Fingersmith (44 page)

'You are still afraid that my uncle may have sent men, to watch us?'

He again moves off. 'Come. We can talk soon, indoors. Not here. Come on, this way. Pick up your skirts.'

He walks quicker than ever now, and I am slow to follow. When he sees me hanging back he holds our bags in one hand and, with the other, takes my wrist. 'Not far, now,' he says, kindly enough; his grip is tight, however. We leave that road and turn into another: here I can see the stained and broken face of what I take to be a single great house, but which is in fact the rear of a terrace of narrow dwellings. The air smells riverish, rank. People watch us, curiously. That makes me walk faster. Soon we turn again, into a lane of crunching cinders. Here there are children, in a group: they are standing idly about a bird, which lurches and hops. They have tied its wings with twine. When they see us, they come and press close. They want money, or to tug at my sleeve, my cloak, my veil. Richard kicks them away. They swear for a minute, then return to the bird. We take another, dirtier, path—Richard all the time gripping me harder, walking faster, faster, certain of his way. 'We are very close now,' he says. 'Don't mind this filth, this is nothing. All London is filthy like this. Just a little further, I promise. And then you may rest.'

And at last, he slows. We have reached a court, with a thick mud floor and nettles. The walls are high, and running with damp. There is no open route from here, only two or three narrow covered passages, filled with darkness. Into one of these he makes to draw me, now; but, so black and foul is it, I sud-denly hesitate, and pull against his grip.

'Come on,' he says, turning round, not smiling.

'Come to where?' I ask him.

'To your new life, that has waited for you to start it, too long. To our house. Our housekeeper expects us. Come, now.—Or shall I leave you here?'

His voice is tired, hard. I look behind me. I see the other passages, but the muddy path he has led me down is hidden—as if the glistening walls have parted to let us come, then closed to trap me.

What can I do? I cannot go back, alone, to the children, the labyrinth of lanes, the street, the city. I cannot go back to Sue. I am not meant to. Everything has been impelling me here, to this dark point. I must go forward, or cease to exist. I think again of the room that is waiting for me: of the door, with its key that will turn; of the bed, on which I shall lie and sleep, and sleep—

I hesitate, one second more; then let him draw me into the passage. It is short, and ends with a flight of shallow stairs, leading downwards; and these, in turn, end at a door, on which he knocks. From beyond the door there comes at once the barking of a dog, then soft, quick footsteps, a grinding bolt. The dog falls silent. The door is opened, by a fair-haired boy—I suppose, the housekeeper's boy. He looks at Richard and nods.

'All right?' he says.

'All right,' answers Richard. 'Is Aunty home? Here's a lady, look, come to stay.'

The boy surveys me, I see him squinting to make out the features behind my veil. Then he smiles, nods again, draws back the door to let us pass him; closes it tightly at our backs.

The room beyond is a kind of kitchen—I suppose, a servants' kitchen, for it is small, and windowless, dark and unwholesome, and chokingly hot: there is a good fire lit, and one or two smoking lamps upon a table and—perhaps, after all, these are the grooms' quarters—a brazier in a cage, with tools about it. Beside the brazier is a pale man in an apron who, on seeing us come, sets down some fork or file and wipes his hands and looks me over, frankly. Before the fire sit a young woman and a boy: the girl fat-faced, red-haired, also watching me freely; the boy sallow and scowling, chewing with broken teeth on a strip of dry meat, and dressed—I notice this, even in my confusion—in an extraordinary coat, that seems pieced together from many varieties of fur. We holds, between his knees, a squirming dog, his hand about its jaws to keep it from barking. He looks at Richard and then at me. He surveys my coat and gloves and bonnet. He whistles.

'What price them togs,' he says.

Then he flinches as, from another chair—a rocking chair, that creaks as it tilts—a white-haired woman leans to strike him. I suppose her the housekeeper. She has watched me, more closely and more eagerly than any of the others. She holds a bundle: now she puts it down and struggles from her seat, and the bundle gives a shudder. This is more astonishing than the lighted brazier, the coat of fur—it is a sleeping, swollen-headed baby in a blanket.

