Chapter Two
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The bookish old man, it turned out, was called Christopher Lilly. The nieame was Maud. They lived west of London, out Maidenhead-way, near a village named Marlow, and in a house they called Briar. Gentlemans plan was to sehere alone, by train, in two days time. He himself, he said, must stay in London for another week at least, to do the old mans business over the bindings of his books.I didnt care much for the detail of my travelling down there, and arriving at the house, all on my own. I had never been much further west before than the Cremardens, where I sometimes went with Mr Ibbss nephews, to watch the dang on a Saturday night. I saw the French girl cross the river on a wire from there, and almost drop—that was something. They say she wore stogs; her legs looked bare enough to me, though. But I recall standing on Battersea Bridge as she walked her rope, and looking out, past Hammersmith, to all the tryside beyond it, that was just trees
and hills and not a ey or the spire of a chur sight—and oh! that was a very chilling thing to see. If you had said to me then, that I would one day leave the Bh, with all my pals in it, and Mrs Sucksby and Mr Ibbs, and go quite aloo a maids pla a house the other side of those dark hills, I should have laughed in your face.
But Gentleman said I must go soon, in case the lady—Miss Lilly—should spoil our plot, by actally taking anirl to be her servant. The day after he came to Lant Street he sat and wrote her out a letter. He said he hoped she would pardon the liberty of his writing, but he had been on a visit to his old hat had been like a mother to him, when he was a boy—and he had found her quite demented with grief, over the fate of her dead sisters daughter. Of course, the dead sisters daughter was meant to be me: the story was, that I had been maiding for a lady who was marrying and heading off for India, and had lost my place; that I was looking out for another mistress, but was meanwhile beied on every side to go to the bad; and that if only some softhearted lady would give me the ce of a situation far away from the evils of the city—and so on.
I said, If shell believe bouncers like those, Gentleman, she must be even sillier than you first told us.
But he answered, that there were about a hundred girls betweerand and Piccadilly, who dined very handsomely off that story, five nights a week; and if the hard swells of London could be separated from their shillings by it, then how much kinder wasnt Miss Maud Lilly likely to be, all alone and unknowing and sad as she was, and with no-oo tell her aer?
Youll see, he said. And he sealed the letter and wrote the dire, and had one of our neighbours boys run with it to the post.
Then, so sure was he of the success of his plan, he said they must begin at oo teach me horoper ladys maid should be.
First, they washed my hair. I wore my hair then, like lots of the Bh girls wore theirs, divided in three, with a b at the bad, at the sides, a few fat curls. If you turhe curls with a very hot iron, having first made the hair wet with sugar-and-water, you
could make them hard as anything; they would last for a week like that, or lentleman, however, said he thought the style too fast for a try lady: he made me wash my hair till it erfectly smooth, then had me divide it once—just the ohen pin it in a plain knot at the bay head. He had Dainty wash her hair, too, and when I had bed and re-bed mine, and pinned and re-pi, until he was satisfied, he made me b and pin hers in a matg style, as if hers was the ladys, Miss Lillys. He fussed about us like a regular girl. When we had finished, Dainty and I looked that plain and ba-faced, we might have been trying for places in a nunnery. John said if they would only put pictures of us in the dairies, it would be a new way of curdling milk.
When Dainty heard that she pulled the pins from her hair and threw them at the fire. Some had hair still ging to them, and the flames set it hissing.
t you do anything to that girl of yours, said Mr Ibbs to John, but make her cry?
John laughed. I likes to see her cry, he said. It makes her sweat the less.
He was an evil boy, all right.
But he was quite caught up ilemans plot, despite himself. We all were. For the first time I ever knew, Mr Ibbs kept the blind pulled down on his shop door a his brazier go cold. When people came knog with keys to be cut, he sent them away. To the two or three thieves that brought poke, he shook his head.
t do it, my son. Not to-day. Got a little something cooking.
He only had Phil e, early in the m. He sat him down and ran him through the points of a list that Gentleman had drawn up the night before; then Phil pulled his cap down over his eyes, a. When he came back two hours later it was with a bag and a vas-covered trunk, that he had got from a man he knew, who ran a crooked warehouse at the river.
The trunk was for me to take to the try. In the bag was a brown stuff dress, more or less my size; and a cloak, and shoes, and black silk stogs; and on top of it all, a heap of ladys real white uhings.
Mr Ibbs only undid the string at the neck of the bag, peeped in, and saw the lihen he went and sat at the far side of the kit, where he had a Bramah lock he liked sometimes to take apart, and powder, and put back together. He made John go with him and hold the screws. Gentleman, however, took out the ladys items one by one, and placed them flat upoable. Beside the table he set a kit chair.
Now, Sue, he said, suppose this chairs Miss Lilly. How shall you dress her? Lets say you start with the stogs and drawers. The drawers? I said. You dont mean, shes naked?
Dainty put her hand to her mouth and tittered. She was sitting at Mrs Sucksbys feet, having her hair re-curled.
Naked? said Gentleman. Why, as a nail. What else? She must take off her clothes when they grow foul; she must take them off to bathe. It will be your job to receive them when she does. It will be your job to pass her her fresh ones.
I had not thought of this. I wondered how it would be to have to stand and hand a pair of drawers to a strange bare girl. A strange bare girl had once run, shrieking, down Lant Street, with a poli and a nurse behind her. Suppose Miss Lilly toht like that, and I had to grab her? I blushed, aleman saw. e now, he said, almost smiling. Dont say youre squeamish?
I tossed my head, to show I wasnt. He hen took up a pair of the stogs, and then a pair of drawers. He placed them, dangling, over the seat of the kit chair.
What ? he asked me.
I shrugged. Her shimmy, I suppose.
Her chemise, you must call it, he said. And you must make sure to warm it, before she puts it on.
He took the shimmy up and held it close to the kit fire. The it carefully above the drawers, over the back of the chair, as if the chair was wearing it.
Now, her corset, he said . She will want you to tie this for her, tight as you like. e os see you do it.
He put the corset about the shimmy, with the laces at the back; and while he leaned upon the chair to hold it fast, he made me pull
the laces and knot them in a bow. They left lines of red and white upon my palms, as if I had been whipped.
Why dont she wear the kind of stays that fasten at the front, like a regular girl? said Dainty, watg.
Because then, said Gentleman, she shouldnt need a maid. And if she didnt need a maid, she shouldnt know she was a lady. Hey? He winked.
