She opens her eyes. She takes my wrist, and smiles. She coughs.
'My dear, I loves you for trying,' she says, wiping her mouth. 'But the girl ain't been born that's got the touch that will get past me, when I've a mind to something.' Her grip is strong about my arm; though turns to a caress. I shudder. 'Lord, ain't you cold!'
she says then. 'Here, sweetheart, let us cover you up.' She pulls the knitted quilt from the bed and puts it about me. 'Better, dear girl?'
My hair is tangled, and has fallen before my face. I regard her through it.
'I wish I were dead,' I say.
'Oh, now,' she answers, rising. 'What kind of talk is that?'
'I wish you were dead, then.'
She shakes her head, still smiles. 'Wild words, dear girl!' She sniffs. There has come, from the kitchen, a terrible odour. 'Smell that? That's Mr Ibbs, a-cooking up our breakfasts. Let's see who wishes she was dead, now, that's got a plate of bloaters before her!'
She rubs her hands again. Her hands are red, but the sagging flesh upon her arms has the hue and polish of ivory. She has slept in her chemise and petticoat; now she hooks on a pair of stays, climbs into her taffeta gown, then comes to dip her comb in water and brush her hair. 'Tra la, hee hee,' she sings brokenly, as she 223
does it. I keep my own tangled hair before my eyes, and watch her. Her naked feet are cracked, and bulge at the toe. Her legs are almost hairless. When she bends to her stockings, she groans. Her thighs are fat and permanently marked by the pinch of her garters.
'There, now,' she says, when she is dressed. A baby has started crying. 'That will set my others all off. Come down, dear girl— will you?— while I give 'em their pap.'
'Come down?' I say. I must go down, if I am to escape. But I look at myself. 'Like this?
Won't you give me back my gown, my shoes?'
Perhaps I say it too keenly, however; or else my look has something of cunning, or desperation, in it. She hesitates, then says, 'That dusty old frock? Them boots? Why, that's walking- gear. Look here, at this silken wrapper.' She takes up the dressing- gown from the hook on the back of the door. 'Here's what ladies wear, for their mornings at home. Here's silken slippers, too. Shan't you look well, in these? Slip 'em on, dear girl, and come down for your breakfast. No need to be shy. John Vroom don't rise before twelve, there's only me, and Gentleman— he's seen you in a state of dishabilly, I suppose!— and Mr Ibbs. And him, dear girl, you might consider now in the light of— well, let's say an uncle. Eh?'
I turn away. The room is hateful to me; but I will not go with her, undressed, down to that dark kitchen. She pleads and coaxes a little longer; then gives me up, and goes.
The key turns in the lock.
I step at once to the box that holds my clothes, to try the lid. It is shut up tight, and is stout.
So then I go to the window, to push at the sashes. They will lift, by an inch or two, and the rusting nails that keep them shut I think might give, if I pushed harder. But then, the window frame is narrow, the drop is great; and I am still undressed. Worse than that, the street has people in it; and though at first I think to call to them— to break the glass, to signal and shriek— after a second I begin to look more closely at them, and I see their faces, their dusty clothes, the packets they carry, the children and dogs that run and tumble at their sides. There is life, said Richard, twelve hours ago. It is hard, it is wretched. It would have been yours, but for Mrs Sucksby's kindness in keeping you from it. . .
At the door to the house with the shutters with the heart-shaped holes, a girl in a dirty bandage sits and feeds her baby. She lifts her head, catches my gaze; and shakes her fist at me.
I start back from the glass, and cover my face up with my hands.
When Mrs Sucksby comes again, however, I am ready.
'Listen to me,' I say, going to her. 'You know that Richard took me away from my uncle's house? You know my uncle is rich, and will seek me out?'
'Your uncle?' she says. She has brought me a tray, but stands in the door-place until I move back.
'Mr Lilly,' I say, as I do it. 'You know who I mean. He still thinks me his niece, at least.
Don't you suppose he will send a man, and find me? Do you think he will thank you, for keeping me like this?'
'I should say he will-— if he cares so much about it. Ain't we made you cosy, dear?'
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'You know you have not. You know you are keeping me here against my will. For God's sake, give me my gown, won't you?'
All right, Mrs Sucksby?'— It is Mr Ibbs. My voice has risen, and has brought him out of the kitchen to the foot of the stairs. Richard, too, has stirred in his bed: I hear him cross his floor, draw open his door, and listen.
All right!' calls Mrs Sucksby lightly. 'There, now,' she says to me. And here's your breakfast, look, growing chilly.'
She sets the tray upon the bed. The door is open; but I know that Mr Ibbs still stands at the foot of the stairs, that Richard waits and listens at the top. 'There, now,' she says again. The tray has a plate and a fork upon it, and a linen napkin. Upon the plate there are two or three amber-coloured fish in a juice of butter and water. They have fins, and faces. About the napkin there is a ring of polished silver, a little like the one that was kept for my especial use at Briar; but without the initial.
'Please let me go,' I say.
Mrs Sucksby shakes her head. 'Dear girl,' she says, 'go where?'
She waits and, when I do not answer, leaves me. Richard closes his door and goes back to his bed. I hear him humming.
I think of taking up the plate, hurling it against the ceiling, the window, the wall. Then I think: You must be strong. You must be strong and ready to run. And so I sit and eat— slowly, wretchedly, carefully picking out the bones from the amber flesh. My gloves grow damp and stained; and I have none with which to replace them.
After an hour, Mrs Sucksby comes back, to take the empty plate. Another hour, and she brings me coffee. While she is gone I stand, again, at the window, or press my ear to the door. I pace, and sit, and pace again. I pass from fury to maudlin grief, to stupor.
But then Richard comes. 'Well, Maud— ' is all he says. I see him, and am filled with a blistering rage. I make a run at him, meaning to strike his face: he wards off the blows and knocks me down, and I lie upon the floor and kick, and kick—
Then they dose me again with medicine and brandy; and a day or two passes in darkness.
When I wake next, it is again unnaturally early. There has appeared in the room a little basket chair, painted gold, with a scarlet cushion on it. I take it to the window and sit with the dressing- gown about me, until Mrs Sucksby yawns and opens her eyes.
'Dear girl, all right?' she says, as she will say every day, every day; and the idiocy or perversity of the question— when all is so far from being right, as to be so wrong I would almost rather die than endure it— prompts me to grind my teeth or pull at my hair, and gaze at her in loathing. 'Good girl,' she says then, and, 'Like your chair, do you, dear? I supposed you would.' She yawns again, and looks about her. 'Got the po?'
she says. I am used in my modesty to taking the chamber-pot behind the horse- hair screen. 'Pass it over, will you, sweetheart? I'm ready to bust.'
I do not move. After a second she rises and fetches it herself. It is a thing of white china, dark inside with what, when I saw it first, in the half- light of morning, I queasily took to be clumps of hair; but
which proved to be decoration merely— a great eye with lashes, and about it, in a 225
plain black fount, a motto:
use me well and keep me clean and i'll not tell of what i've seen!
a present from wales
The eye gives me, always, a moment or two of uneasiness; but Mrs Sucksby sets the pot down and carelessly lifts her skirt, and stoops. When I shudder, she makes a face.
'Not nice, is it, dear? Never mind. We shall have you a closet, in our grand house.'
She straightens, pushes her petticoat between her legs. Then she rubs her hands.