Fingersmith (58 page)

'I only got hands so white through being maid to a lady. It was that lady that tricked me. I—'

'Maid to a lady!' The nurses laughed again. 'Well, don't that take the cake! We got plenty girls suppose themselves duchesses. I never met one that thought herself a duchess's maid! Dear me, that's novel, that is. We shall have to put you in the kitchen, give you polish and a cloth.'

I stamped my foot.

'For fuck's sake!' I cried.

That stopped them laughing. They caught hold of me, and shook me; and Nurse Spiller hit me again about the face—upon the same spot as before— though not so hard. I suppose she thought the old bruise would cover up the new. The pale old woman saw her do it and gave a cry. Betty, the idiot girl, began to moan.

'There, now you've set them off!' said Nurse Spiller. 'And here's the doctors due, any minute.'

She shook me again, then let me stagger away so she might put straight her apron. The doctors were like kings to them. Nurse Bacon went to Betty, to bully her out of her tears. The dark nurse ran to the old woman.

'You finish fastening your buttons, you creature!' she said, waving her arms. 'And you, Mrs Price, you take your hair from out your mouth this instant. Haven't I told you a hundred times, you shall swallow a ball of it, and choke? I'm sure I don't know why I warn you, we should all be glad if you did…'

I looked at the door. Nurse Spiller had left it open, and I wondered if I might reach it if I ran. But from the room next to ours—and then, from all down the corridor, from all the other rooms we had passed—there came, as I wondered, the sound of doors being unlocked and opened; and then the grumbling voices of nurses, the odd shriek. Somewhere, a bell was rung. That was the signal that meant the doctors were coming.

And I thought, after all, that I should make a far better case for myself in standing and talking quietly with Dr Christie, than in running at him in a pair of rubber boots. I moved close to my bed, putting my knee to it to keep my leg from trembling; and I felt for my hair, meaning to tidy it—forgetting, for the moment, that they had stitched it to my head. The dark nurse went off, running. The rest of us stood in silence, listening out for the sound of the doctors' footsteps. Nurse Spiller shook her finger at me.

'You watch your filthy tongue, you trollop,' she said.

We waited for about ten minutes, then there was a stir in the passage and Dr Christie and Dr Graves came walking very quickly into the room, their heads bent over Dr Graves's note-book.

'Dear ladies, good morning,' said Dr Christie, looking up. He went first to Betty. 'How are you, Betty? Good girl. You want your medicine, of course.'

He put his hand to his pocket and brought out a piece of sugar. She took it, and curtseyed.

'Good girl,' he said again. Then, moving past her: 'Mrs Price. The nurses tell me you have been giving in to tears. That is not good. What will your husband say? Shall he be pleased to think you melancholy? Hmm? And all your children? What shall they think?'

She answered in a whisper: 'I don't know, sir.'

'Hmm?'

He took her wrist, all the time murmuring to Dr Graves, who finally made .some note in his book. Then they walked to the pale old lady.

'Miss Wilson, what complaints have you for us today?' asked Dr Christie.

'None but the usual ones,' she answered.

'Well, we have heard them many times. You need not repeat them.'

'The want of pure air,' she said quickly.

'Yes, yes.' He looked at Dr Graves's book.

'And of wholesome food.'

'You will find the food wholesome enough, Miss Wilson, if you will only sample it.'

'The frigid water.'

'A tonic, for shattered nerves. You know this, Miss Wilson.'

She moved her lips, and swayed on her feet. Then all at once she cried out: 'Thieves!'

I jumped at the sound. Dr Christie looked up at her. That's enough,' he said. 'Remember your tongue. What have you upon it?'

'Thieves! Devils!'

'Your tongue, Miss Wilson! What do we keep upon it? Hmm?'

She worked her mouth; then said, after a minute:

'A curb.'

'That is right. A curb. Very good. Draw it tight. Nurse Spiller—' He turned and called the nurse to him, and spoke to her quietly. Miss Wilson put her hands to her mouth, as if to feel for a chain; and again, she caught my eye, and her fingers fluttered, and she seemed ashamed.

I should have been sorry for her, at any other time; but for now, if they had laid her and ten more ladies like her down upon the floor and told me my way out was across their backs, I'd have run it with clogs on. I waited only until Dr Christie had finished giving his instructions to the nurse, and then I licked my mouth and leaned and said,

'Dr Christie, sir!'

He turned and came towards me.

'Mrs Rivers.' He took my hand about the wrist, not smiling. 'How are you?'

