Fingersmith (39 page)

But I think this dully; and soon I feel myself begin to tire. The sun is still hot upon us. The frogs still chant, the water still laps among the reeds. But the day has been punctured or ripped: I can feel it begin to droop and settle, close about me, in suffocating folds.

'I am sorry,' I say weakly.

'You needn't be sorry, now.'

'It is only—'

'You must be strong. I have seen you be strong, before.'

'It is only—'

But, only what? How might I say it? Only that she held my head against her breast, when I woke bewildered. That she warmed my foot with her breath, once. That she ground my pointed tooth with a silver thimble. That she brought me soup—clear soup—instead of an egg, and smiled to see me drink it. That her eye has a darker fleck of brown. That she thinks me good…

Richard is watching my face. 'Listen to me, Maud,' he says now. He pulls me tight. I am sagging in his arms. 'Listen! If it were any girl but her. If it were Agnes! Hey? But this is the girl that must be cheated, and robbed of her lib-erty, for us to be free. This is the girl the doctors will take, while we look on without a murmur. You remember our plan?'

I nod. 'But—'

'What?'

'I begin to fear that, after all, I haven't the heart for it…'

'You've a heart, instead, for little fingersmiths? Oh, Maud.' Now his voice is rich with scorn. 'Have you forgotten what she has come to you for? Do you think
she
has forgotten? Do you suppose yourself anything to her, but that? You have been too long among your uncle's books. Girls love easily, there. That is the point of them. If they loved so in life, the books would not have to be written.'

He looks me over. 'She would laugh in your face, if she knew.' His tone grows sly. 'She would laugh in mine, were I to tell her…'

'You shall not tell her!' I say, lifting my head and stiffening. The thought is awful to me. 'Tell her once, and I keep at Briar for good. My uncle shall know how you've used me—I shan't care how he treats me for it.'

'I shall not tell her,' he answers slowly, 'if you will only do as you must, with no further delay. I shall not tell her, if you will let her think you love me and have agreed to be my wife; and so make good our escape, as you promised.'

I turn my face from his. Again there is a silence. Then I murmur—what else should I murmur?—'I will.' He nods, and sighs. He still holds me tightly, and after another moment he puts his mouth against my ear.

'Here she comes!' he whispers. 'She is creeping about the wall. She means to watch and not disturb us. Now, let her know I have you…'

He kisses my head. The bulk and heat and pressure of him, the warmth and thickness of the day, my own confusion, make me stand and let him, limply. He takes one hand from about my waist and lifts my arm. He kisses the cloth of my sleeve. When I feel his mouth upon my wrist, I flinch. 'Now, now, he says. 'Be good, for a moment. Excuse my whiskers. Imagine my mouth hers.' The words come wetly upon my flesh. He pushes my glove a little way along my hand, he parts his lips, he touches my palm with the point of his tongue; and I shudder, with weakness, with fear and distaste—with dismay, to know Sue stands and watches, in satisfaction, thinking me his.

For, he has shown
me
to myself. He leads me to her, we walk to the house, she takes my cloak, takes my shoes; her cheek is pink, after all: she stands frowning at the glass, moves a hand, lightly, across her face… That is all she does; but I see it, and my heart gives a plunge—that caving, or dropping, that has so much panic in it, so much darkness, I supposed it fear, or madness. I watch her turn and stretch, walk her random way about the room—see her make all the careless unstudied gestures I have marked so covetously, so long. Is this desire? How queer that I, of all people, should not know! But I thought desire smaller, neater; I supposed it bound to its own organs as taste is bound to the mouth, vision to the eye. This feeling haunts and inhabits me, like a sickness. It covers me, like skin.

I think she must see it. Now he has named it, I think it must colour or mark me—I think it must mark me crimson, like paint marks the hot red points, the lips and gashes and bare whipped limbs, of my uncle's pictures. I am afraid, that night, to undress before her. I am afraid to lie at her side. I am afraid to sleep. I am afraid I will dream of her. I am afraid that, in dreaming, I will turn and touch her…

But after all, if she senses the change in me, she thinks I am changed because of Richard. If she feels me tremble, if she feels my heart beat hard, she thinks I tremble for him. She is waiting, still waiting. Next day I take her walking to my mother's grave. I sit and gaze at the stone, that I have kept so neat and free from blemish. I should like to smash it with a hammer. I wish— as I have wished many times—that my mother were alive, so that I might kill her again. I say to Sue: 'Do you know, how it was she died? It was my birth that did it!'—and it is an effort, to keep the note of triumph from my voice.

