She did not feel less vulnerable for long because Thomasina then undressed. It was embarrassing to see this important lady taking off her clothes, and noticing that her thighs were lean and a bit stringy-looking, and that she had a lot of coarse hair between her legs–much more than Maud had. Maud shut her eyes and pretended to be asleep, but Thomasina climbed into the big soft bed, and turned down the gas so the room was dark. The wet red lips began to kiss Maud so intensely and so probingly that she could scarcely breathe. She began to feel frightened; it had not previously occurred to her that ladies got into bed together or kissed one another with such fierceness. When Thomasina’s hands began to explore her body in the most surprising fashion, she had to fight not to push them away.
She did not do so because of not wanting to offend Thomasina, and also in case this was something people did when they were grown up. Thomasina murmured how Maud was the dearest, sweetest, most beautiful person in the world, which was not something anyone had ever said to her before. Perhaps it was not so unpleasant to be stroked and kissed in this way. Maud was aware of a sudden surge of power when, some little time later, Thomasina’s usually stern face twisted and she cried out with joy.
The prodding and stroking seemed to be over, and Maud was able to lie back on the pillows. She had not really understood why Thomasina had cried out and suddenly seemed so weak, but as she drifted into sleep, she thought that if having done this–maybe even having to do it again–meant she could stay in this beautiful house and be given silk gowns and a real studio, then perhaps she could manage it. Father was always complaining about how much things cost nowadays, and saying, ‘Oh my goodness, just look at the household books this month’, or wondering how he could afford to get the roof of Toft House repaired, and Maud thought she would enjoy not having to hear about that.
But as she finally tumbled over into sleep, she was guiltily aware of hoping that this was not something Thomasina would expect to happen very often.
But Thomasina expected ‘It’ to happen a great many times–practically every night and sometimes during the night as well. There were even some mornings when ‘It’ happened straight after they woke up. Maud hated the early-morning times most of all; she always felt crumpled and stale when she woke up, and thought that if she had to be prodded by Thomasina’s hands and fingers and be made to prod Thomasina back, she would have much preferred to get out of bed and wash, clean her teeth and brush her hair first.
But there were compensations. Three days after that night they had driven into the nearby town to talk to someone about artists’ materials, and had returned to Quire House with the forward seat of the carriage piled with packages containing silky paintbrushes, sticks of charcoal, blocks of satiny paper and–best of all–a real easel which was to be set up in the music room.
‘That will be your very own room,’ said Thomasina watching Maud unpack her parcels and smiling indulgently. ‘And next week we’ll see about a new piano.’
So really, being prodded and licked a few times each night (and some mornings), was quite a modest price to pay for such bounty. Maud thought that surely to goodness she could learn to put up with it.
Apart from the inevitability of ‘It’, Maud’s days at Quire were filled with good things. Sketching in the park where you could make the trees appear to have faces–‘How very macabre,’ Thomasina said when she saw them–and mastering new piano pieces. She was trying to move away from the delicate filigree sounds of Chopin and Debussy, to more ambitious works: Mozart, Beethoven, Paganini.
‘That’s a bit gloomy,’ said Thomasina, listening to Maud playing Schumann’s piano arrangement of one of Paganini’s Caprices. ‘What’s it supposed to represent?’
Maud had already realized that Thomasina, so kind and generous, had absolutely no glimmering of the intriguing darknesses you could find inside music, or the way it had a voice that told you things you had not known. But she tried to explain about Paganini, who had composed beautiful eerie music, and had been such a virtuoso on the violin that at one time he had even been suspected of being in league with the devil.
‘I’m not surprised after hearing that,’ said Thomasina caustically.
And then, on the very evening of Thomasina’s meeting at Latchkill, while they were having dinner, came the bolt from the blue.
Thomasina said she wanted Maud to have a child.