Fingersmith (3 page)

She was a great red-haired girl of three-and-twenty, and more or less a simpleton. She had neat white hands, though, and could sew like anything. John had her at this time stitching dog-skins onto stolen dogs, to make them seem handsomer breeds than what they really were.

He was doing a deal with a dog-thief. This man had a couple of bitches: when the bitches came on heat he would walk the streets with them, tempting dogs away from their owners, then charging a ten pounds' ransom before he'd give them back. That works best with sporting dogs, and dogs with sentimental mistresses; some owners, however, will never pay up—you could cut off their little dog's tail and post it to them and never see a bean, they are that heartless—and the dogs that John's pal was landed with he would throttle, then sell to him at a knocked-down price. I can't say what John did with the meat—passed it off as rabbit, perhaps, or ate it himself. But the skins, as I have said, he had Dainty stitching to plain street-dogs, which he was selling as quality breeds at the Whitechapel Market.

The bits of fur left over she was sewing together to cover him a greatcoat. She was sewing it, this night. She had the collar done and the shoulders and half the sleeves, and there were about forty different sorts of dog in it already. The smell of it was powerful, before a fire, and drove our own dog—which was not the old fighter, Jack, but another, brown dog we called Charley Wag, after the thief in the story—into a perfect fever.

Now and then Dainty would hold the coat up for us all to see how well it looked.

'It's a good job for Dainty that you ain't a deal taller, John,' I said, one time she did this.

'It's a good job for you that you ain't dead,' he answered. He was short, and felt it. 'Though a shame for the rest of us. I should like a bit of your skin upon the sleeves of my coat—perhaps upon the cuffs of it, where I wipes my nose. You should look right at home, beside a bulldog or a boxer.'

He took up his knife, that he always kept by him, and tested the edge with his thumb. 'I ain't quite decided yet,' he said, 'but what I shan't come one night, and take a bit of skin off while you are sleeping. What should you say, Dainty, if I was to make you sew up that?'

Dainty put her hand to her mouth and screamed. She wore a ring, too large for her hand; she had wound a bit of thread about the finger beneath, and the thread was quite black.

'You tickler!' she said.

John smiled, and tapped with the point of his knife against a broken tooth. Mrs Sucksby said,

'That's enough from you, or I'll knock your bloody head off. I won't have Sue made nervous.'

I said at once, that if I thought I should be made nervous by an infant like John Vroom, I should cut my throat. John said he should like to cut it for me. Then Mrs Sucksby leaned from her chair and hit him—just as she had once leaned, on that other night, all that time before, and hit poor Flora; and as she had leaned and hit others, in the years in between—all for my sake.

John looked for a second as if he should like to strike her back; then he looked at me, as if he should like to strike me harder. Then Dainty shifted in her seat, and he turned and struck her.

'Beats me,' he said when he had done it, 'why everyone is so down on me.'

Dainty had started to cry. She reached for his sleeve. 'Never mind their hard words, Johnny,' she said. 'I sticks to you, don't I?'

'You sticks, all right,' he answered. 'Like shit to a shovel.' He pushed her hand away, and she sat rocking in her chair, huddled over the dog-skin coat and weeping into her stitches.

'Hush now, Dainty,' said Mrs Sucksby. 'You are spoiling your nice work.'

She cried for a minute. Then one of the boys at the brazier burned his finger on a hot coin, and started off swearing; and she screamed with laughter. John put another peanut to his mouth and spat the shell upon the floor.

Then we sat quiet, for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Charley Wag lay before the fire and twitched, chasing hansoms in his sleep—his tail was kinked where a cab-wheel had caught it. I got out cards, for a game of Patience. Dainty sewed. Mrs Sucksby dozed. John sat perfectly idle; but would now and then look over at the cards I dealt, to tell me where to place them.

'Jack of Diggers on the Bitch of Hearts,' he would say. Or, 'Lor! Ain't you slow?'

'Ain't you hateful?' I would answer, keeping on with my own game. The pack was an old one, the cards as limp as rags. A man had been killed once, in a fight over a crooked game that was played with those cards. I set them out a final time and turned my chair a little, so that John might not see how they fell.

And then, all at once, one of the babies started out of its slumber and began to cry, and Charley Wag woke up and gave a bark. There was a sudden gust of wind that made the fire leap high in the chimney, and the rain came harder upon the coals and made them hiss. Mrs Sucksby opened her eyes. 'What's that?'she said.

