Fingersmith (67 page)

There came a light and a shadow, in Mrs Sucksby's room; and then a figure—Mrs Sucksby herself! My heart nearly flew into bits. Her hair showed white, and she had her old black taffeta gown on. She stood with a lamp in her hand, her face turned from me, her jaw moving—she was talking to someone else farther back in the room, someone who now came forward, as she moved back. A girl. A girl, very slim at the waist… I saw her, and began to shake. She came on, while Mrs Sucksby moved about the room behind her, taking off her brooches and rings. She came right to the glass. She lifted her arm to rest it upon the bar of the window-sash, and then she stood with her brow upon her wrist, and grew still. Only her fingers moved, as they plucked idly at the lace across the window. Her hand was bare. Her hair was curled. I thought, It
can't be her
.

Then Mrs Sucksby spoke again, the girl lifted her face, the light of the street-lamp fell full upon it; and I cried out loud.

She might have heard me—though I don't think she can have—for she turned her head and seemed to look at me, to hold my gaze across the dusty street and the darkness, for quite a minute. I don't think I blinked, in all that time. I don't think she did, her eyes stayed open—I saw them, and remembered their colour at last. Then she turned back into the room, took a step away, caught up the lamp; and as she lowered the flame Mrs Sucksby went close to her, lifted her hands, and begin to unfasten the hooks at the back of her collar.

Then came darkness.

I moved back from the window. My own white face was reflected there, the streetlight striking it—on the cheek, beneath my eye—in the shape of a heart. I turned from the glass. My cry had woken Charles, and I suppose my look was peculiar.

'Miss, what is it?' he said in a whisper.

I put my hand before my mouth.

'Oh, Charles!' I said. I took a couple of staggering steps towards him. 'Charles, look at me! Tell me who I am!'

'Who, miss?'

'Not miss, don't call me miss! I never was a miss, though they made me out one.—Oh! She has taken everything from me, Charles. She has taken everything and made it hers, in spite. She has made Mrs Sucksby love her, as she made— Oh! I'll kill her, tonight!'

I ran in a kind of fever, back to the shutter, to look at the face of the house. I said, 'Now, might I climb to the window? I could force the bolt, creep in, and stab her as she lies sleeping. Where is that knife?'

I ran again, and caught it up and tried its edge. 'Not sharp enough,' I said. I looked about me, then picked up the stone that was used as a door-stop, and drew the blade across it. 'Like this?' I said to Charles. 'Or like this? Which makes the best edge? Come on, come on. You're the bloody knife-boy, aren't you?'

He watched me in terror; then came and, with trembling fingers, showed me how, I ground the blade. 'That's good,' I said. 'That will feel good, with its point against her breast.' Then I stopped. 'But, don't you think that, after all, a death by stabbing comes rather quick? Had I not ought to find a slower way?'—I thought of stifling, strangling, beating with a club.—'Have we a club, Charles? That will take longer; and oh! I should like to have her know me, as she dies. You shall come with me, Charles. You shall help.—What's the matter?'

He had walked to the wall and stood with his back against it, and begun to quiver.

He said, 'You ain't—You ain't the lady you seemed to be at Briar!'

I said, 'Look at you. You ain't the boy. That boy had nerve.'

'I want Mr Rivers!'

I laughed, a mad laugh. 'I've got news for you. Mr Rivers ain't quite the gent you thought him, either. Mr Rivers is a devil and a rogue.'

He stepped forward. 'He ain't!'

'He is, though. He ran off with Miss Maud, told everyone I was her and put me in a madhouse. Who else do you think it was, signed my order?'

'If he signed it, it must have been true!'

'He's a villain.'

'He's a gem of a man! Everyone at Briar said so.'

'They never knew him like I did. He's bad, he's rotten.'

He made his hands into fists. 'I don't care!' he cried.

'You want to man for a devil?'

'Better that, than— Oh!' He sat upon the floor and hid his face. 'Oh! Oh! I was never more miserable, in all of my life. I hate you!'

'And I hate you,' I said, 'you fucking nancy.'

I still had the stone in my hand. I threw it at him.

It missed him by about a foot; but the sound of it striking the wall and floor was awful. I was shaking, now, almost as badly as he was. I looked at the knife I held, then put it from me. I touched my face. My cheek and brow were wet with a horrible sweat. I went to Charles and knelt beside him. He tried to push me away.

