Sarah Waters - Fingersmith

'Dainty,' I said in a sort of pant, as I did. 'Dainty, she must have k n o w n . S h e m u s t h a v e k n o w n i t , a l l a l o n g . S h e m u s t h a v e s e n t m e t h e r e , a t 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 whoV 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 343

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 344

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!