The rain fell all that night. It made rivers of water that ran beneath the basement doors, into the kitchen, the still-room and the Pantries. We had to cut short our supper so that Mr Way and Charles might lay down sacks. I stood with Mrs Stiles at a back-stairs window, watching the bouncing raindrops and the flashes of lightning. She rubbed her arms and gazed at the sky.
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I went up early to Maud's rooms, and sat in the darkness, and when she came she did not know, for a minute, that I was there: she stood and put her hands to her face. Then the lightning flashed again, and she saw me, and jumped.
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Her eyes seemed large. She had been with her uncle, and with Gentleman. I thought, "She'll tell me now." But she only stood gazing at me, and when the thunder sounded she turned and moved away. I went with her to her bedroom. She stood as weakly for me to undress her as she had stood in Gentleman's arms, and the hand he had kissed she held off a little from her side, as if to guard it. In her bed she lay very still, but lifted her head, now and then, from her pillow. There was a steady drip, drip in one of the attics.
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"Pity the sailors at sea," she said.
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"Are you here?" she said.
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"Do you hear the rain?" she said; and then, in a softer voice: "The thunder is moving away…"
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I thought of the basements, filling with water. I thought of the sailors at sea. I thought of the Borough. Rain makes London houses groan. I wondered if Mrs Sucksby was lying in bed, while the damp house groaned about her, thinking of me.
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Three thousand pounds! she had said. My crikey!
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Maud lifted her head again, and drew in her breath. I closed my eyes. "Here it comes," I thought.
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When I woke, the rain had stopped and the house was still. Maud lay, as pale as milk: her breakfast came and she put it aside and would not eat it. She spoke quietly, about nothing. She did not look or act like a lover. I thought she would say something lover-like soon, though. I supposed her feelings had dazed her.
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But after all, she said nothing.
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She watched Gentleman walk and smoke his cigarette, as she always did; and then, when he had gone to Mr Lilly, she said she would like to walk, herself. The sun had come up weak. The sky was grey again, and the ground was filled with what seemed puddles of lead. The air was so washed and pure, it made me bilious. But we went, as usual, to the wood and the ice-house, and then to the chapel and the graves. When we reached her mother's grave she sat a little near it, and gazed at the stone.
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It was dark with rain. The grass between the graves was thin and beaten. Two or three great black birds walked carefully about us, looking for worms. I watched them peck. Then I think I must have sighed, for Maud looked at me and her face -- that had been hard, through frowning -- grew gentle.
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She said, "You are sad, Sue."
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I shook my head.
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"I think you are," she said. "That's my fault. I have brought you to this lonely place, time after time, thinking only of myself. But you have known what it is, to have a mother's love and then to lose it."
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I looked away.
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She said, "You are brave…"
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I thought for a moment. I said at last that she had swallowed a pin, that had choked her.
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I thought of my mother, dying game on the scaffold; and I suddenly wished -- what I had never wished before -- that she had been some ordinary girl, that had died in a regular way. As if she guessed it, Maud said quietly now, "And what -- it doesn't trouble you, my asking? -- what did your mother die of?"
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"It's all right," I said. "It doesn't matter."
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She looked strangely at her fingers, that had red earth at the tips. I said, "What nonsense. Who has made you think that? They ought to be sorry."
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"Would you?" she said. "You see, I have an interest in knowing. For it was my birth that killed my mother. I am as to blame for her death as if I had stabbed her with my own hand!"
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I really did know a woman that died that way. Maud stared at me, and put her hand to her throat. Then she gazed down at her own mother's tomb.
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"How would you feel," she said quietly, "if you had fed her that pin yourself?"
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"No-one made me think it," she answered. "I thought it myself."
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It seemed an odd sort of question; but, of course, I was used by now to her saying odd sorts of things. I told her I should feel very ashamed and sad.
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"Then that's worse, because you're clever and ought to know better. As if a girl could stop herself from being born!"
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"I wish I had been stopped!" she said. She almost cried it. One of the dark birds started up from between the stones, its wings beating the air -- it sounded like a carpet being snapped out of a window. We both turned our heads to see it fly; and when I looked at her again, her eyes had tears in them.
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"Look at the sky," she said quickly. The sky had grown darker. "I think it will thunder again. Here is the new rain, look!"
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"Mr Rivers," I began. But she heard the name and shivered.
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I thought, "What do you have to cry for? You're in love, you're in love." I tried to remind her.
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She closed her eyes and let the rain fall on her face, and after another second I could not have said what were raindrops, and what tears. I went to her and touched her arm.
