CHAPTER XXXIV
TOWARDS JUDGMENT
For possibly a couple of minutes she continued on the doorstep immobile, as if she not only did not understand what had happened, but as if she also still failed to realise that her legal adviser was at least no longer where he was. She repeated his name, at intervals-"Luker! Luker!" – almost as if she was a child who repeated, parrot-like, a meaningless formula. Then, after a while, when still there came no answer, she thrust her hand, as if mechanically, into the bosom of her dress, feeling for something. Presently it emerged, holding a flask. In the same odd, automatic fashion, as if her actions were not the product of her own volition, unscrewing the stopper, she placed the neck between her lips. After a perceptible interval, suddenly slipping between her fingers, it dropped on to the step with a clatter. It had contained ether; she had swallowed its entire contents.
What were the exact physical or mental results of what would have been a poison to an unaccustomed subject, it would be difficult to say. One fact may be baldly stated, it robbed her of her senses. Her capacity of judging between the real and the unreal had been trembling in the balance. When she emptied that flask unreality became all that was real. Not perhaps on the instant, but certainly after the expiration of a very few seconds.
At first she stood trembling, so that one might almost have expected to see her sink to the ground from sheer inability to stand. She stretched out her arms into the darkness, as if seeking for support, and found none. Then, putting her hands up to her face, she began to rub them up and down before her eyes, as if endeavouring to rub away some film which obscured her sight, and she began to cry, softly, beneath her breath. Then, dropping her hands to her sides, she began to see the things which were not, those visions which, in some form, are the inseparable companions of a mind diseased.
"I am coming! – I heard you! – you need not call so loud!"
The words were uttered not loudly, but with such clearness of intonation that, proceeding from her as she stood there all alone in the outer darkness, and addressed apparently to the circumambient air, they might have produced on unintentional listeners not an agreeable effect. She turned, making as if to insert the key which she still held into the lock of the door behind her, to find that the door already stood wide open, and that in the hall beyond there was a faint light which was just sufficient to render objects visible.
In her normal condition the fact that the door had seemingly opened of its own accord would have occasioned her something more than wonder; she would at least have taken it for granted that somewhere in its immediate neighbourhood were helping hands; and she would promptly have set herself to discover to whom they belonged, and just where their owners might be found. In her then state no notion of the kind seemed to enter her brain. That the fact that the door was open occasioned her surprise was obvious; but it was surprise of a singular quality, and it was accompanied by abject terror. The woman seemed all at once to become stunted, to shrink into sheer physical insignificance.
"Cuthbert Grahame," she muttered, "why did you open the door? How did you get out of your bed to open the door?" With a sound which was part wail, part sob, she stumbled across the threshold into the hall. "Where shall I go? Shall I go into the room into which I first went on that first night? Perhaps I'll be safe in there-perhaps I'll be safe. I don't want to go upstairs-not yet-not just yet. I daren't-I daren't. Listen! how he calls to me-how he calls."
She glanced up the staircase, which she approached even while she shrank from it, and she saw, in the dim, mysterious light, leaning over the banister, looking down at her from above, a woman's face-Nannie Foreshaw. She did not stop to ask herself if the appearance might by any chance be real, a creature of warm flesh and blood. It was some moments before she realised who it was that looked at her. When she did, the presence there was so unexpected, so wholly unforeseen, and thrust so deeply at her conscience, that it is not impossible that the mere shock which resulted from the sight was sufficient to disintegrate her few remaining wits. She at once took it for granted that she was gazing at a spectre, a shade returned from the tomb to afflict her before her time. Cowering back against the wall, she broke into screams of agony.
"Nannie! Nannie! – I didn't kill you! – I didn't kill you! Don't look at me like that! – don't! don't! don't!" Covering her face with her hands, she began to sob with such violence that one could see her shaking as she leaned against the wall. When, removing her hands, she again ventured to look up, there was no one there. "She's gone! she's gone!"
The words were uttered with a gasp of relief which it was not pleasant to hear. For a moment it seemed as if she might be restored to something like her proper self. Then, while she seemed to waver, without apparent rhyme or reason, all her tremors returned. Again she broke into shrieks and cries.
