Fingersmith

  Again he looked about him. Then he looked at me—just as, a moment before, I had looked at him—as if seeing me for the first time. He looked at my hair, my dress, my india-rubber boots. I drew my feet under my skirt.

  ‘I—I’m not sure,’ he said.

  ‘Not sure? Not sure of what? Of whether you want to go back to your aunty’s and live with the pigs? Or whether you want to go and be man to Mr Rivers, in London—London, mind! Remember them elephants a boy can ride on for a shilling? Tricky choice, I call that.’

  He lowered his gaze. I looked at Nurse Spiller. She had glanced our way, was yawning, and had taken out a watch.

  ‘Pigs?’ I said quickly. ‘Or elephants? Which is it to be? For God’s sake, which?’

  He worked his lips.

  ‘Elephants,’ he said, after a terrible silence.

  ‘Good boy. Good boy. Thank God. Now, listen. How much money have you got?’

  He swallowed. ‘Five shillings and sixpence,’ he said.

  ‘All right. Here’s what you must do. You must go to any town, and find a locksmith’s shop; and when you find it you must ask them for—’ I pressed my hand to my eyes. I thought I felt that cloudy water rising again, that flapping curtain. I nearly screamed in fright. Then the curtain drew back—‘for a ward key,’ I said, ‘a ward key, with a one-inch blank. Say your master wants it. If the man won’t sell it, you must steal one. Now, don’t look like that! We shall send the man another when we reach London. When you’ve got the blank, keep it safe. Go next to a blacksmith’s. Get a file—see my fingers?—same width as this. Show me the width I mean. Good boy, you got it. Keep the file safe as the blank. Bring them back here, next week—next Wednesday, only Wednesday will do! do you hear me?—and slip them to me. Understand me? Charles?’

  He stared. I had begun to grow wild again. But then he nodded. Then his gaze moved past me and he twitched. Nurse Spiller had left the door-place and was headed our way.

  ‘Time’s up,’ she said.

  We stood. I kept hold of the back of my chair, to keep from sinking. I looked at Charles, as if my eyes could burn into his. I had let his hand fall, but now reached for it again.

  ‘You’ll remember, won’t you, what I’ve said?’

  He nodded, in a frightened way. He dropped his gaze. He made to draw free his hand and step away. Then a queer thing happened. I felt his fingers move across my palm and found I could not let them go.

  ‘Don’t leave me!’ I said. The words came from nowhere. ‘Don’t leave me, please!’

  He jumped.

  ‘Now then,’ said Nurse Spiller. ‘We’ve no time for this. Come on.’

  She began to ungrip my fingers. It took her a moment or two. When his hand was free, Charles drew it quickly back and put his knuckles to his mouth.

  ‘Sad, ain’t it?’ Nurse Spiller said to him, her arms about my own. My shoulders jumped. ‘Don’t you mind it, though. It takes them all like this. Better not to come at all, we say. Better not to remind ’em of home. Whips ’em up.’ She drew me tighter. Charles shrank away. ‘You be sure now, to tell your people that, when you say what a sad way you found her in—won’t you?’

  He looked from her to me, and nodded. I said,

  ‘Charles, I’m sorry.’ My teeth were chattering about the words. ‘Don’t mind it. It’s nothing. Nothing at all.’

  But I could see him looking at me now and thinking that I must be mad, after all; and if he thought that, then I was done for, I should be at Dr Christie’s house for ever, I should never see Mrs Sucksby and never have my revenge on Maud.—That thought was sharper than my fear. I willed myself calm, and Nurse Spiller at last let me go. Another nurse came forward, to see Charles to the door: they let me watch him leave, and oh! it was all I could do to keep from running after. As he went, he turned, and stumbled, and met my gaze. Then he looked shocked again. I had tried to smile, and suppose the smile was dreadful.

  ‘You’ll remember!’ I called, my voice high and strange. ‘You’ll remember the elephants!’

  The nurses shrieked with laughter then. One gave me a push. My strength was all gone, and the push knocked me over. I lay in a heap. ‘Elephants!’ they said. They stood and laughed at me, until they wept.

  That week was a terrible one. I had got my own mind back, the house seemed crueller than ever, and I saw how far I had sunk before in growing used to it. Say I grew used to it again, in seven days? Say I grew stupid? Say Charles came back, and I was too funked to know him? The thought nearly killed me. I did everything I could to keep myself from slipping into a dream again. I pinched my own arms, until they were black with bruises. I bit my own tongue. Each morning I woke with a horrible sense that days had slipped away and I had not noticed. ‘What day is today?’ I’d ask Miss Wilson and Mrs Price. Of course, they never knew. Miss Wilson always thought, Good Friday. Then I’d ask Nurse Bacon.

