第六章_荆棘之城

There goes the Devil, I thought.

Gentleman went first. Mr Lilly and Maud stood at the door to see him leave, and I watched from her window. She shook his hand and he made her a bow. Then the trap took him off, to the station at Marlow. He sat with folded arms, his hat put back, his face our way, his eyes now on hers, now on mine.

That day passed just like all the old ones. Maud went to her uncle, as she had used to do, and I went slowly about her rooms, looking over her things -- only this time, of course, I was looking out for what we ought to take. We sat at lunch. We walked in the park, to the ice-house, the graves, and the river. It was the final time we would do it, yet things looked the same as they always had. It was us who had changed. We walked, not speaking. Now and then our skirts came together -- and once, our hands -- and we started apart, as if stung; but if, like me, she coloured, I don't know, for I didn't look at her. Back in her room she stood still, like a statue. Only now and then I heard her sigh.

Mrs Cakebread's face was dark as thunder. When Margaret let a spoon drop, she hit her with a ladle and made her scream.

I sat at her table with her box full of brooches and rings and a saucer of vinegar, shining up the stones. I would rather do that, I thought, than nothing. Once she came to look. Then she moved away, wiping her eyes. She said the vinegar made them sting. It made mine sting, too.

Then came the evening. She went to her dinner, and I went to mine. Downstairs in the kitchen, everyone was gloomy.

"Don't seem the same, now Mr Rivers has gone," they said.

"He've took it very hard," said one of the parlourmaids. "Had his heart set on going to London as Mr Rivers's man."

And then, no sooner had we started our dinners than Charles burst out crying at the table, and had to run from the kitchen wiping snot from his chin.

"You get back here!" called Mr Way, standing up, his powder flying. "Boy your age, fellow like him, I'd be ashamed!"

But Charles would not come back, not for Mr Way nor anyone. He had been taking Gentleman his breakfasts, polishing his boots, brushing his fancy coats. Now he should be stuck sharpening knives and shining glasses in the quietest house in England.

He sat on the stairs and wept, and hit his head against the banisters. Mr Way went and gave him a beating. We heard the slap of his belt against Charles's backside, and yelps.

That put rather a dampener on the meal. We ate it in silence, and when we had finished and Mr Way had come back, his face quite purple and his wig at a tilt, I did not go with him and Mrs Stiles to the pantry to take my pudding. I said I had a head-ache. I almost did. Mrs Stiles looked me over, then looked away.

"How poorly you keep, Miss Smith," she said. "I should say you must have left your health in London."

But it was nothing to me, what she thought. I should not see her -- or Mr Way, or Margaret, or Mrs Cakebread -- ever again.

I said Good-night, and went upstairs. Maud of course was still with her uncle. Until she came I did what we had planned, and got together all the gowns and shoes and bits and pieces we had agreed ought to be taken. It was all of it hers. My brown stuff dress I left behind me. I hadn't worn it in more than a month. I put it at the bottom of my trunk. I left that, too. We could only take bags. Maud had found out two old things of her mother's. Their leather was damp, with a bloom of white. They were marked, in brass, with letters so bold even I could read them: an M and an L -- for her mother's name, which was like hers. I lined them with paper, and packed them tight. In one -- the heaviest one, which I would carry -- I put the jewels I'd shined. I wrapped them in linen, to save them from tumbling about and growing dull. I put in one of her gloves with them -- a white kid glove, with buttons of pearl. She had worn it once and supposed it lost. I meant to keep it, to remind me of her.

I had guessed she would come like this; and had got her some wine from Mr Way, as a nerver. I made her sit and take a little, then I wet a handkerchief with it and rubbed at the hollows of her brow. The wine made the handkerchief pink as a rose, and her head, where I chafed it, grew crimson. Her face was cool under my hand. Her eyelids fluttered. When they lifted, I stepped from her.

I thought my heart was breaking in two.

"Thank you," she said quietly, her gaze very soft.

She drank more of the wine. It was quality stuff. What she left, I finished, and it went through me like a flame.

Then she came up from her uncle. She came twisting her hands. "Oh!" she said. "How my head aches! I thought he would keep me for ever, tonight!"

"Now," I said, "you must change." She was dressed for her supper. I had set out her walking-gown. "But we must leave off the cage."

For there was no room for a crinoline. Without it, her short dress at last became a long one, and she seemed slenderer than ever. She had grown thin. I gave her stout boots to wear. Then I showed her the bags. She touched them, and shook her head.

She held my gaze, looking grateful and sad. God knows how my face seemed. I turned away. The house was creaking, settling down as the maids went up. Then came the clock again, chiming half-past nine. She said, "Three hours, until he comes."

Sometimes she shivered. "Are you cold?" I'd say then. But she was not cold. At last the waiting began to tell even on me, and I began to fidget. I thought I might not have packed her bags as I should have. I thought I might have left out her linen, or her jewels, or that white glove. I had put the glove in, I knew it; but I was become like her, restless as a flea.

We put the lamp out in her parlour, and stood at her window. We could not see the river, but we gazed at the wall of the park and thought of the water lying beyond it, cool and ready, waiting like us. We stood for an hour, saying almost nothing.

She said it in the same slow, flinching way that I had heard her say, once, "Three weeks."

"You've done everything," she said. "I should never have thought of it all. I should never have done any of it, without you."

I went to her bedroom and opened the bags, leaving her at the window. I took out all the gowns and linen, and packed them again. Then, as I tightened a strap on a buckle, it broke. The leather was so old it was almost perished. I got a needle, and sewed the strap tight, in great, wild stitches. I put my mouth to the thread to bite it, and tasted salt.

Then I heard the opening of Maud's door.

She had left the door ajar. I tiptoed to it and squinted into the passage. I thought there came another noise then, above the ordinary creakings and tickings of the house -- perhaps, the opening and shutting of another door, faroff. But I couldn't be sure. I called once, in a whisper, "Miss Maud!" -- but even a whisper sounded loud, at Briar, and I fell silent, straining my ears, looking hard at the darkness, then walking a few steps into the passage and listening again.

My heart gave a jump. I put the bags out of sight, in the shadow of the bed, and stood and listened. No sound at all. I went to the door to the parlour, and looked inside. The window-curtains were open and let the moonlight in; but the room was empty, Maud was gone.

