Fingersmith

  I had expected her, from all that Gentleman had said, to be quite out of the way handsome. But she was not that—at least, I did not think her so as I studied her then, I thought her looks rather commonplace. She was taller than me by an inch or two—which is to say, of an ordinary height, since I am considered short; and her hair was fairer than mine—but not very fair—and her eyes, which were brown, were lighter. Her lip and her cheek were very plump and smooth—she did lick me there, I will admit, for I liked to bite my own lip, and my cheeks had freckles, and my features as a rule were said to be sharp. I was also thought young-looking; but as to that—well, I should have liked the people who thought it to have studied Maud Lilly as she stood before me now. For if I was young, then she was an infant, she was a chick, she was a pigeon that knew nothing. She saw me come, and started, as I have said; and she took a step or two to meet me, and her pale cheek fired up crimson. Then she stopped, and put her hands before her, neatly, at her skirt. The skirt—I had never seen such a thing before, on a girl her age—the skirt was full and short and showed her ankles; and about her waist—that was astonishingly narrow—there was a sash. Her hair was caught in a net of velvet. On her feet were slippers, of red prunella. Her hands had clean white gloves upon them, buttoned up tight at the wrist. She said,

  ‘Miss Smith. You are Miss Smith, I think? And you have come to be my maid, from London! And may I call you Susan? I hope you shall like it at Briar, Susan; and I hope you shall like me. There is not much to like, in either case. I think you might do it very easily—very easily, indeed.’

  She spoke in a soft, sweet, halting voice, tilting her head, hardly looking at me, still quite crimson at the cheek. I said, ‘I am sure I shall like you, miss.’ Then I remembered all my work at Lant Street, and gripped my skirt and made a curtsey. And when I rose from it she smiled, and came and took my hand in hers.

  She looked at Mrs Stiles, who had kept behind me at the door.

  ‘You need not stay, Mrs Stiles,’ she said nicely. ‘But you will have been kind to Miss Smith, I know.’ She caught my eye. ‘You’ve heard, perhaps, that I am an orphan, Susan, like you. I came to Briar as a child: very young, and with no-one at all to care for me. I cannot tell you all the ways in which Mrs Stiles has made me know what a mother’s love is, since that time.’

  She smiled and tilted her head. Mrs Stiles would not catch her gaze, but a bit of colour struggled into her cheeks, and her eye-lids fluttered. I should never have put her down as the motherly sort, myself; but servants grow sentimental over the swells they work for, like dogs grow fond of bullies. You take my word for it.

  Anyway, she blinked and looked modest another minute; and then she left us. Maud smiled again, and led me to one of the hard-backed sofas, that was close to the fire. She sat beside me. She asked after my journey—‘We supposed you lost!’ she said—and after my room. Did I like my bed? Did I like my breakfast?

  ‘And have you really,’ she said, ‘come from London?’ That was all that anyone had been asking, since I left Lant Street—as if I might have come from anywhere else! But then again, I thought she asked it in a different sort of way: not in a gaping country way, but in a noticing, hungryish manner—as if London was something to her, and she longed to hear of it.

  Of course, I thought I knew why that was.

  Next she told me all the duties I should have to do, while I was her maid: the chief of these being, as I also knew, to sit with her and keep her company, and walk with her about the park, and tidy her gowns. She lowered her eyes.

  ‘You’ll see we are rather out of the way of fashion, here at Briar,’ she said. ‘It matters little, I suppose, since we have so few callers. My uncle only likes to see me neat. But you, of course, will be used to the great styles of London.’

  I thought of Dainty’s hair, John’s dog-skin coat. ‘Pretty used,’ I said.

  ‘And your last mistress,’ she went on then, ‘she was quite a fine lady? She would laugh to look at me, I expect!’

  She coloured still harder as she said that, and again looked from me; and again I thought, ‘You pigeon!’

  But what I said was, that Lady Alice—who was the mistress that Gentleman had faked up for me—was too kind to laugh at anyone, and would anyway know that grand clothes meant nothing, since it was the person inside the clothes that ought to be judged. All in all, I thought, it was a pretty clever thing to say; and she seemed to think so too, for when I had said it she looked at me in a new way and her colour went down, and she took my hand again, saying,

  ‘You are a good girl, Susan, I think.’

