Fingersmith

  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, before I went; and that was the picking up of Mrs Sucksby’s things, from 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 good-bye, 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 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 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.—The thought made me nervous. But then, the letter was marked with 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?’

  Dainty looked, then shook her head. ‘Can’t you?’ she said. But I could not. 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 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-graters and thimbles. But he wore eye-glasses and had—I don’t know 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.

  ‘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.’

  ‘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. ‘I, Marianne Lilly, of—what is it? Bear House? Briar House?—of Briar House, Buckinghamshire—I, 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—Bless me, if you 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 would be worth a lot 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?’

  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 . . .

  If 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 known. She must have known it, all along. She must have sent me there, at 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!’