Fingersmith (52 page)

I look up, but say nothing. Richard sees my expression and smiles. 'Read the rest,' he says. I turn the paper over. The letter is short, and dated 3rd of May—seven weeks ago, now. It says this.

To Mr Richard Rivers, from Christopher Lilly, Esq
.—
Sir. I suppose you have taken my niece, Maud Lilly. I wish you joy of her! Her mother was a strumpet, and she has all her mother's instincts, if not her face. The check to the progress of my work will be severe; but I take comfort in my loss, from this: that I fancy you, sir, a man who knows the proper treating of a whore.—C.L
.

I read it, two or three times; then read it again; then let it fall. Mrs Sucksby instantly takes it up, to read herself. As she labours over the words, she grows flushed. When she has finished, she gives a cry:

'That blackguard! Oh!'

Her cry wakes Dainty. 'Who, Mrs Sucksby? Who?' she says.

'A wicked man, that's all. A wicked man, who is ill, as he ought to be. No-one you know. Go back to sleep.' She reaches for me. 'Oh, my dear—'

'Leave me alone,' I say.

The letter has upset me, more than I should have believed. I don't know if it is the words that have wounded me most; or the final proof they seem to give, to Mrs Sucksby's story. But I cannot bear to be watched by her, and by Richard, with my feelings in such a stir. I walk as far from them as I may— some two or three steps—to the brown kitchen wall; then I walk from there to another wall, and from there to a door; and I seize and vainly turn the handle.

'Let me out,' I say.

Mrs Sucksby comes to me. She makes to reach, not for the door, but for my face. I push her off—go quickly, to the second door, and then the third.—'Let me out! Let me out!' She follows.

'Dear girl,' she says, 'don't let yourself be upset by that old villain. Why, he ain't worth your tears!'

'Will you let me out?'

'Let you out, to where? Ain't everything here, that you need now? Ain't everything here, or coming? Think of them jewels, them gowns—'

She has come close again. Again, I push her away. I step back to the gravy-coloured wall, and put my hand to it—a fist—and beat and beat it. Then I look up. Before my eyes is the almanack, its pages swarming with crosses of black. I catch hold of it, and pluck it from its pin. 'Dear girl—' Mrs Sucksby says again. I turn and throw it at her.

But afterwards, I fall weeping; and when the fit of tears has passed, I think I am changed. My spirit has gone. The letter has taken it from me. The almanack goes back upon the wall, and I let it stay there. It grows steadily blacker, as we all inch nearer to our fates. The season advances. June grows warm, then even warmer. The house begins to be filled with flies. They drive Richard to a fury: he pursues them with a slipper, red-faced and sweating.— 'You know I am a gentleman's son?' he will say. 'Would you think it, to look at me now? Would you?'

I do not answer. I have begun, like him, to long for the coming of Sue's birthday in August. I will say anything they wish, I think, to any kind of solicitor or lawyer. But I pass my days in a sort of restless lethargy; and at night—for it is too hot to sleep—at night I stand at the narrow window in Mrs Sucksby's room, gazing blankly at the street.

'Come away from there, sweetheart,' Mrs Sucksby will murmur if she wakes. They say there is cholera in the Borough. 'Who knows but you won't take a fever, from the draught?'

May one take a fever, from a draught of foetid air? I lie down at her side until she sleeps; then go back to the window, press my face to the gap between the sashes, breathe deeper.

I almost forget that I mean to escape. Perhaps they sense it. For at last they leave me, one afternoon—at the start of July, I think—with only Dainty to guard me.

'You watch her close,' Mrs Sucksby tells her, drawing on gloves. 'Anything happen to her, I'll kill you.' Me, she kisses. 'All right, my dear? I shan't be gone an hour. Bring you back a present, shall I?'

I do not answer. Dainty lets her out, then pockets the key. She sits, draws a lamp across the table-top, and takes up work. Not washing napkins—for there are fewer babies, now: Mrs Sucksby has begun to find homes for them, and the house is daily growing stiller—but the pulling of silk stitches from stolen handkerchiefs. She does it listlessly, however. 'Dull work,' she says, seeing me look. 'Sue used to do this. Care to try?'

I shake my head, let my eyelids fall; and presently, she yawns. I hear that; and am suddenly wide awake. If she will sleep, I think, I might try the doors— steal the key from her pocket! She yawns again. I begin to sweat. The clock ticks off the minutes—fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. Half an hour. I am dressed in the violet gown and white silk slippers. I have no hat, no money—never mind, never mind. Mr Hawtrey will give you that.

