I hated to hear them, though; and Charley Wag, poor thing, kept close at my side, and shivered and started and tried to bark, with every call and rattle.— At last I took him upstairs, where the sounds were fainter. But then, after a while the sounds grew fainter still; and that was worse, for it meant that the people had all passed on, found their spots for watching from, and it was almost time. I left Charley then, and climbed the next set of stairs alone— climbed them slowly, like a girl with limbs of lead; then stood at the attic door, afraid to go in. There was the bed I had been born in. There was the wash- stand, the bit of oil-cloth tacked to the wall. The last time I had come here,
Gentleman had been alive and drunk and dancing with Dainty and John, downstairs. I had stood at the window, put my thumb to the glass, made the frost turn to dirty water.
Mrs Sucksby had come and stroked my hair ... I went to the window, now. I went, and looked, and almost swooned away, for the streets of the Borough, that had been dark and empty then, were bright, and filled with people— so many people!— people standing in the road, stopping the traffic; and besides them, people on walls, on sills, clinging to posts and trees and chimneys. Some were holding children up, some were craning for a better view. Most had their hands across their eyes, to keep the sun off.
All had their faces turned one way.
They were looking at the roof of the gate of the gaol. The scaffold was up,'the rope already on it. A man was walking about, examining the drop.
I saw him do it, feeling almost calm, feeling almost sick. I remembered what Mrs Sucksby had asked, with her last words to me: that I should watch her. I had said I would. I had thought I should bear it. It seemed such a little thing to bear, compared with what she must suffer . . . Now the man had taken the rope in his hands and was testing the length of it. The people in the crowd stretched their necks further, so they might see. I began to be afraid. Still I thought, however, that I would watch, to the end.
Still I said to myself, 'I will. I will. She did it for my own mother; I'll do it for her.
What else can I do for her now, except this?'
But I said it; and then came the slow, steady striking of ten o'clock. The man at the rope stood down, the door to the prison steps was thrown open, the chaplain showed himself upon the roof, and then the first of the keepers.— I couldn't do it. I put my back to the window and covered my face with my hands.
I knew what followed, then, from the sounds that rose up from the streets. The people had fallen silent at the striking of the clock, the coming of the chaplain; now I heard them all start up with hisses and with hoots— that, I knew, was for the hangman. I heard the very spreading of the sound about the crowd, like oil on water. When the hoots grew louder, I knew the hangman had made some sign or bow. Then, in an instant, the sound turned again, moved
faster, like a shiver, like a thrill, through the streets: the cry was sent out: 'Hats off!', 336
and was mixed with bursts of dreadful laughter. Mrs Sucksby must have come. They were trying to see her. I grew sicker than ever, imagining all those strangers' eyes straining out of their sockets to see what figure she would make, yet not being able to look, myself; but I could not, I could not. I could not turn, or tear the sweating hands from before my face. I could only listen. I heard the laughter change to murmurs and calls for hush: that meant the chaplain was saying prayers. The hush went on, and on.
My own heartbeats seemed to fill it. Then the Amen was said; and even while the word was still travelling about the streets, other parts of the crowd— the parts that were nearest the gaol and could see best— broke out in an uneasy sort of murmur.
The murmur grew louder, got taken up by every throat— then turned, to something more like a moan, or groan . . . And I knew that meant that they had led her up to the scaffold; that they were tying her hands, and covering up her face, and putting, about her neck, the noose . . .
And then, and then, there came a moment— just a single moment, less time than it takes to say it— of perfect, awful stillness: of the stopping of babies' cries, the holding of breaths, the clapping of hands to hearts and open mouths, the slowing of blood, the shrinking back of thought: This cannot be, this will not be, they won't, they can't—
And, next, too soon, too quick, the rattle of the drop, the shrieks, as it fell— the groaning gasp, when the rope found its length, as if the crowd had a single stomach and a giant hand had punched it.
