‘You poor love,’ the girl cooed. ‘It is the wine, nothing more. It is so unkind of them to press you to take so much.’
Archdale blinked. ‘Yes – yes, the wine.’
Her fingers strayed to his penis again. ‘And you have such a lovely little lad down here. Oh, how I desire it inside me.’
The possibility occurred to Archdale that perhaps this virgin was not quite the maid she was meant to be. She appeared surprisingly at home with a man’s anatomy.
‘What wouldn’t I give for the honour of losing my maidenhead to a fine gentleman like you, sir?’ she murmured. ‘Why, in an hour or two when you’re recovered, I wager you’d make me swoon with pleasure.’
Archdale felt tears prick his eyelids. Life was so unjust. The occasion was one for rejoicing. The time was right. The girl was agreeable. Yet his body would not allow him to play his part.
‘But what does it matter, sir, if you do it to me now or tomorrow? It’s all one.’
‘Yes, but you do not understand. The others will -’ He broke off and stared miserably at the little white canopy above his head.
The girl was still stroking his thigh. ‘The others aren’t here. None of them. Only you and me, sir. So they’ll know only what we tell ’em.’
Archdale lowered his eyes and looked at the girl’s face. There still appeared to be two of her. ‘You mean -?’
‘We say you had your way with me, sir. As I’m sure you will when you’re yourself again.’
‘You – you are a virgin, aren’t you?’
She stared guilelessly at him. ‘Oh yes, sir.’
‘There – there would be signs.’
‘Not always, sir. Besides, I have a plan.’
She dismounted him as though he were a horse and she had been riding astride him. She went to the fireplace, picked up a covered basket that stood beside it and set it on the table. She uncovered it and took out a little phial containing a dark liquid and sealed with a cork. She held it up between finger and thumb. By chance, it was on a direct line between Archdale’s eyes and the flame of the candle on the table.
Two flames, two phials, of course, and in the centre of each phial was a dull red spark.
‘A few drops of that on the sheet, sir, and there’s my maidenhead.’
‘But how did you come -?’
‘Hush, sir. Don’t speak so loud. A maid must look ahead.’
She returned to the bed and uncorked the phial. He was lying with his legs apart and his shirt rucked up. She scattered a few drops of red fluid between his thighs.
‘There, sir,’ she said, sitting down beside him and taking his hand. Now there needs only one more thing and we are done.’
He frowned up at her. ‘One more thing? What?’
She opened her mouth wide, exposing blackened teeth, and screamed.
23
On the first night at Whitebeach Mill, Holdsworth slept badly, his limbs crammed into a little box-bed built into the wall. He had given Frank Oldershaw the larger of the two upstairs rooms, the one with a decent bedstead. Frank was only a few feet away, on the other side of the lathe-and-plaster partition. The bed creaked as he moved about.
When the dawn came and the little room filled with light, Holdsworth was unexpectedly reminded of the house on Bankside near Goat Stairs. His window at the cottage overlooked the garden, beyond which was the millpond and the muddy green river, hardly more than a stream compared with the Thames at London. Some trick of reflection cast a faint and flickering image of moving waters on the ceiling of the bedroom. It was a poor and insubstantial phenomenon compared to the shimmering light, Georgie’s ghost water, that the Thames threw through the windows. But it was a connection between here and there, now and then.
Georgie and Maria had become less substantial like the light. For minutes at a stretch, they seemed removed from him, at once real and unreal like favourite characters in a play rather than the beloved dead.
Holdsworth rose early, dressed and crossed the little landing on stockinged feet. He looked in on Frank. The boy was lying on his back, one arm outstretched above his head, and appeared to be sleeping soundly. He looked very young, completely vulnerable. Holdsworth had not appreciated before how perfectly formed his features were. In the house at Barnwell, Frank had been considered a madman and he had looked like one too. Asleep in Whitebeach, he looked like an overgrown child.
Would Georgie have lain like this, with such careless and innocent abandon, if he had lived? Holdsworth had failed to save his son and so he would never know. But could he save this living boy in front of him? Would it be something to set against Georgie’s death?
He went down the stairs, which were so steep they were almost a ladder. The interior of the cottage was gloomy because of the small windows and overhanging thatched eaves. There was a rattle of fire-irons in the kitchen. Holdsworth went into the garden. Early though it was, the grey dome of the sky was full of light. The unkempt grass was silvered with cobwebs and dew. He followed the flagged path down to the water. He stood on the bank for a while, watching a pair of moorhens who flew off at his appearance, oddly erect, with their legs dangling down. Both the water and the air were noticeably cleaner than in Cambridge. Apart from Mulgrave at work in the kitchen, there were no man-made noises. Holdsworth closed his eyes and heard drumming water, the call of a bird he could not identify, and a faint, shifting rustling of vegetation.
Thank God, he thought, thank God the boy is still here.
This had been his greatest fear – that Frank Oldershaw would take advantage of the sudden freedom and either flee or find some way of killing himself. Either of those things might happen in the future but at least that first night was past and the boy was still asleep.
Holdsworth walked round the house to the cobbled yard and washed his hands and face at the pump. The mill itself stood at right angles to the little cottage, its wheel raised out of the water. Beside it was a line of outbuildings thatched with reeds. Beyond the pump was the lane to the village. A ginger cat slipped under the gate and snaked around Holdsworth’s legs with his tail erect. Holdsworth tried to nudge it away with his foot but the animal easily evaded him and purred as though it had been paid a compliment.
He was drying himself on his shirt-tails when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned and saw Frank.
‘Mr Oldershaw – you are up early.’
The young man looked surprised to see him there. Frank’s hair was tousled. He wore a shirt and breeches but his feet were bare.
‘Would you like to wash?’ Holdsworth asked. ‘I will send Mulgrave out with a bowl and a towel.’
Frank Oldershaw raised his arms and threw them back as if he were preparing to dive. His face, which had been very serious in expression, suddenly broke into a smile.
‘Quack,’ he said. ‘Quack. I am a duck.’
He bolted out of the yard, taking the path that led round the gable end of the cottage and into the garden. Holdsworth pounded after him. As he passed the kitchen window, he saw Mulgrave’s white face staring open- mouthed.
In the garden, Frank left the path and plunged into the tangle of long grass and weeds. As he ran, he flailed his arms and kicked out his legs with mad and joyous abandon. His feet kicked up silver sprays of dew. He was like a boy let out of school.
‘Quack,’ he cried. ‘Quack, quack!’
In front of him lay the placid expanse of the millpond. Frank did not break stride. At the water’s edge, he plunged into the air in a clumsy dive. His body hit the water with a crash that sent waves rolling over the pool. The waterfowl fluttered into the air in a panic of flapping wings.
‘Mr Oldershaw!’ Holdsworth cried. ‘Mr Oldershaw!’
Seconds later, the boy broke the surface about ten yards from the bank. He turned on his back, half submerged
