He came, I suppose, about two weeks after I got there.
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It was only two weeks and yet, the hours at Briar were such slow ones, and the days -- being all quite the same -- were so even and quiet and long, it might have been twice that time. It was long enough, anyway, for me to find out all the peculiar habits of the house; long enough for me to get used to the other servants, and for them to get used to me. For a while, I didn't know why it was they did not care for me. I would go down to the kitchen, saying, "How do you do?" to whoever I met there.
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"How do you do, Margaret?"
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"All right, Charles?" (That was the knife-boy.)
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"How are you, Mrs Cakebread?" (That was the cook: that really was her name, it wasn't a joke and no-one laughed at it.)
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And Charles might look at me as if he was too afraid to speak; and Mrs Cakebread would answer, in a nasty kind of way, "Oh, I'm sure I'm very well, thank you."
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I supposed they were peeved to have me about, reminding them of all the flash London things they would never, in that quiet and out-of-the-way place, get a look at. Then one day Mrs Stiles took me aside. She said, "I hope you don't mind, Miss Smith, if I have a little word? I can't say how the house was run in your last place --" She started everything she said to me with a line like that.-- "I can't say how you did things in London, but here at Briar we like to keep very mindful of the footings of the house."
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Anyway, I saw that, if I was to get anywhere with them, I must watch my steps. I gave Charles a bit of chocolate, that I had carried down with me from the Borough and never eaten; I gave Margaret a piece of scented soap; and to Mrs Cakebread I gave a pair of those black stockings that Gentleman had had Phil get for me from the crooked warehouse.
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I said I hoped there were no hard feelings. If I met Charles on the stairs in the morning, then, I looked the other way. They were all much nicer to me after that.
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That's like a servant. A servant says, "All for my master," and means, "All for myself." It's the two-facedness of it that I can't bear. At Briar, they were all on the dodge in one way or another, but all over sneaking little matters that would have put a real thief to the blush -- such as, holding off the fat from Mr Lilly's gravy to sell on the quiet to the butcher's boy; which is what Mrs Cakebread did. Or, pulling the pearl buttons from Maud's chemises, and keeping them, and saying they were lost; which is what Margaret did. I had them all worked out, after three days' watching. I might have been Mrs Sucksby's own daughter after all. Mr Way, now: he had a mark on the side of his nose -- in the Borough we should have called it a gin-bud. And how do you think he got that, in a place like his? He had the key to Mr Lilly's cellar, on a chain. You never saw such a shine as that key had on it! And then, when we had finished our meals in Mrs Stiles's pantry, he would make a great show of loading up the tray -- and I'd see him, when he thought no-one was looking, tipping the beer from the bottom of all the glasses into one great cup, and lushing it away.
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It turned out that Mrs Cakebread had fancied herself insulted, by my saying good-morning to the kitchen-maid and the knife-boy before I said it to her; and Charles thought I meant to tease him, by wishing him good-morning at all. It was all the most trifling sort of nonsense, and enough to make a cat laugh; but it was life and death to them -- I suppose, it would be life and death to you, if all you had to look forward to for the next forty years was carrying trays and baking pastry.
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"Lift your arms, miss," I'd say. "Lift your foot. Step here. Now, here."
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"Clear soup," I said. "Clear as you can make it. All right?"
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I did, in time. I knew all that she liked and hated. I knew what food she would eat, and what she'd leave -- and when Cook, for instance, kept sending up eggs, I went and told her to send soup instead.
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I saw it -- but, of course, I kept it all to myself. I wasn't there to make trouble. It was nothing to me, if he drank himself to death. And I passed most of my time, anyway, with Maud. I got used to her, too. She had her finicking ways, all right; but they were slight enough, it didn't hurt me to indulge them. And I was good at working hard, on little things: I began to take a kind of pleasure in the keeping of her gowns, the tidying of her pins and combs and boxes. I was used to dressing infants. I grew used to dressing her.
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"Thank you, Sue," she would always murmur. Sometimes she would close her eyes. "How well you know me," she might say. "I think you know the turning of all my limbs."
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"Mrs Stiles don't have to eat it," I answered. "And Mrs Stiles ain't Miss Maud's maid. I am."
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She made a face. "Mrs Stiles," she said, "won't like it."
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So then she did send soup. Maud ate it all up. "Why are you smiling?" she said, in her anxious way, when she had finished. I said I wasn't. She put down her spoon. Then she frowned, like before, over her gloves. They had got splashed.
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"It's only water," I said, seeing her face. "It won't hurt you."
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When her fingernails grew long I cut them, with a pair of silver scissors she had, that were shaped like a flying bird. Her nails were soft and perfectly clean, and grew quickly, like a child's nails. When I cut, she flinched. The skin of her hands was smooth -- but, like the rest of her, too smooth to be right, I never saw it without thinking of the things -- rough things, sharp things -- that would mark or hurt it. I was glad when she put her gloves back on.
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She bit her lip. She sat another minute with her hands in her lap, stealing glances at her fingers, growing more and more restless. Finally she said: "I think the water has a little fat in it…"
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Then, it was easier to go into her room and get her a fresh pair of gloves myself, than to sit and watch her fret. "Let me do it," I said, undoing the button at her wrist; and though at first she wouldn't let me touch her bare hands, in time -- since I said I would be gentle -- she began to let me.
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The ground was crisp, and when it gave beneath our boots she said: "How brittle the grass is! I think the river will freeze. I think it is freezing already. Do you see how it struggles? It wants to flow, but the cold will still it. Do you see, Sue? Here, among the rushes?"
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Each day we walked to the river, to see how it had lifted or dropped. "In the autumn, it floods," Maud said, "and all the rushes are drowned. I don't care for that. And some nights a white mist comes creeping from the water, almost to the walls of my uncle's house…" She shivered. She always said, my uncle's, she never said my.
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For there weren't the things to notice, at Briar, that there were at home. You watched, instead, things like that: the rising of smoke, the passing of clouds in the sky.
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The slivers of nail that I had cut away I would gather up out of my lap and throw on the fire. She would stand and watch them turn black. She did the same with the hairs I drew from her brushes and combs -- frowning while they wriggled on the coals, like worms, then flared and turned to ash. Sometimes I'd stand and look with her.
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She blinked.
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"Only water?"
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"Brown water."
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"You are cold," I said then. "Come back, to the house. We've been out too long."
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It was only later that I wondered about it and tried to look back. But by then I could only see that there was once a time when we had walked apart; and then a time when we walked together.
