"Make yourself neat tonight, Maud," he says to me, as I stand in his library buttoning up my gloves. "We shall have guests. Hawtrey, Huss, and another fellow, a stranger. I hope to employ him with the mounting of our pictures,"
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Our pictures. There are cabinets, in a separate study, filled with drawers of lewd engravings, that my uncle has collected in a desultory sort of manner, along with his books. He has often spoken of taking on some man to trim and mount them, but has never found a man to match the task. One needs a quite particular character, for work of that sort.
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He catches my eye, thrusts out his lips. "Hawtrey claims to have a gift for us, besides. An edition of a text we have not catalogued."
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I have said it was my uncle's custom, occasionally to invite interested gentlemen to the house, to take a supper with us and, later, hear me read. He does so now.
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"That is great news, sir."
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Perhaps I speak drily; but my uncle, though a dry man himself, does not mark it. He only puts his hand to the slips of paper before him and divides the heap into two uneven piles. "So, so. Let me see…"
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He looks up. "Has the hour struck?"
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"It has, I believe."
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"May I leave you, Uncle?"
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Now and then I wonder how he supposes I spend my hours, when not engaged by him. I think he is too used to the particular world of his books, where time passes strangely, or not at all, and imagines me an ageless child. Sometimes that is how I imagine myself -- as if my short, tight gowns and velvet sashes keep me bound, like a Chinese slipper, to a form I should otherwise outleap. My uncle himself -- who is at this time, I suppose, not quite above fifty -- I have always considered to have been perfectly and permanently aged; as flies remain aged, yet fixed and unchanging, in cloudy chips of amber.
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He draws out from his pocket his chiming watch and holds it to his ear. The key to his library door -- sewn about, at the stem, with faded velvet -- swings noiselessly beside it. He says, "Go on then, go on. Leave an old man to his books. Go and play, but -- gently, Maud."
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I leave him squinting at a page of text. I walk very quietly, in soft-soled shoes. I go to my rooms, where Agnes is. I find her at work at a piece of sewing. She sees me come, and flinches. Do you know how provoking such a flinch will seem, to a temperament like mine? I stand and watch her sew. She feels my gaze, and begins to shake. Her stitches grow long and crooked. At last I take the needle from her hand and gently put the point of it against her flesh; then draw it off; then put it back; then do this, six or seven times more, until her knuckles are marked between the freckles with a rash of needle-pricks.
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"Yes, Uncle."
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"Should you like it if he was?"
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"Is it? Here, turn your hand." She does, and I jab the needle harder. "Now, say you don't like it, having a prick upon your palm!"
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"Like it, Agnes. It seems to me now, that you would. Shall I tell him the way to your room? I shan't listen at the door. I shall turn the key, you will be quite private."
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I say it -- idly enough -- as a way of teasing. It is nothing to me. But she hears me, and colours.
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I study her harder, struck with a new idea.
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"There are to be gentlemen here tonight," I say, as I do it. "One a stranger. Do you suppose he will be young, and handsome?"
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"Who knows? He might be."
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"Like it, miss?"
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"I can't say, miss," she answers, blinking and turning her head; not drawing her hand away, however. "Perhaps."
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"Oh miss, what nonsense!"
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"You think so?"
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She takes her hand away and sucks it, and begins to cry. The sight of her tears -- and of her mouth, working on the bit of tender flesh that I have stabbed -- first stirs, then troubles me; then makes me weary. I leave her weeping, and stand at my rattling window, my eyes upon the lawn that dips to the wall, the rushes, the Thames.
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But of course, he is both.
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"Will you be quiet?" I say, when her breath still catches. "Look at you! Tears, for a gentleman! Don't you know that he won't be handsome, or even young? Don't you know, they never are?"
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"Mr Richard Rivers," my uncle says. The name seems auspicious to me. Later I will discover it to be false -- as false as his rings, his smile, his manner; but now, as I stand in the drawing-room and he rises to make me his bow, why should I think to doubt him? He has fine features, even teeth, and is taller than my uncle by almost a foot. His hair is brushed and has oil upon it, but is long: a curl springs from its place and tumbles across his brow. He puts a hand to it, repeatedly. His hands are slender, smooth and -- but for a single finger, stained yellow by smoke -- quite white.
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"Miss Lilly," he says, as he bends towards me. The lock of hair falls forward, the stained hand lifts to brush it back. His voice is very low, I suppose for my uncle's sake. He must have been cautioned in advance, by Mr Hawtrey.
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Mr Hawtrey is a London bookseller and publisher, and has been many times to Briar. He takes my hand and kisses it. Behind him comes Mr Huss. He is a gentleman collector, a friend from my uncle's youth. He also takes my hand, but takes it to draw me closer to him, then kisses my cheek. "Dear child," he says. I have been several times surprised by Mr Huss upon the stairs. He likes to stand and watch me climb them.
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But it is Mr Rivers I watch. And once or twice, when I turn my face his way, I find his own eyes fixed on me, his gaze a thoughtful one. He is weighing me up. Perhaps he has not supposed I would be so handsome. Perhaps I am not so handsome as rumour has had him think. I cannot tell. But, when the dinner-bell sounds and I move to my uncle's side to be walked to the table, I see him hesitate; then he chooses the place next to mine. I wish he had not. I think he will continue to watch me, and I don't like to be watched, while eating. Mr Way and Charles move softly about us, filling our glasses -- mine, that crystal cup, cut with an M. The food is set upon our plates, then the servants leave: they never stay when we have company, but return between courses.
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"How do you do, Mr Huss?" I say now, making him a curtsey.
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We are served hare soup, this night; then goose, crisp at the skin, pink at the bones, and with its innards devilled and passed about the table. Mr Hawtrey takes a dainty kidney, Mr Rivers has the heart. I shake my head at the plate he offers.
