Chapter Eight
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I have said it was my uncles , occasionally to invite ied gentlemen to the house, to take a supper with us and, later, hear me read. He does so now.Make yourself onight, Maud, he says to me, as I stand in his library buttoning up my gloves. We shall have guests. Hawtrey, Huss, and another fellow, a stranger. I hope to employ him with the mounting of our pictures.
Our pictures. There are ets, in a separate study, filled with drawers of lewd engravings, that my uncle has collected in a desultory sort of manner, along with his books. He has often spoken of taking on some man to trim and mount them, but has never found a man to match the task. One needs a quite particular character, for work of that sort.
He catches my eye, thrusts out his lips. Hawtrey claims to have a gift for us, besides. Aion of a text we have not catalogued.
That is great news, sir.
Perhaps I speak drily; but my uhough a dry man himself, does not mark it. He only puts his hand to the slips of paper before him and divides the heap into two uneven piles. So, so. Let me see . . .
May I leave you, Uncle?
He looks up. Has the hour struck?
It has, I believe.
He draws out from his pocket his chiming watd holds it to his ear. The key to his library door—sewn about, at the stem, with faded velvet—swings noiselessly beside it. He says, Go on then, go on. Leave an old man to his books. Go and play, but—gently, Maud.
Yes, Uncle.
Now and then I wonder how he supposes I spend my hours, when not engaged by him. I think he is too used to the particular world of his books, where time passes strangely, or not at all, and imagines me an ageless child. Sometimes that is how I imagine myself—as if my short, tight gowns a sashes keep me bound, like a ese slipper, to a form I should otherwise outleap. My uncle himself—who is at this time, I suppose, not quite above fifty—I have always sidered to have been perfectly and permaly aged; as flies remain aged, yet fixed and unging, in cloudy chips of amber.
I leave him squinting at a page of text. I walk very quietly, in soft-soled shoes. I go to my rooms, where Agnes is.
I fi work at a piece of sewing. She sees me e, and flinches. Do you know how provoking such a flinch will seem, to a temperament like mine? I stand and watch her sew. She feels my gaze, and begins to shake. Her stitches grow long and crooked. At last I take the needle from her hand aly put the point of it against her flesh; then draw it off; then put it back; then do this, six or seven times more, until her knuckles are marked between the freckles with a rash of needle-pricks.
There are to be gentlemeonight, I say, as I do it. One a stranger. Do you suppose he will be young, and handsome?
I say it—idly enough—as a way of teasing. It is nothing to me. But she hears me, and colours.
I t say, miss, she answers, blinking and turning her head; not drawing her hand away, however. Perhaps.
You think so?
Who knows? He might be.
I study her harder, struck with a new idea.
Should you like it if he was?
Like it, miss?
Like it, Agnes. It seems to me now, that you would. Shall I tell him the way to your room? I shant listen at the door. I shall turn the key, you will be quite private.
Oh, miss, what nonsense!
Is it? Here, turn your hand. She does, and I jab the needle harder. Now, say you dont like it, having a prick upon your palm!
She takes her hand away and sucks it, and begins to cry. The sight of her tears—and of her mouth, w o of tender flesh that I have stabbed—first stirs, then troubles me; then makes me weary. I leave her weeping, and stand at my rattling window, my eyes upon the lawn that dips to the wall, the rushes, the Thames.
Will you be quiet? I say, when her breath still catches. Look at you! Tears, fentleman! Dont you know that he wont be handsome, or even young? Dont you know, they never are?
But of course, he is both.
Mr Richard Rivers, my uncle says. The name seems auspicious to me. Later I will discover it to be false—as false as his rings, his smile, his manner; but now, as I stand in the drawing-room and he rises to make me his bow, why should I think to doubt him? He has fiures, eveh, and is taller than my uncle by almost a foot. His hair is brushed and has oil upon it, but is long: a curl springs from its plad tumbles across his brow. He puts a hand to it, repeatedly. His hands are slender, smooth and—but for a single finger, stained yellow by smoke—quite white.
Miss Lilly, he says, as he bends towards me. The lock of hair falls forward, the stained hand lifts to brush it back. His voice is very low, I suppose for my uncles sake. He must have been cautioned in advance, by Mr Hawtrey.
Mr Hawtrey is a London bookseller and publisher, and has been
many times to Briar. He takes my hand and kisses it. Behind him es Mr Huss. He is a gentleman collector, a friend from my uncles youth. He also takes my hand, but takes it to draw me closer to him, then kisses my cheek. Dear child, he says.
I have been several times surprised by Mr Huss upoairs. He likes to stand and watch me climb them.
How do you do, Mr Huss? I say now, making him a curtsey.
But it is Mr Rivers I watch. And once or twice, when I turn my face his way, I find his own eyes fixed on me, his gaze a thoughtful one. He is weighing me up. Perhaps he has not supposed I would be so handsome. Perhaps I am not so handsome as rumour has had him think. I ot tell. But, when the dinner-bell sounds and I move to my uncles side to be walked to the table, I see him hesitate; then he chooses the plaext to mine. I wish he had not. I think he will tio watch me, and I dont like to be watched, while eating. Mr Way and Charles move softly about us, filling lasses—mihat crystal cup, cut with an M. The food is set upon our plates, then the servants leave: they ay when we have pany, but returween courses. At Briar we eat, as we do everything, by the chiming of the clock. A supper of gentlemen lasts one hour and a half.