She does not catch it. She watches me, and I begin to weep; and where she might say anything to comfort me—anything at all—what she says is: 'Mr Rivers.'

I look from her in contempt, then. She comes and leads me to the chapel door—perhaps, to turn my thoughts to marriage. The door is locked and can't be passed. She waits for me to speak. At last I tell her, dutifully: 'Mr Rivers has asked me to marry him, Sue.'

She says she is glad. And, when I weep again—false tears, this time, that wash away the true ones—and when I choke and wring my hands and cry out, 'Oh! What shall I do?', she touches me and holds my gaze, and says: 'He loves you.'

'You think he does?'

She says she knows it. She does not flinch. She says, 'You must follow your heart.'

'I am not sure,' I say. 'If I might only be sure!'

'But to love,' she says, 'and then to lose him!'

I grow too conscious of the closeness of her gaze, and look away. She talks to me of beating blood, of thrilling voices, of dreams. I feel his kiss, like a burn upon my palm; and all at once she sees, not that I love him, but how much I have come to fear and hate him.

She grows white. 'What will you do?' she says, in a whisper.

'What can I do?' I say. 'What choice have I?'

She does not answer. She only turns from me, to gaze for a moment at the barred chapel door. I look at the pale of her cheek, at her jaw, at the mark of the needle in the lobe of her ear. When she turns back, her face has changed.

'Marry him,' she tells me. 'He loves you. Marry him, and do everything he says.'

She has come to Briar to ruin me, to cheat me and do me harm.
Look at her
, I tell myself.
See how slight she is, how brown and trifling! A thief, a little fingersmith
—! I think I will swallow down my desire, as I have swallowed down grief, and rage.
Shall I be thwarted, shall I be checked
—
held to my past, kept from my future
—
by
her? I think, I
shan't
. The day of our flight draws near. I shan't. The month grows warmer, the nights grow close. I
shan't, I shan't
—

'You are cruel,' Richard says. 'I don't think you love me as you ought. I think—' and he glances, slyly, at Sue—'I think there must be someone else you care for…'

Sometimes I see him look at her, and think he has told her. Sometimes she looks at me, so strangely—or else her hands, in touching me, seem so stiff, so nervous and unpractised—I think she knows. Now and then I am obliged to leave them alone together, in my own room; he might tell her, then.

What do you say, Suky, to this? She loves you!

Loves me? Like a lady loves her maid?

Like certain ladies love their maids, perhaps. Hasn't she found little ways to keep you close about her
?—Have I done that? Hasn't
she feigned troublesome dreams
?— Is that what I have done? Has
she had you kiss her? Careful, Suky, she doesn't try to kiss you back
…

Would she laugh, as he said she would? Would she shiver? It seems to me she lies more cautiously beside me now, her legs and arms tucked close. It seems to me she is often wary, watchful. But the more I think it, the more I want her, the more my desire rises and swells. I have come to terrible life—or else, the things about me have come to life, their colours grown too vivid, their surfaces too harsh. I flinch, from falling shadows. I seem to see figures start out from the fading patterns in the dusty carpets and drapes, or creep, with the milky blooms of damp, across the ceilings and walls.

Even my uncle's books are changed to me; and this is worse, this is worst of all. I have supposed them dead. Now the words—like the figures in the walls—start up, are filled with meaning. I grow muddled, stammer. I lose my place. My uncle shrieks—seizes, from his desk, a paperweight of brass, and throws it at me. That steadies me, for a time. But then he has me read, one night, from a certain work… Richard watches, his hand across his mouth, a look of amusement dawning on his face. For the work tells of all the means a woman may employ to pleasure another, when in want of a man.

'
And she pressed her lips and tongue to it, and into it
—'

'You like this, Rivers?' asks my uncle.

'I confess, sir, I do.'