After the corset came a camisole, and after that a dicky; then came a nine-hoop oline, and then more petticoats, this time of silk. Theleman had Dainty run upstairs for a bottle of Mrs Sucksbys st, and he had me spray it where the splintered wood of the chair-back showed between the ribbons of the shimmy, that he said would be Miss Lillys throat.
And all the time I must say:
Will you raise your arms, miss, for me thten this frill? and,
Do you care for it, miss, with a ruffle or a flounce? and,
Are you ready for it now, miss?
Do you like it drawn tight?
Should you like it to be tighter?-
Oh! Five me if I pinch.
At last, with all the bending and the fussing, I grew hot as a pig. Miss Lilly sat before us with her corset tied hard, her petticoats spread out about the floor, smelling fresh as a rose; but rather wanting, of course, about the shoulders and the neck.
John said, Dont say much, do she? He had been sneaking gla us all this time, while Mr Ibbs put the powder to his Bramah.
Shes a lady, said Gentleman, stroking his beard, and naturally shy. But shell pick up like anything, with Sue ao teach her. Wont you, darling?
He squatted at the side of the chair and smoothed his fingers over the bulging skirts; then he dipped his hah them, reag high into the layers of silk. He did it so ly, it looked to me as if he knew his way, all right; and as he reached higher his cheek grew
pink, the silk gave a rustle, the oline bucked, the chair quivered hard upo floor, the joints of its legs faintly shrieking. Then it was still.
There, you sweet little bitch, he said softly. He drew out his hand and held up a stog. He passed it to me, and yawned. Now, lets say its bed-time.
John still watched us, saying nothing, only blinking and jiggling his leg. Dainty rubbed her eye, her hair half curled, smelling powerfully of toffee.
I began at the ribbons at the waist of the dickies, the loose the laces of the corset and eased it free.
Will you just lift your foot, miss, for me to take this from you?
Will you breathe a little softer, miss? and then it will e.
He kept me w like that for an hour or more. Then he warmed up a flat-iron.
Spit on this, will you, Dainty? he said, holding it to her. She did; and when the spit gave a sizzle he took out a cigarette, and lit it on the irons hot base. Then, while he stood by and smoked, Mrs Sucksby—who had once, long ago, in the days before she ever thought of farming infants, been a mangling-woman in a laundry— showed me how a ladys linen should be pressed and folded; and that, I should say, took about another hour.
Thelema me upstairs, to put on the dress that Phil had got for me. It lain brown dress, more or less the colour of my hair; and the walls of our kit being also brown, when I came downstairs again I could hardly be seen. I should have rathered a blue gown, or a violet one; but Gentleman said it was the perfect dress for a sneak or for a servant—and so all the more perfee, who was going to Briar to be both.
We laughed at that; and then, when I had walked about the room to grow used to the skirt (which was narrow), and to let Dainty see where the cut was toe and itg, he had me stand and try a curtsey. This was harder than it sounds. Say what you like about the kind of life I was used to, it was a life without masters: I had never curtseyed before to anyone. Now Gentleman had me
dipping up and down until I thought I should be sick. He said curtseying came as natural to ladies maids, as passing wind. He said if I would only get the trick, I should never fet it—and he was right about that, at least, for I still dip a proper curtsey, even now.— Or could, if I cared to.
Well. When we had finished with the curtseys he had me learn my story. Then, to test me, he made me stand before him a my part, like a girl saying a catechism.
Now then, he said. What is your name?
Aint it Susan? I said.
Aint it Susan, what?
Aint it Susan Trinder?
Aint it Susan, sir. You must remember, I shant be Gentleman to you at Briar. I shall be Mr Richard Rivers. You must call me sir; and you must call Mr Lilly sbbr></abbr>ir; and the lady you must call miss or Miss Lilly or Miss Maud, as she directs you. And we shall all call you Susan. He frowned. But, not Susan Trihat may lead them back to Lant Street if things g. We must find you a better sed name—
Valentine, I said, straight off. What I tell you? I was only seventeen. I had a weakness for hearts. Gentleman heard me, and curled his lip.
Perfect, he said; —if we were about to put you oage.
I know real girls named Valentine! I said.
Thats true, said Dainty. Floy Valentine, awo sisters. Lord, I hates those girls, though. You dont want to be named for them, Sue.
I bit my finger. Maybe not.
Certainly not, said Gentleman. A fanciful name might ruin us. This is a life-ah business. We need a hat will hide you, n you to everyones notice. We need a name—he thought it over—an untraceable name, yet one we shall remember . . . Brown? To match your dress? Or—yes, why not? Lets make it, Smith. Susan Smith. He smiled. You are to be a sort of smith, after all. This sort, I mean.
He let his hand drop, and tur, and crooked his middle
finger; and the sign, and the word he meant—fingersmith—being Bh code for thief, we laughed again.
At last he coughed, and wiped his eyes. Dear me, what fun, he said. Now, where had we got to? Ah, yes. Tell me again. What is your name?
I said it, with the sir after.
Very good. And what is your home?
My home is at London, sir, I said. My mother being dead, I live with my old aunty; which is the lady what used to be your nurse when you was a boy, sir.
He nodded. Very good as to detail. Not so good, however, as to style. e now: I know Mrs Sucksby raised you better than that. Youre not selling violets. Say it again.
I pulled a face; but then said, more carefully,
The lady that used to be your nurse when you were a boy, sir.
Better, better. And what was your situation, before this?
With a kind lady, sir, in Mayfair; who, being lately married and about to go to India, will have a native girl to dress her, and so wont need me.
Dear me. You are to be pitied, Sue.
I believe so, sir.
And are you grateful to Miss Lilly, for having you at Briar?
Oh, sir! Gratitude aint in it!
Violets again! He waved his hand. Never mind, that will do. But dont hold my gaze so boldly, will you? Look, rather, at my shoe. Thats good. Now, tell me this. This is important. What are your duties while attending your new mistress?
I must wake her in the ms, I said, and pour out her tea. I must wash her, and dress her, and brush her hair. I must keep her jewellery , and not steal it. I must walk with her when she has a fancy to walk, and sit when she fancies sitting. I must carry her fan for when she grows too hot, her for when she feels nippy, her eau-de-Cologne for if she gets the head-ache, and her salts for when she es over queer. I must be her chaperon for her drawing-lessons, and not see when she blushes.