We are served hare soup, this night; then goose, crisp at the skin, pink at the bones, and with its innards devilled and passed about the table. Mr Hawtrey takes a dainty kidney, Mr Rivers has the heart. I shake my head at the plate he offers.
Im afraid youre not hungry, he says quietly, watg my face.
Dont you care foose, Miss Lilly? asks Mr Hawtrey. Nor does my eldest daughter. She thinks of goslings, and grows tearful.
I hope you catch her tears ahem, says Mr Huss. I often think I should like to see the tears of a girl made into an ink.
An ink? Doion it to my daughters, I beg you. That I must hear their plaints, is ohing. Should they och the idea of impressing them also upon paper, and making me read them, I assure you, my life would not be worth the living.
Tears, for ink? says my uncle, a beat behind the others. What rubbish is this?
Girls tears, says Mr Huss.
Quite colourless.
I think not. Truly, sir, I think not. I fancy them delicately tinged—perhaps pink, perhaps violet.
Perhaps, says Mr Hawtrey, as depending on the emotion that has provoked them?
Exactly. You have hit it, Hawtrey, there. Violet tears, for a melancholy book; pink, fay. It might be sewn up, too, with hair from a girls head ..." He gla me and his look ges. He puts his napkin to his mouth.
Now, says Mr Hawtrey, I really wohat that has never been attempted. Mr Lilly? One hears barbarous stories of course, of hides and bindings
They discuss this for a time. Mr Rivers listens but says nothing. Of course, his attention is all with me. Perhaps he will speak, I think, under cover of their talk. I hope he will. I hope he wont. I sip my wine and am suddenly weary. I have sat at suppers like this, hearing my uncles friends chase tedious points in small, tight circles, too many times. Uedly, I think of Agnes. I think of Agness mouth teasing a bead of blood from her pricked palm. My uncle clears his throat, and I blink.
So, Rivers, he says, Hawtrey tells me he has you translating, French matter into English. Poor stuff, I suppose, if his press is involved in it.
Poor stuff indeed, answers Mr Rivers; or I should not attempt it. It is hardly my line. One learns, in Paris, the necessary terms; but it was as a student of the fis that I was lately there. I hope to find a better application for my talents, sir, than the juring of bad English from worse French.
Well, well. We shall see. My uncle smiles. You would like to view my pictures.
Very mudeed.
Well, another day will do for that. They are handsome enough, I think youll find. I care less for them than for my books, however. Youve heard, perhaps—he pauses—of my Index?
Mr Rivers ines his head. It sounds a marvellous thing.
Pretty marvellous—eh, Maud? But, are we modest? Do we blush?
I know my own cheek is cool; and his is pale as dle-wax. Mr Rivers turns, searches my face with his thoughtful gaze.
How goes the great work? asks Mr Hawtrey lightly.
We are close, answers my uncle. We are very close. I am in sultation with finishers.
And the length?
A thousand pages.
Mr Hawtrey raises his brow. If my uemper would permit it, he might whistle. He reaches for another slice of goose.
Two hundred more then, he says, as he does it, since I spoke to you last.
For the first volume, of course. The sed shall be greater. What think you of that, Rivers?
Astonishing, sir.
Has there ever been its like? An universal bibliography, and on such a theme? They say the sce is a dead one amongst Englishmen.
Then you have raised it to life. A fantastic achievement.
Fantastideed—more so, when one knows the degrees of obscurity in which my subject is shrouded. sider this: that the authors of the texts I collect must cloak their identity iion and anonymity. That the texts themselves are stamped with every kind of false and misleadiail as to plad date of publication and impress. Hmm? That they are burdened with obscure titles. That they must pass darkly, via secret els, or on the wings of rumour and supposition. sider those checks to the bibliographers progress. Theo me, sir, of fantastic labour! He trembles in a mirthless laughter.
I ot ceive it, says Mr Rivers. And the Index is anised . . .?
By title, by name, by date when we have it; and, mark this, sir: by species of pleasure. We have them tabled, most precisely
The books?
The pleasures! Where are we presently, Maud?
The gentlemen turn to me. I sip my wi the Lust, I say, of Men for Beasts.
My unods. So, so, he says. Do you see, Rivers, the assistance our bibliography will provide, to the student of the field? It will be a veritable Bible.
The flesh made word, says Mr Hawtrey, smiling, enjoying the phrase. He catches my eye, and winks. Mr Rivers, however, is still looking early at my uncle.
A great ambition, he says now.
A great labour, says Mr Huss.
Indeed, says Mr Hawtrey, turning again to me. I am afraid, Miss Lilly, your uncle tio work you very mercilessly.
I shrug. I was bred to the task, I say, as servants are.
Servants and young ladies, says Mr Huss, are different sorts of creatures. Have I not said so, many times? Girls eyes should not be worn out with reading, nor their small hands made hard through the gripping of pens.
So my uncle believes, I say, showing my gloves; though it is his books he is anxious to save, of course, not my fingers.
And what, he says now, if she labour five hours a day? I labour ten! What should we work for, if not books? Hmm? Think of Smart, and de Bury. Or think of Tinius, so dedicated a collector he killed two men for the sake of his library.
Think of Frere Vie, who, for the sake of his, killed twelve! Mr Hawtrey shakes his head. No, no, Mr Lilly. Work your niece if you must. But drive her to violence for literatures sake, and we shall never five you.
The gentlemen laugh.
Well, well, says my uncle.
I study my hand, saying nothing. My fingers show red as ruby through the glass of dark wine, my mothers initial quite invisible until I turn the crystal; thes leap out.
