'Please let me go,' I say.
Mrs Sucksby shakes her head. 'Dear girl,' she says, 'go where?'
She waits and, when I do not answer, leaves me. Richard closes his door and goes back to his bed. I hear him humming.
I think of taking up the plate, hurling it against the ceiling, the window, the wall. Then I think: You must be strong. You must be strong and ready to run. And so I sit and eat— slowly, wretchedly, carefully picking out the bones from the amber flesh. My gloves grow damp and stained; and I have none with which to replace them.
After an hour, Mrs Sucksby comes back, to take the empty plate. Another hour, and she brings me coffee. While she is gone I stand, again, at the window, or press my ear to the door. I pace, and sit, and pace again. I pass from fury to maudlin grief, to stupor.
But then Richard comes. 'Well, Maud— ' is all he says. I see him, and am filled with a blistering rage. I make a run at him, meaning to strike his face: he wards off the blows and knocks me down, and I lie upon the floor and kick, and kick—
Then they dose me again with medicine and brandy; and a day or two passes in darkness.
When I wake next, it is again unnaturally early. There has appeared in the room a little basket chair, painted gold, with a scarlet cushion on it. I take it to the window and sit with the dressing- gown about me, until Mrs Sucksby yawns and opens her eyes.
'Dear girl, all right?' she says, as she will say every day, every day; and the idiocy or perversity of the question— when all is so far from being right, as to be so wrong I would almost rather die than endure it— prompts me to grind my teeth or pull at my hair, and gaze at her in loathing. 'Good girl,' she says then, and, 'Like your chair, do you, dear? I supposed you would.' She yawns again, and looks about her. 'Got the po?'
she says. I am used in my modesty to taking the chamber-pot behind the horse- hair screen. 'Pass it over, will you, sweetheart? I'm ready to bust.'
I do not move. After a second she rises and fetches it herself. It is a thing of white china, dark inside with what, when I saw it first, in the half- light of morning, I queasily took to be clumps of hair; but
which proved to be decoration merely— a great eye with lashes, and about it, in a 225
plain black fount, a motto:
use me well and keep me clean and i'll not tell of what i've seen!
a present from wales
The eye gives me, always, a moment or two of uneasiness; but Mrs Sucksby sets the pot down and carelessly lifts her skirt, and stoops. When I shudder, she makes a face.
'Not nice, is it, dear? Never mind. We shall have you a closet, in our grand house.'
She straightens, pushes her petticoat between her legs. Then she rubs her hands.
'Now, then,' she says. She is looking me over, and her eyes are gleaming. 'What do you say to this? How about we dress you up today, make you look handsome? There's y o u r o w n g o w n i n t h e b o x . B u t , i t ' s a d u l l o l d t h i n g , a i n ' t i t ? A n d queer and old-fashioned? How about we try you in something nicer. I got dresses saved for you— got 'em wrapped in silver-paper— that fine, you won't believe it. What say we bring Dainty in and get 'em fitted up? Dainty's clever with a needle, though she seems so rough— don't she? That's just her way. She was what you would say, not brought up, but dragged up. But she is kind at her heart.'
She has my attention, now. Dresses, I think. Once I am dressed, I might escape.
She sees the change in me, and is pleased. She brings me another breakfast of fish, and again I eat it. She brings me coffee, sweet as syrup: it makes my heart beat hard.
Then she brings me a can of hot water. She wets a towel and tries to wash me. I will not let her, but take the towel from her, press it against my face, under my arms, between my legs.— The first time, in all my life, that I washed myself.
Then she goes off— locks the door, of course, behind her— comes back with Dainty.
They are carrying paper boxes. They set them
down upon the bed, untie their strings and draw out gowns. Dainty sees them, and screams. The gowns are all of silk: one of violet, with yellow ribbon trimming it, another of green with a silver stripe, and a third of crimson. Dainty takes up an edge of cloth and strokes it.
'Pongee?' she says, as if in wonder.
'Pongee, with a foulard rouche,' says Mrs Sucksby— the words coming awkwardly, fleshily out of her mouth, like cherry stones. She lifts the crimson skirt, her chin and cheeks as red in the reflected light of the silk as if stained with cochineal.
She catches my eye. 'What do you say, my dear, to these?'
I have not known such colours, such fabrics, such gowns, exist. I imagine myself in them, upon the streets of London. My heart has sunk. I say, 'They are hideous, hideous.'
She blinks, then recovers. 'You say that now. But you been kept too long in that dreary great house of your uncle's. Is it to be wondered at if you've no more idea of fashion, than a bat? When you makes your debut, dear girl, upon the town, you shall have a set of dresses so gay, you shall look back on these and laugh your head off to think you ever supposed 'em bright.' She rubs her hands. 'Now, which best takes your fancy?
The arsenic green and the silver?'
'Haven't you a grey,' I say, 'or a brown, or a black?'
Dainty looks at me in disgust.
'Grey, brown or black?' says Mrs Sucksby. 'When there's silver here, and violet?'
226
'Make it the violet, then,' I say at last. I think the stripe will blind me, the crimson make me sick; though I am sick, anyway. Mrs Sucksby goes to the chest of drawers and opens it up. She brings out stockings, and stays, and coloured petticoats. The petticoats astonish me: for I have always supposed that linen must be white— just as, when I was a child, I thought that all black books must turn out Bibles.
But I must be coloured now, or go naked. They dress me, like two girls dressing a doll.
'Now, where must we nip it?' says Mrs Sucksby, studying the gown. 'Hold still, my dear, while Dainty takes her measure. Lord,
look at your waist.— Hold steady! A person don't want to wriggle while Dainty's by with a pin in her hand, I can tell you.— That's better. Too loose, is it? Well, we can't be particular about the size— ha, ha!— the way we gets 'em.'
They take away my gloves; but bring me new ones. On my feet they put white silk slippers. 'May I not wear shoes?' I say, and Mrs Sucksby answers: 'Shoes? Dear girl, shoes are for walking in. Where've you got to walk to . . .?'
She says it distractedly. She has opened up the great wooden box and brought out my leather bag. Now, as I look on, and while Dainty stitches, she goes with it to the light of the window, makes herself comfortable in the creaking basket chair, and begins to sort through the items inside. I watch as she fingers slippers, playing-cards, combs.
It's my jewels she wants, however. She finds in time the little linen packet, unwraps it and tips the contents into her lap.
'Now, what's here? A ring. A bangle. A lady's picture.' She gazes at this in an assessing way; then all at once her expression changes. I know whose features she is seeing there, upon the face where once I looked for mine. She puts it quickly aside. 'A bracelet of emeralds,' she says next, 'in fashion at the time of King George; but with handsome stones. We shall find you a nice price for those. A pearl on a chain. A ruby necklace— that's too heavy, that is, for a girl with your looks. I got you a nice set of beads— glass beads, but with such a shine, you'd swear they was sapphires!— suit you much better. And— Oh! What's this? Ain't that a beauty? Look Dainty, look at the stunning great stones in that!'