Fingersmith

She still held her chain of keys. The sight of them made me cry worse. She shook one free, and Betty took it to the nurse's cupboard, unlocked the door, and brought out a jar of grease. The grease was white and hard, like lard. Betty sat, took a handful of it, and began to work it into Nurse Bacon's swollen fingers. Nurse Bacon winced again.

Then she sighed, and her face grew smooth.

'That finds the mark!' she said; and Betty chuckled.

I turned my head into my pillow and closed my eyes. If the house had been hell, and Nurse Bacon the Devil, and Betty a demon at her side, I could not have been more wretched. I cried until I could cry no more.

And then there came a movement beside my bed, and then a voice, very gentle.

'Come, my dear. You must not give in to tears.'

It was the pale old lady, Miss Wilson. She had put out her hand to me. I saw it, and flinched.

'Ah,' she said then. 'You shrink from me. I don't wonder at it. I am not quite in my right mind. You will grow used to that, here. Hush! Not a word. Nurse Bacon watches.

Hush!'

She had taken a handkerchief from her sleeve, and made signs that I should dry my face. The handkerchief was yellow with age, but soft; and the softness of it, and the kindness of her look— which, for all that she was mad, was the first piece of kindness that anyone had shown me since I came to the house— made me begin to cry again.

Nurse Bacon looked over. 'I've got my eye on you,' she said to me. 'Don't think I haven't.' Then she settled back in her chair. Betty still worked grease into her fingers.

I said quietly,

'You mustn't think I cry so easily as this, at home.'

'I am sure you do not,' answered Miss Wilson.

'I'm only so frightened they will keep me here. I have been done very wrong. They say I am mad.'

'You must keep your spirit. This house is not so hard as some others. But nor is it perfectly kind. The air of this room, for example, that we must breathe, like oxen in a stall. The suppers. They call us ladies, yet the food— the merest pap!— I should blush 272

to see it served to a gardener's boy.'

Her voice had risen. Nurse Bacon looked over again, and curled her lip.

'I should like to see you blush, you phantom!' she said.

Miss Wilson worked her mouth and looked embarrassed.

'A reference,' she said to me, 'to my pallor. Will you believe me if I tell you, there is a substance in the water here, related to chalk— ? But, hush! No more of that!'

She waved her hand, and looked for a moment so mad, my heart quite sank.

'Have you been here very long?' I asked, when her fluttering hand had fallen.

'I believe— let me see— we know so little of the passing seasons ... I should say, many years.'

'Two-and-twenty,' said Nurse Bacon, still listening. 'For you were quite an old hand— were you not?— when I first come in as a young one. And that was fourteen years, this autumn.— Ah, press harder, Betty, there! Good girl.'

She pulled a face, let out her breath, and her eyes closed. I

thought in horror, Two-and-twenty years!— and the thought must have shown on my face, for Miss Wilson said,

'You must not think you shall stay so long as that. Mrs Price comes, every year; but her husband has her home again, when the worst of her spells are past. It was a husband, I think, who signed your order? It is my brother who keeps me here. But men want wives, when they may do without their sisters.' Her hand rose. 'I would speak plainer, if I could. My tongue— You understand.'

'The man,' I said, 'that has put me here, is a dreadful villain; and only pretends to be my husband.'

'That is hard for you,' said Miss Wilson, shaking her head and sighing. 'That is the worst of all.'

I touched her arm. My heart, that had sunk, now rose like a float— so hard, it hurt me.

'You believe it,' I said. I looked at Nurse Bacon; but she had heard me and opened her eyes.

'Don't make anything of that,' she said, in a comfortable voice. 'Miss Wilson believes all sorts of nonsense. Only ask her, now, what creatures live in the moon.'

'Curse you!' said Miss Wilson. 'I told you that as a confidence!— You may see, Mrs Rivers, how they work to diminish my standing.— Does my brother pay a guinea a week for you to abuse me? Thieves! Devils!'

Nurse Bacon made a show of rising from her chair and making her hands into fists; and Miss Wilson grew quiet again. I said, after a moment,

'You may think what you like about the moon, Miss Wilson. Why shouldn't you? But when I tell you I have been put in here by swindlers and am perfectly right in my head, I say no more than the truth. Dr Christie shall find it out, in time.'

'I hope he will,' she answered. 'I am sure he will. But you know, it is your husband who must sign you out.'

I stared at her. Then I looked at Nurse Bacon. 'Is that true?' I asked. Nurse Bacon nodded. I began to weep again. 'Then, God help me, I'm done for!' I cried. 'For that shyster never, never will!'

Miss Wilson shook her head. 'So hard! So hard! But perhaps he

273

ill visit, and take a change of heart? They must let us see our vis-tors, you know; that is the law.'

I wiped my face. 'He won't come,' I said. 'He knows that, if he did, I would kill him!'

She looked about her, in a sort of fear. 'You must not say such things, in here. You must be good. Don't you know, that they have ways of taking you, of binding you—

That they have water— '

'Water,' murmured Mrs Price, in a shuddering way.

'That's enough!' Nurse Bacon said. 'And you, Miss Muffet'— she meant me— 'stop stirring up the ladies.'

And again, she showed her fist.

So then we all fell silent. Betty worked the grease in for another minute or two, then put the jar away and went back to her bed. Miss Wilson bent her head and her gaze grew dark. Mrs Price now and then let out a murmur or a moan from behind her veil of hair. From the room next door there came a burst of ragged shrieking. I thought of Mr Ibbs's sister. I thought of all my home, and all the people in it. I began, again, to sweat. I felt suddenly I think as a fly must feel, when wrapped in the thread of a spider.

I got to my feet and walked from one wall of the room to the other, and back.

'If only there was a window!' I said. 'If only we might see out.' And then: 'If only I had never left the Borough!'

'Will you sit down?' said Nurse Bacon.

Then she cursed. There had come a knocking at the door, and she must get up from her chair to answer it. It was another nurse, with a paper. I waited until their heads were close together, then stole back to Miss Wilson. Desperation was beginning to make me sly.

'Listen to me,' I said quietly. 'I must get out of here, quick as I can. I have people in London, with money. I've a mother. You've been here so long, you must know of a way. What is it? I'll pay you fork, I swear.'

She looked at me, and then drew back. 'I hope,' she said, in an ordinary tone, 'I hope you don't suppose that I was the kind of girl brought up to speak in whispers?'

Nurse Bacon looked round and stared.

'You, Maud,' she said. 'What are you doing now?'

'Whispering,' said Betty, in her gruff voice.

'Whispering? I'll whisper her, all right! Get back to your bed and leave Miss Wilson alone. Can't I turn my back a minute without you start up trying to tamper with the ladies?'

I supposed she guessed I had been trying to escape. I went back to my bed. She stood at the door with the other nurse, and said something to her in a murmur. The other nurse wrinkled her nose. Then they looked me over in the same cool, nasty way that I had seen other nurses look at me, before.

I was still too ignorant then, of course, to know what the nasty look meant. God help me, though!— for I was to find out, soon enough.