I heard her, and blushed. Perhaps she did, too. It was too dark to see.
I said, ‘Don’t you know?’
‘I know there is—something.’
‘But you don’t know what?’
‘How should I?’
‘But truly, miss: you mean, you don’t know?’
‘How should I?’ she cried, rising up from her pillow. ‘Don’t you see, don’t you see? I am too ignorant even to know what it is I am ignorant of!’ She shook. Then I felt her make herself steady. ‘I think,’ she said, in a flat, unnatural voice, ‘I think he will kiss me. Will he do that?’
Again, I felt her breath on my face. I felt the word, kiss. Again, I blushed.
‘Will he?’ she said.
‘Yes, miss.’
I felt her nod. ‘On my cheek?’ she said. ‘My mouth?’
‘On your mouth, I should say.’
‘On my mouth. Of course . . .’ She lifted her hands to her face: I saw at last, through the darkness, the whiteness of her gloves, heard the brushing of her fingers across her lips. The sound seemed greater than it ought to have done. The bed seemed closer and blacker than ever. I wished the rush-light had not burned out. I wished—I think it was the only time I ever did—that the clock would chime. There was only the silence, with her breath in it. Only the darkness, and her pale hands. The world might have shrunk, or fallen away.
‘What else,’ she asked, ‘will he want me to do?’
I thought, ‘Say it quick. Quick will be best. Quick and plain.’ But it was hard to be plain, with her.
‘He will want,’ I said, after a moment, ‘to embrace you.’
Her hand grew still. I think she blinked. I think I heard it. She said,
‘You mean, to stand with me in his arms?’
She said it, and I pictured her, all at once, in Gentleman’s grip. I saw them standing—as you do see men and girls, sometimes, at night, in the Borough, in doorways or up against walls. You turn your eyes. I tried to turn my eyes, now—but, of course, could not, for there was nothing to turn them to, there was only the darkness. My mind flung figures on it, bright as lantern slides.
I grew aware of her, waiting. I said, in a fretful way,
‘He won’t want to stand. It’s rough, when you stand. You only stand when you haven’t a place to lie in or must be quick. A gentleman would embrace his wife on a couch, or a bed. A bed would be best.’
‘A bed,’ she said, ‘like this?’
‘Perhaps like this.—Though the feathers, I think, would be devils to shake back into shape, when you’ve finished!’
I laughed; but the laugh came out too loud. Maud flinched. Then she seemed to frown.
‘Finished . . .’ she murmured, as if puzzling over the word. Then, ‘Finished what?’ she said. ‘The embrace?’
‘Finished it,’ I said.
‘But do you mean, the embrace?’
‘Finished it.’ I turned, then turned again. ‘How dark it is! Where is the light?—Finished it. Can I be plainer?’
‘I think you could be, Sue. You talk instead of beds, of feathers. What are they to me? You talk of it. What’s it?’
‘It is what follows,’ I said, ‘from kissing, from embracing on a bed. It is the actual thing. The kissing only starts you off. Then it comes over you, like—like wanting to dance, to a time, to music. Have you never—?’
‘Never what?’
‘Never mind,’ I said. I still moved, restlessly. ‘You must not mind. It will be easy. Like dancing is.’
‘But dancing is not easy,’ she said, pressing on. ‘One must be taught to dance. You taught me.’
‘This is different.’
‘Why is it?’
‘There are lots of ways to dance. You can only do this, one way. The way will come to you, when once you have begun.’
I felt her shake her head. ‘I don’t think,’ she said miserably, ‘it will come to me. I don’t think that kisses can start me off. Mr Rivers’s kisses never have. Perhaps—perhaps my mouth lacks a certain necessary muscle or nerve—?’
I said, ‘For God’s sake, miss. Are you a girl, or a surgeon? Of course your mouth will work. Look here.’ She had fired me up. She had wound me tight, like a spring. I rose from my pillow. ‘Where are your lips?’ I said.
‘My lips?’ she answered, in a tone of surprise. ‘They are here.’
I found them, and kissed her.