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I put her arm about mine. I did it, not thinking; and her arm stayed stiff. But then, the next day -- or perhaps, the day after that -- she took my arm again, and was not so stiff; and after that, I suppose we joined arms naturally… I don't know.
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She gazed, and frowned. I watched the movement of her face. And I said -- as I had said about the soup: "It's only water, miss."
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She was just a girl, after all; for all that they called her a lady. She was just a girl that had never known fun. One day I was tidying one of her drawers and found a deck of cards in it. She said she thought they must have been her mother's. She knew the suits, but that was all -- she called the jacks, cavaliers! -- so I taught her one or two soft Borough games -- All-fours, and Put. We played for matches and spills, at first; then we found, in another drawer, a box of little counters, made of mother-of-pearl and shaped like fish and diamonds and crescent moons; and after that, we played for them. The mother-of-pearl was very sweet and cool on the hand.-- My hand, I mean; for Maud of course still wore her gloves. And when she put down a card she put it down neatly, making the edges and corners match with the ones below. After a while I began to do that, too.
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"Dance, miss." Her face had changed. I put the cards down. "You like to dance, of course?"
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While we played, we talked. She liked to hear me talk of London. "Is it truly so large?" she'd say. "And there are theatres? And what they call, fashion-houses?"
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"A little like," I'd say. "But filled with people, of course.-- Are you low, miss, or high?"
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"Dance, Sue?"
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"And eating-houses. And every kind of shop. And parks, miss."
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"I am higher. There. Three fish, to your two."
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"I --" She coloured, and lowered her gaze. "I was never taught it. Do you think," she said, looking up, "I might be a lady, in London -- that is," she added quickly, "if I were ever to go there. -- Do you think I might be a lady in London, and yet not dance?"
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"Of course. But dark. Will you cut?"
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"Dark? Are you sure? I thought London was said to be bright. With great lamps fired -- I believe -- with gas?"
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"Great lamps, like diamonds!" I said. "In the theatres and halls. You may dance there, miss, right through the night --"
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"I am high." She set down a card. "-- Quite filled, would you say?"
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"Parks, like my uncle's?"
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"How well you play! -- Quite filled, you say, with people?"
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She passed her hand across her lip, rather nervously. I said, "You might, I suppose. Shouldn't you like to learn, though? You could find a dancing-master."
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"Could I?" She looked doubtful, then shook her head. "I am not sure…"
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I guessed what she was thinking. She was thinking of Gentleman, and what he might say when he found out she couldn't dance. She was thinking of all the girls he might be meeting in London, who could.
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"This way," I said. "Now, this. I am the gentleman, remember. Of course, it will go much better, with a real gent --"
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And I showed her a couple of steps, to a couple of dances. Then I made her rise and try them with me. She stood in my arms like wood, and gazed, in a frightened sort of way, at her feet. Her slippers caught on the Turkey carpet. So then I put the carpet back; and then she moved more easily. I showed her a jig, and then a polka. I said, There. Now we're flying, ain't we?" She gripped my gown until I thought it should tear.
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I watched her fret for a minute or two. Then, "Look here," I said, getting up. "It is easy, look --"
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"You shall," I said. And at that moment, I believed it. I made her rise and dance again. It was only afterwards, when we had stopped and she had grown cool, and stood before the fire to warm up her cold hands -- it was only then that I remembered that, of course, she never would.
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She caught my eye, and smiled; though she still looked frightened.
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"I shall dance," she said, "in London. Shan't I, Sue?"
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Then she stumbled again, and we flew apart and fell into separate chairs. She put her hands to her side. Her breath came in catches. Her colour was higher than ever. Her cheek was damp. Her skirt stuck out like a little Dutch girl's on a plate.
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For, though I knew her fate -- though I knew it so well, I was helping to make it! -- perhaps I knew it rather in the way you might know the fate of a Person in a story or a play. Her world was so queer, so quiet and shut-up, it made the proper world -- the ordinary, double-dealing world, where I had sat over a pig's head supper and a glass of flip while Mrs Sucksby and John Vroom laughed to think what I would do with my share of Gentleman's stolen fortune -- it made that world seem harder than ever, but so far off, the hardness meant nothing.
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At first I would say to myself, "When Gentleman comes I'll do this'; or, "Once he gets her in the madhouse, I'll do that." But I'd say it, then look at her; and she was so simple and so good, the thought would vanish, I would end up combing her hair or straightening the sash on her gown. It wasn't that I was sorry -- or not much, not then. It was just I suppose that we were put together for so many hours at a time; and it was nicer to be kind to her and not think too hard about what lay before her, than to dwell on it and feel cruel.
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Of course, it was different for her. She was looking forwards. She liked to talk; but more often she liked to be silent, and think. I would see her face change, then. I would lie at her side at night, and feel the turning, turning of her thoughts -- feel her grow warm, perhaps blush in the dark; and then I knew she was thinking of Gentleman, working out how soon he'd come, wondering if he was thinking of her.-- I could have told her, he was. But she never spoke of him, she never said his name. She only asked, once or twice, after my old aunty, that was supposed to be his nurse; and I wished she wouldn't, for when I spoke of her I thought of Mrs Sucksby; and that made me home-sick.
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"Let me see," I said.
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She moved her tongue. "I have a tooth, I think," she said, "with a point that cuts me."
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"Than a serpent's tooth, Sue?" she said.
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I took her to the window and she stood with her face in my hands and let me feel about her gum. I found the pointed tooth almost at once.
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And then there came the morning when we learned he was coming back. It was an ordinary morning, except that Maud had woken and rubbed her face, and winced. -- Perhaps that was what they call, a premonition. I only thought that later, though. At the time, I saw her chafing her cheek and said, "What's the matter?"
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Maud stroked her jaw. "Do you know anyone who was bitten by a snake, Sue?" she asked me.
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"Well, that is sharper --" I began.
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"Than a needle, I was going to say, miss," I answered. I went to her sewingbox and brought out a thimble. A silver thimble, to match the flying scissors.