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"Put your cloak about you," I said. Now the rain fell quick and hard. She let me lift her hood and fasten it, as a child might; and I think, if I had not drawn her from the grave, she would have stayed there and been soaked. But I made her stumble with me to the door of the little chapel.
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Our skirts were dark with water at the hems. We stood close to one another, our shoulders tight against the chapel door, and the rain came down -- straight down, like arrows.
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It was shut up fast with a rusting chain and a padlock, but above it was a porch of rotted wood. The rain struck the wood and made it tremble.
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"Are you truly?" she said. Her cheeks were damp, her hair clinging to them.
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A drop of rain fell between our faces.
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A thousand arrows and one poor heart.
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She said it in a flat voice, like a girl saying a lesson; and though I had waited so hard to hear her say it, when I answered my words came out heavy as hers. I said, "Oh, Miss Maud, I am gladder than anything!"
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"Then," she went on miserably, "I am sorry. For I have not told him yes. How can I? My uncle -- My uncle will never give me up. It wants four years until I am twenty-one. How can I ask Mr Rivers to wait so long?"
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Of course, we had guessed she'd think that. We had hoped that she would; for in thinking it she'd be all the more ready to run and be married in secret. I said, carefully, "Are you sure, about your uncle?"
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She nodded. "He will not spare me, so long as there are books still, to be read and noted; and there will always be those! Besides, he is proud. Mr Rivers, I know, is a gentleman's son, but --"
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She said, "Mr Rivers has asked me to marry him, Sue."
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"But your uncle won't think him quite enough a swell?"
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She bit her lip. "I'm afraid that if he knew Mr Rivers had asked for my hand, he would send him from the house. But then, he must go anyway, when his work here is finished! He must go --" Her voice shook. "And how will I see him, then? How may you keep a heart, for four years, like that?"
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She put her hands to her face and wept in earnest. Her shoulders jumped. It was awful to see.
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I said, "You mustn't cry." I touched her cheek, putting the damp hair from it. I said, "Truly, miss, you mustn't cry. Do you think Mr Rivers will give you up now? How could he? You mean more to him than anything. Your uncle will come round, when he sees that."
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"My happiness is nothing to him," she said. "Only his books! He has made me like a book. I am not meant to be taken, and touched, and liked. I am meant to keep here, in a dim light, for ever!"
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She spoke more bitterly than I had ever heard her speak before. I said, "Your uncle loves you, I'm sure. But Mr Rivers --" The words got caught in my throat, and I coughed. "Mr Rivers loves you, too."
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"You think he does, Sue? He spoke so fiercely yesterday, beside the river, while you slept. He spoke of London -- of his house, his studio -- he says he longs to take me there, not as his pupil, but as his wife. He says he thinks of nothing but that. He says he thinks that to wait for me will kill him! You think he means it, Sue?"
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She looked at the ground. "But, what can he do?"
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She waited. I thought, "It's not a lie, it's not a lie, he loves her for her money. I think he would die if he lost it now. "I said, "I know it, miss."
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"He cannot!"
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"Then" -- I drew in my breath -- "you must find another way." She said nothing, but moved her head. "You must do that." Still nothing. "Isn't there," I said, "another way you might take…?"
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"He must ask your uncle."
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"Tell them what, miss?"
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She blinked again, hesitating. "You must promise not to tell. You must swear it!"
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She lifted her eyes to mine and blinked back her tears. She looked anxiously to left and to right, then drew a little closer. She said, in a whisper: "You'll tell no-one, Sue?"
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"I swear!" I said. "I swear!" -- all the time thinking, Come on, say it now! -- for it was dreadful, seeing her so afraid to give up her secret, when I knew what the secret was.
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Then she did say it. "Mr Rivers," she said, more quietly than ever, "says we might go away, at night."
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Her face, as she said the word, grew pale, I saw the blood fall out of her cheek. She looked at the stone on her mother's grave. I said, "You must follow your heart, miss."
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"At night!" I said.
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"He says we might be privately married. He says my uncle might try to claim me then; but he does not think he will. Not once I am a -- a wife."
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"I am not sure. After all, I am not sure."
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She turned a little, and still looked queer, and would not answer. Then she said, "I don't know."
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"Don't know? How can you not know a thing like that? Doesn't your blood beat hard when you see him coming? Doesn't his voice thrill in your ears, and his touch set you shaking? Don't you dream of him, at night?"
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"But to love, and then to lose him!" Her gaze grew strange. I said, "You love him, don't you?"