'What's what?'said John.

Then we heard it: a thump, in the passage that led to the back of the house. Then another thump came. Then the thumps became footsteps. The footsteps stopped at the kitchen door—there was a second of silence—and then, slow and heavy, a knock.

Knock
—
knock
—
knock
. Like that. Like the knocking on a door in a play, when the dead man's ghost comes back. Not a thief's knock, anyway: that is quick and light. You knew what sort of business it was, when you heard that. This business, however, might be anything, anything at all. This business might be bad.

So we all thought. We looked at one another, and Mrs Sucksby reached into the cradle to draw the baby from it and stop its cries against her bosom; and John took hold of Charley Wag and held his jaws shut. The boys at the brazier fell silent as mice. Mr Ibbs said quietly, 'Anyone expected? Boys, put this lot away. Never mind your burning fingers. If it's the blues, we're done for.'

They began picking at the sovereigns and the gold they had sweated from them, wrapping them in handkerchiefs, putting the handkerchiefs beneath their hats or in their trouser pockets. One of them—it was Mr Ibbs's oldest nephew, Phil—went quickly to the door and stood beside it, his back flat to the wall, his hand in his coat. He had passed two terms in prison, and always swore he would not pass a third.

The knock came again. Mr Ibbs said, 'All tidy? Now, be steady, boys, be steady. What do you say, Sue my dear, to opening that door?'

I looked again at Mrs Sucksby, and when she nodded, went and drew back the bolt; the door was flung so quick and hard against me, Phil thought it had been shouldered—I saw him brace himself against the wall, bring out his knife and lift it. But it was only the wind that made the door swing: it came in a rush into the kitchen, blowing half the candles out, making the brazier spark, and sending all my playing-cards flying. In the passage stood a man, dressed dark, wet through and dripping, and with a leather bag at his feet. The dim light showed his pale cheeks, his whiskers, but his eyes were quite hidden in the shadow of his hat. I should not have known him if he had not spoken. He said,

'Sue! Is it Sue? Thank God! I have come forty miles to see you. Will you keep me standing here? I am afraid the cold will kill me!'

Then I knew him, though I had not seen him for more than a year. Not one man in a hundred came to Lant Street speaking like him. His name was Richard Rivers, or Dick Rivers, or sometimes Richard Wells. We called him by another name, however; and it was that name I said now, when Mrs Sucksby saw me staring and called,'Who is it, then?'

'It's Gentleman,' I said.

That is how we said it, of course: not how a proper gent would say it, using all his teeth on it; but as if the word were a fish and we had filleted it—
Ge'mun
.

'It's Gentleman,' I said; and Phil at once put his knife away, and spat, and went back to the brazier. Mrs Sucksby, however, turned in her chair, the baby twisting its scarlet face from her bosom and opening its mouth.

'Gentleman!' she cried. The baby started shrieking, and Charley Wag, let free by John, dashed barking to Gentleman and put his paws upon his coat. 'What a turn you gave us! Dainty, take a taper to them candles. Put the water on the fire, for a pot.'

'We thought you was the blues,' I said, as Gentleman came into the kitchen.

'I believe I am turned blue,' he answered. He set down his bag, and shivered, and took off his sodden hat and gloves and then his dripping greatcoat, which at once began to steam. He rubbed his hands together, then passed them over his head. He kept his hair and whiskers long and now, the rain having taken the kink from them, they seemed longer than ever, and dark, and sleek. There were rings at his fingers, and a watch, with a jewel on the chain, at his waistcoat. I knew without studying them that the rings and the watch were snide, and the jewel a paste one; but they were damn fine counterfeits.

The room grew brighter as Dainty saw to the lights. Gentleman looked about him, still rubbing his hands together and nodding.

'How do you do, Mr Ibbs?' he called easily. 'How do you do, lads?'

Mr Ibbs said, 'Very well, my tulip.' The boys did not answer. Phil said, to no-one, 'Come in the back way, did he?'—and another boy laughed.

Boys like that always think that men like Gentleman are nancies.

John laughed too, but louder than the others. Gentleman looked at him. 'Hallo, you little tick,' he said. 'Lost your monkey?'

