But it was all I had; and I thought it might as well do. I hadn't the heart for finding out anything better. I hadn't the heart or the spirit for anything at all. Bit by bit, everything that was left at Lant Street had gone— been pawned, or sold. I still wore the pale print dress I had robbed from the woman in the country!— and now it looked worse on me than ever, for I had grown thin at Dr Christie's, and then thinner still. Dainty said I had got so sharp, if you could have found a way of threading me with cotton, you could have sewn with me.
And so, when I packed the bits of stuff I wanted to take with me to Woolwich, there was almost nothing. And when I thought of the people I ought to call on, to say good-bye to, I could not think of anyone. There was only one thing I knew I must do, b e f o r e I w e n t ; a n d t h a t w a s t h e p i c k i n g u p o f M r s S u c k s b y ' s t h i n g s , f r o m Horsemonger Lane.
I took Dainty with me. I did not think that I could bear it all alone. We went, one day in September— more than a month after the trial. London had changed, since then.
The season had turned, and the days grown cooler at last. The streets were filled with dust and straw, and curling leaves. The gaol seemed darker and bleaker than ever. But the porter there knew me, and let me through. He looked at me, I thought, in pity. So did the matrons. They had Mrs Sucksby's things made ready for me, in a wax-paper parcel tied with strings. 'Released, to Daughter,' they said, as they wrote in a book; and they made me put my name there, underneath.— I could write my name quick as anyone now, since my time at Dr Christie's . . . Then they led me back, across the yards, through the grey prison ground where I knew Mrs Sucksby was buried, with no stone upon her grave, so no-one could come and mourn her; and
they took me out under the gate, with its low, flat roof, where I had last seen the scaffold raised. They passed under that roof every day of their lives, it was nothing to them. When they came to say goodbye, they made to take my hand. I could not give it.
The parcel was light. I carried it home, however, in a sort of dread; and the dread seemed to make it heavy. By the time I reached Lant Street, I was almost staggering: I 338
went quickly with it to the kitchen table, and set it down, and caught my breath and rubbed my arms. What I was dreading was having to open it and look at all her things.
I thought of what must be inside: her shoes; her stockings, perhaps still in the shape of her toes and heels; her petticoats; her comb, perhaps with some of her hair in it—
Don't do it! I thought. Leave it! Hide it! Open it some other time, not today, not now— .'
I sat, and looked at Dainty.
'Dainty,' I said, 'I don't think I can.'
She put her hand over mine.
'I think you ought to,' she said. 'For me and my sister was the same, when we got our mother's bits back from the morgue. And we left that packet in a drawer, and wouldn't look at it for nearly a year; and when Judy opened it up the gown was rotted through, and the shoes and bonnet perished almost to nothing, from having gone so long with river-water on them. And then, we had nothing to remember Mother by, at all; save a little chain she always wore.— Which Pa pawned, in the end, for gin- money . . .'
I saw her lip begin to quiver. I could not face her tears.
All right,' I said. 'All right. I'll do it.'
My hands were still shaking though, and when I drew the parcel to me and tried to undo its strings, I found the matrons had tied them too tight. So then Dainty tried. She couldn't undo them either. 'We need a knife,' I said, 'or a pair of scissors . . .' But there was a time, after Gentleman died, when I hadn't been able to look at any kind of blade, without wincing; and I had made Dainty take them all away, there wasn't a single sharp thing— except me— in the whole of the house. I tugged and picked at the knots again, but now I was more nervous than ever, and my hands had got damp. At last, I lifted the parcel to my mouth and took hold of the knots with my teeth: and finally the strings unravelled and the paper sprang out of its folds. I started back. Mrs Sucksby's shoes, her petticoats and comb came tumbling out upon the table-top, looking just as I had feared. And across them, dark and spreading, like tar, came her old black taffeta gown.
I had not thought of that. Why hadn't I? It was the very worst thing of all. It looked like Mrs Sucksby herself was lying there, in some sort of swoon. The gown still had Maud's brooch pinned to its breast. Someone had prised the diamonds out— I didn't care about that— but the silver claws that were left had blood in them, brown blood, so dried it was almost powder. The taffeta itself was stiff. The blood had made it rusty.
The rust was traced about with lines of white: the lawyers had shown the gown in court, and had drawn around each stain with chalk.
They seemed to me like marks on Mrs Sucksby's own body.
'Oh, Dainty,' I said, 'I can't bear it! Fetch me a cloth, and water, will you? Oh! How horrible it looks— !' I began to rub. Dainty rubbed, too. We rubbed in the same grim, shuddering way that we had scrubbed the kitchen floor. The cloths grew muddy. Our breaths came quick. We worked first at the skirt. Then I caught up the collar, drew the bodice to me and began to work on that.
And, as I did, the gown made a curious sound— a creaking, or rustling, sound.
Dainty put down her cloth. 'What's that?' she said. I did not know. I drew the dress 339
closer, and the sound came again.
'Is it a moth?' said Dainty. 'Is it flapping about, inside?'
I shook my head. 'I don't think so. It sounds like a paper. Perhaps the matrons have put something there
But when I lifted the dress and shook it, and looked inside, there was nothing, nothing at all. The rustling came again, however, as I laid the gown back down. It seemed to me that it came from part of the bodice— from that part of the front of the bodice that would have lain just below Mrs Sucksby's heart. I put my hand to it, and felt about.
The taffeta there was stiff— stiff not just from the staining of Gentleman's blood, but from something else, something that
had got stuck, or been put, behind it, between it and the satin lining of the gown. What was it? I could not tell, from feeling. So then I turned the bodice inside-out, and looked at the seam. The seam was open: the satin was loose, but had been hemmed so as not to fray. It made a sort of pocket, in the gown. I looked at Dainty; then put in my hand. It rustled again, and she drew back.
Are you sure it ain't a moth? Or a bat?'
But what it was, was a letter. Mrs Sucksby had had it hidden there— how long? I could not guess. I thought at first that she must have put it there for me— that she had written it, in gaol— that it was a message for me to find, after they had hanged her.— T h e t h o u g h t m a d e m e n e r v o u s . B u t t h e n , t h e l e t t e r w a s m a r k e d w i t h Gentleman's blood; and so must have lain inside the gown since the night he died, at least. Then again, it seemed to me that it must have lain there a good deal longer than that: for as I looked more closely at it I saw how old it was. The creases were soft.