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At Briar we eat, as we do everything, by the chiming of the clock. A supper of gentlemen lasts one hour and a half.
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"Don't you care for goose, Miss Lilly?" asks Mr Hawtrey. "Nor does my eldest daughter. She thinks of goslings, and grows tearful."
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"I'm afraid you're not hungry," he says quietly, watching my face.
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"An ink? Don't mention it to my daughters, I beg you. That I must hear their complaints, is one thing. Should they once catch the idea of impressing them also upon paper, and making me read them, I assure you, my life would not be worth the living."
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"I hope you catch her tears and keep them," says Mr Huss. "I often think I should like to see the tears of a girl made into an ink."
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"Tears, for ink?" says my uncle, a beat behind the others. "What rubbish is this?"
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"Girls' tears," says Mr Huss.
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"Quite colourless."
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"I think not. Truly, sir, I think not. I fancy them delicately tinged -- perhaps pink, perhaps violet."
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"Now," says Mr Hawtrey, "I really wonder that that has never been attempted. Mr Lilly? One hears barbarous stories of course, of hides and bindings…"
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"Perhaps," says Mr Hawtrey, "as depending on the emotion that has provoked them?"
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"Exactly. You have hit it, Hawtrey, there. Violet tears, for a melancholy book; pink, for a gay. It might be sewn up, too, with hair from a girl's head…" He glances at me and his look changes. He puts his napkin to his mouth.
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They discuss this for a time. Mr Rivers listens but says nothing. Of course, his attention is all with me. Perhaps he will speak, I think, under cover of their talk. I hope he will. I hope he won't. I sip my wine and am suddenly weary. I have sat at suppers like this, hearing my uncle's friends chase tedious points in small, tight circles, too many times. Unexpectedly, I think of Agnes. I think of Agnes's mouth teasing a bead of blood from her pricked palm.
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"Poor stuff indeed," answers Mr Rivers; "or I should not attempt it. It is hardly my line. One learns, in Paris, the necessary terms; but it was as a student of the fine arts that I was lately there. I hope to find a better application for my talents, sir, than the conjuring of bad English from worse French."
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"Well, well. We shall see." My uncle smiles. "You would like to view my pictures."
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My uncle clears his throat, and I blink.
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"So, Rivers," he says, "Hawtrey tells me he has you translating, French matter into English. Poor stuff, I suppose, if his press is involved in it."
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"Well, another day will do for that. They are handsome enough, I think you'll find. I care less for them than for my books, however. You've heard, perhaps' -- he pauses -- "of my Index?"
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I know my own cheek is cool; and his is pale as candle-wax. Mr Rivers turns, searches my face with his thoughtful gaze.
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"Very much indeed."
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"Pretty marvellous -- eh, Maud? But, are we modest? Do we blush?"
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Mr Rivers inclines his head. "It sounds a marvellous thing."
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"Two hundred more then," he says, as he does it, "since I spoke to you last."
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"And the length?"
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"Then you have raised it to life. A fantastic achievement."
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"Astonishing, sir."
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"How goes the great work?" asks Mr Hawtrey lightly.
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"We are close," answers my uncle. "We are very close. I am in consultation with finishers."
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Mr Hawtrey raises his brow. If my uncle's temper would permit it, he might whistle. He reaches for another slice of goose.
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"For the first volume, of course. The second shall be greater. What think you of that, Rivers?"
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"Has there ever been its like? An universal bibliography, and on such a theme? They say the science is a dead one amongst Englishmen."
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"Fantastic, indeed -- more so, when one knows the degrees of obscurity in which my subject is shrouded. Consider this: that the authors of the texts I collect must cloak their identity in deception and anonymity. That the texts themselves are stamped with every kind of false and misleading detail as to place and date of publication and impress. Hmm? That they are burdened with obscure titles. That they must pass darkly, via secret channels, or on the wings of rumour and supposition. Consider those checks to the bibliographer's progress. Then speak to me, sir, of fantastic labour!" He trembles in a mirthless laughter.
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"A thousand pages."
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"Servants and young ladies," says Mr Huss, "are different sorts of creatures. Have I not said so, many times? Girls' eyes should not be worn out with reading, nor their small hands made hard through the gripping of pens."
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I shrug. "I was bred to the task," I say, "as servants are."
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"Indeed," says Mr Hawtrey, turning again to me. "I am afraid, Miss Lilly, your uncle continues to work you very mercilessly."
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"By title, by name, by date when we have it; and, mark this, sir: by species of pleasure. We have them tabled, most precisely."
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"I cannot conceive it," says Mr Rivers. "And the Index is organised…?"
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"A great ambition," he says now.
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My uncle nods. "So, so," he says. "Do you see, Rivers, the assistance our bibliography will provide, to the student of the field? It will be a veritable Bible."
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The gentlemen turn to me. I sip my wine. "At the Lust," I say, "of Men for Beasts."
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"The books?"
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"The pleasures! Where are we presently, Maud?"
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"The flesh made word," says Mr Hawtrey, smiling, enjoying the phrase. He catches my eye, and winks. Mr Rivers, however, is still looking earnestly at my uncle.
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"A great labour," says Mr Huss.
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"And what," he says now, "if she labour five hours a day? I labour ten! What should we work for, if not books? Hmm? Think of Smart, and de Bury. Or think of Tinius, so dedicated a collector he killed two men for the sake of his library."
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"Think of Frere Vincente, who, for the sake of his, killed twelve!" Mr Hawtrey shakes his head. "No, no, Mr Lilly. Work your niece if you must. But drive her to violence for literature's sake, and we shall never forgive you."
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The gentlemen laugh.
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"So my uncle believes," I say, showing my gloves; though it is his books he is anxious to save, of course, not my fingers.
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I study my hand, saying nothing. My fingers show red as ruby through the glass of dark wine, my mother's initial quite invisible until I turn the crystal; then the cuts leap out.