There are two more courses before I might be excused, and then two more soundings of the clock to be sat through, alone, before the gentlemen join me in the drawing-room. I hear the murmur of their
voices and wonder what, in my absehey discuss. When they e at last they are all a little pinker in the face, and their breaths are soured with smoke. Mr Hawtrey produces a package, bound in paper and string. He hands it to my uncle, who fumbles with the ings.
So, so, he says; and then, with the book uncovered and held close to his eyes: Aha! He works his lips. Look here, Maud, look, at what the little grubbian has brought us. He shows me the volume. Now, what do you say?
It is a on novel in a tawdry binding, but with an unfamiliar frontispiece that renders it rare. I look and, despite myself, feel the stirrings of a dry excitement. The sensation makes me queasy. I say, A very fihing for us, Uncle, without a doubt. See here, the fleuron? You see it? I see it.
I dont believe we have sidered the possibility of such a thing. I am sure we have not. We must go back. Ahought that entry plete? We shall return to it, tomorrow. He stretches his neck. He likes the anticipation of pleasure. For now—well,<mark>9９ｌｉｂ.</mark> take yloves off, girl. Do you suppose Hawtrey brings us books to have you press gravy into the binding? Thats better. Lets hear a little of it. Do you sit, ao us. Huss, you must sit also. Rivers, mark my nieces voice, how soft and clear she reads. I coached her myself. Well, well.—You crease the spine, Maud!
Indeed, Mr Lilly, she does not, says Mr Huss, gazing at my uncovered hands.
I place the book upon a stand and carefully weight its pages. I turn a lamp so that its light falls bright upon the print. How long shall I read for, Uncle?
He puts his watch against his ear. He says, Until the ocloow, his, Rivers, and tell me if you suppose its like may be entered in any lish drawing-room!
The book is filled, as I have said, with on enough obsities; but my uncle is right, I have been traioo well, my voice is clear and true and makes the words seem almost sweet. When I
have finished, Mr Hawtrey claps, and Mr Husss pink face is pinker, his look rather troubled. My us with his spectacles removed, his head at an angle, his eyes screwed tight.
Poor words enough, he says. But I have a home for you, upon my shelves. A home, and brothers, too. Tomorrow we shall see you placed there. The fleuron: I am certain we have not thought of that.—Maud, the covers are closed, and quite u?
Yes, sir.
He draws on his eye-glasses, w the wires about his ears. Mr Huss pours brandy. I button up my gloves, smooth creases from my skirt. I turn the lamp, and dim it. But I am scious of myself. I am scious of Mr Rivers. He has heard me read, apparently without excitement, his eyes upon the floor; but his hands are clasped and ohumb beats a little nervously upoher. Presently he rises. He says the fire is hot and scorches him. He walks a minute about the room, leaning rigidly to gaze into my uncles book-presses—now his hands are behind his back; his thumb still twitches, however. I think he knows I watch. In time he es close, catches my eye, makes a careful bow. He says, It is rather chill, so far from the fire. Shouldnt you like, Miss Lilly, to sit closer to the flames?
I ahank you, Mr Rivers, I prefer this spot.
You like to be cool, he says.
I like the shadows.
When I smile agaiakes it as a kind of invitation, lifts his coat, twitches at his trousers and sits beside me, not too close, still with his eyes upon my uncles shelves, as if distracted by the books. But when he speaks, he speaks in a murmur. He says, You see, I also like the shadows.
Mr Huss glances once our way. Mr Hawtrey stands at the fire and lifts a glass. My uncle has settled into his chair and its wings obscure his eyes; I see only his dry mouth, puckered at the lip. The greatest phase of eros? he is saying. We have missed it, sir, by seventy years! The ical, improbable fis which pass for voluptuous literature nowadays I should be ashamed to show to the man that shoes my horse . . .
I stifle a yawn, and Mr Rivers turns to me. I say, Five me Vf Rivers.
He bows his head. Perhaps, you dont care for your uncles sub ject.
He still speaks in a murmur; and I am obliged to make my own voice rather low, by way of answer. I am my uncles secretary, I say The appeal of the subject is nothing to me.
Again he bows. Well, perhaps, he says, while my ualks on It is only curious, to see a lady left cool and unmoved, by that which is desigo provoke heat, and motion.
But there are many ladies, I think, unmoved by that you speak of; and arent those who know the matter best, moved least? I catch his eye. I speak not from experience of the world, of course, but from my reading merely. But I should have said that—oh, even a priest would note a palling in his passion for the mysteries of his church, if put too often to the scrutiny of wafer and wine.
He does not blink. At last he almost laughs.
You are very uniss Lilly
I look away. So I uand.
Ah. Now your tone is a bitter one. Perhaps you think your education a sort of misfortune.
On the trary. How could it be a misfortuo be wise? I ever be deceived, for instance, iter of a gentlemans attentions. I am a oisseur of all the varieties of methods by which a , gentleman might seek to pliment a lady
He puts his white hand to his breast. Then I should be daunted indeed, he says, did I want only to pliment you.
I was not aware that gentlemen had any other wants, than that one.
Perhaps not in the books that you are used to. But in life—a great many; and ohat is chief.
I supposed, I say, that that was the ohe books were written for.
Oh, no. He smiles. His voice dips even lower. They are read for that, but written for something keener. I mean, of course, the want of—money. Every gentleman minds that. And those of us who are
not quite so gentlemanly as we would like, mind it most of all.—I am sorry to embarrass you.
I have coloured, or flinched. Now, rec, I say, You fet, I have beeo be quite beyond embarrassment. I am only surprised.
