Spider Light

by Sarah Rayne

  The invitation would not be very remarkable, in fact it would be entirely in keeping with the Forrester tradition. Josiah Forrester had believed in showing consideration towards the people who worked for him, and he had taught his daughter to have the same sense of responsibility. Paternalism they called it nowadays, he had said, but it was still plain old-fashioned consideration for dependants. Thomasina smiled as she remembered her father had always been especially considerate to George Lincoln who had run the mill profitably and efficiently for so many years. The Miller of Twygrist, he used to say. Good faithful George. Pulled himself up by his bootstraps, of course, married money and learned how to be a gentleman as he went along but none the worse for that.

  After lunch on Sunday, Thomasina would take the miller’s daughter for a walk in Quire’s park, and then accompany Maud to her home. It would all be entirely chaste and perfectly respectable, although there would be a secret pleasure in walking close to Maud along the dark lanes, and slipping an arm around her waist to make sure she did not turn her ankle on an uneven piece of ground.

  It was unfortunate that the lane leading to the Lincolns’ house lay alongside Latchkill–she frowned briefly over that–but they could hurry past the gates.

  When Maud was small, her mamma used to take her for walks along the lanes around their house, and the walks nearly always took them past Latchkill. You could not actually see Latchkill over the high walls surrounding it, but you could see the little lodge at the side of the big iron gates. If you looked through the bars of the gates you could see along the carriageway to where Latchkill itself stood, squat and dark and frowning on its upward-sloping ground. Maud was always frightened that one day the gates would be open and mamma would go inside and Maud would have to go inside as well. It would be the most frightening thing in the world to hear the iron gates clanging shut behind you, shutting you in.

  One afternoon, as they went past Latchkill, mamma said in a voice that made Maud feel cold and fearful, ‘It’s almost spiderlight, isn’t it? So we’d better walk straight past Latchkill today. You must never be caught near Latchkill when it’s spider light time. That’s when the bad things can happen.’

  ‘Spider light?’ said Maud nervously.

  ‘Spider light’s the in-between time. It’s the light that spiders like best of all–the time when it isn’t quite day or night: early morning, when the day hasn’t quite started; or evening, when the daylight’s beginning to fade.’ She paused, and then in a faraway voice, said, ‘All those grey winter mornings when you go downstairs from your bed in the dark and open the curtains to find a huge black spider crouching in the half-light. It’s been there all night, that huge black spider–perhaps it’s been watching you and waiting for you, only you didn’t know it was there…

  ‘That’s the dangerous thing about spider light, Maud: it hides things–things you never knew existed in the world. But once you have seen those things, you can never afterwards forget them.’

  Maud had never forgotten about spider light, and even when she was grown up, if she had to walk past Latchkill she always did so quickly, determinedly not glancing in through the gates. There were bad things inside Latchkill: there was spider light, and there were huge heavy doors that shut in things you had not known existed…When she was small, Maud used to dream about the black iron doors that would be inside Latchkill–doors that would be there to shut something terrible away from the world and must never be opened. Sometimes she had woken up crying because of the nightmare. Father always came into her bedroom if she cried, and he seemed to understand about the nightmare. He told her everyone had nightmares, and he would always keep her safe.

  After lunch at Quire House, Maud and Miss Thomasina had walked past Latchkill. It had been nice of Miss Thomasina to invite her to lunch, Maud thought, although parts of the afternoon had been a little strange. Miss Thomasina had kissed her very warmly on her arrival which Maud had not expected, and said she had a present for Maud; she loved giving people presents.

  The present, laid out on Thomasina’s own bed, was a set of underwear: a chemise, an under-bodice, little silk drawers and stockings to match. At first Maud did not know where to look for embarrassment; underwear was not something you were supposed to discuss, never mind spreading it out on a bed.

  ‘There was a rose pink set as well,’ Thomasina was saying. ‘But I thought blue matched your eyes. I hope I got the size right. Perhaps we ought to make sure it all fits. Let’s try them on you. I’ll help you out of your things. How slender you are–an eighteen-inch waist, I expect? Yes, I thought so.’