Splendid! And what is your character?
Ho as the day
And what is your object, that no-o we must know?
That she will love you, and leave her uncle for your sake. That she will make your fortune; and that you, Mr Rivers, will make mine.
I took hold of my skirts and showed him one of those smooth curtseys, my eyes all the time ooe of his boot.
Dainty clapped me. Mrs Sucksby rubbed her hands together and said,
Three thousand pounds, Sue. Oh, my crikey! Dainty, pass me an infant, I want something to squeeze.
Gentleman stepped aside and lit a cigarette. Not bad, he said. Not bad, at all. A little fining down, I think, is all thats needed now. We shall try again later.
Later? I said. Oh, Gentleman, aint you finished with me yet? If Miss Lilly will have me as her maid for the sake of pleasing you, why should she care how fined down I am?
She may not mind, he answered. I think we might put an apron on Charley Wag and send him, for all she will mind or wonder. But it is not only her that you will have to fool. There is the old man, her uncle; and besides him, all his staff.
I said, His staff? I had not thought of this.
Of course, he said. Do you think a great house runs itself? First of all theres the steward, Mr Way—
Mr Way! said John with a snort. Do they call him Milky?
No, said Gentlemaurned bae. Mr Way, he said again. I should say he wont trouble you much, though. But there is also Mrs Stiles, the housekeeper—she may study you a little harder, you must be careful with her. And then there is Mr Ways boy Charles, and I suppose one or two girls, for the kit work; and one or two parlourmaids; and grooms and stable-boys and gardeners—but you shant see much of them, dont think of them.
I looked at him in horror. I said, You never said about them before. Mrs Sucksby, did he say about them? Did he say, there will be about a hundred servants, that I shall have to play the maid for?
Mrs Sucksby had a baby and was rolling it like dough. Be fair now, Gentleman, she said, not looking over. You did keep very dark about the servants last night.
He shrugged. A detail, he said.
A detail? That was like him. Telling you half of a story and making out you had it all.
But it was too late now, for a ge of heart. The day Gentleman worked me hard again; and the day after that he got a letter, from Miss Lilly.
He got it at the post-offi the City. Our neighbours would have wondered what , if wed had a letter e to the house. He got it, and brought it back, and ope while we looked on; the in sileo hear it—Mr Ibbs only drumming his fingers a little oable-top, by which I khat he was nervous; and so grew more nervous myself.
The letter was a short one. Miss Lilly said, first, what a pleasure it was, to have received Mr Riverss note; and how thoughtful he was, and how kind to his old nurse. She was sure, she wished mentlemen were as kind and as thoughtful as him!
Her u on very badly, she said, now his assistant was gohe house seemed very ged and quiet and dull; perhaps this was the weather, which seemed to have turned. As for her maid— Here Gentleman tilted the letter, the better to catch the light.—As for her maid, pnes: she leased to be able to tell him that Agnes looked set not to die after all—
We heard that and drew in our breaths. Mrs Sucksby closed her eyes, and I saw Mr Ibbs give a gla his cold brazier and re up the business he had lost in the past two days. But theleman smiled. The maid was not about to die; but her health was so ruined and her spirits so low, they were sending her back to Cork.
God bless the Irish! said Mr Ibbs, taking out his handkerchief and wiping his head.
Gentleman read on.
I shall be glad to see the girl you speak of, Miss Lilly wrote. I should be glad if you would seo me, at once. I am grateful
to anyone for remembering me. I am not over-used to people thinking of my forts. If she be only a good and willing girl, then I am sure I shall love her. And she will be the dearer to me, Mr Rivers, because she will have e to me from London, that has you in it.
He smiled again, raised the letter to his mouth, and passed it bad forth across his lips. His snide ring glittered in the light of the lamps.
It had all turned out, of course, just as the clever devil had promised.
That night—that was to be my last night at Lant Street, and the first night of all the nights that were meant to lead to Gentlemans seg of Miss Lillys fortuhat night Mr Ibbs sent out for a hot roast supper, and put irons to heat in the fire, for making flip, in celebration.
The supper igs head, stuffed at the ears—a favourite of mine, and got in my honour. Mr Ibbs took the carving-ko the back-door step, put up his sleeves, and stooped to sharpen the blade. He leaned with his hand on the door-post, and I watched him do it with a queer sensation at the roots of my hair: for all up the post were cuts from where, each Christmas Day when I was a girl, he had laid the knife upon my head to see how high Id grown. Now he drew the blade bad forth across the stone, until it sang; then he ha to Mrs Sucksby and she dished out the meat. She always carved, in our house. An ear apiece, for Mr Ibbs aleman; the snout for John and Dainty; and the cheeks, that were the te parts, for herself and for me.
It was all got, as Ive said, in my honour. But, I dont know—perhaps it was seeing the marks on the door-post; perhaps it was thinking of the soup that Mrs Sucksby would make, when I wouldhere to eat it, with the bones of the roast pigs head; perhaps it was the head itself—which seemed to me to be grimag, rather, the lashes of its eyes and the bristles of its snout gummed brown with treacly tears—but as we sat about the table, I grew sad. John and Dainty wolfed their dinner down, laughing and quarrelling, now and then firing up wheleman teased, and now and then sulking. Mr Ibbs wely to work on his plate, and
Mrs Sucksby wely to work on hers; and I picked over my bit of pork and had no appetite.
I gave half to Dainty. She gave it to John. He snapped his jaws and howled, like a dog.
And then, when the plates were cleared away Mr Ibbs beat the eggs and the sugar and the rum, to make flip. He filled seven glasses, took the irons from the brazier, waved them for a sed to take the sting of the heat off, then pluhem iing the flip was like setting fire to the brandy on a plum pudding—everyone liked to see it done ahe drinks go hiss. John said, I do one, Mr Ibbs?—his face red from the supper, and shiny like paint, like the face of a boy in a picture in a toy-shop window.
We sat, and everyoalked and laughed, saying what a fihing it would be wheleman was made rich, and I came home with my cool three thousand; and still I kept rather quiet, and no-one seemed to notice. At last Mrs Sucksby patted her stomad said,
Wont you give us a tune, Mr Ibbs, to put the baby to bed by?
