Fingersmith

‘I defy you—positively defy you, sir!—to name me any institution so nurturing of the atrocious acts of lechery as the Catholic Church of Rome . . .’

  He does not look at me again until supper is ended. Then has me read for an hour from an antique text, The Nunns’ Complaint Against the Fryars.

  Richard sits and hears me, perfectly still. But when I have finished and rise to leave, he rises also: ‘Let me,’ he says. We walk together the little way to the door. My uncle does not lift his head, but keeps his gaze on his own smudged hands. He has a little pearl-handled knife, its ancient blade sharpened almost to a crescent, with which he is paring the skin from an apple—one of the small, dry, bitter apples that grow in the Briar orchard.

  Richard checks to see that his gaze is turned, then looks at me frankly. His tone he keeps polite, however. ‘I must ask you,’ he says, ‘if you wish to continue with your drawing-lessons, now that I’m returned? I hope you do.’ He waits. I do not answer. ‘Shall I come, as usual, tomorrow?’ He waits again. He has his hand upon the door and has drawn it back—not far enough, though, to let me step about it; nor does he pull it further when he sees me wishing to pass. Instead, his look grows puzzled. ‘You mustn’t be modest,’ he says. He means, You mustn’t be weak. ‘You are not, are you?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Good, then. I shall come, at the usual time. You must show me the work you’ve done while I’ve been away. I should say a little more labour and—well, who knows? We might be ready to surprise your uncle with the fruits of your instruction. What do you think? Shall we give it another two weeks? Two weeks or, at the most, three?’

  Again, I feel the nerve and daring of him, feel my own blood rise to meet it. But there comes, beneath or beyond it, a sinking, a fluttering—a vague and nameless movement—a sort of panic. He waits for my reply, and the fluttering grows wilder. We have plotted so carefully. We have committed, already, one dreadful deed, and set in train another. I know all that must be done now. I know I must seem to love him, let him appear to win me, then confess his winning to Sue. How easy it should be! How I have longed for it! How hard I have gazed at the walls of my uncle’s estate, wishing they might part and release me! But now that the day of our escape is close, I hesitate; and am afraid to say why. I gaze again at my uncle’s hands, the pearl, the apple giving up its skin to the knife.

  ‘Let us say, three weeks—perhaps longer,’ I say finally. ‘Perhaps longer, should I feel I need it.’

  A look of irritation or anger disturbs the surface of his face; but when he speaks, he makes his voice soft. ‘You are modest. Your talent is better than that. Three weeks will do it, I assure you.’

  He draws back the door at last and bows me out. And though I do not turn, I know he lingers to watch me mount the stairs—as solicitous for my safety, as any of my uncle’s gentlemen friends.

  He will grow more solicitous, soon; but for now at least, the days fall back into something like a familiar pattern. He passes his mornings at work on the prints, then comes to my rooms, to teach me drawing—to keep close to me, that is to say; to look and to murmur, while I daub paint on card; to be grave and ostentatiously gallant.

  The days fall back in their pattern—except that, where before they had Agnes in them, now they have Sue.

  And Sue is not like Agnes. She knows more. She knows her own worth and purpose. She knows she must listen and watch, to see that Mr Rivers does not come too close, or speak too confidentially, to her mistress; but she also knows that when he does come near she is to turn her head aside and be deaf to his whispers. She does turn her head, I see her do it; but I see her, too, steal glances at us from the edge of her eye—study our reflections in the chimney-glass and windows—watch our very shadows! The room, in which I have passed so many captive hours I know it as a prisoner knows his cell—the room seems changed to me now. It seems filled with shining surfaces, each one an eye of hers.

  When those eyes meet mine, they are veiled and blameless. But when they meet Richard’s, I see the leap of knowledge or understanding that passes between them; and I cannot look at her.

  For of course, though she knows much, what she has is a counterfeit knowledge, and worthless; and her satisfaction in the keeping of it—in the nursing of what she supposes her secret—is awful to me. She does not know she is the hinge of all our scheme, the point about which our plot turns; she thinks I am that point. She does not suspect that, in seeming to mock me, Richard mocks her: that after he has turned to her in private, perhaps to smile, perhaps to grimace, he turns to me, and smiles and grimaces in earnest.

