Fingersmith (75 page)

'Sevenpence,' I said, when I had put the coins together.

He turned them over. 'Are they good?'

'Good enough,' I said.

He sniffed again. 'All right.' He took them, and hid them. Then he unhooked his glasses from about his ears, and gave them a rub. 'Now then, let's see,' he said. 'You hold it up, though. Looks legal, this does. I been stung by the law, before. I might not want it to come out later, as how I touched it…' He put his glasses back on, and got ready to read.

'All the words that are there,' I said, as he did. 'Every one. Do you hear?'

He nodded, and began. 'To
be opened on the eighteenth birthday of my daughter, Susan Lilly
—'

I put the paper down. 'Susan Trinder,' I said. 'Susan Trinder, you mean. You are reading it wrong.'

'
Susan Lilly
, it says,' he answered. 'Hold it up, now, and turn it.'

'What's the point,' I said, 'if you ain't going to read what's there… ?'

But my voice had got thin. There seemed to have come, about my heart, a snake: it was coiling, tight.

'Come on,' he said. His look had changed. 'This is interesting, this is. What is it? A will, is it, or a testament?
The last statement
—there you are—
of Marianne Lilly, made at Lant Street, Southuiark, on this day 18th of September 1844, in the presence of Mrs Grace Sucksby, of
—' He stopped. His face had changed again. 'Grace Sucksby?' he said, in a shocked sort of voice. 'What, the murderess? This is stiff stuff, ain't it?'

I did not answer. He looked again at the paper—at the stains. Perhaps he had supposed them ink, before, or paint. Now he said, 'I don't know as I should…' Then he must have seen my face. 'All right, all right,' he said. 'Let's see. What's here?' He drew it closer. '
I, Marianne Lilly, of
—what is it? Bear House? Briar House?—
of Briar House, Buckinghamshire
— I,
Marianne Lilly, being sound in mind though feeble in body, hereby commit my own infant daughter SUSAN
—Now, will you shake it about? That's better—
hereby commit
—hmm, hmm—
to the guardianship of Mrs Grace Sucksby; and desire that she be raised by her in ignorance of her true birth. Which birth is to be made known to her on the day of her eighteenth birthday, 3rd August 1862; on which day I do also desire that there be made over to her one half of my private fortune
,

'In
exchange for which, Grace Sucksby commits into my care her own dear daughter MAUD
—Bless me, if you ain't doing it again! Hold it nice, can't you?—
dear daughter MAUD
,
and does desire that she be raised similarly ignorant of her name and birth, until the aforementioned date; on which date it is my desire that there be made over to her the remainder of my fortune
.

'
This paper to be a true and legally binding statement of my wishes; a contract

between myself and Grace Sucksby, in defiance of my father and brother; which is to be recognised in Law.

'
Susan Lilly to know nothing of her unhappy mother, but that she strove to keep her from care
.

'
Maud Sucksby to be raised a gentlewoman; and to know that her mother loved her, more than her own life
.—Well!' He straightened up. 'Now tell me that wasn't worth sevenpence. Papers get hold of it, mind, I should say it would be worth a lot more.—Why, how queer you look! Ain't going to faint, are you?'

I had swayed and clutched at his tray. His graters went sliding. 'Now take care, do!' he said, in a peevish way. 'Here's all my stock, look, going to tumble and get mashed—'

Dainty came and caught me. 'I am sorry,' I said. 'I am sorry.'

'All right?' he said, as he put the graters straight.

'Yes.'

'Come as a shock, has it?'

I shook my head—or perhaps I nodded, I don't remember—and gripped the letter, and stumbled from him. 'Dainty,' I said. 'Dainty—'

She sat me down, against a wall. 'What is it?' she said. 'Oh, Sue, what did it mean?'

The man still looked. 'I should get her water,' he called.