Then I must take a satisfa from the knowledge that I have surprised you. He lifts his hand to his beard. It is something to me, he goes on, to have made a small impression upon the evenness and regularity of yourdays.
He speaks so insinuatingly my cheek grows warmer still.
What do you know, I say, of those?
Why, only what I surmise, from my observation of the house . . .
Now his void his face are grown bland again. I see Mr Huss tilt his head and observe him Then he calls, pointedly: What do you think, Rivers, of this?
Of what, sir?
Of Hawtreys champioting, now, of photography.
Photography?
Rivers, says Mr Hawtrey. You are a young man. I appeal to you. there be any more perfect record of the amatory act—
Record! says my uncle, peevishly. Dotary! The curses of the age!
—of the amatory act, than a photograph? Mr Lilly will have it that the sce of photography runs ter to the spirit of the Paphian life. I say it is an image of life, and has this advantage over it: that it endures, where life—the Paphian life, the Paphian moment, in especial—must finish and fade.
Doth not a book endure? asks my uncle, plug at the arm of his chair.
It eh, so long as words do. But, in a photograph you have a thing beyond words, and beyond the mouths that speak them. A photograph will provoke heat in an Englishman, a Fren, a savage. It will outlast us all, and I provoke heat in randsons. It is a thing apart from history.1
It is gripp<var></var>ed by history! answers my u is corrupted by it! Its history hangs about it like so much smoke!—you may see it, in
the fitting of a slipper, a gown, the dressing of a head. Give photographs to yrandson: he will study them and think them quaint. He will laugh at the wax tips of your moustaches! But words Hawtrey, words—hmm? They seduce us in darkness, and the mind clothes and fleshes them to fashions of its own. Dont you think so Rivers?
I do, sir.
You know I wont allow daguerreotypes and nonsense like that into my colle?
I think you are right not to, sir.
Mr Hawtrey shakes his head. He says, to my uncle: You still believe photography a fashion, that will pass? You must e to Holywell Street, and spend an hour in my shop. We have albums made up, now, for men to choose from. It is all our buyers e for.
Your buyers are brutes. What business have I with them? Rivers, you have seen them. What is your opinion as to the quality of Hawtreys trade . . .?
The debate will go on, he ot escape. He answers, then catches my eye as if in apology, rises, goes to my uncles side. They talk until the striking of ten oclock—which is when I leave them.
That is the Thursday night. Mr Rivers is due to remain at Briar until Sunday. day I am kept from the library while the men look over the books; at supper he watches me, and afterwards hears me read, but then is obliged to sit again with my uncle and ot e to my side. Saturday I walk in the park with Agnes, and do not see him; Saturday night, however, my uncle has me read from an antique book, one of his fi—and then, when I have finished, Mr Rivers es and sits beside me, to study its singular covers.
You like it, Rivers? asks my uncle as he does so. You know it is very rare?
I should say it must be, sir.
And you think I mean by that, that there are few other copies?
I had supposed that, yes.
So you might. But we collectors, we gauge rarity by other means. You think a uem rare, if no-one wants it? We call that a dead
book. But, say a score of identical copies are sought by a thousand men: each of those single books is rarer than the unique one. You uand me?
Mr Rivers nods. I do. The rareness of the article is relative to the desire of the heart which se<u>.</u>eks it. He gla me. That is very quaint. And how many mehis book, that we have just heard?
My uncle grows coy. How many indeed, sir? Ill answer you like this: put it up for au, and see! Ha?
Mr Rivers laughs. To be sure, yes . . .
But beyond the film of his politeness, he looks thoughtful. He bites his lip)—his teeth showing yellow, wolfish, against the dark of his beard, but his mouth a soft and surprising pink. He says nothing while my uncle sips at his drink and Mr Hawtrey fusses with the fire. Then he speaks again.
And what of a pair of books, Mr Lilly, he says, sought by a single buyer? How are they to be valued?
A pair? My us down his glass. A set, of two volumes?
A pair of plementary titles. A man has one, and seeks to secure the other. The sed will greatly add to the value of the first?
Of course, sir!
I thought it.
Men pay absurdly for such things, says Mr Huss.
They do, says my uhey do. You will find a refereo such matters, of course, in my Index ..."
The Index, says Mr Rivers softly; and the others talk o and listen—or pretend to—and soourns and studies my face. May I ask you something, Miss Lilly? he says. And then, when I nod: What do you see, for yourself, after the pletion of your uncles work?—Now, why do you do that?
I have given him what I suppose must be a bitter sort of smile. I say, Your question means nothing, I hardly a. My uncles work will never be fihere are too many new books written that must be added to the old; too many lost books to be rediscovered; too mucertainty. He and Mr Hawtrey will
debate it for ever. Look at them now. Should he publish the Index as he intends, he will only at once begin its supplements.
You mean to keep beside him, then, for all that time?—I will not answer.—You are as dedicated as he?
I have no choice, I say at last. My skills are few and, as you have already noted, quite unon.
You are a lady, he says softly, and young, and handsome.—I dont speak from gallantry now, you know that. I say only what is true. You might do anything.
You are a man, I answer. Mens truths are different from ladies. I may do nothing, I assure you.
He hesitates—perhaps, catches his breath. Then: You might— marry, he says. That is something.
He says it, with his eyes upon the book that I have read from; and I hear him, and laugh aloud. My uncle, supposing I have laughed at some parched joke of his, looks over and nods. You think so, Maud? You see, Huss, even my niece believes it so . . .
