Fingersmith

The pencil moved on, then stopped. He blushed.

'I won't write that word,' he said.

'What word?'

'That B-word.'

'What?'

'Before Miss Lilly.'

I pinched his neck. 'You write it,' I said. 'You hear me? Then you write this, nice and big: PIGEON MY ARSE! She is WORSE THAN HIM!'

He hesitated; then bit his lip and wrote.

'That's good. Now this. Put: Mrs Sucksby, I have escaped and am close at hand. Send me a signal by this boy. He is a friend, he is writing

t h i s , h i s n a m e i s C h a r l e s . T r u s t h i m , a n d b e l i e v e m e — o h ! i f t h i s f a i l s , I ' l l die!— believe me as ever as good and as faithful as your own daughter— There you must leave a space.'

He did. I took the paper from him and wrote, at the bottom, my name.

'Don't look at me!' I said, as I did it; then I kissed where I had written, and folded the paper up.

' H e r e ' s w h a t y o u m u s t d o n e x t , ' I s a i d t h e n . ' T o n i g h t , w h e n G e n t l e m a n — Mr Rivers— leaves the house, you must go over, and knock, and ask to see Mr Ibbs. Say you've got a thing to sell him. You'll know him straight off: he's tall, and trims his whiskers. He'll ask if you've been followed; and you must be sure, when he does, to say you got away clean. Then he'll ask what brought you to him. Say you know Phil.

If he asks how you know him you're to say, "Through a pal named George." If he asks which George you must say, "George Joslin, down Collier's Rents." George who, down where?'

'George Joslin, down— Oh, miss! I should rather anything than this!'

'Should you rather the cruel hard men, the unspeakable things, Jamaica?'

He swallowed. 'George Joslin, down Collier's Rents,' he said.

'Good boy. Next you hand him the watch. He will give you a price; but whatever price he gives you— if it be, a hundred pounds, or a thousand— you must say it ain't enough.

Say the watch is a good one, with Geneva works. Say— I don't know— say your dad done watches, and you know them. Make him look a bit harder. Any luck, he'll take the back off— that will give you the chance to look about. Here's who you're looking for: a lady, rather old, with hair of silver— she'll be sitting in a rocking- chair, perhaps with a baby in her lap. That's Mrs Sucksby, that brought me up. She'll do anything for me. You find a way to reach her side, and pass this letter to her. You do it, Charles, and we're saved. But listen here. If there's a dark- faced, mean- looking boy about, keep clear of him, he's against us. Same goes for a red-headed girl. And if that viper Miss Maud Lilly is anywhere near, you hide your face. Understand

me? If she sees you— more even than the boy— then we are done for.'

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He swallowed again. He put the note on the bed, and sat and

looked fearfully at it. He practised his piece. I stood at the window, and watched, and waited. First came twilight, then came dark; and with the dark came Gentleman, slipping from Mr Ibbs's door with his hat at an angle and that scarlet cloth at his throat.

I saw him go; gave it another half-an- hour, to be sure; then looked at Charles.

'Put your coat on,' I said. 'It's time.'

He grew pale. I gave him his cap and his scarf, and turned up his collar.

'Have you got the letter? Very good. Be brave, now. No funny

stuff. I'll be watching, don't forget.'

He did not speak. He went, and after a moment I saw him cross the street and stand before Mr Ibbs's. He walked like a man on his way to the rope. He pulled his scarf a little higher about his face, then he looked round, to where he knew I stood behind the shutter.— 'Don't look round, you fool!' I thought, when he did that. Then he plucked at his scarf again; and then he knocked. I wondered if he might run from the step. He looked as though he would like to. But before he could, the door was opened, by Dainty. They spoke, and she left him waiting while she went in to Mr Ibbs; then she came back. She glanced up and down the street. Like a fool, he glanced with her, as if to see what she looked for. Then she nodded, and stepped back. He went in, and the door was closed. I imagined her turning the latch with her neat white hand. Then I waited.

Say five minutes passed. Say ten.

What did I suppose would happen? Perhaps, that the door would open, Mrs Sucksby c o m e f l y i n g o u t , w i t h M r I b b s b e h i n d h e r ; p e r h a p s o n l y t h a t s h e ' d g o t o h e r room— show a light, make a sign— I don't know. But the house stayed quiet, and when at last the door did open, there came only Charles again, with Dainty still behind him; and then again, the door was shut. Charles stood, and quivered. I was used by now to his quivers, and think I knew from the look of this one that things were bad. I saw him look up at our

window and think about running.— 'Don't you run, you fuckster!' I said, and hit the glass; and perhaps he heard it, for he put down his head and came back across the street and up the stairs. By the time he reached the room his face was crimson, and slick with tears and snot.

'God help me, I didn't mean to do it!' he said, bursting in. 'God help me, she found me out and made me!'

'Made you what?' I said. 'What happened? What happened, you little tick?'

I got hold of him and shook him. He put his hands before his face.

'She got the letter off me and read it!' he said. 'Who did?'

'Miss Maud! Miss Maud!'

I looked at him in horror. 'She saw me,' he said, 'and she knew me. I did it all, just as you said. I gave the watch, and the tall man took it and opened its back. He thought my scarf was queer, and asked if I'd the toothache. I said I did. He showed me a pair of nippers, that he said were good for drawing teeth. I think he was teasing. The dark boy was there, burning paper. He called me a— a pigeon. The red-headed girl didn't 310

give me a look. But the lady, your ma, was sleeping; and I tried to reach her side, but Miss Maud saw the letter in my hand. Then she looked at me, and knew me. She said,

"Come here, boy, you've hurt your hand," and she got hold of me before the others could see. She had been playing cards at a table, and she held the letter under the table and read it, and she twisted my fingers so hard— '

His words began to dissolve, like salt in the water of his tears.

'Stop crying!' I said. 'Stop crying for once in your life, or I swear, I'll hit you! Tell me now, what did she do?'

He took a breath, and put his hand to his pocket, and brought something out.

'She did nothing,' he said. 'But she gave me this. She took it from the table where she sat. She gave it to me, as if it might be a secret; and then the tall man closed the watch up and she pushed me away. He gave me a pound, and I took it, and the red-headed girl let me

out. Miss Maud watched me go, and her eyes were like eyes on fire; but she never said a word. She only gave me this, and I think she must have meant it for you but, oh, miss! you can call me a fool, but God help me if I know what it's for!'

He handed it over. She had made it very small, and it took me a moment to unfold it and know what it was. When I did, I held it, and turned it, then turned it again; then I stood gazing stupidly at

it.

'Just this?' I said. Charles nodded.

It was a playing card. It was one of the playing cards from her old French deck at Briar. It was the Two of Hearts. It had got greasy, and was marked by the folds she had put in it; but it still had that crease, in the shape of her heel, across one of its painted red pips.

I held it, and remembered sitting with her in her parlour, springing the pack to tell her fortune. She had worn her blue gown. She had put her hand before her mouth. Now you are frightening me! she had said.

How she must have laughed about it, later!

'She's making game of me,' I said, my voice not perfectly steady. 'She has sent me this— you're sure there's no message on it, no mark or sign?— she has sent me this, to tease me. Why else?'

'Miss, I don't know. She took it from the table-top. She took it quick, and there was a— a wildness, about her eye.'

'What sort of a wildness?'

'I can't say. She looked, not like herself. She wore no gloves. Her hair was curled and queer. There was a glass beside her place— I don't like to say— I think it had gin in it.'

'Gin?'

We looked at each other.

'What shall we do?' he asked me.

I did not know.

'I must think,' I said, beginning to walk about. 'I must think what she'll do. She'll tell Gentleman— won't she?— and show him our letter. Then he'll move, very quick, to find us. They didn't see you come back here? Someone else might've, though. We 311

can't be sure. We've had luck on our side, so far; now our luck's turning. Oh, if only I'd never taken that woman's wedding- gown!— I knew it would make a bad fortune. Luck's like the tide: it turns, then gets faster and can't be stopped.'

'Don't say it!' cried Charles. He was wringing his hands. 'Send the lady her gown back, can't you?'

'You can't cheat luck like that. The best you can do is, try and outface it.' 'Outface it?'

I went to the window again, and gazed at the house. 'Mrs Sucksby is in there now,' I said. 'Won't one word from me do it? When did I ever let myself be frightened by John Vroom? Dainty I think won't harm me; nor Mr Ibbs. And Maud sounds muddled by gin. Charles, I've been a fool to wait at all. Give me my knife. We are going over.'

He stood, open-mouthed, and did nothing. I got the knife myself, then took him by his wrist and led him from the room, down the slippery staircase. A man and a girl stood at the bottom, quarrelling; but their voices faded and they turned their heads to watch us as we went by. Perhaps they saw my knife. I had nowhere to hide it. The street was blowing about with gusts of grit and paper, the night still hot. My head was bare.

Anyone who saw me now would know me for Susan Trinder; but it was too late to care. I ran with Charles to Mr Ibbs's door, knocked on it, then left him on the step while I stood aside with my back to the wall. The door was opened after a minute, just an inch.

'You've come too late.' It was Dainty's voice. 'Mr Ibbs says— Oh! It's you again. What now? Changed your mind?'

The door was opened a little further. Charles stood, and licked his mouth, his eyes on Dainty's. Then he looked at me; and when she saw him do that, she put out her head and also looked. Then she screamed.

'Mrs Sucksby!' I cried. I made a charge at the door, and Dainty went flying. I caught Charles's arm and pulled him into the shop. 'Mrs Sucksby!' I shouted again. I ran to the hanging baize curtain and knocked it back. The passage beyond was dark, and I stumbled, and Charles stumbled with me. Then I reached the door at the end, and threw it open. There came heat, and smoke, and light, that made me wink. I saw Mr Ibbs first. He had come half-way to the door, hearing all the shouting. When he saw me he stopped, and flung up his hands. Behind him was John Vroom, in his dog-skin coat; behind John Vroom— I saw her, and could have cried like a girl— was Mrs Sucksby. At the table, in Mrs Sucksby's great chair, was Maud.

Beneath the chair was Charley Wag. He had begun to bark at the commotion. Now, seeing me, he barked more wildly and beat his tail, then came and rose up before me to give me his paws. The row was awful. Mr Ibbs reached forward and seized his collar and quickly jerked it back. He jerked so hard, Charley was almost throttled. I flinched away and lifted my arms. The others all watched me. If they had not seen my knife before, they saw it now. Mrs Sucksby opened her mouth. She said,

'Sue, I— Sue— '

Then Dainty came running in behind me, from Mr Ibbs's shop.

'Where is she?' she cried. She had made her hands into fists. She pushed Charles aside, saw me, and stamped. 'You've got some cheek, coming.back here. You bitch! You have just about broke Mrs Sucksby's heart!'

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'Keep off me,' I said, waving my knife. She looked at it in astonishment, then fell back.

I wished she hadn't; for there was something awful about it. She was only Dainty, after all. The knife began to shake.

'Mrs Sucksby,' I said, turning to her. 'They have told you lies. I never— They had me— him and her— locked up! And it has taken me all this time— all this time, since May!— to get back to you.'

Mrs Sucksby had her hand at her heart. She looked so surprised and afraid, it might have been her I was pointing the knife at. She looked at Mr Ibbs, and then she looked at Maud. Then she seemed to come to herself. She took two or three nimble steps across the kitchen and put her arms about me, tight.

'Dear girl,' she said.

She pressed my face against her bosom. Something hard struck my cheek. It was Maud's diamond brooch.

'Oh!' I cried, when I felt it. And I struggled away. 'She has taken you from me, with jewels! With jewels and lies!'

'Dear girl,' said Mrs Sucksby again.

But I looked at Maud. She had not flinched, or started, at sight of me, as the others all had; she had only— just like Mrs Sucksby— lifted her hand to her heart. She was dressed like a girl of the Borough, but her face was put back from the light, her eyes in shadow— she looked handsome and proud. Her hand was trembling, though.

'That's right,' I said, when I saw that. 'You shake.'

She swallowed. 'You had much better not have come here, Sue,' she said. 'You had much better have stayed away'

'You can say so!' I cried. Her voice was clear, and sweet. I remembered hearing it, now, in my dreams at the madhouse. 'You can say so, you cheat, you snake, you viper!'

'Girl- fight!' cried John, with a clap of his hands.

'Hey! hey!' said Mr Ibbs. He had taken out a handkerchief and was wiping his brow.

He looked at Mrs Sucksby. She still had her arms about me, and I could not see her face. But I felt her grip grow slack as she reached to take the knife from my hands.

'Why, he's a sharp one, ain't he?' she said, with a nervous laugh. She put the knife gently on the table. I leaned and snatched it up again.

'Don't leave it,' I said, 'where she might get it! Oh, Mrs Sucksby, you don't know what a devil she is!'

'Sue, listen to me,' said Maud.

'Dear girl,' said Mrs Sucksby again, over her words. 'This is so astonishingly queer.

This is so— Only look at you! Like a regular— ha, ha!— soldier.' She wiped her mouth. 'What say you sit down, now, and be nice? What say we send Miss Lilly upstairs, if looking at her upsets you? Eh? And there's John and Dainty: let's ask them, shall we?'— she jerked her head— 'to slip upstairs, too?'

'Don't let them go!' I cried, as Dainty began to move. 'Not her, not them!' I waved the knife. 'You, John Vroom, stay,' I said. And then, to Mrs Sucksby and Mr Ibbs: 'They'll go for Gentleman! Don't trust them!'

'She's lost her mind,' said John, rising from his chair. I made a swipe at the sleeve of 313

his coat.

'I said, stay!' I cried.

He looked at Mrs Sucksby. She looked at Mr Ibbs.

