Spider Light(55)
Thomasina stared at Maud, astonished but not actually frightened. Lying on the floor at her feet was a grey-faced man. Simon! Aha, then Simon had not gone home after all. He had been hiding here all along. But whatever sly plan these two might have had, it was going to be turned against them because Maud was going to punish both of them in one fell swoop!
Before they could realize what she meant to do, Maud pushed the door as hard as she could. It swung inwards and locked, trapping Thomasina and Simon inside.
Coming up into the afternoon sunlight again, huge dazzling lights opened up inside Maud’s mind. Marvellous. She had not known how good it would feel to punish those two cruel beings. It would have been better if she could have locked Twygrist’s main door, but of course she had no keys.
There was no one around as she began to walk back to Quire, but Maud had not gone many yards when she heard the sound of tapping. She slowed her footsteps and half turned, listening. For a moment there was nothing, then it came again. Light, but insistent. Tap-tap… Tap-tap. It was probably someone carrying out some sort of work nearby: hammering nails into a roof or chopping wood.
Or a faltering hand knocking feebly on the inside of a door, trying to get out?
That was ridiculous. Even if Thomasina or Simon were tapping on the walls, Maud could not possibly hear them all the way up here. It would be a workman somewhere, and she would soon be out of earshot.
But she was not soon out of earshot. The sounds followed her as she hurried through the lanes towards Quire House. Tap-tap…Tap-tap… As she went through the gates, the sounds changed to Let-us-out… Maud shivered and went into the house, slipping up to her room unseen.
Tap-tap…Let-us-out…
The sounds stayed with her while she had her lunch in the dining room. Mrs Minching was pleased to see her downstairs at last. It was a nasty thing this influenza, wasn’t it, and it was to be hoped Miss Maud was properly recovered?
Maud said she was feeling very much better, thank you. No, she had not seen Miss Thomasina that morning, perhaps she had gone out to one of Quire’s tenants.
Several times in the hours that followed Maud had to fight not to clap her hands over her ears to shut the tapping out. Could it be those two in Twygrist?
Of course it could not. She was hearing her own guilty conscience because of what she had done. Except she did not feel any guilt.
She drowned out the sounds by playing some music.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It had been a bitter blow when, after all Donna’s care over furnishing the small flat for the two of them, Don did not want to live at home. He had not got a university place–Donna had not really thought he would, although she could have borne his absence on that account and would have enjoyed it. She had even dared to imagine herself and Don in an Oxford common room, or dancing together at the May Ball, and strolling across one of the famous quadrangles, arm in arm…
The reality had been harshly different. Don said the flat had been all right for school holidays–of course it had. But he had arranged to go with a couple of friends (what friends? Donna thought she knew all his friends) on a grape-picking tour of southern France. And then on to Spain, perhaps. There would be enough money for that, wouldn’t there? Oh, well, if not, he would manage. They were going to live very simply anyway in pensions, or they might take one of those old farmhouses for a few months. It would be great fun and he did think he was owed a little fun after the last couple of years. His French would improve immensely–he might get all kinds of work at the end of it. Not teaching, which would be too tedious for words, but translating or something like that.
Donna had tried not to think that Don was going to spend the next couple of years drifting around western Europe, using up money they did not have, going aimlessly from one thing to another, not really living any sort of life at all…Leaving her on her own in the beautiful flat on which she had lavished so much love and care, never mind money she could not really afford, and where she had spent endless lonely nights counting the days until the next school holiday…
But she let him go, of course. She trusted him to come back to her. She smiled and hugged him when he left, and said he was to be sure to write and tell her what he was doing, and to remember that there was always a home for him here. If he was in trouble–if he needed money–he must not hesitate to let her know.
‘And you’ll come to my rescue, will you?’ For a moment there had been a glimmer of the beloved boy who used to smile with come-to-bed eyes, and there had been a stirring of shared memories–of how they had laughed together, and of how they had lain in the tangled bed in Charity Cottage on that enchanted afternoon…
Donna had hardly been able to bear it. She said, quite briskly, ‘Of course I’d come to your rescue. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men.’
‘I believe you would.’
‘I always will,’ said Donna, and let him go.
The terrible thing was that when he finally came home for good, it was not as Donna had hoped. He was not the same: he was moody, sometimes sullen, occasionally he was very nearly violent. If she put her arms round him, he hunched his shoulders and shrugged her off, saying, ‘Oh for heaven’s sake!’ or, ‘Leave me alone!’ Once he said she was not living in the real world at all: she was living in some absurd dream existence.
And then had come the night of the quarrel.