'Sir,' I said. 'Sir, I—'

'Pulse rather rapid,' he said quietly, to Dr Graves. Dr Graves made a note of it. He turned back to me. 'You have hurt your face, I am sorry to see.'

Nurse Spiller spoke before I could.

'Cast herself to the floor, Dr Christie,' she said, 'while in the grip of her fit.'

'Ah, yes. You see, Mrs Rivers, the violence of the condition in which you arrived here. I hope you slept?'

'Slept? No, I—'

'Dear, dear. We cannot have that. I shall have the nurses give you a draught. You shall never grow well, without slumber.'

He nodded to Nurse Bacon. She nodded back.

'Dr Christie,' I said, more loudly.

'Pulse quickening, now,' he murmured.

I pulled my hand away. 'Will you listen to me? You have got me here, by mistake.'

'Is that so?' He had narrowed his eyes and was looking into my mouth. 'Teeth sound enough, I think. Gums may be putrid, however.—You must tell us, if they start troubling you.'

'I'm not staying here,' I said.

'Not staying, Mrs Rivers?'

'Mrs Rivers? For God's sake, how can I be her? I stood and saw her married. You came to me, and heard me speak. I—'

'So I did,' he said slowly. 'And you told me how you feared for your mistress's health; how you wished she might be kept quiet and free from harm. For sometimes it is easier—is it not?—to ask for assistance in behalf of another, than for ourselves? We understand you, Mrs Rivers, very well.'

'I am not Maud Rivers!'

He raised a finger, and almost smiled.

'You are not ready to admit that you are Maud Rivers. Hmm? That is quite a different thing. And when you are ready to admit to it, our work shall be done. Until then—'

'You shan't keep me here. You shan't! You keep me, while those swindling villains—'

He folded his arms. 'Which swindling villains, Mrs Rivers?'

'I am not Maud Rivers! My name is Susan—'

'Yes?'

But here, for the first time, I faltered.

'Susan Smith,' I said finally.

'Susan Smith. Of—where was it, Dr Graves? Of Whelk Street, Mayfair?'

I did not answer.

'Come, come,' he went on. 'That is all your fancy, is it not?'

'It was Gentleman's fancy,' I said, thrown off. 'That devil—!'

'Which gentleman, Mrs Rivers?'

'Richard Rivers,' I answered.

'Your husband.'

'Her husband.'

'Ah.'

'Her husband, I tell you! I saw them married. You may find out the vicar that did it. You may bring Mrs Cream!'

'Mrs Cream, the lady you lodged with? We spoke at length with her. She told us, very sadly, of the melancholy temper that stole upon you, in her house.'

'She was speaking of Maud.'

'Of course.'

'She was speaking of Maud, not me. You bring her here. You show her my face, see what she says then. Bring anyone here that has known Maud Lilly and me. Bring Mrs Stiles, the housekeeper at Briar. Bring old Mr Lilly!'

He shook his head. 'And don't you think,' he said, 'your own husband might be supposed to know you, as well as your uncle? And your maid? She stood before us, and spoke of you, and wept.' He lowered his voice. 'What had you done to her, hmm, to make her do that?'

'Oh!' I said, twisting my hands together. ('See her colour change now, Dr Graves,' he said softly.) 'She wept, to trick you! She's nothing but an actress!'

'An actress? Your maid?'

'Maud Lilly! Don't you hear me? Maud Lilly and Richard Rivers. They have put me here—they have cheated and tricked me—they have made you think me her, and her me!'

He shook his head again, and drew close his brows; and again, he almost smiled. Then he said, slowly and very easily:

'But, my dear Mrs Rivers, why should they go to the trouble of doing that?'

I opened my mouth. Then I closed it. For, what could I say? I still supposed that if I only told him the truth, he would believe it. But the truth was I had plotted to steal a lady's fortune; that I had made myself out a servant, when I was really a thief. If I had not been so afraid, and so tired, and so bruised from my night in the pads, I might have thought up a clever story. Now I could not think, at all. Nurse Bacon rubbed her hands and yawned. Dr Christie still watched me, with a humouring expression on his face.

'Mrs Rivers?' he said.

'I don't know,' I answered at last.

'Ah.'

He nodded to Dr Graves, and they began to move off.

'Wait! Wait!' I cried.

Nurse Spiller came forward. 'That's enough from you,' she said. 'You are wasting the doctors' time.'

