Whichcote summoned Augustus. Archdale pushed back his chair and stood up. Almost immediately he lost his balance and was forced to cling to the table, knocking over his glass and spilling what was left of his wine. The footboy steadied him. Archdale pushed the servant’s arm away.
‘Clumsy oaf,’ he said. ‘Look what you made me do.’
Whichcote had crossed the room to a writing table. ‘You may as well sign these now,’ he said. ‘Then we’re square for next time.’
Archdale staggered to the writing table and scrawled his signature at the foot of a note of hand for sixty-four guineas. Afterwards, Whichcote conducted his visitor to the punt moored at the little jetty on the river bank. Augustus followed, carrying Archdale’s cap and gown with a certain reverence. Archdale was a fellow-commoner, so the cap was velvet with a gold tassel, and the gown was richly trimmed with gold lace. Whichcote and the footboy manoeuvred him from the safety of dry land.
Cursing and puffing, Archdale settled himself on the cushions. He lay back, legs splayed apart, twitching like an upturned turtle. Signing away sixty-four guineas had raised his spirits again. He waggled his finger at Whichcote on the bank. ‘I’ve got you on the run, eh?’ he crowed. ‘Soon we shall have another
At a sign from his master, Augustus worked the pole out of the mud and expertly punted the unwieldy craft into the centre of the stream. Whichcote raised his hand in farewell and walked slowly up the garden to the side door of the house.
Mulgrave was sitting on a bench in the hall. As soon as Whichcote opened the door, the gyp sprang to his feet and bowed, a little awkwardly because of his lopsided shoulders. The two men had known each other ever since Whichcote had come up to Jerusalem at the age of seventeen.
‘I thought you’d want to hear right away, sir,’ Mulgrave said. ‘Her ladyship’s man came by the coach this afternoon.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Holdsworth. They say he’s a bookseller from London.’
‘A bookseller?’ Whichcote repeated, amused. ‘I expected a physician or a lawyer. Where does he lodge?’
‘With the Master, sir.’
‘How did he strike you?’
‘Holdsworth?’ Mulgrave looked at Whichcote, his face guileless. ‘A big man. Bigger than poor Mr Cross, and younger too. Just as well.’ He paused a moment. ‘He don’t look as if he smiles much.’
On the same Friday evening, Mr Philip Whichcote called on Mrs Phear. The lady lived on the east side of Trumpington Street, opposite Peterhouse, in a small double-fronted house, with four prim windows overlooking the street and a fanlight and a lantern above the front door. The doorstep was white-stoned every morning by a gangling maid named Dorcas, a poorhouse apprentice who feared Mrs Phear far more than she feared Almighty God because He at least was reputed to be merciful.
Whichcote arrived in a sedan chair. He paid off the bearers and rapped with the head of his cane on the front door. When Dorcas saw who was waiting on the doorstep, she curtsied and stood back.
‘Madam is in the parlour, sir.’
He found Mrs Phear engaged with her needle and thread in a chair by the window. There was still a little light outside but two candles were burning on her worktable. She had been working for several weeks on a small tapestry showing the destruction of Sodom, or possibly Gomorrah; it didn’t much signify which. The tapestry was designed as a sampler to aid instruction at a small school attached to the Magdalene Hospital, a reformatory for fallen women in London. When Mr Whichcote was announced, Mrs Phear set aside her embroidery and began to rise.
‘Pray do not disturb yourself, ma’am,’ he said coming forward. ‘No need to stand on ceremony.’
She ignored him, however, rose to her feet and curtsied. Smiling, for he understood the game perfectly, he bowed to her.
‘Mr Whichcote, I am rejoiced to see you. I hope I find you well?’
They passed a minute or two in what Mrs Phear called, when instructing some of those who paid for her services in other capacities, ‘the civilities of genteel intercourse’. Mrs Phear was a tiny, dumpy woman with a widow’s cap pulled low over her plain face. Whichcote had known her since he was five years old, when she came to be governess to his sister, and she had later married a neighbouring clergyman, who had died shortly afterwards.
The maid was summoned, and the materials for making tea were brought to the room and set beside Mrs Phear’s chair.
‘Dorcas,’ Mrs Phear said. ‘Go to the kitchen and clean the knives. Do it directly. They are sadly in need of it.’
When they were alone, Mrs Phear unlocked the caddy and busied herself in measuring the tea into the pot. She stirred the leaves into the water and stared into the vortex of black, swirling specks. She sat back and looked at Whichcote. ‘Well?’
Whichcote drummed his fingers slowly on the arm of his chair. ‘There you are, my dear madam, sitting like patience on a monument. I am come to inquire whether matters are in order for Wednesday.’
‘Pray lower your voice. And yes – all is in order. A nice, plump little bird. On the young side.’
He said nothing but raised his eyebrows.
‘Ready for the plucking, I assure you,’ she went on. ‘And it won’t be for the first time, though she knows how to make it seem so. Who is it this time?’
‘Young Archdale. Also ready for the plucking, in his own way. You are sure she will be here in time?’
‘You need not be anxious about that.’
‘But I am anxious,’ he said. ‘Consider what happened last time. Of course I am anxious.’
‘Last time we were unlucky, my dear,’ she said, handing him his cup.
His hand shook, and tea slopped into the saucer. ‘Unlucky? Is that what you call it?’
‘How could we have known what would happen? What’s done is done. At least we brought Tabitha Skinner back here, and the coroner made no difficulties about either fatality.’
‘It was the worst night of my life. First her.’ He stared at the embroidery. ‘Then Sylvia.’
‘This time there will be no difficulties. Not with the girl.’
‘What should I do without you, dear madam?’ he said sourly.
‘There is no point in wasting your smooth words on me, my dear.’
He burst out laughing, and she smiled at him. Then, serious again, he said, ‘You do not think it is too soon to have another dinner, another meeting? The long and short of it is, I need ready money, and that is the only resource left to me, besides cards.’
‘It is a private party, Philip, not a rout. Besides, what has your club to do with propriety? Your boys will admire you all the more. You will be confirmed as a bold spirit, a man who cares naught for petty convention.’
‘I have another difficulty to lay at your feet, ma’am.’
‘The little matter of the ghost?’
He nodded. ‘And – worse than that, much worse – Frank Oldershaw. I feel like a man walking underneath a black cloud and expecting at any moment the heavens to open.’
She sipped her own tea. ‘Has he regained his reason? Does he have lucid intervals?’
‘Not to my knowledge. I should hear it if he does. But there has been one development – her ladyship has sent a man to pry on her behalf. He arrived at Jerusalem today.’
‘Ah – her ladyship. That is the root of the difficulty, I fancy.’
‘No, madam,’ Whichcote snapped. ‘The root of the matter is Sylvia. How could she do this to me? How could she, ma’am?’
‘I told you at the time you should have done better than the daughter of a country attorney with hardly a shilling to her name.’
Whichcote stood up and moved restlessly about the room. ‘It is as if she haunts me, as if she finds ways to goad me, even now. Do you know, I thought I saw her today? Sitting in the pastry-cook’s in Petty Cury. It was someone else, of course, but -’
‘This is childish talk, Philip. Why do you not sit down?’
He glared at her, but a moment later he resumed his seat.
