Part 9 (1/2)
”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.