Now I did open my eyes, just for a second. I opened them, and turned, and saw— not Mrs Sucksby, not Mrs Sucksby at all, but what might have been a dangling tailor's figure, done up to look like a woman, in a corset and a gown, but with lifeless arms, and a drooping head like a bag of canvas stuffed with straw— -
I moved away. I did not weep. I went to the bed and lay upon it. The sounds changed again, as people found their breaths and voices— unstopped their mouths, unloosed their babies, shuffled and danced about. There came more hoots, more cries, more dreadful laughter; and finally, cheers. I think I had used to cheer myself, at other hangings. I never thought what the cheering meant. Now I listened as those hurrahs went up, and it seemed to me, even in my grief, that I understood. She's dead, they might as well have been calling. The thought was rising, quicker than blood, in every heart. She's dead— and we're alive.
Dainty came again that night, to bring me another supper. We didn't eat any of it. We only wept together, and talked of what we had seen. She had watched with Phil and some other of Mr Ibbs's nephews, from a spot close to the gaol. John had said only pigeons watched from there. He knew a man with a roof, he said; and went off to climb it. I wondered if he had watched at all; but didn't say that to Dainty. She herself had seen everything, except the final drop. Phil, who had seen even that, said the fall was a clean one. He thought it was true, after all, what people said, about how the hangman put the knot, when it came to dropping women. Everyone agreed, anyway, that Mrs Sucksby had held herself very boldly, and died very game.
I remembered that dangling tailor's figure, gripped tight in its corset and gown; and I wondered how, if she had shuddered and kicked, we ever should have known it.
But that was something not to be thought on. There were other things to see to, now. I 337
had become an orphan again; and as orphans everywhere must, I began, in the two or three weeks that followed, to look about me, with a sinking heart; to understand that the world was hard and dark, and I must make my own way through it, quite alone. I had no money. The rent on the shop and house had fallen due in August: a man had come and banged on the door, and only gone because Dainty bared her arms and said she would hit him. He had left us alone since then. I think the house had got known as a murder- house, and no-one wanted to take it. But I knew they would, in time. I knew the man would come back one day, with other men, and break in the door. Where would I live, then? How should I do, on my own? I might, I supposed, take a regular job, at a dairy, a dyer's, a furrier's— The very thought of it, however, made me want to be sick. Everybody in my world knew that regular work was only another name for being robbed and dying of boredom. I should rather stay crooked. Dainty said she knew three girls who worked, in a gang, as street-thieves, Woolwich-way, and wanted a fourth . . . But she said it, not quite catching my eye; for we both knew that street-thieving was a pretty poor lay, compared to what I was used to.
But it was all I had; and I thought it might as well do. I hadn't the heart for finding out anything better. I hadn't the heart or the spirit for anything at all. Bit by bit, everything that was left at Lant Street had gone— been pawned, or sold. I still wore the pale print dress I had robbed from the woman in the country!— and now it looked worse on me than ever, for I had grown thin at Dr Christie's, and then thinner still. Dainty said I had got so sharp, if you could have found a way of threading me with cotton, you could have sewn with me.
And so, when I packed the bits of stuff I wanted to take with me to Woolwich, there was almost nothing. And when I thought of the people I ought to call on, to say good-bye to, I could not think of anyone. There was only one thing I knew I must do, b e f o r e I w e n t ; a n d t h a t w a s t h e p i c k i n g u p o f M r s S u c k s b y ' s t h i n g s , f r o m Horsemonger Lane.
I took Dainty with me. I did not think that I could bear it all alone. We went, one day in September— more than a month after the trial. London had changed, since then.
The season had turned, and the days grown cooler at last. The streets were filled with dust and straw, and curling leaves. The gaol seemed darker and bleaker than ever. But the porter there knew me, and let me through. He looked at me, I thought, in pity. So did the matrons. They had Mrs Sucksby's things made ready for me, in a wax-paper parcel tied with strings. 'Released, to Daughter,' they said, as they wrote in a book; and they made me put my name there, underneath.— I could write my name quick as anyone now, since my time at Dr Christie's . . . Then they led me back, across the yards, through the grey prison ground where I knew Mrs Sucksby was buried, with no stone upon her grave, so no-one could come and mourn her; and
they took me out under the gate, with its low, flat roof, where I had last seen the scaffold raised. They passed under that roof every day of their lives, it was nothing to them. When they came to say goodbye, they made to take my hand. I could not give it.