I put my hands together and pressed them tight, more nervous now than I can say; but I was also, to be honest, rather peeved -- for wasn't it like her, to go wandering off at this late hour, without a reason or a word?

When the clock struck half-past eleven I called again, and took another couple of steps along the passage. But then my foot caught the edge of a rug, and I almost tripped. She could go this way without a candle, she knew it so well; but it was all strange to me. I didn't dare wander after her. Suppose I took a wrong turning in the dark? I might never make my way out again.

Somewhere on the water was Gentleman, coming closer as I watched. How long would he wait?

At last, when I had sweated myself into a lather, the clock struck twelve. I stood and trembled at each beating of the bell. The last one sounded, and left an echo.

So I only waited, counting the minutes. I went back to the bedroom and brought out the bags. Then I stood at the window. The moon was full, the night was bright. The lawn lay stretched before the house, the wall at the end of it, the river beyond.

I thought, "That's it." -- And, as I thought it, I heard the soft thud of her boots -- she was at the door, her face pale in the darkness, her breaths coming quick as a cat's.

She shivered. I pictured her, pale and slight and silent, alone among those dark books.

"Never mind," I said. "But, we must be quick. Come here, come on."

"Forgive me, Sue!" she said. "I went to my uncle's library. I wanted to see it, a final time. But I couldn't go until I knew he was asleep."

"Now, be steady," I said.

I gave her her cloak, and fastened up mine. She looked about her, at all she was leaving. Her teeth began to chatter. I gave her the lightest bag. Then I stood before her and put a finger to her mouth.

All my nervousness had left me, and I was suddenly calm. I thought of my mother, and all the dark and sleeping houses she must have stolen her way through, before they caught her. The bad blood rose in me, just like wine.

We went by the servants' stairs. I had been carefully up and down them the day before, looking for the steps that particularly creaked; now I led her over them, holding her hand, and watching where she placed her feet.

The door to the yard was locked with a key, but the key was left in it: I drew it out before I turned it, and put a little beef fat to the bit; and then I put more fat to the bolts that fastened the door closed at the bottom and the top. I had got the fat from Mrs Cakebread's cupboard. That was sixpence less she should have from the butcher's boy! Maud watched me laying it about the locks, with an astounded sort of look. I said softly, "This is easy. If we was coming the other way, that would be hard."

At the start of the corridor where there were the doors to the kitchen and to Mrs Stiles's pantry, I made her stop and wait and listen. She kept her hand in mine. A mouse ran, quick, along the wainscot; but there was no other movement, and no sounds from anywhere. The floor had drugget on it, that softened our shoes. Only our skirts went rustle and swish.

Then I gave her a wink. It was the satisfaction of the job. I really wished, just then, it had been harder. I licked my fingers clean of the fat, then put my shoulder to the door and pressed it tight into its frame: after that, the key turned smoothly and the bolts slid in their cradles, gentle as babies.

"Now you must come," I said.

The air, outside, was cold and clear. The moon cast great black shadows. We were grateful for them. We kept to the walls of the house that were darkest, going quickly and softly from one to another and then running fast across a corner of lawn to the hedges and trees beyond. She held my hand again, and I showed her where to run.

Only once I felt her hesitate, and then I turned and found her gazing at the house, with a queer expression that seemed half-fearful and yet was almost a smile. There were no lights in the windows. No-one watched. The house looked flat, like a house in a play. I let her stand for almost a minute, then pulled her hand.

She turned her head and did not look again. We walked quickly to the wall of the park, and then we followed it, along a damp and tangled path. The bushes caught at the wool of our cloaks, and creatures leapt in the grass, or slithered before us; and there were cobwebs, fine and shining like wires of glass, that we must trample through and break. The noise seemed awful. Our breaths came harder. We walked so long, I thought we had missed the gate to the river; but then the path grew clearer, and the arch sprang up, lit bright by the moon. Maud moved past me and took out her key, and let us through it, then made the gate fast at our backs.

She was holding her cloak about her face, but when she saw me turn to her she reached and took my hand. She took it, not to be led by me, not to be comforted; only to hold it, because it was mine.

Now we were out of the park I breathed a little freer. We set down the bags and stood still in the darkness, in the shadow of the wall. The moon struck the rushes of the further bank, and made spears of them, with wicked points.

Then the Briar bell struck. Half-past twelve -- the chime came clear across the park, I suppose the bright air made it sharper. For a second, the echo of it hung about the ear; and then above it rose another, gentler sound -- we heard it, and stepped apart -- it was the careful creak of oars, the slither of water against wood.

The surface of the river seemed almost white. The only sound now was the flowing of the water, the calling of some bird; then came the splash of a fish. There was no sign of Gentleman. We had come quicker than we planned for. I listened, and heard nothing. I looked at the sky, at all the stars that were in it. More stars than seemed natural. Then I looked at Maud.

"That's luck," I said.

In the sky, a star moved, and we both turned to watch it.

I don't remember if Gentleman spoke. I don't believe he looked at me, except, once he had helped Maud across the ancient landing-place, to give me his hand and guide me as he had guided her, over the rotten planks. I think we did it all in silence. I know the boat was narrow, and our skirts bulged as we sat -- for, when Gentleman took up the oars to turn us, we rocked again, and I grew suddenly frightened of the boat capsizing, imagining the water filling all those folds and frills and sucking us under. But Maud sat steady. I saw Gentleman looking her over. Still no-one spoke, however. We had done it all in a moment, and the boat moved quick. The stream was with us.

About the bend of the silvery river came the dark shape of a boat. I saw the oars dip and rise, and scatter coins of moonlight; then they were drawn high, and left a silence. The boat glided towards the rushes, then rocked and creaked again as Gentleman half-rose from his seat. He could not see us, where we waited in the shadow of the wall. He could not see us; but it was not me who stepped forward first, it was her. She went stiffly to the water's edge, then took the coil of rope he threw and braced herself against the tugging of the boat, until the boat was steady.

We went very carefully. The night was so still. Gentleman kept the boat as close as he could to the shadows of the bank: only now and then, when the trees were thinner, did we move in moonlight. But there was no-one about, to watch us. Where there were houses built near to the river, they were shut up and dark.