John's cheek being so sallow, everyone always took him for an Italian. Now, hearing Gentleman, he put his finger to his nose. 'You can kiss my arse,' he said.

'Can I?' said Gentleman, smiling. He winked at Dainty, and she ducked her head. 'Hallo, charmer,' he said. Then he stooped to Charley Wag, and pulled his ears. 'Hallo, you Wagster. Where's police? Hey? Where's police?

See 'em off!' Charley Wag went wild. 'Good boy,' said Gentleman, rising, brushing off hairs. 'Good boy. That will do.'

Then he went and stood at Mrs Sucksby's chair.

'Hallo, Mrs S,' he said.

The baby, now, had had a dose of gin, and had cried itself quiet. Mrs Sucksby held out her hand. Gentleman caught it up and kissed it—first at the knuckles, and then at the tips. Mrs Sucksby said,

'Get up out of that chair, John, and let Gentleman sit down.'

John looked like thunder for a minute, then rose and took Dainty's stool. Gentleman sat, and spread his legs towards the fire. He was tall, and his legs were long. He was seven- or eight-and-twenty. Beside him, John looked about six.

Mrs Sucksby kept her eyes upon him while he yawned and rubbed his face. Then he met her gaze, and smiled.

'Well, well,' he said. 'How's business?'

'Pretty sweet,' she answered. The baby lay still, and she patted it as she had used to pat me. Gentleman nodded to it.

'And this little bud,' he said: 'is it farm, or is it family?'

'Farm, of course,' she said.

'A he-bud, or a she-bud?'

'A he-bud, bless his gums! Another poor motherless infant what I shall be bringing up by hand.'

Gentleman leaned towards her.

'Lucky boy!' he said, and winked.

Mrs Sucksby cried, 'Oh!' and turned pink as a rose. 'You sauce-box!'

Nancy or not, he could certainly make a lady blush.

We called him Gentleman, because he really was a gent—had been, he said, to a real gent's school, and had a father and a mother and a sister—all swells— whose heart he had just about broke. He had had money once, and lost it all gambling; his pa said he should never have another cent of the family fortune; and so he was obliged to get money the old-fashioned way, by thievery and dodging. He took to the life so well, however, we all said there must have been bad blood way back in that family, that had all come out in him.

He could be quite the painter when he chose, and had done a little work in the forgery line, at Paris; when that fell through, I think he spent a year putting French books into English—or English books into French—anyway, putting them slightly different each time, and pinning different titles on them, and so making one old story pass as twenty brand-new ones. Mostly, however, he worked as a confidence-man, and as a sharper at the grand casinos—for of course, he could mix with Society, and seem honest as the rest. The ladies especially would go quite wild for him. He had three times been nearly married to some rich heiress, but every time the father in the case had grown suspicious and the deal had fallen through. He had ruined many people by selling them stock from counterfeit banks. He was handsome as a plum, and Mrs Sucksby fairly doted on him. He came to Lant Street about once a year, bringing poke to Mr Ibbs, and picking up bad coin, cautions, and tips.

I supposed he had come bringing poke with him, now; and so, it seemed, did Mrs Sucksby, for once he had grown warm again before the fire and Dainty had given him tea, with rum in it, she placed the sleeping baby back in its cradle and smoothed her skirt across her lap and said,

'Well now, Gentleman, this is a pleasure all right. We didn't look for you for another month or two. Have you something with you, as Mr Ibbs will like the look of?'

Gentleman shook his head. 'Nothing for Mr Ibbs, I am afraid.'

'What, nothing? Do you hear that, Mr Ibbs?'

'Very sad,' said Mr Ibbs, from his place at the brazier.

Mrs Sucksby grew confidential. 'Have you something, then, for me?'

But Gentleman shook his head again.

'Not for you, either, Mrs S,' he said. 'Not for you; not for Garibaldi here' (meaning John); 'not for Dainty, nor for Phil and the boys; nor even for Charley Wag.'

He said this, going all about the room with his eyes; and finally looking at me, and then saying nothing. I had taken up the scattered playing-cards, and was sorting them back into their suits. When I saw him gazing—and, besides him, John and Dainty, and Mrs Sucksby, still quite pink in the face, also looking my way—I put the cards down. He at once reached over and picked them up, and started shuffling. He was that kind of man, whose hands must always be busy.

'Well, Sue,' he said, his eyes still upon me. His eyes were a very clear blue.