Spider Light (4 page)

Richard was lying on the floor of the big sitting room in a muddle of overturned furniture, his bloodied fingerprints all over the piano keyboard where he had tried to clutch onto it. The sheet music of the
Caprice
suite–which had occupied most of his concentration for the past fortnight–had lain on the piano. It was unreadable because Richard had been stabbed several times and the final thrust had gone into the caratoid artery so that blood had sprayed everywhere.

He had bled to death while Antonia was drinking wine and laughing with Jonathan, and Antonia had hated Paganini’s music ever since.

Thomasina Forrester did not much care for music. A lot of time-wasting and flummery. But the thing was that Maud liked music. In fact music played quite a big part in Maud’s life–piano lessons and practise, to say nothing of unutterably tedious musical evenings at Maud’s house when guests had perforce to listen to recitals and solos–and so it looked as if music would have to play a big part in Thomasina’s life as well. But she would accept that and cope with it. She would accept and cope with anything if it meant getting Maud in her bed.

It was remarkable that after all these years of love ’em and leave ’em Thomasina should find herself bowled over, knocked for a loop by a pretty face and a sweet smile, but so it was. Maud Lincoln. Utter perfection. Quantities of fair fluffy hair, a china-doll complexion and a bed-post waist. And just seventeen. A delightful age for a girl, seventeen. Fresh, unspoiled.
Ripe
…The smile that very few people saw curved Thomasina’s lips as she considered Maud Lincoln’s unspoiled freshness. Rather a pity about the name, however. Gardens and black-bat nights, and a green sound to the surname. With a face like that she should be called something more lyrical: Imogen or Daphnis or Heloise. Still, what was in a name? And once the bedroom lights were out and you were in bed
together with your clothes off, who cared? More importantly, how should she go about this latest seduction?

Gentlemen, when engaged in the pursuit of a lady, often plied the object of their desire with wine. In fact Thomasina’s cousin Simon had once told her that there was nothing like a judicious drop of wine to get rid of inhibitions. Thomasina had merely smiled and not commented, but she had thought to herself: I must remember that one, and had indeed remembered it to very good purpose on more than one occasion.

But she did not think Maud Lincoln was one who could be coaxed or tricked into bed by the use of alcohol. Maud would have to be seduced very gradually, almost without her realizing what was happening. That could mean a vastly frustrating few weeks for Thomasina, but if it went on for too long she could always make one of her discreet trips to London. There was that cat-faced child in Seven Dials, all of fifteen years old, who did not appear to differentiate overmuch between getting into the beds of gentlemen or ladies, and whose fingers and tongue were quite amazingly adept…

After some thought Thomasina decided to invite Maud to Sunday lunch at Quire House. When they had eaten she would ask Maud to play some music for her–there was a piano in Quire’s music room–and surely she could get through an hour or so of listening to some stuffy sonata.

The invitation would not be very remarkable, in fact it would be entirely in keeping with the Forrester tradition. Josiah Forrester had believed in showing consideration towards the people who worked for him, and he had taught his daughter to have the same sense of responsibility. Paternalism they called it nowadays, he had said, but it was still plain old-fashioned consideration for dependants. Thomasina smiled as she remembered her father had always been especially considerate to George Lincoln who had run the mill profitably and efficiently for so many years. The Miller of Twygrist, he used to say. Good faithful George. Pulled himself up by his bootstraps, of course, married money and learned
how to be a gentleman as he went along but none the worse for that.

After lunch on Sunday, Thomasina would take the miller’s daughter for a walk in Quire’s park, and then accompany Maud to her home. It would all be entirely chaste and perfectly respectable, although there would be a secret pleasure in walking close to Maud along the dark lanes, and slipping an arm around her waist to make sure she did not turn her ankle on an uneven piece of ground.

It was unfortunate that the lane leading to the Lincolns’ house lay alongside Latchkill–she frowned briefly over that–but they could hurry past the gates.

