Fingersmith

  So my thoughts run, while the dawns of London break grubbily about me; while Mr Ibbs cooks bloaters, while his sister screams, while Gentleman coughs in his bed, while Mrs Sucksby turns in hers, and snores, and sighs.

  If only they would not keep me so close! One day, I think, each time a door is made fast at my back, one day they’ll forget to lock it. Then I’ll run. They’ll grow tired of always watching.—But, they do not. I complain of the thick, exhausted air. I complain of the mounting heat. I ask to go, oftener than I need, to the privy: for the privy lies at the other end of that dark and dusty passage at the back of the house, and shows me daylight. I know I could run from there to freedom, if I had the chance; but the chance does not come: Dainty walks there with me every time, and waits until I come out.—Once I do try to run, and she easily catches me and brings me back; and Mrs Sucksby hits her, for letting me go.

  Richard takes me upstairs, and hits me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, as he does it. ‘But you know how hard we have worked for this. All you must do is wait, for the bringing of the lawyer. You are good at waiting, you told me once. Why won’t you oblige us?’

  The blow makes a bruise. Every day I see how it has lightened, thinking, Before that bruise quite fades, I will escape!

  I pass many hours in silence, brooding on this. I sit, in the kitchen, in the shadows at the edge of lamp-light—Perhaps they’ll forget me, I think. Sometimes it almost seems that they do: the stir of the house goes on, Dainty and John will kiss and quarrel, the babies will shriek, the men will play at cards and dice. Now and then, other men will come—or boys, or else, more rarely, women and girls—with plunder, to be sold to Mr Ibbs and then sold on. They come, any hour of the day, with astonishing things—gross things, gaudy things—poor stuff, it seems to me, all of it: hats, handkerchiefs, cheap jewels, lengths of lace—once a hank of yellow hair still bound with a ribbon. A tumbling stream of things—not like the books that came to Briar, that came as if sinking to rest on the bed of a viscid sea, through dim and silent fathoms; nor like the things the books described, the things of convenience and purpose—the chairs, the pillows, the beds, the curtains, the ropes, the rods . . .

  There are no books, here. There is only life in all its awful chaos. And the only purpose the things are made to serve, is the making of money.

  And the greatest money-making thing of all, is me.

  ‘Not chilly, dear girl?’ Mrs Sucksby will say. ‘Not peckish? Why, how warm your brow is! Not taking a fever, I hope? We can’t have you sick.’ I do not answer. I have heard it all before. I let her tuck rugs about me, I let her sit and chafe my fingers and cheek. ‘Are you rather low?’ she’ll say. ‘Just look at them lips. They’d look handsome in a smile, they would. Not going to smile? Not even’—she swallows—‘for me? Only glance, dear girl, at the almanack.’ She has scored through the days with crosses of black. ‘There’s a month nearly gone by already, and only two more to come. Then we know what follows! That ain’t so long, is it?’

  She says it, almost pleadingly; but I gaze steadily into her face—as if to say that a day, an hour, a second, is too long, when passed with her.

  ‘Oh, now!’ Her fingers clench about my hand; then slacken, then pat. ‘Still seems rather queer to you, does it, sweetheart?’ she says. ‘Never mind. What can we get you, that will lift you spirits? Hey? A posy of flowers? A bow, for your pretty hair? A trinket box? A singing bird, in a cage?’ Perhaps I make some movement. ‘Aha! Where’s John? John, here’s a shilling—it’s a bad one, so hand it over fast—nip out and get Miss Lilly a bird in a cage.—Yellow bird, my dear, or blue?—No matter, John, so long as it’s pretty . . .’

  She winks. John goes, and returns in half an hour with a finch in a wicker basket. They fuss about that, then. They hang it from a beam, they shake it to make it flutter; Charley Wag, the dog, leaps and whines beneath it. It will not sing, however—the room is too dark—it will only beat and pluck at its wings and bite the bars of its cage. At last they forget it. John takes to feeding it the blue heads of matches—he says he plans, in time, to make it swallow a long wick, and then to ignite it.

  Of Sue, no-one speaks at all. Once, Dainty looks at me as she puts out our suppers, and scratches her ear.

  ‘Funny thing,’ she says, ‘how Sue ain’t come back from the country, yet. Ain’t it?’

