Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [150]
The girl shook her head.
'Not Mrs. Morgan's, surely?'
Another weary shake.
A dreadful thought occurred to Mrs. Jones. 'From us, was it? Would you stoop to that? Did you steal things from your own family to sell? For we are your family, you know; we're all you've got.'
The girl stared back in furious denial. Were those tears in her eyes, or just the shimmer of candlelight? 'I stole nothing. It's mine, I swear,' she said shrilly. 'Every penny of it.'
'But where did it come from?'
'What does it matter?' Mary's voice rose to a shriek. 'Money always comes from somewhere. From everywhere, more like. Think how many pockets these coins have lain in. What matters is that I earned it.'
'Honestly?'
A long pause. 'Yes.'
'You're a liar,' said Mrs. Jones. Bile in her throat; she swallowed it down. 'I don't know what else you are. I don't think I want to know.'
Mary shrugged again, mechanically.
With a few desperate sweeps, Mrs. Jones shovelled the coins into her apron. Mary's hand reached out, and Mrs. Jones slapped it out of the way, without thinking. The girl's fingers stung from the touch. 'Do you know the law of this land, Mary Saunders?' She paused to strain for a breath; her apron sagged, heavy with coin. 'You'll hang if you're proved to have stolen so much as a handkerchief.'
'I'm not a thief,' said the girl through her teeth.
Mrs. Jones ran to the door, hunched over her apron. She turned once, her voice shaking, to say: 'Say your prayers.'
The doors cracked shut behind her.
Morning came in Mary's window as on any other day.
She fitted her stays on over her bruised back, pulling them so tight she hissed with pain.
All day she worked in the shop, with her eyes low, sweating through the September heat. All the movements of her body seemed to say, Remember. Remember what a good maid I am. Remember your promise to treat me as a mother.
Mrs. Jones's face was waxy. There was no chit-chat over their sewing today; they didn't exchange a word except to ask for the scissors or thread. All their intimacy was turned to stone. Mary's hand shook as she worked. She felt perpetually on the verge of tears. Her thoughts went out like arrows: Trust me. I can't tell you where the money came from. But trust me anyway.
They put the last stitches in the lowered neckline of Mrs. Morgan's white velvet slammerkin without a word.
By dinner time Mary's head was tolling like a bell. She pushed her food around her plate. Her thoughts moved sluggishly. She knew she was being a fool. She could hear Doll nagging, somewhere behind her eyes. Own up to whoring, my dear, and all you'll get is a whipping at the cart's tail or a spell in the lock-up at worst. But if this mistress of yours turns you in for thievery, it's the hempen halter for you, girl.
There was something Doll wouldn't understand, though: how much Mary wanted to stay. Here, in the stuffy clutter of a small sewing room in the Joneses' house on Inch Lane in the town of Monmouth in England or Wales or somewhere in between. Despite the iciness of her mistress's eyes; despite everything that had happened. Till this endless afternoon, Mary had never quite known the truth: this was home.
And how could she stay, if she ever said those words? Men, and Crow's Nest, and a shilling a go. There was no nice way to put it. Once those words were spoken, all was lost. Mrs. Jones would have had to be a different woman to bear the sound of those words. There was no room for a whore in this family.
That Sunday Mary went to church with the Joneses, even though her skin was mottled with heat and there were spots in front of her eyes. She kneeled meekly, remembering the pose from the Magdalen. The sermon was on patience. The Reverend Cadwaladyr gripped his pulpit with sweaty hands and exhorted each of his parishioners to temper their misfortunes by meek and Christian resignation.