Fingersmith (38 page)

'I am not, however,' he replies. 'Nor do I wish to take instruction in the art, from you or anyone. I have lost too much, in the past, through
waiting
. I am cleverer now, at manipulating events to match my needs. That is what I have learned, while you have learned patience. Do you understand me, Maud?'

I turn my head, half-close my eyes. 'I don't want to understand you,' I say tiredly. 'I wish you would not speak at all.'

'I will speak, until you hear.'

'Hear what?'

'Hear this.' He brings his mouth close to my face. His beard, his lips, his breath, are tainted with smoke, like a devil's. He says: '
Remember our contract
. Remember how we made it. Remember that when I came to you first I came, not quite as a gentleman, and with little to lose—unlike you, Miss Lilly, who saw me alone, at midnight, in your own room…' He draws back. 'I suppose your reputation must count for something, even here; I'm afraid that ladies' always do.—But naturally you knew that, when you received me.'

His tone has some new edge to it, some quality I have not heard before. But we have changed our course: when I gaze at his face the light is all behind him, making his expression hard to read.

I say carefully, 'You call me a lady; but I am hardly that.'

'And yet, I think your uncle must consider you one. Will he like to think you corrupted?'

'He has corrupted me himself!'

'Then, will he like to think the work taken over by another man's hand? I am speaking only, of course, of what he will suppose to be the case.'

I move away. 'You misunderstand him, entirely. He considers me a sort of engine, for the reading and copying of texts.'

'All the worse. He shan't like it, when the engine bucks. What say he disposes of it and makes himself another?'

Now I can feel the beat of the blood in my brow. I put my fingers to my eyes. 'Don't be tiresome, Richard. Disposes of it, how?'

'Why, by sending it home…'

The beat seems to stumble, then quickens. I draw back my fingers, but again the light is behind him and I cannot quite make out his face. I say, very quietly, 'I shall be no use to you, in a madhouse.'

'You are no use to me now, while you delay! Be careful I don't grow tired of this scheme. I shan't be kind to you, then.'

'And is this kindness?' I say.

We have moved, at last, into shadow, and I see his look: it is honest, amused, amazed. He says: This is dreadful villainy, Maud. When did I ever call it anything else?'

We stop, close as sweethearts. His tone has grown light again, but his eye is hard—quite hard. I feel, for the first time, what it would be to be afraid of him.

He turns and calls to Sue. 'Not far now, Suky! We are almost there, I think.' To me he murmurs: 'I shall need some minutes with her, alone.'

'To secure her,' I say. 'As you have me.'

'That work is done,' he says complacently; 'and she, at least, sticks better.—What?' I have shuddered, or my look has changed. 'You don't suspect her of qualms? Maud? You don't suppose her weakening, or playing us false? Is that why you hesitate?' I shake my head. 'Well,' he goes on, 'all the more reason for me to see her, to find out how she thinks we do. Have her come to me, today or tomorrow. Find out some way, will you? Be sly.'

He puts his smoke-stained finger to his mouth. Presently Sue comes, and rests at my side. She is flushed from the weight of the bags. Her cloak still billows, her hair still whips, and I want more than anything to draw her to me, to touch and tidy her. I think I begin to, I think I half-reach for her; then I become conscious of Richard and his shrewd, considering gaze. I cross my arms before me and turn away.

Next morning I have her take him a coal from the fire, to light his cigarette from; and I stand with my brow against my dressing-room window and watch them whisper. She keeps her head turned from me, but when she leaves him he raises his eyes to me and holds my gaze, as he held it once before, in darkness.
Remember our contract
, he seems again to say. Then he drops his cigarette and stands heavily upon it; then shakes free the clinging red soil from his shoes.

After that, I feel the mounting pressure of our plot as I think men must feel the straining of checked machinery, tethered beasts, the gathering of tropical storms. I wake each day and think: Today I will do it! Today I will draw free the bolt and let the engine race, unleash the beast, puncture the lowering clouds! Today, I will let him claim me—!

But, I do not. I look at Sue, and there comes, always, that shadow, that darkness—a panic, I suppose it, a simple fear—a quaking, a caving—a drop' ping, as into the sour mouth of madness—

Madness, my mother's malady, perhaps beginning its slow ascent in me! That thought makes me more frightened yet. I take, for a day or two, more of my drops: they calm me, but change me. My uncle marks it.