  ‘What day is today, Nurse Bacon?’

  ‘Punishment Day,’ she’d answer, wincing and rubbing her hands.

  Then there was the fear that, after all, Charles wouldn’t come—that I had been too mad—that he would lose his nerve, or be overtaken by disaster. I thought of all the likely and unlikely things that might keep him from me—such as, his being seized by gipsies or thieves; run down by bulls; falling in with honest people, who would persuade him to go back home. One night it rained, and I thought of the ditch he was sleeping in filling up with water and him being drowned. Then there came thunder and lightning; and I imagined him sheltering under a tree, with a file in his hand . . .

  The whole week passed like that. Then Wednesday came. Dr Graves and Dr Christie went off in their coach and, late in the morning, Nurse Spiller arrived at the door to our room, looked at me and said, ‘Well, ain’t we charming? There’s a certain young shaver downstairs, come back for another visit. We shall be putting out the banns, at this rate . . .’ She led me down. In the hall, she gave me a poke. ‘No monkeying about,’ she said.

  This time, Charles looked more afraid than ever. We sat in the same two seats as before and, again, Nurse Spiller stood in the door-place and larked with the nurses in the hall. We sat for a minute in silence. His cheek was white as chalk. I said, in a whisper,

  ‘Charles, did you do it?’

  He nodded.

  ‘The blank?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘The file?’

  Another nod. I put my hand before my eyes.

  ‘But the blank,’ he said, in a complaining tone, ‘cost nearly all my money. The locksmith said that some blanks are blanker than others. You never told me that. I got the blankest he had.’

  I parted my fingers, and met his gaze.

  ‘How much did you give him?’ I asked.

  ‘Three shillings, miss.’

  Three shillings for a sixpenny blank! I covered my eyes again. Then, ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Never mind. Good boy . . .’

  Then I told him what he must do next. I said he must wait for me, that night, on the other side of Dr Christie’s park wall. I said he must find the spot where the highest tree grew, and wait for me there. He must wait all night, if he had to—for I could not say, for sure, how long my escape would take me. He must only wait, and be ready to run. And if I did not come at all, he must know that something had happened to stop me; and then he must come back the next night and wait again—he must do that, three nights over.

  ‘And if you don’t come, then?’ he asked, his eyes wide.

  ‘If I don’t come then,’ I said, ‘you do this: you go to London, and you find out a street named Lant Street, and a lady that lives there, named Mrs Sucksby; and you tell her where I am. God help me, Charles, that lady loves me!—and she’ll love you, for being my friend. She’ll know what to do.’

  I turned my head. My eyes had filled with water. ‘You got it?’ I said at last. ‘You swear?’

  He said he did. ‘Show me your hand,’ I said then; and when I saw how it shook, I dared not let him try and slip me the blank and file
, for fear he would drop them. He kept them in his pocket, and I hooked them out just before I left him—while Nurse Spiller looked on, laughing to see him kiss my cheek and blush. The file went up my sleeve. The blank I held on to—then, as I went upstairs, I stooped as if to tug up a stocking, and let it fall into one of my boots.

  Then I lay on my bed. I thought of all the burglars I had ever heard of, and all the burglars’ boasts. I was like them, now. I had my file, I had my blank. I had my pal on the other side of the madhouse wall. Now all I must do was get hold of a key, long enough to make my copy.

  I did it like this.

  That night, when Nurse Bacon sat in her chair and flexed her fingers, I said,

  ‘Let me rub your hands for you tonight, Nurse Bacon, instead of Betty. Betty doesn’t like it. She says the grease makes her smell like a chop.’

  Betty’s mouth fell open. ‘Oh! Oh!’ she cried.

  ‘God help us,’ said Nurse Bacon. ‘As if this heat weren’t enough. Be quiet, Betty!—Like a chop, did you say? And after all my kindness?’

  ‘I never!’ said Betty. ‘I never!’

  ‘She did,’ I said. ‘Like a chop, done up for the pan. You let me do it instead. Look how neat and soft my hands are.’

  Nurse Bacon looked, not at my fingers, but at my face. Then she screwed up her eyes. ‘Betty, shut up!’ she said. ‘What a row, and my flesh blazing. I’m sure I don’t care who does it; but I’d rather a quiet girl than a noisy one. Here.’ She put the tip of her thumb to the edge of the pocket in her skirt and pulled it back. ‘Fetch ’em out,’ she said to me.

  She meant her keys. I hesitated, then put in my hand and drew them up. They were warm from the heat of her leg. She watched me do it. ‘That littlest one,’ she said. I held it and let the others swing, then went to the cupboard and got out the jar of grease. Betty lay on her stomach and kicked up her heels, weeping into her pillow. Nurse Bacon sat back and put up her cuffs. I sat beside her and worked the ointment in, all about her swollen hands, just as I had seen it done a hundred times. I rubbed for half an hour. Now and then she winced. Then her eyes half closed and she gazed at me from beneath the lids. She gazed in a warm and thoughtful way, and almost smiled.

