Fingersmith

  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 who?’ 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 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 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 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, stil
l . . .’ 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 man and the girl had said, about it being 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 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 I 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 . . .

  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 a jar 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—when I had ached and ached for her—It was too much.

  ‘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 her 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 someone 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. He 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, now?’

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

  ‘When did you know?’ I said. ‘When did you know everything, about us, about—Did you know, at the start?’