'Sit down, son,' Mr Ibbs said quietly. John sat. I nodded to Charles.

'Charles, stand behind me, by the door to the shop. Keep them from running to it, should they try'

He had taken off his cap, and was biting the band of it. He went to the door, his face so pale, in the shadows, it seemed to glow.

John looked at him and laughed.

'You leave him alone,' I said at once. 'He has been a friend to me, more ever than you were. Mrs Sucksby, I should never have got back to you, without him. I should never have got free of— of the madhouse.'

She put her fingers to her cheek. 'Helped you so far as that, did he?' she said, with her eyes on Charles. She smiled. 'Then he's a dear boy; and we shall be sure to pay him out. Shan't we, Mr Ibbs?'

Mr Ibbs said nothing. Maud leaned from her chair.

'You must go, Charles,' she said, in her clear, low voice. 'You must go from here.' She looked at me. The look was strange. 'You must both go, before Gentleman comes back.'

I curled my lip at her. 'Gentleman,' I said. 'Gentleman. You have learned Borough habits very quick.'

The blood rose in her cheek. 'I am changed,' she murmured. 'I am not what I was.'

'You are not,' I said.

She lowered her eyes. She looked at her hands. And then, as if seeing that they were bare— and as if one could cover the bareness of the other— she put them awkwardly together. There came the faint jingle of metal: she had, upon her wrist, two or three thin silver bangles, of a kind I had used to like to wear. She held them, to make them be still; then lifted her head again and caught my gaze. I said, in a hard, steady voice:

'Was being a lady not enough for you, that you must come to the Borough and take the things that were ours?'

She did not answer.

'Well?' I said.

She began to try to draw free the bangles. 'Take them,' she said. 'I don't want them!'

'You think / want them?'

Mrs Sucksby stepped forward, her own hands darting towards Maud's.

'Let them stay!' she cried.

Her voice was hoarse. She looked at me, then gave an awkward sort of laugh. 'Dear girl,' she said, moving back, 'what's silver, in this house? What's silver, compared with the joy of seeing your face?' She put one hand to her throat, and leaned with the other upon the back of a chair. She leaned heavily, and the chair- legs grated on the floor.

'Dainty,' she said, 'fetch me out a tumbler of brandy, will you? This turn of things've quite undone me.'

Like Mr Ibbs, she took out a handkerchief and passed it over her face. Dainty gave her her drink, and she sipped it, and sat.

314

'Come beside me,' she said to me. 'Put down that old knife, won't you?' And then, when I hesitated: 'What, afraid of Miss Lilly? With me and Mr Ibbs— and your own pal Charles— to mind you? Come, sit.'

I looked again at Maud. I had thought her a viper, but, in the bringing and pouring of the brandy the lamp had got moved about, and I saw in the light of it how slight and pale and tired she was. At Mrs Sucksby's cry, she had fallen still; her hands still shook, however, and she rested her head against the high back of her chair, as if the weight of it hurt her. Her face was damp. A few strands of hair clung to it. Her eyes were darker than they ought to have been, and seemed to glitter.

I sat, and put the knife before me. Mrs Sucksby took my hand. I said,

'I have been done very wrong, Mrs Sucksby.'

Mrs Sucksby slowly shook her head. 'My dear, I begin to see it,' she said.

'God knows what lies they've told you! The truth is, she was in it with him from the start. They set me up, between them, to take her place; and they put me in the madhouse, where everyone supposed me to be her— '

John whistled. 'Double-cross,' he said. 'Nice work but— oh!' He laughed. 'You pigeon!'

Which is what I had known, all along, he would say; though now, it did not seem to matter. Mrs Sucksby looked, not at me, but at our joined hands. She was smoothing her thumb upon mine. I thought the news had stunned her.

'A bad business,' she said quietly.

'Worse than that!' I cried. 'Oh, much, much worse! A madhouse, Mrs Sucksby! With nurses, that hurt and starved me! I was hit one time, so hard— ! I was dropped— I was dropped in a bath— !'

She drew free her hand and raised it before her face.

'No more, dear girl! No more. I can't bear to hear it.'

'Did they torture you, with tongs?' asked John. 'Did they put you in a strait-coat?'

'They put me in a tartan gown, and boots of— '

'Of iron?'

I hesitated, then glanced at Charles.

'Boots without laces,' I said. 'They thought that, if they gave me laces, I should hang myself. And my hair— '

'Did they cut it?' said Dainty, sitting, putting a hand before her mouth. Her mouth had a fading bruise beside it— from John, I suppose. 'Did they shave it off?'

I hesitated again, then said, 'They sewed it to my head.'

Her eyes filled with tears. 'Oh, Sue!' she said. 'I swear, I never meant it when I called you a bitch just now!'

'That's all right,' I said. 'You weren't to know.' I turned again to Mrs Sucksby, and touched the skirt of my dress. 'This gown I stole,' I said. 'And these shoes. And I walked, nearly all the way to London. My only thought was to get back here to you.

For worse than all the cruel things that were done to me in the madhouse was the thought of the lies that Gentleman must have told you, about where I had gone. I supposed at first, he would have said that I had died.'

She took my hand again. 'He might,' she said, 'have thought of it.'

'But I knew you would ask for my body.'

315

'Wouldn't I! Straight off!'

'Then I guessed what he would say. He would say I had cut with the money, and cheated you all.'

'He did,' said John. He sucked his tooth. 'I always said that you hadn't the nerve.'

I looked into Mrs Sucksby's face. 'But I knew you wouldn't believe it,' I said, 'of your own daughter.' Her grip on my hand grew tight. 'I knew you would look for me, until you found me.'

'Dear girl, I— Oh, I should have got you, too, in another month more!— only, you know, I kept my searching quiet from John and Dainty'

'Did you, Mrs Sucksby?' said Dainty.

'My dear, I did. I sent out a man, confidentially'

She wiped her lips. She looked at Maud. But Maud had her eyes upon me. I suppose the lamp that lit her face also lit mine, for she said, softly and suddenly,

'You look ill, Sue.'

It was the third time she had spoken my name. I heard it and— despite myself— I thought of the other times she had said it, so softly as that, and felt myself colour.

'You do look done up,' said Dainty. 'You look like you ain't slept in a week.'

'I haven't,' I said.

'Then why,' said Mrs Sucksby, making to rise, 'won't you go upstairs now, and put your head down? And then tomorrow, me and Dainty will come and fix you up in one of your old gowns, and dress your hair— '

'Don't go to sleep here, Sue!' said Maud, leaning from her chair and putting her hand towards me. 'There's danger here.'

I took up my knife again, and she drew her hand back. I said,

'You think I don't know danger? You think that, in looking at you, I'm not seeing danger with a face— a false face, with an actress mouth— with lying blushes, and two brown treacherous eyes?'

The words were like clinker on my tongue: they were awful, but I must spit them out or swallow them and choke. She held my gaze, and her eyes did not seem treacherous, at all. I turned the knife. The

blade took up the light of the lamp and sent it darting across her cheek.

'I came here to kill you,' I said.

Mrs Sucksby shifted in her seat. Maud kept her glittering gaze on mine.

'You came to Briar,' she said, 'to do that. . .'

Then I looked away and let the knife fall. I felt suddenly tired, and sick. I felt all the walking I had done, and all the careful watching. Now nothing was as I had thought it would be. I turned to Mrs Sucksby.

'Can you sit,' I said, 'and hear her tease me? Can you know the wicked trick she played me, and have her here, and not want to throttle her?' I meant it; and yet it sounded like bluster, too. I looked around the room. 'Mr Ibbs, can you?' I said. 'Dainty, shouldn't you like to shake her to pieces, in my behalf?'

'Shouldn't I!' said Dainty. She showed her fist. 'Cheat my best pal, would you?' she said to Maud. 'Lock her up in a madhouse and sew up her hair?' Maud said nothing, but slightly turned her head. Dainty shook her fist again, then let it sink. She caught 316

my eye. 'Seems an awful shame, though, Sue. Miss Lilly turning out to be such a sport, and all. And brave? I done her ears last week, and she never cried once. And then, she has took to taking stitches out, that natural— '

All right, Dainty,' said Mrs Sucksby quickly.

I looked again at Maud— at her neat ear which, I now saw, had a crystal drop falling from it on a wire of gold; and at the curls in her fair hair; and at her dark eye-brows.

They had been tweezered into two fine arches. Above her chair— I had not seen this before, either, but it seemed all of a piece with the drops, the curls and arches, the bangles on her wrist— above her chair there was hanging, from a beam, a little cage of wicker with a yellow bird in it.

I felt tears rise into my throat.

'You have taken everything that was mine,' I said. 'You have taken it, and made it better.'

'I took it,' she answered, 'because it was yours. Because I must!'

'Why must you? Why?'

She opened her mouth to speak. Then she looked at Mrs Sucksby and her face changed.

'For villainy's sake,' she said flatly. 'For villainy's sake. Because you were right, before: my face is a false one, my mouth is an actress mouth, my blushes tell lies, my eyes—

My eyes— ' She looked away. Her voice had begun to rise. She made it flat again.

'Richard found that, after all, we must wait for our money, longer than we thought.'

She took up her glass in both her hands, and swallowed what was left in it.

'You haven't got the money?'

She put the glass back down. 'Not yet.'

'That's something, then,' I said. 'I shall want a share of that. I shall want half of it. Mrs Sucksby, do you hear? They shall give me half their fortune, at least. Not a stinking three thousand, but a half. Think what we shall do, with that!'

But I did not want the money; and when I spoke, my voice sounded hateful to me.

Mrs Sucksby said nothing. Maud said,

'You shall have what you like. I will give you anything, anything at all— if you will only go from here, now, before Richard comes back.'

'Go from here? Because you tell me to? This is my home! Mrs Sucksby— M r s Sucksby, will you tell her?'

Mrs Sucksby again passed a hand across her mouth.

'There again, Susie,' she said slowly, 'Miss Lilly might be right. If there is the money to be thought of, you might do well, for now, to keep out of Gentleman's way. Let me speak with him, first. I'll give him a taste of my temper, though!'

She said it in a queer, half- hearted way, with a try at a smile— as she might have said it, I thought, if she had just found out that Gentleman had swindled her out of two or three shillings at cards. I guessed she was thinking about Maud's fortune, and how it might be cut. I couldn't help but wish that, after all, the money was nothing to her. I said,

'Will you make me go?' The words came out like a whisper. I looked away from her, about the kitchen— at the old Dutch clock on the shelf, and the pictures on the walls.

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On the floor by the door to

the stairs was the white china chamber-pot, with the dark eye in it, from my own room, that must have been brought down to be washed and then forgotten. I would not have forgotten it. On the table beneath my hand was a heart: I had scratched it into the wood, the summer before. I had been like a child still, then. I had been like an infant— I looked about me again. Why were there no babies? The kitchen was still.

Everyone was still, and watching me.

'Will you make me go,' I said again to Mrs Sucksby, 'and let her stay?' Now my voice was broken as a boy's. 'Will you trust them, not to send Dr Christie to me? Will you—

Will you take her gowns, will you take the pins from her head, will you kiss her, will you let her sleep beside you in my old place, while I lie in a bed with— with red hairs in it?'

'Sleep beside me?' said Mrs Sucksby quickly. 'Who told you that?'

'Red hairs?'said John.

But Maud had lifted her head, her gaze grown sharp. 'You have watched us!' she said.

And then, when she had thought it through: At the shutter!'

'I've watched you,' I answered, more strongly. 'I've watched you, you spider! taking everything of mine. You would rather do that— God damn you!— than sleep with your own husband!'

'Sleep with— with Richard?' She looked astounded. 'You don't suppose— ?'

'Susie,' said Mrs Sucksby, putting her hand upon me.

'Sue,' said Maud at the same time, leaning across the table and also reaching for me.

'You don't suppose him anything to me? You don't think him a husband to me, in anything but name? Don't you know I hate him? Don't you know I hated him, at Briar?'

'Will you make out now,' I said, in a kind of trembling scorn, 'that you only did what you did because he made you?'

'He did make me!— But, not in the way you mean.'

I said, 'Will you pretend, that you aren't a swindling cheat?'

She said, 'Will you?'

And again, she held my gaze; and again, I was almost shamed by it, and looked away.

Then after a moment I said, more quietly,

'I hated it. I didn't smile, with him, when your back was turned.'

'You think I did?'

'Why not? You are an actress.-You are acting now!'

'Am I?'

She said it, still with her eyes on my face, still with her hand reaching for mine but falling short of taking it. The light was all upon us, the rest of the kitchen almost dark.

I looked at her fingers. They were marked with dirt, or bruised. I said,

'If you hated him, why did you do it?'

'There was no other way,' she said. 'You saw my life. I needed you, to be me.'

'So you might come here, and be me!1 She did not answer. I said, 'We might have cheated him. If you had told me. We might have— '

'What?'

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'Anything. Something. I don't know what. . .'

She shook her head. 'How much,' she asked quietly, 'would you have given up?'

Her gaze was so dark, yet so steady and true; but I grew aware, all at once, of Mrs Sucksby— of John and Dainty, Mr Ibbs— all of them, watching, silent and curious, thinking, What's this . . .? And in that moment, I saw into my own cowardly heart and knew that I would have given up nothing for her, nothing at all; and that, sooner than be shamed by her now, I would die.

She reached again. Her fingers brushed my wrist. I took up the knife and jabbed at her hand.

'Don't touch me!' I said, as I did it. I got to my feet. 'Don't any of you touch me!' My voice was wild. 'Not any of you! Do you hear me? I came back here, thinking this my home; now you want to cast me out again. I hate you all! I wish I had stayed in the country!'

I looked from face to face. Dainty had begun to cry. John sat, open-mouthed and astonished. Mr Ibbs had his hand at his cheek. Maud nursed her bleeding fingers.