  ‘Not so bad, is it?’ she murmured. ‘Eh?’

  I didn’t answer. I was thinking, not of her, but of the night and the work to come. If my colour was up, she must have taken it for a blush. If I seemed strange, and conscious of myself, what was that to her? We were all strange, there. When at last she yawned and drew her hands away, and stretched, my heart gave a thump; but she did not see it. I moved from her side, to take the ointment back to its cupboard. My heart thumped again. I had only a second to do what I needed to do. The loop of keys was hanging from the lock, the one I wanted—the one to the doors—hanging lowest. I did not plan to steal it, she would have noticed if I had. But men came all the time to Lant Street, with bits of soap, and putty, and wax . . . I caught the key up and quickly but very carefully pressed it into the jar.

  The grease took the shape of the bitting, good as anything. I looked at it once, then screwed on the lid and set the jar back on its shelf. The cupboard door I closed, but only pretended to lock. The key I wiped on my sleeve. I took it back to Nurse Bacon, and she opened up her pocket with the tip of her thumb, like before.

  ‘Right in,’ she said, as I made to put in the keys. ‘All the way to the bottom. That’s right.’

  I would not meet her eye. I went to my bed, and she yawned, and sat in her chair and dozed, as she always did, until Nurse Spiller brought round our draughts. I had got used to taking mine, along with the other ladies, but tonight I tipped it away—into the mattress, this time—then gave back my empty bowl. Then I watched, in a sort of fever, to see what Nurse Bacon would do next. If she had gone to the cupboard—say, for a paper, or a cake, or a piece of knitting, or any small thing; if she had gone to the cupboard and found it open, and locked it, and spoiled my plan, I can’t say what I would have done. I really think I might have killed her. But anyway, she did not go. She only sat sleeping in her chair. She slept so long, I began to despair of her ever waking up again: I coughed; picked up my boot and dropped it; ground the legs of my bed against the floor—and still she slept on. Then some dream woke her. She got up, and put her nightgown on. I had my fingers across my face, and saw her do it, through the cracks: I saw her stand, rubbing her stomach through the cotton of her gown; and I saw her looking at all the ladies and then at me, seeming to turn some idea over in her mind . . .

  But then, she gave the idea up. Perhaps it was the heat. She yawned again, put the chain of keys around her neck, got into her bed; and started snoring.

  I counted her snores. When I had counted twenty I rose, like a ghost, crept back to the cupboard, and got out the jar of grease.

  Then I cut my copy. I can’t say how long it took. I only know, it took hours—for of course, though the file was a fine one, and though I worked with the sheets and blankets bunched about my hands to muffle the sound, still the rasp of the iron seemed loud, and I dared only cut in time to Nurse Bacon’s snores. And I could not file too quickly even then, for I had always to be matching up the blank with the impression, making sure the cuts were right; then again, my fingers would ache, I would have to stop and flex them; or they’d grow wet, the blank would slip and swivel in my hands. It was terrible work to be doing in a desperate mood. I seemed to feel the night slipping away, like so much sand—or else, Nurse Bacon would fall silent, I would pause and look about me and be brought back to myself—to the beds, and the sleeping ladies—and the room would seem so still I feared that time had stopped and I should be caught in it forever. No-one called out that night, no-one had awful dreams, no bells were rung, everyone lay heavy in their beds. I was the only wakeful soul in the house—the only wakeful soul, I might as well have been, in all the world; except, that I knew that Charles was also wakeful—was waiting, on the other side of Dr Christie’s walls—was waiting for me; and that, beyond him, Mrs Sucksby was also waiting—perhaps, was sighing in her bed—or walking, wringing her hands and calling out my name . . . It must have been the thought of that, that gave me courage and made the file run true.

  For at last there came a time when I put the blank to the jar, and saw that the cuts all matched. The key was finished. I held it, in a sort of daze. My fingers were stained from the iron, and grazed from the slipping of the file, and almost numb from gripping. I dared not stay to bind them up, though. Very carefully I rose, pulled on my tartan gown, and took up my rubber boots. I also took Nurse Bacon’s comb.—That was all, just that. I lifted it from off her table, and, as I did, she moved her head: I held my breath, but she did not wake. I stood quite still, looking into her face. And I was filled, suddenly, with guilt. I thought, ‘How disappointed she’ll be, when she finds how I’ve tricked her!’—I thought of how pleased she had got, when I’d said I would rub her hands.

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

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

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

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

  ‘Come on!’ I said.

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

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