  Of course, it was perfectly all right to be undressing like this in Miss Forrester’s bedroom. It was not as if there was a man watching. Even so, Maud felt awkward and a bit shivery, and she felt even more awkward and even more shivery when the chemise was dropped deftly over her head. It probably did not matter that her breasts were touched in the process. Thomasina did not seem to think it mattered; she said Maud had pretty breasts, and dear goodness, there was no need to be blushing so rosily! She had intended a compliment. Had Maud a beau, at all? She was so pretty, there was surely a gentleman interested in her.

  Maud said at once that there was not. Once or twice she had been invited to take a drive with a gentleman, but she usually made a polite excuse. She was not, said Maud in a rush of confidence, very comfortable with gentlemen. They were so coarse, weren’t they?

  ‘Perhaps you prefer the company of ladies?’ said Thomasina, and Maud said, gratefully, that she did. Ladies were somehow less threatening. Gentler.

  ‘You don’t want to be married some day? Most girls of your age do.’

  But the thought of marriage, of getting into a bed with a man and doing whatever it was married people did in a bed was so utterly repugnant that Maud felt quite sick even to think about it. A man’s hands–a man’s body-She shuddered and said, Oh no, she thought marriage would be horrid, and then hoped she had not said anything wrong, or offended her generous hostess.

  But Thomasina did not seem to be offended. She said Maud was very sensible, and hugged her again. This time her hands seemed to slide inside the chemise, but Maud did not like to object. It was not like letting a man touch her.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Thomasina when Maud rather hesitantly said this. Her voice suddenly sounded different. Husky, as if she had a sore throat, but sort of whispery as well. ‘Oh no, my dear, this is nothing like letting a man touch you.’

  George Lincoln was delighted to receive a visit from Miss Thomasina. He knew her well, of course–he had always called her Miss Thomasina, ever since she used to visit Twygrist with her cousin, Mr Simon Forrester.

  He was very gratified indeed by the suggestion that Maud might spend a few weeks at Quire House. It would be a wonderful opportunity for the child. It was like Miss Thomasina to think of such a thing: she had always been so kind to the young ladies of the neighbourhood, taking them out and about, inviting them to Quire House, taking a real interest in them. So George was very pleased to accept for Maud, after which he made haste to offer Miss Thomasina a glass of sherry. His wife used to say it was a drink for a lady, sherry, and it was one of the things George had always been careful to remember.

  But it seemed Miss Thomasina had an appointment and could not stay. She had a great many calls on her time, of course, George knew that. She still concerned herself with the families of people who had worked for her father in the old days. Only last week she had moved that ruffian Cormac Sullivan into the little almshouse recently built on Quire’s land. A very nice cottage it was, and far better than Sullivan deserved.

  After Miss Thomasina had gone, striding briskly down the drive, George thought he would miss Maud while she was at Quire, and that his house would seem sadly empty. But at Quire Maud would meet all kinds of people, which pleased George who worried where a husband might be found for the child. There was a real shortage of young men in Amberwood–why, even Miss Thomasina herself, with all her opportunities and her money was no
t married. A lot of people said she ought to have married her cousin Simon, but neither of them had ever seemed to care for the idea.

  Best of all, the visit would take Maud further away from Latchkill. It was far better–far safer–for the child to be kept as far from there as possible.

  Latchkill Asylum for the Insane

  Day Book: Sunday 5th September

  Report by Nurse Bryony Sullivan.

  Midday.

  Several patients uneasy due to thunderstorm mid-morning. Reaper Wing particularly troublesome–situation not helped by two patients remembering old story about thunderstorms being caused by wrath of the gods, and relating this to rest of wing.

  4.00 p.m.

  Reverend Skandry persuaded to enter Reaper Wing, where he held a prayer service with the intention (in his words), of ‘Restoring calm and order to the poor unfortunates.’

