Spider Light(22)
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.