Fingersmith

And at that, I put back the sheet from my face and opened my eyes up wide. Perhaps I shouldn't have done it, just then. Perhaps, after all, they had only been larking. But I put back the sheet, and they saw me looking; and then they all started laughing again and came towards me in a rush. They plucked the blankets off me and took the pillow from under my head. Two of them leaned on my feet, and another two caught my arms. They did it in a moment. They were like one great hot sweating beast with fifty heads, with fifty panting mouths and a hundred hands. When I struggled, they pinched me. I said,

'You leave me alone!'

'Shut up,' they said. 'We aren't going to hurt you. We only want to see who's heaviest out of Nurse Bacon, Nurse Spiller and Nurse Flew. We only want to see which of them will make you squeak most. Are you ready?'

'Get off me! Get off me! I'll tell Dr Christie!'

Someone hit me in the face. Someone else jerked my leg. 'Spoilsport,' they said. 'Now, who's to go on her first?'

'I will,' I heard Nurse Flew say, and the others moved back a little for her to come forward. She was smoothing down her gown. 'Have you got her?' she said.

'We've got her.'

'Right. Hold her still'

Then they pulled me tight, as if I were a wet sheet and they meant to wring me. My thoughts, at that moment, aren't fit to be described. I was sure they would tear the arms and legs off me. I was sure they would snap my bones. I started to shout and, again, I was struck in the face and jerked about; so then I fell silent. Then Nurse Flew got on to the bed and, lifting up her skirt, knelt astride of me. The bed gave a creak.

She rubbed her hands and fixed me with her swivel-eye. 'Here I come!' she said, making to fall upon me. But the fall never came, though I screwed up my face and drew in my breath, to take it. Nurse Bacon had stopped her.

'No dropping,' she said. 'Dropping won't be fair. Go down slowly, or not at all.'

So Nurse Flew moved back, then came slowly forward, and lowered herself down by her hands and knees until her weight was all upon me. The breath I had drawn in was all squeezed out. I think, if I had had a floor underneath me instead of a bed, she would have killed me. My eyes, my nose and mouth, began to run. 'Please— !' I said.

'She cries Please!' said the dark-haired nurse. 'That means five points to Nurse Flew!'

They eased off tugging me, then. Nurse Flew kissed my cheek and got off me, and I saw her stand with her hands above her head, like the winner of a boxing match. I sucked in my breath, I spluttered and coughed. Then they drew me tight again, for Nurse Spiller's turn. She was worse than Nurse Flew— not heavier, but more awkward, 282

for she lay with the points of her limbs, her knees and her elbows and her hips, pressing hard into mine; and her corset was a stiff one, with edges that seemed to cut me like a saw. Her hair had an oil upon it and smelt sour, and her breath was loud, like thunder, in my ear. 'Come on, you little bitch,' she said to me, 'sing out!'— but I had some pride, even then. I closed my jaws and wouldn't, though she pressed and pressed; at last the nurses cried, Oh, shame! No points for Nurse Spiller at all!'— and she gave a final grind to her knees, and swore, and got off. I lifted my head from the mattress. My eyes were streaming water, but beyond the circle of nurses I could see Betty and Miss Wilson and Mrs Price, looking on and shaking but pretending to sleep. They were afraid of what might be done to them. I don't blame them. I let my head fall back, and again shut tight my jaws. Now came Nurse Bacon.

Her cheeks were still flushed, and her swollen hands so red against the white of her arms, she might have had gloves on.

She sat astride of me as Nurse Flew had, and flexed her fingers.

'Now, Maud,' she said. She caught hold of the hem of my nightgown, and pulled it and made it tidy. She patted my leg. 'Now then, Miss Muffet. Who's my own good girl?'

Then she came upon me. She came faster than the others, and the shock and the weight of her was awful. I cried out, and the nurses clapped. 'Ten points!' they said.

Nurse Bacon laughed. I felt the shudder of it, like rolling-pins; and that made me screw up my eyes and cry out louder. Then she shuddered again, on purpose. The nurses cheered. Then she did this. She pushed herself up on her hands, so that her face was above me but her bosom and stomach and legs still hard on my own; and she moved her hips. She moved them in a certain way. My eyes flew open. She gave me a leer.

'Like it, do you?' she said, still moving. 'No? We heard you did.'

And at that, the nurses roared. They roared, and I saw on their faces as they gazed at me that nasty look I had seen before but never understood. I understood it now, of course; and all at once I guessed what Maud must have said to Dr Christie, that time at Mrs Cream's. The thought that she had said it— that she had said it, before Gentleman, as a way of making me out to be mad— struck me like a blow to the heart.

I had had many such blows, since I left Briar; but this, just then, seemed like the worst.

It was as if I were filled with gunpowder, and had just been touched with a match. I began to struggle, and to shriek.

'Get off me!' I shrieked. 'Get off me! Get off me! Get off!'

Nurse Bacon felt me wriggle, and her laughter died. She pushed again upon me, harder, with her hips. I saw her hot red face above my own and butted it with my head.

Her nose went crack. She gave a cry. There came blood on my cheek.

Then, I can't quite say what happened. I think the nurses that were holding me let go; but I think I kept on struggling and shrieking, as if they had me still. Nurse Bacon rolled from me; I think that someone— probably, Nurse Spiller— hit me; yet still my fit kept on. I have an idea that Betty started up bellowing— that other ladies, in rooms close by, took up the screams and shouts from ours. I think the nurses ran. 'Catch up these bottles and cups!' I heard one of them say, as she flew off with the others. Then someone must have taken fright and caught hold of one of the handles in the halclass="underline" 283

there came a bell. The bell brought men and then, after another minute, Dr Christie.

He was pulling on his coat. He saw me, still kicking and thrashing on the bed, with the blood from Nurse Bacon's nose upon me.

'She's in a paroxysm,' he cried. 'A bad one. Good Lord, what was it set her off?'

Nurse Bacon said nothing. She had her hand at her face, but her eyes were on mine.

'What was it?' Dr Christie said again. 'A dream?'

A dream,' she answered. Then she looked at him, and started into life. 'Oh, Dr Christie,' she said, 'she was saying a lady's name, and moving, as she slept!'

That made me shriek all over again. Dr Christie said, 'Right. We know our treatment for paroxysms. You men, and Nurse Spiller. Cold water plunge. Thirty minutes.'

The men caught hold of me by the arms and picked me up. I had been pressed so hard by the nurses that it seemed to me now, as they set me upright, that I was beginning to float. In fact, they dragged me: I found the grazes upon my toes, next day. But I don't remember, now, being taken down from that floor, to the basement of the house. I don't remember passing the door to the pads— going on, down that dark corridor, to the room where they kept the bath. I remember the roaring of the faucets, the chill of the tiles beneath my feet— but, only dimly. What I recall most is the wooden frame they fixed me to, at the arms and legs; and then, the creaking of it, as they winched it up and swung it over the water; the swaying of it, as I pulled against the straps.

Then I remember the drop, as they let fly the wheel— the shock, as they caught it— the closing of the icy water over my face, the rushing of it into my mouth and nose, as I tried to gasp— the sucking of it, when I spluttered and coughed.

I thought they had hanged me.

I thought I had died. Then they winched me up, and dropped me again. A minute to winch me, and a minute to plunge. Fifteen plunges in all. Fifteen shocks. Fifteen tugs on the rope of my life.