'What was she?' I ask wearily. 'For God's sake, tell me. Do you think I have it in me, now, to be astonished? Do you imagine I care? What was she? A thief, like you? Well, if I must lose the madwoman, a thief I suppose will do . . .'
Richard coughs again. Mrs Sucksby looks away from me, and joins and works her hands. When she speaks, her voice is quiet, grave. 'Gentleman,' she says, 'you ain't got nothing more to tell Miss Lilly, now. I have some words, however. The sort of words a lady likes to say to a girl in private.'
He nods. 'I know,' he says. He folds his arms. 'I am dying to hear them.'
She waits, but he will not leave. She comes and, again, sits beside me; again, I flinch away.
'Dear girl,' she says. 'The fact of it is, there ain't a pleasant way to tell it; and I ought to know, if anyone ought!— for I told it once already, to Sue. Your mother— ' She wets her lips, then looks at Richard.
'Tell her,' he says. 'Or I will.'
So then she speaks again, more quickly. 'Your mother,' she says, 'was took before the courts, not just for thieving, but for killing a man; and— oh, my dear, they hanged her for it!'
'Hanged?'
'A murderess, Maud,' says Richard, with relish. 'You may see the place they hanged her, from the window of my room— '
'Gentleman, I mean it!'
He falls silent. I say again, 'Hanged!'
'Hanged game,' says Mrs Sucksby— as if this, whatever it means, will make me bear it better. Then she studies my face. 'Dear girl, don't think of it,' she says. 'What does it matter now? You're a lady, ain't you? Who'll trouble with where you come from? Why, look about you here.'
She has risen, and lights a lamp: a score of gaudy surfaces— the silk dressing- gown, the cloudy brass of the bedstead, china ornaments upon the mantel- shelf— start out of the darkness. She goes again to the wash- hand stand, and again she says: 'Here's soap.
What soap! Got from a shop up West. Come in a year ago— I saw it come and thought,
"Now, shan't Miss Lilly like that!" Kept it wrapped in paper, all this time. And here's a towel, look— got a nap like a peach. And scent! Don't care for lavender, we'll get you one of rose. Are you looking, dear?' She moves to the chest of drawers, pulls the deepest drawer open. 'Why, what have we here!' Richard leans to see. I also look, in a kind of horrified wonder. 'Petticoats, and stockings, and stays! Bless me, here's pins for a lady's hair. Here's rouge for a lady's cheek. Here's crystal drops— one pair of blue, one red. That comes of my not knowing, darling, the shade of the eyes they was to match! Well, Dainty shall have the blue pair . . .'
She holds the gaudy beads up by their wires, and I watch the crystals turn. The colour seems to blur. I have begun, in hopelessness, to weep.
As if weeping could save me.
Mrs Sucksby sees me, and tuts. 'Oh, now,' she says, 'ain't that a shame! Crying? And 220
all these handsome things? Gentleman, you see her? Crying, and for what?'
'Crying,' I say bitterly, unsteadily, 'to find myself here, like this! Crying to think of the dream I lived in, when I supposed my mother only a fool! Crying in horror at the closeness and foulness of you!'
She has stepped back. 'Dear girl,' she says, dropping her voice, gazing quickly at Richard, 'do you despise me so, for letting them take you?'
'I despise you,' I say, 'for bringing me back!'
She stares, then almost smiles. She gestures about the room. 'Don't think,' she says, with a look of amazement, 'I mean for you to keep at Lant Street! Dear girl, dear girl, you was taken from here so they might make a lady of you. And a lady they've made you— a perfect jewel! Don't think I shall have you wasting your shine in this low place. Haven't I said? I want you by me, dear, when I am rich. Don't ladies take companions? Only wait till I have got my hands on your fortune; then see if we don't take the grandest house in London! See what carriages and footmen we'll have then!— what pearls, what dresses!'
She puts her hands on me again. She means to kiss me, to eat me. I rise and shake her off. 'You don't think,' I say, 'I shall stay with you, when your wretched scheme is done?'
'What else?' she says. 'Who ought to have you, if not me? It was fortune took you; it is me that has got you back. I been working it over for seventeen years. I been plotting and thinking on this, every minute since I first laid you in the poor lady's arms. I been looking at Sue— '
She swallows. I cry still harder. 'Sue,' I say. 'Oh, Sue . . .'
' N o w , w h y l o o k l i k e t h a t ? D i d n ' t I d o e v e r y t h i n g f o r h e r , j u s t a s h e r m o t h e r wanted?— kept her safe, kept her tidy, made a commonplace
girl of her? What have I done, but give her back the life you had from her?'
'You have killed her!' I say.
'Killed her? When there's all those doctors about her, all sup-nosing her a lady?— And that don't come cheap, I can tell you.'
'It certainly doesn't,' says Richard. 'You're paying for that, don't forget. I should have had her in the county asylum, were it down to
me.'
'You see, dear girl? Killed her! Why, she might have been killed any day of her life, but for me! Who was it nursed her, when she took sick? Who kept the boys off her? I should have given my hands, my legs, my lungs, for the saving of hers. But do you think, that when I did those things I was doing them for her? What use will a commonplace girl be to me, when I am rich? I was doing them for you! Don't think of her. She was water, she was coal, she was dust, in comparison with what's been made of you.'
I stare at her. 'My God!' I say. 'How could you? How could you?'
Again, she looks amazed. 'How could I not?'
'But, to cheat her! To leave her, there— !'
She reaches, and pats my sleeve. 'You let them take her,' she says. Then her look 221
changes. She almost winks. 'And oh, dear girl, don't you think you was your mother's daughter, then?'
From the rooms below there come again shrieks, and blows, and laughter. Richard stands watching, with folded arms. The fly at the window still buzzes, still beats against the glass. Then the buzzing stops. As if it is a signal, I turn, and sink out of Mrs Sucksby's grasp. I sink to my knees at the side of the bed, and hide my face in the seams of the quilt. I have been bold and determined. I have bitten down rage, insanity, desire, love, for the sake of freedom. Now, that freedom being taken from me utterly, is it to be wondered at if I fancy myself defeated?
I give myself up to darkness; and wish I may never again be required to lift my head to the light.
C h a p t e r T h i r t e e n
The night which follows I remember brokenly. I remember that I keep at the side of the bed with my eyes quite hidden, and will not rise and go down to the kitchen, as Mrs Sucksby wishes. I remember that Richard comes to me, and again puts his shoe to my skirts, to nudge me, then stands and laughs when I will not stir, then leaves me.
I remember that someone brings me soup, which I will not eat. That the lamp is taken away and the room made dark. That I must rise at last, to visit the privy; and that the red-haired, fat- faced girl— Dainty— is made to show me to it, then stands at the door to keep me from running from it into the night. I remember that I weep again, and am given more of my drops in brandy. That I am undressed and put in a night- gown not my own. That I sleep, perhaps for an hour— that I am woken by the rustling of taffeta— that I look in horror to see Mrs Sucksby with her hair let down, shrugging off her gown, uncovering flesh and dirty linen, snuffing out her candle, then climbing into the bed beside me. I remember
that she lies, thinking me sleeping— p u t s h e r h a n d s t o m e , t h e n d r a w s t h e m back— finally, like a miser with a piece of gold, catches up a lock of my hair and presses it to her mouth.