Spider Light(36)
Twygrist’s darkness reared up and wrapped itself round Donna in a dizzy, sick-making vortex. She pitched forward into this swirling dizziness and the inspector caught her as she fell.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It hurt Thomasina very much to put Maud in the room on Quire’s second floor, but if she was to get a child–a boy who would be a worthier heir for Quire than Simon–there was no alternative. And after all, the room was not some grim stone-floored, iron-barred cell like something in Newgate; in the precentor’s time it had been a nursery–inside it an inner door opened onto a night-nursery. Admittedly there were bars at all the windows–they had been put there to stop the precentor’s sons from toppling out while fighting one another–but they were quite thin bars and there were only a couple of them across each window. As well as that, the two rooms were conveniently far away from the main part of the house, and there was a lock on the outer door.
A story would have to be thought up for the servants, of course. Thomasina might say Maud had succumbed to some infectious disease–no, that would bring Daniel Glass to Quire. She would simply say that Maud had influenza, and she wanted to nurse the child herself. In a few days’ time Maud might be more biddable and Thomasina and Simon could decide on their next move.
Thomasina had found the threesome love-making rather piquantly exciting, but that had mostly been because she liked knowing she was controlling Simon and forcing him on. Other than that, Simon’s part in the business had turned out to be as gruntishly repellant as Thomasina had always suspected and rather messy at the end. If that was the famous act that had inspired all those miles of lyrical poetry and acres of ballads, and for which people toppled thrones and waged wars, well, as far as Thomasina was concerned, they could keep it and welcome. She would stay with her velvet-skinned, silken-haired girls.
It was a pity Maud had reacted so violently. Running away and hiding in that wash-house–there had been no need for such melodramatic behaviour, but Thomasina was not going to abandon her wonderful scheme because of an hysterical tantrum. The idea of a child–a son–whom she would adopt and who would be almost her own had taken firm hold of her mind.
Maud and Simon would have to be married, of course. Maud’s boy–who would really be Thomasina’s boy in all other respects–must not bear the stigma of bastardy, and it ought to be easy enough to put round the story of a whirlwind romance. Maud’s father was certainly not likely to object to his daughter’s marriage into the wealthy Forrester family: Thomasina was well aware of George Lincoln’s pretensions and she knew he would welcome Simon as a son-in-law with open arms and no questions asked. He would be delighted to think Maud’s boy–George’s own grandson–would be heir to Quire Park. As for Simon himself, if he wanted his debts paying and the ￡3,000 Thomasina had promised him, he would have to do a bit more than tup Maud a few times until she conceived. Tup. The hoary old rural expression pleased her. There was no reason why Simon should not see the thing through to its proper conclusion and, to make sure, Thomasina was going to withhold part of the ￡3,000 until after the marriage ceremony.
The child, when it was born, should be named Josiah for her father. She could see him quite clearly in her mind this small Josiah, and the longer she looked at his image, the more real he became. She could see him at all the stages of his life…toddling around Quire’s park, loved by all the local people and the tenants. Young Master, they would call him in the villages, knowing he was Miss Thomasina’s nephew by Mr Simon, and Quire’s heir. The women would cluck indulgently over him and marvel at how strong and straight he was growing. And even though he would go away to school, there would be the holidays and he would be at Quire for those.
Maud would have to be allowed a hand in Josiah’s growing-up, of course, and so, presumably, would Simon. But Maud could be manipulated and Simon could be bought, and Thomasina was not very worried about either of them.
She would teach Josiah about Quire and the obligations that owning it brought. When he was older there would be hunting and fishing and all the country things, although she dared say there might be nights when he would sneak off, the young rogue, to go poaching with the likes of Cormac Sullivan. She would turn an indulgent blind eye to that.
Later it might be possible for the family business to be revived, so that Josiah could occupy the place that the first Josiah, had occupied in Amberwood. The more Thomasina thought about this, the better she liked the idea. She might even take a look round Twygrist to see exactly how dilapidated it was, although she would have to steer clear of George Lincoln. For one thing George was too old to resume his work and for another, Thomasina could not risk awkward questions about Maud at this stage of the plan, least of all from Maud’s father.
Maud. As she got back into the big double bed, Thomasina wondered how far she could trust Maud’s state of mind. Tonight’s hysteria would pass, but what about those curious darknesses in Maud’s nature: the macabre sketch Thomasina had found, and the obsession with that gloom-filled music? Might such darknesses indicate a genuinely disturbed mind? More importantly, might such a disturbed mind be hereditary? Thomasina did not want an heir who could have inherited some flaw from his mamma. Quire in the hands of a madman would be as bad as Quire in the hands of a heavy drinking gambler like Simon, in fact it would be worse.
But she did not think there was much risk. Her involvement with the Forrester Benevolent Trust had given her a nodding acquaintance with the care of the insane, and she had never once heard it suggested that madness was hereditary. If Maud’s mental condition became troublesome, or if she refused to do what Thomasina wanted, then Thomasina would simply resort to opium again.