John scowls. 'Don't you make so free with my life,' he says; 'else, I might make free with yours— you hear me?'
Richard does not answer. He holds my gaze, and smiles. 'Come, let us be friends again, hmm?'
He puts his hand to me, and I dodge it, drawing my skirts away. The fastening of the doors, the closeness of the kitchen, has filled me with a kind of bleak bravado. 'I don't care,' I say, 'to be thought a friend of yours. I don't care to be thought a friend to any of you. I come among you because I must; because Mrs Sucksby wills it, and I haven't life left in me to thwart her. For the rest, remember this: I loathe you all.'
And I sit, not in the empty place beside him, but in the great rocking- chair, at the head of the table. I sit in it and it creaks. John and Dainty gaze quickly at Mrs Sucksby, who blinks at me, two or three times.
And why not?' she says at last, forcing a laugh. 'You make y6ur-self comfy, my dear.
I'll take this hard old chair here, do me good.' She sits and wipes her mouth. 'Mr Ibbs not about?'
'Gone off on a job,' says John. 'Took Charley Wag.'
She nods. And all my infants sleeping?'
'Gentleman give 'em a dose, half an hour ago.'
'Good boy, good boy. Keep it nice and quiet.' She gazes at me. All right, Miss Lilly?
Like a spot of tea, perhaps?' I do not answer, but rock in my chair, very slowly. 'Or, coffee?' She wets her lips. 'Make it coffee, then. Dainty, hot up some water.— Like a cake, dear girl, to chase it down with? Shall John slip out and fetch one? Don't care for cakes?'
'There's nothing,' I say slowly, 'that could be served to me here, that wouldn't be to me as ashes.'
She shakes her head. 'Why, what a mouth you've got, for poetry! As for the cake, now— ?' I look away.
Dainty sets about making the coffee. A gaudy clock ticks, and strikes the hour.
Richard rolls a cigarette. Tobacco smoke, and smoke from the lamps and spitting candles, already drifts from wall
to wall. The walls are brown, and faintly gleam, as if painted with gravy; they are pinned, here and there, with coloured pictures— of cherubs, of roses, of girls on swings— and with curling paper clippings, engravings of sportsmen, horses, dogs and thieves. Beside Mr Ibbs's brazier three portraits— of Mr Chubb, Mr Yale and Mr Bramah— have been pasted to a board of cork; and are much marked by dart- holes.
If I had a dart, I think, I might threaten them with it, make Mrs Sucksby give up her keys. If I had a broken bottle. If I had a knife.
229
Richard lights his cigarette, narrows his eyes against the smoke and looks me over.
'Pretty dress,' he says. 'Just the colour for you.' He reaches for one of the yellow ribbon trimmings, and I hit his hand away. 'Tut, tut,' he says then. 'Temper not much improved, I fear. We were in hopes that you would sweeten up in confinement. As apples do. And veal-calves.'
'Go to hell, will you?' I say.
He smiles. Mrs Sucksby colours, then laughs. 'Hark at that,' she says. 'Common girl says that, sounds awfully vulgar. Lady says it, sounds almost sweet. Still, dear'— here she leans across the table, drops her voice— 'I wish you mightn't speak so nasty.'
I hold her gaze. 'And you think,' I answer levelly, 'your wishes are something to me, do you?'
She flinches, and colours harder; her eyelids flutter and she looks away.
I drink my coffee, then, and don't speak again. Mrs Sucksby sits, softly beating her hands upon the table-top, her brows drawn together into a frown. John and Richard play again at dice, and quarrel over the game. Dainty washes napkins in a bowl of brown water, then sets them before the fire to steam and stink. I close my eyes. My stomach aches and aches. If I had a knife, I think again. Or an axe . . .
But the room is so stiflingly hot, and I am so weary and sick, my head falls back and I sleep. When I wake, it is five o'clock. The dice are put away. Mr Ibbs is returned. Mrs Sucksby is feeding babies, and Dainty is cooking a supper. Bacon, cabbage, crumbling pota-toes and bread: they give me a plate and, miserably picking free the strips of fat from the bacon, the crusts from the bread, as I pick bones from my breakfasts of fish, I eat it. Then they put out glasses. 'Care for some tipple, Miss Lilly?' Mrs Sucksby says. A stout, or a
sherry?'
A gin?' says Richard, some look of mischief in his eye.
I take a gin. The taste of it is bitter to me, but the sound of the silver spoon, striking the glass as it stirs, brings a vague and nameless comfort.
So that day passes. So pass the days that follow. I go early to bed— am undressed, every time, by Mrs Sucksby, who takes my gown and petticoats and locks them up, then locks up me. I sleep poorly, and wake, each morning, sick and clear- headed and afraid; and I sit in the little gold chair, running over the details of my confinement, working out my plan of escape. For I must escape. I will escape. I'll escape, and go to Sue. What are the names of the men who took her? I cannot remember. Where is their house? I do not know. Never mind, never mind, I shall find it out. First, though, I will go to Briar, beg money from my uncle— he'll still believe himself my uncle, of course— and if he'll give me none, I'll beg from the servants! I'll beg from Mrs Stiles!
