‘No.’
‘Then how would it be if I deliver a note to Matron Prout some time tomorrow, asking her to call on you to discuss a–a private matter? I can do so without anyone seeing me, I believe. That would keep it fairly anonymous for you.’
‘I’d be very grateful if you’d do that,’ said George.
‘You’d need to keep Maud from talking to Mrs Minching in the meantime.’
I’ll need to stop her trying to get out as well, thought George, but did not say it.
‘Could you give her a drop of laudanum? For God’s sake don’t overdo it though. Laudanum goes a devil of a long way.’
George belatedly remembered that Sullivan’s daughter was a nurse in Latchkill.
‘There’s no need for Bryony to know any of this,’ said Cormac, apparently following George’s thoughts. ‘In fact I’d rather she didn’t know–that’ll mean that if she’s asked questions, she won’t need to lie. In any case, she’s mostly on duty in the public wards–the pauper wards they call them.’ This was said with extreme distaste. ‘She’s not very likely to even know Maud’s there. But if she did find out, or if I had to tell her, she wouldn’t spread any gossip, you can trust me on that. There’s your housekeeper, though. And Minching.’
But George had already worked this out. He would tell people that Maud had gone to stay with relatives of his wife for a few weeks. Mrs Minching might think Maud’s behaviour tonight rather odd, but she had not known about the Twygrist visit, and there was no reason why she should. There was no reason why anyone should know. As for Mrs Plumtree, she was a loyal soul who had served his wife’s family for years. She could be told a version of the truth–that Maud was displaying symptoms worryingly like those of her mother, and that George had arranged for a short rest in a place with proper medical care. Somewhere on the coast, he might say. Bracing sea air. That would be perfectly believable, and it would mean that Latchkill need not be mentioned at all.
‘Good. That keeps it simple,’ said Cormac, when George explained this. ‘We’ll have to report finding the bodies, of course, but we can do that tomorrow, and there’s no need for either of us to mention Maud’s part in it. We’ll say we went searching for Thomasina. You were concerned, what with your daughter staying at Quire. And it’d be natural for you to think of looking in Twygrist, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes. Until my wife died, Twygrist was my whole life,’ said George.
‘Good man.’ He dropped a light hand on George’s shoulder that might have been a gesture of friendship or commiseration, and went out into the night.
When it came to it, the thing that upset George most was the subterfuge he had to employ to keep Maud’s identity secret. It felt as if he was wiping away all traces of the child’s very existence. But the alternative was too dreadful to contemplate, and so before Matron Prout was due at Toft House he got Mrs Minching out of the way by asking her to deliver a wholly unnecessary message to the rectory about hymn books and then went round the house putting all the photographs of Maud out of sight. Forgive me Maud, but I can’t see any other solution.
Latchkill’s matron was not a complete stranger; at one time George’s wife had helped with some of Amberwood’s charity events, and Freda Prout had been one of the other helpers. George remembered her as a raw-boned lady with ungainly hands and feet. When she came to Toft House in response to his note, he saw his memory had been accurate. She sat in the warm, comfortable drawing-room and George tried not to think there was a calculating glint in her rather small eyes.
‘A very nice house, this,’ said Freda, looking about her. ‘Just as I remember it.’