Fingersmith (17 page)

We needed her to grow confiding, so that I could help her on her way. But, though I dropped a thousand little hints—such as, what a kind gentleman Mr Rivers was; and how handsome and how well-bred; and how her uncle seemed to like him; and how she seemed to like him, and how he seemed to like her; and if a lady ever thought of marrying, didn't she think a gent like Mr Rivers might be just the gent for the job?—though I gave her a thousand little chances like that, to open up her heart, she never took one. The weather turned cold again, then grew warmer. It got to March. Then it was almost April. By May, Mr Lilly's pictures would all be mounted, and Gentleman would have to leave. But still she said nothing; and he held back from pressing her, out of fear that a wrong move would frighten her off.

I grew fretful, waiting. Gentleman grew fretful. We all grew nervy as narks—Maud would sit fidgeting for hours at a trot, and when the house clock sounded she would give a little start, that would make me start; and when it came time for Gentleman to call on her, I would see her flinching, listening for his step—then his knock would come, and she would jump, or scream, or drop her cup and break it. Then at night, she would lie stiff and open-eyed, or turn and murmur in her sleep.

All, I thought, for love! I had never seen anything like it. I thought about how such a business got worked out, in the Borough. I thought of all the things a girl could ordinarily do, when she liked a fellow that she guessed liked her.

I thought of what I would do, if a man like Gentleman liked me.

I thought perhaps I ought to take her aside and tell her, as one girl to another.

Then I thought she might think me rude.—Which is pretty rum, in light of what happened later.

But something else happened first. The fever broke at last. The show went bust, and all our waiting paid off.

She let him kiss her.

Not on her lips, but somewhere altogether better.

I know, because I saw it.

It was down by the river, on the first day of April. The weather was too warm for the time of year. The sun shone bright in a sky of grey, and everyone said there would be thunder.

She had a jacket and a cloak above her gown, and was hot: she called me to her, and had me take away the cloak, and then the jacket. She was sitting at her painting of the rushes, and Gentleman was near her, looking on and smiling. The sun made her squint: every now and then she would raise her hand to her eyes. Her gloves were quite spoiled with paint, and there was paint upon her face.

The air was thick and warm and heavy, but the earth was cold to the touch: it had all the chill of winter in it still, and all the dampness of the river. The rushes smelt rank. There was a sound, as of a locksmith's file, that Gentleman said was bullfrogs. There were long-legged spiders, and beetles. There was a bush, with a show of tight, fat, furry buds.

I sat beside the bush, on the upturned punt: Gentleman had carried it there for me, to the shelter of the wall. It was as far away from him and Maud as he dared place me. I kept the spiders from a basket of cakes. That was my job, while Maud painted, and Gentleman looked on, smiling, and sometimes putting his hand on hers.

She painted, and the queer hot sun went lower, the grey sky began to be streaked with red, and the air grew even thicker. And then I slept. I slept and dreamt of Lant Street—I dreamt of Mr Ibbs at his brazier, burning his hand and shouting. The shout woke me up. I started from the punt, not knowing for a second where I was. Then I looked about me. Maud and Gentleman were nowhere to be seen.

There was her stool, and there the terrible painting. There were her brushes—one was dropped upon the ground—and there her paints. I went over and picked up the fallen brush. I thought it would be like Gentleman, after all, to have taken her back to the house and left me to come up, sweating, with everything behind them. But I could not imagine that she would go with him, alone. I felt almost afraid for her. I felt almost like a real maid, worried for her mistress.

And then I heard her voice, murmuring. I walked a little way, and saw them.

They had not gone far—only just along the river, where it bent about the wall. They did not hear me come, they did not look round. They must have walked together along the line of rushes; and then I suppose he had spoken to her at last. He had spoken, for the first time, without me to overhear him— and I wondered what words he had said, that could make her lean against him, like that. She had her head upon his collar. Her skirt rose at the back, almost to her knees. And yet, her face she kept turned hard from his. Her arms hung at her side, like a doll's arms. He moved his mouth against her hair, and whispered.

Then, while I stood watching, he lifted one of her weak hands and slowly drew the glove half from it; and then he kissed her naked palm.

And by that, I knew he had her. I think he sighed. I think she sighed, too—I saw her sag still closer to him, then give a shiver. Her skirt rose even higher, and showed the tops of her stockings, the white of her thigh.

The air was thick as treacle. My gown was damp where it gripped. A limb of iron would have sweated, in a dress on such a day. An eye of marble would have swivelled in its socket to gaze as I did. I could not look away. The stillness of them—her hand, so pale against his beard, the glove still bunched about her knuckles, the lifted skirt—it seemed to hold me like a spell. The purr of the bullfrogs was louder than before. The river lapped like a tongue among the rushes. I watched, and he dipped his head, and softly kissed her again.

I should have been glad to see him do it. I was not. Instead, I imagined the rub of his whiskers upon her palm. I thought of her smooth white fingers, her soft white nails.—I had cut them, that morning. I had dressed her and brushed her hair. I had been keeping her, neat and in her looks—all for the sake of this moment. All for him. Now, against the dark of his jacket and hair, she seemed so neat—so slight, so pale—I thought she might break. I thought he might swallow her up, or bruise her.

I turned away. I felt the heat of the day, the thickness of the air, the rank-ness of the rushes, too hard. I turned, and stole softly back to where the painting was. After a minute there came thunder, and another minute after that I heard the sound of skirts, and then Maud and Gentleman walked quickly about the curving wall, she with her arm in his, her gloves buttoned up and her eyes on the ground; him with his hand upon her fingers, his head bent. When he saw me he gave me a look. He said,

'Sue! We didn't like to wake you. We have been walking, and lost ourselves in gazing at the river. Now the light is all gone, and we shall have rain, I think. Have you a coat for your mistress?'

