Fingersmith (29 page)

I
have said it was my uncle's custom, occasionally to invite interested gentlemen to the house, to take a supper with us and, later, hear me read. He does so now.

'Make yourself neat tonight, Maud,' he says to me, as I stand in his library buttoning up my gloves. 'We shall have guests. Hawtrey, Huss, and another fellow, a stranger. I hope to employ him with the mounting of our pictures,'

Our pictures. There are cabinets, in a separate study, filled with drawers of lewd engravings, that my uncle has collected in a desultory sort of manner, along with his books. He has often spoken of taking on some man to trim and mount them, but has never found a man to match the task. One needs a quite Particular character, for work of that sort.

He catches my eye, thrusts out his lips. 'Hawtrey claims to have a gift for us, besides. An edition of a text we have not catalogued.'

'That is great news, sir.'

Perhaps I speak drily; but my uncle, though a dry man himself, does not mark it. He only puts his hand to the slips of paper before him and divides the heap into two uneven piles. 'So, so. Let me see…'

'May I leave you, Uncle?'

He looks up. 'Has the hour struck?'

'It has, I believe.'

He draws out from his pocket his chiming watch and holds it to his ear. The key to his library door—sewn about, at the stem, with faded velvet— swings noiselessly beside it. He says, 'Go on then, go on. Leave an old man to his books. Go and play, but—gently, Maud.'

'Yes, Uncle.'

Now and then I wonder how he supposes I spend my hours, when not engaged by him. I think he is too used to the particular world of his books, where time passes strangely, or not at all, and imagines me an ageless child. Sometimes that is how I imagine myself—as if my short, tight gowns and velvet sashes keep me bound, like a Chinese slipper, to a form I should otherwise outleap. My uncle himself—who is at this time, I suppose, not quite above fifty—I have always considered to have been perfectly and permanently aged; as flies remain aged, yet fixed and unchanging, in cloudy chips of amber.

I leave him squinting at a page of text. I walk very quietly, in soft-soled shoes. I go to my rooms, where Agnes is.

I find her at work at a piece of sewing. She sees me come, and flinches. Do you know how provoking such a flinch will seem, to a temperament like mine? I stand and watch her sew. She feels my gaze, and begins to shake. Her stitches grow long and crooked. At last I take the needle from her hand and gently put the point of it against her flesh; then draw it off; then put it back; then do this, six or seven times more, until her knuckles are marked between the freckles with a rash of needle-pricks.

'There are to be gentlemen here tonight,' I say, as I do it. 'One a stranger. Do you suppose he will be young, and handsome?'

I say it—idly enough—as a way of teasing. It is nothing to me. But she hears me, and colours.

'I can't say, miss,' she answers, blinking and turning her head; not drawing her hand away, however. 'Perhaps.'

'You think so?'

'Who knows? He might be.'

I study her harder, struck with a new idea.

'Should you like it if he was?'

'Like it, miss?'

'Like it, Agnes. It seems to me now, that you would. Shall I tell him the way to your room? I shan't listen at the door. I shall turn the key, you will be quite private.'

'Oh miss, what nonsense!'

'Is it? Here, turn your hand.' She does, and I jab the needle harder. 'Now, say you don't like it, having a prick upon your palm!'

She takes her hand away and sucks it, and begins to cry. The sight of her tears—and of her mouth, working on the bit of tender flesh that I have stabbed—first stirs, then troubles me; then makes me weary. I leave her weeping, and stand at my rattling window, my eyes upon the lawn that dips to the wall, the rushes, the Thames.

'Will you be quiet?' I say, when her breath still catches. 'Look at you! Tears, for a gentleman! Don't you know that he won't be handsome, or even young? Don't you know, they never are?'

But of course, he is both.

'Mr Richard Rivers,' my uncle says. The name seems auspicious to me. Later I will discover it to be false—as false as his rings, his smile, his manner; but now, as I stand in the drawing-room and he rises to make me his bow, why should I think to doubt him? He has fine features, even teeth, and is taller than my uncle by almost a foot. His hair is brushed and has oil upon it, but is long: a curl springs from its place and tumbles across his brow. He puts a hand to it, repeatedly. His hands are slender, smooth and—but for a single finger, stained yellow by smoke—quite white.

'Miss Lilly,' he says, as he bends towards me. The lock of hair falls forward, the stained hand lifts to brush it back. His voice is very low, I suppose for my uncle's sake. He must have been cautioned in advance, by Mr Hawtrey.

