Spider Light(54)
Who died in the mill that Joe built.
But Simon’s son would live. He would grow up at Quire, and Thomasina would make sure he did not know that his father had been a weak blackmailing drunkard.
This is the boy conceived in the night
Who will inherit the mill that Joe built.
She was just turning to go when the flung-out beseeching hand moved and snaked its fingers around her ankle.
In a thread of a voice, Simon said, ‘Help me, you bitch…’
Thomasina recoiled, and tried to back away to the door. She was shaking so much the candle was in danger of going out, and she had no idea what to do.
‘Help me, you bitch…’
It came again, like the dry rustling of old bones scraping together, like the brittle tapping of fleshless fingers against a night windowpane.
‘Harder to kill–than you–think–Thomasina…’
‘I didn’t intend to kill you,’ said Thomasina, recovering her wits slightly. ‘Only to teach you a lesson.’
‘Liar…It’s been too long.’
‘No. You’re delirious. I miscalculated.’ But oh God, what do I do? Do I strike him over the head again? I can’t. I can’t. And he’s nearly dead as it is–how did he survive this long?
Playing for time, she said, ‘Can you get back upstairs if I support you?’
‘No…Too weak to walk, old girl. Kept alive by…drinking own urine. Cupped hands…’ And, as Thomasina made a gesture of distaste, the dreadful voice said, ‘Soldier’s trick–in desert.’
‘I’ll get you out,’ said Thomasina, not moving.
Simon made a feeble movement, and then fell back against the bricks. His voice, when he spoke again, was thin and weak, ‘You’ve found out, haven’t you? That’s why you’ve come back.’
‘Found out?’ Thomasina’s mind snapped onto a different course.
‘About Maud.’ said Simon. ‘You know that I–lied…’
‘What? What?’
‘Morning sickness–it wasn’t true…but couldn’t stand another night…’
Thomasina stared at him, but before she could take this in, a faint sound from within the tunnels made her turn sharply to the door. A stealthy footstep, had it been? No, it was only the old timbers creaking.
She looked back at Simon, and said, ‘Now, how do we get you out of here, I wonder?’
She thought Simon started to speak, but the sound came again, and this time it was not Twygrist’s timbers. This time it was unmistakably the sound of footsteps running along the tunnels. A cloaked figure appeared in the doorway of the kiln room. Maud! Maud, her eyes wild and unseeing, her hair whipped into disarray. She grasped the edge of the door, and before Thomasina could gather her wits sufficiently to do anything about it, had pushed it inward.
The hinges shrieked with a teeth-wincing sound, and the door slammed shut.
In the gust of air caused by the door’s closing, the candle went out.
Maud had not intended to follow Thomasina. What she had intended was to go home to Toft House and tell her father that Thomasina had gone away for a few days.
The prospect of this had buoyed her up all the way across the park, but just as she went through the gates, and set off towards Toft Lane, she saw Thomasina some way ahead of her, walking along very purposefully indeed. Maud went after her keeping well back and hoping not to be seen. It was a surprise when Thomasina turned off the road and went up the slope to Twygrist. She waited to be sure Thomasina was not coming out of the mill and then went after her.
The door was partly open, and the minute she stepped through it Twygrist’s dark sourness fell around her like a cloak. When she was small, her father had liked to bring her here to show her off to the women workers. They had all made a fuss of her, saying she was a dear little soul, what pretty hair she had, and how much would she charge for one of her sunny curls? After Maud’s mamma died, the women had said sorrowfully that she was a poor motherless lamb and must learn to be a good little housewife and look after her papa. Even so, she had hated Twygrist and she hated it now.
It looked as if Thomasina had gone down to the underground rooms, because the little door behind the waterwheel was propped open. Maud, slipped behind the wheel. There was a faint spill of light from the stairway, so Thomasina must have brought candles or an oil lamp with her. Maud took a deep breath and went down the steps, doing so very softly.
She could hear Thomasina somewhere up ahead–she even heard her muttering to herself, as she sometimes did. Most likely she was tutting at the mess down here; Maud could not hear very clearly. But she did hear the scrape of the kiln-room doors being opened.
This was puzzling. Why should Thomasina be going into the kiln room? But the reason did not matter, because a marvellous plan was shaping itself in Maud’s mind. Would it work? Would she dare? She went a bit nearer. Yes, the kiln-room door was open. Now? Yes, now!
Her cloak billowed out behind her like dark smoke as Maud darted along the last few feet of the tunnel and grasped the edges of the door. For the space of three heartbeats the moment froze, and she stared into the candlelit room. She saw the brick lining of the walls and the floor, smeary with cobwebs and dirt, and the old oven with the brick shaft rising up behind it.