I look at Richard. I think he will speak, or lead me on. But he has taken his hand from me and stands with folded arms, very leisurely. He is smiling, but smiling oddly. Everyone is silent. No-one moves save the white-haired woman. She has left her chair and comes about the table. She is dressed in taffeta, that rustles. Her face has a blush, and shines. She comes to me, she stands before me, her head weaves as she tries to catch the line of my features. She moves her mouth, wets her lips. Her gaze is still close and terribly eager. When she raises her blunt red hands to me, I flinch.—'Richard,' I say. But he still does nothing, and the woman's look, that is so awful and so strange, compels me. I stand and let her fumble for my veil. She puts it back. And then her gaze changes, grows stranger still, when she sees my face. She touches my cheek, as if uncertain it will remain beneath her fingers.

She keeps her eyes on mine, but speaks to Richard. Her voice is thick with the tears of age, or of emotion.

'Good boy,' she says.

T
hen there comes a kind of chaos.

The dog barks and leaps, the baby in its blanket gives a cry; another baby, that I have not noticed—it lies in a tin box, beneath the table begins to cry also. Richard takes off his hat and his coat, sets down our bags, and stretches. The scowling boy drops open his mouth and shows the meat within.

'It ain't Sue,' he says.

'Miss Lilly,' says the woman before me, quietly. 'Ain't you just the darling. Are you very tired, dear? You have come quite a journey.'

'It ain't Sue,' says the boy again, a little louder.

'Change of plan,' says Richard, not catching my eye. 'Sue stays on behind, to take care of a few last points.—Mr Ibbs, how are you, sir?'

'Sweet, son,' the pale man answers. He has taken off his apron and is quieting the dog. The boy who opened the door to us has gone. The little brazier is cooling and ticking and growing grey. The red-haired girl bends over the screaming babies with a bottle and a spoon, but is still stealing looks at me.

The scowling boy says, 'Change of plan? I don't get it.'

'You will,' answers Richard. 'Unless—' He puts his finger against his mouth, and winks.

The woman, meanwhile, is still before me, still describing my face with her hands, telling off my features as if they were beads upon a string. 'Brown eyes,' she says, beneath her breath; her breath is sweet as sugar. 'Pink lips, two pouters. Nice and dainty at the chin. Teeth, white as china. Cheeks—rather soft, I dare say? Oh!'

I have stood, as if in a trance, and let her murmur; now, feeling her fingers flutter against my face, I start away from her.

'How dare you?' I say. 'How dare you speak to me? How dare you look at me, any of you? And you—' I go to Richard and seize his waistcoat. 'What is this? Where have you brought me to? What do they know of Sue, here?'

'Hey, hey,' calls the pale man mildly. The boy laughs. The woman looks rueful.

'Got a voice, don't she?' says the girl.

'Like the blade on a knife,'says the man.'That clean.'

Richard meets my gaze, then looks away. 'What can I say?' He shrugs. 'I am a villain.' -

'Damn your attitudes now!' I say. Tell me what this means. Whose house is this? Is it yours?'

'Is it his!' The boy laughs harder, and chokes on his meat.

'John, be quiet, or I'll thrash you,' says the woman. 'Don't mind him, Miss Lilly, I implore you now, don't!'

I can feel her wringing her hands, but do not look at her. I keep my eyes upon Richard. Tell me,' I say.

'Not mine,' he answers at last.

'Not ours?' He shakes his head. 'Whose, then? Where, then?'

He rubs at his eye. He is tired. 'It is theirs,' he says, nodding to the woman, the man. 'Their house, in the Borough.'

The Borough… I have heard him say the name, once or twice before. I stand for a moment in silence, thinking back across his words; then my heart drops. 'Sue's house,' I say. 'Sue's house, of thieves.'

'Honest thieves,' says the woman, creeping closer, 'to those that know us!'