Charles shook. Mrs Sucksby said,

'Sue, put down the knife. Cast you out? The idea! I— '

Then she stopped. Charley Wag had lifted his head. From Mr

Ibbs's shop there came the sound of a key, turning in a lock. Then came the kicking of boots; then whistling.

'Gentleman!' she said. She looked at Maud, at Mr Ibbs, at me. She got up, and leaned to catch at my arm. 'Sue,' she said, as she did it. She spoke in a voice that was almost a whisper. 'Susie, sweetheart, will you come upstairs . . .?'

But I did not answer, only gripped the knife more firmly. Charley Wag gave a feeble bark, and Gentleman heard him, and barked in reply. Then he whistled again, a lazy waltz tune, and we heard him stumbling along the passage and watched as he pushed at the door. I think he was drunk. His hat was crooked, his cheek quite pink, his mouth a perfect O. He stood, and slightly swayed, and looked about the room, squinting into the shadows. The whistle died. His lips grew straight, and he licked them.

'Hallo,' he said, 'here's Charles.' He winked. Then he looked at me, and at my knife.

'Hallo, here's Sue.' He took off his hat and began to unwind the scarlet cloth from his throat. 'I supposed you might come. Had you left it another day, I should have been ready. I have just now collected a letter, from that fool Christie. He certainly dragged his heels, in letting me know of your escape! I think he planned to recapture you before he should have to. Bad publicity, when one's lady lunatics run.'

He put the scarlet cloth inside the hat and let them drop. He took out a cigarette.

'You're fucking cool,' I said. I was shaking. 'Here's Mrs Sucksby and Mr Ibbs, know everything.'

He laughed. 'I should say they do.'

'Gentleman!' said Mrs Sucksby. 'Listen to me. Sue has told us terrible things. I want you to go.'

'Don't let him leave!' I said. 'He'll send for Dr Christie!' I waved my knife. 'Charles, stop him!'

Gentleman had lit his cigarette, but apart from that had not moved. He turned to look 319

at Charles, who had taken a couple of doubtful steps towards him. He put his hand to Charles's hair.

'So, Charley,' he said.

'Please, sir,' said Charles.

'You have found me out a villain.'

Charles's lip began to tremble. 'Honest to God, Mr Rivers, I never meant to!'

'There, there,' said Gentleman. He stroked Charles's cheek. Mr Ibbs made a puffing sound with his lips. John got to his feet, then looked about him as if he did not know why he had done it. He blushed.

'Sit down, John,' said Mrs Sucksby.

He folded his arms. 'I shall stand if I like.'

'Sit down, or I'll hit you.'

'Hit me?' His voice was hoarse. 'Hit them two, there!' He pointed to Gentleman and Charles. Mrs Sucksby took two quick steps, and struck him. She struck him hard. He put both his arms to his head and gazed at her from between his elbows.

'You old cow!' he said. 'You been down on me since the day I was born. You touch me again, you'll know it!'

His eyes blazed as he said it; but then, they filled with tears and he began to snivel. He walked to the wall, and kicked it. Charles shuddered and wept harder. Gentleman looked from one to the other, then gazed at Maud in pretend amazement.

'Is it down to me,' he said, 'that small boys weep?'

'Fuck you, I ain't small!' said John.

'Will you be quiet?' said Maud, in her low, clear voice. 'Charles, that's enough.'

Charles wiped his nose. 'Yes, miss.'

Gentleman leaned against the post of the door, still smoking. 'So, Suky,' he said. 'You know all now.'

'I know you're a filthy swindler,' I said. 'But I knew that, six months ago. I was a fool, that's all, to trust you.'

'Dear girl,' said Mrs Sucksby quickly, with her eyes on Gentleman's face. 'Dear girl, the fools were me and Mr Ibbs, to let you.'

Gentleman had taken his cigarette from his mouth to blow against its tip. Now, hearing Mrs Sucksby and meeting her gaze, he stood quite still for a second with it held before his lips. Then he looked away and laughed— a disbelieving sort of laugh— and shook his head.

'Sweet Christ,' he said quietly.

I thought she had shamed him.

'All right,' she said. 'All right.' She lifted her hands. She stood, like a man on a raft— like she was afraid to make too sharp a move for fear of sinking. 'Now, no more wildness. John, no more sulks. Sue, put that knife down, please, I beg you. No-one is to be harmed. Mr Ibbs. Miss Lilly. Dainty. Charles— Sue's pal, dear boy— sit down.

Gentleman. Gentleman.'

'Mrs Sucksby,' he said.

'No-one to be harmed. All right?'

He glanced at me. 'Tell it to Sue,' he said. 'She is looking at me with murder in her 320

eyes. Under the circumstances, I don't quite care for that.'

'Circumstances?' I said. 'You mean, your having locked me up in a madhouse and left me to die? I should cut your bloody head off!'

He narrowed his eyes, made a face. 'Do you know,' he said, 'you have a very whining tone to your voice at times? Has no-one told you that?'

I made a lunge at him with the knife; but the truth was, I was still bewildered, and sick, and tired, and the lunge was a feeble one. He watched, not flinching, as I stood with the point of the blade before his heart. Then I grew afraid that the knife would shake and he would see it. I put it down. I put it down on the table— at the edge of the table, just beyond the circle of light that the lamp threw there.

'Now, ain't that nicer?' said Mrs Sucksby.

John's tears had dried, but his face was dark— darker on one cheek than on the other, where Mrs Sucksby had hit him. He looked at Gentleman, but nodded to me.

'She went for Miss Lilly just now,' he said. 'Said she'd come to kUl her.'

Gentleman gazed at Maud, who had bound up her bleeding fingers in a handkerchief.

He said, 'I should like to have seen it.'

John nodded. 'She wants a half of your fortune.'

'Does she?' said Gentleman, slowly.

'John, shut up,' said Mrs Sucksby. 'Gentleman, don't mind him.

He is only making trouble. Sue said a half, but that was her passion talking. She ain't in her right mind. She ain't— ' She put a hand to her brow, and looked a little queerly about the room— at me, and at Maud. She pressed her fingers against her eyes. 'If I might only,' she said, 'have a moment, for thinking in!'

'Think away,' said Gentleman easily, sourly. 'I am longing to know what you will come up with.'

'So am I,' said Mr Ibbs. He said it quietly. Gentleman caught his eye, and raised a brow.

'Sticky, wouldn't you say, sir?' 'Too sticky,' said Mr Ibbs. 'You think so?'

Mr Ibbs gave a nod. Gentleman said, 'You think perhaps I should go, make it simpler?'

'Are you mad?' I said. 'Can't you see, he'll still do anything for his money? Don't let him go! He'll send for Dr Christie.' 'Don't let him go,' said Maud, to Mrs Sucksby.

'Don't you think of going anywhere,' said Mrs Sucksby, to Gentleman.

He shrugged, his colour rising. 'You wanted me to leave, two minutes ago!'

'I have changed my mind.' She looked at Mr Ibbs; who looked away.

Gentleman took off his coat. 'Fuck me,' he said, as he did it; and he laughed, not nicely. 'It's too warm for work like this.'

'Fuck you,' I said. 'You fucking villain. You do what Mrs Sucksby says, all right?'

'Like you,' he answered, hanging his coat on a chair. 'Yes.'

He snorted. 'You poor little bitch.'

'Richard,' said Maud. She had got to her feet and was leaning upon the table. She said,

'Listen to me. Think of all the filthy deeds you've ever done. This will be the worst, and will gain you nothing.' 'What will?' said John.

But Gentleman snorted again. 'Tell me,' he said to Maud, 'when you first started learning to be kind. What's it to you, what Sue

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knows?— Dear me, how you blush! Not that thing, still? And do you look at Mrs Sucksby? Don't say you care what she thinks! Why, you're as bad as Sue. Look how you quake! Be bolder, Maud. Think of your mother.'

She had raised her hand to her hea_rt. Now she jumped as if he had pinched her. He saw it, and laughed again. Then he looked at Mrs Sucksby. She had also given a kind of start at his words; and she stood, with her hand, like Maud's, at her bosom, beneath that diamond brooch. Then she felt him looking, glanced quickly at Maud, and let her hand fall.

Gentleman's laughter died. He stood very still.

'What's this?' he said.

'What's what?'said John.

'Now then,' said Mrs Sucksby, moving. 'Dainty— '

'Oh!' said Gentleman. 'Oh!' He watched her as she stepped about the table. Then he looked from her to Maud, in an excited sort of way, his colour rising higher. He put his hand to his hair and tugged it back from his brow.

'Now I see it,' he said. He laughed; then the laugh broke off. 'Oh, now I see it!'

'You see nothing,' said Maud, taking a step towards him, but glancing at me. 'Richard, you see nothing.'

He shook his head at her. 'What a fool I've been, not to have guessed it sooner! Oh, this is marvellous! How long have you known? No wonder you've kicked and cursed!

No wonder you've sulked! No wonder she's let you! I always marvelled at that. Poor Maud!' He laughed, properly. And, oh, Mrs Sucksby, poor you!'

'That's enough!' said Mrs Sucksby. 'You hear me? I won't have it spoke of!'

She also took a step towards him.

'Poor you,' he said again, still laughing. Then he called: 'Mr Ibbs, sir, did you know of this, too?'

Mr Ibbs did not answer.

'Know what?' asked John, his eyes like two dark points. He looked at me. 'Know what?'

'I don't know,' I said.

'Know nothing,' said Maud. 'Know nothing, nothing!' She was still moving slowly forward, her eyes— that seemed almost black, now, and glittered worse than ever— all the time on Gentleman's face. I saw her put her hand upon the dark edge of the table, as if to guide herself about it. Mrs Sucksby saw it too, I think. Perhaps she also saw something else. For she started, and then spoke quickly.

'Susie,' she said, 'I want you to go. Take your pal and go.' 'I'm not going anywhere,' I said.

'No Susie, you stay,' said Gentleman, in a rich sort of voice. 'Don't mind Mrs Sucksby's wishes. You have minded them too long. What are they to you, after all?'

'Richard,' said Maud, almost pleading.

'Gentleman,' said Mrs Sucksby, her eyes still on Maud. 'Dear boy. Be silent, will you?

I am afraid.'

'Afraid?' he answered. 'You? I should say you never knew fear, in all your life. I should say your hard old leathery heart is beating perfectly quietly now, behind your 322

hard old leathery breast.'

At his words, Mrs Sucksby's face gave a twitch. She raised a hand to the bodice of her dress.

'Feel it!' she said, moving her fingers. 'Feel the motion here, then tell me I ain't afraid!'

'Feel that?' he said, with a glance at her bosom. 'I don't think so.' Then he smiled. 'You may get your daughter to do it, however. She's had practice.'

I cannot say for certain what came next. I know that, hearing his words, I took a step towards him, meaning to strike him or make him be silent. I know that Maud and Mrs Sucksby reached him first. I do not know if Mrs Sucksby, when she darted, darted at him, or only— seeing Maud fly— at her. I know there was the gleam of something bright, the scuffle of shoes, the swish of taffeta and silk, the rushing of someone's breath. I think a chair was scraped or knocked upon the floor. I know Mr Ibbs called out. 'Grace! Grace!' he called: and even in the middle of all the confusion, I thought it a queer thing to call; until I realised it was Mrs Sucksby's first name, that we never heard used.

And so, it was Mr Ibbs I was watching, when it happened. I didn't see it when Gentleman began to stagger. But I heard him groan. It was a soft sort of groan.

'Have you hit me?' he said. His voice was strange.

Then I looked.

He supposed he had only been punched. I think I supposed it, too. He had his hands at his stomach and was leaning forward, as if nursing the pain of the blow. Maud stood a little before him, but now moved away; and as she did I heard something fall, though whether it fell from her hand, or from his— or from Mrs Sucksby's— I cannot tell you.

Mrs Sucksby was the closer to him. She was certainly the closer. She put her arm about him, and as he sagged she braced herself against his weight, and held him.

'Have you hit me?' he said again.

'I don't know,' she said.

I don't think anyone knew. His clothes were dark, and Mrs Sucksby's gown was black, and they stood in the shadows, it was hard to see. But at last he took a hand away from his waistcoat and held it before his face; and then we saw the white of his palm made dark with blood.

'My God!' he said then.

Dainty shrieked.

'Bring a light!' said Mrs Sucksby. 'Bring a light!'

John caught up the lamp and held it, shaking. The dark blood turned suddenly crimson.

Gentleman's waistcoat and trousers were soaked with it, and Mrs Sucksby's taffeta gown was red and running where she had held him.

I had never seen blood run so freely. I had talked, an hour before, of murdering Maud.

I had sharpened the knife. I had left the knife upon the table. It was not there now. I had never seen blood run, like this. I grew sick.

'No,' I said. 'No, no!'

Mrs Sucksby gripped Gentleman's arm. 'Take your hand away,' she said. He still clutched his stomach.

'I can't.'

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'Take your hand away!'

She wanted to see how deep the wound went. He grimaced, then drew off his fingers.

There came, from a gash in his waistcoat, a bubble— like a bubble of soap, but swirling red— a n d t h e n a s p u r t o f b l o o d , t h a t f e l l a n d s t r u c k t h e f l o o r w i t h a splash— an ordinary splash, like water or soup would make.

Dainty shrieked again. The light wobbled. 'Fuck! Fuck!' said John.

'Set him down in a chair,' said Mrs Sucksby. 'Fetch a cloth, for the cut. Fetch something to catch this blood. Fetch something, anything— '

'Help me,' said Gentleman. 'Help me. Oh, Christ!'