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"Well, well," says my uncle.
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There are two more courses before I might be excused, and then two more soundings of the clock to be sat through, alone, before the gentlemen join me in the drawing-room. I hear the murmur of their voices and wonder what, in roy absence, they discuss. When they come at last they are all a little pinker in the face, and their breaths are soured with smoke. Mr Hawtrey produces a package, bound in paper and string. He hands it to my uncle, who fumbles with the wrappings.
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"I don't believe we have considered the possibility of such a thing. I am sure we have not. We must go back. And we thought that entry complete? We shall return to it, tomorrow." He stretches his neck. He likes the anticipation of pleasure. "For now -- well, take your gloves off, girl. Do you suppose Hawtrey brings us books to have you press gravy into the binding? That's better. Let's hear a little of it. Do you sit, and read to us. Huss, you must sit also. Rivers, mark my niece's voice, how soft and clear she reads. I coached her myself. Well, well. -- You crease the spine, Maud!"
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"So, so," he says; and then, with the book uncovered and held close to his eyes: "Aha!" He works his lips. "Look here, Maud, look, at what the little grubbian has brought us." He shows me the volume. "Now, what do you say?"
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It is a common novel in a tawdry binding, but with an unfamiliar frontispiece that renders it rare. I look and, despite myself, feel the stirrings of a dry excitement. The sensation makes me queasy. I say, "A very fine thing for us, Uncle, without a doubt."
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"See here, the fleuron? You see it?"
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"I see it."
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I place the book upon a stand and carefully weight its pages. I turn a lamp so that its light falls bright upon the print. "How long shall I read for, Uncle?"
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When I have finished, Mr Hawtrey claps, and Mr Huss's pink face is pinker, his look rather troubled. My uncle sits with his spectacles removed, his head at an angle, his eyes screwed tight.
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He puts his watch against his ear. He says, "Until the next o'clock. Now, note this, Rivers, and tell me if you suppose its like may be encountered in any other English drawing-room!"
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"Indeed, Mr Lilly, she does not," says Mr Huss, gazing at my uncovered hands.
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"Poor words enough," he says. "But I have a home for you, upon my shelves. A home, and brothers, too. Tomorrow we shall see you placed there. The fleuron: I am certain we have not thought of that. -- Maud, the covers are closed, and quite unbent?"
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The book is filled, as I have said, with common enough obscenities; but my uncle is right, I have been trained too well, my voice is clear and true and makes the words seem almost sweet.
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He draws on his eye-glasses, working the wires about his ears. Mr Huss pours brandy. I button up my gloves, smooth creases from my skirt. I turn the lamp, and dim it. But I am conscious of myself. I am conscious of Mr Rivers. He has heard me read, apparently without excitement, his eyes upon the floor; but his hands are clasped and one thumb beats a little nervously upon the other. Presently he rises. He says the fire is hot and scorches him. He walks a minute about the room, leaning rigidly to gaze into my uncle's book-presses -- now his hands are behind his back; his thumb still twitches, however. I think he knows I watch. In time he comes close, catches my eye, makes a careful bow. He says, "It is rather chill, so far from the fire. Shouldn't you like, Miss Lilly, to sit closer to the flames?"
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I answer: "Thank you, Mr Rivers, I prefer this spot."
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"Yes, sir."
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"I like the shadows."
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"You like to be cool," he says.
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When I smile again he takes it as a kind of invitation, lifts his coat, twitches at his trousers and sits beside me, not too close, still with his eyes upon my uncle's shelves, as if distracted by the books. But when he speaks, he speaks in a murmur. He says, "You see, I also like the shadows."
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Mr Huss glances once our way. Mr Hawtrey stands at the fire and lifts a glass. My uncle has settled into his chair and its wings obscure his eyes; I see only his dry mouth, puckered at the lip. The greatest phase of eros?" he is saying. "We have missed it, sir, by seventy years! The cynical, improbable fictions which pass for voluptuous literature nowadays I should be ashamed to show to the man that shoes my horse…"
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I stifle a yawn, and Mr Rivers turns to me. I say, "Forgive me, Mr Rivers."
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He still speaks in a murmur; and I am obliged to make my own voice rather low, by way of answer. "I am my uncle's secretary," I say. "The appeal of the subject is nothing to me."
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He bows his head. "Perhaps, you don't care for your uncle's subject."
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Again he bows. "Well, perhaps," he says, while my uncle talks on. "It is only curious, to see a lady left cool and unmoved, by that which is designed to provoke heat, and motion."
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"But there are many ladies, I think, unmoved by that you speak of; and aren't those who know the matter best, moved least?" I catch his eye. "I speak not from experience of the world, of course, but from my reading merely. But I should have said that -- oh, even a priest would note a palling in his passion for the mysteries of his church, if put too often to the scrutiny of wafer and wine."
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"You are very uncommon, Miss Lilly."
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He puts his white hand to his breast. "Then I should be daunted indeed," he says, "did I want only to compliment you."
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I look away. "So I understand."
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He does not blink. At last he almost laughs.
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"Ah. Now your tone is a bitter one. Perhaps you think your education a sort of misfortune."
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"I was not aware that gentlemen had any other wants, than that one."
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"Perhaps not in the books that you are used to. But in life -- a great many; and one that is chief."
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"On the contrary. How could it be a misfortune, to be wise? I can never be deceived, for instance, in the matter of a gentleman's attentions. I am a connoisseur of all the varieties of methods by which a gentleman might seek to compliment a lady."
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"I supposed," I say, "that that was the one the books were written for."
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"Oh no." He smiles. His voice dips even lower. "They are read for that, but written for something keener. I mean, of course, the want of -- money. Every gentleman minds that. And those of us who are not quite so gentlemanly as we would like, mind it most of all. -- I am sorry to embarrass you."