I wait until his face is turned from me again, his attention captured. Then I reach for the book on its stand aly lift its cover. Look here, Mr Rivers, I say. This is my uncles plate, that is attached to all his books. Do you see the device of it?
The plate bears his emblem, a clever thing of his own design—a lily, drawn strangely, to resemble a phallus; and wound about with a stem of briar at the root. Mr Rivers tilts his head to study it, and nods. I let the cover close.
Sometimes, I say, not looking up, I suppose such a plate must be pasted upon my owhat I have been ticketed, and noted and shelved—so nearly do I resemble one of my uncles books. I raise my eyes to his. My face is warm, but I am speaking coolly, still. You said, two nights ago, that you have studied the ways of this house. Surely, then, you have uood. We are not meant for on usage, my fellow books and I. My uncle keeps us separate from the world. He will call us poisons; he says we will hurt unguarded eyes. Then again, he names us his children, his foundlings, that have e to him, from every er of the world—some rid handsomely provided for, some shabby, some
injured, some broken about the spine, some gaudy, some gross. For all that he speaks against them, I believe he likes the gross ones best; for they are the ohat other parents—other bookmen and collectors, I mean—cast out. I was like them, and had a home, and lost it—
Now I do not speak coolly. I have beeaken by my own words. Mr Rivers watches, then leans to take my uncles book very gently from its stand.
Your home, he murmurs, as his faes close to mihe madhouse. Do you think very often of your time there? Do you think of your mother, and feel her madness in you?—Mr Lilly, your book. My uncle has looked over. Do you mind my handling it? Wont you show me, sir, the features that mark it as rare . . .?
He has spoken very swiftly; and has startled me, horribly. I dont like to be startled. I dont like to lose my place. But now, as he rises aurns, with the book, to the fire, a sed or two passes that I ot at for. I discover at last that I have put my hand to my breast. That I am breathing quickly. That the shadows in which I sit are all at once dehan before—so dense, my skirt seems bleeding into the fabric of the sofa and my hand, rising and falling above my heart, is pale as a leaf upon a swelling pool of darkness.
I will not swoon. Only girls in books do that, for the venience of gentlemen. But I suppose I whiten and look strange, for when Mr Hawtrey gazes my way, smiling, his smile quite falls. Miss Lilly! he says. He es and takes my hand.
Mr Huss es also. Dear child, what is it? He holds me close, about the armpit.
Mr Rivers hangs back. My uncle looks peevish. Well, well, he says. What now? He shuts his book, but keeps his finger, carefully, between the pages.
They ring fnes. She es, blinking at the gentlemen, curtseying at my uncle, a look of terror on her face. It is not yet ten oclock. I am perfectly well, I say. You must not trouble. I am only tired, suddenly. I am sorry.
Sorry? Pooh! says Mr Hawtrey. It is we who should be sorry. Mr Lilly, you are a tyrant, and overtask your nieiserably.
I always said it, and here is the proof. Agake your mistresss arm. Go steadily, now.
Shall you mahe stairs? Mr Huss asks anxiously. He stands in the hall as we prepare to mount them. Behind him I see Mr Rivers; but I do not catch his eye.
When the drawing-room door is closed I push Agnes away, and in my own room I look about me for some cool thing to put upon my face. I finally go to the mantel, and lean my cheek against the looking-glass.
Your skirts, miss! says Agnes. She draws them from the fire.
I feel queer, dislocated. The house clock has not chimed. When it sounds, I will feel better. I will not think of Mr Rivers—of what he must know of me, how he might know it, what he means by seeki. Agands awkwardly, half-crouched, my skirts still gathered in her hands.
The clock strikes. I step back, the her undress me. My heart beats a little smoother. She puts me in my bed, unlooses the curtains—now the night might be any night, any at all. I hear her in her own room, unfastening her gown: if I lift my head and look through the gap in my curtains I will see her upon her knees with her eyes hard shut, her hands pressed together like a childs, her lips moving. She prays every night to be taken home; and for safety as she slumbers.
While she does it, I unlock my little wooden box and whisper cruel words to my mothers portrait. I y eyes. I think, / shall not study your face!—but, once having thought it, I know I must do it or lie sleepless and grow ill. I look hard into her pale eyes. Do you think of your mother, he said, and feel her madness in you?
Do I?
I put the portrait away, and call f me a tumbler of water. I take a drop of my old medie—then, uhat that will calm me, I take ahen I lie still, my hair put back. My hands, iheir gloves, begin to tingle. Agands and waits. Her own hair is let down—coarse hair, red hair, coarser and redder than ever against the fine white stuff of her nightdress. One slender collar-bone is marked a delicate blue with what is
perhaps only a shadow, but might—I ot remember—be a bruise.
I feel the drops at last, sour in my stomach.
Thats all, I say. Go on.
I hear her climb into her bed, draw up her blas. There is a silence. After a little time there es a creak, a whisper, the faint groan of maery: my uncles clock, shifting its gears. I lie and wait for sleep. It does not e. Instead, my limbs grow restless and begin to twitch. I feel, too hard, my blood—I feel the bafflement of it, at the dead points of my fingers and my toes. I raise my head, call softly: Agnes! She does not hear; or hears, but fears to answer. Agnes!—At last, the sound of my own voinerves me. I give it up, lie still. The clock groans again, then strikes. Then e other sounds, far-off. My uncle keeps early hours. Closing doors, lowered voices, shoes upoairs: the gentlemen are leaving the drawing-room and going each to their separate chambers.