I knew how to do it all right, for Dainty had shown me, once. Kissing Maud, however, was not like kissing her. It was like kissing the darkness. As if the darkness had life, had a shape, had taste, was warm and glib. Her mouth was still, at first. Then it moved against mine. Then it opened. I felt her tongue. I felt her swallow. I felt—
I had done it, only to show her. But I lay with my mouth on hers and felt, starting up in me, everything I had said would start in her, when Gentleman kissed her. It made me giddy. It made me blush, worse than before. It was like liquor. It made me drunk. I drew away. When her breath came now upon my mouth, it came very cold. My mouth was wet, from hers. I said, in a whisper,
‘Do you feel it?’
The words sounded queer; as if the kiss had done something to my tongue. She did not answer. She did not move. She breathed, but lay so still I thought suddenly, ‘What if I’ve put her in a trance? Say she never comes out? What ever will I tell her uncle—?’
Then she shifted a little. And then she spoke.
‘I feel it,’ she said. Her voice was as strange as mine. ‘You have made me feel it. It’s such a curious, wanting thing. I never—’
‘It wants Mr Rivers,’ I said.
‘Does it?’
‘I think it must.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’
She spoke, unhappily. But she shifted again, and the shift brought her nearer to me. Her mouth came closer to mine. It was like she hardly knew what she was doing; or knew, but could not help it. She said again, ‘I’m afraid.’
‘Don’t be frightened,’ I said at once. For I knew that she mustn’t be that. Say she got so frightened she cried off marrying him?
That’s what I thought. I thought I must show her how to do it, or her fear would spoil our plot. So, I kissed her again. Then I touched her. I touched her face. I began at the meeting of our mouths—at the soft wet corners of our lips—then found her jaw, her cheek, her brow—I had touched her before, to wash and dress her; but never like this. So smooth she was! So warm! It was like I was calling the heat and shape of her out of the darkness—as if the darkness was turning solid and growing quick, under my hand.
She began to shake. I supposed she was still afraid. Then I began to shake, too. I forgot to think of Gentleman, after that. I thought only of her. When her face grew wet with tears, I kissed them away.
‘You pearl,’ I said. So white she was! ‘You pearl, you pearl, you pearl.’
It was easy to say, in the darkness. It was easy to do. But next morning I woke, saw the strips of grey light between the curtains of the bed, remembered what I had done, and thought, My God. Maud lay, still sleeping, her brows drawn together in a frown. Her mouth was open. Her lip had grown dry. My lip was dry, too, and I brought up my hand, to touch it. Then I took the hand away. It smelt of her. The smell made me shiver, inside. The shiver was a ghost of the shiver that had seized me—seized us both—as I’d moved against her, in the night. Being fetched, the girls of the Borough call it. Did he fetch you—? They will tell you it comes on you like a sneeze; but a sneeze is nothing to it, nothing at all—
I shivered again, remembering. I put the tip of one finger to my tongue. It tasted sharp—like vinegar, like blood.
Like money.
I grew afraid. Maud made some movement. I got up, not looking at her. I went to my room. I began to feel ill. Perhaps I had been drunk. Perhaps the beer I had had with my supper had been brewed bad. Perhaps I had a fever. I washed my hands and my face. The water was so cold it seemed to sting. I washed between my legs. Then I dressed. Then
I waited. I heard Maud wake, and move; and went slowly in to her. I saw her, through the space between her curtains. She had raised herself up from her pillow. She was trying to fasten the strings of her nightdress. I had untied them in the night.
I saw that, and my insides shivered again. But when she lifted her eyes to mine, I looked away.
I looked away! And she didn’t call me to her side. She didn’t speak. She watched me move about the room, but she said nothing. Margaret came, with coals and water: I stood pulling clothes from the press while she knelt at the hearth, my face blushing scarlet. Maud kept to her bed. Then Margaret left. I put out a gown, and petticoats and shoes. I put out water.
‘Will you come,’ I said, ‘so I may dress you?’
She did. She stood, and slowly raised her arms, and I lifted up her gown. Her thighs had a flush upon them. The curls of hair between her legs were dark. Upon her breast there was a crimson bruise, from where I had kissed too hard.
I covered it up. She might have stopped me. She might have put her hands upon mine. She was the mistress, after all! But, she did nothing. I made her go with me to the silvery looking-glass above her fire, and she stood with her eyes cast down while I combed and pinned her hair. If she felt the trembling of my fingers against her face, she didn’t say. Only when I had almost finished did she lift her head and catch my gaze. And then she blinked, and seemed to search for words. She said,
‘What a thick sleep I had. Didn’t I?’