Sleep, Dainty. Dainty, sleep. Sleep, sleep…
Sleep, damn you
!

But she only yawns, and nods. The hour is almost up.

'Dainty,' I say.

She jumps. 'What is it?'

'I'm afraid— I'm afraid I must visit the privy.'

She puts down her work, pulls a face. 'Must you? Right now, this minute?'

'Yes.' I place my hand on my stomach. 'I think I am sick.'

She rolls her eyes. 'Never knew a girl for sickness, like you. Is that what they call a lady's constitution?'

'I think it must be. I'm sorry, Dainty. Will you open the door?'

'I'll go with you, though.'

'You needn't. You might stay at your sewing, if you like…'

'Mrs Sucksby says I must go with you, every time; else I'll catch it. Here.'

She sighs, and stretches. The silk of her gown is stained beneath the arms, the stain edged white. She takes out the key, unlocks the door, leads me into the passage. I go slowly, watching the lurching of her back. I remember having run from her before, and how she caught me: I know that, even if I might hit her aside now, she would only rise again at once and chase me. I might knock her head against the bricks… But I imagine doing it, and my wrists grow weak, I don't think I could.

'Go on,' she says, when I hesitate. 'Why, what's up?'

'Nothing.' I catch hold of the privy door and draw it to me, slowly. 'You needn't wait,' I say.

'No, I'll wait.' She leans against the wall. 'Do me good, take the air.'

The air is warm and foul. In the privy it is warmer, and fouler. But I step inside and close the door and bolt it; then look about me. There is a little window, no bigger than my head, its broken pane stopped up with rag. There are spiders, and flies. The privy seat is cracked and smeared. I stand and think, perhaps for a minute. 'All right?' calls Dainty. I do not answer. The floor is earth, stamped hard. The walls are powdery white. From a wire hang strips of news-print. LADIES' AND GENTLEMEN'S CAST-OFF CLOTHING, IN GOOD OR INFERIOR CONQITION, WANTED FOR— WELSH MUTTON & NEW-LAID EGGS—

Think
,
Maud
.

I turn to face the door, put my mouth to a gap in the wood.

'Dainty,' I say quietly.

'What is it?'

'Dainty, I am not well. You must fetch me something.'

'What?' She tries the door. 'Come out, miss.'

'I can't. I daren't. Dainty, you must go to the drawer, in the chest in my room upstairs. Will you? There is something there. Will you? Oh, I wish you would hurry! Oh, how it rushes! I am afraid of the men coming back—'

'Oh,' she says, understanding me at last. She drops her voice. 'Caught you out, has it?'

'Will you go for me, Dainty?'

'But I'm not to leave you, miss!'

'I must keep here, then, until Mrs Sucksby comes! But say that John, or Mr Ibbs, should come first! Or say I swoon? And the door is bolted! What will Mrs Sucksby think of us, then?'

'Oh, Lord,' she mutters. And then: 'In the chest of drawers, you say?'

'The top-most drawer, on the right. Will you hurry? If I might just make myself neat, and then lie down. I always take it so badly—'

'All right.'

'Be quick!'

'All right!'

Her voice is fading. I press my ear to the wood, hear her feet, the opening and swinging back of the kitchen door.—I slide the bolt and run. I run out of the passage and into the court—I remember this, I remember the nettles, the bricks. Which way from here? There are high walls all about me. But I run further, and the walls give way. There's a dusty path—it was slick with mud, when I came down it before; but I see it, and know it—I know it!—it leads to an alley and this, in turn, leads to another path, which crosses a street and leads me—where? To a road I do not recognise, that runs under the arches of a bridge. I recall the bridge, but remember it nearer, lower. I recall a high, dead wall. There is no wall here.

