She lifted her arm to rest it upon the bar of the window-sash, and then she stood with her brow upon her wrist, and grew still. Only her fingers moved, as they plucked idly at the lace across the window. Her hand was bare. Her hair was curled. I thought, It can't be her.
T hen Mrs Sucksby spoke again, the girl lifted her face, the light of the street- lamp fell 304
full upon it; and I cried out loud.
She might have heard me— though I don't think she can have— for she turned her head and seemed to look at me, to hold my gaze across the dusty street and the darkness, for quite a minute. I don't think I blinked, in all that time. I don't think she did, her eyes stayed open— I saw them, and remembered their colour at last. Then she turned back into the room, took a step away, caught up the lamp; and as she lowered the flame Mrs Sucksby went close to her, lifted her hands, and begin to unfasten the hooks at the back of her collar.
Then came darkness.
I moved back from the window. My own white face was reflected
there, the streetlight striking it— on the cheek, beneath my eye— in the shape of a heart. I turned from the glass. My cry had woken Charles, and I suppose my look was peculiar.
'Miss, what is it?' he said in a whisper.
I put my hand before my mouth.
'Oh, Charles!' I said. I took a couple of staggering steps towards him. 'Charles, look at me! Tell me who I am!'
'Who, miss?'
'Not miss, don't call me missl I never was a miss, though they made me out one.— Oh!
She has taken everything from me, Charles. She has taken everything and made it hers, in spite. She has made Mrs Sucksby love her, as she made— Oh! I'll kill her, tonight!'
I ran in a kind of fever, back to the shutter, to look at the face of the house. I said,
'Now, might I climb to the window? I could force the bolt, creep in, and stab her as she lies sleeping. Where is that knife?'
I ran again, and caught it up and tried its edge. 'Not sharp enough,' I said. I looked about me, then picked up the stone that was used as a door-stop, and drew the blade across it. 'Like this?' I said to Charles. 'Or like this? Which makes the best edge?
Come on, come on. You're the bloody knife-boy, aren't you?'
He watched me in terror; then came and, with trembling fingers, showed me how. I ground the blade. 'That's good,' I said. 'That will feel good, with its point against her breast.' Then I stopped. 'But, don't you think that, after all, a death by stabbing comes rather quick? Had I not ought to find a slower way?'— I thought of stifling, strangling, beating with a club.— 'Have we a club, Charles? That will take longer; and oh! I should like to have her know me, as she dies. You shall come with me, Charles. You shall help.— What's the matter?'
He had walked to the wall and stood with his back against it, and begun to quiver.
He said, 'You ain't— You ain't the lady you seemed to be at Briar!'
I said, 'Look at you. You ain't the boy. That boy had nerve.'
'I want Mr Rivers!'
I laughed, a mad laugh. 'I've got news for you. Mr Rivers ain't quite the gent you thought him, either. Mr Rivers is a devil and a rogue.'
He stepped forward. 'He ain't!'
'He is, though. He ran off with Miss Maud, told everyone I was her and put me in a madhouse. Who else do you think it was, signed my order?'
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'If he signed it, it must have been true!'
'He's a villain.'
'He's a gem of a man! Everyone at Briar said so.'
'They never knew him like I did. He's bad, he's rotten.'
He made his hands into fists. 'I don't care!' he cried.
'You want to man for a devil?'
'Better that, than— Oh!' He sat upon the floor and hid his face. 'Oh! Oh! I was never more miserable, in all of my life. I hate you!'
'And I hate you,' I said, 'you fucking nancy'
I still had the stone in my hand. I threw it at him.
It missed him by about a foot; but the sound of it striking the wall and floor was awful.
I was shaking, now, almost as badly as he was. I looked at the knife I held, then put it from me. I touched my face. My cheek and brow were wet with a horrible sweat. I went to Charles and knelt beside him. He tried to push me away.
'Get off me!' he cried. 'Or, kill me now! I don't care!'
'Charles, listen to me,' I said, in a steadier voice. 'I don't hate you, truly. And you mustn't hate me. I am all you've got. You have lost your place at Briar, and your aunty don't want you. You can't go back to the country now. Besides, you should never find y o u r w a y o u t o f S o u t h w a r k , w i t h o u t m y h e l p . Y o u s h o u l d w a n d e r a n d g r o w bewildered; and London is full of cruel hard men who do unspeakable things to bewildered fair- haired boys. You might be taken by the master of a ship, and finish up in Jamaica. How should you like that? Don't cry, for God's sake!'— He had begun to sob.— 'You think I shouldn't like to cry? I have been dreadfully cheated, and the person that cheated me worst is lying at this moment in my own bed, with my own mother's arms about her. This is a greater thing than you can understand. This is a matter of life and death. I was
foolish to say I would kill her tonight. But give me a day or two more, and let me think. There's money over there and— I swear it, Charles!— there are people there too who, once they know how I've been wronged, will give any kind of sum to the boy that has helped me back to them ..."
He shook his head, still crying; and now, at last, I began to cry, too. I put my arm about him and he leaned into my shoulder, and we shuddered and wailed until, finally, someone in the room next door began to bang on the wall and call out for us to stop.
'There, now,' I said, wiping my nose. 'You're not afraid, now? You'll sleep, like a good boy?'
He said he thought he would, if I would keep beside him; and so we lay together on the bed with the red hairs in it, and he slept, with his pink lips parted, and his breaths coming even and smooth.
But I kept wakeful, all through that night. I thought of Maud, across the street, lying breathing in Mrs Sucksby's arms, her mouth open like his, like a flower, her throat perfectly slender, and perfectly white and bare.
By the time the morning came, I had the beginnings of a plan worked out. I stood at the window and watched Mr Ibbs's door for a time but then, seeing no-one stirring, 306
gave it up. That could wait. What I needed now was money. I knew how to get it. I made Charles brush his hair and put a parting in it, then took him quietly from the house, by the back way. I took him to Whitechapel— a place, I thought, far enough from the Borough for me to risk going about without my veil. I found a spot on the High Street.
'Stand here,' I said. He did. 'Now, remember how you cried so hard last night? Let's see you do it again.'
'Let's what?'
I caught hold of his arm and pinched it. He gave a squeal, then began to snivel. I put my hand on his shoulder and looked up and down the street, in an anxious way. A few people gazed curiously at us. I beckoned them over.
'Please, sir, please, lady,' I said. 'I just come upon this poor boy, he's come in from the country this morning and has lost his master.