For a minute, the river followed the wall of the park; we passed the place where I had seen him kiss her hand; then the wall snaked off. There came a line of dark trees instead. Maud sat with her eyes on her lap, not looking.

Once, when the river became broad, and there were islands, with barges moored at them, and grazing horses, he stopped the oars and let us glide in silence; but still no-one heard us pass or came to look. Then the river grew narrow again, and we moved on; and after that, there were no more houses and no more boats. There was only the darkness, the broken moonlight, the creaking of the sculls, the dipping and the rising of Gentleman's hands and the white of his cheek above his whisker.

Then he looked at me and nodded. We started off -- him leading the horse by the bridle, Maud hunched and stiff upon it, me walking behind. Still we met noone.

We went rather slowly -- for Maud's sake, I suppose, so she should not be shaken about and made sick. She looked sick, anyway; and when we came at last to the place he had found -- it was two or three leaning cottages, and a great dark church -- she looked sicker than ever. A dog came up and started barking. Gentleman kicked it and made it yelp. He led us to the cottage that was nearest the church, and the door was opened, a man came out, and then a woman, holding a lantern. They had been waiting. The woman was the one who had kept the rooms for us: she was yawning, but stretching her neck as she yawned, to get a good look at Maud. She made Gentleman a curtsey.

We did not keep upon the river for long. At a spot upon the bank, two miles from Briar, he pulled up the boat and moored it. This was where he had started from. He had left a horse there, with a lady's saddle on it. He helped us from the water, sat Maud upon the horse's back, and strapped her bags beside her. He said, "We must go another mile or so. Maud?" She did not answer. "You must be brave. We are very close now."

The horse was shoeless. Its hooves sounded dull on the dirt of the road.

Again I looked at the stars. You never saw stars so bright at home, the sky was never so dark and so clear.

The man was the parson, the vicar -- whatever you call him. He made a bow. He wore a gown of dirty white, and wanted shaving. He said, "Good-night to you. Good-night to you, miss. And what a fair night, for an escapade!"

I would say it, I thought, for five hundred more.

Gentleman said only, "Is everything made ready?" He put his arms up to Maud, to help her from the horse: she kept her hands upon the saddle, and slid down awkwardly, and stepped away from him. She did not come to me, but stood alone. The woman still studied her. She was studying her pale, set, handsome face, her look of sickness, and I knew she was thinking -- as anyone would think, I suppose -- that she was in the family way, and marrying out of fear. Perhaps Gentleman had even made her think it, when he spoke to her before. For it would be all to his advantage, if it came to a challenge by Mr Lilly, for it to seem that he had had Maud in her uncle's own house; and we could say the baby got miscarried, later.

I thought that, even as I stood watching the woman looking at Maud and hating her for doing it; even as I hated myself, for thinking it. The parson came forward and made another bow.

"Yes, yes," said Gentleman. He took the parson aside and drew out his pocketbook.

"All's ready indeed, sir," he said. "There's only the little matter of -- In light of the special circumstances --"

The horse tossed its head, but from one of the other cottages a boy had come over to lead it away. He also looked at Maud; but then he looked from her to me, and it was me he touched his cap to. Of course, he had not seen her in the saddle, and I was dressed in one of her old gowns and must have seemed quite a lady; and she stood in such a mean and shrinking kind of way, that she seemed the maid.

She did not see it. She had her eyes upon the ground. The parson put his money away in some close pocket under his robe, then he rubbed his hands together. "Well and good," he said. "And should the lady like to change her costume? Should she like to visit her room? Or shall we do the joining at once?"

"We'll do it at once," said Gentleman, before anyone else could answer. He took off his hat and smoothed his hair, fussing a little with the curls about his ears. Maud stood very stiff. I went to her, and put her hood up nicely, and settled the cloak in neater folds; and then I passed my hands across her hair and cheeks. She would not look at me. Her face was cold. The hem of her skirt was dark, as if dipped in a dye for mourning. Her cloak had mud on it. I said, "Give me your mittens, miss." -- For I knew that, beneath them, she had her white kid gloves. I said, "You had much better go to your wedding in white gloves, than buff mittens."

I had not thought of it until the woman said it; but now -- oh! the cruelty of taking her, without a bloom, to be his wife, seemed all at once a frightful thing, I could not bear it. My voice came out sounding almost wild, and Gentleman gazed at me and frowned, and the parson looked curious, the woman sorry; and then Maud turned her eyes to me and said slowly, "I should like a flower, Richard. I should like a flower. And Sue must have a flower, too."

She let me draw them from her, then she stood and crossed her hands. The woman said to me, "No flower, for the lady?" I looked at Gentleman. He shrugged.

I said, "You might at least get her a flower! Just one flower, for her to carry into church!"

"Should you like a flower, Maud?" he said carelessly. She didn't answer. He said, "Well, I think we shall not mind the absence of a flower. Now, sir, if you will --"

With every saying of the one word, flower, it seemed to grow a little stranger. Gentleman let out his breath and began to look about him in a peevish sort of way. The parson also looked. It was half-past one or so, and very dark out of the moonlight.

In her hands the leaves quivered harder than ever. Gentleman lit up a cigarette and took two puffs of it, then threw it away. It stayed glowing in the darkness. He nodded to the parson, and the parson took up the lantern, and led us through the church gate and along a path between a line of tilting gravestones that the moon gave deep, sharp shadows.

We stood in a muddy kind of green, with hedges of brambles. The hedges were black. If there were flowers in there, we should never have found them. I said to the woman, "Haven't you nothing we might take? Haven't you a flower in a pot?" She thought a minute, then stepped nimbly back into her cottage; and what she came out with at last was, a sprig of dry leaves, round as shillings, white as paper, quivering on a few thin stalks that looked ready to snap.

It was honesty. We stood and gazed at it, and no-one would name it. Then Maud took the stalks and divided them up, giving some to me, but keeping the most for herself.

Maud walked with Gentleman, and he held her arm in his. I walked with the woman. We were to be witnesses. Her name was Mrs Cream.

I did not answer.

"Come far?" she said.

The church was of flint and, even with the moon on it, looked quite black. Inside it was whitewashed, but the white had turned to yellow. There were a few candles lit, about the altar and the pews, and a few moths about the candles, some dead in the wax. We did not try to sit, but went straight to the altar, and the parson stood before us with his Bible. He blinked at the page. He read, and muddled his words.

