Dainty looks. 'What a spanker!' she says.
It is the brooch of brilliants I once imagined Sue breathing upon, and polishing, and gazing at with a squinting eye. Now Mrs Sucksby holds it up and studies it with her own eye narrowed. It sparkles. It sparkles, even here.
'I know the place for this,' she says. 'Dear girl, you won't mind?' She opens its clasp and pins it to the bosom of her gown. Dainty lets fall her needle and thread, to watch her.
'Oh, Mrs S!' she says. 'You looks like a regular queen.'
M y h e a r t b e a t s h a r d a g a i n . ' T h e Q u e e n o f D i a m o n d s , ' I s a y . S h e e y e s m e uncertainly— not knowing if I mean to compliment or mock. I do not know, myself.
For a time, then, we say nothing. Dainty finishes her work, then combs my hair and twists and pins it into a knot. Then they make me stand, so they might survey me.
They look expectant, tilt their heads; but their faces fall. Dainty rubs her nose. Mrs Sucksby drums her fingers across her lips, and frowns.
227
There is a square of glass upon the chimney-piece, with plaster hearts about it: I turn, and see what I can of my face and figure, in that. I barely recognise myself. My mouth is white. My eyes are swollen and red, my cheeks the texture and colour of yellowing flannel. My unwashed hair is dark with grease at the scalp. The neck of the gown is low, and shows the lines and points of the bones about my throat.
'Perhaps violet, after all,' says Mrs Sucksby, 'ain't the colour for you, dear girl. Brings out the shadows under your eyes and makes 'em seem rather too like bruises. And as for your cheek— what say you give it a bit of a pinch, put the roses back in it? No? Let Dainty try for you then. She's got a grip like thunder, she has.'
Dainty comes and seizes my cheek, and I cry out and twist from her grasp.
'All right, you cat!' she says, tossing her head and stamping. 'I'm sure, you can keep your yellow face!'
'Hi! Hi!' says Mrs Sucksby. 'Miss Lilly is a lady! I want her spoke to like one. You put that lip in.' Dainty has begun to pout. 'That's better. Miss Lilly, how about we take the gown off and try the green and silver? Only a touch of arsenic in that green— won't harm you at all, so long as you keep from sweating too hard in the bodice.'
But I cannot bear to be handled again, and will not let her unfasten the violet dress.
'You like it, dear girl?' she says then, her face and voice grown softer. 'There! I knew the silks would bring you round at last. Now, what say we go down and stun the gents?
Miss Lilly?— Dainty, you go on first. Them stairs are tricky, I should hate for Miss Lilly to take a tumble.'
She has unlocked the door. Dainty passes before me and, after a second, I follow. I still wish I had shoes, a hat, a cloak; but I will run, bare- headed, in silken slippers, if I must. I will run, all the way to Briar. Which was the door, at the foot of the stairs, that I ought to take? I am not sure. I cannot see. Dainty walks ahead of me, and Mrs Sucksby follows anxiously behind. 'Find your step, dear girl?' she says. I do not answer. For there has come, from some room close by, an extraordinary sound— a sound, like the cry of a peahen, rising, then trembling, then fading to silence. I start, and turn. Mrs Sucksby has also turned. 'Go on, you old bird!' she cries, shaking her fist. And then, to me, more sweetly: 'Not frightened, dear? Why, that's only Mr Ibbs's aged sister, that is kept to her bed, poor thing, and prone to the horrors.'
She smiles. The cry comes again, I hear it and hasten down the shadowy stairs— my limbs aching and cracking as I do it, and my breath coming quick. Dainty waits at the bottom. The hall is small, she seems to fill it. 'In here,' she says. She has opened the door to the kitchen. There is a street-door behind her, I think, with bolts across it. I slow my step. But then Mrs Sucksby comes and touches my shoulder. 'That's right, dear girl. This way.' I step again, and almost stumble.
The kitchen is warmer than I recall, and darker. Richard and the boy, John Vroom, are sitting at the table playing at dice. They both look up when I appear, and both laugh.
John says, 'Look at the face on that! Who bruised the eyes, then? Dainty, say it was you and I'll kiss you.'
'I'll bruise your eyes, get my hands on you,' says Mrs Sucksby. 'Miss Lilly is only tired.
Get out of that chair, you little waster, and let her sit down.'
She says this, locking the door at her back, pocketing the key, then crossing the 228
kitchen and trying the other two doors, making sure they are fast.— 'Keep the draughts out,' she says, when she sees me watching her.
John throws the dice again, and reckons up his score, before he rises. Richard pats the empty seat. 'Come, Maud,' he says. 'Come, sit beside me. And if you will only promise not to fly at my eyes—
as you did, you know, on Wednesday— then I shall swear, on Johnny's life! not to knock you down again.'
John scowls. 'Don't you make so free with my life,' he says; 'else, I might make free with yours— you hear me?'
Richard does not answer. He holds my gaze, and smiles. 'Come, let us be friends again, hmm?'
He puts his hand to me, and I dodge it, drawing my skirts away. The fastening of the doors, the closeness of the kitchen, has filled me with a kind of bleak bravado. 'I don't care,' I say, 'to be thought a friend of yours. I don't care to be thought a friend to any of you. I come among you because I must; because Mrs Sucksby wills it, and I haven't life left in me to thwart her. For the rest, remember this: I loathe you all.'
And I sit, not in the empty place beside him, but in the great rocking- chair, at the head of the table. I sit in it and it creaks. John and Dainty gaze quickly at Mrs Sucksby, who blinks at me, two or three times.
And why not?' she says at last, forcing a laugh. 'You make y6ur-self comfy, my dear.
I'll take this hard old chair here, do me good.' She sits and wipes her mouth. 'Mr Ibbs not about?'
'Gone off on a job,' says John. 'Took Charley Wag.'
She nods. And all my infants sleeping?'
'Gentleman give 'em a dose, half an hour ago.'
'Good boy, good boy. Keep it nice and quiet.' She gazes at me. All right, Miss Lilly?
Like a spot of tea, perhaps?' I do not answer, but rock in my chair, very slowly. 'Or, coffee?' She wets her lips. 'Make it coffee, then. Dainty, hot up some water.— Like a cake, dear girl, to chase it down with? Shall John slip out and fetch one? Don't care for cakes?'
'There's nothing,' I say slowly, 'that could be served to me here, that wouldn't be to me as ashes.'
She shakes her head. 'Why, what a mouth you've got, for poetry! As for the cake, now— ?' I look away.
Dainty sets about making the coffee. A gaudy clock ticks, and strikes the hour.
Richard rolls a cigarette. Tobacco smoke, and smoke from the lamps and spitting candles, already drifts from wall
to wall. The walls are brown, and faintly gleam, as if painted with gravy; they are pinned, here and there, with coloured pictures— of cherubs, of roses, of girls on swings— and with curling paper clippings, engravings of sportsmen, horses, dogs and thieves. Beside Mr Ibbs's brazier three portraits— of Mr Chubb, Mr Yale and Mr Bramah— have been pasted to a board of cork; and are much marked by dart- holes.
If I had a dart, I think, I might threaten them with it, make Mrs Sucksby give up her keys. If I had a broken bottle. If I had a knife.
229
Richard lights his cigarette, narrows his eyes against the smoke and looks me over.
'Pretty dress,' he says. 'Just the colour for you.' He reaches for one of the yellow ribbon trimmings, and I hit his hand away. 'Tut, tut,' he says then. 'Temper not much improved, I fear. We were in hopes that you would sweeten up in confinement. As apples do. And veal-calves.'