Fingersmith by Sarah Waters Read Free Book Online Page A

her? I blushed, and Gentleman saw. ‘Come now,’ he said, almost smiling. ‘Don’t say you’re squeamish?’
    I tossed my head, to show I wasn’t. He nodded, then took up a pair of the stockings, and then a pair of drawers. He placed them, dangling, over the seat of the kitchen chair.
    ‘What next?’ he asked me.
    I shrugged. ‘Her shimmy, I suppose.’
    ‘Her chemise, you must call it,’ he said. ‘And you must make sure to warm it, before she puts it on.’
    He took the shimmy up and held it close to the kitchen fire. Then he put it carefully above the drawers, over the back of the chair, as if the chair was wearing it.
    ‘Now, her corset,’ he said next. ‘She will want you to tie this for her, tight as you like. Come on, let’s see you do it.’
    He put the corset about the shimmy, with the laces at the back; and while he leaned upon the chair to hold it fast, he made me pull the laces and knot them in a bow. They left lines of red and white upon my palms, as if I had been whipped.
    ‘Why don’t she wear the kind of stays that fasten at the front, like a regular girl?’ said Dainty, watching.
    ‘Because then,’ said Gentleman, ‘she shouldn’t need a maid. And if she didn’t need a maid, she shouldn’t know she was a lady. Hey?’ He winked.
    After the corset came a camisole, and after that a dicky; then came a nine-hoop crinoline, and then more petticoats, this time of silk. Then Gentleman had Dainty run upstairs for a bottle of Mrs Sucksby’s scent, and he had me spray it where the splintered wood of the chair-back showed between the ribbons of the shimmy, that he said would be Miss Lilly’s throat.
    And all the time I must say:
    ‘Will you raise your arms, miss, for me to straighten this frill?’ and,
    ‘Do you care for it, miss, with a ruffle or a flounce?’ and,
    ‘Are you ready for it now, miss?’
    ‘Do you like it drawn tight?’
    ‘Should you like it to be tighter?’
    ‘Oh! Forgive me if I pinch.’

    At last, with all the bending and the fussing, I grew hot as a pig. Miss Lilly sat before us with her corset tied hard, her petticoats spread out about the floor, smelling fresh as a rose; but rather wanting, of course, about the shoulders and the neck.
    John said, ‘Don’t say much, do she?’ He had been sneaking glances at us all this time, while Mr Ibbs put the powder to his Bramah.
    ‘She’s a lady,’ said Gentleman, stroking his beard, ‘and naturally shy. But she’ll pick up like anything, with Sue and me to teach her. Won’t you, darling?’
    He squatted at the side of the chair and smoothed his fingers over the bulging skirts; then he dipped his hand beneath them, reaching high into the layers of silk. He did it so neatly, it looked to me as if he knew his way, all right; and as he reached higher his cheek grew pink, the silk gave a rustle, the crinoline bucked, the chair quivered hard upon the kitchen floor, the joints of its legs faintly shrieking. Then it was still.
    ‘There, you sweet little bitch,’ he said softly. He drew out his hand and held up a stocking. He passed it to me, and yawned. ‘Now, let’s say it’s bed-time.’
    John still watched us, saying nothing, only blinking and jiggling his leg. Dainty rubbed her eye, her hair half curled, smelling powerfully of toffee.
    I began at the ribbons at the waist of the dickies, then let loose the laces of the corset and eased it free.
    ‘Will you just lift your foot, miss, for me to take this from you?’
    ‘Will you breathe a little softer, miss? and then it will come.’

    He kept me working like that for an hour or more. Then he warmed up a flat-iron.
    ‘Spit on this, will you, Dainty?’ he said, holding it to her. She did; and when the spit gave a sizzle he took out a cigarette, and lit it on the iron’s hot base. Then, while he stood by and smoked, Mrs Sucksby—who had once, long ago, in the days before she ever thought of farming infants, been a mangling-woman in a laundry—showed me how a