Perhaps I sleep, then—but if I do, it is only for a moment. For suddenly I give a start, and am wide awake; and I know that what has roused me is not sound, but movement. Movement, and light. Beyond the bed-curtain the rush-lamps wick has flared suddenly bright, and the doors and the window-glasses are straining against their frames.
The house has opes mouth, and is breathing.
Then I know that, after all, this night is not like any other. As if summoo it by a calling voice, I rise. I stand at the doorway to Agness room until I am sure, from the evenness of her breaths, that she is sleeping; then I take up my lamp and go, on naked feet, to my drawing-room. I go to the window and stand at the glass, cup my hands against their own feeble refle, peer through the darkness at the sweep of gravel, the edge of lawn, that I know lie below. For a time I see nothing. Then I hear the soft fall of a shoe, and then another, still softer. Then es the single noiseless flaring of a match between slender fingers; and a face, made hollow-eyed and garish as it tilts towards the flame.
Richard Rivers keeps restless as I; and walks upon the lawns of Briar, perhaps hoping for sleep.
Cold weather for walking. About the tip of his cigarette, his breath shows whiter than the smoke of his tobacco. He gathers his collar about his throat. Then he looks up. He seems to know what he will see. He does not nod, or make aure; only holds my gaze. The cigarette fades, glows bright, fades again. His stance grows more deliberate.
He moves his head; and all at once I uand what he is doing. He is surveying the face of the house. He is ting the windows.
He is calculating his way to my room!—and when he is certain of his route he lets his cigarette fall and crushes the glowing point of it beh his heel. He es back across the gravel-walk and someone—Mr Way, I suppose—admits him. I ot see that. I only hear the front door opehe movement of the air. Again my lamp flares, and the window-glass bulges. This time, however, the house seems holding its breath.
I step back with my hands before my mouth, my eyes on my own soft face: it has started bato the darkness beyond the glass, and seems to swim, or hang, in space. I think, He wont do it! He dare not do it! Then I think: He will. I go to the door and put my ear against the wood. I hear a voice, and then a tread. The tread grows soft, another door closes—of course, he will wait for Mr Way to go to his bed. He will wait for that.
I take up my lamp and go quickly, quickly: the shade throws crests of light upon the walls. I have not time to dress—ot dress, without Ago help me—but know I must not see him in my nightgown. I find stogs, garters, slippers, a cloak. My hair, that is loose, I try to fasten; but I am clumsy with the pins, and my gloves—and the medie I have swallowed—make me clumsier. I grow afraid. My heart beats quick again, but now it beats against the drops, it is like a vessel beating hard against the pull of a sluggish river. I put my hand to it, ahe yielding of my breast—unlaced, it feels; unguarded, unsafe.
But the tug of the drops is greater than the resistany fear.
That is the point of them, after all. For restlessness. When at leng<big></big>th he es, tapping at my door with his fingernail, I think I seem calm to him. I say at once, You know my maid is very close— asleep, but close. One cry will wake her. He bows and says nothing.
Do I suppose he will try to kiss me? He does not do that. He only es very stealthily into the room and gazes about him in the same cool, thoughtful way in which I saw him take his measure of the house. He says, Let us keep from the window, the light shows plainly from the lawn. Then, nodding to the inner door: Is that where she lies? She wont hear us? You are sure?
Do I think he will embrace me? He never oeps close. But I feel the cool of the night, still ging to his coat. I smell the tobac his hair, his whiskers, his mouth. I do not remember him so tall. I move to one side of the sofa and stand tensely, gripping the back of it. He keeps at the other, leans into the space between us, and speaks in whispers.
He says, Five me, Miss Lilly. This is not how I would have met you. But I have e to Briar, after so much careful labour; and tomorrow I may be obliged to leave without seeing you. You uand me. I make no judgement on your receiving me like this. If yirl stirs, you are to say that you were wakeful; that I found out your room and came, without invitation. Ive been guilty of as much, in other mens houses.—Its as well you know at once, what manner of fellow I am. But here, Miss Lilly, tonight, I mean you no sort of harm. I think you do uand me? I think you did wish me to e?
I say, I uand that you have found out something you think perhaps a secret: that my mother was a lunatic; that my uncle had me from a ward of the place she died in. But that is , anyone might know it; the very servants here know it. I am forbidden tet it. I am sorry for you, if you meant to profit by it.
I am sorry, he says, to have been obliged to remind you of it again. It means nothing to me, except as it has led to your ing to Briar and bei by your uncle in such a curious way. It is he, I think, who has profited from your mothers misfortune.—Youll five my speaking plainly. I am a sort of villain, and know other
villai. Your uncle is the worst kind, for he keeps to his own house, where his villainy passes as an old mans quirk. Dont tell me you love him, he adds quickly, seeing my face, for manners sake. I know you are above them. That is why I have e like this. We make our own manners, you and I; or take the ohat suit us. But for now, will you sit a me speak with you, as a gentleman to a lady?
He gestures and, after a sed—as if we might be awaiting the maid and the tea-tray—we take our places on the sofa. My dark cloak gapes and shows my nightgowurns his eyes while I draw close the folds.
Now, to tell you what I know, he says.