Mrs Cream breathed hard, like a horse. I stood and held my poor, bent twig of honesty, and watched Maud standing at Gentleman's side, holding tight on to hers.

She was about to be married, and was frightened to death. And soon no-one would love her, ever again.

I had kissed her. I had lain upon her. I had touched her with a sliding hand. I had called her a pearl. She had been kinder to me than anyone save Mrs Sucksby; and she had made me love her, when I meant only to ruin her.

I saw Gentleman look at her. The parson coughed over his book. He had got to the part of the service that asked if anybody there knew any reason as to why the man and woman before him should not be married; and he looked up through his eyebrows, and for a second the church was still. I held my breath, and said nothing.

Again there was a silence.

So then he turned to Gentleman. "Will you," he said, and all the rest of it -- "Will you have her and honour her, for as long as you live?"

So then he went on, looking at Maud and at Gentleman, asking the same thing of them, saying that, on the Day of judgement they should have to give up all the awful secrets of their hearts; and had much better give them up now, and be done with it.

"I will," said Gentleman.

Then Gentleman stood a little easier. The parson stretched his throat from his collar and scratched it.

The parson nodded. Then he faced Maud, and asked the same thing of her; and she hesitated, then spoke.

"I will," she said.

"Who gives this woman to be married?" he said.

I kept quite still, till Gentleman turned to me; and then he gestured with his head, and I went and stood at Maud's side, and they showed me how I must take her hand and pass it to the parson, for him to put it into Gentleman's. I would rather Mrs Cream had done it, than almost anything. Her fingers, without her glove, were stiff and cold as fingers made of wax. Gentleman held them, and spoke the words the parson read to him; and then Maud took his hand, and said the same words over.

Her voice was so thin, it seemed to rise like smoke into the darkness, and then to vanish.

Then Gentleman brought a ring out, and he took her hand again and put the ring over her finger, all the time repeating the parson's words, that he would worship her, and give her all his goods. The ring looked queer upon her. It seemed gold in the candle-light, but -- I saw it later -- it was bad. It was all bad, and couldn't have been worse.

I did not turn to her. If I had, I should have punched her.

The parson read another prayer, then raised his hands and closed his eyes. "These two that God has joined together," he said, "let no man put in sunder."

And that was it. They were married.

Gentleman kissed her and she stood and swayed, as if dazed. Mrs Cream said in a murmur, "She don't know what've hit her, look at her. She'll know it later -- plum feller like him. Heh heh."

The parson shut his Bible and led us from the altar to the room where they kept the register. Here Gentleman wrote his name and Maud -- who was now to be Mrs Rivers -- wrote hers; and Mrs Cream and I put ours beneath them. Gentleman had already shown me how to write Smith; but still, I wrote it clumsily and was ashamed. -- Ashamed, of that! The room was dark and smelled of damp. In the beams, things fluttered -- perhaps birds, perhaps bats. I saw Maud gazing at the shadows, as if afraid the things should swoop.

There were two shut doors there, leading to the two little bedrooms of the house. The first had a narrow straw mattress on a pallet on the floor, and was for me. The second had a bigger bed, an arm-chair and a press, and was for Gentleman and Maud. She went into it, and stood with her eyes on the floor, looking at nothing. There was a single candle lit. Her bags lay beside the bed. I went to them and took her things out, one by one, and put them in the press. Mrs Cream said, "What handsome linen!" -- She was watching from the door. Gentleman stood with her, looking strange. It was him that had taught me the handling of a petticoat but now, seeing me take out Maud's shimmies and stockings, he seemed almost afraid. He said, "Well, I shall smoke a final cigarette downstairs. Sue, you'll make things comfortable up here?"

Gentleman took her arm and held it, and then he led her from the church. There had come clouds before the moon, and the night was darker. The parson shook hands with us, then made Maud a bow; then he went off. He went fast, and as he walked he took his robe off, and his clothes were black beneath it -- he seemed to snuff himself out like a light. Mrs Cream took us to her cottage. She carried the lantern, and we walked behind her, stumbling on her path: her doorway was low, and knocked Gentleman's hat off. She took us up a set of tilting stairs too narrow for our skirts, and then to a landing, about as big as a cupboard, where we all jostled about for a moment and the cuff of Maud's cloak got laid upon the chimney of the lantern and was singed.

I did not answer. He and Mrs Cream went down, their boots sounding loud as thunder and the door and the boards and the crooked staircase trembling. I heard him outside then, striking a match.

I took the flowers from her, and then the cloak. I said, "Don't think of it. It will be over in a minute."

I looked at Maud. She was still holding the stalks of honesty. She took a step towards me and said quickly, "If I should call out to you later, will you come?"

She caught hold of my wrist with her right hand, that still had the glove upon it. She said, "Listen to me, I mean it. Never mind what he does. If I call out to you, say you'll come. I'll give you money for it."

"Sleep?" she said. She laughed and caught her breath. "Do you think I want to sleep, on my wedding-night?"

She pushed my hand away. I stood at her back and began to undress her. When I had taken her gown and her corset I turned and said, quietly, "You had better use the pot. You had better wash your legs, before he comes."

Her voice was strange. Her fingers shook, yet gripped me hard. The thought of her giving me so much as a farthing was awful. I said, "Where are your drops? Look, there's water here, you might take your drops and they will make you sleep."

I looked at Maud. She met my gaze. Her eyes were black, but gleamed like glass. "Will you look away, still?" she said, in a whisper, when she saw me turn my head.

Then I turned back. I could not help it, though her face was awful, it was terrible to see.

I think she shuddered. I did not watch her, but heard the splash of water. Then I combed her hair. There was no glass for her to stand at, and when she got into the bed she looked to her side and there was no table, no box, no portrait, no light -- I saw her put out her hand as if blind.

Then the house-door closed, and she fell back and seized the blankets and pulled them high about her breast. Against the white of the pillow her face seemed dark; yet I knew that it was pale. We heard Gentleman and Mrs Cream, talking together in the room below. Their voices came clearly. There were gaps between the boards, and a faint light showed.

Gentleman talked on. Some breeze got into the room and made the candle-flame dip. I shivered. Still she held my gaze with hers. Then she spoke again.