They moved him, awkwardly, with grunts and sighs. They sat him on a hard-backed chair. I stood and looked on, while they did it— held still, I suppose, by horror; though I am ashamed now, that I did nothing. Mr Ibbs plucked a towel from a hook on the wall and Mrs Sucksby knelt at Gentleman's side and held it against the wound. Each time he moved or took his hand from his stomach, the blood spurted. 'Fetch a bucket or a pot,' she said again; and finally Dainty ran to the door, caught up the chamber-pot that had been left there, and brought it and set it down beside the chair. The sound of the blood striking the china— and the sight of the red of it, against the white, and against that great dark eye— was worse than anything. Gentleman heard it and grew frightened.

'Oh, Christ!' he said again. 'Oh, Christ, I'm d y i n g ! ' I n b e t w e e n t h e w o r d s , h e moaned— a shuddering, chattering moan, that he could not help or stop. 'Oh, Jesus, save me!'

'There now,' said Mrs Sucksby, touching his face. 'There now. Be brave. I've seen women lose blood like this, from a baby; and live to tell of it.'

'Not like this!' he said. 'Not like this! I'm cut. How badly am I cut? Oh, Christ! I need a surgeon. Do I?'

'Bring him liquor,' said Mrs Sucksby, to Dainty; but he shook his head.

'No liquor. A smoke, though. In my pocket, here.'

He dipped his chin to his waistcoat, and John fished in the folds and brought out a packet of cigarettes, and another of matches.

Half of the cigarettes were soaked with blood, but he found one that was dry, lit it at his own mouth, then put it in Gentleman's.

'Good boy,' said Gentleman, coughing. But he winced, and the cigarette fell. John caught it up in trembling fingers and set it back between his lips. He coughed again.

More blood oozed up between his hands. Mrs Sucksby took the towel away and wrung it— wrung it as if it were filled with water. Gentleman began to shake.

'How did this happen?' he said. I looked at Maud. She had not moved since stepping from him as he began to fall. She had kept still as me, her eyes upon his face. 'How can this be?' He looked wildly about him— at John, at Mr Ibbs, at me. 'Why do you stand and watch me? Bring a doctor. Bring a surgeon!'

I think Dainty took a step. Mr Ibbs caught her arm.

'No surgeons here,' he said firmly. 'No men like that, to this house.'

'No men like that?' cried Gentleman. The cigarette fell. 'What are you saying? Look at 324

me! Christ! Don't you know a crooked man? Look at me! I'm dying! Mrs Sucksby, you love me. Bring a man, I beg you.'

'Dear boy, be still,' she said, still pressing the towel to the cut. He cried out in pain and fear.

'Damn you!' he said. 'You bitches! John— '

John put down the lamp and raised his hand to his eyes. He was weeping and trying to hide it.

'John, go for a surgeon! Johnny! I'll pay you! Fuck!' The blood spurted again. Now his face was white, his whiskers black but matted, here and there, with red, his cheek gleaming like lard.

John shook his head. 'I can't! Don't ask me!'

Gentleman turned to me. 'Suky!' he said. 'Suky, they've killed me— '

'No surgeons,' said Mr Ibbs again, when I looked at him. 'Bring a man like that, and we're done for.'

'Take him to the street,' I said. 'Can't you? Call a doctor to the street.'

'He is cut too bad. Look at him. It would bring them here. There is too much blood.'

There was. It now almost filled the china pot. Gentleman's moans had begun to grow fainter.

'Damn you!' he said softly. He had begun to cry. 'Who is there who'll help me? I've money, I swear it. Who is there? Maud?'

Her cheek was almost as pale as his, her lip quite white.

'Maud? Maud?' he said.

She shook her head. Then she said, in a whisper: 'I am sorry. I am sorry.'

'God damn you! Help me! Oh!' He coughed. There came, in the spittle at his mouth, a thread of crimson; and then, a moment later, a gush of blood. He raised a feeble hand to it— saw the fresh red upon his lingers— and his look grew wild. He reached, out of the circle of lamp- light, and began to struggle, as if to raise himself from the chair. He reached for Charles. 'Charley?' he said, the blood bubbling and bursting about the word. He clutched at Charles's coat and made to draw him closer. But Charles would not come. He had stood all this time in the shadows, a look of fixed and awful terror on his face. Now he saw the bubbles at Gentleman's lips and whiskers, Gentleman's red and slippery hand gripping the coarse blue collar of his jacket, and he twitched like a hare. He turned and ran. He ran, the way I had brought him— along the passage to Mr Ibbs's shop. And before we could call to him or go to him to make him stop, we heard him tear open the door then shriek, like a girl, into Lant Street:

'Murder! Help! Help! Murder!'

At that we all, save Mrs Sucksby and Maud, sprang back. John made for the shop.— 'Too late!' said Mr Ibbs. 'Too late.' He held up his hand. John stood and listened. There had come a swirl of hot wind from the open shop-door and it carried with it what I thought at first was the echo of Charles's cry; then the sound grew stronger, and I understood it was an answering shout, perhaps from the window of a house nearby. In a second it was joined by another. Then it was joined by this— the worst sound of all, to us

the sound of a rattle, rising and falling on the gusting wind; and drawing nearer.

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'The blues!' said John. He turned, and came to Dainty. 'Dainty, run!' he said. She stood for a second, then went— the back way__

tearing the bolts from their cradles.— 'Go on!' he said, when she looked back. But he did not go with her. Instead, he went to Gentleman's side.

'We might take him,' he said to Mrs Sucksby. He looked at me, and then at Maud. 'We might take him between us, if we are quick.'

Mrs Sucksby shook her head. Gentleman's own head hung low upon his breast. The blood still bubbled at his lip; burst, and bubbled again.

'Save yourself,' she said to John. 'Take Sue.'

But he did not go; and I knew— and know, still— that I wouldn't have followed, if he had. I was held there, as if by a charm. I looked at Mr Ibbs. He had run to the wall beside his brazier and, as I watched, he drew out one of the bricks. I only found out later that he kept money there, privately, in an old cigarette box. He put the box inside his waistcoat. Then he began to look about him, at the china, the knives and forks, the ornaments on the shelves: he was looking to see what there might be, that he could be done for. He did not look at Gentleman or Mrs Sucksby. He did not look at me— once he came near me, and thrust me aside, to reach past me for a porcelain cup; and when he had got it he dashed it to the floor. When Charley Wag rose up and gave a strangled sort of bark, he kicked him.

Meanwhile, the sound of shouts and rattles grew close. Gentleman lifted his head.

There was blood on his beard, on his cheek, at the corner of his eye.

'Do you hear that?' he said weakly.

'Dear boy, I do,' said Mrs Sucksby. She still knelt at his side.

'What sound is it?'

She put her red hands over his. 'The sound of Fortune,' she said.

She looked at me, and then at Maud. 'You might run.'

I said nothing. Maud shook her head. 'Not from this,' she answered. 'Not now.'

'You know what follows?'

She nodded. Mrs Sucksby glanced again at me, and then again at Maud, then closed her eyes. She sighed, as if weary.

'To have lost you once, dear girl,' she said. 'And now, to lose you again— '

'You shall not lose me!' I cried; and her eyes flew open, and she held my gaze for a second, as if not understanding. Then she looked at John. He had tilted his head.

'Here they come!' he said.

Mr Ibbs heard him, and ran; but he got no further than that dark little court at the back of the house before a policeman picked him up and brought him back again; and by then, two more policemen had made their way into the kitchen by the shop. They looked at Gentleman, and at the chamber-pot of blood, and— what we had not thought to look for or to hide— at the knife, which had got kicked into the shadows and had blood upon it; and they shook their heads.— As policeman tend to do when they see things like that, in the Borough.

'This is nasty work, ain't it?' they said. 'This is very bad. Let's see how bad.'

They took hold of Gentleman's hair and drew back his head, and felt for the pulse at his neck; and then they said,

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'This is filthy murder. Now, who done it?'

Maud moved, or took a step. But John moved quicker.

'She done it,' he said, without a hesitation. His cheek was darker than ever, where he had been struck before. He lifted his arm and pointed. 'She done it. I saw her.'

He pointed at Mrs Sucksby.

I saw him, and heard him, but could not act. I only said, 'What— ?' and Maud, I think, also cried out, 'What— ?' or 'Wait— !'

But Mrs Sucksby rose from Gentleman's side. Her taffeta dress was soaked in his blood, the brooch of diamonds at her bosom turned to a brooch of rubies. Her hands were crimson, from fingertip to wrist. She looked like the picture of a murderess from one of the penny papers.

'I done it,' she said. 'Lord knows, I'm sorry for it now; but I done it. And these girls here are innocent girls, and know nothing at all about it; and have harmed no-one.'

Chapter Seventeen

My name, in those days, was Susan Trinder. Now those days all came to an end.

The police took every one of us, save Dainty. They took us, and kept us in gaol while they tore up the Lant Street kitchen, looking for clues, for stashes of money and poke.

They kept us in separate cells, and every day they came and asked the same set of questions.

'What was the murdered man, to you?'

I said he was a friend of Mrs Sucksby's.

'Been long, at Lant Street?'

I said I was born there.

'What did you see, on the night of the crime?'

Here, however, I always stumbled. Sometimes it seemed to me that I had seen Maud take up the knife; sometimes I even seemed to remember seeing her use it. I know I saw her touch the table-top, I know I saw the glitter of the blade. I know she stepped away as Gentleman started to stagger. But Mrs Sucksby had been there, too, she had moved as quick as anyone; and sometimes I thought it was her hand I remembered seeing dart and flash ... At last I told the simple truth: that I did not know what I had seen. It didn't matter, anyway. They had John Vroom's word, and Mrs Sucksby's own confession. They didn't need me. On the fourth day after they took us, they let me go.

The others they kept longer.

Mr Ibbs was brought before the magistrate first. His trial lasted half- an- hour. He was done, after all, not on account of the poke left lying about the kitchen— he was too good at taking the seals and stampings off, for that— but for the sake of some of the notes in his cigarette box. They were marked ones. The police, it turned out, had been 327

watching the business at Mr Ibbs's shop, for more than a month; and in the end they had got Phil— who, you might remember, had sworn he'd never do another term in gaol, at any cost— to plant the marked notes on him. Mr Ibbs was found to have handled stolen goods: he was sent to Pentonville. Of course, he knew many of the men in there, and might be supposed to have had an easy time among them— except that, here was a funny thing: the fingersmiths and cracksmen who had been so grateful to get an extra shilling from him on the outside, now quite turned against him; and I think his time was very miserable. I went to visit him, a week after he went in.

He saw me, and put his hands before his face, and was in general so changed and so brought down, and looked at me so queerly, I could not bear it. I didn't go again.

His sister, poor thing, was found by the police in her bed at Lant Street, while they were going through the house. We had all forgotten her. She was put on the ward of a parish hospital. The move, however, was too great a shock for her; and she died.

John Vroom could not be pinned to any crime, save— through his coat— to that old one of dog-stealing. He was let off with six nights in Tothill Fields, and a flogging.

They say he was so disliked in his gaol, the keepers played cards for who should be the one to flog him; that they flung in one or two extras above his twelve, for fun; and that after, he cried like a baby. Dainty met him at the prison gate, and he punched her and blacked her eye. It was thanks to him, though, that she had got clean off from Lant Street.

I never spoke to him again. He took a room for him and Dainty in another house, and kept out of my way. I saw him, only once; and that was in the court-room, at Mrs Sucksby's trial.

The trial came up very quick. I spent the nights before it at Lant Street, lying awake in my old bed; sometimes Dainty came back, to sleep beside me and keep me company.

She was the only one, out of all my old pals, who would: for of course, everyone else supposed— from the story having been put about, before— that I was a cheat. It came out that I had taken that room, in the house across from Mr Ibbs's; and had lived there, in what seemed a sneaking sort of way, for almost a week. Why had I done that? Then someone said they saw me running, on the night of the murder, with a look of wildness in my eye. They talked about my mother, and the bad blood that flowed in me. They didn't say I was brave, now; they said I was bold. They said they wouldn't h a v e b e e n s u r p r i s e d i f i t w a s m e t h a t h a d p ut the knife in, after all; and Mrs Sucksby— who still loved me like a daughter, though I had turned out bad— who had stepped forward and taken the blame . . .

When I walked out in the Borough, people cursed me. Once, a girl threw a stone at me.

At any other time it would have broken my heart. Now, I did not care. I had only one thought, and that was to see Mrs Sucksby as often as I could. They had her in the Horsemonger Lane Gaol: I spent all my days there— sitting on the step outside the gate, when it was too early to be let in; talking with her keepers, or with the man who was to plead her case in court. Some pal of Mr Ibbs's had found him for us; he was said to have regularly saved the worst sort of villains from the rope. But he told me, honestly, that our case was a bad one. 'The most we can hope,' he said, 'is that the 328

judge show mercy, for the sake of her age.'

More than once I said, 'Suppose it could be proved she never did it?'

He'd shake his head. 'Where is the evidence?' he'd say. 'Besides, she has admitted to it.

Why should she do that?'

I did not know, and could not answer. He would leave me then, at the gate of the gaol— going quickly off, stepping into the street and calling out for a cab-man; and I'd watch him go with my hands at my head, for his shout, and the rattle of hooves and wheels, the movement of people, the very stones beneath my feet, would seem harsh to me. Everything seemed harsh, and loud, and harder and faster than it ought to have been, just then. Many times I would stop, and remember Gentleman, gripping the wound in his stomach, looking disbelievingly at our own disbelieving faces. 'How did this happen?' he had said. I wanted to say it, now, to everyone I saw: How did this happen? How can this be? Why do you only stand and watch me . . .?