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What could you say? Her mind ran to things like that. Perhaps it was the country living. I said I didn't. She looked at me, then opened her mouth again and I put the thimble on my finger and rubbed at the pointed tooth until the point was taken off. I had seen Mrs Sucksby do it many times, with infants. -- Of course, infants rather wriggle about. Maud stood very still, her pink lips parted, her face put back, her eyes at first closed then open and gazing at me, her cheek with a flush upon it. Her throat lifted and sank, as she swallowed. My hand grew wet, from the damp of her breaths. I rubbed, then felt with my thumb. She swallowed again. Her eyelids fluttered, and she caught my eye. And, as she did, there came a knock upon the door; and we both jumped. I stepped away. It was one of the parlourmaids. She had a letter on a tray. "For Miss Maud," she said, with a curtsey. I looked at the hand, and knew at once that it must be Gentleman's. My heart gave a dip. So did Maud's, I think.
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I saw her turn the letter and fumble with it -- of course, she could not tear the paper, with her gloves on. So then she sneaked a look at me, and then she lowered her hands and -- still trembling, but making a show of carelessness, that was meant to say it was nothing to her, yet showed that it was everything -- she unbuttoned one glove and put her finger to the seal, then drew the letter from the envelope and held it in her naked hand and read it.
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"Bring it here, will you?" she said. And then: "Will you pass me my shawl, also?" The flush had gone from her face, though her cheek was still red where I had pressed it. When I put the shawl across her shoulders, I felt her trembling.
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I watched her then, seeming not to, as I moved about her rooms, taking up books and cushions, putting away the thimble and closing her box.
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Then she let out her breath in a single great sigh. I picked up a cushion and hit the dust from it.
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"Good news, miss, is it?" I said; since I thought I ought to. She hesitated.
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Then: "Very good," she answered, "-- for my uncle, I mean. It is from Mr Rivers, in London; and what do you think?" She smiled. "He is coming back to Briar, tomorrow!"
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The smile stayed on her lips all day, like paint; and in the afternoon, when she came from her uncle, she wouldn't sit sewing, or go for a walk, would not even play at cards, but paced about the room, and sometimes stood before the glass, smoothing her brows, touching her plump mouth -- hardly speaking to me, hardly seeing me at all.
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I got the cards out anyway, and played by myself. I thought of Gentleman, laying out the kings and queens in the Lant Street kitchen while he told us all his plot. Then I thought of Dainty. Her mother -- that had ended up drowned -- had been able to tell fortunes from a pack of cards. I had seen her do it, many times.
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I looked at Maud, standing dreaming at the mirror. I said, "Should you like to know your future, miss? Did you know that you can read it, from how the cards fall?"
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"Well, but don't tell Margaret or Mrs Stiles," I said. "My grandmother, you know, was a gipsy-princess."
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That made her turn from looking at her own face, to look at mine. She said after a moment, "I thought it was only gipsy women could do that."
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"I do," she answered quietly.
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I looked her in the eye and said, "Now, do you really want to know your fortune?"
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She said, "Sue, you are frightening me!"
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And after all, my granny might have been a gipsy-princess, for all I knew of it. I put the cards together again, and held them to her. She hesitated, then came and sat beside me, spreading her great skirt flat, saying, "What must I do?"
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I said she must sit with her eyes closed for a minute, and think of the subjects that were nearest her heart; which she did. Then I said she must take the cards and hold them, then set out the first seven of them, face down -- which is what I thought I remembered Dainty's mother doing; or it might have been nine cards. Anyway, Maud set down seven.
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I said again, "Do you really want to know it? What the cards teach you, you must obey. It is very bad luck to ask the cards to show you one path, then choose another. Do you promise to be bound by the fortune you find here?"
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"Good," I said. "Here is your life, laid all before us. Let us see the first part of it. These cards show your Past."
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I turned over the first two cards. They were the Queen of Hearts, followed by the Three of Spades. I remember them because of course, while she had been sitting with her eyes tight shut, I had sprung the pack; as anyone would have, I think, being in my place then.
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I studied them and said, "Hmm. These are sad cards. Here is a kind and handsome lady, look; and here a parting, and the beginning of strife."
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"The King of Diamonds," I said. "A stern old gentleman. The Five of Clubs: a parched mouth. The Cavalier of Spades --"
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She stared, then put her hand to her throat. "Go on," she said. Her face was pale now.
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I turned them over with a flourish.
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"Let us look," I said, "at the next three cards. They show your Present."
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I took my time. She leaned towards me.
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I said he was a young man on horseback, with good in his heart; and she looked at me in such an astonished believing sort of way, I was almost sorry. She said, in a low voice, "Now I am afraid! Don't turn over the next cards."
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"What's he?" she said. The Cavalier?"
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I turned the first. The Six of Spades.
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"A journey!" I said. "Perhaps, a trip with Mr Lilly? Or perhaps, a journey of the heart…"
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"Queen of Diamonds," she said, with a sudden frown. "Who's she?"
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I said, "Miss, I must. Or all your luck will leave you. Look here. These show your Future."
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She didn't answer, only sat gazing at the cards I had turned up. Then: "Show the last one," she said in a whisper. I showed it. She saw it first.
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I did not know. I had meant to turn up the Two of Hearts, for lovers; but after all, must have muddled the deck.
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She stepped away from me, and stood again before the glass; and though I thought she would turn and say something kinder, she didn't. But as she went, she moved a chair: and then I saw the Two of Hearts. It had fallen on the floor -- she had had her slipper on it, and her heel had creased the pips. The crease was a deep one. I always knew that card, after that, in the games we played, in the weeks that followed.
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"The Queen of Diamonds," I said at last. "Great wealth, I think."
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"Great wealth?" She leaned away from me and looked about her, at the faded carpet and the black oak walls.
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I took the cards and shuffled them. She brushed at her skirt and rose. "I don't believe," she said, "that your grandmother really was a gipsy. You are too fair in the face. I don't believe it. And I don't like your fortune-telling. It's a game for servants."
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"Brush my hair hard," she said to me, as she stood for me to dress her. "Brush it hard and make it shine. Oh, how horrid and white my cheek is! Pinch it, Sue."
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That afternoon, however, she made me put the cards away, saying the sight of them made her giddy; and that night she was fretful. She got into bed, but had me pour her out a little cup of water; and as I stood undressing I saw her take up a bottle and slip three drops from it into the cup. It was sleeping-draught. That was the first time I saw her take it. It made her yawn. When I woke next day, though, she was already awake, lying with a strand of her hair pulled to her mouth, and gazing at the figures in the canopy over the bed.
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She put my fingers to her face, and pressed them. "Pinch my cheek, don't mind if you bruise it. I'd rather a blue cheek than a horrid white one!"
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Her eyes were dark, perhaps from the sleeping-drops. Her brow was creased. It troubled me to hear her talk of bruises. I said, "Stand still, or I shan't be able to dress you at all. -- That's better. Now, which gown will you have?"
