him down the slope of the bank. Whichcote struggled, and briefly succeeded in breaking Frank’s hold. But Frank was younger, larger and stronger than him. He embraced Whichcote and squeezed, pinning the latter’s arms to his side.
‘Damn you, let me -’
Frank dragged him further down the slope. The ground near the water was soft. Whichcote’s riding boots slipped in the mud. He butted Frank’s face with his forehead as viciously as he could. Frank swore and shifted his grip. He raised the older man off his feet.
‘For God’s sake -’
Frank pivoted, lifting his victim higher. Gathering momentum with the force of the swing, he flung Whichcote away from him. For an instant Whichcote hung in the air, limbs flailing. There was a great splash as he hit the water.
‘Quack,’ Frank said, smiling. ‘Quack, quack.’
Holdsworth loped swiftly out of Cambridge, climbing the long hill from the river as though the Furies were pursuing him. As he walked, two faces constantly flashed before him in the inner theatre of his mind: one was Tobias Soresby’s, white, bony and full of fear; and the other was Elinor Carbury’s, turned up to him with those lovely eyes trained on him – those eyes, so unexpected and indeed ravishing in that stern, thin, heavy-browed face.
Why do we think only the dead haunt us, he wondered, for the living are just as good at it?
The town dropped away behind him. As the light began to fade, the clouds were coming in from the west and it grew noticeably cooler. Holdsworth slowed his pace. He remembered how, on his first night at Jerusalem, Richardson had taken him out into the gardens and had talked of the place as a fortress, enclosed and inviolate. But there was another way of looking at it, namely that the walls kept people in as much as they kept others out. The place was a trap, and animals caught in traps cannot escape one another. Once, in the days of his prosperity, Holdsworth had employed a journeyman who delighted in collecting rats and placing them together in a cage. The rats would fight until only one was left, bloody, victorious and often dying. It was such sport to watch them, the journeyman used to say, and he would take bets on who would be the winner.
A rider appeared a quarter of a mile away. His horse was moving at a walk, so the man was in no hurry. Slowly he and Holdsworth drew together. There was something strange about the figure slumped in the saddle. His head was down. His coat looked limp and bedraggled. He wore neither hat nor wig.
The distance between them decreased. The coat was more than bedraggled – it was wet, and so were the rest of the man’s clothes. When they were no more than twenty yards apart, the rider raised his head. His eyes met Holdsworth’s but slid away as the head bowed again over the horse’s neck. But there had been time enough for Holdsworth to recognize him.
‘Mr Whichcote,’ he said. ‘Good evening, sir. Have you met with an accident?’
Ignoring Holdsworth, Whichcote urged the horse into a trot and passed him. Holdsworth turned to watch his retreating figure. Once he was safely past, Whichcote allowed his horse to slow to a swaying, ambling walk.
Holdsworth went on as quickly as he could, trying to ignore a blister developing on his right foot. He passed through the little village, where the dogs barked at him and the smith, smoking his evening pipe outside the forge, watched him curiously. Holdsworth turned into the track to the mill.
Mulgrave was in the yard, also smoking. He stood up with obvious reluctance when he saw Holdsworth and made only a token effort to hide his pipe. There was a mark on his left cheek, a long, angry weal, and another on his neck partly concealed by his necktie and collar.
‘Thank God it’s you, sir,’ the gyp said, casting his eyes piously towards heaven. ‘I thought for a moment you was that devil again.’
‘Mr Whichcote?’
‘Who else, sir? The devil incarnate.’
‘I passed him on the road.’
‘He took his riding crop to me. In this very yard. I’m as free a citizen of this country as he is, sir, and maybe I’ll have the law on him for it. It’s assault and battery, that’s what it is. And there’s the money he owes me, too, the villain, he’s as good as stolen it.’
‘What happened? Where’s Mr Frank? Did Mr Whichcote talk to him?’
Mulgrave wriggled, as though the questions were bullets and he was trying to avoid them. It took Holdsworth an instant to realize that the gyp was laughing silently.
‘Mr Frank gave him a ducking in the millpond.’
‘What?’
The silent wriggling began again. ‘Gave him a ducking, he did, that’ll teach the devil a lesson.’
‘But where’s Mr Frank?’ Holdsworth repeated, raising his voice.
Mulgrave jerked a thumb. ‘In the parlour, if you can call it that.’
Before the gyp had finished speaking, Holdsworth was walking away. Mulgrave’s lack of respect could wait until later. He found Frank sitting on the elbow-chair by the table in the parlour, with a dish of tea beside him. His hair was combed and lightly powdered, and he was neatly and soberly dressed. He could have attended divine service in Great St Mary’s without causing anyone to raise an eyebrow. He was so absorbed in his book,
‘Mr Oldershaw – I am heartily sorry for the intrusion you suffered this afternoon. I hope you are not harmed?’
Frank laid the book carefully on the table and, with great condescension, rose and bowed to Holdsworth.
‘I should not have left you unprotected,’ Holdsworth went on. ‘I have been racking my brains how Whichcote found out your direction -’
‘I am perfectly well, sir, as you see, so it don’t signify.’
‘Why did he come? What happened?’
Frank smiled. ‘Quack,’ he said. ‘Quack.’
That evening it rained, not heavily but a steady drizzle that kept Elinor indoors. She sat by the window and turned over the familiar pages of
At eight o’clock, she rang for Susan, ostensibly to have her bring the tea things. But while she was in the room, Elinor asked her maid about the movements below.
‘It’s Mr Richardson, ma’am, he’s been in and out all evening. And we’ve had Mr Holdsworth and young Mr Archdale, too, and Mepal. And now Master’s sent Ben to fetch Mr Soresby.’
Time dragged on. After tea, Elinor found it necessary to go downstairs on two occasions, once to fetch a book from the dining room, and again, when the rain had stopped, to venture out for a turn in the Master’s Garden while it was still light. On both occasions she heard voices behind the closed door of Dr Carbury’s book room. Though sorely tempted, she could not bring herself to sink so low as to listen at the door; and besides the servants were to and fro so there was always the risk of discovery.
Outside, she strolled up and down the gravel walks and it was surprising how often she found herself passing the book-room window. Unfortunately it was closed. When she was near by, she heard voices, but could not distinguish what they were saying. There was one exception, however, when she heard Soresby saying, or rather shouting, ‘But I swear it, sir! By all that’s sacred!’
As the evening drew on, the mystery deepened. Soresby left the Master’s Lodge. Elinor, who happened to be in the dining room at the time, looked up and saw his lanky figure pass the window, his head bowed and his gown trailing along the ground.
The hour for supper arrived. Elinor ate alone in the dining room. There was no sign of Dr Carbury. He was still in the Lodge. His usual practice was to sup in hall or in the combination room, but if he remained at home, he would sup with his wife. Elinor discreetly interrogated Susan and learned that her husband had not even told Ben to bring him a tray in his book room. She discounted the possibility that Dr Carbury was feeling exceptionally unwell – for he would have made Elinor and the servants aware of it if he had been; he was not a man to suffer in silence.
