The Anatomy Of Ghosts

‘You are become very serious all of a sudden.’

‘Money makes it serious. Her ladyship has given you all this before you have lifted a finger for her. She will expect a return. The rich always do.’

Holdsworth smiled at him. ‘That is why they are rich.’

6

On Thursday, Elinor Carbury breakfasted by herself. Lady Anne rose late, and rarely came downstairs before the middle of the morning. The chaise had been ordered for eleven-thirty. Elinor would travel post to Cambridge in far more comfort than by the public coach, and the journey would be two or three hours shorter.

After breakfast, she had a brief interview with Lady Anne, who was not in the best of humours because Elinor would not stay another day.

On her way downstairs she went into her chamber where her maid was packing. Susan was a plump, dark girl with brown eyes and thick ankles. She beamed at her mistress.

‘Anything I can do for you, ma’am? Anything at all?’

‘Try not to crush the silk this time.’

The beaming continued. As a rule, Susan was inclined to be sulky but, a few months earlier, Elinor had given her an unwanted cloak and the maid would revert to being all smiles and sycophancy when she was hoping for another gift. To escape this proleptic gratitude, Elinor fled to the long room with the bishop’s books. She sat down in the chair by the window and took up the volume she had been looking at the previous day. It was Lady Anne’s own copy of Mr Holdsworth’s The Anatomy of Ghosts. Lady Anne had bought it at Elinor’s suggestion when Frank’s misfortune fell upon him. Now, as Elinor reread the first chapter, she paid particular attention to the unhappy case that Mr Holdsworth described there in some detail, since it had aroused his curiosity about ghostly phenomena. He wrote that the wicked fraud had been practised upon ‘a lady of my acquaintance’, who had recently lost her only child in a tragic accident.

Shortly before eleven o’clock, she heard what she had been waiting for – a knock on the front door, followed by the sound of the porter’s husky voice as he let a visitor into the hall. The footman, James, ushered Mr Holdsworth into the room. Elinor slipped the little book on the nearest shelf and rose to her feet.

‘Madam,’ he said, bowing. ‘I beg your pardon. I shall return another -’

‘Pray do not go, sir. I hoped to speak with you before I leave. Tell me, does your presence here mean you are quite determined to go down to Cambridge?’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘You may not find your task an easy one.’

‘I apprehend there may be difficulties.’

She stared at him, sensing a hint of impertinence in his words. ‘In that case, I wish to warn you of another circumstance, which may help you to discharge your new duties.’

Holdsworth bowed again but did not speak. The man was stiff and proud, she decided suddenly. And plain almost to the point of being ugly. But she wished he were not so tall. It gave him an unfair advantage. Still, there was no help for it: she must use what materials lay to hand.

‘I wish to assist you with some information before you go.’

‘Then I am obliged to you, madam.’

She frowned at him, once again uncertain whether he intended impertinence. ‘It concerns the lady whose ghost Mr Oldershaw is alleged to have seen.’

‘Mrs Whichcote?’

‘Yes. She died suddenly in February.’

Elinor stared out of the window. The glass seemed blurred, as if by rain. The sill was stained with whorls and smudges of soot.

‘How did the lady die?’ Holdsworth asked.

She turned her head towards him. ‘Mrs Whichcote was found drowned in the Long Pond at Jerusalem College.’

‘Drowned?’ For an instant his face crumpled as if an invisible fist had squeezed the features together. ‘Drowned? Had she fallen in?’

‘It was put about that she must have missed her footing in the darkness.’

‘But you would have me believe otherwise?’

‘No, sir. But there are those who say – well, it don’t signify – there are always those willing to make bad worse.’

‘So they say it was a case of self-murder?’

She nodded.

‘They take the one to confirm the other, I suppose?’ he said.

‘What?’

‘They believe that if Mrs Whichcote’s ghost has been seen, it strengthens the notion of suicide. And vice versa – since she committed suicide, her ghost would be likely to walk abroad. It is one of those circular flights of speculation that defy counter-argument.’

‘Mrs Whichcote’s name means little or nothing to most people,’ Elinor said in a low voice. ‘I do not wish it to attract further notoriety.’

He seized upon a detail. ‘You say it was dark – at what hour did the accident happen?’

‘At night. We do not know the precise hour. She was found by the night-soil man early in the morning.’

‘But what was she doing in a college at that time? Surely it is not usual for ladies to wander in college gardens, alone and unprotected, in the dead of night?’

Elinor felt her colour rising. ‘It appears that Mrs Whichcote suffered on occasion from noctambulism. She often visited me at the Master’s Lodge by day, and she had her own key to the Master’s Garden. It was convenient for both of us that she should be able to come and go as she pleased without passing through the college itself.’

‘So you believe she was sleepwalking? That in her sleeping mind she intended to pay you a visit?’

‘It seems the most likely explanation. It was the one that satisfied the coroner.’

After a pause, Holdsworth said, ‘Her ladyship’s mind is much fixed upon her son.’

‘Now she is widowed, he is very dear to her. He is her only child yet living.’

‘Then why does she not go to his aid herself?’

‘Her health does not permit her to travel,’ Elinor said. ‘She had a fall – she has to be carried everywhere like a baby now. She is exhausted this morning because of the effort she made yesterday.’

‘I am surprised she does not rely wholly on you to act for her in this matter. She clearly values your opinion. You are in Cambridge already. You know her son.’

‘You forget, sir. I am a mere woman. Lady Anne holds firm views on the respective duties of the sexes.’

‘But in that case her ladyship could put the matter in the hands of Dr Carbury, could she not? Or there must be several other gentlemen almost equally well qualified for such a delicate commission, including Mr Frank’s tutor.’

‘She has decided that they would not answer – she prefers to send you.’

‘Because she can hire me?’

Elinor stared at him for a moment without speaking. She said, ‘And because you know something about the subject of ghosts. Now may I put a question to you?’

He bowed.

‘I do not wish to pry into your private circumstances. And you may not wish to answer. It shall be just as you choose. But pray believe I do not ask from idle curiosity – I have a purpose. Mr Cross tells me that you have recently suffered the loss of your wife, and that it is widely believed that she was the anonymous lady whose case you describe so feelingly in your book – the lady whose innocent credulity had been imposed upon with such terrible results.’

He nodded but said nothing.

‘I wish with all my heart that it had not been so. And so the ghost -?’