Fingersmith (76 page)

'Mr Way!' I called. 'Mr Way! Anyone!'

My voice made a dozen black birds start out of the bushes and fly off, cawing. The noise was awful. I thought, 'Surely that will bring someone.' But it didn't: the birds went cawing on, the wind moaned louder through the bars, I called another time; and no-one came. So then I looked at the chain and lock. The chain was a long one. It was only there, I think, to keep out cows, and boys. I was thinner than a boy, however, now. I thought, 'It's not against the law. I used to work here. I might work here, still…' I pushed the gates again, as far as they would go: and they made a gap just wide enough for me to wriggle my way through.

They fell together, at my back, with a dreadful clash. The birds started up again. Still no-one came, though.

I gave it a minute, then began to walk.

It seemed quieter inside the walls, than it had been before—quieter, and queer. I kept to the road. The wind made the trees seem to whisper and sigh. The branches were bare. Their leaves lay thick upon the ground: they had got wet, and clung to my skirt. Here and there were puddles of muddy water. Here and there were bushes, overgrown. The grass in the park was overgrown too, and parched from the summer, but beaten about with rain. It was turning to slime at its tips, and smelt peculiar. I think there were mice in it. Perhaps there were rats. I heard them scurrying as I walked.

I began to go quicker. The road ran down, then began to climb. I remembered driving along it with William Inker, in the dark. I knew what was coming: I knew where it turned, and what I would see when it did… I knew it; but it still made me start, to come so suddenly upon the house again—to see it seem to rise out of the earth, so grey and grim. I stopped, on the edge of the walk of gravel. I was almost afraid. It was all so perfectly quiet and dark. The windows were shuttered. There were more black birds upon the roof. The ivy on the walls had lost its hold and was waving like hair. The great front door— that was always swollen, from the rain—bulged worse than ever. The porch was rilled with more wet leaves. It seemed like a house not meant for people but for ghosts. I remembered, suddenly, what the man and the girl had said, about it being haunted…

That made me shiver. I looked about me—back, the way I had come; and then, across the lawns. They ran into dark and tangled woods. The paths I had used to take with Maud, had disappeared. I put back my head. The sky was grey and spitting rain. The wind still whispered and sighed in the trees. I shivered again. The house seemed to watch me. I thought, 'If I can only find Mr Way! Where can he be?'—and I began to walk, around to the back of the house, to the stables and yards. I went carefully, for my steps sounded loud. But here, it was just as quiet and empty as everywhere else. No dogs started barking. The stable doors were open, the horses gone. The great white clock was there, but the hands—this shocked me, more than anything—the hands were stuck, the hour was wrong. The clock had not chimed, all the time I had walked: it was that, I think, that had made the silence so strange. 'Mr Way!' I called—but I called it softly. It seemed wrong to call out, here. 'Mr Way! Mr Way!'

Then I saw, rising up from one of the chimneys, a single thread of smoke. That gave me heart. I went to the kitchen door, and tapped. No answer. I tried the handle. Locked. Then I went to the garden door—the door that I had run from, that night, with Maud. That was also locked. So then I went around to the front again. I went to a window, drew back a shutter, and looked inside. I could not see. I put my hands and my face to the glass; and the window, as I pressed, seemed to give against its bolt… I hesitated for almost a minute; then the rain came, hard as hail. I gave a shove. The bolt flew from its screws and the window swung inwards. I lifted myself up on to the sill, and jumped inside.

Then I stood, quite still. The sound of the breaking bolt must have been awful. What if Mr Way had heard it and came with a gun, supposing me a burglar? I felt like a burglar, now. I thought of my mother— My mother was never a thief, however. My mother was a lady. My mother was the lady of this great house… I shook my head. I should never believe it. I began to walk softly about. The room was dark—the dining-room, I thought. I had never been in here before. But I had used to try and imagine Maud, as she sat, with her uncle, at her supper; I had used to imagine the little bites she would take at her meat… I stepped to the table. It was still set, with candlesticks, a knife and a fork, a plate of apples; but it was covered all over with dust and cobwebs, and the apples had rotted. The air was thick. Upon the floor was a broken glass—a crystal glass, with gold at the rim.

