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"Is this desire? How queer that I,of all people, should not know! But I thought desire smaller, neater; I supposed it bound to its organs as taste is bound to the mouth, vision to the eye. This feeling haunts and inhabits me, like a sickness. It covers me, like skin."(277)- using queer in the context of 'strange' and 'unfamiliar' as she was naive to the feeling of desire. She compares her study of desire through literature to the real life experience.
Queer could also be seen in the context of the unusual relationship between two women. it is described as an uneasy feeling which can be linked to the gothic and the taboo element of homosexuality and voiced female sexuality.

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""I aim to marry this girl and take her fortune. I aim to steal her" - he slid the card to one side - "from under her uncle's nose. I aim in a fair way to doing it already, as you have heard; but she's a queer sort of girl, and can't be trusted to herself" (26)
Maud's queerness reflects her isolation, the only one of her age around Briar and her strangeness.

"She had tugged her old brown dress off me and put the queer orange one over my head, and she made me stand before the glass while she sorted the hooks." (102)
The performance of relationships between Maud and Sue - playing on the mistress/ servant relationship. Queer here relays the sameness and difference between the women.

"Queer, the thing you think as such times. I watched her another minute, then went to the door" (460)
Queer can be both external - strange objects, the uncanny, to the internal manifestation of thoughts and to an extent, desire. Seen as what's other, and unorthodox.

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Her gaze grew strange. I said, 'You love him, don't you?' She turned a little, and still looked queer, and would not answer. Then she said, 'I don't know.' (125)
Maud is caught between her desire of freedom and her love for Sue. Her queer gaze kind of mirrors back what is going on inside her.
At page 278 we get to know that Maud is actually shocked that Sue is able to betray

I opened my eyes and found her moving queerly about the room. 'Are you there?' she said, when she heard me stirring; and she came back to my side and lay and shook. Sometimes she would reach for me. When her hands came against me, though, she'd drawn them away. Sometimes she would weep. Or she would ask queer questions. 'Am I real? Do you see me? Am I real?' (137)

The first queer refers to how she deals with the pressure of her decision what is the best to do. She seems to channel all the pressure to bodily movements.
The second 'queer' refers to the live essential questions Maud brings up. She seems to be psychotic.

'Do you feel it?' The words sounded queer; as if the kiss had done something to my tongue. She did not answer. (141)

That kissing a woman could arouse a sexual desire / feeling in another woman is perceived to be unconventional.

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"She stood a long time looking at the curling hand,  and once sneaked a glance at me; and my heart beat a little fast then, to think she might have noticed something queer" (p.68)

"Though I also thought that, if she was, then it was queer that Maud kept her picture locked up in a box, and did not wear it"(p.73)

"But what did I know, about that? Besides of it the old man was so queer and had given me such a turn, i thought that anything that might have been true." (p.77)

"Her gaze grew strange. I said, 'You love him, don't you?' She turned a little, and still looked queer, and would not answer. 'Then she said, I don't know'"(p.125)

"Only once i felt her hesitate, and then I turned and found her gazing at the house, with a queer expression that seemed half fearful and yet was almost a smile." (p.151)

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Marie (Sorry I am late, I am on my way.)

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Marie (Sorry I am late, I am on my way.)

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There were four beds in it, along iwth a cot where a nurse slept. Three of the bes had women beside them, getting dressed. One bed was bare.
"This is to be yours," said Nurse Spiller, taking me to it. It was placed very near the nurse's cot. This is where we puts out questionable ladies. Try a queer trick here, Nurse Bacon shall know all about it. Shan't you, Nurse Bacon?" (408)

In this sense, the nurses are warning her not to try to escape or get "too excited" against doctor's orders. Being queer in this sense could mean something out of the ordinary that goes against authority, sort of deviance. It was also mentioned somewhere in connection to the thieves and their livestyle.

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Michael & Zuzanna
Michael & Zuzanna
"She stood a long time looking at the curling hand, and once sneaked a glance at me; and my heart beat a little fast then, to think she might have noticed something queer there" (68)

Sedgwick's definition of 'queer' meaning across is applicable here, particularly concerning sexuality.

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"She's an heiress Johnny: her fortune is certain, the uncle can't touch it; but it comes with a queer condition attached. (24)

The term here is used to describe unusual circumstances.

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This isn't an actual quote but we found an interesting article by Claire O'Callaghan where she discusses the 'queering' of heteronormative spaces. In Fingersmith, the mansion is a hetero-patriarchal governed space but Maud and Sue 'queer' the bedroom when sue shows Maude what a man does to a woman on her wedding night. This ties in with the theme of masquerading since Sue is acting like a male. Normally lesbian encounters would occur outside of hetero-patriachal spaces.

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p24 "He lives so quietly and so queerly, he scarcely knows  what money's for."
Waters is using the term queer here to purely mean unusual. However the imprisonment of the young girl and the gloomy setting of Briar follows traditional Gothic conventions.

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Eleanor & Hannah                        "This was the queerest, quietest place I ever saw." (79)  Waters is using the term 'queerest' to describe something that is strange and unfamiliar. 

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Eleanor & Hannah                        "This was the queerest, quietest place I ever saw." (79)  Waters is using the term 'queerest' to describe something that is strange and unfamiliar. 

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"'Do you feel it?' The words sounded queer; as if the kiss had done something to my tongue" (141) - Here Waters uses the term "queer" in a literal sense and a contemporary sense. She uses it to describe an unfamiliar sensation and an exploration of Sue's sexuality.

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Page 151: "Only once I felt her hesitate, and then I turned and found her gazing at the house, with a queer expression that seemed half-fearful and yet was almost a smile.". Here the meaning of queer is alluding to mystifying. What she felt when she saw the house.

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Page 15: "But he was such a queer-looking child, no-one would take him off Mrs Sucksby's hands [...] even then he was a devil to get rid of" Here the meaning of queer is signalling us to Johns abnormal and freakish appearance. It also has the meaning of unorthodox since Waters says John was a 'devil' to get rid of.

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Eleanor & Hannah "Though I also thought that , if she was, then it was queer that Maud kept her picture locked up in a box, and did not wear it" (73). The meaning of queer here is referring to Sue's thoughts about Maud's strange/odd behaviour towards her Mother's picture.

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Eleanor & Hannah "Though I also thought that , if she was, then it was queer that Maud kept her picture locked up in a box, and did not wear it" (73). The meaning of queer here is referring to Sue's thoughts about Maud's strange/odd behaviour towards her Mother's picture.

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Page 13: "The idea made me shiver, rather; for it was queer to think of being loved, not just for my own sake, but for someone's i never knew..." Here the meaning of queer is alluding to something strange, the feeling of being loved by her birth mother who she never even met.

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Page 50. "Queer thing, to think of the river down there,' said Gentleman" - uses queer in the literal meaning as strange or odd.
Page 547-548.  "She said, 'it is filled with all the words for how I want you ..." - The ending subverts the conventional Victorian novel as it fulfils the literal meaning of queer.  The assumed happiness of the protagonists are questionable as  society would not have agreed with a lesbian couple despite the characters wealth.

Waters is using a conscious effort to use the term queer as it was originally intended in the Victorian era.

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"She stood a long time looking at the curling hand, and once sneaked a glance at me; and my heart beat a little fast then, to think she might have noticed something queer there" (68)

Sedgwick's definition of 'queer' meaning across is applicable here, particularly concerning sexuality.