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He speaks so insinuatingly, my cheek grows warmer still.
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"Of what, sir?"
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"Record!" says my uncle, peevishly. "Documentary! The curses of the age!"
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"Photography?"
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Now his voice and his face are grown bland again. I see Mr Huss tilt his head and observe him. Then he calls, pointedly: "What do you think, Rivers, of this?"
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Then I must take a satisfaction from the knowledge that I have surprised you." He lifts his hand to his beard. "It is something to me," he goes on, "to have made a small impression upon the evenness and regularity of your days."
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"-- of the amatory act, than a photograph? Mr Lilly will have it that the science of photography runs counter to the spirit of the Paphian life. I say it is an image of life, and has this advantage over it: that it endures, where life -- the Paphian life, the Paphian moment, in especial -- must finish and fade."
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"Why, only what I surmise, from my observation of the house…"
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"Of Hawtrey's championing, now, of photography."
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"Rivers," says Mr Hawtrey. "You are a young man. I appeal to you. Can there be any more perfect record of the amatory act --"
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"What do you know," I say, "of those?"
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I have coloured, or flinched. Now, recovering, I say, "You forget, I have been bred to be quite beyond embarrassment. I am only surprised."
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"Doth not a book endure?" asks my uncle, plucking at the arm of his chair.
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"It is gripped by history!" answers my uncle. "It is corrupted by it! Its history hangs about it like so much smoke! -- you may see it, in the fitting of a slipper, a gown, the dressing of a head. Give photographs to your grandson: he will study them and think them quaint. He will laugh at the wax tips of your moustaches! But words, Hawtrey, words -- hmm? They seduce us in darkness, and the mind clothes and fleshes them to fashions of its own. Don't you think so, Rivers?"
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"You know I won't allow daguerreotypes and nonsense like that into my collection?"
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"It endureth, so long as words do. But, in a photograph you have a thing beyond words, and beyond the mouths that speak them. A photograph will provoke heat in an Englishman, a Frenchman, a savage. It will outlast us all, and provoke heat in our grandsons. It is a thing apart from history."
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"I do, sir."
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Mr Hawtrey shakes his head. He says, to my uncle: "You still believe photography a fashion, that will pass? You must come to Holy well Street, and spend an hour in my shop. We have albums made up, now, for men to choose from. It is all our buyers come for."
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"I think you are right not to, sir."
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The debate will go on, he cannot escape. He answers, then catches my eye as if in apology, rises, goes to my uncle's side. They talk until the striking of ten o'clock -- which is when I leave them.
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"Your buyers are brutes. What business have I with them? Rivers, you have seen them. What is your opinion as to the quality of Hawtrey's trade…?"
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That is the Thursday night. Mr Rivers is due to remain at Briar until Sunday. Next day I am kept from the library while the men look over the books; at supper he watches me, and afterwards hears me read, but then is obliged to sit again with my uncle and cannot come to my side. Saturday I walk in the park with Agnes, and do not see him; Saturday night, however, my uncle has me read from an antique book, one of his finest -- and then, when I have finished, Mr Rivers comes and sits beside me, to study its singular covers.
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"You like it, Rivers?" asks my uncle as he does so. "You know it is very rare?"
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"I should say it must be, sir."
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"And you think I mean by that, that there are few other copies?"
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"So you might. But we collectors, we gauge rarity by other means. You think a unique item rare, if no-one wants it? We call that a dead book. But, say a score of identical copies are sought by a thousand men: each of those single books is rarer than the unique one. You understand me?"
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Mr Rivers nods. "I do. The rareness of the article is relative to the desire of the heart which seeks it." He glances at me. "That is very quaint. And how many men seek this book, that we have just heard?"
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"I had supposed that, yes."
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My uncle grows coy. "How many indeed, sir? I'll answer you like this: put it up for auction, and see! Ha?"
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"And what of a pair of books, Mr Lilly," he says, "sought by a single buyer? How are they to be valued?"
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But beyond the film of his politeness, he looks thoughtful. He bites his lip -- his teeth showing yellow, wolfish, against the dark of his beard, but his mouth a soft and surprising pink. He says nothing while my uncle sips at his drink and Mr Hawtrey fusses with the fire. Then he speaks again.
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Mr Rivers laughs. "To be sure, yes…"
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"Of course, sir!"
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"A pair of complementary titles. A man has one, and seeks to secure the other. The second will greatly add to the value of the first?"
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"A pair?" My uncle puts down his glass. "A set, of two volumes?"
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"I thought it."
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"Men pay absurdly for such things," says Mr Huss.
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"The Index," says Mr Rivers softly; and the others talk on. We sit and listen -- or pretend to -- and soon he turns and studies my face. "May I ask you something, Miss Lilly?" he says. And then, when I nod: "What do you see, for yourself, after the completion of your uncle's work? -- Now, why do you do that?"
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I have given him what I suppose must be a bitter sort of smile. I say, "Your question means nothing, I can hardly answer it. My uncle's work will never be finished. There are too many new books written that must be added to the old; too many lost books to be rediscovered; too much uncertainty. He and Mr Hawtrey will debate it for ever. Look at them now. Should he publish the Index as he intends, he will only at once begin its supplements."
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"They do," says my uncle. They do. You will find a reference to such matters, of course, in my Index…"
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"You mean to keep beside him, then, for all that time?" -- I will not answer. -- "You are as dedicated as he?"
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"You are a lady," he says softly, "and young, and handsome. -- I don't speak from gallantry now, you know that. I say only what is true. You might do anything."
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"I have no choice," I say at last. "My skills are few and, as you have already noted, quite uncommon."
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"You are a man," I answer. "Men's truths are different from ladies'. I may do nothing, I assure you."
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He hesitates -- perhaps, catches his breath. Then: "You might -- marry," he says. "That is something."