  I said, ‘Lady Alice always said so, miss.’

  Then I remembered the character that Gentleman had written for me, and thought this might be the moment to present it. I took it from my pocket and handed it over. She rose and broke the wax, then walked to the window to hold the paper to the light. She stood a long time looking at the curling hand, and once sneaked a glance at me; and my heart beat a little fast then, to think she might have noticed something queer there. But it was not that: for I saw at last that her hand, which held the paper, trembled; and I guessed that she had no more idea what a proper character was like than I did, and was only figuring out what she should say.

  I thought it almost a shame, guessing that, that she had no mother.

  ‘Well,’ she said, folding the paper very small and putting it inside her own pocket, ‘Lady Alice does indeed speak highly of you. I think you must have been sorry to leave her house.’

  ‘Pretty sorry, miss,’ I said. ‘But then, you see, Lady Alice has gone to India. I think I should have found the sun there rather fierce.’

  She smiled. ‘Will you prefer the grey skies of Briar? You know, the sun never shines here. My uncle has forbidden it. Strong light, you see, fades print.’

  She laughed and showed her teeth, which were small and very white. I smiled, but kept my lips shut—for my own teeth, that are yellow now, were I am afraid to say quite yellow even then; and seeing hers made me fancy them yellower.

  She said, ‘You know my uncle is a scholar, Susan?’

  I said, ‘I heard it, miss.’

  ‘He keeps a great library. The largest library, of its kind, in all of England. I dare say you will see it soon.’

  ‘That will be something, miss, I’m sure.’

  She smiled again. ‘You like to read, of course?’

  I swallowed. ‘To read, miss?’ She nodded, waiting. ‘Pretty much,’ I said at last. ‘That is, I am sure I should, if I was ever much in the way of books and papers. By which I mean’—I coughed—‘if I was to be shown.’

  She stared.

  ‘To learn, I mean,’ I said.

  She stared, even harder; and then she gave a short, disbelieving sort of laugh. ‘You are joking,’ she said. ‘You don’t mean, you cannot read? Not really? Not a word, not a letter?’ Her smile became a frown. There was, beside her, a little table with a book upon it. Still half smiling, half frowning, she took the book up and handed it to me. ‘Go on,’ she said kindly. ‘I think you are being modest. Read me any part, I shan’t mind if you stumble.’

  I held the book, saying nothing; but beginning to sweat. I opened it and looked at a page. It was full of a close black print. I tried another. That one was worse. I felt Maud’s gaze, like a flame against my hot face. I felt the silence. My face grew hotter. Take a chance, I thought.

  ‘Our Father,’ I tried, ‘which art in heaven—’

  But then, I forgot the rest. I closed the book, and bit my lip, and looked at the floor. I thought, very bitterly, ‘Well, here will all our scheming end. She won’t want a maid that can’t read her a book, or write fancy letters in a curling hand!’ I lifted my eyes to hers and said,

  ‘I might be taught it, miss. I am that willing. I’m sure I could learn, in half a wink—’

  But she was shaking her head, and the look on her face was something.

  ‘Be taught?’ she said, coming close and gently taking back the book. ‘Oh,
no! No, no, I shouldn’t allow it. Not read! Ah, Susan, were you to live in this house, as the niece of my uncle, you should know what that meant. You should know, indeed!’

  She smiled. And while she still held my gaze, still smiling, there came the slow and heavy tolling of the great house-bell, eight times; and then her smile fell.

  ‘Now,’ she said, turning away, ‘I must go to Mr Lilly; and when the clock strikes one I shall be free again.’

  She said that—sounding, I thought, just like a girl in a story. Aren’t there stories, with girls with magic uncles—wizards, beasts, and whatnots? She said,

  ‘Come to me, Susan, at my uncle’s chamber, at one.’

  ‘I will, miss,’ I said.

  She was looking about her, now, in a distracted kind of way. There was a glass above the fire and she went to it, and put her gloved hands to her face, and then to her collar. I watched her lean. Her short gown lifted at the back and showed her calves.

  She caught my eye in the glass. I made another curtsey.

  ‘Shall I go, miss?’ I said.