Mr Ibbs could whistle like a kettle, for an hour at a go. He put his glass aside and wiped the flip from his moustache, and started up with The Tarpaulin Jacket. Mrs Sucksby hummed along until her eyes gre, and then the hum got broken. Her husband had been a sailor, and been lost at sea.—Lost to her, I mean. He lived in the Bermudas.
Handsome, she said, when the song was finished. But lets have a lively o, for heavens sake!—else I shall be drove quite maudlis see the youngsters have a bit of a dance.
Mr Ibbs struck up with a quick tuhen, and Mrs Sucksby clapped, and John and Dainty got up and pushed the chairs back. Will you hold my earrings for me, Mrs Sucksby? said Dainty. They dahe polka until the a ors upon the mantelpiece jumped and the dust rose inches high about their thumpi. Gentleman stood and leaned and watched them, smoking a cigarette, calling Hup! and Go it, Johnny!, as he might call, laughing, to a terrier in a fight he had on.
When they asked me to join them, I said I would not. The dust
made me sneeze and, after all, the iron that had warmed my flip had beeed too hard, and the egg had curdled. Mrs Sucksby had put by a glass and a plate of morsels of meat for Mr Ibbss sister, and I said I would carry them up.—All right, dear girl, she said, still clapping out the beat. I took the plate and the glass and a dle, and slipped upstairs.
It was like stepping out of heaven, I always thought, to leave our kit on a winters night. Even so, when I had left the food beside Mr Ibbss sleeping sister ao one or two of the babies, that had woken with the sounds of the dang below, I did not go back to joihers. I walked the little way along the landing, to the door of the room I shared with Mrs Sucksby; and then I went up the pair of stairs, to the little attic I had been born in.
This room was always cold. Tonight there was a breeze up, the window was loose, and it was colder thahe floor lain boards, with strips et on it. The walls were bare, but for a bit of blue oil-cloth that had been tacked to catch the splashes from a wash-stand. The stand, at the moment, was draped with a waistcoat and a shirt, of Gentlemans, and one or two collars. H<s>.</s>e always slept here, when he came to visit; though he might have made a bed with Mr Ibbs, down i. I know which place I would have chosen. On the flged his high leather boots, that he had scraped the mud from and shined. Beside them was his bag, with more white linen spilling from it. On the seat of a chair were some s from his pocket, a packet of cigarettes, and sealing-wax. The s were light. The wax was brittle, like toffee.
The bed was roughly made. There was a red velvet curtain upon it, with the rings taken off, for a terpa had been got from a burning house, and still smelt of ders. I took it up and put it about my shoulders, like a cloak. Then I pinched out the flame of my dle and stood at the window, shivering, looking out at the roofs and eys, and at the Horsemonger Lane Gaol where my mother was hanged.
The glass of the window had the first few blooms of a new frost upon it, and I held my fio it, to make the ice turn to dirty water. I could still catch Mr Ibbss whistle and the bounce of
Daintys feet, but before me the streets of the Bh were dark. There was only here and there a feeble light at a window like mine, and then the lantern of a coach, throwing shadows; and then a person, running hard against the cold, quid dark as the shadows, and as quickly e and gone. I thought of all the thieves that must be there, and all the thieves children; and then of all the regular men and women who lived their lives—their strange and ordinary lives—in other houses, other streets, in the brighter parts of London. I thought of Maud Lilly, in her great house. She did not know my name—I had not known hers, three days before. She did not know that I was standing, plotting her ruin, while Dainty Warren and John Vroom danced a polka in my kit.
What was she like? I knew a girl named Maud once, she had half a lip. She used to like to make out that the other half had been lost in a fight; I knew for a fact, however, she had been born like that, she couldnt fight putty. She died in the end—not from fighting, but through eating bad meat. Just o of bad meat killed her, just like that.
But, she was very dark. Gentleman had said that the other Maud, his Maud, was fair and rather handsome. But when I thought of her, I could picture her only as thin and brown and straight, like the kit chair that I had tied the corset to.
I tried another curtsey. The velvet curtain made me clumsy. I tried again. I began to sweat, in sudden fear.
Then there came the opening of the kit door and the sound of footsteps oair, and then Mrs Sucksbys voice, calling for me. I didnt answer. I heard her walk to the bedrooms below, and look for me there; then there was a silehen her feet again, upoic stairs, and then came the light of her dle. The climb made her sigh a little—only a little, for she was very nimble, for all that she was rather stout.
Are you here then, Sue? she said quietly. And all on your own, in the dark?
She looked about her, at all that I had looked at—at the s and the sealing-wax, alemans boots aher bag. Then she
came to me, and put her warm, dry hand to my cheek, and I said— just as if she had tickled or pinched me, and the words were a chuckle or a cry I could not stop—I said:
What if I aint up to it, Mrs Sucksby? What if I t do it? Suppose I lose my nerve a you down? Hadnt we ought to send Dainty, after all?
She shook her head and smiled. Now, then, she said. She led me to the bed, a and she drew down my head until it rested in her lap, and she put back the curtain from my cheek and stroked my hair. Now, then.
Aint it a long way to go? I said, looking up at her face.
Not so far, she answered.
Shall you think of me, while I am there?
She drew free a strand of hair that was caught about my ear.
Every minute, she said, quietly. Aint you my own girl? And wont I worry? But you shall have Gentleman by you. I should never have let you go, for any ordinary villain.
That was true, at least. But still my heart beat fast. I thought again of Maud Lilly, sitting sighing in her room, waiting for me to e and unlace her stays and hold her nightgown before the fire. Poor lady, Dainty had said.
I chewed at the inside of my lip. Then: Ought I to do it, though, Mrs Sucksby? I said. Aint it a very mean trick, and shabby?
She held my gaze, then raised her eyes and o the view beyond the window. She said, I know she would have do, and not given it a thought. And I know what she would feel in her heart—what dread, but also ride, and the pride part winning—to see you doing it now.
That made me thoughtful. For a minute, we sat and said nothing. And what I asked her was something I had never asked before—something which, in all my years at Lant Street, amongst all those dodgers and thieves, I had never heard anyone ask, not ever. I said, in a whisper,
Do you think it hurts, Mrs Sucksby, when they drop you?
Her hand, that was smoothing my hair, grew still. Then it started up stroking, sure as before. She said,
I should say you dont feel nothing but the rope about your neck. Rather ticklish, I should think it.
Ticklish?
Say then, pricklish.
Still her ha smoothing.
But when the drop is opened? I said. Wouldnt you say you felt it then?