  And where his torturing of Agnes pricked me on to little cruelties of my own, now I am only unnerved. My consciousness of Sue makes me too conscious of myself—makes me, now reckless, as Richard is sometimes reckless, in the gross performance of our sham passion; now guarded and watchful, hesitating. I will be bold for an hour—or meek, or coy—and then, in the final minute of his stay, I will tremble. I will be betrayed by the movement of my own limbs, my blood, my breath.—I suppose she reads that as love.

  Richard, at least, knows it for weakness. The days creep by: the first week passes, and we begin the second. I sense his bafflement, feel the weight of his expectation: feel it gather, turn, grow sour. He looks at my work, and begins to shake his head.

  ‘I am afraid, Miss Lilly,’ he says, more than once, ‘that you want discipline, yet. I thought your touch firmer than this. I am sure it was firmer, a month ago. Don’t say you’ve forgotten your lessons, in my short absence. After all our labour! There is one thing an artist must always avoid, in the execution of his work: that is, hesitation. For that leads to weakness; and through weakness, greater designs than this one have foundered. You understand? You do understand me?’

  I will not answer. He leaves, and I keep at my place. Sue comes to my side.

  ‘Never mind it, miss,’ she says gently, ‘if Mr Rivers seems to say hard things about your picture. Why, you got those pears, quite to the life.’

  ‘You think so, Sue?’

  She nods. I look into her face—into her eye, with its single fleck of darker brown. Then I look at the shapeless daubs of colour I have put upon the card.

  ‘It’s a wretched painting, Sue,’ I say.

  She puts her hand upon mine. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘but ain’t you learning?’

  I am, but not quickly enough. He suggests, in time, that we go walking in the park.

  ‘We must work from nature now,’ he says.

  ‘I should rather not,’ I tell him. I have my paths, that I like to walk with Sue beside me. I think that to walk them with him will spoil them. ‘I should rather not,’ I say again.

  He frowns, then smiles. ‘As your instructor,’ he says, ‘I must insist.’

  I hope it will rain. But though the sky above Briar has been grey all that winter long—has been grey, it seems to me, for seven years!—it lightens now, for him. There is only a quick, soft wind, that comes gusting about my un-skirted ankles as Mr Way tugs open the door.—‘Thank you, Mr Way,’ says Richard, bending his arm for me to take. He wears a low black hat, a dark wool coat, and lavender gloves. Mr Way observes the gloves, then looks at me in a kind of satisfaction, a kind of scorn.

  Fancy yourself a lady, do you? he said to me, the day he carried me, kicking, to the ice-house. Well, we’ll see.

  I will not walk to the ice-house today, with Richard, but choose another path—a longer, blander path, that circles my uncle’s estate, rises and overlooks the rear of the house, the stables, woods, and chapel. I know the view too well to want to gaze at it, and walk with my eyes upon the ground. He keeps my arm in his, and Sue follows behind us—first close, then falling back when he makes our pace grow brisk. We do not speak, but as we walk he slowly draws me to him. My skirt rises, awkwardly.

  When I try to pull away, however, he will not let me. I say at last: ‘You need not hold me so close.’

  He smiles. ‘We must seem convincing.’

  ‘You needn’t
grip me so. Have you anything to whisper, that I don’t already know?’

  He gazes quickly over his shoulder. ‘She would think it queer,’ he says, ‘were I to let slip these chances to be near you. Anyone would think that queer.’

  ‘She knows you do not love me. You have no need to dote.’

  ‘Shouldn’t a gentleman dote, in the springtime, when he has the chance?’ He puts back his head. ‘Look at this sky, Maud. See how sickeningly blue it shows. So blue’—he has lifted his hand—‘it jars with my gloves. That’s nature for you. No sense of fashion. London skies, at least, are better-mannered: they’re like tailors’ walls, an eternal drab.’ He smiles again, and draws me closer. ‘But of course, you will know this, soon.’

  I try to imagine myself in a tailor’s shop. I recall scenes from The Whipping Milliners. I turn and, like him, quickly glance at Sue. She is watching, with a frown of what I take to be satisfaction, the bulging of my skirt about his leg. Again I attempt to pull from him, and again he keeps me close. I say, ‘Will you let me go?’ And, when he does nothing: ‘I must suppose, then, since you know I don’t care to be smothered, that you take a delight in tormenting me.’

