Later it might be possible for the family business to be revived, so that Josiah could occupy the place that the first Josiah, had occupied in Amberwood. The more Thomasina thought about this, the better she liked the idea. She might even take a look round Twygrist to see exactly how dilapidated it was, although she would have to steer clear of George Lincoln. For one thing George was too old to resume his work and for another, Thomasina could not risk awkward questions about Maud at this stage of the plan, least of all from Maud’s father.
Maud. As she got back into the big double bed, Thomasina wondered how far she could trust Maud’s state of mind. Tonight’s hysteria would pass, but what about those curious darknesses in Maud’s nature: the macabre sketch Thomasina had found, and the obsession with that gloom-filled music? Might such darknesses indicate a genuinely disturbed mind? More importantly, might such a disturbed mind be hereditary? Thomasina did not want an heir who could have inherited some flaw from his mamma. Quire in the hands of a madman would be as bad as Quire in the hands of a heavy drinking gambler like Simon, in fact it would be worse.
But she did not think there was much risk. Her involvement with the Forrester Benevolent Trust had given her a nodding acquaintance with the care of the insane, and she had never once heard it suggested that madness was hereditary. If Maud’s mental condition became troublesome, or if she refused to do what Thomasina wanted, then Thomasina would simply resort to opium again.
She smiled, thinking how shocked most of Amberwood would have been to see the correct respectable Miss Forrester striding through London’s sleazier alleys, haggling with the cat-faced child over the purchase of a paper cone of opium. And how that impudent creature had haggled!
Thomasina had not really minded though–she had found the girl’s defiant bargaining exciting, and the girl had known it. When the opium had finally been bought, she had said, ‘Coming home with me now, are you, Thomasina? I got a lady to pleasure at five–she likes me to go to her own house, but we got an hour before that. Cost you double, though.’ Thomasina had so hated the thought of the girl going from her narrow bed in Seven Dials to that of some rich soft-living female, that she had offered her not twice, but three times the usual amount not to go. The girl had taken the money, and this time, as well as her lips and her hands, she had used one of the polished leather phalluses on Thomasina, saying three times the payment deserved three times the pleasure. When Thomasina walked down towards St Martin’s Lane, where she could get a hansom to take her to Waterloo, she had looked back and seen the girl leave the house, and had known she was going to that other woman anyway.
She turned away from these thoughts, and began to plan how she could make Maud’s second-floor prison as comfortable and as pleasant as possible.
However comfortable and pleasant the second-floor rooms might be–however many books and painting things were brought up here–there was still a locked door and there were still bars at the windows: Maud knew she was in a prison.
Every night after dinner Simon and Thomasina came up the stairs and unlocked the door. Maud’s world had shrunk to the sound of their step on the stairs and the turning of the key in the lock. And then, once the lock had been turned, came the slow opening of the door, exactly as the black door in her nightmare used to open, and with it came the crowding terror, because there was something dreadful waiting behind that door…