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He says it, with his eyes upon the book that I have read from; and I hear him, and laugh aloud. My uncle supposing I have laughed at some parched joke of his, looks over and nods. "You think so, Maud? You see, Huss, even my niece believes it so…"
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I wait until his face is turned from me again, his attention captured. Then I reach for the book on its stand and gently lift its cover. "Look here, Mr Rivers," I say. "This is my uncle's plate, that is attached to all his books. Do you see the device of it?"
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"Sometimes," I say, not looking up, "I suppose such a plate must be pasted upon my own flesh -- that I have been ticketed, and noted and shelved -- so nearly do I resemble one of my uncle's books." I raise my eyes to his. My face is warm, but I am speaking coolly, still. "You said, two nights ago, that you have studied the ways of this house. Surely, then, you have understood. We are not meant for common usage, my fellow books and I. My uncle keeps us separate from the world. He will call us poisons; he says we will hurt unguarded eyes. Then again, he names us his children, his foundlings, that have come to him, from every corner of the world -- some rich and handsomely provided for, some shabby, some injured, some broken about the spine, some gaudy, some gross. For all that he speaks against them, I believe he likes the gross ones best; for they are the ones that other parents -- other bookmen and collectors, I mean -- cast out. I was like them, and had a home, and lost it --"
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The plate bears his emblem, a clever thing of his own design -- a lily, drawn strangely, to resemble a phallus; and wound about with a stem of briar at the root. Mr Rivers tilts his head to study it, and nods. I let the cover close.
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He has spoken very swiftly; and has startled me, horribly. I don't like to be startled. I don't like to lose my place. But now, as he rises and returns, with the book, to the fire, a second or two passes that I cannot account for. I discover at last that I have put my hand to my breast. That I am breathing quickly. That the shadows in which I sit are all at once denser than before -- so dense, my skirt seems bleeding into the fabric of the sofa and my hand, rising and falling above my heart, is pale as a leaf upon a swelling pool of darkness. I will not swoon. Only girls in books do that, for the convenience of gentlemen. But I suppose I whiten and look strange, for when Mr Hawtrey gazes my way, smiling, his smile quite falls. "Miss Lilly!" he says. He comes and takes my hand.
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"Your home," he murmurs, as his face comes close to mine. "The madhouse. Do you think very often of your time there? Do you think of your mother, and feel her madness in you? -- Mr Lilly, your book." My uncle has looked over. "Do you mind my handling it? Won't you show me, sir, the features that mark it as rare…?"
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Now I do not speak coolly. I have been overtaken by my own words. Mr Rivers watches, then leans to take my uncle's book very gently from its stand.
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Mr Huss comes also. "Dear child, what is it?" He holds me close, about the armpit.
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"Sorry? Pooh!" says Mr Hawtrey. "It is we who should be sorry. Mr Lilly, you are a tyrant, and overtask your niece most miserably. I always said it, and here is the proof. Agnes, take your mistress's arm. Go steadily, now."
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Mr Rivers hangs back. My uncle looks peevish. "Well, well," he says. "What now?" He shuts his book, but keeps his finger, carefully, between the pages. They ring for Agnes. She comes, blinking at the gentlemen, curtseying at my uncle, a look of terror on her face. It is not yet ten o'clock. "I am perfectly well," I say. "You must not trouble. I am only tired, suddenly. I am sorry."
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When the drawing-room door is closed I push Agnes away, and in my own room I look about me for some cool thing to put upon my face. I finally go to the mantel, and lean my cheek against the looking-glass.
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"Shall you manage the stairs?" Mr Huss asks anxiously. He stands in the hall as we prepare to mount them. Behind him I see Mr Rivers; but I do not catch his eye.
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When it sounds, I will feel better. I will not think of Mr Rivers -- of what he must know of me, how he might know it, what he means by seeking me out. Agnes stands awkwardly, half-crouched, my skirts still gathered in her hands.
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"Your skirts, miss!" says Agnes. She draws them from the fire. I feel queer, dislocated. The house clock has not chimed.
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The clock strikes. I step back, then let her undress me. My heart beats a little smoother. She puts me in my bed, unlooses the curtains -- now the night might be any night, any at all. I hear her in her own room, unfastening her gown: if I lift my head and look through the gap in my curtains I will see her upon her knees with her eyes hard shut, her hands pressed together like a child's, her lips moving. She prays every night to be taken home; and for safety as she slumbers. While she does it, I unlock my little wooden box and whisper cruel words to my mother's portrait. I close my eyes. I think, I shall not study your face! -- but, once having thought it, I know I must do it or lie sleepless and grow ill. I look hard into her pale eyes. Do you think of your mother, he said, and feel her madness in you?
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Do I?
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I feel the drops at last, sour in my stomach.
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I hear her climb into her bed, draw up her blankets. There is a silence. After a little time there comes a creak, a whisper, the faint groan of machinery: my uncle's clock, shifting its gears. I lie and wait for sleep. It does not come. Instead, my limbs grow restless and begin to twitch. I feel, too hard, my blood -- I feel the bafflement of it, at the dead points of my fingers and my toes. I raise my head, call softly: "Agnes!" She does not hear; or hears, but fears to answer.
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I put the portrait away, and call for Agnes to bring me a tumbler of water. I take a drop of my old medicine -- then, unsure that that will calm me, I take another. Then I lie still, my hair put back. My hands, inside their gloves, begin to tingle. Agnes stands and waits. Her own hair is let down -- coarse hair, red hair, coarser and redder than ever against the fine white stuff of her nightdress. One slender collar-bone is marked a delicate blue with what is perhaps only a shadow, but might -- I cannot remember -- be a bruise.
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"That's all," I say. "Go on."
