Fingersmith Read Online Free

her mouth and screamed. She wore a ring, too large for her hand; she had wound a bit of thread about the finger beneath, and the thread was quite black.
    'You tickler!' she said.
    John smiled, and tapped with the point of his knife against a broken tooth. Mrs Sucksby said,
    'That's enough from you, or I'll knock your bloody head off. I won't have Sue made nervous.'
    I said at once, that if I thought I should be made nervous by an infant like John Vroom, I should cut my throat. John said he should like to cut it for me. Then Mrs Sucksby leaned from her chair and hit him—just as she had once leaned, on that other night, all that time before, and hit poor Flora; and as she had leaned and hit others, in the years in between—all for my sake.
    John looked for a second as if he should like to strike her back; then he looked at me, as if he should like to strike me harder. Then Dainty shifted in her seat, and he turned and struck her.
    'Beats me,' he said when he had done it, 'why everyone is so down on me.'
    Dainty had started to cry. She reached for his sleeve. 'Never mind their hard words, Johnny,' she said. 'I sticks to you, don't I?'
    'You sticks, all right,' he answered. 'Like shit to a shovel.' He pushed her hand away, and she sat rocking in her chair, huddled over the dog-skin coat and weeping into her stitches.
    'Hush now, Dainty,' said Mrs Sucksby. 'You are spoiling your nice work.'
    She cried for a minute. Then one of the boys at the brazier burned his finger on a hot coin, and started off swearing; and she screamed with laughter. John put another peanut to his mouth and spat the shell upon the floor.
    Then we sat quiet, for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Charley Wag lay before the fire and twitched, chasing hansoms in his sleep—his tail was kinked where a cab-wheel had caught it. I got out cards, for a game of Patience. Dainty sewed. Mrs Sucksby dozed. John sat perfectly idle; but would now and then look over at the cards I dealt, to tell me where to place them.
    'Jack of Diggers on the Bitch of Hearts,' he would say. Or, 'Lor! Ain't you slow?'
    'Ain't you hateful?' I would answer, keeping on with my own game. The pack was an old one, the cards as limp as rags. A man had been killed once, in a fight over a crooked game that was played with those cards. I set them out a final time and turned my chair a little, so that John might not see how they fell.
    And then, all at once, one of the babies started out of its slumber and began to cry, and Charley Wag woke up and gave a bark. There was a sudden gust of wind that made the fire leap high in the chimney, and the rain came harder upon the coals and made them hiss. Mrs Sucksby opened her eyes. 'What's that?'she said.
    'What's what?'said John.
    Then we heard it: a thump, in the passage that led to the back of the house. Then another thump came. Then the thumps became footsteps. The footsteps stopped at the kitchen door—there was a second of silence—and then, slow and heavy, a knock.
    Knock — knock — knock . Like that. Like the knocking on a door in a play, when the dead man's ghost comes back. Not a thief's knock, anyway: that is quick and light. You knew what sort of business it was, when you heard that. This business, however, might be anything, anything at all. This business might be bad.
    So we all thought. We looked at one another, and Mrs Sucksby reached into the cradle to draw the baby from it and stop its cries against her bosom; and John took hold of Charley Wag and held his jaws shut. The boys at the brazier fell silent as mice. Mr Ibbs said quietly, 'Anyone expected? Boys, put this lot away. Never mind your burning fingers. If it's the blues, we're done for.'
    They began picking at the sovereigns and the gold they had sweated from them, wrapping them in handkerchiefs, putting the handkerchiefs beneath their hats or in their trouser pockets. One of them—it was Mr Ibbs's oldest nephew, Phil—went quickly to the door and stood beside it, his back flat to