  She stepped back. ‘Stay,’ she said, waving her hand, ‘and put my rooms in order, will you?’

  She went to the door. At the handle, however, she stopped. She said,

  ‘I hope you will be happy here, Susan.’ Now she was blushing again. My own cheek cooled, when I saw that. ‘I hope your aunt, in London, will not miss you too greatly. It was an aunt, I think, that Mr Rivers mentioned?’ She lowered her eyes. ‘I hope you found Mr Rivers quite well, when you saw him?’

  She let the question fall, like it was nothing to her; and I knew confidence men who did the same, dropping one good shilling among a pile of snide, to make all the coins seem honest. As if she gave a fig, for me and my old aunty!

  I said, ‘He was very well, miss. And sent his compliments.’

  She had opened the door now, and half-hid herself behind it. ‘Did he truly?’ she said.

  ‘Truly, miss.’

  She put her brow against the wood. ‘I think he is kind,’ she said softly.

  I remembered him squatting at the side of that kitchen chair, his hand reaching high beneath the layers of petticoat, saying, You sweet bitch.

  ‘I’m sure he’s very kind, miss,’ I said.

  Then, from somewhere in the house there came the quick, peevish tinkling of a little hand-bell, and, ‘There’s Uncle!’ she cried, gazing over her shoulder. She turned and ran, leaving the door half-closed. I heard the slap of her slippers and the creaking of the stairs as she went down.

  I waited a second, then stepped to the door, put my foot to it, and kicked it shut. I went to the fire and warmed my hands. I do not think I had been quite warm since leaving Lant Street. I lifted my head and, seeing the glass that Maud had looked in, rose and gazed at my own face—at my freckled cheek and my teeth. I showed myself my tongue. Then I rubbed my hands and chuckled: for she was just as Gentleman had promised, and clearly tit over heels in love with him already; and that three thousand pounds might as well have been counted and wrapped and had my name put on it, and the doctor be standing ready with a strait-coat at the madhouse door.

  That’s what I thought, after seeing her then.

  But I thought it in a discontented sort of way; and the chuckle, I have to admit, was rather forced. I could not have said quite why, though. I supposed it was the gloom—for the house seemed darker and stiller than ever, now that she had gone. There was only the dropping of ash in the grate, the bumping and rattling of panes of glass. I went to the window. The draught was awful. There had been little red sand-bags laid upon the sills to keep it out, but they didn’t work; and they had all got wet, and were mouldy. I put my hand to one, and my finger came away green. I stood and shivered, and looked at the view—if you could call it a view, that was just plain grass and trees. A few black birds pulled worms from the lawn. I wondered which way London was.

  I wished hard to hear an infant cry, or Mr Ibbs’s sister. I would have given five pounds for a parcel of poke or a few bad coins to tarnish.

  Then I thought of something else. Put my rooms in order, Maud had said; and here was only one room, that I supposed must be her parlour; so somewhere else must be another, where she slept in her bed. Now, the walls in that house were all of dark oak panelling, very gloomy on the eye and very baffling, for the doors were set so pat in their frames, you could not spot them. But I looked hard and, in the wall across from where I stood, I saw a crack, and then a handle; and then the shape of the door sprung at me, plain as daylight.

  It was the door to her bedroom, just as I had supposed; and of course, this room had another door in it, that was the door to my own room, where I had stood the night before and listened for her breaths. That seemed a very foolish thing to have done, now that I saw what was on the other side of it. For it was only an ordinary lady’s room—not very grand, but grand enough, with a faint, sweet smell to it, and a high four-posted bed with curtains and a canopy of old moreen. I was not sure that sleeping in a bed like that wouldn’t make me sneeze: I thought of all the dust and dead flies and spiders that must be gathered in the canopy, that looked as though it hadn’t been taken down in ninety years. The bed had been made, but a night-dress lay upon it—I folded this up and put it beneath the pillow; and there were one or two fair hairs there that I caught up and took to the grate. So much for maiding. Upon the chimney-breast there was a great aged looking-glass, shot through like marble, with silver and grey. Beyond it was a small old-fashioned press, that was carved all over with flowers and grapes, quite black with polish, and here and there split. I should say that ladies wore nothing but leaves in the day it was built, for it had six or seven slight gowns laid carelessly in it now, that made the shelves groan, and a crinoline cage, against which the doors could not be fastened. Seeing that, I thought again what a shame it was that Maud had no mother: for she would certainly have got rid of ancient stuff like this and found her daughter something more up to the minute and dainty.