I would have written letters; if I had known how to write, and who to send them to. I would have gone to the house of the man who was to be judge; if I had known how to find it. But I did nothing like that. What little comfort I got, I got at Mrs Sucksby's side; and the gaol, though it was so grim— so dark, and.bleak— at least was also quiet.

I got to spend more time there than I ought to have, through the kindness of the keepers: I think they thought me younger and less of a sharper than I was. 'Here's your daughter,' they'd say, unlocking the gate to Mrs Sucksby's cell; and every time, she would quickly lift her head and study my face, or glance beyond my shoulder, with a troubled look— as if, I thought, not quite believing they had let me come again and meant to let me stay.

Then she'd blink, and try at a smile. 'Dear girl. Quite alone?'

'Quite alone,' I'd answer.

'That's good,' she'd say after.a moment, taking my hand. 'Ain't it? Just you and me.

That's good.'

She liked to sit with my hand in hers. She did not like to talk. When at first I'd weep, and curse, and beg her to take back her story, my words would so upset her I feared she'd grow ill.

'No more,' she'd say, very pale in the face and set about the mouth. 'I done it, that's all.

I don't want to hear no more about it.'

So then I'd remember that dander of hers, and keep silent, and only smooth her fingers in mine. They seemed to grow thinner, every time I saw her. The keepers said she left her dinners quite

untouched. The sight of the dwindling of those great hands upset me, more than I can say: it seemed to me that everything, that was so wrong, would be put right if only Mrs Sucksby's hands could be made to be handsome again. I had spent what money there was in the house at Lant Street, on finding a lawyer; but all that I could make now through borrowing or pawning I put on little dishes to try and tempt her— on shrimps, and saveloys, and suet-puddings. Once I took her a sugar mouse, thinking she might remember the time she had put me in her bed and told me about Nancy from Oliver Twist. I don't think she did, however; she only took it and set it distractedly aside, saying she would try it later, like she did with everything else. In 329

the end her keepers told me to save my money. She had been passing the dishes to them.

Many times she held my face in her hands. Many times she kissed me. Once or twice she gripped me hard, and seemed about to speak on some awful matter; but always, at the last, she would turn the matter aside and it would be lost. If there were things I might have asked her— if I was troubled by queer ideas, and doubts— I kept quiet as she did. That time was bad enough; why make it worse? We talked instead of me— of how I should do now and in the future.

'You'll keep up the old place, at Lant Street?' she'd say.

'Won't I!' I'd answer.

'You won't think of leaving?'

'Leaving? Why, I mean to keep it ready, against the day they let you out. . .'

I did not tell her how very changed the house was, now that she and Mr Ibbs, and Mr Ibbs's sister, had gone. I did not tell her that neighbours had left off calling; that a girl threw a stone at me; that people— strangers— would come and stand, for hours at a time, at the doors and windows, hoping for a glimpse of the place where Gentleman had died. I did not say how hard I had worked, with Dainty, to take the blood-stain from the floor; how we had washed and washed; how many buckets of water we had carried off, crimson; how at last we had had to give it up, because the constant scrubbing began to lift the surface of the boards and turn the pale wood underneath a horrible pink. I didn't tell her of all the places— the doors, the ceiling— and all the things— the pictures on the walls, the ornaments upon the mantel, the dinner-plates, the knives and forks— that we found marked with streaks and splashes of Gentleman's blood.

And I did not say how, as I swept and scrubbed the kitchen, I chanced on a thousand little reminders of my old life— dog- hairs, and chips of broken cups, bad farthings, playing cards, the cuts on the door-frame made by Mr Ibbs's knife to mark my height as I grew up; nor how I covered my face and wept, at every one.

At night, if I slept, I dreamed of murder. I dreamed I killed a man, and had to walk the streets of London with his body in a bag too small to hold it. I dreamed of Gentleman.

I dreamed I met him among the graves at the little red chapel at Briar and he showed me the tomb of his mother. The tomb had a lock upon it, and I had a blank and file and must cut the key to fit; and every night I would set to work, knowing I must work quickly, quickly; and every time, just as the job was almost done, some queer disaster would happen— the key would shrink or grow too large, the file would soften in my fingers; there would be a cut— the final cut— I c o uld not make, never make in time . . .

Too late, Gentleman would say.

One time the voice was Maud's.

Too late.

I looked, but could not see her.

I had not seen her, since the night that Gentleman died. I didn't know where she was. I knew the police had kept her longer than they kept me— for she gave them her name, and it got into the newspapers; and, of course, Dr Christie saw it. I heard it, from the 330

keepers at the gaol. It had all come out, how she was Gentleman's wife, and had supposedly been in a madhouse and had escaped; and how the police didn't know what to do with her— whether to let her go, or lock her up as a lunatic, or what. Dr Christie said only he could decide; so they called him in to examine her. I nearly had a fit

when I heard that. I still couldn't go near bath- tubs. But what happened, was this: he took one look at her, was seen to stagger and grow white; then declared himself only overcome with emotion, to find her so perfectly cured. He said this showed how good his methods were. He had the papers give details of his house. He got lots of new lady patients out of it, I think, and quite made his fortune.

Maud herself was set at liberty, then; and after that, she seemed to vanish. I guessed she had gone back home to Briar. I know she never came to Lant Street. I supposed her too afraid!— for of course, I would have throttled her if she had.

I did wonder if she might, however. I wondered it, every day. 'Perhaps today,' I would think each morning, 'will be the day she'll come.' And then, each night: 'Perhaps tomorrow . . .'

But, as I have said, she never did. What came instead, was the day of the trial. It came in the middle of August. The sun had kept on blazing all through that awful summer, and the court— being packed with watchers— was close: every hour a man was called to throw water on the floor to try and cool it. I sat with Dainty. I'd hoped I might sit in the box with Mrs Sucksby, and hold her hand; but the policemen laughed in my face when I asked it. They made her sit alone, and when they took her in and out of the room, they put cuffs on her. She wore a grey prison gown that made her face seem almost yellow, but her silver hair shone very bright against the dark wood walls of the court. She flinched when she first came up, and saw the crowd of strangers that had come to see her tried. Then she found out my face among them and grew, I thought, more easy. Her eye came back to mine, after that, as the day went on— though I saw her looking, too, about the court, as if in search of another. At the last, however, her gaze would always fall.

When she spoke, her voice was weak. She said she had stabbed Gentleman in a moment of anger, m a quarrel over money he owed for the renting of her room.

She earned her money from the letting of rooms? asked the prosecuting lawyer.

'Yes,' she said.

And not from the handling of stolen goods, or the unlicensed nursing— commonly known as farming— of orphaned infants?

'No.'

Then they brought in men to say they had seen her, at different times, with different bits of poke; and— what was worse— found women who swore they had given her babies that had very soon afterwards died . . .

Then John Vroom spoke. They had put him in a suit like a clerk's, and combed and shined his hair; he looked more like an infant than ever. He said he h a d s e e n everything that took place in the Lant Street kitchen, on the fatal night. He had seen Mrs Sucksby put in the knife. She had cried, 'You blackguard, take that!' And he had seen her with the knife in her hand, for at least a minute, before she did.

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'At least a minute?' the lawyer said. 'You are quite sure? You know how long a minute is? Look at that clock, there. Watch the movement of the hand ..."

We all watched it sweep. The court fell still, to do it. I never knew a minute so long.

The lawyer looked back at John.

As long as that?' he said.

John began to cry. 'Yes, sir,' he said, through his tears.

Then they brought the knife out, for him to say it was the one. The crowd broke out in murmurs when they saw it; and when John wiped his eyes and looked, and nodded, a lady swooned. The knife was shown to all the men of the jury then, one by one, and the lawyer said they must be sure to note how the blade was sharpened, more than it naturally would have been for a knife of that kind— that it was the sharpening of it that made Gentleman's wound so bad. He said that broke in pieces Mrs Sucksby's story about the quarrel, by showing evidence of forethought—

I nearly started out of my seat, when I heard that. Then I caught Mrs Sucksby's eye.

She shook her head, and looked so pleadingly at me to be silent, I fell back; and it never came out that the knife was sharp not because she had sharpened it, but because I had. They never called me to the stand. Mrs Sucksby would not let them. They did call Charles; but he wept so hard, and shook so

badly, the judge declared him unfit. He was sent back to his aunty's.

No-one was told about me, and Maud. No-one mentioned Briar or old Mr Lilly.

No-one came forward to say that Gentleman was a villain— that he had tried to rob heiresses— that he had ruined people through the selling of counterfeit stock. They made out that he was a decent young man with a promising future; they said that Mrs Sucksby had robbed him of it through simple greed. They even found out his family, and brought his parents to the trial— and you'll never believe it, but it turned out that all his tales of being a gentleman's son were so much puff. His father and mother ran a small kind of draper's shop, in a street off the Holloway Road. His sister taught piano.

His real name was not Richard Rivers or even Richard Wells; it was Frederick Bunt.

They drew his picture in the papers. Girls all over England were said to have cut it out and worn it next to their hearts.

But when I looked at that picture— and when I heard people talk of the awful murder of Mr Bunt, and of vices, and sordid trades— it seemed to me as though they must be talking of something else, something else entirely, not of Gentleman, being hurt, by mistake, in my own kitchen, with my own people all about. Even when the judge sent off the jury, and we waited, and watched the newspapermen getting ready to run with the verdict as soon as it came; even when the jury, after an hour, returned, and one of them stood and gave back their answer in a single word; even when the judge covered up his horse- hair wig with a cloth of black, and hoped that God would have mercy on Mrs Sucksby's soul— even then, I did not really feel it as you would suppose I might, did not believe, I think, that so many dark and sober gentlemen speaking so many grave and monotonous words could pinch out the spirit and the heat and the colour from the lives of people like me and Mrs Sucksby.

Then I looked at her face; and saw the spirit and heat and colour half- gone from it, already. She was looking dully about her, at the murmuring crowd— looking for me, I 332

thought, and I rose, and lifted my hand. But she caught my eye, and her gaze, as it had before, moved on: I watched it roam about the room, as if looking for someone or something else— finally it settled and seemed to clear, and I followed it and picked out, at the back of the rows of watchers, a girl dressed all in black, with a veil, that she was just putting down— It was Maud. I saw her, not expecting to see her: and I'll tell you this, my heart flew open; then I remembered everything, and my heart flew shut. She looked miserable— that was something, I thought. She was sitting alone. She made no sort of sign— to me, I mean; and none to Mrs Sucksby.

Then our lawyer called me to him, to shake my hand and say he was sorry. Dainty was weeping and needed my arm to help her walk. When I looked at Mrs Sucksby again, her head was sunk upon her breast; and when I looked for Maud, she had gone.

The week that passed after that I remember, now, as not a week at all, but as a single great endless day. It was a day without sleep— for how could I sleep, when sleep might take away thoughts of Mrs Sucksby, who was so soon to die? It was a day, almost, without darkness— for they kept lights in her cell, that burned all through the night; and in the hours I could not be with her, I kept lights burning at Lant Street— every light I could find in the house, and every light I could borrow. I sat alone, with blazing eyes. I sat and watched, as though she might be ill at my side. I hardly ate. I hardly changed my clothes. When I walked, it was to walk quickly to Horsemonger Lane, to be with her; or to walk slowly back, having left her there.

They had her now, of course, in the condemned cell, and one or other of a pair of matrons was always with her. They were kind enough, I suppose; but they were great stout women, like the nurses at Dr Christie's, and they wore similar canvas aprons, and carried keys: I would catch their eyes and flinch, and all my old bruises would seem to start up aching. Then again, I could never quite find it in my heart to like them, on their own accounts— for surely, if they were truly worth liking, they would open the door and let Mrs Sucksby go? Instead they were keeping her there, for men to come and hang her.

I tried not to think of that, however— or rather, like before, I found I could not think of it, could not believe it. How much Mrs Sucksby brooded upon it, I can't say. I know they sent the prison chaplain to her and she spent some hours with him; but she never told me what he said to her, or if it brought her any comfort. Now more than ever, she seemed to like not to speak at all, only to feel the gentle holding of my hand in hers; though now more than ever, too, her gaze as she looked at me would seem sometimes to grow cloudy, and she would colour, and struggle as if with the awful burden of things unsaid . . .

But she said only one thing to me, that she meant for me to remember; and that was on the day before her last— the final time I ever saw her. I went to her, with my heart almost breaking, and thought I should find her pacing her cell or plucking at the bars on her window— in fact, she was calm. It was me who wept, and she sat in her prison chair and let me kneel with my head in her lap, and she put her fingers to my hair— taking the pins from it and letting it fall, until it lay across her knee. I had not had the heart to curl it. It seemed to me that I should never have heart enough, ever again.

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'How shall I do, Mrs Sucksby, without you?' I said.

I felt some tremor pass through her. Then: 'Better, dear girl,' she whispered, 'than with me.'

'No!'

She nodded. 'Better, by far.'

'How can you say it? When, if I had stayed with you— if I had never gone with Gentleman to Briar— Oh, I should never have left your side!'

I hid my face in the folds of her skirt, and wept again.

'Hush, now,' she said. She stroked my head. 'Hush, now . . .' Her gown was rough upon my cheek, the prison chair hard against my side. But I sat and let her soothe me, as though I might be a child; and at last we both fell silent. There was a little window, high in the wall of her cell, that let in two or three strips of sunlight: we watched them creep across the stone flags of the floor. I never knew light could creep like that. It crept, like fingers. And when it had crept almost from one wall to another, I heard a step, then felt the

matron lean to lay her hand upon my shoulder.— 'It's time,' she murmured. 'Say your good-byes, now. All right?'

We stood. I looked at Mrs Sucksby. Her gaze was clear still, but her cheek, in a moment, had changed— was grey, and damp, like clay. She began to tremble.