  Mrs Sucksby glances at Richard, at Mr Ibbs, and then at me. She wets her mouth. ‘Look here,’ she says to Dainty, ‘I haven’t wanted to talk about it, but you might as well know it, now. The truth is, Sue ain’t coming back, not ever. That last little bit of business that Gentleman left her to see to had money in. More money than was meant for her share. She’s up and cut, Dainty, with the cash.’

  Dainty’s mouth falls open. ‘No! Sue Trinder? What was like your own daughter?—Johnny!’ John chooses that moment to come down, for his supper. ‘Johnny, you ain’t going to guess what! Sue’s took all of Mrs Sucksby’s money, and that’s why she ain’t come back. Done a flit. Just about broke Mrs Sucksby’s heart. If we see her, we got to kill her.’

  ‘Done a flit? Sue Trinder?’ He snorts. ‘She ain’t got the nerve.’

  ‘Well, she done it.’

  ‘She done it,’ says Mrs Sucksby, with another glance at me, ‘and I don’t want to hear her name said in this house. That’s all.’

  ‘Sue Trinder, turned out a sharper!’ says John.

  ‘That’s bad blood for you,’ says Richard. He also looks at me. ‘Shows up in queer ways.’

  ‘What did I just say?’ says Mrs Sucksby hoarsely. ‘I won’t have her name said.’ She lifts her arm, and John falls silent. But he shakes his head and gives a whistle. Then after a moment, he laughs.

  ‘More meat for us, though, ain’t it?’ he says, as he fills his plate. ‘—Or would be, if it wasn’t for the lady there.’

  Mrs Sucksby sees him scowling at me; and leans and hits him.

  After that, if the men and women who come to the house ask after Sue, they are taken aside and told, like John and Dainty, that she has turned out wicked, double-crossed Mrs Sucksby and broken her heart. They all say the same: ‘Sue Trinder? Who’d have thought her so fly? That’s the mother, that is, coming out in the child . . .’ They shake their heads, look sorry. But it seems to me, too, that they forget her quickly enough. It seems to me that even John and Dainty forget her. It is a short-memoried house, after all. It is a short-memoried district. Many times I wake in the night to the sound of footsteps, the creak of wheels—a man is running, a family taking flight, quietly, in darkness. The woman with the bandaged face, who nurses her baby on the step of the house with the shutters with the heart-shaped holes, disappears; her place is taken by another—who, in her turn, moves on, to be replaced by another, who drinks. What’s Sue, to them?

  What’s Sue, to me? I’m afraid, here, to remember the pressing of her mouth, the sliding of her hand. But I’m afraid, too, of forgetting. I wish I could dream of her. I never do. Sometimes I take out the picture of the woman I supposed my mother, and look for her features there—her eyes, her pointed chin. Mrs Sucksby sees me do it. She watches, fretfully. Finally she takes the picture away.

  ‘Don’t you be thinking,’ she says, ‘on things that are done and can’t be changed. All right, dear girl? You think of the time to come.’

  She imagines I brood upon my past. But I am still brooding on my future. I am still watching keys as they are turned—soon one will be left in a lock, I know it. I am watching Dainty and John, Mr Ibbs—they are growing too used to me. They’ll turn careless, they’ll forget. Soon, I think. Soon, Maud.

  So I think; until this happens.

  Richard takes to leaving the house each day, not saying where he is going. He has no money, and will have none until the bringing of the lawyer: I think he goes only to walk the dusty streets, or to sit in the parks; I think the heat and the closeness of the Borough kitchen stifles him as much as it stifles me. One day, however, he goes, but returns in an hour. The house i
s quiet, for once: Mr Ibbs and John are out, and Dainty is sleeping in a chair. Mrs Sucksby lets him into the kitchen, and he throws off his hat and kisses her cheek. His face is flushed and his eyes are gleaming.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ he says.

  ‘Dear boy, I can’t imagine! Have all your horses come up at once?’

  ‘Better than that,’ he says. He reaches for me. ‘Maud? What do you think? Come, out of the shadows. Don’t look so fierce! Save that, till you’ve heard my news. It concerns you, rather.’

  He has seized my chair and begun to haul me closer to the table. I shake him off. ‘Concerns me, how?’ I say, moodily. I have been sitting, thinking over the shape of my life.