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"The grey?"
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The blue brought out the fairness of her hair. She stood before the glass and watched as I buttoned it tight. Her face grew smoother, the higher I went. Then she looked at me. She looked at my brown stuff dress. She said, "Your dress is rather plain, Sue -- isn't it? I think you ought to change it."
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"The grey's too soft on the eye. Let's say, the blue…"
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"All you have? Good gracious. I am weary of it already. What were you used to wearing for Lady Alice, who was so nice? Did she never pass any of her own dresses on to you?"
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I felt -- and I think I was right in feeling it -- that Gentleman had let me down a bit here, sending me off to Briar with just the one good gown.
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I said, "Change it? This is all I have."
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I said, "Well, the fact is, miss, Lady Alice was kind as an angel; but she was also rather near. She kept my frocks back, to take to India for her girl there."
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Maud blinked her dark eyes and looked sorry. She said, "Is that how ladies treat their maids, in London?"
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"Only the near ones, miss," I answered.
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I said, "Thank you, miss." She held a dress before me. It was a queer thing of orange velvet, with fringes and a wide skirt. It looked like it had been blown together by a strong wind in a ladies' tailor's. She studied me, and then said, "Oh, try it, Susan, do! Look, I shall help you." She came close, and began to undress me. "See, I can do it, quite as well as you. Now I am your maid, and you are the mistress!"
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She hid her face behind the door of her press. She said, "Now, I believe we are of a similar size. Here are two or three dresses, look, that I never wear and shan't miss. You like your skirts long, I see. My uncle does not care to see me in a long skirt, he believes long skirts unhealthy. But he shan't mind, of course, about you. You need only let down this hem a little here. You can do that, of course?"
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Well, I was certainly used to taking stitches out; and I could sew a straight seam when I needed to.
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Then she said, "Well, I have nothing to be near for, here. You must and shall have another gown, to spend your mornings in. And perhaps another besides that, for you to change into when -- Well, say we ever had a visitor?"
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She laughed, a little nervously, all the time she worked.
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"Why, look here in the glass," she said at last. "We might be sisters!"
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Of course, her own waist was narrow, and she was taller by an inch. My hair was the darker. We did not look like sisters, we just both looked like frights. My dress showed all my ankle. If a boy from the Borough had seen me then, I should have fallen down and died.
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She had tugged my old brown dress off me and put the queer orange one over my head, and she made me stand before the glass while she saw to the hooks.
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"Breathe in," she said. "Breathe harder! The gown grips tight, but will give you the figure of a lady."
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But there were no Borough boys to see me; and no Borough girls, either. And it was a very good velvet. I stood, plucking at the fringes on the skirt, while Maud ran to her jewel box for a brooch, that she fastened to my bosom, tilting her head to see how it looked.
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Then there came a knock on the parlour door.
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"There's Margaret," she said, her face quite pink. She called, "Come here to the dressing-room, Margaret!"
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Again she laughed and shivered. I gazed at the glass, and smiled. For it was something, wasn't it, to be taken for a lady? It's what my mother would have wanted.
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"Suppose," she said, when Margaret had gone, "suppose Mr Rivers were to do what Margaret did, and mistake you for me? What would we do, then?"
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She blushed, and Maud -- who was standing in the shadow of the bedcurtain -- looked girlish, putting her hand before her mouth. She shivered with laughter, and her dark eyes shone.
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Margaret came and made a curtsey, looking straight at me. She said, "I have just come for your tray, mi -- Oh! Miss Smith! Is it you, there? I should never have known you from the mistress, I'm sure!"
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And anyway, I was to get the pick of all her dresses and her jewels, in the end. I was only starting early.
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I kept the orange gown and, while she went to her uncle, sat turning the hem down and letting out the bodice. I wasn't about to do myself an injury, for the sake of a sixteen-inch waist.
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"Now, do we look handsome?" said Maud, when I fetched her back. She stood and looked me over, then brushed at her own skirts. "But here is dust," she cried, "from my uncle's shelves! Oh! The books, the terrible books!"
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She was almost weeping, and wringing her hands.
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I took the dust away, and wished I could tell her she was fretting for nothing. She might be dressed in a sack. She might have a face like a coal-heaver's. So long as there was fifteen thousand in the bank marked Miss Maud Lilly, then Gentleman would want her.
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"My own face! And why should I be interested in doing that?"
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"I thought you were looking at your own face, miss, more than was usual."
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"I can't say, miss, I'm sure."
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It was almost awful to see her, knowing what I knew, pretending I knew nothing; and with another kind of girl, it might have been comical. I would say, "Are you poorly, miss? Shall I fetch you something? Shall I bring you the little glass, to look at your face in?" -- and she would answer, "Poorly? I am only rather cold, and walking to keep my blood warm." And, "A glass, Sue? Why should I need a glass?"
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I knew his train was due at Marlow at four o'clock, and that William Inker had been sent to meet it, as he had been sent for me. At three, Maud said she would sit at the window and work at her sewing there, where the light was good. Of course, it was nearly dark then; but I said nothing.
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At last she put her fingers to her heart and gave a stifled sort of cry. She had seen the light coming, on William Inker's trap. That made her get up and come away from the window, and stand at the fire and press her hands together. Then came the sound of the horse on the gravel. I said, "Will that be Mr Rivers, miss?" and she answered, "Mr Rivers? Is the day so late as that? Well, I suppose it is. How pleased my uncle will be!"
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There was a little padded seat beside the rattling panes and mouldy sand-bags, it was the coldest place in the room; but she kept there for an hour and a half, with a shawl about her, shivering, squinting at her stitches, and sneaking sly little glances at the road to the house.
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Her uncle saw him first. She said, "Perhaps he will send for me, to bid Mr Rivers welcome. -- How does my skirt sit now? Had I not rather wear the grey?"
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I thought, if that wasn't love, then I was a Dutchman; and if it was love, then lovers were pigeons and geese, and I was glad I was not one of them.
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But Mr Lilly did not send for her. We heard voices and closing doors in the rooms below, but it was another hour again before a parlourmaid came, to pass on the message that Mr Rivers was arrived.
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"And is Mr Rivers made comfortable, in his old room?" said Maud.
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"I see," she said when she heard that. Then she bit her lip. "Please to tell Mr Rivers that she would not think it any sort of disturbance, to be visited by him, in her parlour, before the supper-hour came…"
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Mr Rivers sent to say that he was tolerable tired, and looked forward to seeing Miss Lilly with her uncle, at supper. He would not think of disturbing Miss Lilly before then.