‘You did,’ I said. My voice was shaking. ‘No dreams.’
‘No dreams,’ she said, ‘save one. But that was a sweet one. I think—I think you were in it, Sue . . .’
She kept her eyes on mine, as if waiting. I saw the blood beat in her throat. Mine beat to match it, my very heart turned in my breast; and I think, that if I had drawn her to me then, she’d have kissed me. If I had said, I love you, she would have said it back; and everything would have changed. I might have saved her. I might have found a way—I don’t know what—to keep her from her fate. We might have cheated Gentleman. I might have run with her, to Lant Street—
But if I did that, she’d find me out for the villain I was. I thought of telling her the truth; and trembled harder. I couldn’t do it. She was too simple. She was too good. If there had only been some stain upon her, some speck of badness in her heart—! But there was nothing. Only that crimson bruise. A single kiss had made it. How would she do, in the Borough?
And then, how would I do, back in the Borough with her at my side?
I heard, again, John’s laugh. I thought of Mrs Sucksby. Maud watched my face. I put the last pin to her hair, and then her net of velvet. I swallowed, and said,
‘In your dream? I don’t think so, miss. Not me. I should say—I should say, Mr Rivers.’ I stepped to the window. ‘Look, there he is! His cigarette almost smoked already. You will miss him, if you wait!’
We were awkward with each other, all that day. We walked, but we walked apart. She reached to take my arm, and I drew away. And when, that night, I had put her into her bed and stood letting down her curtains, I looked at the empty place beside her and said,
‘The nights are grown so warm now, miss. Don’t you think you will sleep better on your own . . . ?’
I went back to my narrow bed, with its sheets like pieces of pastry. I heard her turning, and sighing, all through the night; and I turned, and sighed, myself. I felt that thread that had come between us, tugging, tugging at my heart—so hard, it hurt me. A hundred times I almost rose, almost went in to her; a hundred times I thought, Go to her! Why are you waiting? Go back to her side! But every time, I thought of what would happen if I did. I knew that I couldn’t lie beside her, without wanting to touch her. I couldn’t have felt her breath come upon my mouth, without wanting to kiss her. And I couldn’t have kissed her, without wanting to save her.
So, I did nothing. I did nothing the next night, too, and the night after that; and soon, there were no more nights: the time, that had always gone so slow, ran suddenly fast, the end of April came. And by then, it was too late to change anything.
6.
Gentleman went first. Mr Lilly and Maud stood at the door to see him leave, and I watched from her window. She shook his hand and he made her a bow. Then the trap took him off, to the station at Marlow. He sat with folded arms, his hat put back, his face our way, his eyes now on hers, now on mine.
There goes the Devil, I thought.
He made no sort of sign. He did not need to. He had gone over his plans with us and we had them by heart. He was to travel three miles by the train, then wait. We were to keep to Maud’s parlour till midnight, then go. He was to meet us at the river when the clock struck the half.
That day passed just like all the old ones. Maud went to her uncle, as she had used to do, and I went slowly about her rooms, looking over her things—only this time, of course, I was looking out for what we ought to take. We sat at lunch. We walked in the park, to the ice-house, the graves, and the river. It was the final time we would do it, yet things looked the same as they always had. It was us who had changed. We walked, not speaking. Now and then our skirts came together—and once, our hands—and we started apart, as if stung; but if, like me, she coloured, I don’t know, for I didn’t look at her. Back in her room she stood still, like a statue. Only now and then I heard her sigh. I sat at her table with her box full of brooches and rings and a saucer of vinegar, shining up the stones. I would rather do that, I thought, than nothing. Once she came to look. Then she moved away, wiping her eyes. She said the vinegar made them sting. It made mine sting, too.
Then came the evening. She went to her dinner, and I went to mine. Downstairs in the kitchen, everyone was gloomy.
‘Don’t seem the same, now Mr Rivers has gone,’ they said.
Mrs Cakebread’s face was dark as thunder. When Margaret let a spoon drop, she hit her with a ladle and made her scream. And then, no sooner had we started our dinners than Charles burst out crying at the table, and had to run from the kitchen wiping snot from his chin.