  ‘You’ll see. Look here.’ He puts his hand to his waistcoat pocket and draws something out. A paper. He waves it.

  ‘A bond, dear boy?’ says Mrs Sucksby, stepping to his side.

  ‘A letter,’ he says, ‘from—well, guess who? Will you guess, Maud?’ I say nothing. He pulls a face. ‘Won’t you play? Shall I give you a clue? It is someone you know. A friend, very dear.’

  My heart gives a lurch. ‘Sue!’ I say at once. But he jerks his head, and snorts.

  ‘Not her. You think they give them paper, where she is?’ He glances at Dainty; who opens and closes her eyes, and then sleeps on. ‘Not her,’ he says again, more quietly. ‘I mean, another friend of yours. You won’t guess?’

  I turn my face. ‘Why should I? You mean to tell me, don’t you?’

  He waits another moment; then: ‘Mr Lilly,’ he says. ‘Your uncle, that was.—Aha!’ I have started. ‘You are interested!’

  ‘Let me see,’ I say. Perhaps my uncle is searching for me, after all.

  ‘Now, now.’ He holds the letter high. ‘It has my name upon it, not yours.’

  ‘Let me see!’

  I rise, pull down his arm, see a line of ink; then push him away.

  ‘That’s not my uncle’s hand,’ I say—so disappointed, I could strike him.

  ‘I never said it was,’ says Richard. ‘The letter’s from him, but sent by another: his steward, Mr Way.’

  ‘Mr Way?’

  ‘More curious still, hmm? Well, you shall understand that, when you read it. Here.’ He unfolds the paper and hands it to me. ‘Read this side, first. It’s a postscript; and explains, at least—what I’ve always thought so queer—why we’ve heard nothing from Briar, till now . . .’

  The hand is cramped. The ink is smeared. I tilt the paper to catch what light I can; then read.

  Dear Sir.—I found today among my master’s private papers, this letter, & do suppose he meant it to be sent; only, he fell into a grave indisposition shortly after having wrote it, sir, which indisposition he continues in to this day.—Mrs Stiles & me did think at first, that this was through his niece having run off in such a scandalous manner; though we beg leave to notice, sir, that his words herein suggest him not to have been overly astonished by that deed; as, begging leave again sir, no more were we.—We send this respectfully, sir, and presume to hope it finds you cheerful.—Mr Martin Way, Steward of Briar.

  I look up, but say nothing. Richard sees my expression and smiles. ‘Read the rest,’ he says. I turn the paper over. The letter is short, and dated 3rd of May—seven weeks ago, now. It says this.

  To Mr Richard Rivers, from Christopher Lilly, Esq.—Sir. I suppose you have taken my niece, Maud Lilly. I wish you joy of her! Her mother was a strumpet, and she has all her mother’s instincts, if not her face. The check to the progress of my work will be severe; but I take comfort in my loss, from this: that I fancy you, sir, a man who knows the proper treating of a whore.—C.L.

  I read it, two or three times; then read it again; then let it fall. Mrs Sucksby instantly takes it up, to read herself. As she labours over the words, she grows flushed. When she has finished, she gives a cry:

  ‘That blackguard! Oh!’

  Her cry wakes Dainty. ‘Who, Mrs Sucksby? Who?’ she says.

  ‘A wicked man, that’s all. A wicked man, who is ill, as he ought to be. No-one you know. Go back to sleep.’ She reaches for me. ‘Oh, my dear—’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ I say.

  The letter has upset me, more than I should have believed. I don’t know if it is the words that have wounded me most; or the final proof they seem to give, to Mrs Sucksby’s story. But I cannot bear to be watched by her, and by Richard, with my feelings in such a stir. I walk as far from them as I may—some two or three steps—to the brown kitchen wall; then I walk from there to another wall, and from there to a door; and I seize and vainly turn the handle.

  ‘Let me out,’ I say.

  Mrs Sucksby comes to me. She makes to reach, not for the door, but for my face. I push her off—go quickly, to the second door, and then the third.—‘Let me out! Let me out!’ She follows.

  ‘Dear girl,’ she says, ‘don’t let yourself be upset by that old villain. Why, he ain’t worth your tears!’

  ‘Will you let me out?’

