But Twygrist, once closed, stayed closed. Miss Thomasina said there was really no question about it. George told her he really did not think he could ever bring himself to go inside the place again, and she said she entirely understood. In fact, she had been thinking that the old place was no longer a practical or a profitable concern. The Corn Laws had long since been repealed, and cheap corn was being imported, so there was very little call for a mill of Twygrist’s calibre. That being so, it only remained for her to thank George for his years of devoted service to her father, and to hope he would accept this small sum of money–not a pension, of course, but a token of her gratitude.
George had accepted the money because Toft House did not run itself on nothing, and a man had to live. The amount was nicely judged; Miss Thomasina had not been miserly about it, but she had not been embarrassingly lavish. Everyone in Amberwood had been very kind to George, saying what a shocking thing for Louisa Lincoln to die in such a way, and poor George there to see it, and the child just outside, dear innocent mite.
He had not missed Twygrist, although he had missed the companionship of the farmers, and all the daily bustle of the place, but he had become involved in one or two little charitable works, and there were always things to do at St Michael’s Church.
And in the end, life had gone along much as before, except that there had not been that darkened bedroom in Toft House, with Louisa’s mournful figure in it.
Miss Thomasina kept saying she would do something about Twygrist–although what she would do, she was not quite sure, and neither was anyone else.
And what lay at its heart, shut inside the disused ovens, rotted quietly away, without anyone knowing it was there.
These were not good memories to have on any night, but sitting by himself in Toft House with Maud inside Latchkill (entirely for her own safety, George said to himself firmly), they were bleak thoughts indeed. But at least the discovery of Thomasina and Simon’s bodies had not necessitated opening up the kiln. George had had some very bad moments indeed worrying about that, but it had not happened.
At a quarter to eleven he made his usual rounds of the house, checking locks and windows, and at eleven o’clock he was in bed. He was just sliding down into sleep, when something jerked him awake, and he half sat up. A sound downstairs, had it been? There ought not to have been any sound in the house at all: Mrs Plumtree was long since in bed, and the only other servant was a girl who came in twice a week for the cleaning.
It came again, and this time George identified it. A creak on the landing outside his room. And then another. Someone was walking stealthily across the landing. Towards this room? He had no idea what to do. There was no lock on the bedroom door, and there was no other door in or out of the room. The bathroom was on the other side of the landing on this floor, and it might, of course, be Mrs Plumtree, coming to use it. George did not, naturally, concern himself with Mrs Plumtree’s bathroom routines, but she had never, so far as he knew, made use of the bathroom at this hour. Perhaps she was ill.
He lay down again. It had been Mrs Plumtree after all, because he could hear the creak of the second set of stairs. She must be going back up to her room. George listened, and caught a muffled thud, and then the sound of bedsprings creaking a bit. It seemed that all was well. He rearranged himself for sleep, and this time it was a proper deep sleep. It was so deep that he did not hear the creaking of the stairs again, or the soft footfall outside his room. Nor did he wake when his bedroom door was pushed slowly open, and a figure peered round the door.
Maud had waited until the hour when her father would be in bed, then gone quietly in using the back-door key George had given her before she went to stay with Thomasina. The key had been in her bag which they had not taken away from her in Latchkill, although they had searched it and she thought the hateful Higgins had taken some money.