'Get off me!' he cried. 'Or, kill me now! I don't care!'

'Charles, listen to me,' I said, in a steadier voice. 'I don't hate you, truly. And you mustn't hate me. I am all you've got. You have lost your place at Briar, and your aunty don't want you. You can't go back to the country now. Besides, you should never find your way out of Southwark, without my help. You should wander and grow bewildered; and London is full of cruel hard men who do unspeakable things to bewildered fair-haired boys. You might be taken by the master of a ship, and finish up in Jamaica. How should you like that? Don't cry, for God's sake!'—He had begun to sob.—'You think I shouldn't like to cry? I have been dreadfully cheated, and the person that cheated me worst is lying at this moment in my own bed, with my own mother's arms about her. This is a greater thing than you can understand. This is a matter of life and death. I was foolish to say I would kill her tonight. But give me a day or two more, and let me think. There's money over there and—I swear it, Charles!—there are people there too who, once they know how I've been wronged, will give any kind of sum to the boy that has helped me back to them…'

He shook his head, still crying; and now, at last, I began to cry, too. I put my arm about him and he leaned into my shoulder, and we shuddered and wailed until, finally, someone in the room next door began to bang on the wall and call out for us to stop.

'There, now,' I said, wiping my nose. 'You're not afraid, now? You'll sleep, like a good boy?'

He said he thought he would, if I would keep beside him; and so we lay together on the bed with the red hairs in it, and he slept, with his pink lips parted, and his breaths coming even and smooth.

But I kept wakeful, all through that night. I thought of Maud, across the street, lying breathing in Mrs Sucksby's arms, her mouth open like his, like a flower, her throat perfectly slender, and perfectly white and bare.

By the time the morning came, I had the beginnings of a plan worked out. I stood at the window and watched Mr Ibbs's door for a time but then, seeing no-one stirring, gave it up. That could wait. What I needed now was money. I knew how to get it. I made Charles brush his hair and put a parting in it, then took him quietly from the house, by the back way. I took him to Whitechapel—a place, I thought, far enough from the Borough for me to risk going about without my veil. I found a spot on the High Street.

'Stand here,' I said. He did. 'Now, remember how you cried so hard last night? Let's see you do it again.'

'Let's what?'

I caught hold of his arm and pinched it. He gave a squeal, then began to snivel. I put my hand on his shoulder and looked up and down the street, in an anxious way. A few people gazed curiously at us. I beckoned them over.

'Please, sir, please, lady,' I said. 'I just come upon this poor boy, he's come in from the country this morning and has lost his master. Can you spare a couple of farthings, set him back upon his way? Can you? He's all alone and don't know no-one, don't know Chancery Lane from Woolwich. He has left his coat in his master's cart.—God bless you, sir! Don't cry, mate! Look, this gentleman is giving you twopence. Here comes some more! And they say Lon-doners' hearts is hard, in the country—don't they… ?'

Of course, the idea of a gentleman giving him money made Charles cry worse than ever. His tears were like so many magnets. We made three shillings, that first day—which paid for our room; and when we tried the same dodge the day after, on a different street, we made four. That got us our suppers. The money that was left over after that I kept, along with the ticket to Charles's coat, in my shoe. I wore my shoes, even in bed. 'I want my jacket,' Charles would say, a hundred times an hour; and every time I'd answer, 'Tomorrow. I swear. I promise. Just one more day…'

And then, all day, I would stand at the shutters, my eye at the heart-shaped hole. I was watching the house, figuring out its habits. I was marking it, patient as a cracksman. I saw thieves come, bringing pieces of poke to Mr Ibbs: I saw him turn the lock on his door, pull down his blind. The sight of his hands, of his honest face, made me want to weep. I'd think, 'Why
can't
I go to him?' Then, a little later, I'd see Gentleman, and be filled again with fear. Then I'd see Maud. I'd see her at the window. She liked to stand there, with her face against the sash—as if she knew I was watching, and mocked me! I saw Dainty, helping her dress in the mornings, fastening up her hair. And I saw Mrs Sucksby, at night, letting it down.—Once I saw her lift a tress of it to her mouth, and kiss it.