  ‘Let you out, to where? Ain’t everything here, that you need now? Ain’t everything here, or coming? Think of them jewels, them gowns—’

  She has come close again. Again, I push her away. I step back to the gravy-coloured wall, and put my hand to it—a fist—and beat and beat it. Then I look up. Before my eyes is the almanack, its pages swarming with crosses of black. I catch hold of it, and pluck it from its pin. ‘Dear girl—’ Mrs Sucksby says again. I turn and throw it at her.

  But afterwards, I fall weeping; and when the fit of tears has passed, I think I am changed. My spirit has gone. The letter has taken it from me. The almanack goes back upon the wall, and I let it stay there. It grows steadily blacker, as we all inch nearer to our fates. The season advances. June grows warm, then even warmer. The house begins to be filled with flies. They drive Richard to a fury: he pursues them with a slipper, red-faced and sweating.—‘You know I am a gentleman’s son?’ he will say. ‘Would you think it, to look at me now? Would you?’

  I do not answer. I have begun, like him, to long for the coming of Sue’s birthday in August. I will say anything they wish, I think, to any kind of solicitor or lawyer. But I pass my days in a sort of restless lethargy; and at night—for it is too hot to sleep—at night I stand at the narrow window in Mrs Sucksby’s room, gazing blankly at the street.

  ‘Come away from there, sweetheart,’ Mrs Sucksby will murmur if she wakes. They say there is cholera in the Borough. ‘Who knows but you won’t take a fever, from the draught?’

  May one take a fever, from a draught of foetid air? I lie down at her side until she sleeps; then go back to the window, press my face to the gap between the sashes, breathe deeper.

  I almost forget that I mean to escape. Perhaps they sense it. For at last they leave me, one afternoon—at the start of July, I think—with only Dainty to guard me.

  ‘You watch her close,’ Mrs Sucksby tells her, drawing on gloves. ‘Anything happen to her, I’ll kill you.’ Me, she kisses. ‘All right, my dear? I shan’t be gone an hour. Bring you back a present, shall I?’

  I do not answer. Dainty lets her out, then pockets the key. She sits, draws a lamp across the table-top, and takes up work. Not washing napkins—for there are fewer babies, now: Mrs Sucksby has begun to find homes for them, and the house is daily growing stiller—but the pulling of silk stitches from stolen handkerchiefs. She does it listlessly, however. ‘Dull work,’ she says, seeing me look. ‘Sue used to do this. Care to try?’

  I shake my head, let my eyelids fall; and presently, she yawns. I hear that; and am suddenly wide awake. If she will sleep, I think, I might try the doors—steal the key from her pocket! She yawns again. I begin to sweat. The clock ticks off the minutes—fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. Half an hour. I am dressed in the violet gown and white silk slippers. I have no hat, no money—never mind, never mind. Mr Hawtrey will give you that.

  Sleep, Dainty. Dainty, sleep. Sleep, sleep . . . Sleep, damn you!

  But she only yawns, and nods. The
hour is almost up.

  ‘Dainty,’ I say.

  She jumps. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m afraid—I’m afraid I must visit the privy.’

  She puts down her work, pulls a face. ‘Must you? Right now, this minute?’

  ‘Yes.’ I place my hand on my stomach. ‘I think I am sick.’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘Never knew a girl for sickness, like you. Is that what they call a lady’s constitution?’

  ‘I think it must be. I’m sorry, Dainty. Will you open the door?’

  ‘I’ll go with you, though.’

  ‘You needn’t. You might stay at your sewing, if you like . . .’

  ‘Mrs Sucksby says I must go with you, every time; else I’ll catch it. Here.’

  She sighs, and stretches. The silk of her gown is stained beneath the arms, the stain edged white. She takes out the key, unlocks the door, leads me into the passage. I go slowly, watching the lurching of her back. I remember having run from her before, and how she caught me: I know that, even if I might hit her aside now, she would only rise again at once and chase me. I might knock her head against the bricks . . . But I imagine doing it, and my wrists grow weak, I don’t think I could.

  ‘Go on,’ she says, when I hesitate. ‘Why, what’s up?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I catch hold of the privy door and draw it to me, slowly. ‘You needn’t wait,’ I say.

  ‘No, I’ll wait.’ She leans against the wall. ‘Do me good, take the air.’