No matter. Keep going. Keep the house at your back, and run. Take wider roads now: the lanes and alleys twist, and are dark, you must not get caught in them. Run, run. No matter that the sky seems vast and awful to you. No matter that London is loud. No matter that there are people here—no matter that they stare—no matter that their clothes are worn and faded, and your gown bright; that their heads are covered, yours bare. No matter that your slippers are silk, that your feet are cut by every stone and cinder—

So I whip myself along. Only the traffic checks me, the rushing horses and wheels: at every crossing I pause, then cast myself into the mass of cabs and waggons; and I think it is only my haste, my distraction—that, and perhaps the vividness of my dress—that makes the drivers pull at their reins and keep from running me down. On, on, I go. I think once a dog barks at me, and snaps at my skirt. I think boys run beside me, for a time—two boys, or three—-shrieking to see me stagger. 'You,' I say, holding my hand against my side, 'will you tell me, where is Holywell Street? Which way, to Holywell Street?'—but at the sound of my voice, they fall back.

I go more slowly then. I cross a busier road. The buildings are grander here—and yet, two streets beyond them the houses are shabby. Which way must I go? I will ask again, I will ask in a moment; for now, I will only walk, put streets and streets between myself and Mrs Sucksby, Richard, Mr Ibbs. What matter if I grow lost? I am lost already…

Then I cross the mouth of a rising passage of yellow brick and see at the end of it, dark and humped above the tips of broken roofs, its gold cross gleaming, the church of St Paul's. I know it, from illustrations; and I think Holywell Street is near it. I turn, pick up my skirts, make for it. The passage smells badly; but the church seems close. So close, it seems! The brick turns green, the smell grows worse. I climb, then suddenly sink, emerge in open air and almost stumble. I have expected a street, a square. Instead, I am at the top of a set of crooked stairs, leading down to filthy water. I have reached the shore of the river. St Paul's is close, after all; but the whole of the width of the Thames is flowing between us.

I stand and gaze at it, in a sort of horror, a sort of awe. I remember walking beside the Thames, at Briar. I remember seeing it seem to fret and worry at its banks: I thought it longed—as I did—to quicken, to spread. I did not know it would spread to this. It flows, like poison. Its surface is littered with broken matter—with hay, with wood, with weed with paper, with tearings of cloth, with cork and tilting bottles. It moves, not as a river moves, but as a sea: it heaves. And where it breaks, against thfe hulls of boats, and where it is thrown, upon the shore, and about the stairs and the walls and wooden piers that rise from it, it froths like sour milk.

It is an agony of water and of waste; but there are men upon it, confident as rats—pulling the oars of rowing-boats, tugging at sails. And here and there, at the river's edge—bare-legged, bent-backed—are women, girls and boys, picking their way through the churning litter like gleaners in a field.

They don't look up, and do not see me, though I stand for a minute and watch them wade. All along the shore I have come to, however, are warehouses, with working men about them; and presently, as I become aware of them, they also spot me—spot my gown, I suppose—first stare, then signal and call. That jerks me out of my daze. I turn—go back along the yellow passage, take up the road again. I have seen the bridge that I must cross to reach St Paul's, but it seems to me that I am lower than I ought to be, and I cannot find the road that will lead me up: the streets I am walking now are narrow, unpaved, still reeking of dirty water. There are men upon them, too—men of the boats and warehouses, who, like the others, try to catch my eye, whistle and sometimes call; though they do not touch me. I put my hand before my face, and go on faster. At last I find a boy, dressed like a servant. 'Which way is the bridge,' I say, 'to the other shore?' He points me out a flight of steps, and stares as I climb them.

Everybody stares—men, women, children—even here, where the road is busy again, they stare. I think of tearing off a fold of skirt to cover my naked head. I think of begging a coin. If I knew what coin to beg for, how much a hat would cost me, where it might be bought, I would do it. But I know nothing, nothing; and so simply walk on. The soles of my slippers I think are beginning to tear.
Don't mind it, Maud. If you start to mind it, you will weep
. Then the road ahead of me begins to rise, and I see again the gleam of water. The bridge, at last!—that makes me walk quicker. But walking quicker makes the slippers tear more; and after a moment, I am obliged to stop. There is a break in the wall at the start of the bridge with, set into it, a shallow stone bench. Hung up beside it is a belt of cork—meant for throwing, it says upon a sign, to those in difficulties upon the river.

I sit. The bridge is higher than I imagined it. I have never been so high! The thought makes me dizzy. I touch my broken shoe. May a woman nurse her foot on a public bridge? I do not know. The traffic passes, swift and unbroken, like roaring water. Suppose Richard should come? Again, I cover my race. A moment, and I'll go on. The sun is hot. A moment, to find my breath. I close my eyes. Now, when people stare, I cannot see them.

Then someone comes and stands before me, and speaks.