Spider Light (7 page)

She thought Simon gasped something about being nowhere near losing it–‘Hard as the devil’s forehead, trust me for that, you bitch.’ The pain slammed deeper, tearing her to shreds, and then the rhythmic pumping suddenly became very fast and the pain scaled impossible heights, and Maud began to sob and tried to fight him off, but he was too strong for her. She half fell into a black spinning cavern where there was only the pain and the crushing heaviness of his body.

Simon let out a groan and slumped down, his face buried in Maud’s neck so that she could feel his bristly chin. She really must be bleeding, because there was a thick wetness between her legs, and if it
was
blood it would be all over the sheets, and that
would serve Thomasina right because she would have to explain it to the servants…She wondered if she would bleed to death. Then she wondered whether she cared, because the world had shrunk to this firelit room and the smell of sweat and stale wine, and to the cramping pain at the base of her stomach.

Simon rolled off her, still gasping hoarsely. His eyes closed and he dropped into a dreadful snoring sleep. His mouth fell open and the stale wine on his breath gusted into Maud’s face. Even so Maud drew in a shuddering breath of relief, because whatever this had been, it seemed to be over.

After a space of time that might have been two minutes or two hours, she was roused by Simon stumbling back to his own bed. He paused at the door, and smiled across at Maud: it was a fuzzy drunken smile but his eyes still had that horrid, knowing, gloating look. He said, ‘Sleep well, Maud,’ and went out. Thomasina stood at the side of the bed for a moment, looking down at Maud, smiling the same terrible smile. Then she followed Simon out of the room.

Maud lay absolutely still, hardly noticing the ache between her legs. There was no room in her mind for the pain of her body or the bloodied state of her nightgown; her entire being was filled with terror in case the cousins came back.

She stared into the darkness, seeing Simon’s greedy gloating smile, seeing Thomasina’s face red and ugly with excitement, and hearing her voice urging Simon to go on…

Thomasina had gone into the nearby bathroom; Maud could hear the clanking of the plumbing as Thomasina washed and brushed her teeth as she always did before going to bed. Was Thomasina going to come to bed as if this was an ordinary night? If she so much as touched Maud, Maud thought she would scream.

But when Thomasina came back she got quietly into bed and lay without speaking. Maud did not move; she was reliving the feel of Simon’s body, and the deep spiking pain. What if Thomasina and Simon intended to do this to her every night? She could not bear it. She would do anything other than endure it.

With the thought, the germ of a plan slid into her mind. At first she thought she would not dare follow it, but when she considered a bit more, she knew it was worth taking any risk if it meant she would get away.

She waited for about ten minutes and then got out of bed, not particularly troubling to be quiet, and went across to the big walkin cupboard. Almost at once there was a movement from the bed, and Thomasina’s voice, a bit blurry from all the wine she had drunk earlier, said, ‘Maud? Where are you going?’

Maud’s heart leapt up into her throat and the palms of her hands turned clammy with nervous sweat, but she said, ‘Bathroom. To wash and get a clean nightgown. I’m in a bit of a mess.’ She waited, willing Thomasina to open her eyes and see the blood.

Thomasina did open her eyes. She looked at Maud and said, ‘Oh. Oh yes, I see. It’s on the sheet as well. We’d better tell the servants that it’s your monthly bleeding, not that it’s anything to do with them. It’s stopped though, hasn’t it?’

‘I think so.’

‘Poor little virgin bird,’ said Thomasina, and closed her eyes again.

Poor little virgin bird. The words ought not to have stung–virginity was something to be prized, it was what every good girl saved for marriage–but there had been a patronizing pity in Thomasina’s voice that Maud hated. She clenched her fists and thought that one day she would make Thomasina pay.

She took her dressing gown from its hook on the back of the cupboard door, and made a play of putting it on. In fact she put on her dark woollen cloak, wrapping it firmly around her, then draping the dressing gown on top of it. If Thomasina was watching in the unlit bedroom it was not very likely she would realize what Maud had done. Even so, Maud was careful to keep the cupboard door wide open to screen her from the bed. Under cover of pretending to look for her slippers, she took the day-gown she had worn that morning, and crammed it under her dressing gown. Underthings were in a small drawer; she grabbed several garments more or less at random, and thrust them into the dressing-gown pockets along with stockings. Shoes? She remembered she had rubber boots in the little room near the sculleries; she could slip those on downstairs.

Her heart was hammering as she left the bedroom. Supposing Thomasina came after her? But there was no movement from the bed, and Maud reached the bathroom safely, shut and locked the door.