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"Agnes!" -- At last, the sound of my own voice unnerves me. I give it up, lie still. The clock groans again, then strikes. Then come other sounds, far-off. My uncle keeps early hours. Closing doors, lowered voices, shoes upon the stairs: the gentlemen are leaving the drawing-room and going each to their separate chambers.
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The house has opened its mouth, and is breathing.
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Perhaps I sleep, then -- but if I do, it is only for a moment. For suddenly I give a start, and am wide awake; and I know that what has roused me is not sound, but movement. Movement, and light. Beyond the bed-curtain the rush-lamp's wick has flared suddenly bright, and the doors and the window-glasses are straining against their frames.
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Then I know that, after all, this night is not like any other. As if summoned to it by a calling voice, I rise. I stand at the doorway to Agnes's room until I am sure, from the evenness of her breaths, that she is sleeping; then I take up my lamp and go, on naked feet, to my drawing-room. I go to the window and stand at the glass, cup my hands against their own feeble reflection, peer through the darkness at the sweep of gravel, the edge of lawn, that I know lie below. For a time I see nothing. Then I hear the soft fall of a shoe, and then another, still softer. Then comes the single noiseless flaring of a match between slender fingers; and a face, made hollow-eyed and garish as it tilts towards the flame.
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Cold weather for walking. About the tip of his cigarette, his breath shows whiter than the smoke of his tobacco. He gathers his collar about his throat. Then he looks up. He seems to know what he will see. He does not nod, or make any gesture; only holds my gaze. The cigarette fades, glows bright, fades again. His stance grows more deliberate. He moves his head; and all at once I understand what he is doing, He is surveying the face of the house. He is counting the windows. He is calculating his way to my room! -- and when he is certain of his route he lets his cigarette fall and crushes the glowing point of it beneath his heel. He comes back across the gravel-walk and someone -- Mr Way, I suppose -- admits him. I cannot see that. I only hear the front door open, feel the movement of the air. Again my lamp flares, and the window-glass bulges. This time, however, the house seems holding its breath.
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Richard Rivers keeps restless as I; and walks upon the lawns of Briar, perhaps hoping for sleep.
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I step back with my hands before my mouth, my eyes on my own soft face: it has started back into the darkness beyond the glass, and seems to swim, or hang, in space. I think, He won't do it! He dare not do it! Then I think: He will. I go to the door and put my ear against the wood. I hear a voice, and then a tread. The tread grows soft, another door closes -- of course, he will wait for Mr Way to go to his bed. He will wait for that.
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Do I suppose he will try to kiss me? He does not do that. He only comes very stealthily into the room and gazes about him in the same cool, thoughtful way in which I saw him take his measure of the house. He says, "Let us keep from the window, the light shows plainly from the lawn." Then, nodding to the inner door: "Is that where she lies? She won't hear us? You are sure?"
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I take up my lamp and go quickly, quickly: the shade throws crescents of light upon the walls. I have not time to dress -- cannot dress, without Agnes to help me -- but know I must not see him in my nightgown. I find stockings, garters, slippers, a cloak. My hair, that is loose, I try to fasten; but I am clumsy with the pins, and my gloves -- and the medicine I have swallowed -- make me clumsier. I grow afraid. My heart beats quick again, but now it beats against the drops, it is like a vessel beating hard against the pull of a sluggish river. I put my hand to it, and feel the yielding of my breast -- unlaced, it feels; unguarded, unsafe. But the tug of the drops is greater than the resistance of my fear. That is the point of them, after all. For restlessness. When at length he comes, tapping at my door with his fingernail, I think I seem calm to him. I say at once, "You know my maid is very close -- asleep, but close. One cry will wake her." He bows and says nothing.
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I say, "I understand that you have found out something you think perhaps a secret: that my mother was a lunatic; that my uncle had me from a ward of the place she died in. But that is no secret, anyone might know it; the very servants here know it. I am forbidden to forget it. I am sorry for you, if you meant to profit by it."
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Do I think he will embrace me? He never once steps close. But I feel the cool of the night, still clinging to his coat. I smell the tobacco on his hair, his whiskers, his mouth. I do not remember him so tall. I move to one side of the sofa and stand tensely, gripping the back of it. He keeps at the other, leans into the space between us, and speaks in whispers. He says, "Forgive me, Miss Lilly. This is not how I would have met you. But I have come to Briar, after so much careful labour; and tomorrow I may be obliged to leave without seeing you. You understand me. I make no judgement on your receiving me like this. If your girl stirs, you are to say that you were wakeful; that I found out your room and came, without invitation. I've been guilty of as much, in other men's houses. -- It's as well you know at once, what manner of fellow I am. But here, Miss Lilly, tonight, I mean you no sort of harm. I think you do understand me? I think you did wish me to come?"
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He gestures and, after a second -- as if we might be awaiting the maid and the tea-tray -- we take our places on the sofa. My dark cloak gapes and shows my nightgown. He turns his eyes while I draw close the folds.
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"Now, to tell you what I know," he says.
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"I am sorry," he says, "to have been obliged to remind you of it again. It means nothing to me, except as it has led to your coming to Briar and being kept by your uncle in such a curious way. It is he, I think, who has profited from your mother's misfortune. -- You'll forgive my speaking plainly. I am a sort of villain, and know other villains best. Your uncle is the worst kind, for he keeps to his own house, where his villainy passes as an old man's quirk. Don't tell me you love him," he adds quickly, seeing my face, "for manners' sake. I know you are above them. That is why I have come like this. We make our own manners, you and I; or take the ones that suit us. But for now, will you sit and let me speak with you, as a gentleman to a lady?"
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"I know you gain nothing unless you marry. I first had it from Hawtrey. They speak about you -- perhaps you know -- in the shady bookshops and publishers' houses of London and Paris. They speak about you, as of some fabulous creature: the handsome girl at Briar, whom Lilly has trained, like a chattering monkey, to recite voluptuous texts for gentlemen -- perhaps to do worse. I needn't tell you all they say, I suppose you can guess it. That's nothing to me."
