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.
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 chamberpot, the sheets on the bed. 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. 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, show-off 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.
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.
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.
He at least knew what a dreadful business he was about, the bloody villain.
At last he sent for the doctor to come.
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.
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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.
I think any doctor would have done what that one did, hearing Gentleman's story, and seeing Maud, and me, as we were then.
He came with another man— another doctor, his assistant. You need two doctors'
w o r d s t o p u t a l a d y a w a y . T h e i r h o u s e w a s n e a r R e a d i n g . T h e i r c o a c h w a s 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.
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.
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.'
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?'
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.'
I said, 'Don't let them hurt her.'
'Hurt her?' He almost laughed. 'These men are scoundrels. They like to keep their lunatics safe. They'd have them in fire-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.'
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'Good girl. I shall bring them first to you.'
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.
'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.'
'Yes,' I said. 'You mean, my mistress.'
'Ah,' he said again. 'Your mistress. Now, refresh my memory. Who is she?'
'Mrs Rivers,' I said. 'That was Miss Lilly.'
'Mrs Rivers, that was Miss Lilly. Ah.'
He nodded. The silent doctor— Dr Graves— took out a pencil and a book. The first one went on:
'Your mistress. And you are— ?'
'Her maid, sir.'
'Of course. And what is your name?'
Dr Graves held his pencil, ready to write. Gentleman caught my eye, and nodded.
'Susan Smith, sir,' I said.
Dr Christie looked at me harder. 'You seemed to hesitate,' he said. 'That is your name, you are quite sure?'
'I should say I know my own name!' I said.
'Of course.'