Elinor Carbury’s maid, Susan, the only servant who slept in college, went to her attic bedroom and bolted the door. She opened her box. She took out the special clothes she wore on her days out and laid them one by one on the bed. She kneeled before them, holding up the candle so she could see them better.
At last she made her choice. She chose the velvet cloak that Mrs Carbury had given her. It was her favourite, the most magnificent thing she owned, and looked so neat and fresh it might have been delivered but yesterday from Mr Trotter’s shop in St Mary’s Lane. Despite the warmth of the evening, she draped it around her shoulders. The rich, soft folds fell to the floor, enveloping her. She breathed deeply, sucking in their smell, absorbing the cloak’s essence and making it a part of her.
She closed her eyes, stroked the fabric and thought of Ben.
Elinor Carbury also went to her bedchamber and also did not sleep. She sat in the darkness in her chair and listened to the sounds around her. She heard footsteps on the landing, and she knew which ones were Holdsworth’s. She tried to persuade herself that it was unprofitable to look back at one’s mistakes, in marriage as in all else. One must make the best of things. After all, if one had a roof over one’s head and food on one’s plate, there was no need to despair. The condition she feared above all was poverty.
She wondered what Sylvia Whichcote would have thought of Holdsworth, and he of her. Would she have enchanted him, as she had so many men? Holdsworth was clearly a man of parts and had some elements of cultivation about him. However, there was a ruthlessness about him, a sense that it didn’t much matter whether he walked round an obstacle in life or simply kicked it out of his way. Perhaps the death of his wife and son had made him sour and fanatical. All in all, Elinor was not entirely comfortable with him as her guest, or even with him at Jerusalem. She wondered whether there was something she might say to Lady Anne that would shorten his stay at the Master’s Lodge. On the other hand, she didn’t want him to go.
Time passed. The clocks on colleges and churches rang the quarters. The air grew hotter and stuffier. It was not until well after midnight that the first heavy drops of rain fell on warm lead on old roofs, on dusty, stinking streets, on parched gardens and on those few people still abroad.
Beyond the river, in Lambourne House on Chesterton Lane, Philip Whichcote was still wide awake. He was sitting at his desk in the study. The pile of papers on top seemed to have grown larger and more confused than earlier in the day, as though the bills had been breeding among themselves with feckless enthusiasm during his absence.
The rain pattered against the window. Whichcote shouted for his footboy, who was dozing on a chair in the hall. The child stumbled into the room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Augustus was such a grand name for such an insignificant boy.
‘Bring more candles. Stay a moment – how old are you?’
‘Thirteen, your honour.’ Augustus dropped his eyes. ‘Well, in September, anyway.’
‘Come here. Stand before me.’
Augustus advanced slowly towards him, coming to a halt when he was four feet away from his master. Whichcote turned his chair around so they were facing one another. He looked up at the scrawny child before him. The boy was trembling slightly. He expected a blow.
‘How long have you been part of my household?’
‘Nearly nine months, sir.’
‘You wish to remain in my employ?’
‘Oh yes, your honour. If you please. There’s eight of us at home, you see, and Ma can’t feed us all.’ There was a note of panic in the boy’s voice. ‘I like my position, truly, sir. I hope I give satisfaction.’
‘That remains to be seen. Fetch the candles now.’
When the boy returned, Whichcote ordered him to light him upstairs. On the landing, he unlocked the door to Sylvia’s apartments. Once he was inside, he told the boy to put down the candles and go away. When he was alone he wandered from room to room with a candle in his hand. He would put Sylvia’s furniture up for auction on Monday. It would send a signal that he was short of money to his creditors but it couldn’t be helped. At least he would have something in hand and he wouldn’t have to look at that damned bedstead any longer.
Sylvia had kept secrets from him. He knew that now. So she might have hidden valuables from him. It was worth making absolutely sure that he had overlooked nothing – a ring, perhaps, a few guineas; anything would help.
He opened the bureau and set the candlestick on the flap. He stretched out his hand towards the back of the recess. In the poor light he misjudged the distance. His fingertips jarred against the mounting that held the little drawers and pigeonholes. He felt it give a little at his touch. He took out one of the drawers and tugged at the mounting. It moved smoothly away from the back of the bureau.
Whichcote lifted it out and set it on the floor. He shone the candlelight into the wide, shallow space behind it and ran his fingers along. To his disappointment, there was nothing but powdery dust. He came to the corner and felt the outline of a small, shallow recess in the side of the desk. There was something inside it.
He almost upset the candle in his urgency. He took out a scrap of yellowing paper, folded into a little parcel. Dear God, he thought, a banknote, please let it be a banknote. But as he turned it over in his shaking hands, something sharp stabbed his finger and he cried out, as much in surprise as in pain. A rusty pin was attached to the paper.
Holding it close to the candle flame, he unfolded the sheet completely. The pin held in place a lock of dark, wiry hair. Sylvia had labelled it
To his consternation, Whichcote felt his eyes filling with tears. It was a strange and uncomfortable thought that this was what Sylvia had hidden in her most secret place, carefully wrapped away for a future that had not come to pass. He remembered now that when he had wooed her, he had begged a lock of her own hair, that he had gone down on bended knee to do so, and that she had blushed and after long argument agreed to his request. And she had asked for one of his in return.
He folded the paper carefully and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. He said softly, ‘Sylvia?’
The flame of the candle flickered. There was a faint sound from the bedroom. A sigh? A moan of pain, instantly suppressed.
Nonsense. Nothing but wind and rain in the chimney and the rustle of water in the downpipe outside the window.
He sucked his finger where the pin had pricked it. The wound was deeper than he had thought. His blood was salty. What had he done with the lock of hair she had given him? He had no idea.
Still with the finger in his mouth, he carried the candle to the bedroom door. He stood in the doorway and stared at the shadowy outlines of the great bedstead.
A cage of wood, he thought, a prison for shadows and secrets.
‘Sylvia?’ he whispered. ‘Sylvia? Is that you?’
18
When Susan woke her, Elinor Carbury told the girl to open the window as wide as it would go. The sky was cloaked with high grey clouds. The air was cool and smelled pleasingly of damp earth. The rain had been heavy for much of the night but by dawn it had quite fallen away. She asked after her husband and learned that Dr Carbury had not risen yet.
Elinor decided she would take her breakfast downstairs. It would only be civil, she told herself, for otherwise Mr Holdsworth would breakfast alone. She was not habitually a vain woman but she changed her cap and ribbons twice before leaving her room.
The Carburys’ dining parlour was a small square chamber overlooking the open court on the west side of the Master’s Lodge. Holdsworth was already at table with a bowl of tea in his hand. As she entered, he rose and bowed. They asked after each other’s health, and speculated with polite insincerity that the noise of the storm had prevented Dr Carbury from sleeping well. Elinor inquired, very delicately because she did not wish to seem unduly forward, about Mr Holdsworth’s plans for the day.
‘I believe I shall go to Barnwell again, ma’am.’
‘Are you expected?’