I think:
Sue's aunt
! I was sorry for her, once. Now I turn and almost spit at her. 'Will you keep from me, you witch?' The kitchen grows silent. It seems darker, too, and close. I still have Richard gripped by the waistcoat. When he tries to pull away, I hold him tighter. My thoughts are leaping, fast as hares. I think,
He
has
married me, and has brought me here, as a place to be rid of me. He means to keep my money for himself. He means to give them some trifling share for the killing of me, and Sue
—even in the midst of my shock and confusion, my heart drops again, as I think it—
Sue they will free. Sue
knows
it all
.

'You shan't do it!' I say, my voice rising. 'You think I don't know what you mean to do? All of you? What trick?'

'You don't know anything, Maud,' he answers. He tries to draw my hands from his coat. I will not let him. I think, if he does that, they will certainly kill me. For a second we struggle. Then: The stitching, Maud!' he says. He plucks my fingers free. I catch at his arm instead.

'Take me back,' I say. I say it, thinking:
Don't let them see you are afraid
! But my voice has risen higher and I cannot make it firm. Take me back, at once, to the streets and hackneys.'

He shakes his head, looks away. 'I can't do it.'

'Take me now. Or I go, alone. I shall make my way—I saw the route! I studied it, hard!—and I shall find out a—a policeman!'

The boy, the pale man, the woman and girl, all flinch or wince. The dog barks.

'Now now,' says the man, stroking his moustache. 'You must be careful how you talk, dear, in a house like this.'

'It is you who must be careful!' I say. I look from one face to another. 'What is it you think you shall have from this? Money? Oh, no. It is you who must be careful. It is all of you! And you, Richard—you—who must be most careful of all, should I once find a policeman and begin to talk.'

But Richard looks and says nothing.

'Do you hear me?' I cry.

The man winces again, and puts his finger to his ear as if to clear it of wax. 'Like a blade,' he says, to no-one, to everyone. 'Ain't it?'

'Damn you!' I say. I look wildly about me for a moment, then make a sudden grab at my bag. Richard reaches it first, however, he hooks it with his long leg and kicks it across the floor, almost playfully. The boy takes it up, and holds it in his lap. He produces a knife and begins to pick at the lock. The blade flashes.

Richard folds his arms. 'You see you cannot leave, Maud,' he says simply. 'You cannot go, with nothing.'

He has moved to the door, to stand before it. There are other doors, that lead, perhaps to a street, perhaps only into other dark rooms. I shall never choose the right one.

'I am sorry,' he says.

The boy's knife flashes again. Now, I think,
they will kill me
. The thought itself is like a blade, and astonishingly sharp. For haven't I willed my life away, at Briar? Haven't I felt it rising from me, and been glad? Now I suppose they mean to kill me; and I am more afraid than I have imagined it possible to be, of anything, anything at all.

You fool
, I say to myself. But to them I say: 'You shan't. You shan't!' I run one way, and then another; finally I dart, not for the door at Richard's back, but for the slumbering, swollen-headed baby. I seize it, and shake it, and put my hand to its neck. 'You shan't!' I say again. 'Damn you, do you think I have come so far, for this?' I look at the woman. 'I shall kill your baby first!'—I think I would do it.—'See, here! I shall stifle it!'

The man, the girl, the boy, look interested. The woman looks sorry. 'My dear,' she says, 'I have seven babies about the place, just now. Make it six, if you want. Make it'—with a gesture to the tin box beneath the table—'make it five. It is all the same to me. I fancy I am about to give the business up, anyway.'

The creature in my arms slumbers on, but gives a kick. I feel the rapid palpitation of its heart beneath my fingers, and there is a fluttering at the top of its swollen head. The woman still watches. The girl puts her hand to her neck, and rubs. Richard searches in his pocket for a cigarette. He says, as he does it, 'Put the damn child down, Maud, won't you?'

He says it mildly; and I become aware of myself, my hands at a baby's throat. I set the child carefully down upon the table, among the plates and china cups. At once, the boy takes his knife from the lock of my bag and waves it over its head.

'Ha-ha!' he cries. The lady wouldn't do it. John Vroom shall have him— lips, nose and ears!'