'Dear Sue,' she said, 'you have been good to me— ' She drew me to her, and put her mouth against my ear. It was cold as the mouth on a corpse, already; but twitched, like it might have been palsied. 'Dear girl— ' she began, in a broken whisper. I almost drew back. Don't say it! I thought.— Though I do not know if I could have said what it was I wished she would not say; I only knew I was suddenly afraid. Don't say it! She gripped me tighter. 'Dear girl— ' Then the whisper grew fierce. 'Watch me, tomorrow,'

she said. 'Watch me. Don't cover your eyes. And then, if you should ever hear hard things of me when I am gone, think back— '

'I will!' I said. I said it, half in terror, half in relief. 'I will!'— Those were my last words to her. Then the matron I suppose must have touched me again; must have led me, stumbling, into the passage beyond the gate.— I don't recall. What I remember next is passing through the prison yard, feeling the sun come upon my face— and giving a cry, turning away— thinking, how queer and wrong and awful it was, that the sun should shine, still shine, even now, even there . . .

There came a keeper's voice. I heard the rumble of it, but not the words. He was asking something of the matron at my side. She nodded.

'One of 'em,' she said, with a glance at me. 'The other came this morning I only wondered later what she meant. For now, I was too dazed and miserable to wonder anything. I walked, in a sort of trance, back to Lant Street— only keeping, as much as I could, to the shadows, out of the blazing sun. At the door to Mr Ibbs's shop I found boys, chalking nooses on the step— they saw me come and ran off, shrieking.

I was used to that, however, and let them run; but kicked the nooses away. Inside, I stood a minute to get my breath, and to look about me— at the locksmith's counter, streaked with dust; and

the tools and key-blanks, that had lost their shine; and the hanging baize curtain, that 334

had got torn from its loops and was drooping. When I walked through to the kitchen, my footsteps crunched: for sometime— I couldn't say when— the brazier had been knocked from its stand, and coals and cinders still lay scattered on the floor. It seemed too ordinary a thing to do, to sweep them up, set the brazier right; and anyway, the floor was ruined— broken and gaping, from where the police had torn up boards.

Underneath it seemed dark, till you brought a light: then you could see earth, two feet below— damp earth, with bones and oyster shells in it, and beetles and wriggling worms.

The table had been pushed to the corner of the room. I went and sat at it, in Mrs Sucksby's old chair. Charley Wag lay beneath it— poor Charley Wag, he had not barked since Mr Ibbs had jerked so hard on his collar: he saw me now, and beat his tail, and came and let me tug his ears; but then he slunk away and lay with his head on his paws.

I sat, as still and quiet as him, for almost an hour; then Dainty came. She had brought us a supper. I didn't want it, and neither did she; but she had stolen a purse to buy it, and so I got out bowls and spoons and we ate it slowly, in silence, looking all the time, as we did, at the clock— the old Dutch clock on the mantel— that we knew was steadily ticking, ticking away the last few hours of Mrs Sucksby's life ... I meant to feel them, if I. could. I meant to feel each minute, each second. 'Won't you let me stay?' said Dainty, when it came time for her to go. 'It don't seem right, you being here all on your own.' But I said that that was how I wanted it; and finally she kissed my cheek and went; and then it was just me and Charley Wag again, and the house, growing dark about us. I lit more lights. I thought of Mrs Sucksby, in her bright cell. I thought of her, in all the ways I had seen her, not there, but here, in her own kitchen: dosing babies, sipping tea, lifting up her face so I might kiss it. I thought of her carving meat, wiping her mouth, and yawning . . . The clock ticked on— quicker, and louder, it seemed to me, than it had ever ticked before. I put my head upon the table, upon my arms. How tired I was! I closed my eyes. I could not help it. I meant to keep awake; but I closed my eyes, and slept.

I slept, for once, without dreaming; and I was woken by a curious sound: the tramping and scuffing of feet, and the rising and falling of voices, in the street outside. I thought, in my half- sleep: 'It must be a holiday today, there must be a fair. What day is it?'— Then I opened my eyes. The candles I had lit had burned to puddles of wax, and their flames were like so many ghosts; but the sight of them made me remember where I was. It was seven o'clock in the morning. Mrs Sucksby was going to be h a n g e d i n t h r e e h o u r s ' t i m e . T h e p e o p l e I c o u l d h e a r w e r e o n t h e i r w a y t o Horsemonger Lane, to get their places for watching. They had come down Lant Street first, for a look at the house.

There came more of them, as the morning went on. 'Was it here?' I could hear them say. And then: 'Here's the very identical spot. They say the blood ran so fast and so hard, the walls were painted in it.'— 'They say the murdered chap called out against heaven.'— 'They say the woman stifled babies.'— ' T h e y s a y h e ' d b i l k e d h e r o f rent.'— 'Puts you into a creep, don't it?'— 'Serves him right.'— 'They say— '

They would come, and stop a minute, and then pass on; some found their way to the 335

back of the house and rattled the kitchen door, stood at the window and tried to see through the chinks in the shutters; but I kept everything locked and fast. I don't know if they knew I was inside. Now and then a boy would call: 'Let us in! A shilling, if you'll show us the room!' and, 'Hoo! hoo! I'm the ghost of the feller as was stabbed, come back to haunt you!'— but I think they did it to tease their friends, not to tease me.

I hated to hear them, though; and Charley Wag, poor thing, kept close at my side, and shivered and started and tried to bark, with every call and rattle.— At last I took him upstairs, where the sounds were fainter. But then, after a while the sounds grew fainter still; and that was worse, for it meant that the people had all passed on, found their spots for watching from, and it was almost time. I left Charley then, and climbed the next set of stairs alone— climbed them slowly, like a girl with limbs of lead; then stood at the attic door, afraid to go in. There was the bed I had been born in. There was the wash- stand, the bit of oil-cloth tacked to the wall. The last time I had come here,

Gentleman had been alive and drunk and dancing with Dainty and John, downstairs. I had stood at the window, put my thumb to the glass, made the frost turn to dirty water.

Mrs Sucksby had come and stroked my hair ... I went to the window, now. I went, and looked, and almost swooned away, for the streets of the Borough, that had been dark and empty then, were bright, and filled with people— so many people!— people standing in the road, stopping the traffic; and besides them, people on walls, on sills, clinging to posts and trees and chimneys. Some were holding children up, some were craning for a better view. Most had their hands across their eyes, to keep the sun off.

All had their faces turned one way.

They were looking at the roof of the gate of the gaol. The scaffold was up,'the rope already on it. A man was walking about, examining the drop.

I saw him do it, feeling almost calm, feeling almost sick. I remembered what Mrs Sucksby had asked, with her last words to me: that I should watch her. I had said I would. I had thought I should bear it. It seemed such a little thing to bear, compared with what she must suffer . . . Now the man had taken the rope in his hands and was testing the length of it. The people in the crowd stretched their necks further, so they might see. I began to be afraid. Still I thought, however, that I would watch, to the end.

Still I said to myself, 'I will. I will. She did it for my own mother; I'll do it for her.

What else can I do for her now, except this?'

But I said it; and then came the slow, steady striking of ten o'clock. The man at the rope stood down, the door to the prison steps was thrown open, the chaplain showed himself upon the roof, and then the first of the keepers.— I couldn't do it. I put my back to the window and covered my face with my hands.

I knew what followed, then, from the sounds that rose up from the streets. The people had fallen silent at the striking of the clock, the coming of the chaplain; now I heard them all start up with hisses and with hoots— that, I knew, was for the hangman. I heard the very spreading of the sound about the crowd, like oil on water. When the hoots grew louder, I knew the hangman had made some sign or bow. Then, in an instant, the sound turned again, moved

faster, like a shiver, like a thrill, through the streets: the cry was sent out: 'Hats off!', 336

and was mixed with bursts of dreadful laughter. Mrs Sucksby must have come. They were trying to see her. I grew sicker than ever, imagining all those strangers' eyes straining out of their sockets to see what figure she would make, yet not being able to look, myself; but I could not, I could not. I could not turn, or tear the sweating hands from before my face. I could only listen. I heard the laughter change to murmurs and calls for hush: that meant the chaplain was saying prayers. The hush went on, and on.

My own heartbeats seemed to fill it. Then the Amen was said; and even while the word was still travelling about the streets, other parts of the crowd— the parts that were nearest the gaol and could see best— broke out in an uneasy sort of murmur.

The murmur grew louder, got taken up by every throat— then turned, to something more like a moan, or groan . . . And I knew that meant that they had led her up to the scaffold; that they were tying her hands, and covering up her face, and putting, about her neck, the noose . . .

And then, and then, there came a moment— just a single moment, less time than it takes to say it— of perfect, awful stillness: of the stopping of babies' cries, the holding of breaths, the clapping of hands to hearts and open mouths, the slowing of blood, the shrinking back of thought: This cannot be, this will not be, they won't, they can't—

And, next, too soon, too quick, the rattle of the drop, the shrieks, as it fell— the groaning gasp, when the rope found its length, as if the crowd had a single stomach and a giant hand had punched it.

Now I did open my eyes, just for a second. I opened them, and turned, and saw— not Mrs Sucksby, not Mrs Sucksby at all, but what might have been a dangling tailor's figure, done up to look like a woman, in a corset and a gown, but with lifeless arms, and a drooping head like a bag of canvas stuffed with straw— -

I moved away. I did not weep. I went to the bed and lay upon it. The sounds changed again, as people found their breaths and voices— unstopped their mouths, unloosed their babies, shuffled and danced about. There came more hoots, more cries, more dreadful laughter; and finally, cheers. I think I had used to cheer myself, at other hangings. I never thought what the cheering meant. Now I listened as those hurrahs went up, and it seemed to me, even in my grief, that I understood. She's dead, they might as well have been calling. The thought was rising, quicker than blood, in every heart. She's dead— and we're alive.

Dainty came again that night, to bring me another supper. We didn't eat any of it. We only wept together, and talked of what we had seen. She had watched with Phil and some other of Mr Ibbs's nephews, from a spot close to the gaol. John had said only pigeons watched from there. He knew a man with a roof, he said; and went off to climb it. I wondered if he had watched at all; but didn't say that to Dainty. She herself had seen everything, except the final drop. Phil, who had seen even that, said the fall was a clean one. He thought it was true, after all, what people said, about how the hangman put the knot, when it came to dropping women. Everyone agreed, anyway, that Mrs Sucksby had held herself very boldly, and died very game.

I remembered that dangling tailor's figure, gripped tight in its corset and gown; and I wondered how, if she had shuddered and kicked, we ever should have known it.

But that was something not to be thought on. There were other things to see to, now. I 337

had become an orphan again; and as orphans everywhere must, I began, in the two or three weeks that followed, to look about me, with a sinking heart; to understand that the world was hard and dark, and I must make my own way through it, quite alone. I had no money. The rent on the shop and house had fallen due in August: a man had come and banged on the door, and only gone because Dainty bared her arms and said she would hit him. He had left us alone since then. I think the house had got known as a murder- house, and no-one wanted to take it. But I knew they would, in time. I knew the man would come back one day, with other men, and break in the door. Where would I live, then? How should I do, on my own? I might, I supposed, take a regular job, at a dairy, a dyer's, a furrier's— The very thought of it, however, made me want to be sick. Everybody in my world knew that regular work was only another name for being robbed and dying of boredom. I should rather stay crooked. Dainty said she knew three girls who worked, in a gang, as street-thieves, Woolwich-way, and wanted a fourth . . . But she said it, not quite catching my eye; for we both knew that street-thieving was a pretty poor lay, compared to what I was used to.

But it was all I had; and I thought it might as well do. I hadn't the heart for finding out anything better. I hadn't the heart or the spirit for anything at all. Bit by bit, everything that was left at Lant Street had gone— been pawned, or sold. I still wore the pale print dress I had robbed from the woman in the country!— and now it looked worse on me than ever, for I had grown thin at Dr Christie's, and then thinner still. Dainty said I had got so sharp, if you could have found a way of threading me with cotton, you could have sewn with me.

And so, when I packed the bits of stuff I wanted to take with me to Woolwich, there was almost nothing. And when I thought of the people I ought to call on, to say good-bye to, I could not think of anyone. There was only one thing I knew I must do, b e f o r e I w e n t ; a n d t h a t w a s t h e p i c k i n g u p o f M r s S u c k s b y ' s t h i n g s , f r o m Horsemonger Lane.

I took Dainty with me. I did not think that I could bear it all alone. We went, one day in September— more than a month after the trial. London had changed, since then.

The season had turned, and the days grown cooler at last. The streets were filled with dust and straw, and curling leaves. The gaol seemed darker and bleaker than ever. But the porter there knew me, and let me through. He looked at me, I thought, in pity. So did the matrons. They had Mrs Sucksby's things made ready for me, in a wax-paper parcel tied with strings. 'Released, to Daughter,' they said, as they wrote in a book; and they made me put my name there, underneath.— I could write my name quick as anyone now, since my time at Dr Christie's . . . Then they led me back, across the yards, through the grey prison ground where I knew Mrs Sucksby was buried, with no stone upon her grave, so no-one could come and mourn her; and

they took me out under the gate, with its low, flat roof, where I had last seen the scaffold raised. They passed under that roof every day of their lives, it was nothing to them. When they came to say goodbye, they made to take my hand. I could not give it.

The parcel was light. I carried it home, however, in a sort of dread; and the dread seemed to make it heavy. By the time I reached Lant Street, I was almost staggering: I 338

went quickly with it to the kitchen table, and set it down, and caught my breath and rubbed my arms. What I was dreading was having to open it and look at all her things.

