For two nights after Thomasina killed Simon, she suffered fearsome nightmares.
In them Simon was trapped and frenzied, clawing at the heavy steel doors of the kiln room, screaming for help…Dreadful. Thomasina tossed and turned in the big wide bed that had been so wonderful when Maud had been there with her, and tried to push the nightmares away. But they clawed deep into her mind, causing her to wake in the small hours, gasping and covered in perspiration.
The days were easier, and once she began to spread the story of Simon’s puzzling disappearance, starting with that gossipy old Reverend Skandry, she felt better. Probably an official search had better be set in motion quite soon, but if–when–Simon’s body was found, nobody would be especially surprised because Thomasina had prepared the ground by saying she and Simon had discussed opening up the mill. Everyone would believe he had gone to take a look at the old place. In the meantime, Thomasina asked Mrs Minching to keep Simon’s room cleaned and aired, because no doubt he would turn up sooner or later.
Other than this, Thomasina went about her normal tasks, carrying trays of food up to Maud, visiting neighbours, letting it be known that Maud was on the road to recovery from influenza, although not yet quite up to visitors. She talked to Maud very carefully about her health, although that was difficult because Maud thought it embarrassing to refer to the monthly cycle. Mrs Plumtree, who had explained about these things when Maud was thirteen, had emphasized that it was not a matter to be talked about, except perhaps with a doctor or a nurse if the need arose.
Surely there could only be one reason for Maud being sick in the mornings: Maud had conceived. Quite soon Thomasina would explain her plan for a secret marriage and tragic widowhood. Maud would go along with it; she would understand what a scandal it would be if she did not. She might not actually want to allow Thomasina to adopt the child after its birth, but Thomasina could apply a little firm persuasion when the time came. It occurred to her that Maud was becoming so strange it might be necessary to remove the child from her care anyway.
But if Simon was still alive, the whole thing would start to go very wrong indeed. Supposing the nightmare turned out to be true and he was able to talk? ‘My cousin hit me over the head with an iron bar, and shut me in the kiln room and left me to die…’ Would anyone actually believe that?
But the nightmares and the worries were only nervous reaction. Even if Simon had not been quite dead, he could not survive for very long. Even if he had shouted for help until his throat burst, no one would have heard him, and no one could have got into Twygrist anyway, because Thomasina had the only set of keys.
On the morning of the third day after her attack on Simon, Thomasina, who prided herself on never being ill or feeling out of sorts, went down to breakfast feeling very unwell indeed.
The nightmares had persisted, and last night there had been the hoarse dark whispers she had heard inside Twygrist.
Did you really kill him, Thomasina? said these grating voices. Are you sure he was dead when you left him down there, are you, ARE YOU?
She had woken at 3 a.m. with the voices reverberating inside her head, and with fear clenching and unclenching so badly in her stomach she had to run to the bathroom. Back in bed she managed to get to sleep, but an hour later the process repeated itself. It was annoying to find that fear was something that grabbed you not romantically in the heart but sordidly in the gut. It was especially annoying because the use of Quire’s bathroom at such a silent hour of the early morning would be heard all over the house.