"She's waiting for me in his room! in his room! in his room! – she's waiting for me! My God! what am I to do? – help me! help me! I'll have to go to him. Listen how he calls to me! – listen how he calls! I'm coming! – don't call so loud!" She began stumbling up the staircase, blunderingly, blindly, as if she could not see where she was going. Stopping every two or three steps, clutching at the wall, the rails; glancing back, looking as though if she could she would descend. But each time, just as she was about to beat a retreat, there came to her that insistent voice, summoning her to her fate. She gasped out expostulations even as she stumbled upwards. "Don't call so loud! don't call so loud! I'm coming."
And she did come. A singular spectacle she presented as she went. No one would have recognised in that ill-shaped, mouthing, struggling woman-though she alone knew what it was with which she struggled; who seemed unable to stand up straight, and to experience as much difficulty in ascending an ordinary staircase as if it had been the scarred surface of some precipitous cliff which she was forced, very much against her will, to climb-the flamboyant and somewhat overwhelming lady who was known among a certain set in London as the handsome Mrs. Lamb. There were no traces of beauty about her then.
When she had gained the landing her terror seemed, if the thing were possible, to increase. Descending to her knees, clutching the railing with both hands, she crawled, as if drawn by some invisible force, against which all the strength of her resistance was in vain, towards the room, the bedroom, in which Cuthbert Grahame had passed so much of the latter part of his life, and in which, through her action, he had died. And all the while she protested.
"I won't come! I won't come!" For an instant she would cling not only with her hands, but, as it were, with her whole body, to the railings, as if she had finally resolved that nothing should constrain her to advance another inch. Then again she was possessed by a paroxysm of terror. "I will come! – don't call so loud! I am coming!"
When she was in front of the door of the room she did halt for perhaps more than a minute, crouching in a heap on the floor, covering her face with her hands, overtaken by such a fury of weeping that the violence of her sobs seemed as if it would tear her to pieces. Then, as if actuated by some sudden irresistible impulse, she rose to her feet, and exclaimed, still weeping-
"Cuthbert Grahame, I hear you calling-I am here".
She threw open the dead man's bedroom door.
CHAPTER XXXV
JUDGES
In the room was the same faint, luminous glow which had been noticeable in the hall and on the stairs. There could have been no more eloquent testimony of her condition than the fact that she accepted its presence as a matter of course; that it never seemed to occur to her that there was something about it which required elucidation; still less that a few shrewd, well-directed inquiries might result in a very simple explanation. She stood on the threshold, all dishevelled, bent, weeping; always before her eyes the things which she alone could see, stricken with a mad agony of fear by the horror of the sight.
She came a little farther towards the room, staring towards the bed. When she had taken a step or two it seemed as if her legs refused to uphold her any longer. Down she sank on to her knees again; again she covered her face with her hands, as if by such means she could shut off from herself the hideous imaginings of her haunted brain.
"Don't! don't! don't!" she wailed.
While still she remained in that attitude of humility and penitence there came a voice which called her by what had once been her name.
"Isabel Burney!"
That she heard it there could be no doubt. At the sound of it she shivered more than ever. But it may be that she was in doubt whether it was a material voice, or whether it was a fresh manifestation of those too-well remembered tones, which kept calling to her all the time. For it is possible that a disordered mind may be conscious that there is a difference between the real and the imaginary without being capable of satisfactorily perceiving what it is. She did not answer. It came again, not loud, yet distinct and dominating.
"Isabel Burney."
This time she repeated her former wail, with renewed force of entreaty.
"Don't! don't!"
If it was intended for a cry of appeal to be left alone, it went unheeded. The voice returned, asking what was emphatically a leading question.
"Did you murder Cuthbert Grahame?"
She made not the slightest attempt to shirk the very weighty responsibility which attended the reply to such a question. An affirmative was bursting from her lips almost before it was asked.
"Yes! yes! yes!"
"How did you murder him?"
Again the wail-
"Don't! don't! don't!"
"How did you murder him?"
The wail became hysterical cries.
"Oh! oh! oh!"
But the voice persisted.
"How did you murder him?"
Confused words came stumbling from her lips, as if they were being forcibly extracted.
"The pillows-dragged-from under-he choked."