The quick, sweet feeling her kiss had called up in me turned to something like horror, or fear. I pulled from her, and drew my hand away. "Won't you do it?" she said softly, reaching after me. "Didn't you do it before, for the sake of this night? Can't you leave me to him now, with your kisses on my mouth, your touch upon me, there, to help me bear his the better? -- Don't go!" She seized me again. "You went, before. You said I dreamed you. I'm not dreaming now. I wish I were! God knows, God knows, I wish I were dreaming, and might wake up and be at Briar again!"

I shook my head. She said it again. I shook my head again -- but then went to her, anyway -- went softly to her across the creaking boards, and she lifted her arms and drew my face to hers, and kissed me. She kissed me, with her sweet mouth, made salt with her tears; and I could not help but kiss her back -- felt my heart, now like ice in my breast, and now like water, running, from the heat of her lips.

"Come here," she said.

But then she did this. She kept her fingers upon my head and pushed my mouth too hard against hers; and she seized my hand and took it, first to her bosom, then to where the blankets dipped, between her legs. There she rubbed with my fingers until they burned.

He brought the chill of the night in with him. I did not say another word, to him or to her. I did not look at her face. I went to my own room and lay upon my bed. I lay, in the darkness, in my cloak and my gown, my head between the pillow and the mattress; and all I heard, each time I woke in the night, was the creeping, creeping of little creatures through the straw beneath my cheek.

I fell silent. She lifted her head. Below, the light had been taken up and moved.

"Hush! Hush!" I said. "You are married to him now. You must be different. You are a wife. You must --"

Her fingers slipped from my arm and she fell back and sagged against her pillow; and I stood, clasping and unclasping my hands, afraid of her look, of her words, of her rising voice; afraid she might shriek, or swoon -- afraid, God damn me! that she might cry out, loud enough for Gentleman or Mrs Cream to hear, that I had kissed her.

Gentleman's boots came loud again upon the narrow stairs. I heard him slow his step, then hesitate at the door. Perhaps he was wondering if he should knock, as he had used to knock at Briar. At last he slowly put his thumb to the latch, and came in.

"Are you ready?" he said.

In the morning, Gentleman came to my room. He came in his shirtsleeves.

"She wants you, to dress her," he said.

Her face was smooth, but dark about the eyes. Her hands were bare. The yellow ring glittered.

He took his breakfast downstairs. Maud had been brought up a tray, with a plate upon it. The plate held eggs and a kidney; she had not touched them. She sat very still, in the arm-chair beside the window; and I saw at once how it would be with her, now.

She looked at me, as she looked at everything -- the plate of eggs, the view beyond the window, the gown I held up to place over her head -- with a soft, odd, distant kind of gaze; and when I spoke to her, to ask her some trifling thing, she listened, and waited, then answered and blinked, as if the question, and the answer -- even the movement of her own throat making the words -- were all perfectly surprising and strange. I dressed her, and she sat again beside the window. She kept her hands bent at the wrist, the fingers slightly lifted, as if even to let them rest against the soft stuff of her wide skirt might be to hurt them.

I took her pot and emptied it, in the privy behind the house. At the foot of the stairs Mrs Cream came to me. She had a sheet over her arm. She said, "Mr Rivers says the linen on the bed needs changing."

She looked as if she would like to wink. I would not gaze at her long enough to let her. I had forgotten about this part. I went slowly up the stairs and she came behind me, breathing harder than ever. She made Maud a kind of curtsey, then went to the bed and drew back the blankets. There were a few spots of dark blood there, that had been rolled upon and smeared. She stood and looked at them, and then she caught my eye -- as much as to say, "Well, I shouldn't have believed it. Quite a little love-match, after all!"

She held her head at a tilt. I thought she might be listening for the chiming of the house-bell at Briar. But she never mentioned her uncle, or her old life, at all.

Maud sat gazing out of the window. From the room downstairs came the squeak of Gentleman's knife on his plate. Mrs Cream raised the sheet, to see if the blood had marked the mattress underneath; it hadn't, and that pleased her.

I helped her change it, then saw her to the door. She had made another curtsey, and seen Maud's queer, soft gaze.

I said nothing at first. Then I remembered our plot, and what was to happen. Better, I thought drearily, to make it happen soon.

I stood on the little landing with her and closed the door. I said quietly, "Hard ain't the word for it. There's trouble, up here. Mr Rivers dotes on her and won't bear gossip -- he has brought her to this quiet place, hoping the country air will calm her."

"Took it hard, have she?" she whispered. "Maybe missing her ma?"

"No, no," I said. "She is only -- only too much in her head."

"Calm her?" she said then. "You mean --? Bless me! She ain't likely to break out -- turn the pigs loose -- set the place afire?"

"She doesn't like me," said Maud, after she saw her do that two or three times; and I swallowed and said, "Not like you? What an idea! Why should she not like you?"

"Poor lady," said Mrs Cream. But I could see her thinking. She hadn't bargained on having a mad girl in the house. And whenever she brought a tray up then, she looked sideways at Maud and set it down very quick, as if afraid she might get bitten.

"I can't say," she answered quietly, looking down at her hands.

Later Gentleman heard her say it, too; and then he got me on my own. "That's good," he said. "Keep Mrs Cream in fear of her, and her in fear of Mrs Cream, while seeming not to -- very good. That will help us, when it comes time to call in the doctor."

He gave it a week before he sent for him. I thought it the worst week of my life. He had told Maud they should stay a day; but on the second morning he looked at her and said, "How pale you are, Maud! I think you aren't quite well. I think we ought to stay a little longer, until your strength comes back to you."

"Stay longer?" she said. Her voice was dull. "But can't we go, to your house in London?"

"Not well? But, I am quite well -- you must only ask Sue. Sue, won't you tell Mr Rivers how well I am?"

"I really think you are not well enough."

She sat and shook. I said nothing. "Just a day or two more," said Gentleman. "Until you are rested. Until you are calm. Perhaps, if you were to keep more to the bed --?"

She began to weep. He went to her side, and that made her shudder and weep harder.

"I don't know," she said then. "It is so strange here. I'm afraid, Richard --"

He said, "Oh, Maud, it tears at my heart to see you like this! If I thought it would be a comfort to you, of course I should take you to London at once -- I should carry you, in my own arms -- do you think I would not? But do you look at yourself now, and still tell me you are well?"

