Fingersmith (65 page)

Queer, the things you think at such times. I watched her another minute, then went to the door. Slowly, slowly, I put the key in the lock. Slowly, slowly, I turned it. 'Please God,' I whispered, as it moved. 'Dear God, I swear, I'll be good, I'll be honest the rest of my days, I swear—' It caught, and stuck. 'Fuck! Fuck!' I said. The wards had jammed, I had not cut true after all: now it would not turn, either forwards or backwards. '
Fuck
! You fuckster! Oh!' I gripped it harder, and tried again—still nothing—at last I let it go. I went silently back to my bed, got Nurse Bacon's ointment jar, stole back with it to the door, put grease across the key-hole and blew it into the lock. Then, almost fainting with fear, I gripped the key again; and this time—this time, it worked.

There were three more doors to be got through, after that. The key did the same in all of them—got stuck, and must be greased—and every time, I shuddered to hear the grinding of the iron in the lock, and went on faster. But no-one woke. The passages were hot and quiet, the stairs and hall quite still. The front door was bolted and latched, I didn't need a key for that. I left it open behind me. It was as easy as the time that I had gone from Briar with Maud: only on the walk before the house did I get a fright, for as I made to cross the bit of gravel there, I heard a step, and then a voice. The voice called, softly, 'Hey!'—I heard it, and almost died. I thought it was calling me. Then there came a woman's laugh, and I saw figures: two men—Mr Bates, I think, and another; and a nurse—Nurse Flew, with the swivel-eye. 'You'll get your— one of them said; but that was all I heard. They went through bushes, at the side of the house. Nurse Flew laughed again. Then the laugh got stifled, and there came silence.

I did not wait to see what the silence would become. I ran—lightly, at first, across the strip of gravel—then fast and hard, across the lawn. I didn't look back at the house. I didn't think about the ladies, still inside it. I should like to say I went and threw my key into the little walled garden, for one of them to find; but I did not. I didn't save anyone but myself. I was too afraid. I found the tallest tree: it took me another half-hour, then, to get myself up the knots in its trunk—to fall, to try again—to fall a second time, a third, a fourth—to heave myself finally on to its lowest branch—to climb from there to the branch above—to work my way across a creaking bough until I reached the wall… God knows how I did it. I can only say, I did. 'Charles! Charles!' I called, from the top of the bricks. There was no answer. But I did not wait. I jumped. I hit the ground and heard a yelp. It was him. He had waited so long, he had fallen asleep; and I almost struck him.

The yelp made a dog bark, back at the house. That dog set off another. Charles put his hand before his mouth.

'Come on!' I said.

I caught his arm. We turned our backs to the wall, and ran and ran.

We ran through grass and hedges. The night was still dark, the paths all hidden, and I was too afraid, at first, to take the time to find them out. Every now and then Charles would stumble, or slow his step to press his hand to his side and find his breath, and then I'd tilt my head and listen; but there was nothing to hear but birds, and breezes, and mice. Soon the sky grew lighter, and we made out the pale strip of a road. 'Which way?' said Charles. I did not know. It had been months and months since I had stood on any kind of path and had to choose the way to take. I looked about me, and the land and the lightening sky seemed suddenly vast and fearful. Then I saw Charles looking, and waiting. I thought of London. 'This way,' I said, beginning to walk; and the fear passed from me.

It was like that, then, all the way: every time we met the crossing of two or three roads, I would stand for a minute and think hard of London; and just as if I were Dick Whittington, the idea would come to me which road we ought to take. When the sky grew even paler, we began to hear horses and wheels. We should have been glad of a lift, but I was afraid, each time, that the cart or coach might have been sent out after us, from the madhouse. Only when we saw an old farmer driving out of
a
gate in a donkey-cart, did I think we could be sure he was not one of Dr Christie's men: we put ourselves in his way, and he slowed the donkey and let us ride beside him for an hour. I had combed out the plaits and stitches from my hair and it stood up like coir, and I had no hat, so put a handkerchief of Charles's about my head. I said that we were brother and sister, and going back to London after a stay with our aunty.

'London, eh?' said the farmer. 'They say a man can live forty years there and never meet his neighbour. Is that right?'