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"Yes, miss."
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His voice was gentle. As for the stains -- well, there wasn't a mark upon him, I guessed he had gone quickly to his room and changed his coat. His hair was sleek and his whiskers tidy; he wore one modest little ring on his smallest finger, but apart from that his hands were bare and very clean.
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She went on like this for a minute and a half, falling over her words, and blushing; and finally the parlourmaid got the message and went off. She was gone a quarter of an hour. When she came back, she had Gentleman with her. He stepped into the room, and did not look at me at first. His eyes were all for Maud. He said, "Miss Lilly, you are kind to receive me here, all travel-stained and tumbled as I am. That is like you!"
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"And Mr Rivers will be rather tired, I suppose, after his journey?"
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He looked what he was meant to be -- a handsome, nice-minded gentleman. When he turned to me at last, I found myself making him a curtsey and was almost shy.
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"And here is Susan Smith!" he said, looking me over in my velvet, his lip twitching towards a smile. "But I should have supposed her a lady, I am sure!"
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She said it in a nervous, grateful kind of way -- like you would say it to a Stranger, feeling pushed for conversation, about your dog.
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I said, "I hope I am too, sir."
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He stepped towards me and took my hand, and Maud also came to me. He said, "I hope you are liking your place at Briar, Sue. I hope you are proving a good girl for your new mistress."
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"She is a very good girl," said Maud. "She is a very good girl, indeed."
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He shook his head and bit at his lip. "No gentleman could but be," he murmured, "with you to be kind to."
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Her colour had gone down. Now it rose again. "You are too kind," she said.
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Gentleman pressed my hand once, then let it fall. He said, "Of course, she could not help but be good -- I should say, no girl could help but be good, Miss Lilly -- with you as her example."
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Pigeons and geese. The great clock sounded, and they started and looked away.
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Now his cheeks were pink as hers. I should say he must have had a way of holding his breath to make the blood come. He kept his eyes upon her, and at last she gazed at him and smiled; and then she laughed.
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And I thought then, for the first time, that he had been right. She was handsome, she was very fair and slight -- I knew it, seeing her stand beside him with her eyes on his.
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Gentleman said he had kept her too long. "I shall see you at supper, I hope, with your uncle?"
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"With my uncle, yes," she said quietly.
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He made her a bow, and went to the door; then, when he was almost out of it he seemed to remember me, and went through a kind of pantomime, of patting at his pockets, looking for coins. He came up with a shilling, and beckoned me close to take it.
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I said, "Oh, thank you, sir!" And I made another curtsey, and winked.-- Two curious things to do together, as it happened, and I would not recommend you try it: for I fear the wink unbalanced the curtsey; and I'm certain the curtsey threw off the wink.
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"Here you are, Sue," he said. He lifted my hand and pressed the shilling in it. It was a bad one. "All well?" he added softly, so that Maud should not overhear.
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Maud looked once at me, then went silently to her own room and closed the door -- I don't know what she did in there. I sat until she called me, a half-hour later, to help her change into her gown for dinner.
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I don't think Gentleman noticed, however. He only smiled in a satisfied way, bowed again, and left us.
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But I thought it in a discontented sort of way; and didn't know why.
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That night she stayed an hour or two after supper, reading to her uncle and to Gentleman in the drawing-room. I had not seen the drawing-room then. I only knew what she did when I wasn't with her, through Mr Way or Mrs Stiles happening to remark on it as we took our meals. I still passed my evenings in the kitchen and in Mrs Stiles's pantry; and pretty dull evenings they generally were.
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This night, however, was different. I went down to find Margaret with two forks in a great piece of roasting ham, and Mrs Cakebread spooning honey on it. Honeyed ham, said Margaret, plumping up her lips, was Mr Rivers's favourite dish. Mr Rivers, said Mrs Cakebread, was a pleasure to cook for. She had changed her old wool stockings for the black silk pair I had given her. The parlourmaids had changed their caps, for ones with extra ruffles. Charles, the knife-boy, had combed his hair flat, and made the parting straight as a blade: he sat whistling, on a stool beside the fire, rubbing polish into one of Gentleman's boots.
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I sat and tossed the shilling. "Well," I thought, "bad coins will gleam as well as good."
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He was the same age as John Vroom; but was fair, where John was swarthy. He said, "What do you say to this, Mrs Stiles? Mr Rivers says that, in London, you may see elephants. He says they keep elephants in pens in the parks of London, as we keep sheep; and a boy can pay a man sixpence, and ride on an elephant's back."
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"Well, bless my soul!" said Mrs Stiles.
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Elephants! I thought. I could see that Gentleman had come among them, like a cock into a coop of roosting hens, and set them all fluttering. They said he was handsome. They said he was better-bred than many dukes, and knew the proper treating of a servant. They said what a fine thing it was for Miss Maud that a clever young person like him should be about the house again.
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If I had stood up and told them the truth -- that they were a bunch of flats; that Mr Rivers was a fiend in human form, who meant to marry Maud and steal her cash, then lock her up and more or less hope she died -- if I had stood and told them that, they should never have believed it. They should have said that I was mad.
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She had fastened a brooch at the neck of her gown. It was a mourning brooch, with more black hair in it.
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They will always believe a gentleman, over someone like me. And of course, I wasn't about to tell them any such thing. I kept my thoughts to myself; and later, over pudding in her pantry, Mrs Stiles sat, fingering her brooch, and was also rather quiet. Mr Way took his newspaper away to the privy. He had had to serve up two fine wines with Mr Lilly's dinner; and was the only one, out of all of us, not glad that Gentleman had come.
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At least, I supposed I was glad. "You are," I told myself, "but just don't know it. You'll feel it, when you've seen him on his own." -- I thought we would find a way to meet, in a day or two.
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The house bell woke us up in the mornings, and after that we all went moving on our ways from room to room, on our set courses, until the bell rang us back into our beds at night. There might as well have been grooves laid for us in the floorboards; we might have glided on sticks. There might have been a great handle set into the side of the house, and a great hand winding it. -- Sometimes, when the view beyond the windows was dark or grey with mist, I imagined that handle and thought that I could almost hear it turning. I grew afraid of what would happen if the turning was to stop. That's what living in the country does to you.
