailed him she did not know; she vaguely surmised that he might be in the throes of some kind of epileptic fit. His contortions shook the bed, indeed the room. He kept uttering sounds which had a disagreeable resemblance to the half-strangled yelps of some wild beast.

How long it lasted she did not know. Long enough to strain her already highly strung nerves almost beyond endurance. At last there came a lull. The man on the bed was first quieter, then still. She took advantage of the silence to exclaim:--

"Can't you take me away somewhere? You know I can't move. If I have to stay here much longer I--I shall make a fool of myself."

The doctor and Nannie paid her no heed. Side by side they were stooping together over the silent figure. After affording them what she deemed a more than sufficient opportunity to answer, she appealed to them again.

"Can't you hear me? Take me away somewhere--I don't care where! I'll go mad if you don't."

The doctor did not answer her directly; he spoke to Nannie.

"Do as she bids you; take her away."

"Where'll I take her?" the woman asked.

"Take her and put her to bed in the best bedroom. Remember that she's now the mistress of this house."

Nannie moved towards Isabel. For a woman, she was tall and brawny, but she was probably well past fifty, and Isabel certainly had not credited her with the capacity to do what she immediately did. She eyed the stranger for a moment in silence, then she asked, in the broadest Scotch:--

"Can't you walk by your own self?"

Isabel resented both the tone and the scrutiny.

"You know I can't."

Without more ado the woman, stooping, put her arms about her and lifted her bodily from the chair as if she were some great child. Isabel was taken by surprise, and a little alarmed.

"You'll drop me!" she cried.

"I'll not drop you; you're nothing of a weight."

As if to prove it, the old woman bore her from the room, across the landing, to another room on the other side, one which was in darkness. But Nannie seemed to know its geography by instinct. She deposited her burden on what Isabel realised was a bed. Striking a match on a box which she took from her pocket, she lit some candles which stood on the mantelshelf. Isabel, remaining where she had been placed, eyed her as she moved about.

"You're very strong."

"I'm not so strong as once I was. There was a time when I'd have carried four of you, and thought nothing of it either. Now can you undress yourself, or will you be needing me to do it for you?"

"Thank you, I think I can undress myself; but if you would help me take the boot off my bad foot."

Nannie bent over the foot which the other extended. She regarded it in silence, then, still without a word, she left the room. So soon as she was gone Isabel dragged the glove which contained her wedding-ring out of her belt, and the canvas bag which had come out of Mrs. Macconichie's tobacco jar from her bodice, and thrust them as far as possible under the bolster which was beneath the pillow on which she was reclining. Scarcely had she done this when Nannie reappeared, in her hands a pair of large scissors. With their aid she proceeded, still speechless, to cut, first, the laces of Isabel's boot, and then the boot itself, till it came away from her foot. As it came away she did what she boasted she had never before done in her life--she fainted. When she came to herself again she found that Nannie, who had apparently remained indifferent to the fact that her senses had left her, having bathed her foot and ankle, was putting the finishing touches to the bandages in which she had swathed it. When the bandage was completed the old woman, still without vouchsafing a word, began to undress her, and did it with a deftness and neatness which would have done her credit had she played the part of lady's-maid her whole life long. Almost before she knew it, she was ready for the sheets, and so soon as she was ready she was placed between them.

"You're very good to me," she murmured, with a luxurious sigh, as she recognised what a delicious feeling it was to be between them.

"I'm not good to you--anyway I'm not wanting to be good to you."

Isabel looked up with surprise; the tone was almost savage.

"Why not? Don't you think that you will like me?"

"Like you!--like you!"

The emphasis with which the words were repeated was unmistakable. It would have been difficult for scorn to have been more eloquent. Without condescending to further speech, as if everything had been said which could be said, Nannie moved towards the door. Isabel put a question to her as she reached it.

"Is my husband dead?"

Nannie turned swiftly round to her.

"Your--what?"

"My husband."

"Your husband!--your husband!"

Again the repetition was marked by the same wealth of scorn. Isabel was moved to some show of resentment.

"He is my husband--you know he's my husband."

"Oh, he's your husband, Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame. I'm not doubting it, ma'am, or that you're a fit and proper wife for him. I'm ready to tell to any one that you're a well-matched pair."

"Is he dead?"

As she repeated her inquiry Isabel's manner was a trifle more subdued; she was finding Nannie a difficult person to contend with.

"You'd better be asking Dr. Twelves if your husband's dead, ma'am; he's a surer judge of dead folk than I am. You'll be feeling anxious till you know, and so I'll tell the doctor. When a woman's been acquainted with a man so long as you've been acquainted with your man, so that you've come to know all the secrets of his heart, and the very shape and fashion of the soul which God has lent him, to be sure all her nature stirs within her when she begins to fear he's near to dying. It's hard to lose the husband to whom you've only been married a couple of minutes, so I'll tell the doctor to hurry and let you know if you're a widow before you're a wife."

Without giving Isabel a chance to retort, Nannie opened the door with a swishing movement, which was in harmony with her state of mind, and vanished from the chamber.