'You grow clumsy,' he says, one morning. I have mishandled a book. 'You think I have you come, day after day, to my library, to abuse it?'

'No, Uncle.'

'What? Do you mumble?'

'No, sir.'

He wets and purses his mouth, and studies me harder. When he speaks again, his tone is strange to me.

'What age are you?' he says. I am surprised, and hesitate. He sees it. 'Don't strike coy attitudes with me, miss! What age are you? Sixteen? Seventeen?— You may show astonishment. You think me insensible to the passage of years, because I am a scholar? Hmm?'

'I am seventeen, Uncle.'

'Seventeen. A troublesome age, if we are to believe our own books.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Yes, Maud. Only remember: your business is not with belief, but with study. Remember this, also: you are not too great a girl—nor am I too aged a scholar—for me to have Mrs Stiles come and hold you still while I take a whip to you. Hmm? You'll remember these things? Will you?'

'Yes, sir,' I say.

It seems to me now, however, that I must remember too much. My face, my joints, are set aching with the effort of striking looks and poses. I can no longer say with certainty which of my actions—which of my feelings, even— are true ones, which are sham. Richard still keeps his gaze close upon me. I will not meet it. He is reckless, teasing, threatening: I choose not to understand. Perhaps I am weak, after all. Perhaps, as he and my uncle believe, I draw a pleasure from torment. It is certainly a torment to me now, to sit at a lesson with him, to sit at a dinner-table with him, to read to him, at night, from my uncle's books. It begins to be a torment, too, to pass time with Sue. Our routines are spoiled. I am too conscious that she waits, as he does: I feel her watching, gauging, willing me on. Worse, she begins to speak in his be-half—to tell me, bluntly, how clever he is, how kind and interesting.

'You think so, Sue?' I ask her, my eyes upon her face; and her gaze might flutter uneasily away, but she will always answer: 'Yes, miss. Oh, yes, miss. Anyone would say it, wouldn't they?'

Then she will make me neat—always neat, handsome and neat—she will take down my hair and dress it, straighten seams, lift lint from the fabric of my gowns. I think she does it as much to calm herself, as to calm me. 'There,' she will say, when she has finished. 'Now you are better.'—Now
she
is better, she means. 'Now your brow is smooth. How creased it was, before! It mustn't be creased—'

It mustn't be creased, for Mr Rivers's sake: I hear the unspoken words, my blood surges again; I take her arm in mine and pinch it.

'Oh!'

I do not know who cries it, she or 1:1 reel away, unnerved. But in the second I have her skin between my fingers, my own flesh leaps in a kind of relief. I shake, horribly, for almost an hour.

'Oh, God!' I say, hiding my face. 'I'm afraid, for my own mind! Do you think me mad? Do you think me wicked, Sue?'

'Wicked?' she answers, wringing her hands. And I can see her thinking: A
simple
girl
like you
?

She puts me into my bed and lies with her arm against mine; but soon she sleeps, and then draws away. I think of the house in which I lie. I think of the room beyond the bed—its edges, its surfaces. I think I shall not sleep, unless I touch them. I rise, it is cold, but I go quietly from thing to thing— chimney-piece, dressing-table, carpet, press. Then I come to Sue. I would like to touch her, to be sure that she is there. I dare not. But I cannot leave her. I lift my hands and move and hold them an inch, just an inch, above her— her hip, her breast, her curling hand, her hair on the pillow, her face, as she sleeps.

I do that, perhaps three nights in a row. Then this happens.

Richard begins to make us go to the river. He has Sue sit far from me, against the upturned boat; and he, as always, keeps close at my side, pretending to watch as I paint. I paint the same spot so many times, the card starts to rise and crumble beneath my brush; but I paint on, stubbornly, and he will now and then lean close to whisper, idly but fiercely:

'God damn you, Maud, how can you sit so calm and steady? Hey? Do you hear that bell?' The Briar clock sounds clearly there, beside the water. 'There's another hour gone, that we might have passed in freedom. Instead, you keep us here—'

'Will you move?' I say. 'You are standing in my light.'

'You are standing in mine, Maud. See how easy it is, to remove that shadow? One little step is all that must be made. Do you see? Will you look? She won't. She prefers her painting. That piece of— Oh! Let me find a match, I shall burn it!'

I glance at Sue. 'Be quiet, Richard.'