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It was almost another two weeks, however, before we did. For of course, I had no reason for wandering, without Maud, into the grand parts of the house. I never saw the room he slept in, and he never came to mine. Besides, the days at Briar were run so very regular, it was quite like some great mechanical show, you could not change it.
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As for Gentleman: he rose at seven, and took his breakfast in his bed. He was served by Charles. At eight o'clock he began his work on Mr Lilly's pictures. Mr Lilly directed him. He was as mad over his pictures as he was over his books, and had fitted up a little room for Gentleman to work in, darker and closer even than his library. I suppose the pictures were old and pretty precious. I never saw them. Nobody did. Mr Lilly and Gentleman carried keys about with them, and they locked the door to that room whether they were out of it or in it. They worked until one o'clock, then took their lunch. Maud and I took ours alone. We ate in silence. She might not eat at all, but only sit waiting.
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When Gentleman came, the show gave a kind of jog. There was a growling of the levers, people quivering for a second upon their sticks, the carving of one or two new grooves; and then it all went on, smooth as before, but with the scenes in a different order.
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Maud did not go to her uncle, now, to read to him while he took notes. She kept to her rooms. We sat and sewed, or played at cards, or went walking to the river or to the yew trees and the graves.
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I learned not to touch. Only to watch. And then we would both listen, as the clock struck two. And at a minute after that there would come Gentleman, to teach her her day's lesson.
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"Do you think so, Mr Rivers?" she would answer, all in a blush. "Is not the pear a little lean? Had I not ought to practise my perspective?"
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Then, at a quarter to two, she would fetch out drawing-things -- pencils and paints, papers and cards, a wooden triangle -- and she would set them ready, very neatly, in an order that was always the same. She would not let me help. If a brush fell and I caught it, she would take everything up -- papers, pencils, paints, triangle -- and set it out all over again.
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At first, they kept to the parlour. He put an apple, a pear and a water-jug upon a table, and stood and nodded while she tried to paint them on a card. She was about as handy with a paint-brush as she would have been with a spade; but Gentleman would hold up the messes she made and tilt his head or screw up his eye and say, "I declare, Miss Lilly, you are acquiring quite a method." Or, "What an improvement, on your sketches from last month!"
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"Of course," he answered then. "For I think that" -- then he shook his head -- "well, my opinions are irregular, and not to everyone's taste. See here, try this line a little firmer."
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He would say something like that, in a voice that would start off strong and then grow sweet, and breathless, and hesitating; and she would look as though she were a girl of wax and had moved too near to a fire. She would try the fruit again. This time the pear would come out like a banana. Then Gentleman would say that the light was poor, or the brush a bad one. "If I might only take you to London, Miss Lilly, to my own studio there!"
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"The perspective is, perhaps, a little at fault," he'd say. "But you have a gift, Miss Lilly, which surpasses mere technique. You have an eye for an essence. I am almost afraid to stand before you! I am afraid of what might be uncovered, were you to turn that eye upon me."
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That was the life he had faked up for himself -- an artist's life, in a house at Chelsea. He said he had many fascinating artist friends. Maud said, "Lady artist friends, too?"
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He went to her, and put his hand upon hers. She turned her face to his and said, "Won't you tell me what it is you think? You might speak plainly. I am not a child, Mr Rivers!"
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"You are not," he said softly, gazing into her eyes. Then he gave a start. "After all," he went on, "my opinion is mild enough. It concerns your -- your sex, and matters of creation. There is something, Miss Lilly, I think your sex must have."
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She swallowed. "What is that, Mr Rivers?"
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"Why, the liberty," he answered gently, "of mine."
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She sat still, then gave a wriggle. Her chair creaked, the sound seemed to startle her, and she drew her hand away. She looked up, to the glass, and found my eyes on her, and blushed; then Gentleman looked up too, and watched her -- that made her colour still harder and lower her gaze. He looked from her to me, then back to her again. He lifted his hands to his whiskers and gave them a stroke.
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Then she put her brush to the picture of the fruit, and -- "Oh!" she cried. The paint ran like a tear-drop. Gentleman said she must not mind it, that he had worked her quite enough. He went to the table, took up the pear and rubbed the bloom from it. Maud kept a little pen-knife with her brushes and leads, and he got this out and cut the pear into three wet slices. He gave one to her, kept one for himself, and the last he shook free of its juice and brought to me.
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He put his slice of pear to his mouth and ate it in two sharp bites. It left beads of cloudy juice on his beard. He licked his fingers, thoughtfully; and I licked mine; and Maud, for once, let her gloves grow stained, and sat with the fruit against her lip and nibbled at it, her look a dark one.
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"Almost ripe, I think," he said, with a wink.
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We were thinking of secrets. Real secrets, and snide. Too many to count. When I try now to sort out who knew what and who knew nothing, who knew everything and who was a fraud, I have to stop and give it up, it makes my head spin.
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At last he said she might try painting from nature. I guessed at once what that meant. It meant that he could take her wandering about the park, into all the shady, lonely places, and call it instruction. I think she guessed it, too. "Will it rain today, do you think?" she asked in a worried sort of way, her face at the window, her eyes on the clouds.
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This was the end of February, and still cold as anything; but just as everyone in that house perked up a bit to see Mr Rivers come back to it again, so now even the weather seemed to lift and grow sweet. The wind fell off, and the windows stopped rattling. The sky turned pearly instead of grey. The lawns grew green as billiard tables.
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In the mornings, when I walked with Maud, just the two of us, I walked at her side. Now, of course, she walked with Gentleman: he would offer her his arm and, after a show of hesitation, she would take it; I think she held it more easily, through having grown used to holding mine. She walked pretty stiffly, though; but then, he would find little artful ways to pull her closer. He would bend his head until it was near hers. He would pretend to brush dust from her collar. There would start off space between them, but steadily the space would close -- at last, there would only be the rub of his sleeve upon hers, the buckling of her skirt about his trousers. I saw it all; for I walked behind them. I carried her satchel of paints and brushes, her wooden triangle, and a stool. Sometimes they would draw away from me, and seem quite to forget me. Then Maud would remember, and turn, and say, "How good you are, Sue! You do not mind the walk? Mr Rivers thinks another quarter of a mile will do it."
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Mr Rivers always thought that. He kept her slowly walking about the park, saying he was looking for scenes for her to paint, but really keeping her close and talking in murmurs; and I had to follow, with all their gear. Of course, I was the reason they were able to walk at all. I was meant to watch and see that Gentleman was proper.
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You would swear, seeing her, that she loved him.