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She did not answer. Instead, she closed her eyes and gave a shiver. She put her hands together, and again she stroked the spot upon her palm where he had yesterday touched his lips.
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Only now I saw, she was not stroking the flesh so much as rubbing at it. She was not nursing the kiss. She felt his mouth like a burn, like an itch, like a splinter, and was trying to rub the memory of it away.
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"What will you do?" I said, in a whisper.
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"Say no to him?" she said slowly. "Say no?" Then her look changed. "And watch him leave, from my window? Or perhaps when he goes I shall be in my uncle's library, where the windows are all dark; and then I shan't see him leave at all. And then, and then -- oh, Sue, don't you think I should wonder, over the life I might have had? Do you suppose another man will come visiting, that will want me half as much as he? What choice have I?"
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"What can I do?" She shivered. "He wants me. He has asked me. He means to make me his."
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"You might -- say no."
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She didn't love him at all. She was afraid of him.
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She bit her plump lip. "And those things mean I love him?"
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I drew in my breath. She opened her eyes and held my gaze.
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She blinked, as if she could not believe I had said it. I could not believe it, either.
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"Of course! What else could they mean?"
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Her gaze, now, was so steady and so bare, I flinched from it.
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I did not answer for a moment, but turned and gazed down at the wood of the door we stood against, and the rusting chain that held it closed, and the padlock. The padlock is the simplest kind of lock. The worst are the kind that keep their business parts guarded. They are devils to crack.
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For a second, she looked wretched -- as if she might have been hoping I would say anything but that; but it was only for a second. Then her face grew clear. She said, "I will. I'll do it. But, I can't go alone. You mustn't make me go with him, quite on my own. You must come with me. Say you will. Say you'll come and be my maid, in my new life, in London!"
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Mr Ibbs taught me that. I closed my eyes and saw his face; and then, Mrs Sucksby's. Three thousand pounds -- "I drew in my breath, looked back to Maud, and said, "Marry him, miss. Don't wait for your uncle's word. Mr Rivers loves you, and love won't harm a flea. You will learn to like him as you ought, in time. Till then go with him in secret, and do everything he says."
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She shivered and smiled and clutched at my arm, and then she drew me to her and put her head against mine. Her cheek was cool, and smooth as a pearl. Her hair was bright with beads of rainwater, I think she was weeping. But I did not pull away to try and find out. I did not want her to see my face. I think the look in my eyes must have been awful.
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I said I would. She gave a high, nervous laugh and then, from having wept and been so low, she grew almost giddy. She talked of the house that Gentleman had promised her; and of the fashions of London, that I would help her choose; and of the carriage she would have. She said she would buy me handsome gowns. She said she wouldn't call me her maid then, but her companion. She said she would get me a maid of my own.
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"For you know I shall be very rich," she said simply, "once I am married?"
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That afternoon she set out her paints and her painting, as usual; but the brushes and the colours stayed dry. Gentleman came to her parlour, walked quickly to her, and stood before her as if he longed to pull her to him but was afraid. He said her name -- not Miss Lilly, but Maud. He said it in a quiet, fierce voice, and she quivered, and hesitated once, then nodded. He gave a great sigh, seized her hand and sank before her -- I thought that was pushing it a bit, myself, and even she looked doubtful.
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She said, "No, not here!" and gazed quickly at me; and he, seeing her look, said, "But we may be quite free, before Sue? You've told her? She knows all?" He turned to me with an awkward gesture of his head, as if it hurt his eyes to look at anything but her.
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He gazed hard at me. I gazed hard back.
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"She has promised to help us," said Maud. "But, Mr Rivers --"
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"Ah, Sue," he said, "if you were ever a friend to your mistress, be her friend now! If you ever looked kindly on a pair of foolish lovers, look kindly on us!"
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He was still on his knee, with his face tilted upwards. She touched his cheek. He turned his head and kissed her hands, and then she drew them quickly back. She said, "Sue will help us all she can. But we must be careful, Richard."
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"That's better."
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She lowered her head. She said, "Richard, then."
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He rose and stepped from her. He said, "Do you know how careful my love will make me? See here, look at my hands. Say there's a cobweb spun between them. It's my ambition. And at its centre there's a spider, of the colour of a jewel. The spider is you. This is how I shall bear you -- so gently, so carefully and without jar, you shall not know you are being taken."
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"Oh, Maud," he said at that. "Do you mean to slight me?"
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He smiled and shook his head. He said, "And you think, seeing me now, I shall never be that?"
