Fingersmith Read online

  But again, it was a troubling kind of paleness, and I was glad to cover her up. I tidied her gown back into the press and jammed closed the door. She sat and waited, yawning, for me to come and brush her hair.

  Her hair was good, and very long let down. I brushed it, and held it, and thought what it might fetch.

  ‘What are you thinking of?’ she said, her eyes on mine in the glass. ‘Of your old mistress? Was her hair handsomer?’

  ‘Her hair was very poor,’ I said. And then, feeling sorry for Lady Alice: ‘But she walked well.’

  ‘Do I walk well?’

  ‘You do, miss.’

  She did. Her feet were small, her ankles slender like her waist. She smiled. As she had with our heads, she made me put my foot beside hers, to compare them.

  ‘Yours is almost as neat,’ she said kindly.

  She got into her bed. She said she didn’t care to lie in darkness. She had a rush-light in a tin shade kept beside her pillow, the kind old misers use, and she made me light it from the flame of my candle; and she wouldn’t let me tie the curtains of her bed, but had me pull them only a little way shut, so that she might see into the room beyond.

  ‘And you will not, will you, quite close your door?’ she said. ‘Agnes never used to. I didn’t like it, before you came, having Margaret in a chair. I was afraid I would dream and have to call her. When Margaret touches, she pinches. Your hands, Susan, are hard as hers; and yet your touch is gentle.’

  She reached and put her fingers quickly upon mine, as she said this; and I rather shuddered to feel the kid-skin on them—for she had changed out of her silk gloves, only to button another white pair back on. Then she took her hands away and tucked her arms beneath the blanket. I pulled the blanket perfectly smooth. I said,

  ‘Shall that be all, miss?’

  ‘Yes, Susan,’ she answered. She moved her cheek upon her pillow. She didn’t like the prickling of her hair against her neck: she had put it back, and it snaked away into shadow, straight and dark and slender as a rope.

  When I took my candle off, the shadow spread across her like a wave. Her room was dimly lit by the lamp, but her bed was in darkness. I half-closed my door, and heard her lift her head. ‘A little wider,’ she called softly, so I opened it further. Then I stood and rubbed my face. I had been at Briar only a day; but it was the longest day of my life. My hands were sore from pulling laces. When I closed my eyes, I saw hooks. Undressing myself had no fun in it, now I had undressed her.

  At last I sat and blew out my candle; and heard her move. There wasn’t a sound in the house: I heard her, very clearly, rise from her pillow and twist in her bed. I heard her reach and draw out her key, then put it to the little wooden box. At the click of the lock, I got up. I thought, ‘Well, I can be silent, if you can’t. I am softer than you or your uncle know’; and I made my way to the crack of the door and peeped through. She had leaned out of the curtained bed, and had the portrait of the handsome lady—her mother—in her hand. As I watched, she raised the portrait to her mouth, kissed it, and spoke soft, sad words to it. Then she put it from her with a sigh. She kept the key in a book beside her bed. I hadn’t thought to look in there. She locked the box back up, set it neatly on the table—touched it once, touched it twice—and then moved back behind the curtain and was still.

  I grew too tired to watch her, then. I moved back, too. My room was dark as ink. I reached with my hands and found the blanket and sheets, and pulled them down. I got beneath them; and lay cold as a frog in my own narrow lady’s maid’s bed.

  I cannot say how long I slept for then. I could not say, when I woke up, what awful sound it was that had woken me. I did not know, for a minute or two, whether my eyes were open or closed—for the darkness was so deep, there was no difference—it was only when I gazed at the open door to Maud’s room and saw the faint light there, that I knew I was awake and not dreaming. What I had heard, I thought, was some great crash or thud, and then perhaps a cry. Now, in the instant of my opening my eyes, there was a silence; but as I lifted my head and felt my heart beat hard, the cry came again. It was Maud, calling out in a high, frightened voice. She was calling on her old maid:

  ‘Agnes! Oh! Oh! Agnes!’

