It was a long journey, and as the train bumped and jolted along, Maud slipped in and out of sleep. Sometimes the tapping of the train wheels got mixed up with Thomasina and Simon relentlessly tapping on the walls of Twygrist–those sounds were fainter by this time, but Maud could still hear them. But sometimes the wheels sounded like the running feet of the man who had chased her and mamma through that long-ago autumn morning. Heavy menacing footsteps they had been, and when Maud looked fearfully back over her shoulder, she saw the man clearly. She had seen his face, which had been huge and misshapen, and she had seen that he was grinning with delight because he had been sure he would catch them.
Maud still did not entirely understand about that last morning with mamma. ‘We’re going to the place where your father lives,’ mamma had said, and the place they had gone to had been Latchkill. Had the man who followed them really been Maud’s father? Maud thought she had forgotten about him, but drowsing in the stuffy train, with the rhythmic hum of the wheels going on and on in her ears, she found she remembered him very clearly indeed. She could hear him pounding after them through the misty half-light, and she could feel the heaviness of his tread. Exactly like a giant running after a poor little human. Was that why she had thought of Thomasina as a giant on the night she had hidden in Charity Cottage when Thomasina had come striding across the park to catch her?
London, when she reached it in the early afternoon, was bewildering. Maud had been there twice, but once had been a school trip when they had all been taken to the Tower of London, and the other had been with the cousins she had stayed with after her mother died. One of the older cousins had been getting married and they had all gone to Debenham & Freebody to buy bridesmaids’ clothes. Still, it meant she knew about the ladies’ room at the station, where she had a wash and brush-up, and about the buffet, where she had hot coffee and fresh rolls. She knew, as well, about hailing a cab when she got out of the station.
‘Seven Dials, miss? You sure?’
‘Quite sure.’ Maud wondered whether to proffer the story of her sick mother again, or switch to the one about the housemaid ravished by the son of the house, but she remembered in time that people in London are too busy to be much interested, so she said nothing, and the cabman, clicking his horse, said, ‘Least it’s the daytime. You wouldn’t want to go there at night, miss.’
When finally they reached Seven Dials, Maud thought she would rather not have come here in the day either. She paid the cabman, who doffed his cap, and by way of friendly departure pointed out Paradise Yard.
‘Would you wait for me, please?’
‘Here? No bloomin’ fear, miss.’
‘Then,’ said Maud, ‘would you return for me? In–in half an hour’s time?’ She fished out a half-sovereign. Was it enough? Too much? She had no idea of the value of money in this situation, but it was several times’ the amount of the fare from the railway station. ‘I’ll pay you this if you return and take me–and a friend–back to the railway station.’
It seemed the half-sovereign was more than enough. ‘Half an hour,’ said the cabbie, doffing his cap. ‘I’ll be here.’
The cab clattered away over the cobblestones. Maud did not entirely trust him to return and she did not know if half an hour would be long enough for what she had to do, but she had done her best.
The noise, smells and sights of Seven Dials were like a series of violent blows. All round her was a jumble of streets and a seething mass of people. Some were scurrying along with anxious faces, some were propped against doorposts, staring at the world with despairing eyes, some were calling their wares from horrid mean little shops. Children ran along the streets, ragged and thin, with sharp, wise, little faces. The smaller ones played tip-cat and battledore and shuttlecock, but the older ones had an air of purpose.