at her. I went to my room. I began to feel ill. Perhaps I had been drunk. Perhaps the 91
beer I had had with my supper had been brewed bad. Perhaps I had a fever. I washed my hands and my face. The water was so cold it seemed to sting. I washed between my legs. Then I dressed. Then I waited. I heard Maud wake, and move; and went slowly in to her. I saw her, through the space between her curtains. She had raised herself up from her pillow. She was trying to fasten the strings of her nightdress. I had untied them in the night.
I saw that, and my insides shivered again. But when she lifted her eyes to mine, I looked away.
I looked away! And she didn't call me to her side. She didn't speak. She watched me move about the room, but she said nothing. Margaret came, with coals and water: I stood pulling clothes from the press while she knelt at the hearth, my face blushing scarlet. Maud kept to her bed. Then Margaret left. I put out a gown, and petticoats and shoes. I put out water.
'Will you come,' I said, 'so I may dress you?'
She did. She stood, and slowly raised her arms, and I lifted up her gown. Her thighs had a flush upon them. The curls of hair between her legs were dark. Upon her breast there was a crimson bruise, from where I had kissed too hard.
I covered it up. She might have stopped me. She might have put her hands upon mine.
She was the mistress, after all! But, she did nothing. I made her go with me to the silvery looking- glass above her fire, and she stood with her eyes cast down while I combed and pinned her hair. If she felt the trembling of my fingers against her face, she didn't say. Only when I had almost finished did she lift her head and catch my gaze. And then she blinked, and seemed to search for words. She said,
'What a thick sleep I had. Didn't I?'
'You did,' I said. My voice was shaking. 'No dreams.'
'No dreams,' she said, 'save one. But that was a sweet one. I think— I think you were in it, Sue
She kept her eyes on mine, as if waiting. I saw the blood beat in her throat. Mine beat to match it, my very heart turned in my
breast; and I think, that if I had drawn her to me then, she'd have kissed me. If I had said, 1 love you, she would have said it back; and everything would have changed. I might have saved her. I might have found a way— I don't know what— to keep her from her fate. We might have cheated Gentleman. I might have run with her, to Lant Street—
But if I did that, she'd find me out for the villain I was. I thought of telling her the truth; and trembled harder. I couldn't do it. She was too simple. She was too good. If there had only been some stain upon her, some speck of badness in her heart— ! But there was nothing. Only that crimson bruise. A single kiss had made it. How would she do, in the Borough?
And then, how would / do, back in the Borough with her at my side?
I heard, again, John's laugh. I thought of Mrs Sucksby. Maud watched my face. I put the last pin to her hair, and then her net of velvet. I swallowed, and said,
'In your dream? I don't think so, miss. Not me. I should say— I should say, Mr Rivers.' I stepped to the window. 'Look, there he is! His cigarette almost smoked 92
already. You will miss him, if you wait!'
We were awkward with each other, all that day. We walked, but we walked apart. She reached to take my arm, and I drew away. And when, that night, I had put her into her bed and stood letting down her curtains, I looked at the empty place beside her and said,
'The nights are grown so warm now, miss. Don't you think you will sleep better on your own . . .?'
I went back to my narrow bed, with its sheets like pieces of pastry. I heard her turning, and sighing, all through the night; and I turned, and sighed, myself. I felt that thread that had come between us, tugging, tugging at my heart— so hard, it hurt me. A hundred times I almost rose, almost went in to her; a hundred times I thought, Go to her! Why are you waiting? Go back to her side! But every time, I thought of what would happen if I did. I knew that I couldn't lie beside her, without wanting to touch her. I couldn't
have felt her breath come upon my mouth, without wanting to kiss her. And I couldn't have kissed her, without wanting to save her.
So, I did nothing. I did nothing the next night, too, and the night after that; and soon, there were no more nights: the time, that had always gone so slow, ran suddenly fast, the end of April came. And by then, it was too late to change anything.
C h a p t e r S i x
Gentleman went first. Mr Lilly and Maud stood at the door to
see him leave, and I watched from her window. She shook his
O' hand and he made her a bow. Then the trap took him off, to the station at Marlow. He sat with folded arms, his hat put back, his face our way, his eyes now on hers, now on mine.
