But, here was a curious thing. The more I tried to give up thinking of her, the more I said to myself, 'She's nothing to you', the harder I tried to pluck the idea of her out of my heart, the more she stayed there. All day I sat or walked with her, so full of the fate I was bringing her to I could hardly touch her or meet her gaze; and all night I lay with my back turned to her, the blanket over my ears to keep out her sighs. But in the hours in between, when she went to her uncle, I felt her— I felt her, through the walls of the house, like some blind crooks are said to be able to feel gold. It was as if there had come between us, without my knowing, a kind of thread. It pulled me to her, wherever she was. It was like—
It's like you love her, I thought.
It made a change in me. It made me nervous and afraid. I thought she would look at me and see it— or Gentleman would, or Margaret, or Mrs Stiles. I imagined word of it getting back to Lant Street, reaching John— I thought of John, more than any of them.
I thought of his look, his laugh. 'What have I done?' I imagined I'd say. 'I haven't done anything!' And I hadn't. It was only, as I've said, that I thought of her so, that I felt her so. Her very clothes seemed changed to me, her shoes and stockings: they seemed to keep her shape, the warmth and scent of her— I didn't like to fold them up and make them flat. Her rooms seemed changed. I took to going about them— just as I had done, on my first day at Briar—
and looking at all the things I knew she had taken up and touched. Her box, and her mother's picture. Her books. Would there be books for her, at the madhouse? Her comb, with hairs snagged in it. Would there be anyone to dress her hair? Her looking- glass. I began to stand where she liked to stand, close to the fire, and I'd study my face as I'd seen her studying hers.
'Ten days to go,' I would say to myself. 'Ten days, and you will be rich!'
But I'd say it, and across the words might come the chiming of the great house bell; 87
and then I would shudder to think of our plot being so much as a single hour nearer its end, the jaws of our trap that little bit closer and tighter about her and harder to prise apart.
Of course, she felt the passing hours, too. It made her cling to her old habits— made her walk, eat, lie in her bed, do everything, more stiffly, more neatly, more like a little clockwork doll, than ever. I think she did it, for safety's sake; or else, to keep the time from running on too fast. I'd watch her take her tea— pick up her cup, sip from it, put it down, pick it up and sip again, like a machine would; or I'd see her sew, with crooked stitches, nervous and quick; and I'd have to turn my gaze. I'd think of the time I had put back the rug and danced a polka with her. I'd think of the day I had smoothed her pointed tooth. I remembered holding her jaw, and the damp of her tongue. It had seemed ordinary, then; but I could not imagine, now, putting a finger to her mouth and it being ordinary . . .
She began to dream again. She began to wake, bewildered, in the night. Once or twice she rose from her bed: I opened my eyes and found her moving queerly about the room. Are you there?' she said, when she heard me stirring; and she came back to my side and lay and shook. Sometimes she would reach for me. When her hands came against me, though, she'd draw them away. Sometimes she would weep. Or, she would ask queer questions. Am I real? Do you see me? Am I real?'
'Go back to sleep,' I said, one night. It was a night close to the end.
I'm afraid to,' she said. 'Oh, Sue, I'm afraid . . .'
Her voice, this time, was not at all thick, but soft and clear, and so unhappy it woke me properly and I looked for her face. I could not see it. The little rush- light that she always kept lit must have fallen against its shade, or burned itself out. The curtains were down, as they always were. I think it was three or four o'clock. The bed was dark, like a box. Her breath came out of the darkness. It struck my mouth.
"What is it?' I said.
She said, 'I dreamed— I dreamed I was married
I turned my head. Then her breath came against my ear. Too loud, it seemed, in the silence. I moved my head again. I said,
'Well, you shall be married, soon, for real.'
'Shall I?'
'You know you shall. Now, go back to sleep.'
But, she would not. I felt her lying, still but very stiff. I felt the beating of her heart. At last she said again, in a whisper: 'Sue— '
'What is it, miss?'
She wet her mouth. 'Do you think me good?' she said.
She said it, as a child might. The words unnerved me rather. I turned again, and peered into the darkness, to try and make out her face.
'Good, miss?' I said, as I squinted.
'You do,' she said unhappily.
'Of course!'
'I wish you wouldn't. I wish I wasn't. I wish— I wish I was wise.'
'I wish you were sleeping,' I thought. But I did not say it. What I said was, 'Wise?
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Aren't you wise? A girl like you, that has read all those books of your uncle's?'
She did not answer. She only lay, stiff as before. But her heart beat harder— I felt it lurch. I felt her draw in her breath. She held it. Then she spoke.
'Sue,' she said, 'I wish you would tell me— '
Tell me the truth, I thought she was about to say; and my own heart beat like hers, I began to sweat. I thought, 'She knows. She has guessed!'— I almost thought, Thank God!
But it wasn't that. It wasn't that, at all. She drew in her breath again, and again I felt her, nerving herself to ask some awful thing. I should have known what it was; for she had been nerving herself to ask it, I think, for a month. At last, the words burst from her.
'I wish you would tell me,' she said, 'what it is a wife must do, on her wedding- night!'
I heard her, and blushed. Perhaps she did, too. It was too dark to see.
I said, 'Don't you know?'
'I know there is— something.'
'But you don't know what?'
'How should I?'
'But truly, miss: you mean, you don't know?'
'How should I?' she cried, rising up from her pillow. 'Don't you see, don't you see? I am too ignorant even to know what it is I am ignorant of!' She shook. Then I felt her make herself steady. 'I think,' she said, in a flat, unnatural voice, 'I think he will kiss me. Will he do that?'
Again, I felt her breath on my face. I felt the word, kiss. Again, I blushed.
' W i l l h e ? ' s h e s a i d . '
'Yes, miss.'
I felt her nod. 'On my cheek?' she said. 'My mouth?'
'On your mouth, I should say.'
'On my mouth. Of course . . .' She lifted her hands to her face: I saw at last, through the darkness, the whiteness of her gloves, heard the brushing of her fingers across her lips. The sound seemed greater than it ought to have done. The bed seemed closer and blacker than ever. I wished the rush- light had not burned out. I wished— I think it was the only time I ever did— that the clock would chime. There was only the silence, with her breath in it. Only the darkness, and her pale hands. The world might have shrunk, or fallen away.
'What else,' she asked, 'will he want me to do?'