The blood spread across her face. She unjoined her hands, took another step to me and almost, almost reached. But then she turned and lowered her gaze. She stood at the desk. She put her hand to the paper and pen.
'You do not know me,' she said, in a queer, flat voice. 'You never did. There were things— '
She drew in her breath and would not go on. 'What things?' I said. She didn't answer. I rose, and went closer to her. 'What things?'
'My uncle— ' she said, looking up fearfully. 'My uncle's books— You thought me good.
Didn't you? I was never that. I was— ' She seemed, for a moment, almost to struggle with herself. Then she moved again, went to the shelves behind the desk, and took up a book. She held it, tight to her breast; then turned and brought it to me. She opened it up in her hands. Her hands, I think, were shaking. 'Here,' she said, as she looked across the page. 'Or, here.' I saw her gaze settle. And then, in the same flat voice she had spoken in before, she began to read.
'How delicious,' she read, 'was the glow upon her beauteous neck and bare ivory shoulders, as I forced her on her back on the couch. How luxuriously did her snowy hillocks rise against my bosom in wild confusion— '
'What?' I said.
She did not answer, did not look up; but turned that page and read from another.
'I scarcely knew what I was about; everything now was in active exertion— tongues, lips, bellies, arms, thighs, legs, bottoms, every part in voluptuous motion.'
Now my own cheek coloured. 'What?' I said, in a whisper.
She turned more pages, read again.
350
'Quickly my daring hand seized her most secret treasure, regardless of her soft complaints, which my burning kisses reduced to mere murmurs, while my fingers penetrated into the covered way of love— '
She stopped. Her heart was beating harder, though she had kept her voice so flat. My own heart was also beating rather hard. I said— still not quite understanding:
'Your uncle's books?'
She nodded.
'All, like this?'
She nodded again.
'Every one of them, like this? Are you sure?'
'Quite sure.'
I took the book from her and looked at the print on the pages. It looked like any book would, to me. So I put it down, and went to the shelves and picked up another. That looked the same. Then I took up another; and that had pictures. You never saw any pictures like them. One was of two bare girls. I looked at Maud, and my heart seemed to shrink.
'You knew it all,' I said. That's the first thing I thought. 'You said that you knew nothing, when all the time— '
'I did know nothing,' she said.
'You knew it all! You made me kiss you. You made me want to kiss you again! When all the time, you had been coming here and— '
My voice broke off. She watched my face. I thought of the times I had come to the library door, heard the smothered rising and falling of her voice. I thought of her reading to gentlemen— to Gentleman— while I sat, eating tarts and custards with Mrs Stiles and Mr Way. I put my hand to my heart. It had shrunk so small and tight, it hurt me.
'Oh, Maud,' I said. 'If I had only known! To think, of you— ' I began to cry. 'To think of your uncle— Oh!' My hand flew to my mouth. 'My uncle!' That thought was queerer than anything. 'Oh!' I still held the book. Now I looked at it and let it drop as if it burned me. 'Oh!'
It was all I could say. Maud stood very still, her hand upon the desk. I wiped my eyes.
Then I looked again at the smears of ink on her fingers.
'How can you bear it?'
She did not answer.
'To think of him,' I said, 'that sod! Oh, stinking was too good for him!' I wrung my hands. 'And now, to look at you and see you here, still here, with his books about you— !'
I gazed across the shelves; and wanted to smash them. I went to her, and reached to draw her close. But she held me off. She moved her head, in a way that at any other time I should have called proud.
'Don't pity me,' she said, 'because of him. He's dead. But I am still what he made me. I shall always be that. Half of the books are spoiled, or sold. But I am here. And look.
You must know everything. Look how I get my living.'
She picked up a paper from the desk— the paper that I had seen her write on. The ink 351
was still damp. 'I asked a friend of my uncle's, once,' she said, 'if I might write for him.
He sent me to a home for distressed gentlewomen.' She smiled, unhappily. 'They say that ladies don't write such things. But, I am not a lady
I looked at her, not understanding. I looked at the paper in her hand. Then my heart missed its beat.
'You are writing books, like his!' I said. She nodded, not speaking. Her face was grave.
I don't know how my face seemed. I think it was burning. 'Books, like that!' I said. 'I can't believe it. Of all the ways I thought I'd find you— And then, to find you here, all on your own in this great house— '
'I am not alone,' she said. 'I have told you: I have William Inker and his wife to care for me.'
'To find you here, all on your own, writing books like that?-V
Again, she looked almost proud. 'Why shouldn't I?' she said.
I did not know. 'It just don't seem right,' I said. 'A girl, like you— '
'Like me? There are no girls like me.'
I did not answer for a moment. I looked again at the paper in her hand. Then I said quietly,
'Is there money in it?'
She blushed. A little,' she said. 'Enough, if I write swiftly.'
And you— You like it?'
She blushed still harder. 'I find I am good at it. . .' She bit her lip. She was still watching my face. 'Do you hate me for it?' she said.
'Hate you!' I said. 'When I have fifty proper reasons for hating you, already; and only— '
Only love you, I wanted to say. I didn't say it, though. What can I tell you? If she could still be proud, then so, for now, could I ... I didn't need to say it, anyway: she could read the words in my face. Her colour changed, her gaze grew clearer. She put a hand across her eyes. Her fingers left more smudges of black there. I still couldn't bear it. I quickly reached and stopped her wrist; then wet my thumb and began to rub at the flesh of her brow. I did it, thinking only of the ink, and her white skin; but she felt my hand and grew very still. My thumb moved slower. It moved to her cheek.
Then I found I had cupped her face in my hand. She closed her eyes. Her cheek was smooth— not like a pearl, warmer than pearls. She turned her head and put her mouth against my palm. Her lips were soft. The smudge stayed black upon her brow; and after all, I thought, was only ink.
When I kissed her, she shook. I remembered what it was, then, to make her shake by kissing her; and began to shake, too. I had been ill. I thought I might faint! We moved apart. She put her hand against her heart. She had still held the paper. Now it fluttered to the floor. I stooped and caught it up and smoothed the creases from it.
'What does it say?' I said, when I had.
She said, 'It is filled with all the words for how I want you . . . Look.'
She took up the lamp. The room had got darker, the rain still beat against the glass.
But she led me to the fire and made me sit, and sat beside me. Her silk skirts rose in a rush, then sank. She put the lamp upon the floor, spread the paper flat; and began to 352
show me the words she had written, one by one.
Notes
Many books provided historical detail and inspiration. I'm particularly indebted to V.A.C. Gatrell's The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770-1868
(Oxford, 1994) and Marcia Hamilcar's Legally Dead: Experiences During Seven Weeks' Detention in a Private Asylum (London, 1910).
The index upon which Christopher Lilly is at work is based on the three annotated bibliographies published by Henry Spencer Ashbee under the pseudonym Pisanus Fraxi: Index Librorum Prohibitorum: being Notes Bio- Biblio- Icono- graphical and Critical, on Curious and Uncommon Books (London, 1877); Centuria Librorum Absconditorum: being Notes Bio- Biblio- Icono- graphical and Critical, on Curious and Uncommon Books (London, 1879); and Catena Librorum Tacendorum: being Notes Bio- Biblio- Icono- graphical and critical, on Curious and Uncommon Books (London, 1885). Mr Lilly's statements on book-collecting echo those of Ashbee, but in all other respects he is entirely fictitious.