'Hush! Hush!' I said. 'You are married to him now. You must be different. You are a wife. You must— '
I fell silent. She lifted her head. Below, the light had been taken up and moved.
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.
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.
In the morning, Gentleman came to my room. He came in his shirtsleeves.
'She wants you, to dress her,' he said.
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.
Her face was smooth, but dark about the eyes. Her hands were bare. The yellow ring glittered. 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 103
list e n e d , a n d w a i t e d , t h e n a n s w e r e d a n d b l i n k e d , a s i f t h e q u e s t i o n , a n d t h e 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.
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.
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!' 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.
'Took it hard, have she?' she whispered. 'Maybe missing her ma?'
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.'
'Calm her?' she said then. 'You mean— ? Bless me! She ain't likely to break out— turn the pigs loose— set the place afire?'
'No, no,' I said. 'She is only— only too much in her head.'
'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.
'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?'
'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,
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'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?'
'I really think you are not well enough.'
'Not well? But, I am quite well— you must only ask Sue. Sue, won't you tell Mr Rivers how well I am?'
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.
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?'
'I don't know,' she said then. 'It is so strange here. I'm afraid, Richard— '
'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— '
'Mrs Cream hates me.'
'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?' I would not answer. 'Of course she would,' he said, with his hard blue eyes on mine. Maud looked at me, too, then looked away. Gentleman took her head in his hands and kissed her brow.
'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!'
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.
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.
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 105