Sarah Waters - Fingersmith

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.

'Well, what?' I answered.

'What do you say to this? It's you I've come for.'

'Her!' said John, in disgust.

Gentleman nodded. 'I have something for you. A proposal.'

'A proposal!' said Phil. He had overheard it. 'Look out, Sue, he only wants to marry you!'

Dainty screamed, and the boys all sniggered. Gentleman blinked, then took his eyes from me at last, and leaned to Mrs Sucksby to say,

'Get rid of our friends at the brazier, would you? But keep John and Dainty: I shall want their help.'

Mrs Sucksby hesitated, then glanced at Mr Ibbs; and Mr Ibbs said at once, 'Right, lads, these sovs is sweated so hard, the poor queen's quite a shadder. Any more of it, we shall be done for treason.' He took up a pail, and began to drop the hot coins into the water, one by one. 'Listen to them yellow boys cry hush!' he said. 'The gold knows best. Now, what does the gold know?'

'Go on, Uncle Humphry,' said Phil. He drew on his coat and turned up his collar. The other boys did the same. 'So long,' they said, with a nod to me, to John and Dainty and 14

Mrs Sucksby. To Gentleman they said nothing. He watched them go by.

'Watch your back, lads!' he called, as the door was closed behind them. We heard Phil spit again.

Mr Ibbs turned the key in the lock. Then he came and poured himself a cup of tea— splashing rum in it, as Dainty had for Gentman. The scent of the rum rose on the steam, to mix with the smell of the fire, the sweated gold, the dog-skins, the wet and teaming greatcoat. The rain fell softer upon the grate. John chewed on a peanut, picking shell from his tongue. Mr Ibbs had moved lamps- The table, our faces and hands, showed bright; but the rest of the room was in shadow.

For a minute, no-one spoke. Gentleman still worried the cards, and we sat and watched him. Mr Ibbs watched him hardest of all: his eye grew narrow, and he tilted his head— he might have been lining him up along the barrel of a gun.

'So, my son,' he said. 'What's the story?'

Gentleman looked up.

'The story,' he said. 'The story is this.' He took out a card, and laid it, face- up, on the table. It was the King of Diamonds. 'Imagine a man,' he said, as he did it. 'An old man— a wise man, in his own way— a gentleman scholar, in fact; but with curious h a b i t s . H e l i v e s i n a c e r t a i n o u t -of-the-w a y s o r t o f h o u s e , n e a r a c e r t a i n out-of-the-way kind of village, some miles from London— never mind quite where, just now. He has a great room filled with books and prints, and cares for nothing but for them and for a work he is compiling— let's call it, a dictionary. It is a dictionary of all his books; but he has hopes for the pictures, too— has taken a mind to having them bound in fancy albums. The handling of that, however, is more than he can manage.

He places a notice in a newspaper: he needs the services of— here he put down another card, next to the first: Jack of Spades— 'a smart young man, to help him mount the collection; and one particular smart young man— being at that time rather too well known at the London gaming- houses, and highly desirous of a little light out-of-the-w a y s o r t o f e m p l o y m e n t , b e d a n d b o a r d p r o v i d e d — r e p l i e s t o t h e advertisement, is examined, and found fit.'

'The smart young man being yourself,' said Mr Ibbs.

'The smart young man being me. How you catch on!'

'And the crib in the country,' said John, taken up in Gentleman's story despite his sulks,

'let's say it's busting with treasure. And you

mean to force the locks, on all the cabinets and chests. You have come to Mr Ibbs for a loan of nippers and a jilt; and you want Sue— with her innocent eyes, what looks like they ain't seen butter— for your canary.'

Gentleman tilted his head, drew in his breath and raised a finger, in a teasing sort of way. Then:

'Cold as ice!' he said. 'The crib in the country is a damnable place: two hundred years old, and dark, and draughty, and mortgaged to the roof— which is leaky, by the by.

Not a rug or a vase or piece of plate worth forcing so much as a fart for, I'm afraid.

The gent eats his supper off china, just like us.'

'The old hunks!' said John. 'But, tight-wads like that, they stash their money in the bank, don't they? And you have made him write a paper leaving all of it to you; and 15

now you are here for a bottle of poison— '

Gentleman shook his head.

'Not a ounce of poison?' said John, looking hopeful.

'Not an ounce. Not a scruple. And no money in the bank— not in the old man's name, at least. He lives so quietly and so queerly, he scarcely knows what money's for. But t h e r e , d o y o u s e e , h e d o e s n ' t l i v e a l o n e . L o o k h e r e , w h o h e k e e p s f o r h i s companion ..."

The Queen of Hearts.

'Heh, heh,' said John, growing sly. 'A wife, very game.'

But Gentleman shook his head again.

A daughter, ditto?' said John.

'Not a wife. Not a daughter,' said Gentleman, with his eyes and his fingers on the Queen's unhappy face. A niece. In years,' he glanced at me, 'say Sue's years. In looks, say handsome. Of sense, understanding and knowledge,' he smiled, 'why, let's say perfectly shy.'

'A flat!' said John with relish. 'Tell me she's rich, at least.' 'She's rich, oh yes,' said Gentleman, nodding. 'But only as a caterpillar is rich in wings, or clover rich in honey.

She's an heiress, Johnny: her fortune is certain, the uncle can't touch it; but it comes with a queer condition attached. She won't see a penny till the day she marries. If she dies a spinster, the money goes to a cousin. If she

takes a husband'— he stroked the card with one white finger— 'she's rich as a queen.'

'How rich?' said Mr Ibbs. He had not spoken, all this time. Gentleman heard him now, looked up, and held his gaze.

'Ten thousand in ready,' he said quietly. 'Five thousand in the funds.'

A coal in the fire went pop. John gave a whistle through his broken tooth, and Charley Wag barked. I glanced at Mrs Sucksby, but her head was bent and her look was dark.

Mr Ibbs took a sip from his tea, in a considering way.

Til bet the old man keeps her close, don't he?' he said, when the tea was swallowed.

'Close enough,' said Gentleman, nodding, moving back. 'He's made a secretary of her, all these years— has her reading to him for hours at a stretch. I think he hardly knows she has grown up and turned into a lady.' He gave a secret sort of smile. 'I think she knows it, though. No sooner do I start work on the pictures than she discovers in herself a passion for painting. She wants lessons, with me as her master. Now, I know enough in that line to fake my way; and she, in her innocence, can't tell a pastel from a pig. But she takes to her instruction— oh, like anything. We have a week of lessons: I teach her lines, I teach her shadows. The second week goes by: we move from shadows to design. Third week— blushing watercolours. Next, the blending of the oils.

Fifth week— '

'Fifth week, you jiggles her!' said John.

Gentleman closed his eyes.

'Fifth week, our lessons are cancelled,' he said. 'Do you think a girl like that may sit in a room, with a gentleman tutor, alone? We have had her Irish maid sit with us, all this time— coughing and turning red in the face, every time my fingers stray too near her lady's, or my breath comes too warm upon her little white cheek. I thought her a 16

marvellous prude; it turns out she had the scarlet fever— is at this moment dying of it, poor bitch. Now my lady has no chaperon but the housekeeper— and the housekeeper is too busy to sit at lessons. The lessons, therefore, must end, the paints are left to dry upon their palette. Now I only see Miss at supper, at her