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I watched him hard. I also watched her. She would look sometimes at his face; more often at the ground; now and then at some flower or leaf or fluttering bird that took her fancy. And when she did that he would half turn, and catch my eye, and give a devilish kind of smile; but by the time she gazed at him again his face would be smooth.
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You would swear, seeing him then, that he loved her.
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But you could see that she was fearful, of her own fluttering heart. He could not go too fast. He never touched her, except to let her lean upon his arm, and to guide her hand as she painted. He would bend close to her, to watch her as she dabbled in the colours, and then their breaths would come together and his hair would mix with hers; but if he went a little nearer she would flinch. She kept her gloves on.
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At last he found out that spot beside the river, and she began a painting of the scenery there, adding more dark rushes each day. In the evening she sat reading in the drawing-room, for him and Mr Lilly. At night she went fretfully to her bed, and sometimes took more sleeping-drops, and sometimes shivered in her sleep.
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For she saw him one morning, very early, from the window of her room. She stood at the glass and put her head against it, and said, "There is Mr Rivers, look, walking on the lawn."
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I put my hands upon her, when she did that, till she was still again. I was keeping her calm, for Gentleman's sake. Later on he would want me to make her nervous; but for now I kept her calm, I kept her neat, I kept her dressed very handsome. I washed her hair in vinegar, and brushed it till it shone. Gentleman would come to her parlour and study her, and bow. And when he said, "Miss Lilly, I believe you grow sweeter in the face with every day that passes!", I knew he meant it. But I knew, too, that he meant it as a compliment not to her -- who had done nothing -- but to me, who did it all.
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I guessed little things like that. He couldn't speak plainly, but made great play with his eyes and with his smiles, as I have said. We waited out our chance for a talk in private; and just as it began to look as though that chance would never come, it did -- and it was Maud, in her innocent way, who let us have it.
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I went and stood beside her and, sure enough, there he was, strolling about the grass, smoking a cigarette. The sun, being still rather low, made his shadow very long.
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She nodded. Her breath made the glass mist, and she wiped it away. Then she said, "Oh!" -- as if he might have fallen over -- "Oh! I think his cigarette has gone out. Poor Mr Rivers!"
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Maud made another swipe at the window-glass.
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"Ain't he tall?" I said, gazing sideways at Maud.
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"But poor Mr Rivers," she said again. "Oh, Sue, if you are quick, you might take a match to him. Look, he is putting his cigarette away. How sad he looks now!"
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He was studying the dark tip of his cigarette, and blowing at it; now he was putting his hand to his trouser pocket, searching for a match.
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And the clock struck the half, quite twenty minutes ago. He must go to Uncle soon. No, he does not have a match, in all those pockets…"
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"Now," she said, "can he light it? Has he a match? Oh, I don't believe he does!
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She looked at me and wrung her hands, as if her heart was breaking. I said, "It won't kill him, miss."
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We didn't have any matches. Margaret kept them in her apron. When I told Maud that she said, "Then take a candle! Take anything! Take a coal from the fire! Oh, can't you be quicker? -- Don't say I sent you, mind!"
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Can you believe she had me doing that? -- tripping down two sets of stairs, with a lighted coal in a pair of fire-tongs, just so a man might have his morning smoke? Can you believe I did it? Well, I was a servant now, and must. Gentleman saw me stepping across the grass to him, saw what I carried, and laughed.
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He did not move his head, but raised his eyes to her window.
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"What a good girl she is," he said.
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"She is too good for you, that I do know."
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I said, "All right. She has sent me down with it for you to light your cigarette from. Look glad, she is watching. But make a business of it, if you want."
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"Pretty well," I answered.
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He smiled. But only as a gentleman should smile to a servant; and his face he made kind. I imagined Maud, looking down, breathing quicker upon the glass. He said quietly, "How do we do, Sue?"
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"You think she loves me?"
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"I do. Oh, yes."
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He drew out a silver case and lifted free a cigarette. "But she hasn't told you so?"
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"I think she must. She has nobody else."
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He leaned close to the coal. "Does she trust you?"
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He drew on the cigarette, then breathed out in a sigh. The smoke stained the cold air blue. He said, "She's ours."
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He stepped back a little way, then gestured with his eyes; I saw what he wanted, let the coal fall to the lawn, and he stooped to help me get it. "What else?" he said. I told him, in a murmur, about the sleeping-drops, and about her being afraid of her own dreams. He listened, smiling, all the time fumbling with the fire-tongs over the piece of coal, and finally catching it up and rising, and placing my hands upon the handle of the tongs and pressing them tight.
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"She don't have to."
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"The drops and the dreams are good," he said quietly. "They'll help us, later. But you know, for now, what you must do? Watch her hard. Make her love you. She's our little jewel, Suky. Soon I shall prise her from her setting and turn her into cash.-- Keep it like this," he went on, in an ordinary voice. Mr Way had come to the front door of the house, to see why it was open. "Like this, so the coal won't fall and scorch Miss Lilly's carpets…"
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I made him a curtsey, and he moved away from me; and then, while Mr Way stepped out to bend his legs and look at the sun and push back his wig and scratch beneath it, he said in one last murmur: "They are placing bets on you, at Lant Street. Mrs Sucksby has five pounds on your success. I am charged to kiss you, in her behalf."
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From his place on the step, I saw Mr Way studying him rather as the hard boys of the Borough did -- as if not quite sure what he wanted to do most: laugh at him, or punch his lights out.
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But Gentleman kept his eyes very innocent. He only lifted his face to the sun, and stretched, so that Maud might see him better from the shadows of her room.
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She stood and watched him walk and smoke his cigarette, every morning after that. She would stand at the window with her face pressed to the glass, and the glass would mark her brow with a circle of red -- a perfect circle of crimson in her pale face. It was like the spot upon the cheek of a girl with a fever. I thought I saw it growing darker and fiercer with every day that passed.
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He puckered up his lips in a silent kiss, then put his cigarette into the pucker and made more blue smoke. Then he bowed. His hair fell over his collar. He lifted up his white hand to brush it back behind his ear.
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I had thought it might take two weeks, or three. But two weeks had gone by already, and we had got nowhere. Then another two passed, and it was all just the same. She was too good at waiting, and the house was too smooth. She would give a little jump out of her groove, to be nearer to Gentleman; and he would sneak a little way out of his, to be closer to her; but that would only make new grooves for them to glide in. We needed the whole show to go bust.