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He said that, with his white hands cupped; and then, as she gazed into the space between them, he spread his fingers and laughed. I turned away. When I looked at her again, he had taken her hands in his and was holding them loosely, before his heart.
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I thought, "Of course she loves him." I watched as he leaned to her and touched her and made her blush. I thought, "Who wouldn't?"
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She seemed a little easier. They sat, and talked in murmurs.
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Then he raised his head and caught my gaze and, stupidly, I blushed, too. He said, "You know your duties, Sue. You've a careful eye. We shall be glad of that, in time. But today -- well, have you no other little business, that will take you elsewhere?"
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He gestured with his eyes to the door of Maud's bedroom.
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And I remembered all she had said at the graves, and how she had rubbed her palm. I thought, "That was nothing, she has forgotten it now. Not love him, when he's so handsome and seems so kind?"
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"There's a shilling in it for you," he said, "if you do."
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I almost stood. I almost went. So used had I got, to playing the servant. Then I saw Maud. The colour had quite gone from her face. She said, "But suppose Margaret or one of the girls should come to the door?"
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"Why should they do that?" said Gentleman. "And if they do, what will they hear? We shall be perfectly silent. Then they will go again." He smiled at me. "Be kind, Sue," he said slyly. "Be kind, to lovers. Did you never have a sweetheart of your own?"
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I might still have gone, before he said that. Now I thought suddenly, Who did he think he was? He might pretend to be a lord; he was only a con-man. He had a snide ring on his finger, and all his coins were bad ones. I knew more than he did about Maud's secrets. I slept beside her in her own bed. I had made her love me like a sister; he had made her afraid. I could turn her heart against him if I wanted to, like that! It was enough that he was going to marry her at last. It was enough that he could kiss her, whenever he liked. I wouldn't leave her now to be tugged about and made nervous. I thought, "Damn you, I'll get my three thousand just the same!"
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So I said, "I shan't leave Miss Lilly. Her uncle wouldn't like it. And if Mrs Stiles was to hear of it, then I should lose my place."
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He said then that he supposed that that was true. They kept close before the fire, and after a while I went and sat and sewed beside the window and let them gaze at one another's faces undisturbed.
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I heard the hiss of his whispers, the rush of his breath as he laughed. But Maud was silent. And when he left, and took her hand and pressed it to his mouth, she trembled so hard, I thought back to all the times I had watched her tremble before, and wondered how I had ever mistaken that trembling for love. Once the door was closed she stood at the glass, as she often did, studying her face.
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She stood there for a minute, then turned. She stepped very slowly and softly, from the glass to the sofa, from the sofa to the chair, from the chair to the window -- she moved, in short, across the whole of the room, until she reached my side. She leaned to look at my work and her hair, in its net of velvet, brushed my own.
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He looked at me and frowned. Maud did not look at me at all; but I knew she was grateful. She said gently, "After all, Richard, we shouldn't ask too much of Sue. We shall have time enough to be together, soon -- shan't we?"
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"You sew neatly," she said -- though I had not, not then. I had sewn hard, and my stitches were crooked.
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Then she stood and said nothing. Once or twice she drew in her breath. I thought there was something she longed to ask me, but dared not. In the end she moved away again.
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And so our trap -- that I had thought so lightly of, and worked so hard to lay -- was finally set; and wanted only time to go quickly by and spring it.
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Gentleman was hired to work as Mr Lilly's secretary until the end of April, and meant to stay out his contract to the last -- "So that the old man won't have the breaking of that to charge me with," he said to me, laughing, "alongside the breaking of certain other things." He planned to leave when he was meant to -- that is, the evening of the last day of the month; but, instead of taking the train for London, he would hang about, and come back to the house at the dead of night, for me and Maud. He must steal her away and not be caught, and then he must marry her -- quick as he could, and before her uncle should hear of it and find her and take her home again. He had it all figured out. He could not fetch her in a pony and cart, for he should never have got it past the gatehouse. He meant to bring a boat and take her off along the river, to some small out-of-the-way church where she would not be known as Mr Lilly's niece.
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When he had finished, Maud looked pale. She had begun to leave off eating, and was grown thin about the face. Her eyes were dark at the lids. She put her hands together.
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Now, to marry a girl at any church you must have been living in the parish of it for fifteen days; but he fixed that up, as he fixed everything. A few days after Maud had promised him her hand, he found some excuse and took a horse and went riding off to Maidenhead. He got a special licence for the wedding there -- that meant they should not have to put out the banns -- and then he went about the county, looking out for the right kind of church. He found one, in a place so small and broken-down it had no name -- or anyway, that's what he told us. He said the vicar was a drunkard. Hard by the church there was a cottage, owned by a widow who kept black-faced pigs. For two pounds she said she would keep him a room and swear to whoever he liked that he had lived there a month.