The door was closed: I do not think it had been opened in many weeks. But still, when I turned the handle and pushed it, it moved perfectly silently. All the doors moved silently, in that house. The floor had a dusty carpet, that smothered my steps.

So when I went, I made no sound, and might have glided—as if I were a ghost. The thought was queer. Across from me was another door: the door to the drawing-room. I had never been there, either; so now I crossed to it and looked inside. That room was also dark and hung with cobwebs. There was ash spilling out from the grate. There were chairs, by the hearth, where I thought that Mr Lilly and Gentleman must once have sat, to listen while Maud read books. There was a hard little sofa, with a lamp beside it, that I imagined had been hers. I imagined her sitting there, now. I remembered her soft voice.

I forgot to think about Mr Way, remembering that. I forgot to think of my mother. What was she, to me? It was Maud I thought of. I had meant to go down to the kitchen. Instead I went slowly about the hall, by the swollen front door. I climbed the stairs. I wanted to go to her old rooms. I wanted to stand, where she had stood—at the window, at the glass. I wanted to lie upon her bed. I wanted to think how I had kissed her and lost her…

I walked, as I have said, as a ghost might walk; and when I wept, I wept as a ghost would: silently, not minding the tears as they came falling—as though I knew I had tears enough for a hundred years, and in time would weep them all. I reached the gallery. The door to the library was there, standing part-way open. The creature's head still hung beside it, with its one glass eye and pointed teeth. I thought of how I had put my fingers to it, the first time I came for Maud. I had waited outside the door, I had heard her reading.—Again, I thought of her voice. I thought so fiercely of it, it seemed to me at last that I could almost hear it. I could hear it as a whisper, as a murmur, in the stillness of the house.

I caught my breath. The murmur stopped, then started again. It was not in my own head, I
could
hear it—it came, from the library… I began to shake. Perhaps the house was haunted after all. Or perhaps, perhaps— I moved to the door and put a trembling hand to it, and pushed it open. Then I stood, and blinked. The room was changed. The paint had all been scraped from the windows, the finger of brass prised from the floor. The shelves were almost bare of books. A little fire burned in the grate. I pushed the door further. There was Mr Lilly's old desk. Its lamp was lit.

And in the glow of it, was Maud.

She was sitting, writing. She had an elbow on the desk, a cheek upon her upturned hand, her fingers half-curled over her eyes. I saw her clearly, because of the light. Her brows were drawn into a frown. Her hands were bare, her sleeves put back, her fingers dark with smudges of ink. I stood and watched her write a line. The page was thick with lines already. Then she lifted the pen, and turned and turned it, as if not sure what to put next. Again she murmured, beneath her breath. She bit her mouth.

Then she wrote again; and then she moved to dip her pen in a jar of ink. And as she did that, she drew her fingers from her eyes, her face came up; and she saw me watching.

She did not start. She grew perfectly still. She did not cry out. She did not say anything, at first. She only sat with her eyes on mine, a look of astonishment on her face. Then I took a step; and as I did, she got to her feet, letting the pen with the ink upon it roll across the papers and desk and drop to the floor. Her cheek had grown white. She gripped the back of her chair, as if to take her hand from it might mean to fall, or swoon. When I took another step, she gripped it harder.

'Have you come,' she said, 'to kill me?'

She said it, in a sort of awful whisper; and I heard her, and saw that her face was white, not just from astonishment, but also from fear. The thought was terrible. I turned away, and hid my own face in my hands. It was still wet, from my falling tears. Now other tears came and made it wetter. 'Oh, Maud!' I said. 'Oh, Maud!'

I had never spoken her name to her before like that, I had only ever said miss; and even now, even here, after everything, I felt the strangeness of it. I pressed my fingers hard into my eyes. I had been thinking, a moment ago, of how I loved her. I'd supposed her lost. I had meant to find her out, through years of searching. To come upon her now—so warm, so real—when I had ached and ached for her— It was too much.

'I don't—' I said. 'I can't—' She did not come. She only stood, still white, still gripping the back of the chair. So then I wiped my face upon my sleeve, and spoke more steadily. 'There was a paper,' I said. 'I found a paper, hidden in Mrs Sucksby's gown…'

I felt the letter, stiff, in my own gown, as I spoke; but she didn't answer, and I guessed from that—and saw, by the look upon her face—that she knew what paper it was I meant, and what it said. Despite myself, I had a moment of hating her then—just a single moment; and when it passed, it left me weak. I went to the window, so I might sit upon the sill. I said, 'I paid someone to read it to me. And then, I got sick.'

