Notes: This is a post Fingersmith story and assumes that Maud and Sue never slept together or revealed their feelings for one another.

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Absolution

By

Archaeobard

I was seventy-eight years old before I admitted it, and then only because my hand was forced. Briar had never looked so well, Sue had over the years been masterful at its reconstruction. I had stayed on at the house since that fateful time so long ago. Sue would not hear of me leaving although I tried, believe me, many a time, yet I was always dissuaded by some paltry reason Sue would throw at me at the last minute. She never married, a fact for which I was eternally grateful though there was never a lack of young men on either of our arms at the balls. I would have despised myself for losing her that way. It is strange the secrets we carry to old age and it was all very well to call my loneliness ‘sex feeling’, but I can honestly say my thoughts never strayed to a man ¹.

I read of sexual inversion, perversion, tribadism, Urnings, and became over the years quite a scholar on the subject, or scholar enough to catalogue myself as Sue’s uncle had classified his poisons of which I was so clearly one. I took to keeping a journal which I found curtailed my sexual hysteria. I kept this journal for nearly sixty years and it contained all manner of thoughts and conversations never spoken. That was until Sue stood one morning with my newest volume in her hands and a look upon her face. It was the summer of 1922 and I felt my life was ending.

"What is this?"

"It’s personal, dear."

"I can see that," she said, for I had taught her to read.

"Have..." I took a breath to steady myself, "have you read much of it?"

Her hand shook, "I have read enough of it."

I smiled at her, at the stone-grey hair that framed her face, "I see."

"May I ask," she said, "of whom you write?"

Her speech too had changed over time and she was truly the lady of her birth.

"No you may not," I said and held out my hand for the volume. She came to me across the room but did not relinquish the book, instead she read from it.

"’You soundless creature of sorrow, you who favour me with kisses of absolution know nothing of these lips that answer with zeal though I have lain and wept and prayed for innocence.’ It really is quite good."

"Thank you," I said and gestured again for the volume.

"It’s a woman, isn’t it?"

"Why ever would you think that?"

"Because there have been no men."

I pursed my lips, "There have been no women either."

"Of course not, I would have known about them, having lived these last sixty years with you. There has been no woman, save me."

There was a sparkle to her eye and a horrified look came upon my face, "You think this is about you?"

"Tell me it is not and I shall forget all about it."

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words would not come, the lie would not form, so instead I said nothing.

"So it is about me."

"Susan, really, we are far too old to discuss such things!"

"But not too old to write about them apparently," her lip twitched.

I looked at her in the eye, "You are impossible!"

"And you are in love with me."

What could I say? Could I deny it outright and deny myself, deny all the years I had spent tied to her?

"I do love you, yes."

"That is not what I said," she frowned around the words and sat by me. She placed the book upon my knee and turned with a critical eye.

"It is how I choose to answer."

She nodded slowly, "So, all these years that I have watched and waited, seeing you glimpse with only half an eye and a full heart have been for nothing then. You love me…like a sister."

"No…" I could not think how to answer and then I remembered a book I had read, so I paraphrased, " we are two women, whom Providence has denied nearer ties and by a wide substitution we have made the best of fate…we sustain one another with a closeness often greater than that of sisters, and it is honourable ²."

"Bollocks."

"Susan!" You can take the girl out of the Borough, but you cannot, apparently, take the Borough out of the girl.

"You, Maud Sucksby," it still sounded strange to hear that name, "are in love with me, and have been for years. You must know what they say of us in the city, that we are inverts, that you come to my bed each night and we do unspeakable things."

I gaped, I blushed as I had not in years for I had thought on the unspeakable things quite often. "Surely not," I said softly.

She nodded, "Oh yes," she said, "have you ever wondered why I never married?"

"You cherish your independence."

"I cherish you."

Her hand had taken mine and her knuckles stood out white against her thinning flesh. The blemish of age sat upon her skin and yet I saw the hands of a much younger woman, wide eyed and innocent. I saw her look, felt her touch through the years, so many years, and tears sprang unbidden.

"You never married because of me?"

She brushed at my tears and turned my face to her own, "That’s what I said."

"I have been a very stupid old woman, haven’t I?"

She nodded, "And you call me impossible."

End.