"You dragged the pillows from under him, so that his head fell down, and he was choked."
"Yes."
"Why did you murder him?"
Here again the answer came rapidly and clearly.
"Because I didn't want him to destroy the will which I had tricked him into signing."
"How did you trick him?"
"He made me draw up a will which left all his property to Margaret Wallace."
"And then?"
"I drew up a will in which he left everything to me."
"And then?"
"I covered it with a sheet of paper, and got him to sign it, thinking that he was signing the other."
"Did he know what you had done?"
"Yes; I killed him before he could tell any one else and have the will destroyed."
The voice was still. There was silence, broken by the sound of some one moving. The room was filled with a bright light. The voice came again.
"Isabel Burney!"
The woman on her knees, dropping her hands, looked round. By a lighted lamp which rested on a writing-table stood Margaret Wallace. Whether Mrs. Lamb realised that she was looking at the girl herself, or supposed that she was confronted by a materialised phantom, has never been certainly known. She stared at her surlily, unblinkingly, affrightedly, as one might stare at some unpleasing object in a dream. The girl repeated the questions which had already been answered. As one listened the last remnants of doubt vanished as to whose was the voice which had already made itself so prominent.
"Did you trick Cuthbert Grahame into signing a will in which he left all that he had to you, when he supposed himself to be signing one in which he left it all to me?"
There was a momentary hesitation, then the answer, spoken sullenly, half beneath her breath, yet plain enough.
"Yes; I did."
"And did you then kill him because you feared discovery of what you had done?"
"Yes; I did."
There was another movement on the other side of the room. When Mrs. Lamb looked round she found herself looking at Dr. Twelves, who put a question to her on his own account.
"So you lied to me when you said those pillows must have slipped-you knew better. As I suspected, you dragged them away-you female fiend!"
His invective went unnoticed; there came the rather monotonous refrain-
"Yes; I did".
There were other movements proceeding from all parts of the room. On one side of her were Andrew McTavish and his partner, Mr. Brown. Mr. McTavish was evidently very angry.
"And you lied to us when you pretended that you suspected us of robbing you! You knew all along that the only robbery you yourself had committed-you impudent swindler!"
He only received the same reply-
"Yes; I did".
Dr. Twelves wagged his finger at her, gruesomely.
"You shall hang for it, Isabel Burney-you shall hang by the neck until you're dead!"
Mr. McTavish cried-
"At any rate, you shall be sent to penal servitude for the fraud you have committed on us!"
She showed no signs of resentment, as only a very short time before she undoubtedly would have done, when her resentment would probably have taken a sufficiently active turn. From her demeanour it was difficult to determine if she comprehended what was being said to her. She gazed stolidly about the room. Near a window stood Nannie Foreshaw, leaning on a stick, holding with one hand the curtain from behind which she had just emerged. At sight of her she shrank backwards, as if she would withdraw herself as far as she could. Before the door, as if he would bar her retreat, was Harry Talfourd. When she saw him she seemed to be moved more than she had been by any of the others; she turned aside, with a low cry, and covered her face. Possibly, in some tangled fashion, she remembered how, so recently, she had played to him the rôle of the great lady, the benefactress; how willing she had been to be something more to him than that; and she was vaguely conscious of what a contrast she was exhibiting to him now.
Margaret had been seated at a table writing. Now, rising, she turned to the woman who was still on her knees upon the floor.
"I have set down upon this sheet of paper a short confession of your guilt. If you will sign it you shall not hang; you shall not be sent to prison. You shall receive your only punishment from your own conscience. I think that is to condemn you to the greater punishment. I will read to you what I have written."
She read aloud from the paper which she took in her hand: -
"'I confess that Cuthbert Grahame instructed me to draw up a will in which he left all that he had in the world to Margaret Wallace; that, without his knowledge, I substituted for it another form of will, according to which he left his property to me, and that I induced him to sign this fraudulent form by means of a trick. I also confess that I murdered Cuthbert Grahame in order to avoid an exposure of the trick by means of which I had induced him to sign the substituted fraudulent form of will.' If you will attach your name to this confession you shall receive no punishment beyond that which you award yourself-that will be a sufficient one. Come here and sign."