But the days grow warm, and at last comes a day, so close and airless, the heat overpowers him. He spreads his coat upon the ground and sprawls upon it, tilts his hat to shadow his eyes. For a time, then, the afternoon is still and almost pleasant: there is only the calling of frogs in the rushes, the slapping of water, the cries of birds, the occasional passing of boats. I draw the paint across the card in ever finer, ever slower strokes, and almost fall into slumber.

Then Richard laughs, and my hand gives a jump. I turn to look at him. He puts his finger to his lip. 'See there,' he says softly. And he gestures to Sue.

She still sits before the upturned boat, but her head has fallen back against the rotten wood and her limbs are spread and loose. A blade of hair, dark at the tip where she has been biting at it, curves to the corner of her mouth. Her eyes are closed, her breaths come evenly. She is quite asleep. The sun slants against her face and shows the point of her chin, her lashes, her darkening freckles. Between the edges of her gloves and the cuffs of her coat are two narrow strips of pinking flesh.

I look again at Richard—meet his eye—then turn back to my painting. I say quietly, 'Her cheek will burn. Won't you wake her?'

Shall I?' He sniffs. 'They are not much used to sunlight, where she comes from.' He speaks almost fondly, but laughs against the words; then adds in a murmur: 'Nor where she's going, I think. Poor bitch—she might sleep. She has been asleep since I first got her and brought her here, and has not known it.'

He says it, not with relish, but as if with interest at the idea. Then he stretches and yawns and gets to his feet, and sneezes. The fine weather troubles him. He puts his knuckles to his nose and violently sniffs. 'I beg your pardon,' he says, drawing out his handkerchief.

Sue does not wake, but frowns and turns her head. Her lower lip slightly falls. The blade of hair swings from her cheek, but keeps its curve and point. I have lifted my brush and touched it once to my crumbling painting; now I hold it, an inch from the card; and I watch, as she sleeps. Only that. Richard sniffs again, softly curses the heat, the season. Then, as before, I suppose he grows still. I suppose he studies me. I suppose the brush in my fingers drops paint—for I find it later, black paint upon my blue gown. I do not mark it as it falls, however; and perhaps it is my not marking it, that betrays me. That, or my look. Sue frowns again. I watch, a little longer. Then I turn, and find Richard's eyes upon me.

'Oh, Maud,' he says.

That is all he says. But in his face I see, at last, how much I want her.

For a moment we do nothing. Then he steps to me and takes my wrist. The paintbrush falls.

'Come quickly,' he says. 'Come quickly, before she wakes.'

He takes me, stumbling, along the line of rushes. We walk as the water flows, about the bend of the river and the wall. When we stop, he puts his hands to my shoulders and holds me fast.

'Oh, Maud,' he says again. 'Here I have been, supposing you gripped by a conscience, or some other weakness like that. But this—!'

I have turned my face from him, but feel him laugh. 'Don't smile,' I say, shuddering. 'Don't laugh.'

'Laugh? You might be glad I don't do worse. You'll know—you'll know, if anyone will!—the sports to which gentlemen's appetites are said to be pricked, by matters like this. Thank heavens I'm not a gentleman so much as a rogue: we go by different codes. You may love and be damned, for all I care.—Don't wriggle, Maud!' I have tried to twist from his hands. He holds me tighter, then lets me lean from him a little, but grips my waist. 'You may love and be damned,' he says again. 'But keep me from my money—keep us languishing here: put back our plot, our hopes, your own bright future—you shall not, no. Not now I know what trifling thing you have made us stay for. Now, let her wake up.—I promise you, it is as tiresome to me as to you, when you twist so!—Let her wake up and seek us out. Let her see us like this. You won't come to me? Very good. I shall hold you here, and let her suppose us lovers at last; and so have done with it. Stand steady, now.'

He leans from me and gives a wordless shout. The sound beats against the thick air and makes it billow, then fades to a silence.

'That will bring her,' he says.

I move my arms. 'You are hurting me.'

'Stand like a lover then, and I shall grow gentle as anything.' He smiles again. 'Suppose me her.—Ah!' Now I have tried to strike him. 'Do you mean to make me bruise you?'

He holds me harder, keeping his hands upon me but pinning down my arms with his own. He is tall, he is strong. His fingers meet about my waist— as young men's fingers are meant to do, I believe, on the waists of their sweethearts. For a time I strain against the pressure: we stand braced and sweating as a pair of wrestlers in a ring. But I suppose that, from a distance, we might seem swaying in a kind of love.