She shifted her leg. Perhaps a twitch, she admitted, when the drop is opened.
I thought of the men I had seen fall at Horsemonger Lahey twitched, all right. They twitched and kicked about, like monkeys on sticks.
But it es that quick at the last, she went ohat I rather think the quiess must take the pain out of it. And when it es to dropping a lady—well, you know they place the knot in such a way, Sue, that the end es all the quicker?
I looked up at her again. She had set her dle on the floor, and the light striking her face all from beh, it made her cheeks seem swollen and her eyes seem old. I shivered, and she moved her hand to my shoulder and rubbed me, hard, through the velvet.
Theilted her head. Theres Mr Ibbss sister, quite bewildered again, she said, and calling on her mother. She has been calling on her, poor soul, these fifteen years. I shouldnt like to e to that, Sue. I should say that, of all the ways a body might go, the quid the way might, after all, be best.
She said it; and then she winked.
She said it, and seemed to mean it.
I do sometimes wonder, however, whether she mightnt only have said it to be kind.
But I didnt think that then. I only rose and kissed her, and made my hair where she had stroked it loose; and then came the thud of the kit dain, and this time heavier feet upoairs, and then Daintys voice.
Where are you, Sue? Aint you ing for a dance? Mr Ibbs has got his wind up, were having a right old laugh down here.
Her shout woke half the babies, and that half woke the other. But
Mrs Sucksby said that she would see to them, and I went back down, and this time I did dance, with Gentleman as my partner. He held me in a waltz-step. He was drunk and held me tight. John danced again with Dainty, and we bumped about the kit for a half-an-hentleman all the time still calling, Go it, Johnny! and e up, boy! e up!, and Mr Ibbs stopping oo rub a bit of butter on his lips, to keep the whistle sweet.
day, at midday, was when I left them. I packed all my bits of stuff into the vas-covered trunk and wore the plain brown dress and the cloak and, over my flat hair, a bo. I had learned as much as Gentleman could teach me after three days work. I knew my story and my new name—Susan Smith. There was only one more thing that o be done, and as I sat taking my last meal in that kit—which was bread and dried meat, the meat rather too dried, and ging to my gums—Gentleman did it. He brought from his bag a piece of paper and a pen and some ink, and wrote me out a character.
He wrote it off in a moment. Of course, he was used to faking papers. He held it up for the ink to dry, then read it out. It began:
To whom it might . Lady Alice Dunraven, of Whelk Street, May fair, reends Miss Susan Smith—and it went on like that, I fet the rest of it, but it sounded all right to me. He placed it flat again and sig in a ladys curling hand. Then he held it to Mrs Sucksby.
What do you think, Mrs S? he said, smiling. Will that get Sue her situation?
But Mrs Sucksby said she couldnt hope to judge it.
You know best, dear boy, she said, looking away.
Of course, if we ever took help at Lant Street, it wasnt character we looked for so much as lack of it. There was a little dwarfish girl that used to e sometimes, to boil the babies napkins and to wash the floors; but she was a thief. We couldnt have had ho girls e. They would have seen enough in three minutes of the business of the house to do for us all. We couldnt have had that.
So Mrs Sucksby waved the paper away, aleman read it through a sed time, then wi me, then folded it and sealed it and put it in my trunk. I swallowed the last of my dried meat and bread, and fastened my cloak. There was only Mrs Sucksby to say good-bye to. John Vroom and Dainty never got up before one. Mr Ibbs was goo crack a safe at Bow: he had kissed my cheek an hour before, and given me a shilling. I put my hat on. It was a dull brown thing, like my dress. Mrs Sucksby set it straight. The her hands to my fad smiled.
God bless you, Sue! she said. You are making us rich!
But then her smile grew awful. I had never been parted from her before, for more than a day. She turned away, to hide her falling tears.
Take her quick, she said to Gentleman. Take her quick, and do me see it!
And so he put his arm about my shoulders and led me from the house. He found a boy to walk behind us, carrying my trunk. He meant to take me to a cab-stand and drive me to the station at Paddington, and see me on my train.
The day was a miserable one. Even so, it was not so often I got to cross the water, and I said I should like to walk as far as Southwark Bridge, to look at the view. I had thought I should see all of London from there; but the fog grew thicker the further we went. At the bridge it seemed worst of all. You could see the blae of St Pauls, the barges oer; you could see all the dark things of the city, but not the fair—the fair were lost or made like shadows.
Queer thing, to think of the river down there, said Gentleman, peering over the edge. He leaned, and spat.
We had not bargained on the fog. It made the traffic slow to a crawl, and though we found a cab, after twenty minutes we paid the driver off and walked again. I had bee to catch the one oclock train; now, stepping fast across some great square, we heard that hour struck out, and then the quarter, and then the half—all maddeningly damp and half-hearted, they sounded, as if the clap-
pers and the bells that rung them had been wound about with flan-
nel.
Had we not rather turn around, I said, and try again tomorrow?
But Gentleman said there would be a driver and a trap sent out to Marlow, to meet my train there; and I had better be late, he thought, than not arrive at all.
But after all, whe to Paddington at last we found the trains all delayed and made slow, just like the traffic: we had to wait another hour then, until the guard should raise the signal that the Bristol train—which was to be my train as far as Maidenhead, where I must get off and join another—was ready to be boarded. We stood beh the tig clock, fidgeting and blowing on our hands. They had lit the great lamps there, but the fog having e in and mixed with the steam, it drifted from arch to ard made the light very poor. The walls were hung with black, from the death of Prince Albert; the crape had got streaked by birds. I thought it very gloomy, for so grand a place. And of course, there was a vast press of people beside us, all waiting and cursing, or jost<big></big>ling by, or letting their children and their dogs run ints.
Fuck this, said Gentleman in a hard peevish voice, when the wheel of a bath-chair ran over his toe. He stooped to wipe the dust from his boot, then straightened and lit up a cigarette, then coughed. He had his collar turned high and wore a black slouch hat. His eyes were yellow at the whites, as if stained with flip. He did not, at that moment, look like a man a girl would go silly over.
He coughed again. Fuck this cheap tobacco, too, he said, pulling free a strand that had e loose on his tohen he caught my eye and his face ged. Fuck this cheap life, in all its forms—eh, Suky? No more of that for you and me, soon.