The bathroom had been very modern in Thomasina’s father’s day, but it was not modern now. The plumbing clanked embarrassingly loudly so that everyone in the house knew when you visited the lavatory which Maud normally hated, but tonight it would hide the sounds of her escape. First, though, she threw off the bloodied nightgown and sponged the blood from her legs. She supposed she ought to be frightened by it, but she was beyond being frightened and Thomasina had seemed to think it was all right. There were gluey smears of something that did not seem to be blood on Maud’s legs as well; she had no idea what they might be, but she washed them off.

Then she pulled on her underthings and the day-dress, flung the cloak around her shoulders, and pulled the cistern chain. Under cover of the pipes banging and the water whooshing, Maud tiptoed down the stairs and through the darkened house. Her rubber boots were where they usually were, and she stepped into them, and slid back the bolt on the scullery door.

She ran across the parkland. A thin dispirited rain was falling, but she did not care. She did not care, either, that it was a fairly long way to Toft House: she would have walked all night to get there. As she went along, she thought up a story to tell her father. Once inside dear familiar Toft House, she need never go out again. Her mother had gone out less and less over the years–Maud could remember that very clearly indeed. She could remember how frightened her mamma had become of the world. ‘Not safe,’ she used to say, cowering in her room with the curtains closed. ‘Nowhere is safe.’

Maud understood now how her mamma must have felt. Tonight she was frightened of the world, frightened that no matter where she went, Simon and Thomasina Forrester would be waiting for her.

As she went down Quire’s wide tree-lined carriageway, she heard a soft laugh from somewhere, and her heart jumped with fear before she realized it was her own laughter. This was quite worrying because only people who were not wholly normal laughed out loud to themselves. What if I am a little bit mad, thought Maud defiantly. I think I might be allowed to be a bit mad after what’s just happened.

She went on towards the gates, wondering if she would have to climb over them; the gardeners usually locked them when they went home. The night was filled with little stirrings and rustlings. Twice Maud froze thinking there was a soft footfall behind her, but when she whipped round, nothing stirred. Just to be sure, she stepped off the drive and walked on the soft grass that fringed it. Ah, that was better.

But the sound came again, and this time it was nearer and more definite. Maud stopped in the deep shadow of one of the old trees, and listened. Surely it was only the rain dripping from the trees? Or was it someone creeping along after her? Thomasina? No, Thomasina would come stomping loudly and angrily through the night, shouting for Maud, like the ogres in fairy stories did when they put on seven-league boots and strode across the landscape after the humans.

Simon would not stomp through the night shouting. Simon would slink slyly and silently, smiling his dreadful smile, his hands opening and closing as if they were savouring the thought of Maud’s body again. Could it be Simon who was coming after her? Whoever it was, he–or she–was a lot nearer. Maud cast a frightened glance around her. Could she run down the drive and hope to outrun her pursuer, and get to the gates first? But if she had to climb over them–they were very high and she was encumbered with her long skirts and cloak–Simon, if it was Simon, would be on her before she was halfway over.

She would have to hide. Quire’s park was quite big and there were lots of trees and shrubberies, but Simon and Thomasina knew every inch of the parkland because they had grown up and
played their games here. Maud shuddered away from the thought of what kind of horrid games those two might have played as children.

Then she saw the little path that turned off the carriageway and wound into the trees and beyond the copse, and she remembered the cottage Thomasina’s father had built to house workers on the estate, and Thomasina nowadays rented to that poacher–the man everyone said was a scandal and a disgrace. Sullivan, that was his name. Irish. He was a poacher and probably a thief. He had a daughter a few years older than Maud; Maud did not know her, but she thought she had a peculiar name. Something to do with hedgerows or meadows or something.

She stepped back into the deeper shadows, pulling her cloak more firmly around her, so that no glimmer of paleness would show from her gown. Yes, there went the footsteps again. Somebody was definitely creeping through the darkness behind her.

Maud bit down a gasp of fear, and began to run down the narrow path. The soles of her boots skidded in the soft wet ground several times and low branches caught at her hair like snatching goblin fingers, but she was beyond caring. She had no idea if Mr Sullivan or his daughter would hide her, and she could not think how she would tell them what had happened, but surely they would not turn her away.

Here was the cottage, directly ahead of her. She had a pain in her side from running, but she was almost there and she was almost safe.

The cottage was in darkness. Maud supposed she should have expected this, but somehow the sight of the curtained windows brought her to an abrupt halt, and doubt rushed into her mind. Could she really hammer on a stranger’s door at this hour–it must be well past midnight by now–and say she was being pursued by two mad creatures who did terrible things to her body?