"Hates you? Oh, Maud. Now you are growing foolish; and I should be sorry to think you that; and Sue should also be sorry -- shouldn't you, Sue?"

"Mrs Cream hates me."

I would not answer.

"And won't it be stranger, in London? And shouldn't you be frightened there, where it's so loud and crowded and dark? Oh, no, this is the place to keep you. Here you have Mrs Cream, to make you comfortable --"

Gentleman took her head in his hands and kissed her brow.

"Of course she would," he said, with his hard blue eyes on mine. Maud looked at me, too, then looked away.

"There now," he said. "Let us have no more argument. We'll stay another day -- only a day, until that paleness is driven from your cheek, and your eyes are bright again!"

After that, she did not ask how long they were to stay there. Her cheek never grew rosy. Her eye stayed dull. Gentleman told Mrs Cream to make her every kind of nourishing dish, and what she brought were more eggs, more kidneys, livers, greasy bacons and puddings of blood.

He said the same thing then, the next day. On the fourth day he was stern with her -- said she seemed to mean to disappoint him, to make him wait, when he longed only to carry her back to Chelsea as his bride; then on the fifth day, he took her in his arms and almost wept, and said he loved her.

The meat made the room smell sour. Maud could eat none of it. I ate it instead -- since somebody must. I ate it, and she only sat beside the window gazing out, turning the ring upon her finger, stretching her hands, or drawing a strand of hair across her mouth.

Her hair was dull as her eyes. She would not let me wash it -- she would hardly let me brush it, she said she couldn't bear the scraping of the comb upon her head. She kept in the gown she had travelled from Briar in, that had mud about the hem. Her best gown -- a silk one -- she gave to me. She said, "Why should I wear it, here? I had much rather see you in it. You had much better wear it, than let it lie in the press."

Our fingers touched beneath the silk, and we flinched and stepped apart. She had never tried to kiss me, after that first night.

I took the dress. It helped to pass the awful hours, sitting letting out the waist; and she seemed to like to watch me sew it. When I had finished it, and Put it on and stood before her, her expression was strange. "How well you look!" she said, her blood rising. "The colour sets off your eyes and hair. I knew it would. Now you are quite the beauty -- aren't you? And I am plain -- don't YOU think?"

I had got her a little looking-glass from Mrs Cream. She caught it up in her trembling hand and came and held it before our faces. I remembered the time she had dressed me up, in her old room, and called us sisters; and how gay she had seemed then, and how plump and careless. She had liked to stand before her glass and make herself look fair, for Gentleman. Now -- I saw it! I saw it, in the desperate slyness of her gaze! -- now she was glad to see herself grown plain. She thought it meant he would not want her.

I could have told her once that he would want her anyway.

Once or twice he went riding. He went for news of Mr Lilly -- but heard only that the word was, there was some queer stir at Briar, no-one knew quite what.

Now, I don't know what he did with her. I never spoke to him more than I had to. I did everything that was needed, but I did it all in a thick, miserable kind of trance, shrinking from thought and feeling -- I was as low, almost, as she was. And Gentleman, to do him justice, seemed troubled on his own account. He only came to kiss or bully her, a little while each day; the rest of the time he sat in Mrs Cream's parlour, lighting cigarettes -- the smoke came rising through the floor, to mix with the smell of the meat, the chamber-pot, the sheets on the bed.

In the evenings he would stand at a fence at the back of the house, looking over the black-faced pigs; or he would walk a little, in the lane or about the churchyard. He would walk, however, as if he knew we watched him -- not in the old, showoff way he had used to stretch and smoke his cigarettes, but with a twitch to his step, as if he could not bear the feel of our gazes on his back.

Then at night I would undress her, and he would come, and I would leave them, and lie alone, with my head between my pillow and my rustling mattress.

And every morning, when I went in to her, she seemed paler and thinner and in more of a daze than she had seemed the night before; and he caught my eye less, and plucked at his whiskers, his swagger all gone.

At last he sent for the doctor to come.

I should have said he needed to do it to her only the once. I should have thought he might have been frightened he should get her with child. But there were other things I thought he might like her to do, now he had learned how smooth her hands were, how soft her bosom was, how warm and glib her mouth.

He at least knew what a dreadful business he was about, the bloody villain.

I heard him writing the letter in Mrs Cream's parlour. The doctor was one he knew. I believe he had been crooked once, perhaps in the ladies' medicine line, and had taken to the madhouse business as being more safe. But the crookedness, for us, was only a security. He wasn't in on Gentleman's plot. Gentleman wouldn't have cared to cut the cash with him.

He came with another man -- another doctor, his assistant. You need two doctors' words to put a lady away. Their house was near Reading. Their coach was odd-looking, with blinds like louvred shutters and, on its back, spikes. They came not to take Maud, though -- not that time; only to study her. The taking came later.

I think any doctor would have done what that one did, hearing Gentleman's story, and seeing Maud, and me, as we were then.

Besides, the story was too sound. And there was Mrs Cream to back it. Maud was young, she was fey, and had been kept from the world. She had seemed to love Gentleman, and he loved her; but they hadn't been married an hour before she started to turn queer.

Gentleman told her they were two of his painter friends. She seemed not to care. She let me wash her and make her dull hair a little neater, and tidy her gown; but then she kept to her chair, saying nothing. Only when she saw their coach pull up did she stare, and begin to breathe a little quicker -- and I wondered if she had noticed the blinds and the spikes, as I had. The doctors got down. Gentleman went quickly out to talk with them, and they shook hands and put their heads together, and looked slyly up at our window.

I could hear them, then, in the parlour, talking in low, serious voices. I knew what questions they were asking, and what answers Mrs Cream would make. Gentleman waited for Maud to speak and, when she said nothing, looked at me. He said, "Sue, will you come with me a moment?"

Then Gentleman came back, and left them waiting. He came upstairs. He was rubbing his hands together and smiling. He said, "Well, what do you think! Here are my friends Graves and Christie, come down to visit from London. You remember, Maud, I spoke to you of them? I don't believe they thought me really married! They have come to see the phenomenon for themselves."

Still he smiled. Maud would not look at him. "Shall you mind it, dear," he said, "if I bring them to you? I have left them now with Mrs Cream."