‘He’ve took it very hard,’ said one of the parlourmaids. ‘Had his heart set on going to London as Mr Rivers’s man.’
‘You get back here!’ called Mr Way, standing up, his powder flying. ‘Boy your age, fellow like him, I’d be ashamed!’
But Charles would not come back, not for Mr Way nor anyone. He had been taking Gentleman his breakfasts, polishing his boots, brushing his fancy coats. Now he should be stuck sharpening knives and shining glasses in the quietest house in England.
He sat on the stairs and wept, and hit his head against the banisters. Mr Way went and gave him a beating. We heard the slap of his belt against Charles’s backside, and yelps.
That put rather a dampener on the meal. We ate it in silence, and when we had finished and Mr Way had come back, his face quite purple and his wig at a tilt, I did not go with him and Mrs Stiles to the pantry to take my pudding. I said I had a head-ache. I almost did. Mrs Stiles looked me over, then looked away.
‘How poorly you keep, Miss Smith,’ she said. ‘I should say you must have left your health in London.’
But it was nothing to me, what she thought. I should not see her—or Mr Way, or Margaret, or Mrs Cakebread—ever again.
I said Good-night, and went upstairs. Maud of course was still with her uncle. Until she came I did what we had planned, and got together all the gowns and shoes and bits and pieces we had agreed ought to be taken. It was all of it hers. My brown stuff dress I left behind me. I hadn’t worn it in more than a month. I put it at the bottom of my trunk. I left that, too. We could only take bags. Maud had found out two old things of her mother’s. Their leather was damp, with a bloom of white. They were marked, in brass, with letters so bold even I could read them: an M and an L—for her mother’s name, which was like hers.
I lined them with paper, and packed them tight. In one—the heaviest one, which I would carry—I put the jewels I’d shined. I wrapped them in linen, to save th
em from tumbling about and growing dull. I put in one of her gloves with them—a white kid glove, with buttons of pearl. She had worn it once and supposed it lost. I meant to keep it, to remind me of her.
I thought my heart was breaking in two.
Then she came up from her uncle. She came twisting her hands. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘How my head aches! I thought he would keep me for ever, tonight!’
I had guessed she would come like this; and had got her some wine from Mr Way, as a nerver. I made her sit and take a little, then I wet a handkerchief with it and rubbed at the hollows of her brow. The wine made the handkerchief pink as a rose, and her head, where I chafed it, grew crimson. Her face was cool under my hand. Her eyelids fluttered. When they lifted, I stepped from her.
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, her gaze very soft.
She drank more of the wine. It was quality stuff. What she left, I finished, and it went through me like a flame.
‘Now,’ I said, ‘you must change.’ She was dressed for her supper. I had set out her walking-gown. ‘But we must leave off the cage.’
For there was no room for a crinoline. Without it, her short dress at last became a long one, and she seemed slenderer than ever. She had grown thin. I gave her stout boots to wear. Then I showed her the bags. She touched them, and shook her head.
‘You’ve done everything,’ she said. ‘I should never have thought of it all. I should never have done any of it, without you.’
She held my gaze, looking grateful and sad. God knows how my face seemed. I turned away. The house was creaking, settling down as the maids went up. Then came the clock again, chiming half-past nine. She said,
‘Three hours, until he comes.’
She said it in the same slow, flinching way that I had heard her say, once, ‘Three weeks.’
We put the lamp out in her parlour, and stood at her window. We could not see the river, but we gazed at the wall of the park and thought of the water lying beyond it, cool and ready, waiting like us. We stood for an hour, saying almost nothing. Sometimes she shivered. ‘Are you cold?’ I’d say then. But she was not cold. At last the waiting began to tell even on me, and I began to fidget. I thought I might not have packed her bags as I should have. I thought I might have left out her linen, or her jewels, or that white glove. I had put the glove in, I knew it; but I was become like her, restless as a flea. I went to her bedroom and opened the bags, leaving her at the window. I took out all the gowns and linen, and packed them again. Then, as I tightened a strap on a buckle, it broke. The leather was so old it was almost perished. I got a needle, and sewed the strap tight, in great, wild stitches. I put my mouth to the thread to bite it, and tasted salt.