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He holds my gaze, then looks away. "Hawtrey, at least, is a little kinder; and thinks me honest, which is more to our point. He told me, in a pitying sort of way, a little of your life -- your unfortunate mother -- your expectations, the conditions attached. Well, one hears of such girls, when one is a bachelor; perhaps not one in a hundred is worth the pursuit… But Hawtrey was right. I have made enquiries into your mother's fortune, and you are worth -- well, do you know what you are worth, Miss Lilly?"
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I hesitate, then shake my head. He names the figure. It is several hundred times the value of the costliest book upon my uncle's shelves; and many thousand times the price of the cheapest. This is the only measure of value I know.
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I nod.
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It is a great sum," says Mr Rivers, watching my face.
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It shall be ours," he says, "if we marry."
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I say nothing.
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"Let me be honest," he goes on. "I came to Briar, meaning to get you in the ordinary way -- I mean, seduce you from your uncle's house, secure your fortune, perhaps dispose of you after. I saw in ten minutes what your life has made of you, and knew I should never achieve it. More, I understood that to seduce you would be to insult you -- to make you only a different kind of captive. I don't wish to do that. I wish rather to free you."
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"Yes, yes," he says, in impatience. "You have said as much to me already. I think perhaps you say it often. But, what can such a phrase mean? You are seventeen. I am twenty-eight, and believed for many years I should be rich now, and idle. Instead I am what you see me: a scoundrel, not too poor in pocket, but nor too easy in it that I shan't be scrambling to line it for a little time to come. Do you think yourself weary? Think how weary am I! I have done many gross deeds, and thought each one the last. Believe me: I have some knowledge of the time that may be misspent, clinging to fictions and supposing them truths."
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Then I turn my face -- afraid that the beating of blood, across my cheek, will betray me to him. My voice I make steady. I say, "You forget, my longings count for nothing here. As well might my uncle's books long to leap from their presses. He has made me like them --"
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He answers simply: "I think you long for it."
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"You are very gallant," I say. "Suppose I don't care to be freed?"
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He has lifted his hand to his head, and now puts back his hair from his brow; and his pallor, and the dark about his eye, seem suddenly to age him. His collar is soft, and creased from the grip of his neck-tie. His beard has a single strand of grey. His throat bulges queerly, as men's throats do: as if inviting the blow that will crush it.
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"You wish to make a villain of me, too?"
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"You seek a distraction from those? Why not give them up, for ever? So you shall -- like that, in a moment! gone! -- when you marry me."
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"You intrigue me. You have seen for yourself, the evenness of my days here."
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"And yet you have received me. You receive me still. You have not called for your maid."
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I shake my head. "I think you cannot be serious."
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I say, "This is madness. I think you are mad -- to come here, to confess yourself a villain, to suppose me willing to receive you."
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He shrugs, speaks lightly. "We shall resort, of course, to devious methods."
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"I am, however."
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"You know my age. You know my uncle would never permit you to take me."
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He nods. "I do. But then, I think you are half a villain already. -- Don't look like that. Don't suppose I am joking. You don't know all." He has grown serious. "I am offering you something very great and strange. Not the commonplace subjection of a wife to her husband -- that servitude, to lawful ravishment and theft, that the world terms wedlock. I shan't ask you for that, that is not what I mean. I am speaking, rather, of liberty. A liberty of a kind not often granted to the members of your sex."
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"To be achieved by a ceremony of marriage, performed under certain unusual conditions." Again he smooths his hair, and swallows; and I see at last that he is nervous -- more nervous than I. He leans closer. He says, "I suppose you're not squeamish, or soft about the heart, as another girl might be? I suppose your maid is really sleeping, and not listening at the door?"
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"Yet to be achieved" -- I almost laugh -- "by a marriage?"
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This is his plan. He means to bring a girl to Briar, from London, and install her as my maid. He means to use her, then cheat her. He says he has a girl in mind, a girl of my years and colouring. A sort of thief -- not overscrupulous, not too clever in her ways, he says; he thinks he will secure her with the promise of some slight share in the fortune -- "Say, two or three thousand. I don't believe she'll have the ambition to ask for more. Her set are a small set, as crooks go; though, like crooks everywhere, think themselves grander." He shrugs. The sum means nothing, after all: for he will agree to whatever she asks for; and she will not see a shilling of it. She will suppose me an innocent, and believe herself assisting in my seduction. She will persuade me, first, into marriage with him, then into a -- he hesitates, before admitting the word -- a madhouse. But, there she will take my place. She will protest -- he hopes she will! -- for the more she does, the more the madhouse keepers will read it as a form of lunacy; and so keep her the closer.
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I think of Agnes, of Agnes's bruises; but say nothing, only watch him. He passes his hand across his mouth. "God help me, Miss Lilly, if I have misjudged you!" he says. "Now, listen."
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This is the liberty -- the rare and sinister liberty -- he has come to Briar to offer. For payment he wants my trust, my promise, my future silence; and one half of my fortune.
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When he has finished I sit not speaking, my face turned from his, for almost a minute. What I say at last is: "We should never achieve it."
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He answers at once: "I think we will."
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"The girl would suspect us."
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"And with her, Miss Lilly," he says finally, "they keep close your name, your history as your mother's daughter, your uncle's niece -- in short, all that marks you as yourself. Think of it! They will pluck from your shoulders the weight of your life, as a servant would lift free your cloak; and you shall make your naked, invisible way to any part of the world you choose -- to any new life -- and there re-clothe yourself to suit your fancy."
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"She will be distracted by the plot into which I shall draw her. She will be like everyone, putting on the things she sees the constructions she expects to find there. She will look at you, here, knowing nothing of your uncle -- who wouldn't, in her place, believe you innocent?"