He put us down at the side of the road at the edge of a town, and showed us the way we must take from there. I guessed we had gone about nine or ten miles. We had forty more to do. This was still early morning. We found a baker's shop, and bought bread; but the woman in the shop looked so queerly at my hair and my gown, and my rubber boots, I wished we had given up the bread and gone hungry. We sat in a church-yard, upon the grass, against two leaning stones. The church bell rang, and we both started.

'Seven o'clock,' I said. I felt suddenly gloomy. I looked at Nurse Bacon's comb. 'They'll be waking up now, and finding my empty bed; if they haven't found it already.'

'Mr Way will be polishing shoes,' said Charles. His lip began to jump.

'Think of Mr Rivers's boots,' I said quickly. 'I bet they want a polish. London is awfully hard on a gentleman's shoes.'

'Is it?'

That made him feel better. We finished our bread, and then rose and brushed the grass off. A man went by with a shovel. He looked at us rather as the woman in the baker's shop had.

'They think we're tinkers,' said Charles, as we watched him pass.

But I imagined men coming from the madhouse, asking about after a girl in a tartan dress and rubber boots. 'Let's go,' I said, and we left the road again and took a quiet path that went off across fields. We kept as much as we could to the hedges, though the grass was higher there, and harder and slower to walk on.

The sun made the air grow warm. There came butterflies, and bees. Now and then I stopped and untied the handkerchief from about my head, and wiped my face. I had never walked so far, so hard, in my life; and for three months I had not been further than round and round the little walled garden at the madhouse. There were blisters on my heels, the size of shillings. I thought, 'We shall never get to London!'

But each time I thought it, I thought of Mrs Sucksby, and imagined the look upon her face when I turned up at the Lant Street door. Then I thought of Maud, wherever she was; and imagined
her
face.

Her face seemed dim to me, however. The dimness bothered me. I said,

'Tell me, Charles, what colour are Miss Lilly's eyes? Are they brown, or blue?'

He looked at me strangely.

'I think they are brown, miss.'

'Are you sure ?'

'I think so, miss.'

'I think so, too.'

But I was not sure. I walked a little faster. Charles ran beside me, panting.

Near noon that day we came across a row of little cottages, on the side of the path to a village. I made Charles stop, and we stood behind a hedge, and I watched the doors and windows. At one, a girl stood shaking cloths—though after a minute she went inside, and then the window was closed. At another, a woman with a bucket passed back and forth, not looking out. The windows of the next cottage down were all shut and dark; but I guessed there must be something behind them, worth stealing: I thought of going to the door and knocking and, if no-one came, trying the latch. But as I stood, working up my nerve, there came voices, from the very last house: we looked, and there at the garden gate was a woman and two little children. The woman was tying on a bonnet and kissing the children good-bye.

'Now, Janet,' she was saying to the biggest one, 'mind you watch Baby nicely. I shall be back to give you your egg. You may hem your hankie if you like, if you'll only be careful with the needle.'

'Yes, Ma,' said the girl. She put her face up to be kissed, then stood on the gate and swung it. Her mother walked quickly away from the cottage—past me and Charles, though she didn't know it; for we were still hidden behind our hedge.

I watched her go. Then I looked from her to the little girl—who had left the gate now, and was walking back up the path, leading her brother towards the open cottage door. Then I looked at Charles. I said,

'Charles, here's Fate turned our way at last. Give me a sixpence, will you?' He felt about in his pocket. 'Not that one. Haven't you got a brighter?'

I took the brightest he had, and gave it an extra shine on the sleeve of my gown.

'What are you going to do, miss?' he asked.

'Never mind. Stay here. And if anyone comes, give a whistle.'

I stood and straightened my skirt; then I went out from behind the hedge and walked smartly over to the gate of the cottage, as if I had come along the path. The little girl turned her head and saw me.