I know you gain nothing unless you marry. I first had it from Hawtrey. They speak about you—perhaps you know—in the shady bookshops and publishers houses of London and Paris. They speak about you, as of some fabulous creature: the handsome girl at Briar, whom Lilly has trained, like a chattering moo recite voluptuous texts fentlemen—perhaps to do worse. I tell you all they say, I suppose you guess it. Thats nothing to me. He holds my gaze, then looks away. Hawtrey, at least, is a little kinder; and thinks me ho, which is more to our point. He told me, in a pitying sort of way, a little of your life—your unfortuher— your expectations, the ditions attached. Well, one hears of such girls, when one is a bachelor; perhaps not one in a hundred is worth the pursuit. . . But Hawtrey was right. I have made enquiries into your mothers fortune, and you are worth—well, do you know what you are worth, Miss Lilly?
I hesitate, then shake my head. He he figure. It is several huimes the value of the costliest book upon my uncles shelves; and many thousand times the price of the cheapest. This is the only measure of value I know.
It is a great sum, says Mr Rivers, watg my face.
I nod.
It shall be ours, he says, if we marry
I say nothing.
Let me be ho, he goes on. I came to Briar, meaning to get
you in the ordinary way—I mean, seduce you from your uncles house, secure your fortune, perhaps dispose of you after. I saw in ten minutes what your life has made of you, and knew I should never achieve it. More, I uood that to seduce you would be to insult you—to make you only a different kind of captive. I dont wish to do that. I wish rather to free you.
You are very gallant, I say. Suppose I dont care to be freed?
He answers simply: I think you long for it.
Then I turn my face—afraid that the beating of blood, ay cheek, will betray me to him. My voice I make steady. I say, You fet, my longings t for nothing here. As well might my uncles books long to leap from their presses. He has made me like them—
Yes, yes, he says, in impatience. You have said as mue already. I think perhaps you say it often. But, what such a phrase mean? You are seventeen. I am twe, and believed for many years I should be riow, and idle. Instead I am what you see me: a sdrel, not too poor in pocket, but nor too easy in it that I shant be scrambling to li for a little time to e. Do you think yourself weary? Think how weary am I! I have done many gross deeds, and thought eae the last. Believe me: I have some knowledge of the time that may be misspent, ging to fis and supposing them truths.
He has lifted his hand to his head, and now puts back his hair from his brow; and his pallor, and the dark about his eye, seem suddenly to age him. His collar is soft, and creased from the grip of his ie. His beard has a sirand of grey. His throat bulges queerly, as mens throats do: as if inviting the blow that will crush it.
I say, This is madness. I think you are mad—to e here, to fess yourself a villain, to suppose me willing to receive you.
A you have received me. You receive me still. You have not called for your maid.
You intrigue me. You have seen for yourself, the evenness of my days here.
You seek a distra from those? Why not give them up, for ever? So you shall—like that, in a moment! gone!—when you marry me.
I shake my head. I think you ot be serious.
I am, however.
You know my age. You know my uncle would never permit you to take me.
He shrugs, speaks lightly. We shall resort, of course, to devious methods.
You wish to make a villain of me, too?
He nods. I do. But then, I think you are half a villain already.— Dont look like that. Dont suppose I am joking. You dont know all. He has grown serious. I am you something very great and strange. Not the onplace subje of a wife to a husband— that servitude, to lawful ravishment and theft, that the world terms wedlock. I shant ask you for that, that is not what I mean. I am speaking, rather, of liberty. A liberty of a kind not often grao the members of your sex.
Yet to be achieved—I almost laugh—by a marriage?
To be achieved by a ceremony of marriage, performed under certain unusual ditions. Again he smooths his hair, and swallows; and I see at last that he is nervous—more nervous than I. He leans closer. He says, I suppose youre not squeamish, or soft about the heart, as anirl might be? I suppose your maid is really sleeping, and not listening at the door?
I think of Agnes, of Agness bruises; but say nothing, only watch him. He passes his hand across his mouth.
God help me, Miss Lilly, if I have misjudged you! he says. Now, listen.
This is his plan. He means t a girl to Briar, from London, and install her as my maid. He means to use her, the her. He says he has a girl in mind, a girl of my years and c. A sort of thief—not over-scrupulous, not too clever in her ways, he says; he thinks he will secure her with the promise of some slight share in the fortune—Say, two or three thousand. I dont believe shell have the ambition to ask for more. Her set are a small set, as crooks go; though, like crooks everywhere, think themselves grander. He shrugs. The sum means nothing, after all: for he will agree to whatever she asks for; and she will not see a shilling of it. She will
suppose me an i, and believe herself assisting in my sedu. She will persuade me, first, inte with him, then into a—he hesitates, before admitting the word—a madhouse. But, there she will take my place. She will protest—he hopes she will!—for the more she does, the more the madhouse keepers will read it as a form of lunacy; and so keep her the closer.
And with her, Miss Lilly, he says finally, they keep close your name, your history as your mothers daughter, your uncles niece— in short, all that marks you as yourself. Think of it! They will pluck from your shoulders the weight of your life, as a servant would lift free your cloak; and you shall make your naked, invisible way to any part of the world you choose—to any new life—and there re-clothe yourself to suit your fancy.
This is the liberty—the rare and sinister liberty—he has e to Briar to offer. For payment he wants my trust, my promise, my future silence; and one half of my fortune.
When he has finished I sit not speaking, my face turned from his, for almost a minute. What I say at last is:
We should never achieve it.
He answers at once: I think we will.
The girl would suspect us.
She will be distracted by the plot into which I shall draw her. She will be like everyone, putting ohings she sees the strus she expects to find there. She will look at you, here, knowing nothing of your uncle—who wouldnt, in her place, believe you i?
And her people, the thieves: shant they look for her?