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Women like that will do anything for gentlemen like him.
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He got back to Briar that night looking pleased as a weasel, and handsomer than ever; and he came to Maud's parlour and sat us down and spoke to us in murmurs of all he had done.
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I thought I knew what she meant. She had three weeks left to make herself want him. I saw her counting the days in her head, and thinking.
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"Three weeks," she said.
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"No indeed," she would answer. "No, how can you say it?"
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She was thinking of what was coming at the end of them.
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"I don't think you love me as you ought."
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"Not love you?"
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For, she never learned to love him. She never grew to like his kisses or the feel of his hand upon hers. She still shrank from him in a miserable fright -- then nerved herself to face him, let him draw her close, let him touch her hair and face. I supposed at first he thought her backwards. Then I guessed he liked her to be slow. He would be kind to her, then pressing, and then, when she grew awkward or confused he would say, "Oh! now you are cruel. I think you mean only to practise on my love."
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Then she would let him kiss her, as if to prove that there was not. She would be stiff, or weak as a puppet. Sometimes she would almost weep. Then he would comfort her. He would call himself a brute that did not deserve her, that ought to give her up to a better lover; then she would let him kiss her again. I heard the meeting of their lips, from my cold place beside the window. I heard the creeping of his hand upon her skirt.
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"You won't show it. Perhaps' -- and here he'd give a sly glance, to catch my eye -- "perhaps there's someone else you care for?"
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"She is afraid of you."
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Now and then I would look -- just to be sure he had not put her in too much of a fright.
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But then, I didn't know what was worse -- seeing her face shut up, her cheek made pale, her mouth against his beard; or meeting her eye as the tears were pressed from it and came spilling.
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"Let her alone, why don't you?" I said to him one day, when she had been called from the room to find a book for her uncle. "Can't you see she don't care for it, having you pestering her like that?"
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He looked at me queerly for a second; then raised his brows. "Not care for it?" he said. "She is longing for it."
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He paused, then laughed. He thought it a filthy kind of joke.
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"She is afraid of herself. Girls like her always are. But let them squirm and be dainty as much as they like, they all want the same thing in the end."
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"What she wants from you is to be taken from Briar," I said. "For the rest, she knows nothing."
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"They all say they know nothing," he answered, yawning. "In their hearts, in their dreams, they know it all. They take it in their milk from the breasts of their mothers. Haven't you heard her, in her bed? Doesn't she wriggle, and sigh? She is sighing for me. You must listen harder. I ought to come and listen with you. Shall I do that? Shall I come to your room, tonight? You could take me to her. We could watch to see how hard her heart beats. You could put back her gown for me to see."
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"I should find it, all right. I've had the plan of the house, from the little knifeboy. He's a good little boy, with a chattering mouth." He laughed again, rather harder, and stretched in his chair. "Only think of the sport! And how would it harm her? I would creep, like a mouse. I am good at creeping. I would only want to look. Or, she might like to wake and find me there -- like the girl in the poem."
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But I heard his words, and imagined him coming. I imagined putting back her gown. I blushed, and turned away from him. I said, "You should never find my room."
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I knew he was teasing. He would never have risked losing everything, for a lark like that.
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I knew many poems. They were all about thieves being plucked by soldiers from their sweethearts' arms; and one was about a cat being tipped down a well. I didn't know the one he mentioned now, however, and not knowing made me peevish.
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"You leave her alone," I said. Perhaps he heard something in my voice. He looked me over, and his voice turned rich.
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"Oh, Suky," he said, "have you grown squeamish? Have you learned sweet ways, after your spell with the quality? Who would have said you should take so to serving ladies, with pals like yours, and a home like your home! What would Mrs Sucksby say -- and Dainty, and Johnny! -- if they could see your blushes now?"
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They would say I had a soft heart," I said, firing up. "Maybe I do. Where's the crime in that?"
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"God damn it," he answered, firing up in his turn. "What did a soft heart ever do for a girl like you? What would it do, for a girl like Dainty? Except, perhaps, kill her." He nodded to the door through which Maud had gone to her uncle. "Do you suppose," he said, "she wants your qualms? She wants your grip, on the laces of her stays -- on her comb, on the handle of her chamberpot. For God's sake, look at you!" I had turned and picked up her shawl, and begun to fold it. He pulled it from my hands.