When Maud was small, her mamma used to take her for walks along the lanes around their house, and the walks nearly always took them past Latchkill. You could not actually see Latchkill over the high walls surrounding it, but you could see the little lodge at the side of the big iron gates. If you looked through the bars of the gates you could see along the carriageway to where Latchkill itself stood, squat and dark and frowning on its upward-sloping ground. Maud was always frightened that one day the gates would be open and mamma would go inside and Maud would have to go inside as well. It would be the most frightening thing in the world to hear the iron gates clanging shut behind you, shutting you in.

One afternoon, as they went past Latchkill, mamma said in a voice that made Maud feel cold and fearful, ‘It’s almost spiderlight, isn’t it? So we’d better walk straight past Latchkill today. You must never be caught near Latchkill when it’s spider light time. That’s when the bad things can happen.’

‘Spider light?’ said Maud nervously.

‘Spider light’s the in-between time. It’s the light that spiders like best of all–the time when it isn’t quite day or night: early morning, when the day hasn’t quite started; or evening, when the daylight’s beginning to fade.’ She paused, and then in a faraway voice, said, ‘All those grey winter mornings when you go downstairs from your bed in the dark and open the curtains to find a
huge black spider crouching in the half-light. It’s been there all night, that huge black spider–perhaps it’s been watching you and waiting for you, only you didn’t know it was there…

‘That’s the dangerous thing about spider light, Maud: it hides things–things you never knew existed in the world. But once you have seen those things, you can never afterwards forget them.’

Maud had never forgotten about spider light, and even when she was grown up, if she had to walk past Latchkill she always did so quickly, determinedly not glancing in through the gates. There were bad things inside Latchkill: there was spider light, and there were huge heavy doors that shut in things you had not known existed…When she was small, Maud used to dream about the black iron doors that would be inside Latchkill–doors that would be there to shut something terrible away from the world and must never be opened. Sometimes she had woken up crying because of the nightmare. Father always came into her bedroom if she cried, and he seemed to understand about the nightmare. He told her everyone had nightmares, and he would always keep her safe.

After lunch at Quire House, Maud and Miss Thomasina had walked past Latchkill. It had been nice of Miss Thomasina to invite her to lunch, Maud thought, although parts of the afternoon had been a little strange. Miss Thomasina had kissed her very warmly on her arrival which Maud had not expected, and said she had a present for Maud; she loved giving people presents.

The present, laid out on Thomasina’s own bed, was a set of underwear: a chemise, an under-bodice, little silk drawers and stockings to match. At first Maud did not know where to look for embarrassment; underwear was not something you were supposed to discuss, never mind spreading it out on a bed.

‘There was a rose pink set as well,’ Thomasina was saying. ‘But I thought blue matched your eyes. I hope I got the size right. Perhaps we ought to make sure it all fits. Let’s try them on you. I’ll help you out of your things. How slender you are–an eighteen-inch waist, I expect? Yes, I thought so.’

Of course, it was perfectly all right to be undressing like this in Miss Forrester’s bedroom. It was not as if there was a man watching. Even so, Maud felt awkward and a bit shivery, and she felt even more awkward and even more shivery when the chemise was dropped deftly over her head. It probably did not matter that her breasts were touched in the process. Thomasina did not seem to think it mattered; she said Maud had pretty breasts, and dear goodness, there was no need to be blushing so rosily! She had intended a compliment. Had Maud a beau, at all? She was so pretty, there was surely a gentleman interested in her.

Maud said at once that there was not. Once or twice she had been invited to take a drive with a gentleman, but she usually made a polite excuse. She was not, said Maud in a rush of confidence, very comfortable with gentlemen. They were so coarse, weren’t they?

‘Perhaps you prefer the company of ladies?’ said Thomasina, and Maud said, gratefully, that she did. Ladies were somehow less threatening. Gentler.