She glanced back nervously; there was no one in sight, but she could hear her pursuer coming along the path. Maud darted around
the side of the cottage, keeping well in the shadows, and there, at the back of the building, was a little huddle of outbuildings jutting out from the main part of the cottage. Wash-house and privy, most likely. Would they be locked?

The first one was locked, and Maud, gasping with terror, hearing her pursuer coming along the path, moved to the other one. Wash-house, was it? Coal shed? It did not matter because its lock was a brittle flimsy affair, and it snapped when she pushed against it. The door swung in and Maud tumbled thankfully inside, closing the door and leaning back against it.

It was the cottage’s wash-house. It had a stone floor and brick walls, and on one side of the door was a big mangle with a huge copper boiler on the other side, nastily crusted with green where the pipe came out of it. Other than this there was only a deep sink under the little window; the window itself was a bit grimy and cobwebby so the outside looked blurred as if there was thick fog everywhere.

She was shaking so badly she was almost afraid her ribs would break, and there was a pain in her chest from running along the path. But she kept her eyes on the door. Doors could be dangerous things; you never knew what might lie behind them.

After a moment she managed to stop gasping for breath, and listened for the sound of her pursuer. Had he gone? No, here he came, walking quietly, but betrayed by the wet ground–she could hear his feet squelching in the mud. Her heart began to hammer against her ribs all over again. He would surely look in here, and he could not fail to see her.

He was trying the other door–there was the impatient clicking of its latch, and then a soft creak as he pushed against it. Would he see the broken lock on this door? There was nowhere she could hide, but was there any way she could fool him by wedging the door closed? Maud looked frantically about her. Could she drag the mangle across the door? No, it was much too heavy for her, and even if she could manage it, it would take too long and he would hear her.

There was a scrape of sound outside, and Maud gasped and shrank back against the wall. As she did so there was a movement at the window, and a face appeared in the blurry oblong. It pressed against the pane, the features distorted and terror engulfed Maud so overwhelmingly that for a moment the dank room spun sickeningly around her. She bit down a gasp of fear, because if he heard her, if he realized she was here…

But he already knew she was here. Even if he could not see her, he would have sensed her presence in the way predators sensed the presence of their victims.

The latch clicked and the door swung open. The rainy light lay across the floor, and when Maud slowly turned her head she saw the figure outlined in the doorway–an impossibly tall figure it seemed to be, wrapped in a long dark cloak, the hem swishing around booted feet.

The figure stepped inside and spoke. It was not Simon after all, it was Thomasina.

In a perfectly ordinary voice, Thomasina said, ‘My dear child, what on earth are you doing here? Let me take you home.’

Thomasina spoke as if nothing very unusual had happened, and for a moment Maud stared at her and wondered if she had dreamt that firelit bedroom and Simon’s body suffocating her.

Then she said, ‘You pretended to be asleep, but you weren’t. You’ve been following me.’

‘Of course I followed you. You were not very subtle, Maud. Scrabbling in the wardrobe for your clothes, and getting dressed in the bathroom. Did you think I didn’t know what you were doing?’

‘I won’t go back to Quire House,’ said Maud, and was pleased to hear her voice sounded quite brave. ‘If you try to make me go back, I’ll scream for help.’

‘Scream away. There’s no one to hear you. Cormac Sullivan’s not very likely to be in his own bed at this hour of the night, and his daughter will be at Latchkill–she’s a nurse and she’s on night duty. So scream until your throat bursts: no one will hear you.’

Maud had no idea if any of this was true, or if Thomasina was just saying it to keep her quiet.

‘And,’ said Thomasina, not giving Maud time to reply, ‘even if you did scream, and even if anyone did hear you, I have only to say you’re a young relative and your mind is a little disturbed; that I’m caring for you.’

‘No one would believe that,’ said Maud, but she knew people would believe it, because of who Thomasina was. Miss Forrester of Quire House. Important and rich and with that indefinable authority that everyone recognized and respected. Yes, people would believe Thomasina over Maud.

As if she had heard this last thought, Thomasina said, ‘My poor child, of course people would believe you were disturbed. I would only have to tell them how I found you huddled in a dank wash-house, when all the time there’s a warm comfortable room for you at Quire House, and people there who love you and want you back. You’re not displaying much sanity at the moment, are you, Maud?’ She paused, and then said, in a soft, pitying voice, ‘You do know what happens to people who aren’t sane, don’t you?’

Latchkill…The place of locked doors and barred windows…The place you must always avoid when it’s spider light…

Maud said, ‘Yes, I do know. But I’m not mad.’