  He catches my eye. ‘I am like any man,’ he says, ‘preoccupied with what I may not have. Hasten the day of our union. I think you’ll find my attention will cool pretty rapidly, after that.’

  Then I say nothing. We walk on, and in time he lets me go, in order to cup his hands about a cigarette and light it. I look again at Sue. The ground has risen, the breeze is stronger, and two or three lengths of brown hair have come loose from beneath her bonnet and whip about her face. She carries our bags and baskets, and has no hand free to secure them. Behind her, her cloak billows like a sail.

  ‘Is she all right?’ asks Richard, drawing on his cigarette.

  I turn and look ahead. ‘Quite all right.’

  ‘She is stouter than Agnes, anyway. Poor Agnes! I wonder how she does, hey?’ He takes my arm again, and laughs. I do not answer, and his laughter fades. ‘Come, Maud,’ he says, in a cooler tone, ‘don’t be so spinsterish. What has happened to you?’

  ‘Nothing has happened to me.’

  He studies my profile. ‘Then, why do you make us wait? Everything is in place. Everything is ready. I have taken a house for us, in London. London houses do not come cheaply, Maud . . .’

  I walk on, in silence, aware of his gaze. He pulls me close again. ‘You have not, I suppose,’ he says, ‘had a change of heart? Have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘And yet, you still delay. Why is that?’ I do not answer. ‘Maud, I ask you again. Something has happened, since I saw you last. What is it?’

  ‘Nothing has happened,’ I say.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Nothing, but what we planned for.’

  ‘And you know what must be done now?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do it then, will you? Act like a lover. Smile, blush, grow foolish.’

  ‘Do I not do those things?’

  ‘You do—then spoil them, with a grimace or a flinch. Look at you now. Lean into my arm, damn you. Will it kill you, to feel my hand upon yours?—I am sorry.’ I have grown stiff at his words. ‘I am sorry, Maud.’

  ‘Let go of my arm,’ I say.

  We go further, side by side but in silence. Sue plods behind—I hear her breaths, like sighs. Richard throws down the butt of his cigarette, tears up a switch of grass and begins to lash at his boots. ‘How filthy red this earth is!’ he says. ‘But what a treat for little Charles . . .’ He smiles to himself. Then his foot turns up a flint and he almost stumbles. That makes him curse. He rights himself, and looks me over. ‘I see you walk more nimbly. You like it, hmm? You may walk in London like this, you know. On the parks and heaths. Did you know? Or else, you may choose not to walk, ever again—you may rent carriages, chairs, men to drive and carry you about—’

  ‘I know what I may do.’

  ‘Do you? Truly?’ He puts the stem of grass to his mouth and grows thoughtful. ‘I wonder. You are afraid, I think. Of what? Being alone? Is it that? You need never fear solitude, Maud, while you are rich.’

  ‘You think I fear solitude?’ I say. We are close to the wall of my uncle’s park. It is high, grey, dry as powder. ‘You think I fear that? I fear nothing, nothing.’

  He casts the grass aside, takes up my arm. ‘Why, then,’ he says, ‘do you keep us here, in such dreadful suspense?’

  I do not answer. We have slowed our step. Now we hear Sue, still breathing hard behind us, and walk on more quickly. When he speaks again, his tone has changed.

  ‘You spoke, a moment ago, of torment. The truth is, I think you like to torment yourself, by prolonging this time.’

  I shrug, as if in carelessness; though I do not feel careless. ‘My uncle said something similar to me once,’ I say. ‘That was before I became like him. It is hardly a torment to me now, to wait. I am used to it.’

  ‘I am not, however,’ he replies. ‘Nor do I wish to take instruction in the art, from you or anyone. I have lost too much, in the past, through waiting. I am cleverer now, at manipulating events to match my needs. That is what I have learned, while you have learned patience. Do you understand me, Maud?’

  I turn my head, half-close my eyes. ‘I don’t want to understand you,’ I say tiredly. ‘I wish you would not speak at all.’

  ‘I will speak, until you hear.’