Mr Hawtrey is a London bookseller and publisher, and has been many times to Briar. He takes my hand and kisses it. Behind him comes Mr Huss. He is a gentleman collector, a friend from my uncle's youth. He also takes my hand, but takes it to draw me closer to him, then kisses my cheek. 'Dear child,' he says.

I have been several times surprised by Mr Huss upon the stairs. He likes to stand and watch me climb them.

'How do you do, Mr Huss?' I say now, making him a curtsey.

But it is Mr Rivers I watch. And once or twice, when I turn my face his way, I find his own eyes fixed on me, his gaze a thoughtful one. He is weighing me up. Perhaps he has not supposed I would be so handsome. Perhaps I am not so handsome as rumour has had him think. I cannot tell. But, when the dinner-bell sounds and I move to my uncle's side to be walked to the table, I see him hesitate; then he chooses the place next to mine. I wish he had not. I think he will continue to watch me, and I don't like to be watched, while eating. Mr Way and Charles move softly about us, filling our glasses— mine, that crystal cup, cut with an M. The food is set upon our plates, then the servants leave: they never stay when we have company, but return between courses. At Briar we eat, as we do everything, by the chiming of the clock. A supper of gentlemen lasts one hour and a half.

We are served hare soup, this night; then goose, crisp at the skin, pink at the bones, and with its innards devilled and passed about the table. Mr Hawtrey takes a dainty kidney, Mr Rivers has the heart. I shake my head at the plate he offers.

'I'm afraid you're not hungry,' he says quietly, watching my face.

'Don't you care for goose, Miss Lilly?' asks Mr Hawtrey. 'Nor does my eldest daughter. She thinks of goslings, and grows tearful.'

'I hope you catch her tears and keep them,' says Mr Huss. 'I often think I should like to see the tears of
a
girl made into an ink.'

'An ink? Don't mention it to my daughters, I beg you. That I must hear their complaints, is one thing. Should they once catch the idea of impressing the'm also upon paper, and making me read them, I assure you, my life would not be worth the living.'

'Tears, for ink?' says my uncle, a beat behind the others. 'What rubbish is this?'

'Girls' tears,' says Mr Huss.

'Quite colourless.'

'I think not. Truly, sir, I think not. I fancy them delicately tinged—per-haps pink, perhaps violet.'

'Perhaps,' says Mr Hawtrey, 'as depending on the emotion that has provoked them?'

'Exactly. You have hit it, Hawtrey, there. Violet tears, for a melancholy book; pink, for a gay. It might be sewn up, too, with hair from a girl's head…' He glances at me and his look changes. He puts his napkin to his mouth.

'Now,' says Mr Hawtrey, 'I really wonder that that has never been attempted. Mr Lilly? One hears barbarous stories of course, of hides and bindings…'

They discuss this for a time. Mr Rivers listens but says nothing. Of course, his attention is all with me. Perhaps he will speak, I think, under cover of their talk. I hope he will. I hope he won't. I sip my wine and am suddenly weary. I have sat at suppers like this, hearing my uncle's friends chase tedious points in small, tight circles, too many times. Unexpectedly, I think of Agnes. I think of Agnes's mouth teasing a bead of blood from her pricked palm. My uncle clears his throat, and I blink.

'So, Rivers,' he says, 'Hawtrey tells me he has you translating, French matter into English. Poor stuff, I suppose, if his press is involved in it.'

'Poor stuff indeed,' answers Mr Rivers; 'or I should not attempt it. It is hardly my line. One learns, in Paris, the necessary terms; but it was as a student of the fine arts that I was lately there. I hope to find a better application for my talents, sir, than the conjuring of bad English from worse French.'

'Well, well. We shall see.' My uncle smiles. 'You would like to view my pictures.'

'Very much indeed.'

'Well, another day will do for that. They are handsome enough, I think you'll find. I care less for them than for my books, however. You've heard, perhaps'— he pauses—'of my Index?'

Mr Rivers inclines his head. 'It sounds a marvellous thing.'

'Pretty marvellous—eh, Maud? But, are we modest? Do we blush?'

I know my own cheek is cool; and his is pale as candle-wax. Mr Rivers turns, searches my face with his thoughtful gaze.

'How goes the great work?' asks Mr Hawtrey lightly.

'We are close,' answers my uncle. 'We are very close. I am in consultation with finishers.'

'And the length?'

