'She is longing for it.'
'She is afraid of you.'
'She is afraid of herself. Girls like her always are. But let them squirm and be dainty as much as they like, they all want the same thing in the end.'
He paused, then laughed. He thought it a filthy kind of joke.
'What she wants from you is to be taken from Briar,' I said. 'For the rest, she knows nothing.'
'They all say they know nothing,' he answered, yawning. 'In their hearts, in their dreams, they know it all. They take it in their milk from the breasts of their mothers.
Haven't you heard her, in her bed? Doesn't she wriggle, and sigh? She is sighing for me. You must listen harder. I ought to come and listen with you. Shall I do that? Shall I come to your room, tonight? You could take me to her. We could watch to see how hard her heart beats. You could put back her gown for me to see.'
I knew he was teasing. He would never have risked losing everything, for a lark like that. But I heard his words, and imagined him coming. I imagined putting back her gown. I blushed, and turned away from him. I said,
'You should never find my room.'
'I should find it, all right. I've had the plan of the house, from the little knife-boy. He's a good little boy, with a chattering mouth.' He laughed again, rather harder, and stretched in his chair. 'Only think of the sport! And how would it harm her? I would creep, like a mouse. I am good at creeping. I would only want to look. Or, she might 84
like to wake and find me there— like the girl in the poem.'
I knew many poems. They were all about thieves being plucked by soldiers from their sweethearts' arms; and one was about a cat being tipped down a well. I didn't know the one he mentioned now, however, and not knowing made me peevish.
'You leave her alone,' I said. Perhaps he heard something in my voice. He looked me over, and his voice turned rich.
'Oh, Suky,' he said, 'have you grown squeamish? Have you learned sweet ways, after your spell with the quality? Who would have said you should take so to serving ladies, with pals like yours, and a home like your home! What would Mrs Sucksby say— and Dainty, and Johnny!— if they could see your blushes now?'
'They would say I had a soft heart,' I said, firing up. 'Maybe I do. Where's the crime in that?'
'God damn it,' he answered, firing up in his turn. 'What did a soft heart ever do for a girl like you? What would it do, for a girl like Dainty? Except, perhaps, kill her.' He nodded to the door through which Maud had gone to her uncle. 'Do you suppose,' he said, 'she wants your qualms? She wants your grip, on the laces of her stays— on her comb, on the handle of her chamber-pot. For God's sake, look at you!' I had turned and picked up her shawl, and begun to fold it. He pulled it from my hands. 'When did you become so meek, so tidy? What do you imagine you owe, to her? Listen to me. I know her people. I'm one of them. Don't talk to me as if she keeps you at Briar for kindness' sake— nor as if you came out of sweetness of temper! Your heart— as you call it— and hers are alike, after all: they are like mine, like everyone's. They resemble nothing so much as those meters you will find on gas-pipes: they only perk up and start pumping when you drop coins in. Mrs Sucksby should have taught you that.'
'Mrs Sucksby taught me lots of things,' I said, 'and not what you are saying now.'
'Mrs Sucksby kept you too close,' he answered. 'Too close. The boys of the Borough are right, calling you slow. Too close, too long. Too much like this.' He showed me his fist.
'Go and fuck it,' I said.
At that his cheeks, behind his whiskers, grew crimson, and I thought he might get up and hit me. But he only leaned forward in his seat, and reached to grip the arm of my chair. He said quietly,
'Let me see you in your tantrums again and I will drop you, Sue, like a stone. Do you understand me? I have come far enough now, to do without you if I must. She will do anything I tell her. And say my old nurse, in London, should grow suddenly sick, and need her niece to tend her? What would you do then? Should you like to put on your old stuff gown again, and go back to Lant Street with nothing?'
I said,'I should tell Mr Lilly!'
'Do you think he would have you in his room, long enough to hear you?'
'Then, I should tell Maud.'
'Go ahead. And why not tell her, while you are about it, that I have a tail with a point, and cloven hooves? So I would have, were I to act my crimes upon the stage. No-one expects to meet a man like me in life, however. She would choose not to believe you.
She cannot afford to believe you! For she has come as far as we have, and must marry 85
me now, or be more or less ruined. She must do as I say— or stay here, and do nothing, for the rest of her life. Do you think she'll do that?'
What could I say? She had as good as told me herself that she would not. So I was silent. But from that point on, I think I hated him. He sat with his hand on my chair, his eyes on mine, for another moment or two; then there came the pat of Maud's slippers on the stairs, and after a second her face about the door. And then, of course, he sat back and his look changed. He rose, and I rose, and I made a hopeless sort of curtsey. He went quickly to her and led her to the fire.
'You are cold,' he said.
They stood before the mantel, but I saw their faces in the glass. She looked at the coals in the hearth. He gazed at me. Then he sighed and shook his hateful head.
'Oh, Sue,' he said, 'you are terribly stern today.'
Maud looked up. 'What's this?' she said.
I swallowed, saying nothing. He said,
'Poor Sue is weary of me. I've been teasing her, while you were gone.'
'Teasing her, how?' she asked, half- smiling, half- frowning.
'Why, by keeping her from her sewing, by talking of nothing but you! She claims to have a soft heart. She has no heart at all. I told her my eyes were aching for want of gazing at you; she told me to wrap them in flannel and keep to my room. I said my ears were ringing, for want of your sweet voice; she wanted to call for Margaret to bring castor-oil to put in them. I showed her this blameless white hand, that wants your kisses. She told me to take it and— ' He paused.
'And what?' said Maud.
'Well, put it in my pocket.'
He smiled. Maud looked once at me, in a doubtful way. 'Poor hand,' she said at last.
He lifted his arm. 'It still wants your kisses,' he said.
She hesitated, then took his hand and held it in her own two slender ones and touched his fingers, at the knuckles, with her lips.— 'Not there,' he said quickly, when she did that. 'Not there, but here.'
He turned his wrist and showed his palm. She hesitated again, then dipped her head to it. It covered her mouth, her nose, and half her face.
He caught my eye, and nodded. I turned away and wouldn't look at him.
For he was right, damn him. Not about Maud— for I knew that, whatever he said about hearts and gas-pipes, she was sweet, she was kind, she was everything that was gentle and handsome and good. But, he was right about me. How could I go back to the Borough, with nothing? I was meant to make Mrs Sucksby's fortune. How could I go back to her, and to Mr Ibbs— and to John— saying, I had thrown off the plot, let slip three thousand pounds, because—
Because what? Because my feelings were finer than I thought? They would say my nerve had failed me. They would laugh in my face! I had a certain standing. I was the daughter of a murderess. I had expectations. Fine feelings weren't in them. How could they be?
And then, say I gave it all up— how would that save Maud? Say I went home: Gentleman would go on and marry her, and lock her up anyway. Or, say I peached 86
him up. He would be sent from Briar, Mr Lilly would keep her all the closer— she might as well be put in a madhouse, then. Either way, I didn't say much to her chances.
But her chances had all been dealt her, years before. She was like a twig on a rushing river. She was like milk— too pale, too pure, too simple. She was made to be spoiled.
Besides, nobody's chances were good, where I came from. And though she was to do badly, did that mean I must?