  I didn’t know what I would see when I went in to her—perhaps, a busted window and a burglar, pulling at her head, cutting the hair off. But the window, though it still rattled, was quite unbroken; and there was no-one there with her, she had come to the gap in her bed-curtains with the blankets all bunched beneath her chin and her hair flung about, half covering her face. Her face was pale and strange. Her eyes, that I knew were only brown, seemed black. Black, like Polly Perkins’s, as the pips in a pear.

  She said again, ‘Agnes!’

  I said, ‘It’s Sue, miss.’

  She said, ‘Agnes, did you hear that sound? Is the door shut?’

  ‘The door?’ The door was closed. ‘Is someone there?’

  ‘A man?’ she said.

  ‘A man? A burglar?’

  ‘At the door? Don’t go, Agnes! I’m afraid he’ll harm you!’

  She was afraid. She was so frightened, she began to frighten me. I said, ‘I don’t think there’s a man, miss.’ I said, ‘Let me try and light a candle.’

  But have you ever tried to light a candle from a rush-light in a tin shade? I could not get the wick to catch; and she kept on, weeping and calling me Agnes, until my hand shook so much I could not hold the candle steady.

  I said, ‘You must be quiet, miss. There’s no man; and if there is, then I shall call for Mr Way to come and catch him.’

  I took up the rush-light. ‘Don’t take the light!’ she cried at once. ‘I beg you, don’t!’

  I said I would only take it to the door, to show her there was no-one there; and while she wept and clutched at the bed-clothes I went with the light to the door to her parlour and—all in a flinching, winking kind of way—I pulled it open.

  The room beyond was very dark. The few great bits of furniture sat humped about, like the baskets with the thieves in, in the play of Ali Baba. I thought how dismal it would be if I had come all the way to Briar, from the Borough, to be murdered by burglars. And what if the burglar proved to be a man I knew—say, one of Mr Ibbs’s nephews? Queer things like that do happen.

  So I stood gazing fearfully at the dark room, thinking all this, half-inclined to call out—in case there were burglars there—that they should hold their hands, that I was family; but of course, there was no-one, it was quiet as a church. I saw that, and then went quickly to the parlour door, and looked into the passage; and that was dark and quiet, too—there was only the ticking of some clock, far-off, and more rattling windows. But after all it was not quite pleasant, standing in a night-dress, with a rush-light, in a great dark silent house that, though it didn’t have thieves in, might certainly have ghosts. I closed the door quick, and went back to Maud’s room and closed that door, and stepped to the side of her bed and put the light down.

  She said, ‘Did you see him? Oh, Agnes, is he there?’

  I was about to answer, but then I stopped. For I had looked towards the corner of the room, where the black press was; and there was something strange there. There was something long and white and gleaming, that was moving against the wood . . . Well, I have said, haven’t I, that I’ve a warm imagination? I was certain that the thing was Maud’s dead mother, come back as a ghost to haunt me. My heart leapt so hard into my mouth, I seemed to taste it. I screamed, and Maud screamed, then clutched at me and wept harder. ‘Don’t look at me!’ she cried. And then: ‘Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!’

  And then I saw what the white thing really was, and hopped from foot to foot and almost laughed.

  For it was only the cage of her crinoline, sprung out from where I had jammed it on the shelf with one of her shoes. The door of the press had swung open and hit the wall: that was the noise that had woken us. The crinoline was hanging from a hook, and quivering. My footsteps had made the springs bounce.
br />   I saw it, as I say, and almost laughed; but when I looked again at Maud, her eyes were still so black and wild and her face so pale, and she clutched at me so hard, I thought it would be cruel to let her see me smile. I put my hands across my mouth, and the breath came out between my jumping fingers, and my teeth began to chatter. I was colder than ever.

  I said, ‘It’s nothing, miss. After all, it’s nothing. You was only dreaming.’

  ‘Dreaming, Agnes?’

  She put her head against my bosom, and shook. I smoothed her hair back from her cheek, and held her until she grew calm.

  ‘There,’ I said then. ‘Shall you sleep again now? Let me put the blanket about you, look.’

  But when I made to lay her down, she gripped me harder. ‘Don’t leave me, Agnes!’ she said again.

  I said, ‘It’s Sue, miss. Agnes had the scarlatina, and is gone back to Cork. Remember? You must lie down now, or the cold will make you ill, too.’

