Fingersmith Read Online Free PDF Page B

the face, every time my fingers stray too near her lady’s, or my breath comes too warm upon her little white cheek. I thought her a marvellous prude; it turns out she had the scarlet fever—is at this moment dying of it, poor bitch. Now my lady has no chaperon but the housekeeper—and the housekeeper is too busy to sit at lessons. The lessons, therefore, must end, the paints are left to dry upon their palette. Now I only see Miss at supper, at her uncle’s side; and sometimes, if I pass her chamber door, I hear her sighing.’
    ‘And just,’ said Mr Ibbs, ‘as you was getting on so nicely.’
    ‘Just so,’ said Gentleman. ‘Just so.’
    ‘Poor lady!’ said Dainty. Her eyes had tears in them. She could cry at anything. ‘And her quite a peach, you say? About the figure and the face?’
    Gentleman looked careless. ‘She can fill a man’s eye, I suppose,’ he said, with a shrug.
    John laughed. ‘I should like to fill her eye!’
    ‘I should like to fill yours,’ said Gentleman, steadily. Then he blinked. ‘With my fist, I mean.’
    John’s cheek grew dark, and he jumped to his feet. ‘I should like to see you try it!’
    Mr Ibbs lifted his hands. ‘Boys! Boys! That’s enough! I won’t have it, before ladies and kids! John, sit down and stop fucking about. Gentleman, you promised us your story; what we’ve had so far has been so much pastry. Where’s the meat, son? Where’s the meat? And, more to our point, how is Susie to help cook it?’
    John kicked the leg of his stool, then sat. Gentleman had taken out a packet of cigarettes. We waited, while he found a match and struck it. We watched the flare of the sulphur in his eyes. Then he leaned to the table again and touched the three cards he had laid there, putting straight their edges.
    ‘You want the meat,’ he said. ‘Very well, here it is.’ He tapped the Queen of Hearts. ‘I aim to marry this girl and take her fortune. I aim to steal her’—he slid the card to one side—‘from under her uncle’s nose. I am in a fair way to doing it already, as you have heard; but she’s a queer sort of girl, and can’t be trusted to herself—and should she take some clever, hard woman for her new servant, why then I’m ruined. I have come to London to collect a set of bindings for the old man’s albums. I want to send Sue back before me. I want to set her up there as the lady’s maid, so that she might help me woo her.’
    He caught my eye. He still played idly with the card, with one pale hand. Now he lowered his voice.
    ‘And there’s something else,’ he said, ‘that I shall need Sue’s help with. Once I have married this girl, I shan’t want her about me. I know a man who will take her off my hands. He has a house, where he’ll keep her. It’s a madhouse. He’ll keep her close. So close, perhaps . . .’ He did not finish, but turned the card face down, and kept his fingers on its back. ‘I must only marry her,’ he said, ‘and—as Johnny would say—I must jiggle her, once, for the sake of the cash. Then I’ll take her, unsuspecting, to the madhouse gates. Where’s the harm? Haven’t I said, she’s half-simple already? But I want to be sure. I shall need Sue by her to keep her simple; and to persuade her, in her simpleness, into the plot.’
    He drew again upon his cigarette and, as they had before, everyone turned their eyes on me. Everyone that is, save Mrs Sucksby. She had listened, saying nothing, while Gentleman spoke. I had watched her pour a little of her tea out of her cup into her saucer, then swill it about the china and finally raise it to her mouth, while the story went on. She could never bear hot tea, she said it hardened the lips. And certainly, I don’t believe I ever knew a grown-up woman with lips as soft as hers.
    Now, in the silence, she put her cup and saucer down, then drew out her handkerchief and wiped her mouth. She looked at Gentleman, and finally spoke.
    ‘Why Sue,’ she said, ‘of all the girls