He made a gesture with his eyes. Maud gazed after us, blinking. I went with him to the crooked landing, and he closed the door at my back.

"I think you should leave her with me," he said quietly, "when they go to her. I shall watch her, then; perhaps make her nervous. It keeps her too calm, having you always about her."

"Hurt her?" He almost laughed. These men are scoundrels. They like to keep their lunatics safe. They'd have them in ftre-proof vaults if they could, like bullion; and so live off the income. They won't hurt her. But they know their business, too, and a scandal would ruin them. My word is good, but they shall need to look at her and talk to her; and they shall also need to talk to you. You'll know how to answer, of course."

I made a face. "Will I?" I said.

He narrowed his eyes. "Don't make game of me, Sue. Not now we are so close. You'll know what to say?"

I shrugged, still sulky. "I think so."

"Good girl. I shall bring them first to you."

I said, "Don't let them hurt her."

He made to put his hand upon me. I dodged it and stepped away. I went to my little room, and waited.

The doctors came after a moment. Gentleman came with them, then closed the door and stood before it, his eyes on my face. They were tall men, like him, and one of them was stout. They were dressed in black jackets and elastic boots. When they moved, the floor, the walls and the window gave a shudder. Only one of them -- the thinner one -- spoke; the other just watched. They made me a bow, and I curtseyed.

Dr Christie looked at me harder. "You seemed to hesitate," he said. "That is your name, you are quite sure?"

"Of course. And what is your name?"

"Mrs Rivers," I said. That was Miss Lilly."

"Ah," he said again. "Your mistress. Now, refresh my memory. Who is she?"

He nodded. The silent doctor -- Dr Graves -- took out a pencil and a book. The first one went on: "Your mistress. And you are --?"

"Mrs Rivers, that was Miss Lilly. Ah."

"Yes," I said. "You mean, my mistress."

He smiled. My heart still beat hard. Perhaps he saw it. He seemed to grow kind. He said, "Well, Miss Smith, can you tell us now, how long you have known your mistress…?"

"Susan Smith, sir," I said.

"Of course."

"Her maid, sir."

Dr Graves held his pencil, ready to write. Gentleman caught my eye, and nodded.

"I should say I know my own name!" I said.

"Ah," said the speaking doctor quietly, when I did that. His name was Dr Christie. "Now, you know who we are, I think? You won't mind, if we ask you what might seem impertinent questions? We are friends of Mr Rivers's, and very curious to hear about his marriage, and his new wife."

Dr Graves wrote it all down. Dr Christie said, "Afraid. Do you mean, for your own sake?"

I see," he said. Then: "You are fond of your mistress. You have spoken very kindly of her. Now, will you tell me this. What care do you think your mistress ought to have, that would make her better?"

I said, "Not for mine, sir. For hers. I think she might harm herself, she is so miserable."

I said, "I think --"

It was like the time, at Lant Street, when I had stood before Gentleman and he had put me through my character. I told them about Lady Alice of Mayfair, and Gentleman's old nurse, and my dead mother; and then about Maud. I said she had seemed to like Mr Rivers but now, a week after her wedding-night, she was grown very sad and careless of herself, and made me afraid.

"Yes?"

"I wish --"

He nodded. "Go on."

My heart seemed all at once high in my throat, and my voice was spoiled with tears.

"I wish you would keep her, sir, and watch her," I said in a rush. "I wish you would keep her some place where no-one could touch her, or hurt her --"

Gentleman still had his eyes upon me. The doctor took my hand and held it, close about the wrist, in a familiar way.

"Of course," said Gentleman quickly. "Of course. This way." He opened the door, and they turned their black backs to me and all moved off. I watched them do it, and was gripped suddenly by a feeling -- I could not say if it was misery, or fear. I took a step and called out after them.

He patted and smoothed my hand, then let it go. He looked at his watch. He caught Gentleman's eye, and nodded. "Very good," he said. "Very good. Now, if you might just show us --?"

It was all I could think of. He smiled, and bowed; but in a humouring kind of way. Dr Graves wrote -- or pretended to write -- in his book, Don't care for eggs. Gentleman led them both across to Maud's room. Then he came back to me.

"She don't like eggs, sir!" I called. Dr Christie half turned. I had lifted my hand. Now I let it fall. "She don't like eggs," I said more feebly, "in any kind of dish."

"There, there," he said. "You must not be so distressed. Your mistress shall have everything you wish for her. She has been lucky, indeed, to have had so good and faithful a servant, as you!"

"You'll keep here, until they've seen her?" he said.

I did not answer. He shut my door. But those walls were like paper: I heard them move about, caught the rumble of the doctor's questions; then, after a minute or so, came the thin rising and falling of her tears.

They did not stay with her long. I suppose they had all they needed, from me and Mrs Cream. When they had gone I went to her, and Gentleman was standing behind her chair, holding her pale head between his hands. He had been leaning to gaze at her, perhaps to whisper and tease. When he saw me come he straightened and said, "Look, Sue, at your mistress. Don't you think her eyes a little brighter?"

They were bright, with the last of her tears still in them; and they were red at the rims.

"Are you well, miss?" I said.

"She is well," said Gentleman. "I think the company of friends has cheered her. I think those dear good fellows, Christie and Graves, were quite delighted with her; and you tell me, Sue, when did a lady ever not begin to flourish, under a gentleman's delight?"

"What a fool I've been," he said to me. "I've asked Mrs Rivers to grow strong, in this quiet place, thinking the quietness would help her. Now I see that what she needs is the bustle of the city. Graves and Christie saw it, too. They are so eager to have us join them at Chelsea -- why, Christie is giving us the use of his own coach and driver! We are to leave tomorrow. Maud, what do you say to that?"

"Tomorrow?" she said. "So soon as that?"

He nodded. "Tomorrow we'll go. To a great house, with fine, quiet rooms, and good servants in it, that waits there just for you."

She had turned her gaze to the window. Now she lifted her head to him, and a little blood struggled into her white cheeks.

She turned her head and raised her hand, and plucked a little weakly at his pressing fingers. He stood holding her face a moment longer, then stepped away.

Next day she put her breakfast of eggs and meat aside, as usual; but even I could not eat it. I dressed her without looking at her. I knew every part of her. She wore the old gown still, that was stained with mud, and I wore the handsome silk one. She would not let me change out of it, even for travelling, though I knew it would crease.