  She looked at me then, and her gaze, that was still so dark, seemed yet a little clearer.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Sue!’ she whispered. ‘I’m afraid, of my own dreaming!’

  Her breath was sweet. Her hands and arms were warm. Her face was smooth as ivory or alabaster. In a few weeks’ time, I thought—if our plot worked—she would be lying in the bed of a madhouse. Who would there be to be kind to her, then?

  So I put her from me, but only for a moment; and I clambered over her and got beneath the blankets at her side. I put my arm about her, and at once she sank against me. It seemed the least that I could do. I pulled her closer. She was slender as anything. Not like Mrs Sucksby. Not like Mrs Sucksby, at all. She was more like a child. She still shivered a little, and when she blinked I felt the sweep of her lashes against my throat, like feathers. In time, however, the shivering stopped, and her lashes swept again and then were still. She grew heavy, and warm.

  ‘Good girl,’ I said, too softly to wake her.

  Next morning I woke a minute before she did. She opened her eyes, saw me, looked troubled, and tried to hide it.

  ‘Did my dreams wake me in the night?’ she said, not meeting my gaze. ‘Did I say foolish things? They say I speak nonsense, in my sleep, as other girls snore.’ She blushed, and laughed. ‘But how good you were, to come and keep me company!’

  I didn’t tell her about the crinoline. At eight o’clock she went off to her uncle, and at one I went to fetch her—taking care, this time, to mind the pointing finger on the floor. Then we walked in the park, to the graves and the river; she sewed, and dozed, and was rung to her supper; and I sat with Mrs Stiles until half-past nine, when it was time to go back up and put her to bed. It was all just the first day, over again. She said, ‘Good-night,’ and laid her head upon her pillow; then I stood in my room and heard her little box unlocked, and peeped through the door to watch her take up the portrait, kiss it, then put it away.

  And then, I had not put out my candle two minutes, before her voice came calling softly: ‘Sue—!’

  She said she could not sleep. She said she was cold. She said she would like to keep me close to her again, in case she woke up frightened.

  She said the same thing the next night; and the night after that. ‘You don’t mind?’ she asked me. She said Agnes never minded. ‘Did you never,’ she said, ‘sleep with Lady Alice, at Mayfair?’

  What could I tell her? For all I knew, it might have been an ordinary thing, for a mistress and her maid to double up like girls.

  It was ordinary at first, with Maud and me. Her dreams never bothered her. We slept, quite like sisters. Quite like sisters, indeed. I always wanted a sister.

  Then Gentleman came.

  4.

  He came, I suppose, about two weeks after I got there. It was only two weeks and yet, the hours at Briar were such slow ones, and the days—being all quite the same—were so even and quiet and long, it might have been twice that time.

  It was long enough, anyway, for me to find out all the peculiar habits of the house; long enough for me to get used to the other servants, and for them to get used to me. For a while, I didn’t know why it was they did not care for me. I would go down to the kitchen, saying, ‘How do you do?’ to whoever I met there: ‘How do you do, Margaret? All right, Charles?’ (That was the knife-boy.) ‘How are you, Mrs Cakebread?’ (That was the cook: that really was her name, it wasn’t a joke and no-one laughed at it.) And Charles might look at me as if he was too afraid to speak; and Mrs Cakebread would answer, in a nasty kind of way, ‘Oh, I’m sure I’m very well, thank you.’

  I supposed they were peeved to have me about, reminding them of all the flash London things they would never, in that quiet and out-of-the-way place, get a look at. Then one day Mrs Stiles took me aside. She said, ‘I hope you don’t mind, Miss Smith, if I have a little word? I can’t say how the house was run in your last place—’ She started everything she said to me with a line like that.—‘I can’t say how you did things in London, but here at Briar we like to keep very mindful of the footings of the house . . .’

  It turned out that Mrs Cakebread had fancied herself insulted, by my saying good-morning to the kitchen-maid and the knife-boy before I said it to her; and Charles thought I meant to tease him, by wishing him good-morning at all. It was all the most trifling sort of nonsense, and enough to make a cat laugh; but it was life and death to them—I suppose, it would be life and death to you, if all you had to look forward to for the next forty years was carrying trays and baking pastry. Anyway, I saw that, if I was to get anywhere with them, I must watch my steps. I gave Charles a bit of chocolate, that I had carried down with me from the Borough and never eaten; I gave Margaret a piece of scented soap; and to Mrs Cakebread I gave a pair of those black stockings that Gentleman had had Phil get for me from the crooked warehouse.