With each new thing, I would press my face so hard against the glass I stood at, it would groan in its frame. And at night, when the house was dark, I would take up my candle and walk, back and forth, back and forth, from one wall to another.

'They have got them all in their power,' I'd say. 'Dainty, and Mr Ibbs, and Mrs Sucksby; and I dare say John and even Phil. Like two great spiders, they have spun their web. We've got to be careful, Charles. Oh, haven't we! For say they know, through Dr Christie, that I've escaped? They
must
know by now! They are waiting, Charles. They are waiting for me.
She
never leaves the house—that's clever!—for, in keeping there, she keeps near Mrs Sucksby.
He
goes, however. I've seen him. I've been waiting, too. They don't know that.
He
goes. We'll make our move, next time he does. I'm the fly they want. They shan't get me. We'll send them
you
. They won't have thought of that! Hey, Charles?'

Charles never answered. I had kept him so long in that dark room, doing nothing, his face had got pale, and his eyes had begun to grow glassy, like a doll's. 'I want my jacket,' he still said, now and then, in a feeble sort of bleat; but I think he had almost forgotten what it was he wanted it for. For at last there came a time when he said it, and I answered: 'All right. Today you'll get it. We've waited long enough. Today's our day'; and instead of looking pleased, he stared and looked frightened.

Perhaps he thought he saw a certain feverish something in my eye. I don't know. It seemed to me I was thinking like a sharper, for the first time in my life. I took him back to Watling Street and got his jacket out of pawn. But I kept hold of it. Then I took him on a 'bus.—'For a treat,' I said. 'Look out the window, at the shops.'

I found us places next to a woman holding a baby. I sat with the coat across my lap. Then I looked at the baby. The woman caught my eye, and I smiled.

'Pretty boy,' she said. 'Isn't he? Won't sleep for his mother, though. I bring him on the 'buses and the bumping sends him off. We've been from Fulham to Bow; now we're on our way back.'

'He's a peach,' I said. I leaned in and stroked his cheek. 'Look at them lashes! He'll break hearts, he will.'

'Won't he!'

Then I leaned back. When the next stop came, I made Charles get off. The woman said good-bye, and from the window, as the 'bus moved away, she waved. But I didn't wave back. For, under cover of Charles's coat, I had had a feel about her waistband; and had prigged her watch. It was a nice little ladies' watch, and just what I needed. I showed it to Charles. He looked at it as though it were a snake that might bite him.

'Where did you get that?' he said.

'Someone gave it to me.'

'I don't believe you. Give me my jacket.'

'In a minute.'

'Give me my coat!'

We were walking on London Bridge. 'Shut up,' I said, 'or I'll throw it over the side.—That's better. Now, tell me this: can you write?'

He would not answer until I had gone to the wall of the bridge and dangled his jacket over; then he began to cry again, but said that he could. 'Good boy,' I said. I made him walk a little further, until we found a man hawking papers and inks. I bought a plain white sheet, and a pencil; and I took Charles back to our room and had him sit and write out a letter. I stood with my hand on the back of his neck, and watched.

'Write, Mrs
Sucksby
,' I said.

He said, 'How do you spell it?'

'Don't you know?'

He frowned, then wrote. It looked all right to me. I said,

'Now you write this. Write: I
was put in the madhouse by that villain your friend
—so
called
!—
Gentleman
—'

'You are going too fast,' he said, as he wrote. He tilted his head. '
By that villain your friend
—'

'—so
called
!—
Gentleman; and that bitch Maud Lilly
.—You must make those names stand out.'

The pencil moved on, then stopped. He blushed.

'I won't write that word,' he said.

'What word?'

'That B-word.'

'What?'

'Before Miss Lilly.'

I pinched his neck. 'You write it,' I said. 'You hear me? Then you write this, nice and big:
PIGEON MY ARSE! She is WORSE THAN HIM
!'

He hesitated; then bit his lip and wrote.

'That's good. Now this. Put: Mrs
Sucksby, I have escaped and am close at hand. Send me a signal by this boy. He is a friend, he is
writing this,
his name is Charles. Trust him, and believe me
—oh! if this fails, I'll die!—
believe me as ever as good and as faithful as your own daughter
— There you must leave a space.'

He did. I took the paper from him and wrote, at the bottom, my name.