There goes the Devil, I thought.
He made no sort of sign. He did not need to. He had gone over his plans with us and we had them by heart. He was to travel three miles by the train, then wait. We were to keep to Maud's parlour till midnight, then go. He was to meet us at the river when the clock struck the half.
That day passed just like all the old ones. Maud went to her uncle, as she had used to do, and I went slowly about her rooms, looking over her things— only this time, of course, I was looking out for what we ought to take. We sat at lunch. We walked in the park, to the ice- house, the graves, and the river. It was the final time we would do it, yet things looked the same as they always had. It was us who had changed. We walked, not speaking. Now and then our skirts came together— and once, our hands— and we started apart, as if stung; but if, like me, she coloured, I don't know, for I didn't look at her. Back in her room she stood still, like a statue. Only now and then I heard her sigh. I sat at her table with her box full of brooches and rings and 93
a saucer of vinegar, shining up the stones. I would rather do that, I thought, than nothing. Once she came to look. Then she moved away, wiping her eyes. She said the vinegar made them sting. It made mine sting, too.
Then came the evening. She went to her dinner, and I went to mine. Downstairs in the kitchen, everyone was gloomy.
'Don't seem the same, now Mr Rivers has gone,' they said.
Mrs Cakebread's face was dark as thunder. When Margaret let a spoon drop, she hit her with a ladle and made her scream. And then, no sooner had we started our dinners than Charles burst out crying at the table, and had to run from the kitchen wiping snot from his chin.
'He've took it very hard,' said one of the parlourmaids. 'Had his heart set on going to London as Mr Rivers's man.'
'You get back here!' called Mr Way, standing up, his powder flying. 'Boy your age, fellow like him, I'd be ashamed!'
But Charles would not come back, not for Mr Way nor anyone. He had been taking Gentleman his breakfasts, polishing his boots, brushing his fancy coats. Now he should be stuck sharpening knives and shining glasses in the quietest house in England.
He sat on the stairs and wept, and hit his head against the banisters. Mr Way went and gave him a beating. We heard the slap of his belt against Charles's backside, and yelps.
That put rather a dampener on the meal. We ate it in silence, and when we had finished and Mr Way had come back, his face quite purple and his wig at a tilt, I did not go with him and Mrs Stiles to the pantry to take my pudding. I said I had a head-ache. I almost did. Mrs Stiles looked me over, then looked away.
'How poorly you keep, Miss Smith,' she said. 'I should say you must have left your health in London.'
But it was nothing to me, what she thought. I should not see her— or Mr Way, or Margaret, or Mrs Cakebread— ever again.
I said Good-night, and went upstairs. Maud, of course, was still with her uncle. Until she came I did what we had planned, and got together all the gowns and shoes and bits and pieces we had agreed ought to be taken. It was all of it hers. My brown stuff dress I left behind me. I hadn't worn it in more than a month. I put it at the bottom of my trunk. I left that, too. We could only take bags. Maud had found out two old things of her mother's. Their leather was damp, with a bloom of white. They were marked, in brass, with letters so bold even I could read them: an M and an L— for her mother's name, which was like hers.
I lined them with paper, and packed them tight. In one— the heaviest one, which I would carry— I put the jewels I'd shined. I wrapped them in linen, to save them from tumbling about and growing dull. I put in one of her gloves with them— a white kid glove, with buttons of pearl. She had worn it once and supposed it lost. I meant to keep it, to remind me of her.
I thought my heart was breaking in two.
Then she came up from her uncle. She came twisting her hands. 'Oh!' she said. 'How 94
my head aches! I thought he would keep me forever, tonight!'
I had guessed she would come like this; and had got her some wine from Mr Way, as a nerver. I made her sit and take a little, then I wet a handkerchief with it and rubbed at the hollows of her brow. The wine made the handkerchief pink as a rose, and her head, where I chafed it, grew crimson. Her face was cool under my hand. Her eyelids fluttered. When they lifted, I stepped from her.
'Thank you,' she said quietly, her gaze very soft.
She drank more of the wine. It was quality stuff. What she left, I finished, and it went through me like a flame.