'When did you know?' I said. 'Whendid ^ou know everything, about us, about— Did you know, at the start?0'
She shook her head. She spoke quietly, too. 'Not then,' she said 'Not until Richard took me to London. Then she— ' She coloured, but lifted her head. 'Then I was told.'
'Not before?' I said.
'Not before.'
'They tricked you, too, then.'
I should have been glad to think it, once. Now it was all of a piece with every bleak and terrible thing I had suffered and seen and learned, in the past nine months. For a minute, we said nothing. I let myself sink against the window and put my cheek against the glass. The glass was cold. The rain fell hard, still. It struck the gravel before the house and made it churn. The lawn seemed bruised. Through the bare wet branches of the tangled wood I could just make out the shape of yews, and the pointed roof of the little red chapel.
'My mother is buried there,' I said. 'I used to look at her grave, thinking nothing. I thought my mother was a murderess.'
'I thought my mother was mad,' she said. 'Instead— '
She could not say it. Neither could I. Not yet. But I turned to look at her again, and swallowed, and said,
'You went to see her, at the gaol.' I had remembered the matron's words.
She nodded. 'She spoke of you,' she said.
349
'Of me? What did she say?'
'That she hoped you never knew. That she wished they might hang her, ten times over, before you should. That she and your mother had been wrong. That they meant to make you a commonplace girl. That that was like taking a jewel, and hiding it in dust.
That dust falls away
I closed my eyes. When I looked again, she had at last come closer.
'Sue,' she said.. 'This house is yours.'
'I don't want it,' I said.
'The money is yours. Half of your mother's money. All of it, if you wish. I have claimed none of it. You shall be rich.'
'I don't want to be rich. I never wanted to.be rich. I only want—
But I hesitated. My heart was too full. Her gaze was too close, too clear. I thought how I had seen her, last— not at the trial, but on the night that Gentleman died. Her eyes had glittered. They did not glitter now. Her hair had been curled. Now it was smooth, unpinned, she had put it back and tied it with a simple ribbon. Her hands did not tremble. They were bare, and marked, as I have said, with spots and smudges of ink. Her brow had ink upon it, too, from where she had pressed it. Her dress was dark, and long, yet fell not quite to the floor. It was silk, but fastened at the front. The highest hook was left undone. I saw the beating of her throat behind it. I looked away.
Then I looked back, into her eyes.
'I only want you,' I said.
The blood spread across her face. She unjoined her hands, took another step to me and almost, almost reached. But then she turned and lowered her gaze. She stood at the desk. She put her hand to the paper and pen.
'You do not know me,' she said, in a queer, flat voice. 'You never did. There were things— '
She drew in her breath and would not go on. 'What things?' I said. She didn't answer. I rose, and went closer to her. 'What things?'
'My uncle— ' she said, looking up fearfully. 'My uncle's books— You thought me good.
Didn't you? I was never that. I was— ' She seemed, for a moment, almost to struggle with herself. Then she moved again, went to the shelves behind the desk, and took up a book. She held it, tight to her breast; then turned and brought it to me. She opened it up in her hands. Her hands, I think, were shaking. 'Here,' she said, as she looked across the page. 'Or, here.' I saw her gaze settle. And then, in the same flat voice she had spoken in before, she began to read.
'How delicious,' she read, 'was the glow upon her beauteous neck and bare ivory shoulders, as I forced her on her back on the couch. How luxuriously did her snowy hillocks rise against my bosom in wild confusion— '
'What?' I said.
She did not answer, did not look up; but turned that page and read from another.
'I scarcely knew what I was about; everything now was in active exertion— tongues, lips, bellies, arms, thighs, legs, bottoms, every part in voluptuous motion.'
Now my own cheek coloured. 'What?' I said, in a whisper.
She turned more pages, read again.
350
'Quickly my daring hand seized her most secret treasure, regardless of her soft complaints, which my burning kisses reduced to mere murmurs, while my fingers penetrated into the covered way of love— '
She stopped. Her heart was beating harder, though she had kept her voice so flat. My own heart was also beating rather hard. I said— still not quite understanding:
'Your uncle's books?'
She nodded.
'All, like this?'
She nodded again.
'Every one of them, like this? Are you sure?'
'Quite sure.'
I took the book from her and looked at the print on the pages. It looked like any book would, to me. So I put it down, and went to the shelves and picked up another. That looked the same. Then I took up another; and that had pictures. You never saw any pictures like them. One was of two bare girls. I looked at Maud, and my heart seemed to shrink.
'You knew it all,' I said. That's the first thing I thought. 'You said that you knew nothing, when all the time— '
'I did know nothing,' she said.
'You knew it all! You made me kiss you. You made me want to kiss you again! When all the time, you had been coming here and— '
My voice broke off. She watched my face. I thought of the times I had come to the library door, heard the smothered rising and falling of her voice. I thought of her reading to gentlemen— to Gentleman— while I sat, eating tarts and custards with Mrs Stiles and Mr Way. I put my hand to my heart. It had shrunk so small and tight, it hurt me.
'Oh, Maud,' I said. 'If I had only known! To think, of you— ' I began to cry. 'To think of your uncle— Oh!' My hand flew to my mouth. 'My uncle!' That thought was queerer than anything. 'Oh!' I still held the book. Now I looked at it and let it drop as if it burned me. 'Oh!'