I thought of what must be inside: her shoes; her stockings, perhaps still in the shape of her toes and heels; her petticoats; her comb, perhaps with some of her hair in it—

Don't do it! I thought. Leave it! Hide it! Open it some other time, not today, not now— .'

I sat, and looked at Dainty.

'Dainty,' I said, 'I don't think I can.'

She put her hand over mine.

'I think you ought to,' she said. 'For me and my sister was the same, when we got our mother's bits back from the morgue. And we left that packet in a drawer, and wouldn't look at it for nearly a year; and when Judy opened it up the gown was rotted through, and the shoes and bonnet perished almost to nothing, from having gone so long with river-water on them. And then, we had nothing to remember Mother by, at all; save a little chain she always wore.— Which Pa pawned, in the end, for gin- money . . .'

I saw her lip begin to quiver. I could not face her tears.

All right,' I said. 'All right. I'll do it.'

My hands were still shaking though, and when I drew the parcel to me and tried to undo its strings, I found the matrons had tied them too tight. So then Dainty tried. She couldn't undo them either. 'We need a knife,' I said, 'or a pair of scissors . . .' But there was a time, after Gentleman died, when I hadn't been able to look at any kind of blade, without wincing; and I had made Dainty take them all away, there wasn't a single sharp thing— except me— in the whole of the house. I tugged and picked at the knots again, but now I was more nervous than ever, and my hands had got damp. At last, I lifted the parcel to my mouth and took hold of the knots with my teeth: and finally the strings unravelled and the paper sprang out of its folds. I started back. Mrs Sucksby's shoes, her petticoats and comb came tumbling out upon the table-top, looking just as I had feared. And across them, dark and spreading, like tar, came her old black taffeta gown.

I had not thought of that. Why hadn't I? It was the very worst thing of all. It looked like Mrs Sucksby herself was lying there, in some sort of swoon. The gown still had Maud's brooch pinned to its breast. Someone had prised the diamonds out— I didn't care about that— but the silver claws that were left had blood in them, brown blood, so dried it was almost powder. The taffeta itself was stiff. The blood had made it rusty.

The rust was traced about with lines of white: the lawyers had shown the gown in court, and had drawn around each stain with chalk.

They seemed to me like marks on Mrs Sucksby's own body.

'Oh, Dainty,' I said, 'I can't bear it! Fetch me a cloth, and water, will you? Oh! How horrible it looks— !' I began to rub. Dainty rubbed, too. We rubbed in the same grim, shuddering way that we had scrubbed the kitchen floor. The cloths grew muddy. Our breaths came quick. We worked first at the skirt. Then I caught up the collar, drew the bodice to me and began to work on that.

And, as I did, the gown made a curious sound— a creaking, or rustling, sound.

Dainty put down her cloth. 'What's that?' she said. I did not know. I drew the dress 339

closer, and the sound came again.

'Is it a moth?' said Dainty. 'Is it flapping about, inside?'

I shook my head. 'I don't think so. It sounds like a paper. Perhaps the matrons have put something there

But when I lifted the dress and shook it, and looked inside, there was nothing, nothing at all. The rustling came again, however, as I laid the gown back down. It seemed to me that it came from part of the bodice— from that part of the front of the bodice that would have lain just below Mrs Sucksby's heart. I put my hand to it, and felt about.

The taffeta there was stiff— stiff not just from the staining of Gentleman's blood, but from something else, something that

had got stuck, or been put, behind it, between it and the satin lining of the gown. What was it? I could not tell, from feeling. So then I turned the bodice inside-out, and looked at the seam. The seam was open: the satin was loose, but had been hemmed so as not to fray. It made a sort of pocket, in the gown. I looked at Dainty; then put in my hand. It rustled again, and she drew back.

Are you sure it ain't a moth? Or a bat?'

But what it was, was a letter. Mrs Sucksby had had it hidden there— how long? I could not guess. I thought at first that she must have put it there for me— that she had written it, in gaol— that it was a message for me to find, after they had hanged her.— T h e t h o u g h t m a d e m e n e r v o u s . B u t t h e n , t h e l e t t e r w a s m a r k e d w i t h Gentleman's blood; and so must have lain inside the gown since the night he died, at least. Then again, it seemed to me that it must have lain there a good deal longer than that: for as I looked more closely at it I saw how old it was. The creases were soft.

The ink was faded. The paper was curved, from where Mrs Sucksby's taffeta bodice had held it, tight, against her stays. The seal—

I looked at Dainty. The seal was unbroken. 'Unbroken!' I said. 'How is that? Why should she have carried a letter, so close, so carefully, so long— and yet not read it?' I turned it in my hands. I gazed again at the direction. 'Whose name is there?' I said.

'Can you see?'

D a i n t y l o o k e d , t h e n s h o o k h e r h e a d . ' C a n ' t y o u ? ' s h e s a i d . B u t I c o u l d n o t .

Hand-writing was harder even upon my eye, than print; and this hand was small, and sloped, and— as I have said— was partly smeared and spotted with awful stains, I went to the lamp, and held the letter close to the wick. I screwed up my eyes. I looked and looked . . . And it seemed to me at last that if any name was written there, upon the folded paper, it was my own.— I was sure I could make out an S, and then the u that followed it; and then, again, an s—

I grew nervous again. 'What is it?' said Dainty, seeing my face.

'I don't know. I think the letter's for me.'

She put her hand to her mouth. And then: 'From your own mother!' she said.

'My mother?'

'Who else? Oh, Sue, you got to open it.'

'I don't know.'

'But say it tells you— Say it tells you where treasure is! Say it's a map!'

I didn't think it was a map. I felt my stomach growing sour with fear. I looked again at 340

the letter, at the S, and the u— 'You open it,' I said. Dainty licked her lips, then took it, slowly turned it, and slowly broke the seal. The room was so quiet, I think I heard the tumbling of the slivers of wax from the paper to the floor. She unfolded the page; then frowned. 'Just words,' she said.

I went to her side. I saw lines of ink— close, small, baffling. The harder I gazed, the more baffling they grew. And though I had got so nervous and afraid— so sure that the letter was meant for me, yet held the key to some awful, secret thing I should far rather never know— still, to have it open before me, not being able to understand what it said, was worse than anything.

'Come on,' I said to Dainty. I got her her bonnet, and found mine. 'Come out to the street, and we'll find someone to read it for us.'

We went the back way. I would not ask anyone I knew— anyone who had cursed me. I wanted a stranger. So we went north— went fast, towards the breweries up by the river.

There was a man there on a corner. He had a tray on a string about his neck, full of nutmeg- gr a t e r s a n d t h i m b l e s . B u t h e w o r e e y e - glasses and had— I d o n ' t k n o w what— an intelligent look.

I said,'He'll do.'

He saw us coming and gave us a nod. 'Want a grater, girls?'

I shook my head. 'Listen here,' I said— or tried to say, for the walk and my own feeling and fear had taken the breath quite from me. I put my hand to my heart. 'Do you read?' I asked him at last.

He said, 'Read?'

'Letters, in ladies' hands? Not books, I mean.'

Then he saw the paper I held, pushed the glasses further up his nose, and tilted his head.

-anyone went

'To be opened,' he read, 'on the eighteenth birthday— ' I shook right through when I heard that. He did not notice. Instead, he straightened his head, and sniffed. 'Not in my line,' he said. 'Not worth my while to stand here and read out letters. That ain't a- going to make the thimbles fly, is it. . .?'

Some people will charge you for taking a punch. I put my shaking hand in my pocket and brought out all it held. Dainty did the same.

'Sevenpence,' I said, when I had put the coins together. He turned them over. 'Are they good?' 'Good enough,' I said.

He sniffed again. All right.' He took them, and hid them. Then he unhooked his glasses from about his ears, and gave them a rub. 'Now then, let's see,' he said. 'You hold it up, though. Looks legal, this does. I been stung by the law, before. I might not want it to come out later, as how I touched it. . .' He put his glasses back on, and got ready to read.

All the words that are there,' I said, as he did. 'Every one. Do you hear?'

He nodded, and began. 'To be opened on the eighteenth birthday of my daughter, Susan Lilly— '

I put the paper down. 'Susan Trinder,' I said. 'Susan Trinder, you mean. You are reading it wrong.'

341

'Susan Lilly, it says,' he answered. 'Hold it up, now, and turn it.' 'What's the point,' I said, 'if you ain't going to read what's there . . .?'

But my voice had got thin. There seemed to have come, about my heart, a snake: it was coiling, tight.

'Come on,' he said. His look had changed. 'This is interesting, this is. What is it? A will, is it, or a testament? The last statement— there you are— of Marianne Lilly, made at Lant Street, Southwark, on this day 18th of September 1844, in the presence of Mrs Grace Sucksby, of— ' He stopped. His face had changed again. 'Grace Sucksby?' he said, in a shocked sort of voice. 'What, the murderess? This is stiff stuff, ain't it?'

I did not answer. He looked again at the paper— at the stains.

Perhaps he had supposed them ink, before, or paint. Now he said, 'I don't know as I should ..." Then he must have seen my face. 'All right, all right,' he said. 'Let's see.

What's here?' He drew it closer. 7, Marianne Lilly, of— what is it? Bear House? Briar House?— of Briar House, Buckinghamshire— /, Marianne Lilly, being sound in mind though feeble in body, hereby commit my own infant daughter SUSAN— Now, will you shake it about? That's better— hereby commit— hmm, hmm— to the guardianship of Mrs Grace Sucksby; and desire that she be raised by her in ignorance of her true birth. Which birth is to be made known to her on the day of her eighteenth birthday, 3rd August 1862; on which day I do also desire that there be made over to her one half of my private fortune.

'In exchange for which, Grace Sucksby commits into my care her own dear daughter MAUD— B l e s s m e , i f y ou ain't doing it again! Hold it nice, can't you?— dear daughter MAUD, and does desire that she be raised similarly ignorant of her name and birth, until the aforementioned date; on which date it is my desire that there be made over to her the remainder of my fortune.

'This paper to be a true and legally binding statement of my wishes; a contract between myself and Grace Sucksby, in defiance of my father and brother; which is to be recognised in Law.

'Susan Lilly to know nothing of her unhappy mother, but that she strove to keep her from care.

'Maud Sucksby to be raised a gentlewoman; and to know that her mother loved her, more than her own life.— Well!' He straightened up. 'Now tell me that wasn't worth sevenpence. Papers get hold of it, mind, I should say it w o u l d b e w o r t h a l o t more.— Why, how queer you look! Ain't going to faint, are you?'

I had swayed and clutched at his tray. His graters went sliding. 'Now take care, do!' he said, in a peevish way. 'Here's all my stock, look, going to tumble and get mashed— '

Dainty came and caught me. 'I am sorry,' I said. 'I am sorry.'

All right?' he said, as he put the graters straight.

'Yes.'

'Come as a shock, has it?'

I shook my head— or perhaps I nodded, I don't remember— and

gripped the letter, and stumbled from him. 'Dainty,' I said. 'Dainty— '

She sat me down, against a wall. 'What is it?' she said. 'Oh, Sue, what did it mean?'

342

The man still looked. 'I should get her water,' he called.

But I didn't want water, and I wouldn't let Dainty go. I clutched her to me and put my face against her sleeve. I began to shake. I began to shake as a rusted lock must shake, when the tumblers lift against their groaning springs, and the bolt is forced loose and flies. 'My mother— ' I said. I could not finish. It was too much to say— too much, even, to know! My mother, Maud's mother! I could not believe it. I thought of the picture of the handsome lady I had seen in the box at Briar. I thought of the grave that Maud had used to rub and trim. I thought of Maud, and Mrs Sucksby; and then, of Gentleman. Oh, now I see it! he had said. Now I saw it, too. Now I knew what Mrs Sucksby had longed but been afraid to tell me, at the gaol. If you should hear hard things of me— Why had she kept the secret so long? Why had she lied about my mother? My mother was not a murderess, she was a lady. She was a lady with a fortune, that she meant to be split . . .

// you should hear hard things of me, think back—

I thought, and thought; and began to grow sick. I put the letter before my face and groaned. The thimble man still stood a little way off, and watched me; soon other people gathered and stood watching, too. 'Drunk, is she?' I heard someone say. And,

'Got the horrors?' 'Fallen in a fit, has she? Her pal should put a spoon in her mouth, she'll swallow her tongue.' I could not bear the sound of their voices, the feel of their eyes. I reached for Dainty and got to my feet; she put her arm about me and helped me stagger home. She gave me brandy to drink. She sat me at the table. Mrs Sucksby's dress still lay upon it: I took it up and held it in my two fists, and hid my face in its folds; then I gave a cry like a beast, and cast it to the floor. I spread out the letter, and looked again at the lines of ink. SUSAN LILLY ... I groaned again. Then I got to my feet and began to walk.

'Dainty,' I said in a sort of pant, as I did. 'Dainty, she must have k n o w n . S h e m u s t h a v e k n o w n i t , a l l a l o n g . S h e m u s t h a v e s e n t m e t h e r e , a t Gentleman's side, knowing he meant at last to— Oh!' My voice grew hoarse. 'She sent me there, so he would leave me in that place and bring her Maud. It was only ever Maud she wanted. She kept me safe, and gave me up, so Maud, so Maud— '

But then, I grew still. I was thinking of Maud, starting up with the knife. I was thinking of Maud, letting me hate her. I was thinking of Maud, making me think she'd hurt me, to save me knowing who had hurt me most... '

I put my hand across my mouth and burst out weeping. Dainty began to weep, too.

'What is it?' she said. 'Oh, Sue, you look so queer! What is it?'

'The worst thing of all,' I said, through my tears. 'The worst thing of all!'

I saw it, sharp and clear as a line of lightning in a sky of black. Maud had tried to save me, and I had not known. I had wanted to kill her, when all the time—

'And I let her go!' I said, getting up and walking about. 'Where is she, now?'