They shall look—as a thousand thieves look every day for the friends who have cheated and robbed them; and, finding nothing, theyll suppose her flown, and curse her for a while, and then fet her.
Fet her? Are you sure? Has she no—no mother?
He shrugs. A sort of mother. A guardian, an aunt. She loses children all the time. I dont think she will trouble very hard over one child more. Especially if she supposes—as I mean that she
will—that the child has turned out swindler. Do you see? Her owation will help to bury her. Crooked girls t expect to be cared for, like ho ones. He pauses. They will watch her more closely, however, in the place well put her.
I gaze away from him. A madhouse . . .
I am sorry for that, he says quickly. But your owation— your own mothers reputation—will work for us there, just as our crooked girls will. You must see how it will. You have been held in thrall to it, all these years. Here is your ce to profit by it, ohen be free of it, for ever.
I still look away. Again, I am afraid he will see how deeply his words have stirred me. I am almost afraid of how deeply they stir me, myself. I say, You speak as though my freedom were something to you. Its the money you care for.
Ive admitted as much, have I not? But then, your freedom and my money are the same. That will be your safeguard, your insurance, until our fortune is secure. You may trust yourself, till then, not to my honour—for I have , say, to my cupidity; which is anyway a greater thing than honour, in the world outside these walls. You will find that out. I might teach you how to profit from it. We take some house, in London, as man and wife.—Live separately, of course, he adds, with a smile, when the door of the house is closed .. . Ononey is got, however, your future will be your own; you must only be silent, then, as to the manner in which you got it. You uand me? Being onitted to this thing, we must be true to each other, or founder. I dont speak lightly. I dont wish to mislead you as to the nature of the business Im proposing. Perhaps your uncles care has kept you from a knowledge of the law ..."
My uncles care, I say, has made me ready to sider any strategy that will relieve me of the burden of it. But—
He waits and, when I add nothing, says, Well, I dont expect to hear you give me your decision now. Its my aim that your uncle will keep me here, to work on his pictures—I am to view them tomorrow. If he does not, then we shall anyway be obliged to resider. But there are ways about that, as about everything.
He passes his hand again before his eyes, and again looks older.
The clock has struck the twelve, the fire has died an hour before, and the room is terribly chill. I feel it, all at once. He sees me shiver. I think he reads it as fear, or doubt. He leans, and at last takes my hand in his. He says, Miss Lilly, you say your freedom is nothing to me; but how could I see the life that is yours—how could any ho man see you kept down, made a slave to lewdness, leered at and insulted by fellows like Huss—and not wish to free you of it? Think of what I have proposed. Then think of your choices. You may wait for another suitor: shall you find one, among the gentlemen your uncles work brings here? And, if you do, shall he be as scrupulous as I, in the handling of your fortune?—of your person? Or, say you wait for your uo die, and find a liberty that way; meantime, his eyes have faded, his limbs have a tremor, he has worked you the harder as he has felt his powers fail. By then you are—what age? Say thirty-five, or forty. You have given your youth to the curating of books, of a kind that Hawtrey sells, for a shilling, to drapers boys and clerks. Your fortus untouched in the vault of a bank. Your solation is to be mistress of Briar—where the clock strikes off the hollow half-hours of all the life that is left to you, one by one.
As he speaks, I look not at his face; but at my own foot in its slipper. I think again of the vision I have sometimes had—of myself, as a limb bound tight to a form it longs to outgrow. With the drops ihe vision is fiercer, I see the limb made crooked, the flesh sour and grow dense. I sit quite still, then raise my eyes to his. He is watg me, waiting to know if he has won me. He has. Not by what he has told me, about my future at Briar—for he has said nothing that I have not, long ago, already cluded for myself; but by the fact that he is here, telling it at all—that he has plotted, and travelled, forty miles—that he has stolen his way to the heart of the sleeping house, to my dark room, to me.
Of the girl in London—who, ihan a month, he will persuade to her doom by a similar method; and to whom, a little later, with tears on my cheek, I will repeat his own arguments—I think nothing, nothing at all.
I say, Tomorrow, when you are shown my uncles pictures: praise the Romano, though the Caracci is more rare. Praise Morland over Rowlandsohinks Rowlandson a hack.
That is all I say. It is enough, I suppose. He holds my gaze, nods, does not smile—I think he knows I should not like to see him smile, at such a moment. He looses his grip about my fingers and theands, straightening his coat. That breaks the spell of our spiraow he is large, dark, out of place. I hope he will leave. Again I shiver and, seeing that, he says, Im afraid Ive kept you very late. You must be cold, and tired.
He watches. Perhaps he is gauging my strength and beginning to grow doubtful. I shiver harder. He says, You woroubled— too troubled—by all Ive said?
I shake my head. But I am afraid to rise from the sofa, in case I tremble upon my legs ao him weak. I say, Will you go?
You are sure?
Quite sure. I shall do better if you leave me.
Of course.
He would like to say more. I turn my fad will not let him, and in time hear his careful tread upon the carpet, the gentle opening and closing of the door. I sit a moment, then lift my feet, tuck the skirts of my cloak about my legs, raise my hood, lie with my head upon the hard and dusty sofa cushion.
This is not my bed, and the hour for bed has sounded and passed, and there are none of the things—my mothers portrait, my box, my maid—about me, that I like to have close while I lie sleeping. But tonight, all things are out of their order, all my patterns have been disturbed. My liberty bes: gaugeless, fearful, iable as death.
I sleep, and dream I am moving, swiftly, in a high-prowed boat, upon a dark and silent water.
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