I did not look at her. I watched Dr Christie turn from me, and saw beyond him the pale old lady, her fingers still chafing at her mouth; and the sad-faced woman with her hair pulled all before her eyes; and Betty, the idiot girl, her lip gleaming with sugar; and I grew wild again. I thought, 'I don't care if they put me in a prison for it! Better a prison, with thieves and murderesses, than a madhouse!' I said,

'Dr Christie, sir! Dr Graves! Listen to me!'

'That's enough,' said Nurse Spiller again. 'Don't you know what busy men the doctors are? Don't you think they got better things to do than hear all your nonsense? Get back!'

I had stepped after Dr Christie and was reaching for his coat.

'Please, sir,' I said. 'Listen to me. I haven't been perfectly straight with you. My name ain't Susan Smith, after all.'

He had made to shake me off. Now he turned a little to me.

'Mrs Rivers,' he began.

'Susan Trinder, sir. Sue Trinder, of—' I was about to say, Lant Street; then knew that of course I must not say it, for fear it should lead the police to Mr Ibbs's shop. I closed my eyes and shook my head. My brain felt hot. Dr Christie drew himself from my hand.

'You must not touch my coat,' he said, his voice grown sterner.

I clutched it again. 'Only hear me out, I beg you! Only let me tell you or the terrible plot I was made to be part of, by Richard Rivers. That devil! He is laughing at you, sir! He is laughing at all of us! He has stolen a fortune. He has fifteen thousand pounds!'

I would not let go of his coat. My voice was high, like the yelp of a dog. Nurse Spiller got her arm about my neck, and Dr Christie put his hands over mine and worked free my fingers. Dr Graves came to help him. At the feel or their hands, I shrieked. I suppose I really seemed mad, then; but it was only through the awfulness of having said nothing but the truth, and being thought to be deluded. I shrieked, and Dr Christie got out his whistle, just like before. There was a bell rung. Mr Bates and Mr Hedges came running, in their brown-paper cuffs. Betty bellowed.

They put me back in the pads. They let me wear the gown and boots, however; and they gave me a basin of tea.

'When I get out, you'll be sorry!' I said, as they closed the door on me. 'I got a mother in London. She is looking for me, in every house in the land!'

Nurse Spiller nodded. 'Is she?' she said. 'That's yours, and all our other ladies', then'; and she laughed.

I think the tea—which tasted bitter—must have had a draught in it. I slept through a day—or it might have been two days; and when I finally came to myself, I came to stupid. I let them take me, stumbling, back to the room with the beds. Dr Christie made his tour, and held my wrist.

'You are calmer today, Mrs Rivers,' he said; and my mouth being dry, from the draught and from sleeping, it was as much as I could do to unstick my tongue from my gums, to answer,

'I ain't Mrs Rivers!'

And he had gone, before I said it.

My head grew clearer as the day wore on, though. I lay on my bed and tried to think. They made us keep to our rooms in the morning, and we were meant to sit and be silent—or to read, if we liked—while Nurse Bacon watched. But I think what books there were in the house, the ladies had already read; for they only, like me, lay upon their beds, doing nothing, and it was Nurse Bacon who sat, with her feet put up on a stool, looking over the pages of a little magazine—now and then licking one of her fat red fingers, to turn a page; and now and then chuckling.

And then, at twelve, she put the magazine away and gave a great yawn, and took us downstairs for our dinners. Another nurse came to help her. 'Come on, come on,' they said. 'No dawdling.'

We walked in a line. The pale old lady—Miss Wilson—pressed close at my back.

'Don't be frightened,' she said, 'of— Don't turn your head! Hush! Hush!' I felt her breath on my neck. 'Don't be frightened,' she said, 'of your soup.'

Then I walked faster, to be nearer Nurse Bacon.

She led us to the dining-room. They were ringing a bell there, and as we went our line was joined by other nurses, with ladies from the rooms they watched in. I should say there were sixty or so ladies kept in that house; and they seemed to me now, after my spell in the pads, a vast and horrible crowd. They were dressed as I was—I mean badly, in all sorts of fashions; and this— and the fact that some had had their hair cut to their heads; and some had lost teeth, or had their teeth taken from them; and some had cuts and bruises, and others wore canvas bracelets or muffs—this made them look queerer than perhaps they really were. I'm not saying they weren't all mad, in their own fashions; and to me, just then, they looked mad as horse-flies. But there are as many different ways of being mad, after all, as there are of being crooked. Some were perfect maniacs. Two or three, like Betty, were only simpletons. One liked to shout bad words. Another threw fits. The rest were only miserable: they walked, with their eyes on the floor, and sat and turned their hands in their laps, and mumbled, and sighed.