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"When did you become so meek, so tidy? What do you imagine you owe, to her? Listen to me. I know her people. I'm one of them. Don't talk to me as if she keeps you at Briar for kindness' sake -- nor as if you came out of sweetness of temper! Your heart -- as you call it -- and hers are alike, after all: they are like mine, like everyone's. They resemble nothing so much as those meters you will find on gas-pipes: they only perk up and start pumping when you drop coins in. Mrs Sucksby should have taught you that."
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I said, "I should tell Mr Lilly!"
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At that his cheeks, behind his whiskers, grew crimson, and I thought he might get up and hit me. But he only leaned forward in his seat, and reached to grip the arm of my chair. He said quietly, "Let me see you in your tantrums again and I will drop you, Sue, like a stone. Do you understand me? I have come far enough now, to do without you if I must. She will do anything I tell her. And say my old nurse, in London, should grow suddenly sick, and need her niece to tend her? What would you do then? Should you like to put on your old stuff gown again, and go back to Lant Street with nothing?"
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"Go and fuck it," I said.
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"Mrs Sucksby kept you too close," he answered. Too close. The boys of the Borough are right, calling you slow. Too close, too long. Too much like this." He showed me his fist.
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"Go ahead. And why not tell her, while you are about it, that I have a tail with a point, and cloven hooves? So I would have, were I to act my crimes upon the stage. No-one expects to meet a man like me in life, however. She would choose not to believe you. She cannot afford to believe you! For she has come as far as we have, and must marry me now, or be more or less ruined. She must do as I say -- or stay here, and do nothing, for the rest of her life. Do you think she'll do that?"
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"Mrs Sucksby taught me lots of things," I said, "and not what you are saying now."
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"Do you think he would have you in his room, long enough to hear you?"
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"Then, I should tell Maud."
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"You are cold," he said.
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Maud looked up. "What's this?" she said.
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He sat with his hand on my chair, his eyes on mine, for another moment or two; then there came the pat of Maud's slippers on the stairs, and after a second her face about the door. And then, of course, he sat back and his look changed. He rose, and I rose, and I made a hopeless sort of curtsey. He went quickly to her and led her to the fire.
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They stood before the mantel, but I saw their faces in the glass. She looked at the coals in the hearth. He gazed at me. Then he sighed and shook his hateful head.
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"Oh, Sue," he said, "you are terribly stern today."
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What could I say? She had as good as told me herself that she would not. So I was silent. But from that point on, I think I hated him.
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I swallowed, saying nothing. He said, "Poor Sue is weary of me. I've been teasing her, while you were gone."
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"Teasing her, how?" she asked, half-smiling, half-frowning.
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"Why, by keeping her from her sewing, by talking of nothing but you! She claims to have a soft heart. She has no heart at all. I told her my eyes were aching for want of gazing at you; she told me to wrap them in flannel and keep to my room. I said my ears were ringing, for want of your sweet voice; she wanted to call for Margaret to bring castor-oil to put in them. I showed her this blameless white hand, that wants your kisses. She told me to take it and --" He paused.
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"Well, put it in my pocket."
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"And what?" said Maud.
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He lifted his arm. "It still wants your kisses," he said.
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He smiled. Maud looked once at me, in a doubtful way; "Poor hand," she said at last.
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She hesitated, then took his hand and held it in her own two slender ones and touched his fingers, at the knuckles, with her lips.-- "Not there," he said quickly, when she did that. "Not there, but here."
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For he was right, damn him. Not about Maud -- for I knew that, whatever he said about hearts and gas-pipes, she was sweet, she was kind, she was everything that was gentle and handsome and good. But, he was right about me. How could I go back to the Borough, with nothing? I was meant to make Mrs Sucksby's fortune. How could I go back to her, and to Mr Ibbs -- and to John -- saying, I had thrown off the plot, let slip three thousand pounds, because --
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He turned his wrist and showed his palm. She hesitated again, then dipped her head to it. It covered her mouth, her nose, and half her face. He caught my eye, and nodded. I turned away and wouldn't look at him.
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I didn't think it did. So though, as I have said, I was sorry for her, I was not quite sorry enough to want to try and save her. I never really thought of telling her the truth, of showing up Gentleman as the villain he was -- of doing anything, anything at all, that would spoil our plot and keep us from our fortune. I let her suppose he loved her and was kind. I let her think that he was gentle. I watched her try to make herself like him, knowing all the time that he meant to take her, trick her, fuck her and lock her away. I watched her grow thin.
