one shelf was a selection of glasses, punchbowls, plates and curiously designed cutlery. On the top shelf was a line of leather-bound volumes recording the membership, activities, accounts and decisions of the Holy Ghost Club over the three decades of its existence. Here too were the wager books and cellar books.
Whichcote took down the current cellar book. The club kept its own stock of wines, a subject of great and abiding interest to its members, and the source of considerable expense for them. He had already selected the wines for the evening and withdrawn them from that part of the Lambourne House cellar reserved for their storage. But, on reflection overnight, he had decided that there would be no harm at all in bringing up another dozen of claret and the same of port. He had overseen the withdrawal directly after breakfast. Now he carried the book to his desk, made a note of what had been removed, and replaced the volume on the shelf.
He ran his index finger along the row of spines. He had read, or at least skimmed the pages, of all of them. The club had been founded by Morton Frostwick in the 1750s. Full membership was restricted to the president, known as Jesus, and twelve Apostles. Its entertainments rapidly became legendary in Cambridge because their nature was both mysterious and lavish.
Both these qualities were due to Frostwick. He had spent many years as a servant of the East India Company in Bengal, where his activities had been immensely profitable. When he returned to England, he visited Cambridge and found the fellows’ combination room at Jerusalem so congenial a place that he had himself admitted to the college as a fellow-commoner. He enjoyed the society of younger men, and his munificence earned him the title of Nabob Frostwick. He presented the college with the little footbridge across the Long Pond, a replica in miniature of Mr Essex’s famous wooden bridge at Queens’ College.
At his own cost, Frostwick had bought wines for the club’s cellar, and also glasses, cutlery and plate, all curiously adorned, which were still used at club dinners today. Among them was a ceremonial glass from which all who desired admission were still obliged to drink: it ingeniously resembled an erect penis, complete with testicles; it had the capacity to hold about half a pint of wine, and each postulant was required to swallow its contents in one go. Frostwick left Cambridge unexpectedly after an episode rumoured to involve one of the sizars at Jerusalem, and went abroad, where it was said he kept a harem of catamites and died of cholera.
Members of the Holy Ghost Club had always had a keen interest in the deflowering of virgins, as the archives amply testified. Frostwick had pointed out that nothing could be more appropriate to the name and aims of the club than to signal the elevation of a disciple to apostolic rank with an outpouring of virginal blood. Was not he himself, in his capacity as Jesus, the son of the Virgin? Was not the very wine they drank at their meetings emblematic of blood? And were they not, by defin-ition, Holy Ghosts, and therefore obliged to lie with virgins whenever possible, in respectful imitation of a similar episode in the Gospels? In Frostwick’s time, this part of the admission ritual had been enacted in front of Jesus and the assembled Apostles. After his departure, however, his successors had decided that it would be more genteel to allow the deflowering to take place in private after the rest of the ritual, as a sort of reward that set the seal on all that had gone before.
Philip Whichcote restored the book to its place in the cupboard. As he was locking the door, Augustus entered the study, his eyes sliding from side to side as though he expected to find monsters lurking in the corners.
‘If you please, sir, it’s Mr Richardson from the college.’
‘Show him in, you booby.’
The tutor advanced into the room and bowed gracefully. His wig was perfectly powdered, his coat was perfectly cut; there was a smile on his freshly shaved face. Only the eyes were unsettling, restless and flecked with amber.
‘Your servant, sir,’ Richardson said. ‘I hoped you would not be engaged. You must have so many calls on your attention.’
‘I hope I shall always have leisure enough to greet my old tutor.’
‘You are too kind. I hear that your club meets this evening and I am sure such occasions require a vast deal of work beforehand.’
Whichcote smiled. ‘Not at all, my dear sir – these things arrange themselves. The servants know what to do.’
‘Indeed.’ Richardson adroitly switched the course of the conversation to the weather, which led by degrees to the recent ill health of the Master, which Mr Richardson prayed would not recur. ‘For I am sure that he is sensible of the difficulties his indisposition causes in the college. Nothing of any importance can be done without him.’ Richardson hesitated. ‘For example, had he been in better health, he might have been in a position to help poor Mr Oldershaw.’
‘The unhappy fellow. Is there any change in his condition?’
‘Not that I am aware of. Of course, he is a member of the HG Club too. In fact, now I come to think of it, I believe his melancholy dated from the last of your dinners.’ Richardson leaned forward, his brow creased with anxiety. ‘But the subject must be inexpressibly painful to you. Pray forgive me.’
‘I’m sure no offence was intended,’ Whichcote said. ‘And certainly none was taken.’ He knew that Richardson was the last person in the world to speak without calculation. ‘As for poor Frank, I believe I perceived signs of his melancholy long before that night. He opened his heart to me on more than one occasion.’
Richardson inclined his head, acknowledging Whichcote’s superior knowledge.
‘I believe you yourself were not a member of the HG Club?’ Whichcote said.
Richardson changed countenance. ‘No. I did not move in those circles when I was an undergraduate.’
‘But you must have known our Founder, I fancy. Was he not a Jerusalem man? Morton Frostwick – a fellow- commoner, if I remember rightly, and past the first flush of youth.’
Richardson turned his head away. ‘Yes, I believe I knew him very slightly.’
Whichcote smiled. ‘Sometimes I while away an idle hour by glancing at the club archives. Mr Frostwick figures largely there, as you may imagine.’
‘I hardly remember him.’
‘Really?’ Whichcote allowed his disbelief to seep into his voice. ‘There are so many diverting stories about him.’
The senior tutor gestured gracefully with his right hand, displaying fine white fingers. ‘It is always agreeable to recall the scenes of one’s youth, but alas I have a more pressing concern on my mind. You are aware, perhaps, that Mr Archdale is one of my pupils?’
Whichcote nodded. ‘He is fortunate indeed.’
‘And I understand that he is to be advanced to full membership of the HG Club today.’
‘I am sure that he will be a popular addition to our little society.’
‘No doubt. However, I had some discussion with his guardian on Saturday, and again on Sunday when Sir Charles dined in college. He is most anxious about his nephew. May I speak in confidence, my dear sir?’
‘By all means,’ Whichcote said.
‘Sir Charles fears that the lad may be following a mode of life that can not only harm his future prospects but also undermine his health. As you are intimate with him, I thought it my duty to have a word with you on the subject. He respects you greatly. A word from you in season may work wonders.’
‘I feel you have too high an opinion of my abilities, sir.’
‘I do not think so.’ Richardson rose to his feet. ‘I must trouble you no further, sir. I know I may rely on your good offices, and I shall be infinitely obliged.’
Whichcote accompanied his visitor into the hall, where Augustus opened the door and bowed very low as Mr Richardson left. Whichcote stood on the step, his hand raised in farewell, as his visitor walked briskly down the short drive towards the main road. He had received a warning. Richardson had no wish for another club scandal touching a member of Jerusalem College.
It was a great pity that before the tutor reached the gates, Mrs Phear turned into the drive, with Archdale’s little whore for the evening walking behind her. Richardson uncovered and bowed to Mrs Phear as he passed. He looked curiously at the girl from the Magdalene Hospital, who passed him with downcast eyes.
The meeting was unfortunate, Whichcote thought. He hoped it was not an evil omen.
The Apostles arrived in ones and twos, some on foot, flaunting the full glory of the club livery in the afternoon sunshine, others preferring to conceal their splendour in sedan chairs or hackneys. The hired footmen ushered them down to the pavilion at the bottom of the garden, where Whichcote waited to receive them in the great room overlooking the river.
Mrs Phear and the girl from the Magdalene Hospital were in the small white bedchamber below. The girl was
