Fingersmith

'I am sorry,' he says, 'to have been obliged to remind you of it again. It means nothing to me, except as it has led to your coming to Briar and being kept by your uncle in s u c h a c u r i o u s w a y . I t i s h e , I t h i n k , w h o h a s p r o f i t e d f r o m y o u r m o t h e r ' s misfortune.— You'll forgive my speaking plainly. I am a sort of villain, and know other

villains best. Your uncle is the worst kind, for he keeps to his own house, where his villainy passes as an old man's quirk. Don't tell me you love him,' he adds quickly, seeing my face, 'for manners' sake. I know you are above them. That is why I have come like this. We make our own manners, you and I; or take the ones that suit us.

But for now, will you sit and let me speak with you, as a gentleman to a lady?'

He gestures and, after a second— as if we might be awaiting the maid and the tea- tray— w e t a k e o u r p l a c e s o n t h e s o f a . M y d a r k c l o a k g a p e s a n d s h o w s m y nightgown. He turns his eyes while I draw close the folds.

'Now, to tell you what I know,' he says.

'I know you gain nothing unless you marry. I first had it from Hawtrey. They speak about you— perhaps you know— in the shady bookshops and publishers' houses of London and Paris. They speak about you, as of some fabulous creature: the handsome girl at Briar, whom Lilly has trained, like a chattering monkey, to recite voluptuous texts for gentlemen— perhaps to do worse. I needn't tell you all they say, I suppose you can guess it. That's nothing to me.' He holds my gaze, then looks away. 'Hawtrey, at least, is a little kinder; and thinks me honest, which is more to our point. He told me, in a pitying sort of way, a little of your life— your unfortunate mother— y o u r expectations, the conditions attached. Well, one hears of such girls, when one is a 142

bachelor; perhaps not one in a hundred is worth the pursuit. . . But Hawtrey was right.

I have made enquiries into your mother's fortune, and you are worth— well, do you know what you are worth, Miss Lilly?'

I hesitate, then shake my head. He names the figure. It is several hundred times the value of the costliest book upon my uncle's shelves; and many thousand times the price of the cheapest. This is the only measure of value I know.

'It is a great sum,' says Mr Rivers, watching my face.

I nod.

'It shall be ours,' he says, 'if we marry'

I say nothing.

'Let me be honest,' he goes on. 'I came to Briar, meaning to get you in the ordinary way— I mean, seduce you from your uncle's house, secure your fortune, perhaps dispose of you after. I saw in ten minutes what your life has made of you, and knew I should never achieve it. More, I understood that to seduce you would be to insult you— to make you only a different kind of captive. I don't wish to do that.

I wish rather to free you.'

'You are very gallant,' I say. 'Suppose I don't care to be freed?'

He answers simply: 'I think you long for it.'

Then I turn my face— afraid that the beating of blood, across my cheek, will betray me to him. My voice I make steady. I say, 'You forget, my longings count for nothing here. As well might my uncle's books long to leap from their presses. He has made me like them— '

'Yes, yes,' he says, in impatience. 'You have said as much to me already. I think perhaps you say it often. But, what can such a phrase mean? You are seventeen. I am twenty-eight, and believed for many years I should be rich now, and idle. Instead I am what you see me: a scoundrel, not too poor in pocket, but nor too easy in it that I shan't be scrambling to line it for a little time to come. Do you think yourself weary?

Think how weary am I! I have done many gross deeds, and thought each one the last.

Believe me: I have some knowledge of the time that may be misspent, clinging to fictions and supposing them truths.'

He has lifted his hand to his head, and now puts back his hair from his brow; and his pallor, and the dark about his eye, seem suddenly to age him. His collar is soft, and creased from the grip of his neck-tie. His beard has a single strand of grey. His throat bulges queerly, as men's throats do: as if inviting the blow that will crush it.

I say, 'This is madness. I think you are mad— to come here, to confess yourself a villain, to suppose me willing to receive you.'

'And yet you have received me. You receive me still. You have not called for your maid.'

'You intrigue me. You have seen for yourself, the evenness of my days here.'

'You seek a distraction from those? Why not give them up, for ever? So you shall— like that, in a moment! gone!— when you marry me.'

I shake my head. 'I think you cannot be serious.'

'I am, however.'

'You know my age. You know my uncle would never permit you to take me.'

143

He shrugs, speaks lightly. 'We shall resort, of course, to devious methods.'

'You wish to make a villain of me, too?'

He nods. 'I do. But then, I think you are half a villain already.— Don't look like that.

Don't suppose I am joking. You don't know all.' He has grown serious. 'I am offering you something very great and strange. Not the commonplace subjection of a wife to a husband— that servitude, to lawful ravishment and theft, that the world terms wedlock. I shan't ask you for that, that is not what I mean. I am speaking, rather, of liberty. A liberty of a kind not often granted to the members of your sex.'

'Yet to be achieved'— I almost laugh— 'by a marriage?'

'To be achieved by a ceremony of marriage, performed under certain unusual conditions.' Again he smooths his hair, and swallows; and I see at last that he is nervous— more nervous than I. He leans closer. He says, 'I suppose you're not squeamish, or soft about the heart, as another girl might be? I suppose your maid is really sleeping, and not listening at the door?'

I think of Agnes, of Agnes's bruises; but say nothing, only watch him. He passes his hand across his mouth.

'God help me, Miss Lilly, if I have misjudged you!' he says. 'Now, listen.'

This is his plan. He means to bring a girl to Briar, from London, and install her as my maid. He means to use her, then cheat her. He says he has a girl in mind, a girl of my years and colouring. A sort of thief— not over-scrupulous, not too clever in her ways, he says; he thinks he will secure her with the promise of some slight share in the fortune— 'Say, two or three thousand. I don't believe she'll have the ambition to ask for more. Her set are a small set, as crooks go; though, like crooks everywhere, think themselves grander.' He shrugs. The sum means nothing, after alclass="underline" for he will agree to whatever she asks for; and she will not see a shilling of it. She will suppose me an innocent, and believe herself assisting in my seduction. She will persuade me, first, into marriage with him, then into a— he hesitates, before admitting the word— a madhouse. But, there she will take my place. She will protest— he hopes she will!— for the more she does, the more the madhouse keepers will read it as a form of lunacy; and so keep her the closer.

'And with her, Miss Lilly,' he says finally, 'they keep close your name, your history as your mother's daughter, your uncle's niece— in short, all that marks you as yourself.

Think of it! They will pluck from your shoulders the weight of your life, as a servant would lift free your cloak; and you shall make your naked, invisible way to any part of the world you choose— to any new life— and there re-clothe yourself to suit your fancy.'

This is the liberty— the rare and sinister liberty— he has come to Briar to offer. For payment he wants my trust, my promise, my future silence; and one half of my fortune.

When he has finished I sit not speaking, my face turned from his, for almost a minute.