Read Online Fingersmith by Sarah Waters - Free Book Online Page A

with Dainty, and we bumped about the kitchen for a half-an-hour—Gentleman all the time still calling, 'Go it, Johnny!' and 'Come up, boy! Come up!', and Mr Ibbs stopping once to rub a bit of butter on his lips, to keep the whistle sweet.
    Next day, at midday, was when I left them. I packed all my bits of stuff into the canvas-covered trunk and wore the plain brown dress and the cloak and, over my flat hair, a bonnet. I had learned as much as Gentleman could teach me after three days' work. I knew my story and my new name—Susan Smith. There was only one more thing that needed to be done, and as I sat taking my last meal in that kitchen—which was bread and dried meat, the meat rather too dried, and clinging to my gums—Gentleman did it. He brought from his bag a piece of paper and a pen and some ink, and wrote me out a character.
    He wrote it off in a moment. Of course, he was used to faking papers. He held it up for the ink to dry, then read it out. It began:
    'To whom it might concern. Lady Alice Dunraven, of Whelk Street, Mayfair, recommends Miss Susan Smith' —and it went on like that, I forget the rest of it, but it sounded all right to me. He placed it flat again and signed it in a lady's curling hand. Then he held it to Mrs Sucksby.
    'What do you think, Mrs S?' he said, smiling. 'Will that get Sue her situation?'
    But Mrs Sucksby said she couldn't hope to judge it.
    'You know best, dear boy,' she said, looking away.
    Of course, if we ever took help at Lant Street, it wasn't character we looked for so much as lack of it. There was a little dwarfish girl that used to come sometimes, to boil the babies' napkins and to wash the floors; but she was a thief. We couldn't have had honest girls come. They would have seen enough in three minutes of the business of the house to do for us all. We couldn't have had that.
    So Mrs Sucksby waved the paper away, and Gentleman read it through a second time, then winked at me, then folded it and sealed it and put it in my trunk. I swallowed the last of my dried meat and bread, and fastened my cloak. There was only Mrs Sucksby to say good-bye to. John Vroom and Dainty never got up before one. Mr Ibbs was gone to crack a safe at Bow: he had kissed my cheek an hour before, and given me a shilling. I put my hat on. It was a dull brown thing, like my dress. Mrs Sucksby set it straight. Then she put her hands to my face and smiled.
    'God bless you, Sue!' she said. 'You are making us rich!'
    But then her smile grew awful. I had never been parted from her before, for more than a day. She turned away, to hide her falling tears.
    'Take her quick,' she said to Gentleman. Take her quick, and don't let me see it!'
    And so he put his arm about my shoulders and led me from the house. He found a boy to walk behind us, carrying my trunk. He meant to take me to a. cab-stand and drive me to the station at Paddington, and see me on my train.
    The day was a miserable one. Even so, it was not so often I got to cross the water, and I said I should like to walk as far as Southwark Bridge, to look at the view. I had thought I should see all of London from there; but the fog grew thicker the further we went. At the bridge it seemed worst of all. You could see the black dome of St Paul's, the barges on the water; you could see all the dark things of the city, but not the fair—the fair were lost or made like shadows.
    'Queer thing, to think of the river down there,' said Gentleman, peering over the edge. He leaned, and spat.
    We had not bargained on the fog. It made the traffic slow to a crawl, and though we found a cab, after twenty minutes we paid the driver off and walked again. I had been meant to catch the one o'clock train; now, stepping fast across some great square, we heard that hour struck out, and then the quarter, and then the half—all maddeningly damp and half-hearted, they sounded, as if the clappers and the bells that rung them had been wound about with flannel.
    'Had we not rather turn