  4.30 p.m.

  Prayer service ended in some disarray, when four Reaper Wing occupants began throwing things at Reverend Skandry, who retired in panic and stated that he is not to be asked to minister to that section of Latchkill again.

  6.00 p.m.

  Dr Glass called out to Reaper Wing (Matron Prout’s orders), and administered bromide all round.

  Memorandum to Bursar

  Tea given to Dr Glass in Matron’s room. Please to ensure this is shown on daily costings, since it was from Matron’s personal store.

  Also deduct cost of breakages (two cups and one plate) from Dora Scullion’s wages this week.

  Signed F. Prout (Matron)

  Bryony had always wished she could write more details in the day-book reports; she especially wished she could record some of her suspicions of Matron Prout.

  ‘I daren’t do it, though,’ she said to her father. ‘She’d have the pages torn out before you could turn round. But she’s milking Latchkill for all she’s worth. I’ll swear that half the poor souls in there are being fleeced of every farthing they own.’

  ‘Chancery lunatics,’ said Bryony’s father. ‘I wouldn’t put it past the old trout.’

  Bryony asked what a Chancery lunatic might be.

  ‘Remember your Dickens, my girl,’ said Cormac. ‘Bleak House. Jarndyce versus Jarndyce. The diverting of inheritances and the snaffling of land by greedy families–God Almighty, have you never heard of it, Bryony? It stems from an old English law–twelfth or thirteenth century–wouldn’t you know the English would still be using rules from the Dark Ages. It gave the Crown custody of the lands of natural fools and guardianship of the property of the insane. If your Prout isn’t up to that little game or one very like it, I’ll take a vow of chastity and enter a monastery.’

  ‘There isn’t a monastery in the world that would have you,’ said Bryony at once, and he grinned and said, ‘Nor there is, thanks be to God. Are we having supper soon?’

  ‘Yes. Why? Are you going out later?’

  ‘I am.’

  It would be better not to ask where he was going, so Bryony did not. It might be poaching or it might be a lady. He was about as trustworthy as a sleeping wolf, Cormac Sullivan but Bryony did not really mind. She loved him better than anyone in the entire world, and what was even better, she liked him. The two things did not necessarily go together.

  So she just said, ‘Don’t get caught, will you?’ and he smiled his guileless smile and said he would not.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  There was no cut and dried textbook treatment for coping with ghosts, even if you believed in them, which Antonia did not.

  Richard was dead; Don Robards had certainly died more than five years ago, and the presence of Paganini’s music in Quire House had been merely a coincidence. Yes, but there had been that car–the same as the car Don used to drive–that followed her yesterday. Had that just been another coincidence? Antonia supposed it was possible.

  What about that dark pocket of fear inside Charity Cottage itself? It was still there, like a bruise you avoided touching, but how much of it was due to Antonia’s own state of mind? Could it conceivably be connected to the cottage’s past? Sensitivity to an atmosphere was not an unknown phenomenom. It was something a surprising number of psychiatrists would cautiously admit existed. Antonia was not quite admitting it now, but she was open to persuasion. She thought she was no more and no less receptive than anyone else, but a number of times, trying to reach deeply disturbed patients, she had been able to feel very distinctly the muddy tangle of their confusion and unhappiness. Like poking a stick into a stagnant pool and feeling the silt stir before you actually saw it reach the surface.

  So did the silt sometimes stir in Charity Cottage? Had something violent and tragic once happened here and left a lasting imprint?

  On balance, ghosts and the imprints of old emotions might be easier to cope with than delusions. Routing ghosts was not a question of reciting some Macbeth-like incantation or waving garlic and crucifixes around. The solution, quite simply, was to systematically crowd the wretched creatures out. To immerse your mind so thoroughly in something else that there was no room left for spooks and no energy to spare for noticing their presence.

  A project. A programme of work, a quest, a venture.