I looked away from him, saying nothing. I had danced a fast waltz with him the night before; now, away from Lant Street and Mrs Sucksby and Mr Ibbs, amongst all the men and women that were gathered grumbling about us, he seemed just aranger, and I was shy of him. I thought, Youre nothing to me. And again I almost said that we ought to turn round and go home; but I knew
that if I did he would grow more peevish and show his temper; and so, I did not.
He finished his smoke, then smoked another. He went off for a piddle, and I went off for a piddle of my own. I heard a whistle blown as I was tidying my skirts; and when I got back, I found the guard had sent out the word and half the crowd had started up and was making in a great sweating rush for the waiting train. We went with them, Gentleman leadio a sed-class coach, then handing up my trunk to the man who was fixing the bags and boxes on the roof. I took a place beside a white-faced woman with a baby on her arm; across from her were two stout farmer-types. I think she was glad to see me get on, for of course, me being dressed so and ely, she couldnt tell—ha ha!—that I was a thieving Bh girl. Behind me came a boy and his old dad, with a ary in a cage. The boy sat beside the farmers. The old dad sat by me. The coach tilted and creaked, and ut back our heads and stared at the bits of dust and varnish that tumbled from the ceiling where the luggage thumped and slithered about above.
The door hung open another minute and then was closed. In all the fuss of getting aboard I had hardly looked at Gentleman. He had handed me on, then turo talk with the guard. Now he came to the open window and said,
Im afraid you may be very late, Sue. But I think the trap will wait for you at Marlow. I am sure it will wait. You must hope that it will
I k ohat it would not, a a rush of misery and fear. I said quickly,
e with me, t you? And see me to the house?
But how could he do that? He shook his head and looked sorry. The two farmer-types, the woman, the boy and the old dad all watched us—w I suppose what house we meant, and what a man in a slouch hat, with a voice like that, was doing talking to a girl like me about it.
Then the porter climbed down from the roof, there came another whistle, the train gave a horrible lurd began to move off.
Gentleman lifted up his hat and followed until the e up its speed; then he gave it up—I saw him turn, put his hat ba, twist up his collar. Then he was gohe coach creaked harder and began to sway. The woman and the men put their hands to the leather straps; the boy put his face to the window. The ary put its beak to the bars of its cage. The baby began to cry. It cried for half an hour.
Aint you got any gin? I said to the woman at last.
Gin? she said—like I might have said, poison. Then she made a mouth, and showed me her shoulder—not so pleased to have me, sitting by her, the uppity bitch, after all.
What with her and the baby, and the fluttering bird; and the old dad—who fell asleep and snorted; and the boy—who made paper pellets; and the farmer-types—who smoked and grew bilious; and the fog—that made the train jerk and halt and arrive at Maidewo hours later than its time, so that I missed one Marlow train and must wait for the one—what with all that, my journey was very wretched. I had nht any food with me, for we had all supposed I should arrive at Briar in time to take a servants tea there. I had not had a morsel sihat dinner of bread and dried meat, at noon: it had stuy gums then, but I should have called it wonderful at Maidenhead, seven hours later. The station there was not like Paddington, where there were coffee-stalls and milk-stalls and a pastry-cooks shop. There was only one place for vittles, and that was shut up and closed. I sat on my trunk. My eyes stung, from the fog. When I blew my nose, I turned a handkerchief black. A man saw me do it. Dont cry, he said, smiling.
I aint g! I said.
He wihen asked me my name.
It was ohing to flirt in town, however. But I wasnt in town now. I wouldnt answer. Wherain came for Marlow I sat at the back of a coach, a at the front, but with his face my way— he tried for an hour to catch my eye. I remembered Dainty saying that she had sat on a train once, with a gentleman near, and he had opened his trousers and showed her his cock, and asked her to hold it; and she had held it, and he had given her a pound. I wondered
what I would do, if this man asked me to touch his cock—whether I would scream, or look the other way, or touch it, or what.
But then, I hardly he pound, where I was headed!
Anyway, money like that was hard to move on. Dainty had never been able to spend hers for fear her father should see it and know shed been gay. She hid it behind a loose bri the wall of the starch works, and put a special mark on the brick, that only she would know. She said she would tell it on her death-bed, and we could use the pound to bury her.
Well, the man on my train watched me very hard, but if he had his trousers open I never saw; and at last he tilted his hat to me and got off. There were more stops after that, and at every one someone else got off, from further down along the train; and no-o on. The stations grew smaller and darker, until finally there was nothing at them but a tree—there was nothing to see anywhere, but trees, and beyond them bushes, and beyond them fog—grey fog, not brown—with the blaight sky above it. And wherees and the bushes seemed just about at their thickest, and the sky was blacker than I should have thought a sky naturally could be, the train stopped a final time; and that was Marlow.
Here no-o off save me. I was the last passenger of all. The guard called the stop, and came to lift down my trunk. He said,
Youll want that carrying. Is there no-one e to meet you?
I told him there was supposed to be a man with a trap, to take me up to Briar. He said, Did I mearap that came to fetch the post? That would have been and gohree hours before. He looked me over.
e down from London, have you? he said. Then he called to the driver, who was looking from his cab. Sheve e down from Londo for Briar. I told her, the Briar trap will have e and gone.
Thatll have e and gohat will, called the driver. Thatll have e and gone, I should say three hours back.
I stood and shivered. It was colder here than at home. It was colder and darker and the air smelt queer, and the people—didnt I say it?—the people were howling simpletons.
I said, Aint there a cab-man could take me?
A cab-man? said the guard. He shouted it to the driver. Wants a cab-man!
A cab-man!
They laughed until they coughed. The guard took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth, saying, Dearie me, oh! dearie, dearie me. A cab-man, at Marlow!
Oh, fuck off, I said. Fuck off, the pair of you.
And I caught up my trunk and walked with it to where I could see one or two lights shining, that I thought must be the houses of the village. The guard said, Why, you hussy—! I shall let Mr Way know about you. See what he thinks—ying your London tongue down here—!
I t say what I meant to do . I did not know how far it was to Briar. I did not even know which road I ought to take. London was forty miles away, and I was afraid of cows and bulls.
But after all, try roads arent like city ohere are only about four of them, and they all go to the same pla the end. I started to walk, and had walked a minute when there came, behihe sound of hooves and creaking wheels. And then a cart drew alongside me, and the driver pulled up and lifted up a lantern, to look at my face.