'Where's whoV said Dainty, almost shrieking.

'Maud!'I said. 'Oh, Maud!'

'Miss Lilly?'

'Miss Sucksby, call her! Oh! I shall go mad! To think I thought she was a spider that had got you all in her web. To think there was once a time when I stood, pinning up 343

her hair! If I had said— If she had turned— If I had known— I would have kissed her— '

'Kissed her?' said Dainty.

'Kissed her!' I said. 'Oh, Dainty, you would have kissed her, too! Anyone would! She was a pearl, a pearl!— and now, and now I've lost her, I've thrown her away— !'

So I went on. Dainty tried to calm me, and could not. I would only walk and wring my hands, tear my own hair; or else I would sink to the floor and lie groaning. At last, I sank and would not rise. Dainty wept and pleaded— took up water and threw it in my face— ran down the street to a neighbour's house, for a bottle of salts; but I lay, as if dead. I had got sick. I had got sick in a moment, like that.

She carried me up to my old room and put me to sleep in my own bed; when I opened my eyes again she says I looked at her and did not know her, says I fought her, when she tried to take my gown, says I talked like a madwoman, of tartan, and india-rubber boots, and— most especially— of something I said she had taken, that I should die without. 'Where is it?' she says I cried. 'Where is it? Oh!'— She says I cried it so often, so pitifully, she brought me all my things and held them up before me, one by one; and that finally she found, in the pocket of my gown, an old kid glove, quite creased and black and bitten; and that when she held that up I took it from her and wept and wept over it as if my heart would break.

I don't remember. I kept in a fever for nearly a week, and was after that so feeble I might as well have been in a fever still. Dainty nursed me, all that time— feeding me tea and soups and gruels, lifting me so I might use the chamber-pot, wiping off the horrible sweat from my face. I still wept, and cursed and twisted, when I thought of Mrs Sucksby and how she had tricked me; but I wept more, when I thought of Maud.

For all this time I had had as it were a sort of dam about my heart, keeping out my love: now the walls had burst, my heart was flooded, I thought I should drown . .. My love grew level, though, as I grew well again. It grew level, and calm— it seemed to me at last that I had never been so calm in all my life. 'I've lost her,' I'd say again to Dainty; I'd say it, over and over. But I'd say it steadily— in a whisper, at first; then, as the days passed by and I got back my strength, in a murmur; finally, in my own voice.

'I've lost her,' I'd say, 'but I mean to find her. I don't care if it takes me all my life. I'll find her out, and tell her what I know. She might have gone away. She might be on the other side of the world. She might be married! I don't care. I'll find her, and tell her everything ..."

It was all I thought of. I was only waiting, to be well enough to start. And at last I thought I had waited enough. I rose from my bed, and the room— that had used to seem to tilt and turn, whenever I lifted my head— stayed still. I washed, and dressed, got the bag of things I had planned to take with me to Woolwich. I took up the letter, and tucked it into my gown. I think Dainty thought I

must have fallen back into my fever. Then I kissed her cheek, and my face was cool.

'Keep Charley Wag for me,' I said. She saw how grave and earnest I was, and began to cry.

'How will you do it?' she said. I said I meant to start my search at Briar. 'But how shall 344

you get there? How shall you pay?' I said: 'I'll walk.' When she heard that, she dried her eyes and bit her lip. 'Wait here,' she said. She ran from the house. She was gone for twenty minutes. When she came back, she was clutching a pound. It was the pound she had put, so long ago, in the wall of the starch-works, that she had said we must use to bury her when she had died. She made me take it. I kissed her again.

'Shall you ever come back?' she said. I said I did not know . . .

And so I left the Borough a second time, and made the journey down to Briar, over again. There were no fogs, this time. The train ran smooth. At Marlow, the same guard who had laughed at me when I'd asked for a cab, now came to help me from the coach.

He didn't remember me. He wouldn't have known me if he had. I was so thin, I think he thought I was an invalid girl. 'Come down from London to take the air, have you?'

he said kindly. He looked at the little bag I held. 'Shall you manage it?' And then, as he had last time: 'Is no-one come to meet you?'

I said I would walk. I did walk, for a mile or two. Then I stopped to rest on a stile, and a man and a girl went by, with a horse and cart, and they looked at me and must have thought I was an invalid, too: for they pulled their horse up and gave me a ride. They let me sit on the seat. The man put his coat about my shoulders.

'Going far?' he said.

I said I was going to Briar, they could drop me anywhere near Briar—

'To Briar!' they said, when they heard that. 'But, why ever are you going there?

There's nobody there, since the old man died. Didn't you know?'

Nobody there! I shook my head. I said I knew Mr Lilly had been ill. That he had lost the use of his hands and voice, and had to be fed off a spoon. They nodded. Poor gentleman! they said. He

had lingered on in a very miserable sort of way, all summer long— in all that terrible heat. 'They say he stank, in the end,' they said, dropping their voices. 'But though his niece— the scandalous girl, that run off with a gentleman— did you know about that?'— I didn't answer— 'though she come back to nurse him, he died, a month ago; and since then, the house've been quite shut up.'

So Maud had come, and gone! If I had only known ... I turned my head. When I spoke, my voice had a catch. I hoped they would put it down to the jolting of the cart. I said, And the niece, Miss Lilly? What happened— What happened to her?'

But they only shrugged. They did not know. Some people said she'd gone back to her husband. Some people said she had gone to France . . .

'Planning on visiting one of the servants, were you?' they said, looking at my print dress. 'The servants've all gone, too.— All gone but one, who stays to keep thieves out.

Shouldn't like his job. They say the place is haunted, now.'

Here was a blow, all right. But I had expected blows, and was ready to suffer them.

When they asked, Should they drive me back to Marlow? I said no, I would go on. I thought the servant must be Mr Way. I thought, 'I'll find him. He'll know me. And oh!

he's seen Maud. He'll tell me where she's gone . . .'

So they put me down where the wall to the Briar park started; and from there, I walked again. The sound of the horse's hooves grew faint. The road was lonely, the day was bleak. It was only two or three o'clock but the dusk seemed gathered in the 345

shadows already, waiting to creep and rise. The wall seemed longer than when I had ridden past it in William Inker's trap: I walked for what felt like an hour, before I saw the arch that marked the gate, and the roof of the lodge behind it. I quickened my step— but then, my heart quite sank. The lodge was all shut up and dark. The gates were fastened with a chain and lock, and piled about with leaves. Where the wind struck the iron bars it made a low sort of moaning sound. And when I stepped to the gates and pushed them, they creaked and creaked.

'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 filled with more wet leaves. It seemed like a house not meant for people but for ghosts.

I remembered, suddenly, what the m a n a n d t h e g i r l h a d s a i d , a b o u t i t b e i n g 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 346

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 / 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 . . .

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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 ajar 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— w hen I had ached and ached for her— It was too much.

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'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 bier 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 sonoeone 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. H e 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, rnow?'

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

'When did you know?' I said. 'Whendid ^ou know everything, about us, about— Did you know, at the start?0'

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.

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'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.

'How delicious,' she read, 'was the glow upon her beauteous neck and bare ivory shoulders, as I forced her on her back on the couch. How luxuriously did her snowy hillocks rise against my bosom in wild confusion— '

'What?' I said.

She did not answer, did not look up; but turned that page and read from another.

'I scarcely knew what I was about; everything now was in active exertion— tongues, lips, bellies, arms, thighs, legs, bottoms, every part in voluptuous motion.'

Now my own cheek coloured. 'What?' I said, in a whisper.

She turned more pages, read again.

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'Quickly my daring hand seized her most secret treasure, regardless of her soft complaints, which my burning kisses reduced to mere murmurs, while my fingers penetrated into the covered way of love— '

She stopped. Her heart was beating harder, though she had kept her voice so flat. My own heart was also beating rather hard. I said— still not quite understanding:

'Your uncle's books?'

She nodded.

'All, like this?'

She nodded again.

'Every one of them, like this? Are you sure?'

'Quite sure.'

I took the book from her and looked at the print on the pages. It looked like any book would, to me. So I put it down, and went to the shelves and picked up another. That looked the same. Then I took up another; and that had pictures. You never saw any pictures like them. One was of two bare girls. I looked at Maud, and my heart seemed to shrink.

'You knew it all,' I said. That's the first thing I thought. 'You said that you knew nothing, when all the time— '

'I did know nothing,' she said.

'You knew it all! You made me kiss you. You made me want to kiss you again! When all the time, you had been coming here and— '

My voice broke off. She watched my face. I thought of the times I had come to the library door, heard the smothered rising and falling of her voice. I thought of her reading to gentlemen— to Gentleman— while I sat, eating tarts and custards with Mrs Stiles and Mr Way. I put my hand to my heart. It had shrunk so small and tight, it hurt me.

'Oh, Maud,' I said. 'If I had only known! To think, of you— ' I began to cry. 'To think of your uncle— Oh!' My hand flew to my mouth. 'My uncle!' That thought was queerer than anything. 'Oh!' I still held the book. Now I looked at it and let it drop as if it burned me. 'Oh!'

It was all I could say. Maud stood very still, her hand upon the desk. I wiped my eyes.

Then I looked again at the smears of ink on her fingers.

'How can you bear it?'

She did not answer.

'To think of him,' I said, 'that sod! Oh, stinking was too good for him!' I wrung my hands. 'And now, to look at you and see you here, still here, with his books about you— !'

I gazed across the shelves; and wanted to smash them. I went to her, and reached to draw her close. But she held me off. She moved her head, in a way that at any other time I should have called proud.

'Don't pity me,' she said, 'because of him. He's dead. But I am still what he made me. I shall always be that. Half of the books are spoiled, or sold. But I am here. And look.

You must know everything. Look how I get my living.'

She picked up a paper from the desk— the paper that I had seen her write on. The ink 351

was still damp. 'I asked a friend of my uncle's, once,' she said, 'if I might write for him.

He sent me to a home for distressed gentlewomen.' She smiled, unhappily. 'They say that ladies don't write such things. But, I am not a lady

I looked at her, not understanding. I looked at the paper in her hand. Then my heart missed its beat.

'You are writing books, like his!' I said. She nodded, not speaking. Her face was grave.

I don't know how my face seemed. I think it was burning. 'Books, like that!' I said. 'I can't believe it. Of all the ways I thought I'd find you— And then, to find you here, all on your own in this great house— '

'I am not alone,' she said. 'I have told you: I have William Inker and his wife to care for me.'

'To find you here, all on your own, writing books like that?-V

Again, she looked almost proud. 'Why shouldn't I?' she said.

I did not know. 'It just don't seem right,' I said. 'A girl, like you— '

'Like me? There are no girls like me.'

I did not answer for a moment. I looked again at the paper in her hand. Then I said quietly,

'Is there money in it?'

She blushed. A little,' she said. 'Enough, if I write swiftly.'

And you— You like it?'

She blushed still harder. 'I find I am good at it. . .' She bit her lip. She was still watching my face. 'Do you hate me for it?' she said.

'Hate you!' I said. 'When I have fifty proper reasons for hating you, already; and only— '

Only love you, I wanted to say. I didn't say it, though. What can I tell you? If she could still be proud, then so, for now, could I ... I didn't need to say it, anyway: she could read the words in my face. Her colour changed, her gaze grew clearer. She put a hand across her eyes. Her fingers left more smudges of black there. I still couldn't bear it. I quickly reached and stopped her wrist; then wet my thumb and began to rub at the flesh of her brow. I did it, thinking only of the ink, and her white skin; but she felt my hand and grew very still. My thumb moved slower. It moved to her cheek.

Then I found I had cupped her face in my hand. She closed her eyes. Her cheek was smooth— not like a pearl, warmer than pearls. She turned her head and put her mouth against my palm. Her lips were soft. The smudge stayed black upon her brow; and after all, I thought, was only ink.

When I kissed her, she shook. I remembered what it was, then, to make her shake by kissing her; and began to shake, too. I had been ill. I thought I might faint! We moved apart. She put her hand against her heart. She had still held the paper. Now it fluttered to the floor. I stooped and caught it up and smoothed the creases from it.

'What does it say?' I said, when I had.

She said, 'It is filled with all the words for how I want you . . . Look.'

She took up the lamp. The room had got darker, the rain still beat against the glass.

But she led me to the fire and made me sit, and sat beside me. Her silk skirts rose in a rush, then sank. She put the lamp upon the floor, spread the paper flat; and began to 352

show me the words she had written, one by one.

Notes

Many books provided historical detail and inspiration. I'm particularly indebted to V.A.C. Gatrell's The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770-1868

(Oxford, 1994) and Marcia Hamilcar's Legally Dead: Experiences During Seven Weeks' Detention in a Private Asylum (London, 1910).

The index upon which Christopher Lilly is at work is based on the three annotated bibliographies published by Henry Spencer Ashbee under the pseudonym Pisanus Fraxi: Index Librorum Prohibitorum: being Notes Bio- Biblio- Icono- graphical and Critical, on Curious and Uncommon Books (London, 1877); Centuria Librorum Absconditorum: being Notes Bio- Biblio- Icono- graphical and Critical, on Curious and Uncommon Books (London, 1879); and Catena Librorum Tacendorum: being Notes Bio- Biblio- Icono- graphical and critical, on Curious and Uncommon Books (London, 1885). Mr Lilly's statements on book-collecting echo those of Ashbee, but in all other respects he is entirely fictitious.

All of the texts cited by Maud are real. They include: The Festival of the Passions, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, The Curtain Drawn Up, The Bagnio Miscellany, The Birchen Bouquet, and The Lustful Turk. For publishing details of these see Ashbee, above.

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