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And then, say I gave it all up -- how would that save Maud? Say I went home: Gentleman would go on and marry her, and lock her up anyway. Or, say I peached him up. He would be sent from Briar, Mr Lilly would keep her all the closer -- she might as well be put in a madhouse, then. Either way, I didn't say much to her chances.
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But her chances had all been dealt her, years before. She was like a twig on a rushing river. She was like milk -- too pale, too pure, too simple. She was made to be spoiled.
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Because what? Because my feelings were finer than I thought? They would say my nerve had failed me. They would laugh in my face! I had a certain standing. I was the daughter of a murderess. I had expectations. Fine feelings weren't in them. How could they be?
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Besides, nobody's chances were good, where I came from. And though she was to do badly, did that mean I must?
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I watched her pale and dwindle. I watched her sit with her head in her hands, passing the points of her fingers across her aching brow, wishing she might be anyone but herself, Briar any house but her uncle's, Gentleman any man but the man she must marry; and I hated it, but turned away. I thought, It can't be helped. I thought, It's their business.
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But, here was a curious thing. The more I tried to give up thinking of her, the more I said to myself, "She's nothing to you", the harder I tried to pluck the idea of her out of my heart, the more she stayed there.
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All day I sat or walked with her, so full of the fate I was bringing her to I could hardly touch her or meet her gaze; and all night I lay with my back turned to her, the blanket over my ears to keep out her sighs. But in the hours in between, when she went to her uncle, I felt her -- I felt her, through the walls of the house, like some blind crooks are said to be able to feel gold. It was as if there had come between us, without my knowing, a kind of thread. It pulled me to her, wherever she was. It was like -- It's like you love her, I thought.
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It made a change in me. It made me nervous and afraid. I thought she would look at me and see it -- or Gentleman would, or Margaret, or Mrs Stiles. I imagined word of it getting back to Lant Street, reaching John -- I thought of John, more than any of them. I thought of his look, his laugh. "What have I done?" I imagined I'd say. "I haven't done anything!" And I hadn't. It was only, as I've said, that I thought of her so, that I felt her so. Her very clothes seemed changed to me, her shoes and stockings: they seemed to keep her shape, the warmth and scent of her -- I didn't like to fold them up and make them flat. Her rooms seemed changed. I took to going about them -- just as I had done, on my first day at Briar -- and looking at all the things I knew she had taken up and touched. Her box, and her mother's picture. Her books. Would there be books for her, at the madhouse? Her comb, with hairs snagged in it. Would there be anyone to dress her hair? Her looking-glass. I began to stand where she liked to stand, close to the fire, and I'd study my face as I'd seen her studying hers.
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I'd watch her take her tea -- pick up her cup, sip from it, put it down, pick it up and sip again, like a machine would; or I'd see her sew, with crooked stitches, nervous and quick; and I'd have to turn my gaze. I'd think of the time I had put back the rug and danced a polka with her. I'd think of the day I had smoothed her pointed tooth. I remembered holding her jaw, and the damp of her tongue. It had seemed ordinary, then; but I could not imagine, now, putting a finger to her mouth and it being ordinary…
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But I'd say it, and across the words might come the chiming of the great house bell; and then I would shudder to think of our plot being so much as a single hour nearer its end, the jaws of our trap that little bit closer and tighter about her and harder to prise apart.
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Of course, she felt the passing hours, too. It made her cling to her old habits -- made her walk, eat, lie in her bed, do everything, more stiffly, more neatly, more like a little clockwork doll, than ever. I think she did it, for safety's sake; or else, to keep the time from running on too fast.
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"Ten days to go," I would say to myself. "Ten days, and you will be rich!"
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"Go back to sleep," I said, one night. It was a night close to the end.
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"I'm afraid to," she said. "Oh, Sue, I'm afraid…"
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She began to dream again. She began to wake, bewildered, in the night. Once or twice she rose from her bed: I opened my eyes and found her moving queerly about the room. "Are you there?" she said, when she heard me stirring; and she came back to my side and lay and shook. Sometimes she would reach for me. When her hands came against me, though, she'd draw them away. Sometimes she would weep. Or, she would ask queer questions. "Am I real? Do you see me? Am I real?"
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Her voice, this time, was not at all thick, but soft and clear, and so unhappy it woke me properly and I looked for her face. I could not see it. The little rushlight that she always kept lit must have fallen against its shade, or burned itself out. The curtains were down, as they always were. I think it was three or four o'clock. The bed was dark, like a box. Her breath came out of the darkness. It struck my mouth.