Youll be Susan Smith, he said, e down from London. Miss Maudve beeing after you all day.
He was an oldish man and his name was William Inker. He was Mr Lillys groom. He took my trunk and helped me into the seat beside his own, and geed up the horse; and when—being struck by the breeze as we drove—he felt me shiver, he reached for a tartan bla for me to put about my legs.
It was six or seven miles to Briar, aook it at an easy sort of trot, smoking a pipe. I told him about the fog—there was still something of a mist, even now, even there—and the slow trains.
He said, Thats London. Known for its fogs, aint it? Been much down to the try before?
Not much, I said.
Been maiding iy, have you? Good place, your last one? Pretty good, I said.
Rum way of speaking youve got, for a ladys maid, he said theo France ever?
I took a sed, smoothing the bla out over my lap. Once or twice, I said.
Short kind of chaps, the French chaps, I expect? In the leg, I mean.
Now, I only knew one Fren—a housebreaker, they called him Jack the German, I dont know why. He was tall enough; but I said, to please William Inker, Shortish, I suppose. I expect so, he said.
The road erfectly quiet and perfectly dark, and I imagihe sound of the horse, and the wheels, and our voices, carrying far across the fields. Then I heard, from rather near, the slow tolling of a bell—a very mournful sound, it seemed to me at that moment, not like the cheerful bells of London. It tolled imes.
Thats the Briar bell, sounding the hour, said William Inker. We sat in sileer that, and in a little time we reached a high stone Wall and took a road that ran beside it. Soon the wall became a great arch, and then I saw behind it the roof and the pointed windows of a greyish house, half-covered with ivy. I thought it a grand enough crib, but not so grand nor so grim perhaps as Gentleman had pai. But when William Inker slowed the horse and I put the bla from me and reached for my trunk, he said,
Wait up, sweetheart, weve half a mile yet! And then, to a man who had appeared with a lantern at the door of the house, he called: Good night, Mr Mack. You may shut the gate behind us. Here is Miss Smith, look, safe at last.
The building I had thought was Briar was only the lodge! I stared, saying nothing, and we drove on past it, between two rows of bare dark trees, that curved as the road curved, then dipped into a kind of hollow, where the air—that had seemed to clear a little, on the open try lanes—grew thick again. So thick it grew, I felt it, damp, upon my face, upon my lashes and lips; and closed my eyes.
Then the dampness passed away. I looked, and stared again. The road had risen, we had broken out from between the lines of trees into a gravel clearing, and here—rising vast and straight and stark out of the woolly fog, with all its windows black or shuttered, and its walls with a dead kind of ivy ging to them, and a couple of its eys sending up threads of a feeble-looking grey smoke—here was Briar, Maud Lillys great house, that I must now call my home.
We did not cross before the face of it, but kept well to the side, then took up a lahat swung round behind it, where there was a muddle of yards and out-houses and porches, and more dark walls and shuttered windows and the sound of barking dogs. High in one of the buildings was the round white fad great black hands of the clock I had heard striking across the fields. Beh it, William Inker pulled the horse up, then helped me down. A door ened in one of the walls and a woman stood gazing at us, her arms folded against the cold.
Theres Mrs Stiles, heard the trap e, said William. We crossed the yard to join her. Up above us, at a little window, I thought I saw a dle-flame shine, and flutter, and then go out.
The door led to a passage, and this led to a great, bright kit, about five times the size of our kit at Lant Street, and with pots set in rows upon a whitewashed wall, and a few rabbits hanging on hooks from the beams of the ceiling. At a wide scrubbed table sat a boy, a woman and three or firls—of course, they looked very hard at me. The girls studied my bo and the y cloak. Their frocks and aprons being only servants wear, I didnt trouble myself to study them.
Mrs Stiles said, Well, youre about as late as you could be. Any longer and you shouldve had to stay at the village. We keep early hours here.
She was about fifty, with a white cap with frills and a way of not quite looking in your eye as she spoke to you. She carried keys about her, on a at her waist. Plain, old-fashioned keys, I could have copied any one of them.
I made her half a curtsey. I did not say—which I might have— that she should be thankful I had not turned back at Paddington;
that I wished I had turned back; and that for ao have had the time that I had had, in trying to get forty miles from London, perhaps went to prove that London was to be left—I did not say that. What I said was:
Im sure, Im very grateful that the trap was sent at all. The girls at the table tittered to hear me speak. The woman who sat with them—the cook, it turned out—got up a about making me a supper-tray. William Inker said,
Miss Smithve e from a pretty fine pla London, Mrs Stiles. And sheve been several times in France. Has she, said Mrs Stiles.
Only one or two times, I said. Now everyone would suppose I had been boasting.
She said the chaps there are very short in the leg. _ Mrs Stiles gave a nod. The girls at the table tittered again, and one of them whispered something that made the boy grow red. But then my tray was made, and Mrs Stiles said,
Margaret, you carry this through to my pantry. Miss Smith, I suppose I should take you to where you might splash your hands and face.
I took this to mean that she would show me to the privy, and I said I wished she would. She gave me a dle and took me down another short passage, to another yard, that had ah closet in it with paper on a spike.
Theook me to her own little room. It had a ey-piece with white wax flowers on it, and a picture of a sailor in a frame, that I supposed was Master Stiles, gone off to Sea; and anoth<samp>藏书网</samp>er picture, of an angel, doirely in black hair, that I presumed was Mr Stiles, gone off to Glory. She sat and watched me take my supper. It was mutton, minced, and bread-and-butter; and you may imagihat, being so hungry as I was, I made very short work of it. As I ate, there came the slow chiming of the clock that I had heard before, sounding half-past nine. I said, Does the clock chime all night?
Mrs Stiles nodded. All night, and all day, at the hour and the half. Mr Lilly likes his days run very regular. Youll find that out.
And Miss Lilly? I said, pig crumbs from the er of my mouth. What does she like?
She smoothed her apron. Miss Maud likes what her uncle likes, she answered.
Then she rearranged her lips. She said,
Youll know, Miss Smith, that Miss Maud is quite a young girl, for all that shes mistress of this great house. The servants dont trouble her, for the servants ao me. I should have said I had been a housekeeper long enough to know how to secure a maid for my own mistress—but there, even a housekeeper must do as she is bid, and Miss Maudve gone quite over my head in this matter. Quite over my head. I shouldnt have thought that perfectly wise, in a girl of her years; but we shall see how it turns out.