But I didn't want water, and I wouldn't let Dainty go. I clutched her to me and put my face against her sleeve. I began to shake. I began to shake as a rusted lock must shake, when the tumblers lift against their groaning springs, and the bolt is forced loose and flies. 'My mother—' I said. I could not finish. It was too much to say—too much, even, to know! M;y
mother, Maud's mother
! I could not believe it. I thought of the picture of the handsome lady I had seen in the box at Briar. I thought of the grave that Maud had used to rub and trim. I thought of Maud, and Mrs Sucksby; and then, of Gentleman. Oh,
now I see it
! he had said. Now I saw it, too. Now I knew what Mrs Sucksby had longed but been afraid to tell me, at the gaol.
If you should hear hard things of me
— Why had she kept the secret so long? Why had she lied about my mother? My mother was not a murderess, she was a lady. She was a lady with a fortune, that she meant to be split…

If you should hear hard things of me, think back
—

I thought, and thought; and began to grow sick. I put the letter before my face and groaned. The thimble man still stood a little way off, and watched me; soon other people gathered and stood watching, too. 'Drunk, is she?' I heard someone say. And, 'Got the horrors?' 'Fallen in a fit, has she? Her pal should put a spoon in her mouth, she'll swallow her tongue.' I could not bear the sound of their voices, the feel of their eyes. I reached for Dainty and got to my feet; she put her arm about me and helped me stagger home. She gave me brandy to drink. She sat me at the table. Mrs Sucksby's dress still lay upon it: I took it up and held it in my two fists, and hid my face in its folds; then I gave a cry like a beast, and cast it to the floor. I spread out the letter, and looked again at the lines of ink. S
USAN LILLY
… I groaned again. Then I got to my feet and began to walk.

'Dainty,' I said in a sort of pant, as I did. 'Dainty, she must have known. She must have known it, all along. She must have sent me there, at Gentleman's side, knowing he meant at last to— Oh!' My voice grew hoarse. 'She sent me there, so he would leave me in that place and bring her Maud. It was only ever Maud she wanted. She kept me safe, and gave me up, so Maud, so Maud—'

But then, I grew still. I was thinking of Maud, starting up with the knife. I was thinking of Maud, letting me hate her. I was thinking of Maud, making me think she'd hurt me, to save me knowing who had hurt me most…

I put my hand across my mouth and burst out weeping. Dainty began to weep, too.

'What is it?' she said. 'Oh, Sue, you look so queer! What is it?'

'The worst thing of all,' I said, through my tears. 'The worst thing of all!'

I saw it, sharp and clear as a line of lightning in a sky of black. Maud had tried to save me, and I had not known. I had wanted to kill her, when all the time—

'And I let her go!' I said, getting up and walking about. 'Where is she, now?'

'Where's
who
?' said Dainty, almost shrieking.

'Maud!' I said. 'Oh, Maud!'

'Miss Lilly?'

'Miss Sucksby, call her! Oh! I shall go mad! To think I thought she was a spider that had got you all in her web. To think there was once a time when I stood, pinning up her hair! If I had said— If she had turned— If I had known— I would have kissed her—'

'Kissed her?' said Dainty.

'Kissed her!' I said. 'Oh, Dainty, you would have kissed her, too! Anyone would! She was a pearl, a pearl!—and now, and now I've lost her, I've thrown her away—!'

So I went on. Dainty tried to calm me, and could not. I would only walk and wring my hands, tear my own hair; or else I would sink to the floor and lie groaning. At last, I sank and would not rise. Dainty wept and pleaded— took up water and threw it in my face—ran down the street to a neighbour's house, for a bottle of salts; but I lay, as if dead. I had got sick. I had got sick in a moment, like that. She carried me up to my old room and put me to sleep in my own bed; when I opened my eyes again she says I looked at her and did not know her, says I fought her, when she tried to take my gown, says I talked like a madwoman, of tartan, and india-rubber boots, and—most especially— of something I said she had taken, that I should die without. 'Where is it?' she says I cried. 'Where is it? Oh!'—She says I cried it so often, so pitifully, she brought me all my things and held them up before me, one by one; and that finally she found, in the pocket of my gown, an old kid glove, quite creased and black and bitten; and that when she held that up I took it from her and wept and wept over it as if my heart would break.

I don't remember. I kept in a fever for nearly a week, and was after that so feeble I might as well have been in a fever still. Dainty nursed me, all that time—feeding me tea and soups and gruels, lifting me so I might use the chamber-pot, wiping off the horrible sweat from my face. I still wept, and cursed and twisted, when I thought of Mrs Sucksby and how she had tricked me; but I wept more, when I thought of Maud. For all this time I had had as it were a sort of dam about my heart, keeping out my love: now the walls had burst, my heart was flooded, I thought I should drown… My love grew level, though, as I grew well again. It grew level, and calm—it seemed to me at last that I had never been so calm in all my life. 'I've lost her,' I'd say again to Dainty; I'd say it, over and over. But I'd say it steadily—in a whisper, at first; then, as the days passed by and I got back my strength, in a murmur; finally, in my own voice. 'I've lost her,' I'd say, 'but I mean to find her. I don't care if it takes me all my life. I'll find her out, and tell her what I know. She might have gone away. She might be on the other side of the world. She might be married! I don't care. I'll find her, and tell her everything…'

