'Mr Inker's daughter shall have those.' She takes my cloak from me, then draws the ribbons from my hair and brushes it with a broken comb. 'Tug all you like,' she says as I pull away. 'It shall only hurt you, it shan't harm me. Why, what a business those women made of your head! Anyone would have supposed them savages. How I'm to see you neat, after their work, I can't say. Now, look here.' She reaches beneath the bed. 'Let's see you use your chamber-pot. Come along, no foolish modesty. Do you think I never saw a little girl lift up her skirts and piddle?'
She folds her arms and watches me, and then she wets a cloth with water and washes my face and hands.
'I saw them do this for your mother, when I was parlourmaid here,' she says, pulling me about. 'She was a deal gratefuller than you are. Didn't they teach you manners, in that house of yours?'
I long for my little wooden wand: I would show her all I'd learned of manners, then!
But I have observed lunatics, too, and know how to struggle while only seeming to stand limp. At length she steps from me and wipes her hands.
'Lord, what a child! I hope your uncle knows his business, bringing you here. He seems to think he'll make a lady of you.'
'I don't want to be a lady!' I say. 'My uncle cannot make me.'
'I should say he can do what he likes, in his own house,' she answers. 'There now!
How late you've made us.'
There has come the stifled ringing of a bell, three times. It is a clock; I understand it, however, as a signal to the house, for I have been raised to the sound of similar bells, that told the lunatics to rise, to dress, to say their prayers, to take their dinners. I think, Now I shall see them!, but when we go from the room the house is still and quiet as before. Even the watchful servants have retired. Again my boots catch on the carpets.
'Walk softly!' says the woman in a whisper, pinching my arm. 'Here's your uncle's room, look.'
She knocks, then takes me in. He has had paint put on the windows years before, and the winter sun striking the glass, the room is lit strangely. The walls are dark with the spines of books. I think them a kind of frieze or carving. I know only two books, and 117
one is black and creased about the spine— that is the Bible. The other is a book of hymns thought suitable for the demented; and that is pink. I suppose all printed words to be true ones.
The woman sets me very near the door and stands at my back, her hands like claws upon my shoulders. The man they have called my uncle rises from behind his desk; its surface is hidden by a mess of papers. Upon his head is a velvet cap with a swinging tassel on a fraying thread. Before his eyes is another, paler, pair of coloured glasses.
'So, miss,' he says, stepping towards me, moving his jaw. The woman makes a curtsey.
'How is her temper, Mrs Stiles?' he asks her.
'Rather ill, sir.'
'I can see it, in her eye. Where are her gloves?'
'Threw them aside, sir. Wouldn't have them.'
My uncle comes close. 'An unhappy beginning. Give me your hand, Maud.'
I will not give it. The woman catches my arm about the wrist and lifts it. My hand is small, and plump at the knuckles. I am used to washing with madhouse soap, which is not kind. My nails are dark, with madhouse dirt. My uncle holds my finger-ends. His own hand has a smear or two of ink upon it. He shakes his head.
'Now, did I want a set of coarse fingers upon my books,' he says, 'I should have had Mrs Stiles bring me a nurse. I should not have given her a pair of gloves, to make those coarse hands softer. Your hands I shall have soft, however. See here, how we make children's hands soft, that are kept out of their gloves.' He puts his own hand to the pocket of his coat, and uncoils from it— one of those things, that bookmen use— a line of metal beads, bound tight with silk, for keeping down springing pages. He makes a loop of it, seeming to weigh it; then he brings it smartly down upon my dimpling knuckles. Then, with Mrs Stiles's assistance, he takes my other hand and does the same to that.
The beads sting like a whip; but the silk keeps the flesh from breaking. At the first blow I yelp, like a dog— in pain, in rage and sheer astonishment. Then, Mrs Stiles releasing my wrists, I put my fingers to my mouth and begin to weep.
My uncle winces at the sound. He returns the beads to his pocket and his hands flutter towards his ears.
'Keep silence, girl!' he says. I shake and cannot. Mrs Stiles pinches the flesh of my shoulder, and that makes me cry harder. Then my uncle draws forth the beads again; and at last I grow still.
'Well,' he says quietly. 'You shan't forget the gloves in future, hmm?'
I shake my head. He almost smiles. He looks at Mrs Stiles. 'You'll keep my niece mindful of her new duties? I want her made quite tame. I can't have storms and tantrums, here. Very well.' He waves his hand. 'Now, leave her with me. Don't stray too far, mind! You must be in reach of her, should she grow wild.'
Mrs Stiles makes a curtsey and— under cover of plucking my trembling shoulder as if to keep it from falling into a slouch— gives me another pinch. The yellow window grows bright, then dim, then bright again, as the wind sends clouds across the sun.
'Now,' says my uncle, when the housekeeper has gone. 'You know, do you not, why I have brought you here.'
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I put my crimson fingers to my face, to wipe my nose.
'To make a lady of me.'
He gives a quick, dry laugh.
'To make a secretary of you. What do you see here, all about these walls?'
'Wood, sir.'
'Books, girl,' he says. He goes and draws one from its place and turns it. The cover is black, by which I recognise it as a Bible. The others, I deduce, hold hymns. I suppose that hymn-books, after all,
might be bound in different hues, perhaps as suiting different qualities of madness. I feel this, as a great advance in thought.
My uncle keeps the book in his hand, close to his breast, and taps its spine.
'Do you see this title, girl?— Don't take a step! I asked you to read, not to prance.'
But the book is too far from me. I shake my head, and feel my tears return.
'Ha!' cries my uncle, seeing my distress. 'I should say you can't! Look down, miss, at the floor. Down! Further! Do you see that hand, beside your shoe? That hand was set there at my word, after consultation with an oculist— an eye-doctor. These are uncommon books, Miss Maud, and not for ordinary gazes. Let me see you step once past that pointing finger, and I shall use you as I would a servant of the house, caught doing the same— I shall whip your eyes until they bleed. That hand marks the bounds of innocence here. Cross it you shall, in time; but at my word, and when you are ready.
You understand me, hmm?'
I do not. How could I? But I am already grown cautious, and nod as if I do. He puts the book back in its place, lingering a moment over the-aligning of the spine upon the shelf.
The spine is a fine one, and— I will know it well, in time— a favourite of his. The title is—
But now I run ahead of my own innocence; which is vouchsafed to me a little while yet.
After my uncle has spoken he seems to forget me. I stand for another quarter- hour before he lifts his head and catches sight of me, and waves me from the room. I struggle a moment with the iron handle of his door, making him wince against the grinding of the lever; and when I close it, Mrs Stiles darts from the gloom to lead me back upstairs. 'I suppose you're hungry,' she says, as we walk. 'Little girls always are. I should say you'd be grateful for a white egg now.'
I am hungry, but will not admit to it. But she rings for a girl to come, and the girl brings a biscuit and a glass of sweet red wine. She sets them down before me, and smiles; and the smile is harder to
bear, somehow, than a slap would have been. I am afraid I will weep again. But I swallow my tears with my dry biscuit, and the girl and Mrs Stiles stand together, whispering and watching. Then they leave me quite alone. The room grows dark. I lie upon the sofa with my head upon a cushion, and pull my own little cloak over myself, with my own little whipped, red hands. The wine makes me sleep. When I wake again, I wake to shifting shadows, and to Mrs Stiles at the door, bringing a lamp. I wake with a terrible fear, and a sense of many hours having passed. I think the bell has recently 119