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Now she watched Gentleman, and I watched them both; and the three of us waited for the fever to break.
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We needed her to grow confiding, so that I could help her on her way. But, though I dropped a thousand little hints -- such as, what a kind gentleman Mr Rivers was; and how handsome and how well-bred; and how her uncle seemed to like him; and how she seemed to like him, and how he seemed to like her; and if a lady ever thought of marrying, didn't she think a gent like Mr Rivers might be just the gent for the job? -- though I gave her a thousand little chances like that, to open up her heart, she never took one.
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The weather turned cold again, then grew warmer. It got to March. Then it was almost April. By May, Mr Lilly's pictures would all be mounted, and Gentleman would have to leave. But still she said nothing; and he held back from pressing her, out of fear that a wrong move would frighten her off.
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I grew fretful, waiting. Gentleman grew fretful. We all grew nervy as narks -- Maud would sit fidgeting for hours at a trot, and when the house clock sounded she would give a little start, that would make me start; and when it came time for Gentleman to call on her, I would see her flinching, listening for his step -- then his knock would come, and she would jump, or scream, or drop her cup and break it. Then at night, she would lie stiff and open-eyed, or turn and murmur in her sleep.
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All, I thought, for love! I had never seen anything like it. I thought about how such a business got worked out, in the Borough. I thought of all the things a girl could ordinarily do, when she liked a fellow that she guessed liked her. I thought of what I would do, if a man like Gentleman liked me. I thought perhaps I ought to take her aside and tell her, as one girl to another.
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But something else happened first. The fever broke at last. The show went bust, and all our waiting paid off.
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Not on her lips, but somewhere altogether better.
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She let him kiss her.
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I know, because I saw it.
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It was down by the river, on the first day of April. The weather was too warm for the time of year. The sun shone bright in a sky of grey, and everyone said there would be thunder.
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The sun made her squint: every now and then she would raise her hand to her eyes. Her gloves were quite spoiled with paint, and there was paint upon her face.
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Then I thought she might think me rude. -- Which is pretty rum, in light of what happened later.
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She had a jacket and a cloak above her gown, and was hot: she called me to her, and had me take away the cloak, and then the jacket. She was sitting at her painting of the rushes, and Gentleman was near her, looking on and smiling.
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The air was thick and warm and heavy, but the earth was cold to the touch: it had all the chill of winter in it still, and all the dampness of the river. The rushes smelt rank. There was a sound, as of a locksmith's file, that Gentleman said was bullfrogs. There were long-legged spiders, and beetles. There was a bush, with a show of tight, fat, furry buds.
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I sat beside the bush, on the upturned punt: Gentleman had carried it there for me, to the shelter of the wall. It was as far away from him and Maud as he dared place me. I kept the spiders from a basket of cakes. That was my job, while Maud painted, and Gentleman looked on, smiling, and sometimes putting his hand on hers.
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She painted, and the queer hot sun went lower, the grey sky began to be streaked with red, and the air grew even thicker.
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There was her stool, and there the terrible painting. There were her brushes -- one was dropped upon the ground -- and there her paints. I went over and picked up the fallen brush. I thought it would be like Gentleman, after all, to have taken her back to the house and left me to come up, sweating, with everything behind them. But I could not imagine that she would go with him, alone. I felt almost afraid for her. I felt almost like a real maid, worried for her mistress.
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And then I slept. I slept and dreamt of Lant Street -- I dreamt of Mr Ibbs at his brazier, burning his hand and shouting. The shout woke me up. I started from the punt, not knowing for a second where I was. Then I looked about me. Maud and Gentleman were nowhere to be seen.
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And then I heard her voice, murmuring. I walked a little way, and saw them. They had not gone far -- only just along the river, where it bent about the wall. They did not hear me come, they did not look round. They must have walked together along the line of rushes; and then I suppose he had spoken to her at last. He had spoken, for the first time, without me to overhear him -- and I wondered what words he had said, that could make her lean against him, like that.
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She had her head upon his collar. Her skirt rose at the back, almost to her knees. And yet, her face she kept turned hard from his. Her arms hung at her side, like a doll's arms. He moved his mouth against her hair, and whispered. Then, while I stood watching, he lifted one of her weak hands and slowly drew the glove half from it; and then he kissed her naked palm. And by that, I knew he had her. I think he sighed. I think she sighed, too -- I saw her sag still closer to him, then give a shiver. Her skirt rose even higher, and showed the tops of her stockings, the white of her thigh.
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The air was thick as treacle. My gown was damp where it gripped. A limb of iron would have sweated, in a dress on such a day. An eye of marble would have swivelled in its socket to gaze as I did.
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I should have been glad to see him do it. I was not. Instead, I imagined the rub of his whiskers upon her palm. I thought of her smooth white fingers, her soft white nails. -- I had cut them, that morning. I had dressed her and brushed her hair. I had been keeping her, neat and in her looks -- all for the sake of this moment. All for him. Now, against the dark of his jacket and hair, she seemed so neat -- so slight, so pale -- I thought she might break. I thought he might swallow her up, or bruise her.
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The purr of the bullfrogs was louder than before. The river lapped like a tongue among the rushes. I watched, and he dipped his head, and softly kissed her again.
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I could not look away. The stillness of them -- her hand, so pale against his beard, the glove still bunched about her knuckles, the lifted skirt -- it seemed to hold me like a spell.
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I said nothing. Maud, too, was silent, and looked nowhere but at her feet. I put her cloak about her, then took the painting and the paints, the stool and the basket, and followed her and Gentleman back, through the gate in the wall, to the house. Mr Way opened the door to us. As he closed it the thunder came again. Then the rain began to fall, in great, dark, staining drops.
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"Sue! We didn't like to wake you. We have been walking, and lost ourselves in gazing at the river. Now the light is all gone, and we shall have rain, I think. Have you a coat for your mistress?"
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"Just in time!" said Gentleman softly, gazing at Maud and letting her draw her hand from him. It was the hand he had kissed. She must have felt his lips there still, for I saw her turn from him and hold it to her bosom, and stroke her fingers over her palm.
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I turned away. I felt the heat of the day, the thickness of the air, the rank-ness of the rushes, too hard. I turned, and stole softly back to where the painting was. After a minute there came thunder, and another minute after that I heard the sound of skirts, and then Maud and Gentleman walked quickly about the curving wall, she with her arm in his, her gloves buttoned up and her eyes on the ground; him with his hand upon her fingers, his head bent. When he saw me he gave me a look. He said,
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