Or, I'll steal! I'll steal a book from the library, the rarest book, and sell it— !
Or, no, I won't do that.— For the thought of returning to Briar makes me shudder, even now; and it occurs to me in time that I have friends in London, after all. I have Mr Huss and Mr Hawtrey. Mr Huss— who liked to see me climb a staircase. Could I go to him, put myself in his power? I think I could, I am desperate enough . . . Mr Hawtrey, however, was kinder; and invited me to his house, to his shop on Holywell Street.— I 230
think he'll help me. I am sure he will. And I think Holywell Street cannot be far— can it? I do not know, and there are no maps here. But I shall find out the way. Mr Hawtrey will help me, then. Mr Hawtrey will help me find Sue . . .
So my thoughts run, while the dawns of London break grubbily about me; while Mr Ibbs cooks bloaters, while his sister screams,
while Gentleman coughs in his bed, while Mrs Sucksby turns in hers, and snores, and sighs.
If only they would not keep me so close! One day, I think, each time a door is made fast at my back, one day they'll forget to lock it. Then I'll run. They'll grow tired of always watching.— But, they do not. I complain of the thick, exhausted air. I complain of the mounting heat. I ask to go, oftener than I need, to the privy: for the privy lies at the other end of that dark and dusty passage at the back of the house, and shows me daylight. I know I could run from there to freedom, if I had the chance; but the chance does not come: Dainty walks there with me every time, and waits until I come out.— Once I do try to run, and she easily catches me and brings me back; and Mrs Sucksby hits her, for letting me go.
Richard takes me upstairs, and hits me.
'I'm sorry,' he says, as he does it. 'But you know how hard we have worked for this.
All you must do is wait, for the bringing of the lawyer. You are good at waiting, you told me once. Why won't you oblige us?'
The blow makes a bruise. Every day I see how it has lightened, thinking, Before that bruise quite fades, I will escape!
I pass many hours in silence, brooding on this. I sit, in the kitchen, in the shadows at the edge of lamp- light— Perhaps they'll forget me, I think. Sometimes it almost seems that they do: the stir of the house goes on, Dainty and John will kiss and quarrel, the babies will shriek, the men will play at cards and dice. Now and then, other men will come— or boys, or else, more rarely, women and girls— with plunder, to be sold to Mr Ibbs and then sold on. They come, any hour of the day, with astonishing things— gross things, gaudy things— poor stuff, it seems to me, all of it: hats, handkerchiefs, cheap jewels, lengths of lace— once a hank of yellow hair still bound with a ribbon. A tumbling stream of things— not like the books that came to Briar, that came as if sinking to rest on the bed of a viscid sea, through dim and silent fathoms; nor like the things the books described, the things of convenience and purpose— the chairs, the pillows, the beds, the curtains, the ropes, the rods . . .
There are no books, here. There is only life in all its awful chaos. And the only purpose the things are made to serve, is the making of money.
And the greatest money- making thing of all, is me.
'Not chilly, dear girl?' Mrs Sucksby will say. 'Not peckish? Why, how warm your brow is! Not taking a fever, I hope? We can't have you sick.' I do not answer. I have heard it all before. I let her tuck rugs about me, I let her sit and chafe my fingers and cheek. 'Are you rather low?' she'll say. 'Just look at them lips. They'd look handsome in a smile, they would. Not going to smile? Not even'— she swal- lows— 'for me? Only glance, dear girl, at the almanack.' She has scored through the days with crosses of black. 'There's a month nearly gone by already, and only two more to come. Then we 231
know what follows! That ain't so long, is it?'
She says it, almost pleadingly; but I gaze steadily into her face— as if to say that a day, an hour, a second, is too long, when passed with her.
'Oh, now!' Her fingers clench about my hand; then slacken, then pat. 'Still seems rather queer to you, does it, sweetheart?' she says. 'Never mind. What can we get you, that will lift your spirits? Hey? A posy of flowers? A bow, for your pretty hair? A trinket box? A singing bird, in a cage?' Perhaps I make some movement. Aha! Where's John? John, here's a shilling— it's a bad one, so hand it over fast— nip out and get Miss Lilly a bird in a cage.— Yellow bird, my dear, or blue?— No matter, John, so long as it's pretty . . .'
She winks. John goes, and returns in half an hour with a finch in a wicker basket.
They fuss about that, then. They hang it from a beam, they shake it to make it flutter; Charley Wag, the dog, leaps and whines beneath it. It will not sing, however— the room is too dark— it will only beat and pluck at its wings and bite the bars of its cage.