  But one thing a business like ours at Lant Street teaches you is, the proper handling of quality goods. I got hold of the gowns—they were all as odd and short and girlish as each other—and shook them out, then laid them nicely back on their shelf. Then I wedged a shoe against the crinoline to hold it flat; after that, the doors closed as they were meant to. This press was in one alcove. In another was a dressing-table. That was strewn about with brushes and bottles and pins—I tidied those, too—and fitted beneath with a set of fancy drawers. I opened them up. They held—well, here was a thing. They all held gloves. More gloves than a milliner’s. White ones, in the top drawer; black silk ones in the middle; and buff mittens in the lowest.

  They were each of them marked on the inside at the wrist with a crimson thread that I guessed spelled out Maud’s name. I should have liked to have a go at that, with scissors and a pin.

  I did no such thing, of course, but left the gloves all lying neatly, and I went about the room again until I had touched and studied it all. There was not much more to look at; but there was one more curious thing, and that was a little wooden box, inlaid with ivory, that sat upon a table beside her bed.

  The box was locked, and when I took it up it gave a dull sort of rattle. There was no key handy: I guessed she kept it somewhere about her, perhaps on a string. The lock was a simple one, however, and with locks like that, you only have to show them the wire and they open themselves, it’s like giving brine to an oyster. I used one of her hairpins.

  The wood turned out to be lined with plush. The hinge was of silver, and oiled not to squeak. I am not sure what I thought to find in there—perhaps, something from Gentleman, some keepsake, some letter, some little bill-and-coo. But what there was, was a miniature portrait, in a frame of gold hung on a faded ribbon, of a handsome, fair-haired lady. Her eyes were kind. She was dressed in a style from twenty years before, and the frame was an old one: she did not look much like Maud, but I thought it a pretty safe bet that she was her mother.—Though I also t
hought that, if she was, then it was queer that Maud kept her picture locked up in a box, and did not wear it.

  I puzzled so long over this, turning the picture, looking for marks, that the frame—which had been cold when I took it up, like everything there—grew warm. But then there came a sound, from somewhere in the house, and I thought how it would be, if Maud—or Margaret, or Mrs Stiles—should come to the room and catch me standing by the open box, the portrait in my hand. I quickly laid it back in its place, and made it fast again.

  The hairpin I had bent to make a pick-lock with, I kept. I shouldn’t have liked Maud to have found it and thought me a thief.

  There was nothing to do, after I had done that. I stood some more at the window. At eleven o’clock a maid brought up a tray. ‘Miss Maud isn’t here,’ I said, when I saw the silver tea-pot; but the tea was for me. I drank it in fairy-sips, to make it last the longer. Then I took the tray back down, thinking to save the maid another journey. When they saw me carrying it into the kitchen, however, the girls there stared and the cook said,

  ‘Well, I never! If you think Margaret ain’t quick enough coming, you must speak to Mrs Stiles. But I’m sure, Miss Fee never called anyone idle.’

  Miss Fee was the Irish maid who had got sick with the scarlatina. It seemed very cruel to be supposed prouder than her, when I was only trying to be kind.

  But I said nothing. I thought, ‘Miss Maud likes me, if you don’t!’

  For she was the only one, of all of them, to have spared me a pleasant word; and suddenly I longed for the time to pass, not for its own sake, but as it would take me back to her.

  At least at Briar you always knew what hour it was. The twelve struck, and then the half, and I made my way to the back-stairs and hung about there until one of the parlourmaids went by, and she showed me the way to the library. It was a room on the first floor, that you reached from a gallery overlooking a great wood staircase and a hall; but it was all dark and dim and shabby, as it was everywhere in that house—you would never have thought, looking about you there, that you were right in the home of a tremendous scholar. By the door to the library, on a wooden shield, hung some creature’s head with one glass eye: I stood and put my fingers to its little white teeth, waiting to hear the clock sound one. Through the door came Maud’s voice—very faint, but slow and level, as though she might be reading to her uncle from a book.