And so you see it is love— not scorn, not malice; only love— that makes me harm her, 182
in the end.
Chapter Eleven
We leave, just as we have planned, on the last day of April. /y 1/ Richard's stay is complete. My uncle's prints are mounted and bound: he takes me to view them, as a sort of treat.
'Fine work,' he says. 'You think, Maud? Hmm?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Do you look?'
'Yes, Uncle.'
'Yes. Fine work. I believe I shall send for Hawtrey and Huss. I shall have them come— next week? What do you say? Shall we make an occasion of it?'
I do not answer. I am thinking of the dining- room, the drawing- room— and me, in some other shadowy place, far off. He turns to Richard.
'Rivers,' he says, 'should you like to come back, as a guest, with Hawtrey?'
Richard bows, looks sorry. 'I fear, sir, I shall be occupied elsewhere.'
'Unfortunate. You hear that, Maud? Most unfortunate . . .'
He unlocks his door. Mr Way and Charles are going about the gallery with Richard's bags. Charles is rubbing his eyes with his sleeve.— 'Get on with you!' says Mr Way savagely, kicking out with his foot. Charles lifts his head, sees us emerging from my uncle's room— sees my uncle, I suppose— and shakes in a sort of convulsion, and runs.
My uncle also shakes, then.
'Do you see, Rivers, the torments to which I am exposed? Mr Way, I hope you will catch that boy and whip him!'
'I will, sir,' says Mr Way.
Richard looks at me, and smiles. I do not smile back. And when, at the steps, he takes my hand, my fingers sit quite nervelessly against his own. 'Good-bye,' he says. I say nothing. He turns to my uncle: 'Mr Lilly. Farewell to you, sir!'
'A handsome man,' my uncle says, as the trap is drawn from sight. 'Hmm, Maud?
What, are you silent? Shan't you like it, to have to return to our solitary ways?'
We go back into the house. Mr Way pulls closed the swollen door, and the hall grows dark. I climb the stairs at my uncle's side, as I once, as a girl, climbed them with Mrs Stiles. How many times, I think, have I mounted them, since then? How many times has my heel struck this spot, that spot? How many slippers, how many strait gowns, how many gloves, have I outgrown or outworn? How many voluptuous words have I silently read?— how many mouthed, for gentlemen?
The stairs, the slippers and gloves, the words, the gentlemen, will all remain, though I escape. Will they? I think again of the rooms of my uncle's house: the dining- and drawing- room, the library. I think of the little crescent I once picked out in the paint 183
that covers the library windows: I try to imagine it, eyeless. I remember how once I woke and watched my room seem to gather itself together out of the dark, and thought,
/ shall never escape! Now I know that I shall. But I think that Briar will haunt me, too.— Or else, I will haunt it, while living out some dim and partial life beyond its walls.
I think of the ghost I shall make: a neat, monotonous ghost,
walking for ever on soft-soled feet, through a broken house, to the pattern of ancient carpets.
But perhaps, after all, I am a ghost already. For I go to Sue and she shows me the gowns and linens she means for us to take, the jewels she means to shine, the bags she will fill; but she does it all without meeting my gaze; and I watch, and say nothing. I am more aware of her hands than of the objects she takes up; feel the stir of her breath, see the movement of her lip, but her words slip from my memory the moment she has said them. At last she has nothing more to show. We must only wait. We take our lunch. We walk to my mother's grave. I stare at the stone, feeling nothing. The day is mild, and damp: our shoes, as we walk, press dew from the springing green earth and mark our gowns with streaks of mud.
I have surrendered myself to Richard's plan, as I once gave myself to my uncle. The plot, the flight— they seem fired, now, not so much by my wants as by his. I am empty of want. I sit at my supper, I eat, I read; I return to Sue and let her dress me as she likes, take wine when she offers it, stand at the window at her side. She moves fretfully, from foot to foot. 'Look at the moon,' she says softly, 'how bright it is! Look at the shadows on the grass.— What time is it? Not eleven, yet?— To think of Mr Rivers, somewhere upon the water, now ..."
There is only one thing I mean to do, before I go: one deed— one terrible deed— the vision of which has risen, to goad and console me, through all the bitten-down rages, the dark and uneasy sleeps, of my life at Briar; and now, as the hour of our flight nears, as the house falls silent, still, unsuspecting, I do it. Sue leaves me, to look over our bags. I hear her, unfastening buckles.— That is all I wait for.
I go stealthily from the room. I know my way, I do not need a lamp, and my dark dress hides me. I go to the head of the stairs, cross quickly the broken carpets of moonlight that the windows there throw upon the floor. Then I pause, and listen.
Silence. So then I go on, into the corridor which faces mine, along a path which is the mirror of the path that has led from my own rooms. At the first door I pause again, and listen again, to be sure that all is still within.
This is the door to my uncle's rooms. I have never entered here, before. But, as I guess, the handle and hinges are kept greased, and turn without a sound. The rug is a thick one, and makes a whisper of my step.
His drawing- room is even darker, and seems smaller, than mine: he has hangings upon the walls, and more book-presses. I don't look at them. I go to his dressing- room door, put my ear to the wood; take the handle and turn it. One inch, two inches, three.— I hold my breath, my hand upon my heart. No sound. I push the door further, stand and listen again. If he stirs, I will turn and go. Does he move? For a second there is nothing. Still I wait, uncertain. Then comes the soft, even rasp of his breathing.
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He has his bed-curtains pulled close but keeps a light, as I do, upon a table: this seems curious to me, I should never have supposed him to be nervous of the dark. But the dim light helps me. Without moving from my place beside the door, I look about me; and at last see the two things I have come to take. On his dressing- stand, beside his jug of water: his watch-chain with, upon it, the key to his library, bound in faded velvet; and his razor.
I go quickly and take them up— the chain uncurling softly, I feel it slither against my glove. If it should fall— ! It does not fall. The door-key swings like a pendulum. The razor is heavier than I expect, the blade is free of its clasp, at an angle, showing its edge. I pull it a little freer, and turn it to the light: it must be sharp, for what I want it for. I think it is sharp enough. I lift my head. In the glass above the mantel, picked out against the shadows of the room, I see myself— my hands: in one a key, in the other a blade. I might pass for a girl in an allegory. Confidence Abused.
Behind me, the drapes to my uncle's bed do not quite meet. In the space between them a shaft of light— so weak it is hardly light, but rather a lessening of darkness— leads to his face. I have never seen him sleep before. In form he seems slight, like a child. The blanket is drawn to his chin, uncreased, pulled tight. His lips let out his breath in a puff. He is dreaming— black- letter dreams, perhaps, or pica, morocco, calf. He is counting spines. His spectacles sit neatly, as if with folded arms, on the table beside his head. Beneath
the lashes of one of his soft eyes there is a gleaming line of moisture. The razor is warming in my hand . . .
But this is not that kind of story. Not yet. I stand and watch him sleep for almost a minute; and then I leave him. I go as I have come— carefully, silently. I go to the stairs, and from there to the library, and once inside that room I lock the door at my back and light a lamp. My heart is beating hardest, now. I am queasy with fear and anticipation.