The parcel was light. I carried it home, however, in a sort of dread; and the dread seemed to make it heavy. By the time I reached Lant Street, I was almost staggering: I 338
went quickly with it to the kitchen table, and set it down, and caught my breath and rubbed my arms. What I was dreading was having to open it and look at all her things.
I thought of what must be inside: her shoes; her stockings, perhaps still in the shape of her toes and heels; her petticoats; her comb, perhaps with some of her hair in it—
Don't do it! I thought. Leave it! Hide it! Open it some other time, not today, not now— .'
I sat, and looked at Dainty.
'Dainty,' I said, 'I don't think I can.'
She put her hand over mine.
'I think you ought to,' she said. 'For me and my sister was the same, when we got our mother's bits back from the morgue. And we left that packet in a drawer, and wouldn't look at it for nearly a year; and when Judy opened it up the gown was rotted through, and the shoes and bonnet perished almost to nothing, from having gone so long with river-water on them. And then, we had nothing to remember Mother by, at all; save a little chain she always wore.— Which Pa pawned, in the end, for gin- money . . .'
I saw her lip begin to quiver. I could not face her tears.
All right,' I said. 'All right. I'll do it.'
My hands were still shaking though, and when I drew the parcel to me and tried to undo its strings, I found the matrons had tied them too tight. So then Dainty tried. She couldn't undo them either. 'We need a knife,' I said, 'or a pair of scissors . . .' But there was a time, after Gentleman died, when I hadn't been able to look at any kind of blade, without wincing; and I had made Dainty take them all away, there wasn't a single sharp thing— except me— in the whole of the house. I tugged and picked at the knots again, but now I was more nervous than ever, and my hands had got damp. At last, I lifted the parcel to my mouth and took hold of the knots with my teeth: and finally the strings unravelled and the paper sprang out of its folds. I started back. Mrs Sucksby's shoes, her petticoats and comb came tumbling out upon the table-top, looking just as I had feared. And across them, dark and spreading, like tar, came her old black taffeta gown.
I had not thought of that. Why hadn't I? It was the very worst thing of all. It looked like Mrs Sucksby herself was lying there, in some sort of swoon. The gown still had Maud's brooch pinned to its breast. Someone had prised the diamonds out— I didn't care about that— but the silver claws that were left had blood in them, brown blood, so dried it was almost powder. The taffeta itself was stiff. The blood had made it rusty.
The rust was traced about with lines of white: the lawyers had shown the gown in court, and had drawn around each stain with chalk.
They seemed to me like marks on Mrs Sucksby's own body.
'Oh, Dainty,' I said, 'I can't bear it! Fetch me a cloth, and water, will you? Oh! How horrible it looks— !' I began to rub. Dainty rubbed, too. We rubbed in the same grim, shuddering way that we had scrubbed the kitchen floor. The cloths grew muddy. Our breaths came quick. We worked first at the skirt. Then I caught up the collar, drew the bodice to me and began to work on that.
And, as I did, the gown made a curious sound— a creaking, or rustling, sound.
Dainty put down her cloth. 'What's that?' she said. I did not know. I drew the dress 339
closer, and the sound came again.
'Is it a moth?' said Dainty. 'Is it flapping about, inside?'
I shook my head. 'I don't think so. It sounds like a paper. Perhaps the matrons have put something there
But when I lifted the dress and shook it, and looked inside, there was nothing, nothing at all. The rustling came again, however, as I laid the gown back down. It seemed to me that it came from part of the bodice— from that part of the front of the bodice that would have lain just below Mrs Sucksby's heart. I put my hand to it, and felt about.
The taffeta there was stiff— stiff not just from the staining of Gentleman's blood, but from something else, something that