'I am sorry,' she said. 'Sue, I am sorry.'

She still did not come to me, though. I wiped my face again.

I said, 'I got a lift with a man and a girl. They said your uncle died. They said there was nobody here, save Mr Way—'

'Mr Way?' She frowned. 'Mr Way is gone.'

'A servant, they said.'

'William Inker, they must have meant. He stays with me. And his wife cooks my meals. That's all.'

'Only them, and you? In this great house.' I looked about me, and shivered. 'Don't you grow frightened?'

She shrugged, gazed down at her hands. Her look grew dark. 'What have I,' she said, 'to be frightened of, now?'

There was so much to the words, and to the way she said them, I did not answer at first. When I spoke again, I spoke more quietly.

'When did you know?' I said. 'When did you know everything, about us, about— Did you know, at the start?'

She shook her head. She spoke quietly, too. 'Not then,' she said. 'Not until Richard took me to London. Then she—' She coloured, but lifted her head. 'Then I was told.'

'Not before?' I said.

'Not before.'

'They tricked you, too, then.'

I should have been glad to think it, once. Now it was all of a piece with every bleak and terrible thing I had suffered and seen and learned, in the past nine months. For a minute, we said nothing. I let myself sink against the window and put my cheek against the glass. The glass was cold. The rain fell hard, still. It struck the gravel before the house and made it churn. The lawn seemed bruised. Through the bare wet branches of the tangled wood I could just make out the shape of yews, and the pointed roof of the little red chapel.

'My mother is buried there,' I said. 'I used to look at her grave, thinking nothing. I thought my mother was a murderess.'

'I thought my mother was mad,' she said. 'Instead—'

She could not say it. Neither could I. Not yet. But I turned to look at her again, and swallowed, and said,

'You went to see her, at the gaol.' I had remembered the matron's words.

She nodded. 'She spoke of you,' she said.

'Of me? What did she say?'

'That she hoped you never knew. That she wished they might hang her, ten times over, before you should. That she and your mother had been wrong. That they meant to make you a commonplace girl. That that was like taking a jewel, and hiding it in dust. That dust falls away…'

I closed my eyes. When I looked again, she had at last come closer.

'Sue,' she said. This house is yours.'

'I don't want it,' I said.

- The money is yours. Half of your mother's money. All of it, if you wish. I have claimed none of it. You shall be rich.'

'I don't want to be rich. I never wanted to be rich. I only want—'

But I hesitated. My heart was too full. Her gaze was too close, too clear. I thought how I had seen her, last—not at the trial, but on the night that Gentleman died. Her eyes had glittered. They did not glitter now. Her hair had been curled. Now it was smooth, unpinned, she had put it back and tied it with a simple ribbon. Her hands did not tremble. They were bare, and marked, as I have said, with spots and smudges of ink. Her brow had ink upon it, too, from where she had pressed it. Her dress was dark, and long, yet fell not quite to the floor. It was silk, but fastened at the front. The highest hook was left undone. I saw the beating of her throat behind it. I looked away.

Then I looked back, into her eyes.

'I only want you,' I said.

The blood spread across her face. She unjoined her hands, took another step to me and almost, almost reached. But then she turned and lowered her gaze. She stood at the desk. She put her hand to the paper and pen.

'You do not know me,' she said, in a queer, flat voice. 'You never did. There were things—'

She drew in her breath and would not go on. 'What things?' I said. She didn't answer. I rose, and went closer to her. 'What things?'

'My uncle—' she said, looking up fearfully. 'My uncle's books— You thought me good. Didn't you? I was never that. I was—' She seemed, for a moment, almost to struggle with herself. Then she moved again, went to the shelves behind the desk, and took up a book. She held it, tight to her breast; then turned and brought it to me. She opened it up in her hands. Her hands, I think, were shaking. 'Here,' she said, as she looked across the page. 'Or, here.' I saw her gaze settle. And then, in the same flat voice she had spoken in before, she began to read.