'Well, so do many men; though I fear it is hardly to my taste. Still, I am glad to note your interest. I address the subject fully, of course, in my Index. Read on, Maud. Read on.'

I do. And despite myself—and in spite of Richard's dark, tormenting gaze—I feel the stale words rouse me. I colour, and am ashamed. I am ashamed to think that what I have supposed the secret book of my heart may be stamped, after all, with no more miserable matter than this—have its place in my uncle's collection. I leave the drawing-room each night and go upstairs—go slowly, tapping the toes of my slippered feet against each step. If I strike them equally, I shall be safe. Then I stand in darkness. When Sue comes to undress me I will myself to suffer her touch, coolly, as I think a mannequin of wax might suffer the quick, indifferent touches of a tailor.

And yet, even wax limbs must yield at last, to the heat of the hands that lift and place them. There comes a night when, finally, I yield to hers.

I have begun, in sleeping, to dream unspeakable dreams; and to wake, each time, in a confusion of longing and fear. Sometimes she stirs. Sometimes she does not. 'Go back to sleep,' she will say, if she does. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I rise and go about the room; sometimes, take drops. I take drops, this night; then return to her side; but sink, not into lethargy, but only into more confusion. I think of the books I have lately read, to Richard and to my uncle: they come back to me, now, in phrases, fragments—
pressed her lips and tongue
—
takes hold of my hand
—
hip, lip and tongue
—
forced it half-strivingly
—
took hold of my breasts
—
opened wide the lips of my little
—
the lips of her little cunt
—

I cannot silence them. I can almost see them, rising darkly from their own pale pages, to gather, to swarm and combine. I put my hands before my face. I do not know how long I lie for, then. But I must make some sound, or movement; for when I draw my hands away, she is awake, and watching. I know that she is watching, though the bed is so dark.

'Go to sleep,' she says. Her voice is thick.

I feel my legs, very bare inside my gown. I feel the point at which they join. I feel the words, still swarming. The warmth of her limbs comes inching, inching through the fibres of the bed.

I say, 'I'm afraid…"

Then her breathing changes. Her voice grows clearer, kinder. She yawns. 'What is it?' she says. She rubs her eye. She pushes the hair back from her brow. If she were any girl but Sue! If she were Agnes! If she were a girl in a book—!

Girls
love easily, there. That is their point
.

Hip, lip and tongue
—

'Do you think me good?' I say.

'Good, miss?'

She does. It felt like safety, once. Now it feels like a trap. I say, 'I wish— I wish you would tell me—'

'Tell you what, miss?'

Tell me. Tell me a way to save you. A way to save myself. The room is perfectly black.
Hip, lip-Girls love easily, there
.

'I wish,' I say, 'I wish you would tell me what it is a wife must do, on her wedding-night…'

And at first, it is easy. After all, this is how it is done, in my uncle's books: two girls, one wise and one unknowing… 'He will want,' she says, 'to kiss you. He will want to embrace you.' It is easy. I say my part, and she—with a little prompting—says hers. The words sink back upon their pages. It is easy, it is easy…

Then she rises above me and puts her mouth to mine.

I have felt, before, the pressure of a gentleman's still, dry lips against my gloved hand, my cheek. I have suffered Richard's wet, insinuating kisses upon my palm. Her lips are cool, smooth, damp: they fit themselves imperfectly to mine, but then grow warmer, damper. Her hair falls against my face. I cannot see her, I can only feel her, and taste her. She tastes of sleep, slightly sour. Too sour. I part my lips—to breathe, or to swallow, or perhaps to move away; but in breathing or swallowing or moving I only seem to draw her into my mouth. Her lips part, also. Her tongue comes between them and touches mine.

And at that, I shudder, or quiver. For it is like the finding out of something raw, the troubling of a wound, a nerve. She feels me jolt, and draws away— but slowly, slowly and unwillingly, so that our damp mouths seem to cling together and, as they part, to tear. She holds herself above me. I feel the rapid beating of a heart, and suppose it my own. But it is hers. Her breath comes, fast. She has begun, very lightly, to tremble.

Then I catch the excitement of her, the amazement of her.

Do you feel it?' she says. Her voice sounds strangely in the absolute darkness. 'Do you feel it?'