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"They shall look -- as a thousand thieves look every day for the friends who have cheated and robbed them; and, finding nothing, they'll suppose her flown, and curse her for a while, and then forget her."
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"And her people, the thieves: shan't they look for her?"
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He shrugs. "A sort of mother. A guardian, an aunt. She loses children all the time. I don't think she will trouble very hard over one child more. Especially if she supposes -- as I mean that she will -- that the child has turned out swindler. Do you see? Her own reputation will help to bury her. Crooked girls can't expect to be cared for, like honest ones." He pauses. "They will watch her more closely, however, in the place we'll put her."
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I gaze away from him. "A madhouse…"
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"I am sorry for that," he says quickly. "But your own reputation -- your own mother's reputation -- will work for us there, just as our crooked girl's will. You must see how it will. You have been held in thrall to it, all these years. Here is your chance to profit by it, once; then be free of it, for ever."
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"Forget her? Are you sure? Has she no -- no mother?"
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"I've admitted as much, have I not? But then, your freedom and my money are the same. That will be your safeguard, your insurance, until our fortune is secure. You may trust yourself, till then, not to my honour -- for I have none -- but, say, to my cupidity; which is anyway a greater thing than honour, in the world outside these walls. You will find that out. I might teach you how to profit from it. We can take some house, in London, as man and wife. -- Live separately, of course," he adds, with a smile, "when the door of the house is closed… Once our money is got, however, your future will be your own; you must only be silent, then, as to the manner in which you got it. You understand me? Being once committed to this thing, we must be true to each other, or founder. I don't speak lightly. I don't wish to mislead you as to the nature of the business I'm proposing. Perhaps your uncle's care has kept you from a knowledge of the law…"
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I still look away. Again, I am afraid he will see how deeply his words have stirred me. I am almost afraid of how deeply they stir me, myself. I say, "You speak as though my freedom were something to you. It's the money you care for."
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He waits and, when I add nothing, says, "Well, I don't expect to hear you give me your decision now. It's my aim that your uncle will keep me here, to work on his pictures -- I am to view them tomorrow. If he does not, then we shall anyway be obliged to reconsider. But there are ways about that, as about everything."
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"My uncle's care," I say, "has made me ready to consider any strategy that will relieve me of the burden of it. But --"
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He passes his hand again before his eyes, and again looks older. The clock has struck the twelve, the fire has died an hour before, and the room is terribly chill. I feel it, all at once. He sees me shiver. I think he reads it as fear, or doubt. He leans, and at last takes my hand in his. He says, "Miss Lilly, you say your freedom is nothing to me; but how could I see the life that is yours -- how could any honest man see you kept down, made a slave to lewdness, leered at and insulted by fellows like Huss -- and not wish to free you of it? Think of what I have proposed. Then think of your choices. You may wait for another suitor: shall you find one, among the gentlemen your uncle's work brings here? And, if you do, shall he be as scrupulous as I, in the handling of your fortune? -- of your person? Or, say you wait for your uncle to die, and find a liberty that way; meantime, his eyes have faded, his limbs have a tremor, he has worked you the harder as he has felt his powers fail. By then you are -- what age? Say thirty-five, or forty. You have given your youth to the curating of books, of a kind that Hawtrey sells, for a shilling, to drapers' boys and clerks. Your fortune sits untouched in the vault of a bank. Your consolation is to be mistress of Briar -- where the clock strikes off the hollow half-hours of all the life that is left to you, one by one."
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As he speaks, I look not at his face; but at my own foot in its slipper. I think again of the vision I have sometimes had -- of myself, as a limb bound tight to a form it longs to outgrow. With the drops in me the vision is fiercer, I see the limb made crooked, the flesh sour and grow dense. I sit quite still, then raise my eyes to his. He is watching me, waiting to know if he has won me. He has. Not by what he has told me, about my future at Briar -- for he has said nothing that I have not, long ago, already concluded for myself; but by the fact that he is here, telling it at all -- that he has plotted, and travelled, forty miles -- that he has stolen his way to the heart of the sleeping house, to my dark room, to me.
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Of the girl in London -- who, in less than a month, he will persuade to her doom by a similar method; and to whom, a little later, with tears on my cheek, I will repeat his own arguments -- I think nothing, nothing at all.
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I say, "Tomorrow, when you are shown my uncle's pictures: praise the Romano, though the Caracci is more rare. Praise Morland over Rowlandson. He thinks Rowlandson a hack."
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"You are sure?"
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I shake my head. But I am afraid to rise from the sofa, in case I tremble upon my legs and seem to him weak. I say, "Will you go?"
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He watches. Perhaps he is gauging my strength and beginning to grow doubtful. I shiver harder. He says, "You won't be troubled -- too troubled -- by all I've said?"
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That is all I say. It is enough, I suppose. He holds my gaze, nods, does not smile -- I think he knows I should not like to see him smile, at such a moment. He looses his grip about my fingers and then he stands, straightening his coat. That breaks the spell of our conspiracy: now he is large, dark, out of place. I hope he will leave. Again I shiver and, seeing that, he says, "I'm afraid I've kept you very late. You must be cold, and tired."
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"Of course."
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He would like to say more. I turn my face and will not let him, and in time hear his careful tread upon the carpet, the gentle opening and closing of the door. I sit a moment, then lift my feet, tuck the skirts of my cloak about my legs, raise my hood, lie with my head upon the hard and dusty sofa cushion. This is not my bed, and the hour for bed has sounded and passed, and there are none of the things -- my mother's portrait, my box, my maid -- about me, that I like to have close while I lie sleeping. But tonight, all things are out of their order, all my patterns have been disturbed. My liberty beckons: gauge-less, fearful, inevitable as death.
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I sleep, and dream I am moving, swiftly, in a high-prowed boat, upon a dark and silent water.
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"Quite sure. I shall do better if you leave me."
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