I said, I am sure whatever Miss Lilly does must turn out well.
She said, I have a great staff of servants, to make sure that it does. Thisis a well-kept house, Miss Smith, and I hope you will take to it. I dont know what you might be used to in your last place. I dont know what might be sidered a ladys maids duties, in London. I have never been there—she had never been to London!—so ot say. But if you mind my irls, then I am sure they will mind you. The men and the stable-boys, of course, I hope I shall never see you talking with more than you help
She went on like that for a quarter of an hour—all the time, as I have mentioned, never quite catg my eye. She told me where I might walk in the house, and where I must take my meals, and how much sugar I should be allowed for my own use, and how much beer, and when I could expect my underclothes lauhe tea that was boiled in Miss Mauds teapot, she said, it had been the habit of the last ladys maid to pass on to the girls i. Likewise the wax-ends from Miss Mauds dle-sticks: they were to be given to Mr Way. And Mr Way would know how many wax-ends to expect, si was him who doled out the dles. Corks went to Charles, the knife-boy. Bones and skio Cook.
The pieces of soap that Miss Maud leaves in her wash-stand, however, she said, as being too dry to raise a lather from: those you may keep.
Well, thats servants for you—always grubbing over their own little patch. As if I cared, about dle-ends and soap! If I had never quite felt it before, I khen what it was, to be in expectations of three thousand pounds.
Then she said that if I had finished my supper she would be pleased to show me to my room. But she would have to ask me to be very quiet as we went, for Mr Lilly liked a silent house and couldnt bear upset, and Miss Maud had a set of hat were just like his, that wouldnt allow of her bei from her rest or made fretful.
So she said; and theook up her lamp, and I took up my dle, and she led me out into the passage and up a dark staircase. This is the servants way, she said, as we walked, that you must always take, unless Miss Maud directs you otherwise.
Her void her tread grew softer the higher we went. At last, when we had climbed three pairs of stairs, she took me to a door, that she said in a whisper was the door to my room. Putting her finger before her lips, she slowly turhe handle.
I had never had a room of my own before. I did not particularly want one, now. But, since I must have ohis one I supposed would do. It was small and plain—would have looked better, perhaps, for a paper garland or two, or a few plaster dogs. But there was a looking-glass upon the mantel and, before the fire, a rug. Beside the bed—William Inker must have brought it up—was my vas trunk.
he head of the bed there was another door, shut quite tight and with no key in it. Where does that lead? I asked Mrs Stiles, thinking it might lead to another passage or a closet.
Thats the door to Miss Mauds room, she said.
I said, Miss Maud is through there, asleep in her bed?
Perhaps I said it rather loud; but Mrs Stiles gave a shudder, as if I might just have shrieked or sprung a rattle.
Miss Maud sleeps very poorly, she answered quietly. If she wakes in the night, then she likes her girl to go to her. She wont call out for you, since you are a strao her noill put Margaret in a chair outside her door, and Margaret shall take her
her breakfast tomorrow, and dress her for the day. After that, you ust be ready to be called in and examined. She said she hoped Miss Maud would find me pleasing. I said I
did, too.
She left me, then. She went very softly, but at the door she paused, to put her hand to the keys at her . I saw her do it, and grew quite cold: for she looked all at once like nothing so much as the matron of a gaol. I said, before I could stop myself:
Youre not going to lock me in?
Lock you in? she answered, with a frown. Why should I do
that?
I said I didnt know. She looked me over, drew in her , then shut the door a me.
I held up my thumb. Kiss that! I thought.
Then I sat upon the bed. It was hard. I wondered if the sheets and blas had been ged sihe last maid left with the scarlatina. It was too dark to see. Mrs Stiles had taken her lamp and I had set my dle down in a draught: the flame of it plunged about and made great black shadows. I unfastened my cloak, but kept it draped about my shoulders. I ached, from the cold and the travelling; and the mince I had eaten had e too late—it sat in my stomad hurt. It was ten oclock. We laughed at people who went to bed before midnight, at home.
I might as well have been put in gaol, I thought. A gaol would have been livelier. Here, there was only an awful silence: you listened, and it troubled your ears. And when you got up ao the window and looked outside, you nearly faio see how high you were, and how dark were the yard and the stables, how still and quiet the land beyond.
I remembered the dle I had seen, fluttering at a window as I walked with William Inker. I wondered whi it was that that light had shone from.
I opened my trunk, to look at all the things that I had brought with me from Lant Street—but then, none of them were really mihey were only the petticoats and shimmies that Gentleman had made me take. I took off my dress, and for a sed held it
against my face. The dress was not miher; but I found the seams that Dainty had made, and smelled them. I thought that her needle had left the st there, of John Vrooms dog-skin coat.
I thought of the soup that Mrs Sucksby would have made, from the bones of that pigs head; and it was quite as strange as I k would be, to imagihem all sittiing it, perhaps thinking of me, perhaps thinking of something else entirely.
If I had been a g sort of girl, I should certainly have cried then, imagining that.
But I was never a girl for tears. I ged into my nightgown, put my cloak ba above it, and stood in my stogs and my unbuttoned shoes. I looked at the shut door at the head of the bed, and at the key-hole in it. I wondered if Maud kept a key on her side and-had it turned. I wondered what I would see, if I went a and looked—and who think a thing like that, and not go and do it? But when I did go, on tiptoe, and stoop to the lock, I saw a dim light, a shadow—nothing clearer than that, no sign of any kind of sleeping or wakeful or fretful girl, or anything.
I wohough, if I might hear her breathing. I straightened up, and held my breath, and put my ear flat to the door. I heard my heart-beat, and the r of my blood. I heard a small, tight sound, that must have been the creeping of a worm or a beetle in the wood.
Beyond that, there was nothing—though I listened for a minute, maybe two. Then I gave it up. I took off my shoes and my garters and got into bed: the sheets were cold a damp, like sheets of pastry. I put my cloak over the bed-clothes—for extra warmth; and also so that I might quickly seize it, if someone came at me in the night and I wao run. You never khe dle I left burning. If Mr Way was to plain that that was oub less, too bad.
Even a thief has her oints. The shadows still danced about. The pastry sheets stayed cold. The great clock sounded half-past ten—eleven—half-past eleven—twelve. I lay and shivered, and longed with all my heart for Mrs Sucksby, Lant Street, home.
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