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘Hear this.’ He brings his mouth close to my face. His beard, his lips, his breath, are tainted with smoke, like a devil’s. He says: ‘Remember our contract. Remember how we made it. Remember that when I came to you first I came, not quite as a gentleman, and with little to lose—unlike you, Miss Lilly, who saw me alone, at midnight, in your own room . . .’ He draws back. ‘I suppose your reputation must count for something, even here; I’m afraid that ladies’ always do.—But naturally you knew that, when you received me.’

  His tone has some new edge to it, some quality I have not heard before. But we have changed our course: when I gaze at his face the light is all behind him, making his expression hard to read.

  I say carefully, ‘You call me a lady; but I am hardly that.’

  ‘And yet, I think your uncle must consider you one. Will he like to think you corrupted?’

  ‘He has corrupted me himself!’

  ‘Then, will he like to think the work taken over by another man’s hand? I am speaking only, of course, of what he will suppose to be the case.’

  I move away. ‘You misunderstand him, entirely. He considers me a sort of engine, for the reading and copying of texts.’

  ‘All the worse. He shan’t like it, when the engine bucks. What say he disposes of it and makes himself another?’

  Now I can feel the beat of the blood in my brow. I put my fingers to my eyes. ‘Don’t be tiresome, Richard. Disposes of it, how?’

  ‘Why, by sending it home . . .’

  The beat seems to stumble, then quickens. I draw back my fingers, but again the light is behind him and I cannot quite make out his face. I say, very quietly, ‘I shall be no use to you, in a madhouse.’

  ‘You are no use to me now, while you delay! Be careful I don’t grow tired of this scheme. I shan’t be kind to you, then.’

  ‘And is this kindness?’ I say.

  We have moved, at last, into shadow, and I see his look: it is honest, amused, amazed. He says: ‘This is dreadful villainy, Maud. When did I ever call it anything else?’

  We stop, close as sweethearts. His tone has grown light again, but his eye is hard—quite hard. I feel, for the first time, what it would be to be afraid of him.

  He turns and calls to Sue. ‘Not far now, Suky! We are almost there, I think.’ To me he murmurs: ‘I shall need some minutes with her, alone.’

  ‘To secure her,’ I say. ‘As you have me.’

  ‘That work is done,’ he says complacent
ly; ‘and she, at least, sticks better. —What?’ I have shuddered, or my look has changed. ‘You don’t suspect her of qualms? Maud? You don’t suppose her weakening, or playing us false? Is that why you hesitate?’ I shake my head. ‘Well,’ he goes on, ‘all the more reason for me to see her, to find out how she thinks we do. Have her come to me, today or tomorrow. Find out some way, will you? Be sly.’

  He puts his smoke-stained finger to his mouth. Presently Sue comes, and rests at my side. She is flushed from the weight of the bags. Her cloak still billows, her hair still whips, and I want more than anything to draw her to me, to touch and tidy her. I think I begin to, I think I half-reach for her; then I become conscious of Richard and his shrewd, considering gaze. I cross my arms before me and turn away.

  Next morning I have her take him a coal from the fire, to light his cigarette from; and I stand with my brow against my dressing-room window and watch them whisper. She keeps her head turned from me, but when she leaves him he raises his eyes to me and holds my gaze, as he held it once before, in darkness. Remember our contract, he seems again to say. Then he drops his cigarette and stands heavily upon it; then shakes free the clinging red soil from his shoes.

  After that, I feel the mounting pressure of our plot as I think men must feel the straining of checked machinery, tethered beasts, the gathering of tropical storms. I wake each day and think: Today I will do it! Today I will draw free the bolt and let the engine race, unleash the beast, puncture the lowering clouds! Today, I will let him claim me—!

  But, I do not. I look at Sue, and there comes, always, that shadow, that darkness—a panic, I suppose it, a simple fear—a quaking, a caving—a dropping, as into the sour mouth of madness—

  Madness, my mother’s malady, perhaps beginning its slow ascent in me! That thought makes me more frightened yet. I take, for a day or two, more of my drops: they calm me, but change me. My uncle marks it.

  ‘You grow clumsy,’ he says, one morning. I have mishandled a book. ‘You think I have you come, day after day, to my library, to abuse it?’