'All right?' I said. 'You'll be Janet. I just met your ma. Look here, what she gave me. A sixpence. Ain't it a nice one? She said, "Please give this sixpence to my little girl Janet, and tell her to please go quick to the shop and buy flour." Said she forgot, just now. Know what flour is, don't you? Good girl. Know what else your ma said? She said, "My girl Janet is such a good little girl, tell her she's to have the half-penny left over, for sweets." Ah. Like sweets, do you? So do I. Nice, ain't they? But hard on your teeth. Never mind. I dare say you ain't got all your teeth yet. Oh! Look at them dazzlers! Like pearls on a string! Better nip down the shop, before the rest come up. I'll stay here and mind the house, shall I? Don't that sixpence shine! And here's your little brother, look. Don't you want to take him with you? Good girl…'

It was the shabbiest trick there was, and I hated doing it; but what can I say? I had had a shabby trick played on me. All the time I spoke, I was glanc-ing quickly about me, at the windows of the other cottages, and along the path; but no-one came. The little girl put the coin in the pocket of her apron and picked up her baby brother, and staggered away; and I watched her do it, then darted into the house. It was a pretty poor place, but in a trunk upstairs I found a pair of black shoes, more or less my size, and a print dress, put in paper. I thought the dress might have been the one that the woman was married in, and I swear to God! I almost didn't take it; but in the end, I did.

And I also took a black straw bonnet, a shawl, a pair of woollen stockings, a pie from the pantry; and a knife.

Then I ran back to the hedge where Charles was hiding.

'Turn round,' I said, as I changed. Turn round! Don't look so frightened, you bloody big girl. Damn her! Damn her!'

I meant Maud. I was thinking of the little girl, Janet, coming back to the cottage with the flour and her bag of sweets, I was thinking of her mother, coming home in time for tea, and finding her wedding-gown gone.

'Damn her!'

I got hold of Maud's glove, and ripped it till the stitches gave. Then I threw it to the ground and jumped on it. Charles watched, with a look of terror on his face.

'Don't look at me, you infant!' I said. 'Oh! Oh!'

But then I grew frightened of someone coming. I took the glove up again and put it back next to my bosom, and tied up the strings of the bonnet. I threw my madhouse gown and my rubber boots into a ditch. The blisters on my feet had opened, and were weeping like eyes; but the stockings were thick ones, and the black shoes were worn and soft. The dress had a pattern of roses on it, and the bonnet had daisies at the brim. I imagined how I must look— like a picture, I thought, of a milkmaid on a dairy wall.

But that was just the thing, I supposed, for the country. We left the fields and the shady paths and went back to the road; and after a time another old farmer came by, and he drove us another few miles; and then we walked again.

We still walked hard. Charles was silent all the way. Finally he broke out with:

'You took them shoes and that gown, without asking.'

'I took this pie as well,' I said. 'Bet you'll eat it, though.'

I said we would send the woman her clothes back, and buy her a brand-new pie, in London. Charles looked doubtful. We spent the night in the hay of an open barn, and he lay with his back to me, his shoulder-blades shaking. I wondered if he might run off to Briar while I slept; and I waited until he grew quiet, then tied the laces of one his boots to the laces of one of mine, so I should wake up if he tried to. He was an aggravating boy; but I knew I should do better with him than without him, just now—for Dr Christie's men would be looking for a girl on her own, not a girl and her brother. I thought that if I had to, I would give him the slip once we reached London.

But London still seemed far off. The air still smelled too pure. Some time in the night I woke, and the barn was full of cows: they stood in a circle and looked us over, and one of them coughed like a man. Don't tell me that's natural. I woke up Charles, and he was as frightened as I was. He got up and tried to run—of course, he fell down, and nearly took my foot off. I undid our laces. We went backwards out of the barn, then ran, then walked. We saw the sun rise over a hill.

'That means east,' said Charles. The night had been cold as winter, but the hill was a steep one and we grew warm as we climbed. When we got to the top, the sun was higher in the sky and the day was lightening up. I thought,
The morning has broken
.—I thought of the morning like an egg, that had split with a crack and was spreading. Before us lay all the green country of England, with its rivers and its roads and its hedges, its churches, its chimneys, its rising threads of smoke. The chimneys grew taller, the roads and rivers wider, the threads of smoke more thick, the farther off the country spread; until at last, at the farthest point of all, they made a smudge, a stain, a darkness—a darkness, like the darkness of the coal in a fire—a darkness that was broken, here and there, where the sun caught panes of glass and the golden tips of domes and steeples, with glittering points of light.