‘You don’t want to be married some day? Most girls of your age do.’

But the thought of marriage, of getting into a bed with a man and doing whatever it was married people did in a bed was so utterly repugnant that Maud felt quite sick even to think about it. A man’s hands–a man’s body-She shuddered and said, Oh no, she thought marriage would be horrid, and then hoped she had not said anything wrong, or offended her generous hostess.

But Thomasina did not seem to be offended. She said Maud was very sensible, and hugged her again. This time her hands seemed to slide inside the chemise, but Maud did not like to object. It was not like letting a man touch her.

‘Oh no,’ said Thomasina when Maud rather hesitantly said this. Her voice suddenly sounded different. Husky, as if she had a sore throat, but sort of whispery as well. ‘Oh no, my dear, this is nothing like letting a man touch you.’

George Lincoln was delighted to receive a visit from Miss Thomasina. He knew her well, of course–he had always called her Miss Thomasina, ever since she used to visit Twygrist with her cousin, Mr Simon Forrester.

He was very gratified indeed by the suggestion that Maud might spend a few weeks at Quire House. It would be a wonderful opportunity for the child. It was like Miss Thomasina to think of such a thing: she had always been so kind to the young ladies of the neighbourhood, taking them out and about, inviting them to Quire House, taking a real interest in them. So George was very pleased to accept for Maud, after which he made haste to offer Miss Thomasina a glass of sherry. His wife used to say it was a drink for a lady, sherry, and it was one of the things George had always been careful to remember.

But it seemed Miss Thomasina had an appointment and could not stay. She had a great many calls on her time, of course, George knew that. She still concerned herself with the families of people who had worked for her father in the old days. Only last week she had moved that ruffian Cormac Sullivan into the little almshouse recently built on Quire’s land. A very nice cottage it was, and far better than Sullivan deserved.

After Miss Thomasina had gone, striding briskly down the drive, George thought he would miss Maud while she was at Quire, and that his house would seem sadly empty. But at Quire Maud would meet all kinds of people, which pleased George who worried where a husband might be found for the child. There was a real shortage of young men in Amberwood–why, even Miss Thomasina herself, with all her opportunities and her money was not married. A lot of people said she ought to have married her cousin Simon, but neither of them had ever seemed to care for the idea.

Best of all, the visit would take Maud further away from Latchkill. It was far better–far safer–for the child to be kept as far from there as possible.

Bryony had always wished she could write more details in the day-book reports; she especially wished she could record some of her suspicions of Matron Prout.

‘I daren’t do it, though,’ she said to her father. ‘She’d have the pages torn out before you could turn round. But she’s milking Latchkill for all she’s worth. I’ll swear that half the poor souls in there are being fleeced of every farthing they own.’

‘Chancery lunatics,’ said Bryony’s father. ‘I wouldn’t put it past the old trout.’

Bryony asked what a Chancery lunatic might be.

‘Remember your Dickens, my girl,’ said Cormac. ‘
Bleak House
. Jarndyce versus Jarndyce. The diverting of inheritances and the snaffling of land by greedy families–God Almighty, have you never heard of it, Bryony? It stems from an old English law–twelfth or thirteenth century–wouldn’t you know the English would still be using rules from the Dark Ages. It gave the Crown custody of the lands of natural fools and guardianship of the property of the insane. If your Prout isn’t up to that little game or one very like it, I’ll take a vow of chastity and enter a monastery.’

‘There isn’t a monastery in the world that would have you,’ said Bryony at once, and he grinned and said, ‘Nor there is, thanks be to God. Are we having supper soon?’

‘Yes. Why? Are you going out later?’

‘I am.’

It would be better not to ask where he was going, so Bryony did not. It might be poaching or it might be a lady. He was about as trustworthy as a sleeping wolf, Cormac Sullivan but Bryony did not really mind. She loved him better than anyone in the entire world, and what was even better, she
liked
him. The two things did not necessarily go together.