I said nothing. Maud, too, was silent, and looked nowhere but at her feet. I put her cloak about her, then took the painting and the paints, the stool and the basket, and followed her and Gentleman back, through the gate in the wall, to the house. Mr Way opened the door to us. As he closed it the thunder came again. Then the rain began to fall, in great, dark, staining drops.

'Just in time!' said Gentleman softly, gazing at Maud and letting her draw her hand from him.

It was the hand he had kissed. She must have felt his lips there still, for I saw her turn from him and hold it to her bosom, and stroke her fingers over her palm.

T
he rain fell all that night. It made rivers of water that ran beneath the basement doors, into the kitchen, the still-room and the Pantries. We had to cut short our supper so that Mr Way and Charles might 'ay down sacks. I stood with Mrs Stiles at a back-stairs window, watching the bouncing raindrops and the flashes of lightning. She rubbed her arms and gazed at the sky.

'Pity the sailors at sea,' she said.

I went up early to Maud's rooms, and sat in the darkness, and when she came she did not know, for a minute, that I was there: she stood and put her hands to her face. Then the lightning flashed again, and she saw me, and jumped.

'Are you here?' she said.

Her eyes seemed large. She had been with her uncle, and with Gentleman. I thought, 'She'll tell me now.' But she only stood gazing at me, and when the thunder sounded she turned and moved away. I went with her to her bedroom. She stood as weakly for me to undress her as she had stood in Gentleman's arms, and the hand he had kissed she held off a little from her side, as if to guard it. In her bed she lay very still, but lifted her head, now and then, from her pillow. There was a steady drip, drip in one of the attics. 'Do you hear the rain?' she said; and then, in a softer voice: 'The thunder is moving away…'

I thought of the basements, filling with water. I thought of the sailors at sea. I thought of the Borough. Rain makes London houses groan. I wondered if Mrs Sucksby was lying in bed, while the damp house groaned about her, thinking of me.

Three thousand pounds
! she had said.
My crikey
!

Maud lifted her head again, and drew in her breath. I closed my eyes. 'Here it comes,' I thought.

But after all, she said nothing.

When I woke, the rain had stopped and the house was still. Maud lay, as pale as milk: her breakfast came and she put it aside and would not eat it. She spoke quietly, about nothing. She did not look or act like a lover. I thought she would say something lover-like soon, though. I supposed her feelings had dazed her.

She watched Gentleman walk and smoke his cigarette, as she always did; and then, when he had gone to Mr Lilly, she said she would like to walk, herself. The sun had come up weak. The sky was grey again, and the ground was filled with what seemed puddles of lead. The air was so washed and pure, it made me bilious. But we went, as usual, to the wood and the ice-house, and then to the chapel and the graves. When we reached her mother's grave she sat a little near it, and gazed at the stone. It was dark with rain. The grass between the graves was thin and beaten. Two or three great black birds walked carefully about us, looking for worms. I watched them peck. Then I think I must have sighed, for Maud looked at me and her face—that had been hard, through frowning—grew gentle. She said,

'You are sad, Sue.' :

I shook my head.

'I think you are,' she said. 'That's my fault. I have brought you to this lonely place, time after time, thinking only of myself. But
you
have known what it is, to have a mother's love and then to lose it.'

I looked away.

'It's all right,' I said. 'It doesn't matter.'

She said, 'You are brave…'

I thought of my mother, dying game on the scaffold; and I suddenly wished—what I had never wished before—that she had been some ordinary girl, that had died in a regular way. As if she guessed it, Maud said quietly now,

'And what—it doesn't trouble you, my asking?—what did your mother die of?'

I thought for a moment. I said at last that she had swallowed a pin, that had choked her.

I really did know a woman that died that way. Maud stared at me, and put her hand to her throat. Then she gazed down at her own mother's tomb.

'How would you feel,' she said quietly, 'if you had fed her that pin yourself?'

It seemed an odd sort of question; but, of course, I was used by now to her saying odd sorts of things. I told her I should feel very ashamed and sad.

'Would you?' she said. 'You see, I have an interest in knowing. For it was my birth that killed my mother. I am as to blame for her death as if I had stabbed her with my own hand!'

She looked strangely at her fingers, that had red earth at the tips. I said,

'What nonsense. Who has made you think that? They ought to be sorry.'

'No-one made me think it,' she answered. 'I thought it myself.'

Then that's worse, because you're clever and ought to know better. As if a girl could stop herself from being born!'

'I wish I had been stopped!' she said. She almost cried it. One of the dark birds started up from between the stones, its wings beating the air—it sounded like a carpet being snapped out of a window. We both turned our heads to see it fly; and when I looked at her again, her eyes had tears in them.

I thought, 'What do you have to cry for? You're in love, you're in love.' I tried to remind her.

'Mr Rivers,' I began. But she heard the name and shivered.

'Look at the sky,' she said quickly. The sky had grown darker. 'I think it will thunder again. Here is the new rain, look!'

She closed her eyes and let the rain fall on her face, and after another second I could not have said what were raindrops, and what tears. I went to her and touched her arm.

'Put your cloak about you,' I said. Now the rain fell quick and hard. She let me lift her hood and fasten it, as a child might; and I think, if I had not drawn her from the grave, she would have stayed there and been soaked. But I made her stumble with me to the door of the little chapel. It was shut up fast with a rusting chain and a padlock, but above it was a porch of rotted wood. The rain struck the wood and made it tremble. Our skirts were dark with water at the hems. We stood close to one another, our shoulders tight against the chapel door, and the rain came down—straight down, like arrows. A thousand arrows and one poor heart. She said,