'A thousand pages.'

Mr Hawtrey raises his brow. If my uncle's temper would permit it, he might whistle. He reaches for another slice of goose.

'Two hundred more then,' he says, as he does it, 'since I spoke to you last.'

'For the first volume, of course. The second shall be greater. What think you of that, Rivers?'

'Astonishing, sir.'

'Has there ever been its like? An universal bibliography, and on such a theme? They say the science is a dead one amongst Englishmen.'

'Then you have raised it to life. A fantastic achievement.'

'Fantastic, indeed—more so, when one knows the degrees of obscurity in which my subject is shrouded. Consider this: that the authors of the texts I collect must cloak their identity in deception and anonymity. That the texts themselves are stamped with every kind of false and misleading detail as to place and date of publication and impress. Hmm? That they are burdened with obscure titles. That they must pass darkly, via secret channels, or on the wings of rumour and supposition. Consider those checks to the bibliographer's progress. Then speak to me, sir, of fantastic labour!' He trembles in a mirthless laughter.

'I cannot conceive it,' says Mr Rivers. 'And the Index is organised… ?'

'By title, by name, by date when we have it; and, mark this, sir: by species of pleasure. We have them tabled, most precisely.'

'The books?'

'The pleasures! Where are we presently, Maud?'

The gentlemen turn to me. I sip my wine. 'At the Lust,' I say, 'of Men for Beasts.'

My uncle nods. 'So, so,' he says. 'Do you see, Rivers, the assistance our bibliography will provide, to the student of the field? It will be a veritable Bible.'

'The flesh made word,' says Mr Hawtrey, smiling, enjoying the phrase. He catches my eye, and winks. Mr Rivers, however, is still looking earnestly at my uncle.

'A great ambition,' he says now.

'A great labour,' says Mr Huss.

'Indeed,' says Mr Hawtrey, turning again to me. 'I am afraid, Miss Lilly, your uncle continues to work you very mercilessly.'

I shrug. 'I was bred to the task,' I say, 'as servants are.'

'Servants and young ladies,' says Mr Huss, 'are different sorts of creatures. Have I not said so, many times? Girls' eyes should not be worn out with read-ing, nor their small hands made hard through the gripping of pens.'

'So my uncle believes,' I say, showing my gloves; though it is his books he is anxious to save, of course, not my fingers.

'And what,' he says now, 'if she labour five hours a day? I labour ten! What should we work for, if not books? Hmm? Think of Smart, and de Bury. Or think of Tmius, so dedicated a collector he killed two men for the sake of his library.'

'Think of Frere Vincente, who, for the sake of his, killed twelve!' Mr Hawtrey shakes his head. 'No, no, Mr Lilly. Work your niece if you must. But drive her to violence for literature's sake, and we shall never forgive you.'

The gentlemen laugh.

'Well, well,' says my uncle.

I study my hand, saying nothing. My fingers show red as ruby through the glass of dark wine, my mother's initial quite invisible until I turn the crystal; then the cuts leap out.

There are two more courses before I might be excused, and then two more soundings of the clock to be sat through, alone, before the gentlemen join me in the drawing-room. I hear the murmur of their voices and wonder what, in roy absence, they discuss. When they come at last they are all a little pinker in the face, and their breaths are soured with smoke. Mr Hawtrey produces a package, bound in paper and string. He hands it to my uncle, who fumbles with the wrappings.

'So, so,' he says; and then, with the book uncovered and held close to his eyes: 'Aha!' He works his lips. 'Look here, Maud, look, at what the little grub-bian has brought us.' He shows me the volume. 'Now, what do you say?'

It is a common novel in a tawdry binding, but with an unfamiliar frontispiece that renders it rare. I look and, despite myself, feel the stirrings of a dry excitement. The sensation makes me queasy. I say, 'A very fine thing for us, Uncle, without a doubt.'

'See here, the fleuron? You see it?'

'I see it.'

'I don't believe we have considered the possibility of such a thing. I am sure we have not. We must go back. And we thought that entry complete? We shall return to it, tomorrow.' He stretches his neck. He likes the anticipation of pleasure. 'For now—well, take your gloves off, girl. Do you suppose Hawtrey brings us books to have you press gravy into the binding? That's better. Let's hear a little of it. Do you sit, and read to us. Huss, you must sit also. Rivers, mark my niece's voice, how soft and clear she reads. I coached her myself. Well, well.—You crease the spine, Maud!'