He looked so anxious that Holdsworth said he should be glad to accept the invitation. He did not usually eat with his hosts – Mrs Farmer had contrived to make it clear that though he lodged in her house, he was not part of her household.
‘I am much obliged,’ Ned said as though he were the invited guest. ‘And John – I know Betsy seems a little harsh sometimes, but the truth is, she is a good woman and has all our best interests at heart.’
‘Indeed she has.’
‘She has a head on her shoulders, too – and – and she is wonderfully devout. I sometimes think she is almost too strict with herself on that score, and the devil of it is that sometimes the strictness rubs off in the way she deals with others. Yet there’s no help for it, John, and as I say she means it for the best.’
Holdsworth touched his arm. ‘There is no need to run on like this. I am perfectly convinced that Mrs Farmer is an admirable woman. And words cannot express my gratitude to you both for offering me shelter for so long.’
Ned strode onwards. He was a good man, and Holdsworth gave Mrs Farmer all credit for recognizing that. But she had also recognized that Ned was malleable, someone she could make something of. She had brought more than money to their union: she had brought resolution and a sense of purpose.
‘I wish I could do more,’ Ned burst out. ‘You know it. Yet between you, what can I do? You are as stiff-necked as a hidalgo, whereas Mrs Farmer – well, she examines the books every night, you know. She watches every penny. By God, she is a better man of business than I shall ever be.’
Holdsworth told him that he did not doubt it, at which Ned laughed at him and Holdsworth laughed back.
‘There,’ Ned said. ‘That’s better. Seems an age since I saw you laugh. Are you in a more cheerful humour than you have been? Were you offered a commission by the little monkey man?’
‘I was. I think he is a man of business or something of that nature. A steward, perhaps. At any event, he is acting for Lady Anne Oldershaw.’
‘Widow of the late bishop? Ah – I begin to see which way this is tending.’
‘Not entirely, I think. Her ladyship asked me to catalogue and value the bishop’s collection. But then it became apparent that the library was only part of the reason she had summoned me. She wishes me to go to Cambridge as her emissary. She has it in mind to donate some or all of the books to Jerusalem College there.’
‘Admirable. You are the very man for the task. And all this will occupy you for weeks, months even.’
They reached Maid Lane, where the crowd was thicker and the noise louder. Neither of them spoke until they had crossed the street and passed into a rent leading up to Bankside. The alley was so narrow that they had to walk in single file.
‘There is another reason why she wishes me to go to Cambridge,’ Holdsworth said over his shoulder. ‘Her ladyship wants me to lay a ghost.’
‘What? Are you raving?’
Holdsworth stopped and turned back to him. ‘It is perfectly true. She has read my little book and is convinced that I am the very man to send ghost hunting.’
‘You are funning me.’
‘I assure you, I am not. Watch your step.’ Holdsworth held up his arm just in time to stop Farmer walking into a neat coil of human excrement in the middle of the path. ‘She has a son at the University and he is convinced that he has seen a ghost.’
They emerged from the fetid little alley into the comparatively pure air of Bankside. Holdsworth glanced upriver towards Goat Stairs. The gulls were still quarrelling, this time over something that lay in the water.
‘Shall you go?’ Farmer asked.
‘I am undecided. The mother does not give a fig for the books, of course. She cares only for the boy.’
Farmer grunted. ‘There’s money there. And of course by birth she’s a Vauden, is she not? That means she will have the ear of those who have something more valuable than mere money at their disposal.’
‘When the fit is on him, the boy is violent,’ Holdsworth said. ‘He tried to strangle your monkey man. I have seen the bruises.’
‘Ah. That is not so good.’
‘The likelihood is that I should be of no use to the lad at all. In which case I can expect nothing but trouble from the mother.’
Farmer laid a hand on Holdsworth’s arm. ‘Who’s that, I wonder?’
He pointed to a tall, plainly dressed man thirty yards ahead. He was knocking at the Farmers’ door. As Sal opened it, Farmer and Holdsworth reached the house. Hearing their footsteps, the stranger turned. It was the footman from Golden Square. He held out a letter to Holdsworth.
‘Her ladyship desired me to wait for an answer, sir.’
Holdsworth broke the seal and unfolded the letter.
Mrs Farmer came into the hall to see what the fuss was about. She eyed the banknote with curiosity. Her face looked softer, almost girlish. Money was a powerful thing, Holdsworth thought, the true philosopher’s stone, with the power of transmuting dreams.
Farther along Bankside, the gulls rose in an angry, squabbling group, their cries growing louder and more savage. Were there gulls in Cambridge? Surely not so many, surely not such predatory birds as these?
He handed the letter to Ned and went into the house. He turned into the little parlour. It was here that Maria and her friends had done their praying and wailing, their talking to ghosts. He found pen and ink on the table by the window and scrawled his name on the receipt. He sanded the paper, folded it and returned to the footman waiting at the door. He felt giddy, as though he had swallowed a bumper of rum.
The footman bowed and left. Mrs Farmer and Sal retreated towards the kitchen, where supper was moving towards the final phase of its preparation. It was a fine evening, and Holdsworth and Farmer lingered outside by the river. Holdsworth watched the gulls, which were quieter now but still darting and gliding about the water near Goat Stairs. He felt calmer than he had done for months.
‘Well,’ Farmer said. ‘She had already decided you were to go, and that is that. The wheel of fortune turns, eh?’
Holdsworth patted the pocket in which the banknote lay. ‘It is a bribe.’
‘It was delicately done. Not that a present of money needs any delicacy whatsoever.’
‘I shall call in at the mason’s yard in the morning,’ Holdsworth said.
‘To settle the matter of the headstone? Surely that expense might wait a little?’
‘Twenty-seven shillings and sixpence. That’s what the man wants. I shall have enough left over.’
‘I still think it might wait a little.’
‘No, I must do this for Maria if nothing else. I owe her a little square of stone.’ He hesitated, still staring downstream to Goat Stairs. ‘Then perhaps she will leave me alone.’
Ned frowned. ‘You’re full of fancies this evening. What do you mean now?’
Holdsworth waved his arm, taking in the river before them and the City beyond. ‘Sometimes I am – well, no – not haunted, not that, of course, never that. But my mind plays tricks at times, just for the merest instant, for the twinkling of an eye. I think I see the curve of a shoulder across the road, I hear her voice in a crowd, or – or – well, even a child weeping.’ He watched two apprentices sculling upriver against the tide and thought of black treacle rising to engulf him from the grave that Maria shared with Georgie. He said softly, ‘Perhaps the headstone will settle the business.’
‘This is grief speaking,’ Ned said. ‘It is nothing else. It is a natural consequence of an overactive imagination, exacerbated beyond endurance by the melancholy -’
‘Stop prosing. Advise me instead. Should I buy a shirt tomorrow morning? A new hat? I shall be calling on the quality, after all. I must be shaved – I must have my hair dressed. I shall dazzle Mrs Farmer and Sal with my splendour.’
Farmer shook his head. ‘You must go cautiously in this matter.’
