Fingersmith by Sarah Waters Page B

quick enough coming, you must speak to Mrs Stiles. But I'm sure, Miss Fee never called anyone idle.'
    Miss Fee was the Irish maid who had got sick with the scarlatina. It seemed very cruel to be supposed prouder than her, when I was only trying to be kind.
    But I said nothing. I thought, 'Miss Maud likes me, if you don't!'
    For she was the only one, of all of them, to have spared me a pleasant word; and suddenly I longed for the time to pass, not for its own sake, but as it would take me back to her.
    At least at Briar you always knew what hour it was. The twelve struck, and then the half, and I made my way to the back-stairs and hung about there until one of the parlourmaids went by, and she showed me the way to the library. It was a room on the first floor, that you reached from a gallery overlooking a great wood staircase and a hall; but it was all dark and dim and shabby, as it was everywhere in that house—you would never have thought, looking about you there, that you were right in the home of a tremendous scholar. By the door to the library, on a wooden shield, hung some creature's head with one glass eye: I stood and put my fingers to its little white teeth, waiting to hear the clock sound one. Through the door came Maud's voice—very faint, but slow and level, as though she might be reading to her uncle from a book.
    Then the hour sounded, and I lifted my hand and knocked. A man's thin voice called out for me to enter.
    I saw Maud first: she was sitting at a desk with a book before her, her hands upon the covers. Her hands were bare, she had her little white gloves laid neatly by, but she sat beside a shaded lamp, that threw all its light upon her fingers, and they seemed pale as ashes upon the page of print. Above her was a window. Its glass had yellow paint upon it. All about her, over all the walls of the room, were shelves; and the shelves had books on—you never saw so many. A stunning amount. How many stories does one man need? I looked at them and shuddered. Maud rose, closing the book that was before her. She took up the white gloves and drew them back on.
    She looked to her right, to the end of the room that, because of the open door, I could not see. A cross voice said,
    'What is it?'
    I pushed the door further, and saw another painted window, more shelves, more books, and a second great desk. This one was piled with papers, and had another shaded lamp. Behind it sat Mr Lilly, Maud's old uncle; and to describe him as I saw him then, is to tell everything.
    He wore a velvet coat, and a velvet cap, that had a stub of red wool jutting from it where a tassel might once have hung. In his hand there was a pen, that he held clear of the paper; and the hand itself was dark, as Maud's was fair— for it was stained all over with India ink, like a regular man's might be stained with tobacco. His hair, however, was white. His chin was shaved bare. His mouth was small and had no colour, but his tongue—that was hard and pointed—was almost black, from where he must have given a lick to his finger and thumb, when turning pages.
    His eyes were damp and feeble. Before them he had a pair of glasses, shaded green. He saw me and said,
    'Who the devil are you?'
    Maud worked at the buttons at her wrist.
    'This is my new maid, Uncle,' she said quietly. 'Miss Smith.'
    Behind Mr Lilly's green glasses, I saw his eyes screw themselves up and grow damper.
    Miss Smith,' he said, looking at me but talking to his niece. 'Is she a pa-Pist, like the last one?'
    'I don't know,' said Maud. 'I have not asked her. Are you a papist, Susan?'
    I didn't know what that was. But I said, 'No, miss. I don't think so.'
    Mr Lilly at once put his hand across his ear.
    'I don't care for her voice,' he said. 'Can't she be silent? Can't she be soft?'
    Maud smiled. 'She can, Uncle,' she said.
    'Then why is she here, disturbing me now?'
    'She has come to fetch me.'
    'To fetch you?' he said. 'Did the clock sound?'
    He put his hand to the fob of his