It was all I thought of. I was only waiting, to be well enough to start. And at last I thought I had waited enough. I rose from my bed, and the room—that had used to seem to tilt and turn, whenever I lifted my head—stayed still. I washed, and dressed, got the bag of things I had planned to take with me to Woolwich. I took up the letter, and tucked it into my gown. I think Dainty thought I must have fallen back into my fever. Then I kissed her cheek, and my face was cool. 'Keep Charley Wag for me,' I said. She saw how grave and earnest I was, and began to cry.

'How will you do it?' she said. I said I meant to start my search at Briar. 'But how shall you get there? How shall you pay?' I said: 'I'll walk.' When she heard that, she dried her eyes and bit her lip. 'Wait here,' she said. She ran from the house. She was gone for twenty minutes. When she came back, she was clutching a pound. It was the pound she had put, so long ago, in the wall of the starch-works, that she had said we must use to bury her when she had died. She made me take it. I kissed her again. 'Shall you ever come back?' she said. I said I did not know…

And so I left the Borough a second time, and made the journey down to Briar, over again. There were no fogs, this time. The train ran smooth. At Marlow, the same guard who had laughed at me when I'd asked for a cab, now came to help me from the coach. He didn't remember me. He wouldn't have known me if he had. I was so thin, I think he thought I was an invalid girl. 'Come down from London to take the air, have you?' he said kindly. He looked at the little bag I held. 'Shall you manage it?' And then, as he had last time: 'Is no-one come to meet you?'

I said I would walk. I did walk, for a mile or two. Then I stopped to rest on a stile, and a man and a girl went by, with a horse and cart, and they looked at me and must have thought I was an invalid, too: for they pulled their horse up and gave me a ride. They let me sit on the seat. The man put his coat about my shoulders.

'Going far?' he said.

I said I was going to Briar, they could drop me anywhere near Briar—

'To Briar!' they said, when they heard that. 'But, why ever are you going there? There's nobody there, since the old man died. Didn't you know?'

Nobody there! I shook my head. I said I knew Mr Lilly had been ill. That he had lost the use of his hands and voice, and had to be fed off a spoon. They nodded. Poor gentleman! they said. He had lingered on in a very miserable sort of way, all summer long—in all that terrible heat. They say he stank, in the end,' they said, dropping their voices. 'But though his niece—the scandalous girl, that run off with a gentleman—did you know about that?'—I didn't answer—'though she come back to nurse him, he died, a month ago; and since then, the house've been quite shut up.'

So Maud had come, and gone! If I had only known… I turned my head. When I spoke, my voice had a catch. I hoped they would put it down to the jolting of the cart. I said,

'And the niece, Miss Lilly? What happened— What happened to her?'

But they only shrugged. They did not know. Some people said she'd gone back to her husband. Some people said she had gone to France…

'Planning on visiting one of the servants, were you?' they said, looking at my print dress. The servants've all gone, too.—All gone but one, who stays to keep thieves out. Shouldn't like his job. They say the place is haunted, now.'

Here was a blow, all right. But I had expected blows, and was ready to suffer them. When they asked, Should they drive me back to Marlow? I said no, I would go on. I thought the servant must be Mr Way. I thought, 'I'll find him. He'll know me. And oh! he's seen Maud. He'll tell me where she's gone…'

So they put me down where the wall to the Briar park started; and from there, I walked again. The sound of the horse's hooves grew faint. The road was lonely, the day was bleak. It was only two or three o'clock, but the dusk seemed gathered in the shadows already, waiting to creep and rise. The wall seemed longer than when I had ridden past it in William Inker's trap: I walked for what felt like an hour, before I saw the arch that marked the gate, and the roof of the lodge behind it. I quickened my step—but then, my heart quite sank. The lodge was all shut up and dark. The gates were fastened with a chain and lock, and piled about with leaves. Where the wind struck the iron bars it made a low sort of moaning sound. And when I stepped to the gates and pushed them, they creaked and creaked.