As if automatically, Mrs. Lamb rose to her feet, moved towards the table, seated herself on the chair which Margaret had occupied, accepted the pen which the girl offered, and wrote her name in full on the sheet of paper which was set before her. When she had signed, leaning back, she looked from one to the other. They waited for her to speak, expecting perhaps some burst of tardy anger. Then, on a sudden, without a word or a movement, she slid from the chair on to the floor. When they gathered round her she lay still.
CHAPTER XXXVI
PLEASANT DREAMS!
The duel had been fought to a finish, and Margaret had won.
When Mrs. Gregory Lamb was brought back out of that fit by which she had been overtaken she was lying on Cuthbert Grahame's bed, on which he had lived for so long, and died at her hand; the bed whose image had been borne in upon her phantom-haunted brain with such horrible persistency. Dr. Twelves was bending over her, standing where he had stood many a time to bend over the man she slew. She was little better than a babbling idiot. She is not much more than that now. She is a certified lunatic, under kindly, yet watchful, guardianship, the expense of which is paid by the girl whom she so cruelly wronged.
The physical and mental strain which had been placed upon her during that period of increasing financial pressure had been great; her attempts to relieve it by a resort to ether had made it ten times greater. How much of the spirit she drank has not been exactly ascertained. She must have consumed large quantities. Probably only the natural strength of her constitution enabled her to resist its effects so long as she did. Undoubtedly the habit of ether drinking had increased in her to such an extent that in any case it would ultimately have produced insanity. Her reason was already tottering when she was brought face to face with Margaret Wallace on the night of her reception, and was put to such dire confusion. It is believed that she touched no solid food afterwards, subsisting solely upon ether. Isaac Luker asserted that she carried a large bottle of it in her bag when they journeyed together from London, and was sipping its contents throughout the day.
It was not strange that when the moment came she was ripe to fall a ready victim to Margaret's carefully laid lures. The girl fought her with weapons to which she was incapable of offering resistance.
Cuthbert Grahame's money, which had been searched for so long in vain, was found deposited in the hiding-place the secret of which she had revealed to Mrs. Lamb, intending, by working on her guilty conscience and so extorting from her a confession, which it was certain could never be obtained from her by any other means, to destroy her when she went to seek it. Margaret is now Mrs. Henry Talfourd. She is married to one who loved and loves her, and for the love of whom she was willing to sacrifice all. She is a rich woman. Bearing in mind the singularity of the circumstances under which it has come into her possession, she was desirous of having nothing to do with the dead man's money. But it was pointed out that, excepting herself, there was no possible claimant. She regards herself as an almoner, as a steward of Cuthbert Grahame's great possessions rather than their owner, and employs by far the larger portion of the income they produce in works of benefaction. She still produces pictures in black and white and in colour; there are few women artists who have achieved a more substantial success.
Her husband has not realised his dreams. "The Gordian Knot" has never been produced. He burnt the play with his own hands, and has never written another. He alone knows why, though his wife may have a shrewd suspicion. So far he has been content to act as his wife's right-hand man, an occupation which hitherto has kept him fully employed.
Dr. Twelves lives and flourishes. He has been heard to declare that never again will he proffer assistance to any strange woman whom he finds by the wayside. Nannie Foreshaw is dead. Messrs. McTavish & Brown have, if anything, improved their standing as family solicitors of undoubted integrity; Mrs. Talfourd is one of their most valued clients.
Mrs. Talfourd presented Mr. Gregory Lamb with a passage to South Africa, and with a sum of money when he landed. As he has never asked for any more money, and nothing has been heard of him since, the presumption is that he has perished in that grave of many reputations. His wife's solicitor continues to exist, and is still a very well-known gentleman in certain extremely crooked walks of life.
Cuthbert Grahame's home has been turned into a sanatorium and holiday home for children. It could hardly be employed for a better purpose. Boys and girls scamper among the trees; their voices and their laughter ring through the house. They people it with fresh associations; the old ghosts are gone. They find health and happiness in the place where once was neither. And when, at night, they lay their tired heads upon their pillows, they dream only pleasant dreams. When they wake in the morning, whether actually the skies be fair or clouded, to them it is always as if the sun was shining.