  There were a few possibilities for this, but it was Amberwood and Twygrist that came strongly into her mind. Amberwood and the people who had lived and worked here. The Twygrist miller, whoever he had been, and Thomasina Forrester with that off-centre stare and uncompromising jaw, and the quirky little post of Clock-Winder of Amberwood. And this cottage.

  She retrieved the leaflets about Quire House, and spread them out on the table. It looked as if Godfrey Toy might have had a hand in their compiling; they were neatly written, with little potted histories of some of the people who had lived in the house.

  Thomasina Forrester appeared to have been something of a personality in Amberwood. She had administered the Quire estate and been involved in various charitable activities. Antonia supposed these would have been ladies’ committees for fund-raising events or sick-visiting, and turned over a page to see what Thomasina had got up to.

  It had not been organizing charity concerts or sick-visiting at all. Thomasina Forrester had been a trustee of something called the Forrester Benevolent Trust–Antonia thought there was a disagreeable air of patronage about the name–whose purpose appeared to be the providing of comforts to inmates of the local lunatic asylum. The asylum itself had been called Latchkill and, according to the leaflet, it had been a dark byword for miles around.

  Latchkill. It was a harsh, ugly word. Latchkill–the place where all the locks had been killed. Was that what the name was meant to imply? Do not risk coming here: this is the place where doors cannot be opened because there are no keys. Once you are in here, it is very difficult indeed to get out again.

  The words scraped against Antonia’s mind, taking her back to another place where latches had been killed. A place where some of the females preferred their own sex and practised their own initiation rituals when the wardens were not around.

  But she had survived it. She had even survived the night she was beaten up in the showers, when four of the women subjected her to rape. She had known, of course, that women could and did rape other women–she had had two girls as patients who had been the victims of female rape. But listening to a distraught patient describing the act was no preparation for the experience itself–for the glitter in the attackers’ eyes, or the smell of cheap soap in the shower stalls and the body scents of the women bending over her, or the feeling of their hands…

  Afterwards she had pushed the memory down to the very deepest level of her mind, and it had stayed there until the word Latchkill touched a raw nerve, and a pair of skewed eyes looking out of a framed drawing brought back the fear and humiliation of that night. You never entirely erased any memory, but it was odd that the sketch of the long-dead Thomasina Forrester should have dredged up that particular one.

  Godfrey had been inclined to discount Miss Weston as a possible new friend, so it was
a nice surprise when she turned up just after eleven o’clock next morning, and asked if he knew of any sources she could explore to find out more about the Forrester family. She did not know exactly what she was looking for, she said, just general things: background, how they had made their money, why they had come to Quire House, what descendants there might still be in the area, Twygrist and its place in the scheme of things–it seemed to be bound up with the Forresters, what with the memorial clock and so on. No, there was no especial reason for her interest, she said, but the leaflets Dr Toy had given her had been interesting, and she would like to read up about local history and local personalities while she was here. Nothing very scholarly, only a bit of relaxation.

  This was meat and drink to Godfrey, although he always flinched inwardly if anyone asked about Twygrist. But he had become quite adept at dealing with this by now, and so he said Miss Weston was welcome to any information that would help. They had disinterred a few things for the leaflets and the displays, but there was still oceans of stuff in Quire’s cellars which they had hardly looked at. There might be something about the Forrester family down there, although the term family was stretching it a good deal, because only old Josiah and his daughter had lived here.

  ‘Their bit of Quire’s history only spanned sixty or seventy years and when the daughter–Thomasina–died, the family died with her. So there won’t be a great deal of Forrester stuff.’

  Antonia said that anything there was would be fine, and Godfrey said it was a pity that Professor Remus was away at the moment, because he would know what material they had on Thomasina, although it had to be said that when Oliver did return his mind might still be attuned to first-folio Elizabethan plays or autographed verses from the Romantic period. It might take a day or two for him to adjust to Amberwood again, although when you did have his attention, you had it two hundred per cent, if Miss Weston knew what he meant.