Fingersmith Read Online Free Page B

it—first at the knuckles, and then at the tips. Mrs Sucksby said,
    'Get up out of that chair, John, and let Gentleman sit down.'
    John looked like thunder for a minute, then rose and took Dainty's stool. Gentleman sat, and spread his legs towards the fire. He was tall, and his legs were long. He was seven- or eight-and-twenty. Beside him, John looked about six.
    Mrs Sucksby kept her eyes upon him while he yawned and rubbed his face. Then he met her gaze, and smiled.
    'Well, well,' he said. 'How's business?'
    'Pretty sweet,' she answered. The baby lay still, and she patted it as she had used to pat me. Gentleman nodded to it.
    'And this little bud,' he said: 'is it farm, or is it family?'
    'Farm, of course,' she said.
    'A he-bud, or a she-bud?'
    'A he-bud, bless his gums! Another poor motherless infant what I shall be bringing up by hand.'
    Gentleman leaned towards her.
    'Lucky boy!' he said, and winked.
    Mrs Sucksby cried, 'Oh!' and turned pink as a rose. 'You sauce-box!'
    Nancy or not, he could certainly make a lady blush.
    We called him Gentleman, because he really was a gent—had been, he said, to a real gent's school, and had a father and a mother and a sister—all swells— whose heart he had just about broke. He had had money once, and lost it all gambling; his pa said he should never have another cent of the family fortune; and so he was obliged to get money the old-fashioned way, by thievery and dodging. He took to the life so well, however, we all said there must have been bad blood way back in that family, that had all come out in him.
    He could be quite the painter when he chose, and had done a little work in the forgery line, at Paris; when that fell through, I think he spent a year putting French books into English—or English books into French—anyway, putting them slightly different each time, and pinning different titles on them, and so making one old story pass as twenty brand-new ones. Mostly, however, he worked as a confidence-man, and as a sharper at the grand casinos—for of course, he could mix with Society, and seem honest as the rest. The ladies especially would go quite wild for him. He had three times been nearly married to some rich heiress, but every time the father in the case had grown suspicious and the deal had fallen through. He had ruined many people by selling them stock from counterfeit banks. He was handsome as a plum, and Mrs Sucksby fairly doted on him. He came to Lant Street about once a year, bringing poke to Mr Ibbs, and picking up bad coin, cautions, and tips.
    I supposed he had come bringing poke with him, now; and so, it seemed, did Mrs Sucksby, for once he had grown warm again before the fire and Dainty had given him tea, with rum in it, she placed the sleeping baby back in its cradle and smoothed her skirt across her lap and said,
    'Well now, Gentleman, this is a pleasure all right. We didn't look for you for another month or two. Have you something with you, as Mr Ibbs will like the look of?'
    Gentleman shook his head. 'Nothing for Mr Ibbs, I am afraid.'
    'What, nothing? Do you hear that, Mr Ibbs?'
    'Very sad,' said Mr Ibbs, from his place at the brazier.
    Mrs Sucksby grew confidential. 'Have you something, then, for me?'
    But Gentleman shook his head again.
    'Not for you, either, Mrs S,' he said. 'Not for you; not for Garibaldi here' (meaning John); 'not for Dainty, nor for Phil and the boys; nor even for Charley Wag.'
    He said this, going all about the room with his eyes; and finally looking at me, and then saying nothing. I had taken up the scattered playing-cards, and was sorting them back into their suits. When I saw him gazing—and, besides him, John and Dainty, and Mrs Sucksby, still quite pink in the face, also looking my way—I put the cards down. He at once reached over and picked them up, and started shuffling. He was that kind of man, whose hands must always be busy.
    'Well, Sue,' he said, his eyes still upon me. His eyes were a very clear blue.
    'Well,