The coach came, and we were ready. Mrs Cream saw us to the door. Maud wore a veil. I helped her down the tilting staircase, and she gripped my arm. When we stepped out of the cottage she gripped it tighter. She had kept to her room for more than a week. She flinched from the sight of the sky and the black church, and seemed to feel the soft air hard upon her cheek, even through her veil, like a hand that slapped her.

I put my fingers over hers.

I packed her bags. I did it slowly, hardly feeling the things I touched. Into one bag went her linen, her slippers, her sleeping-drops, a bonnet, a brush -- that was for her to take to the madhouse. Into the other went everything else. That was for me. Only that white glove I think I have mentioned, did I keep to one side; and when the bags were filled I put it, neatly, inside the bodice of my gown, over my heart.

"God bless you, ma'am!" cried Mrs Cream, when Gentleman had paid her. She stood and watched us. The boy who had taken our horse, that first night, now appeared again, to see us leaving; and one or two other boys also came to stare, and to stand at the side of the coach, picking at the doors, where an old gold crest had been painted out black. The driver flicked his whip at them. He fastened our bags upon the roof, then let the steps down.

I thought of wearing it back in the Borough. I could not believe that I would be at home again, with Mrs Sucksby, before it was dark.

Gentleman handed Maud in, drawing her fingers from mine. He caught my eye. "Now, now," he said, in a warning sort of way. "No time for sentiment."

He said, "An hour."

At last Gentleman pulled a cord to make the blinds close, and we sat jolting in the heat and the darkness, not speaking.

She sat and leaned her head back, and he sat beside her. I sat opposite. There were no handles to the doors, only a key, like the key to a safe: when the driver closed them Gentleman made them fast, then put the key in his pocket.

In time I began to grow sick. I saw Maud's head rolling against the padding of the seat, but could not see if her eyes were open or closed. She kept her hands before her, clasped. Gentleman fidgeted, however, loosening his collar, looking at his watch, plucking at his cuffs. Two or three times he took out his handkerchief and wiped off his brow. Every time the coach slowed, he leaned close to the window to peer through the louvres. Then it slowed so hard it came almost to a stop, and began to turn: he looked again, sat straight and tightened his neck-tie.

"How long will we travel?" asked Maud.

It seemed longer than an hour. It seemed like a life. The day was a warm one. Where the sun struck the glass it made the carriage very hot, but the windows had been fixed not to open -- I suppose, so a lunatic should not have the chance to leap out.

"Don't be afraid," said Gentleman.

"We are almost there," he said.

Maud turned her head to him. The coach slowed again. I pulled the cord that moved the blinds. We were at the start of a green lane, with a stone arch across it and, beneath that, iron gates. A man was drawing them back. The coach gave a jerk, and we drove along the lane until we reached the house at the end. It was just like at Briar, though this house was smaller, and neater. Its windows had bars on them. I watched Maud, to see what she would do. She had put back her veil and was gazing from the window in her old dull way; but behind the dullness I thought I saw a rising kind of knowledge or dread.

That was all he said. I don't know if he said it to her, or to me. The coach made another turn, and stopped. Dr Graves and Dr Christie were there, waiting for us, with beside them a great stout woman, her sleeves pushed up to her elbows and her gown covered over with an apron of canvas, like a butcher's. Dr Christie came forward. He had a key like Gentleman's, and let up the lock from his side. Maud flinched at the sound. Gentleman put his hand upon her.

Dr Christie made a bow. "Good day," he said. "Mr Rivers. Miss Smith. Mrs Rivers, you remember me of course?"

He held out his hand.

There was a second, I think, of perfect stillness. I looked at him, and he nodded. "Mrs Rivers?" he said again. Then Gentleman leaned and caught hold of my arm. I thought at first he meant to keep me in my seat; then I understood that he was trying to press me from it. The doctor took my other arm. They got me to my feet. My shoes caught upon the steps. I said, "Wait! What are you doing? What --?"

He held it to me.

He waved his hand, and Dr Graves and the woman came forward. I said, "It's not me you want! What are you doing? Mrs Rivers? I'm Susan Smith! Gentleman! Gentleman, tell them!"

"Don't struggle, Mrs Rivers," said the doctor. "We are here to care for you."

Dr Christie shook his head.

"Still keeping up the old, sad fiction?" he said to Gentleman.

Gentleman nodded and said nothing, as if he were too unhappy to speak. I hope he was! He turned and took down one of the bags -- one of Maud's mother's bags. Dr Christie held me tighter. "Now," he said, "how can you be Susan Smith, late of Whelk Street, Mayfair? Don't you know there's no such place? Come, you do know it. And we shall have you admitting it, though it take us a year. Now, don't twist so, Mrs Rivers! You are spoiling your handsome dress."

It was in that second that I guessed, at last, the filthy trick that Gentleman had played on me.

"You sod," I said to him. "Can't you see what he's done? Can't you see the dodge of it? It ain't me you want, it's --"

He stood in the doorway of the coach, making it tilt. The doctor gripped me harder and his face grew stern.

"There's no place for words like those in my house, Mrs Rivers," he said.

I had struggled against his grip. At his words, I grew slack. I gazed at my sleeve of silk, and at my own arm, that had got plump and smooth with careful feeding; and then at the bag at my feet, with its letters of brass -- the M, and the L.

I howled.

"You bloody swine!" I cried, twisting again, and pulling towards him. "You fuckster! Oh!"

I still pulled, and he still held me; but now I looked past him, to the swaying coach.

Gentleman had moved back, his hand before his face. Beyond him, the light in bars upon her from the louvred blinds, sat Maud.

Her face was thin, her hair was dull. Her dress was worn with use, like a servant's dress. Her eyes were wild, with tears starting in them; but beyond the tears, her gaze was hard. Hard as marble, hard as brass. Hard as a pearl, and the grit that lies inside it.

I could not speak. She could, however. She said, in a trembling voice, not her own: "My own poor mistress. Oh! My heart is breaking!"

Dr Christie saw me looking. "Now, why do you stare?" he said. "You know your own maid, I think?"

You thought her a pigeon. Pigeon, my arse. That bitch knew everything. She had been in on it from the start.