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"What is it?" I said.
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But, she would not. I felt her lying, still but very stiff. I felt the beating of her heart. At last she said again, in a whisper: "Sue --"
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"You do," she said unhappily.
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She said it, as a child might. The words unnerved me rather. I turned again, and peered into the darkness, to try and make out her face.
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"You know you shall. Now, go back to sleep."
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"What is it, miss?"
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She did not answer. She only lay, stiff as before. But her heart beat harder -- I felt it lurch. I felt her draw in her breath. She held it. Then she spoke.
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She wet her mouth. "Do you think me good?" she said.
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"Shall I?"
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"Good, miss?" I said, as I squinted.
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I turned my head. Then her breath came against my ear. Too loud, it seemed, in the silence. I moved my head again. I said, "Well, you shall be married, soon, for real."
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"I wish you were sleeping," I thought. But I did not say it. What I said was, "Wise? Aren't you wise? A girl like you, that has read all those books of your uncle's?"
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She said, "I dreamed -- I dreamed I was married…"
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"Of course!"
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"I wish you wouldn't. I wish I wasn't. I wish -- I wish I was wise."
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I said, "Don't you know?"
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"But truly, miss: you mean, you don't know?"
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"I wish you would tell me," she said, "what it is a wife must do, on her wedding-night!"
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I heard her, and blushed. Perhaps she did, too. It was too dark to see.
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Tell me the truth, I thought she was about to say; and my own heart beat like hers, I began to sweat. I thought, "She knows. She has guessed!" -- I almost thought, Thank God!
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"I know there is -- something."
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"But you don't know what?"
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"Sue," she said, "I wish you would tell me --"
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But it wasn't that. It wasn't that, at all. She drew in her breath again, and again I felt her, nerving herself to ask some awful thing. I should have known what it was; for she had been nerving herself to ask it, I think, for a month. At last, the words burst from her.
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"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,
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"How should I?"
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"Will he?" she said.
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Her hand grew still. I think she blinked. I think I heard it. She said, "You mean, to stand with me in his arms?"
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Again, I felt her breath on my face. I felt the word, kiss. Again, I blushed.
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"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.
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"I think he will kiss me. Will he do that?"
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I felt her nod. "On my cheek?" she said. "My mouth?"
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"Yes, miss."
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"He will want," I said, after a moment, "to embrace you."
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"What else," she asked, "will he want me to do?"
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I thought, "Say it quick. Quick will be best. Quick and plain." But it was hard to be plain, with her.
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"On your mouth, I should say."
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"Perhaps like this.-- Though the feathers, I think, would be devils to shake back into shape, when you've finished!"
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"A bed," she said, "like this?"
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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."
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"Finished…" she murmured, as if puzzling over the word.
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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.
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I laughed; but the laugh came out too loud. Maud flinched. Then she seemed to frown.
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Then, "Finished what?" she said. "The embrace?"
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"Finished it," I said."那事儿完了."我说道.
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"Finished it." I turned, then turned again. "How dark it is! Where is the light? -- Finished it. Can I be plainer?"
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"This is different."
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"But do you mean, the embrace?"
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"Never what?"
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"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 --?"
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"Never mind," I said. I still moved, restlessly. "You must not mind. It will be easy. Like dancing is."
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"Why is it?"
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"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?"
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"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."
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"But dancing is not easy," she said, pressing on. "One must be taught to dance. You taught me."
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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 --?"
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I rose from my pillow.
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"Where are your lips?" I said.
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"My lips?" she answered, in a tone of surprise. "They are here."
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I found them, and kissed her.
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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?"
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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.
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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 --?"
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"Does it?"
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"It wants Mr Rivers," I said.
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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.
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"I think it must."
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"I don't know. I don't know."
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That's what I thought. I thought I must show her how to do it, or her fear would spoil our plot.
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Then she shifted a little. And then she spoke.
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"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 --"
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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."
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"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?
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The words sounded queer; as if the kiss had done something to my tongue.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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"You pearl," I said. So white she was! "You pearl, you pearl, you pearl."
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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.
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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.
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I saw that, and my insides shivered again. But when she lifted her eyes to mine, I looked away.
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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?"
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"Will you come," I said, "so I may dress you?"
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"You did," I said. My voice was shaking. "No dreams."
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"No dreams," she said, "save one. But that was a sweet one. I think -- I think you were in it, Sue…"
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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 --
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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?
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I stepped to the window. "Look, there he is! His cigarette almost smoked already. You will miss him, if you wait!"
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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…?"
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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!
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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.
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