  I said I hoped there were no hard feelings. If I met Charles on the stairs in the morning, then, I looked the other way. They were all much nicer to me after that.

  That’s like a servant. A servant says, ‘All for my master,’ and means, ‘All for myself ’. It’s the two-facedness of it that I can’t bear. At Briar, they were all on the dodge in one way or another, but all over sneaking little matters that would have put a real thief to the blush—such as, holding off the fat from Mr Lilly’s gravy to sell on the quiet to the butcher’s boy; which is what Mrs Cakebread did. Or, pulling the pearl buttons from Maud’s chemises, and keeping them, and saying they were lost; which is what Margaret did. I had them all worked out, after three days’ watching. I might have been Mrs Sucksby’s own daughter after all. Mr Way, now: he had a mark on the side of his nose—in the Borough we should have called it a gin-bud. And how do you think he got that, in a place like his? He had the key to Mr Lilly’s cellar, on a chain. You never saw such a shine as that key had on it! And then, when we had finished our meals in Mrs Stiles’s pantry, he would make a great show of loading up the tray—and I’d see him, when he thought no-one was looking, tipping the beer from the bottom of all the glasses into one great cup, and lushing it away.

  I saw it—but, of course, I kept it all to myself. I wasn’t there to make trouble. It was nothing to me, if he drank himself to death. And I passed most of my time, anyway, with Maud. I got used to her, too. She had her finicking ways, all right; but they were slight enough, it didn’t hurt me to indulge them. And I was good at working hard, on little things: I began to take a kind of pleasure in the keeping of her gowns, the tidying of her pins and combs and boxes. I was used to dressing infants. I grew used to dressing her.

  ‘Lift your arms, miss,’ I’d say. ‘Lift your foot. Step here. Now, here.’

  ‘Thank you, Sue,’ she would always murmur. Sometimes she would close her eyes. ‘How well you know me,’ she might say. ‘I think you know the turning of all my limbs.’

  I did, in time. I knew all that she liked and hated. I knew what food she would eat, and what she’d leave—and when Cook, for instance, kept sending up eggs, I went and told her to send soup in
stead.

  ‘Clear soup,’ I said. ‘Clear as you can make it. All right?’

  She made a face. ‘Mrs Stiles,’ she said, ‘won’t like it.’

  ‘Mrs Stiles don’t have to eat it,’ I answered. ‘And Mrs Stiles ain’t Miss Maud’s maid. I am.’

  So then she did send soup. Maud ate it all up. ‘Why are you smiling?’ she said, in her anxious way, when she had finished. I said I wasn’t. She put down her spoon. Then she frowned, like before, over her gloves. They had got splashed.

  ‘It’s only water,’ I said, seeing her face. ‘It won’t hurt you.’

  She bit her lip. She sat another minute with her hands in her lap, stealing glances at her fingers, growing more and more restless. Finally she said:

  ‘I think the water has a little fat in it . . .’

  Then, it was easier to go into her room and get her a fresh pair of gloves myself, than to sit and watch her fret. ‘Let me do it,’ I said, undoing the button at her wrist; and though at first she wouldn’t let me touch her bare hands, in time—since I said I would be gentle—she began to let me. When her fingernails grew long I cut them, with a pair of silver scissors she had, that were shaped like a flying bird. Her nails were soft and perfectly clean, and grew quickly, like a child’s nails. When I cut, she flinched. The skin of her hands was smooth—but, like the rest of her, too smooth to be right, I never saw it without thinking of the things—rough things, sharp things—that would mark or hurt it. I was glad when she put her gloves back on. The slivers of nail that I had cut away I would gather up out of my lap and throw on the fire. She would stand and watch them turn black. She did the same with the hairs I drew from her brushes and combs—frowning while they wriggled on the coals, like worms, then flared and turned to ash. Sometimes I’d stand and look with her.