‘Obliged if I could take a day’s leave of absence, sir – a bit of business that won’t wait. I’d take it very kindly.’
The request was less a request than a statement of intent: he would have his leave of absence, whether or not it was granted. The gyp was entirely within his rights, for Holdsworth had hired his services on Frank’s behalf, and it was a contract that could be broken at any time by either party.
‘It’s inconvenient, but if your business won’t wait, then you must attend to it. Perhaps, while you’re in town, you can supply the deficiencies of the larder. We are running short of tea, you said last night, and Mr Oldershaw expressed a sudden desire for strawberries as he was going to bed.’
After Mulgrave had gone, Holdsworth sat at the breakfast table with a book in his hands but he scarcely read a word. He had woken that morning with an odd notion in his mind: yesterday, he had hardly thought of either Maria or Georgie. It had been as if his wife and his infant son had never existed. He did not know whether he should feel guilty for forgetting them or merely relieved that he had briefly escaped their shadows. But he had thought of Elinor Carbury almost constantly and at times in a way that no man should think of another man’s wife; and was that not an even greater betrayal?
There were footsteps overhead, and then on the stairs. Frank passed through the parlour on his way to the pump and the privy in the yard. His feet were bare and he wore only shirt and breeches.
‘Good morning, Mr Oldershaw.’
Frank grunted, but did not return the greeting. Five minutes later, he came back inside, his hair dripping. He left a trail of wet footprints on the parlour flagstones. ‘Where’s Mulgrave?’ he demanded. ‘I want tea and toast.’
‘He asked leave to go to Cambridge on private business.’
‘And you let him? Without consulting me? That’s coming it a bit high.’
What happened next took Holdsworth completely by surprise: he lost his temper. ‘That’s because you were not there to be consulted. If you choose to stay in bed for half the morning, you can’t expect the world to stop and wait your convenience.’
Frank’s colour deepened. ‘You can’t talk to me like that – what do you mean by it?’
‘It means you’re labouring under a misapprehension. I can talk to you like that. There is nothing in the world to stop me.’
‘You’ll regret your insolence.’
‘Will I?’
‘For a start, you’ll leave my service instantly.’
Holdsworth laughed. ‘You can’t dismiss me. Her ladyship retained my services, not you.’
Frank lunged forward. Holdsworth moved before the blow landed, and the fist connected with his shoulder rather than his face. Before Frank could hit him again, he seized the boy’s wrist and twisted it. He spun Frank around and pushed him downwards, face first over the table.
‘You don’t use force with me, sir. I’m not your servant. You’re not my master.’
Frank struggled violently, hacking at Holdsworth’s shins with his bare heels. In reply, Holdsworth jerked the boy’s arm higher up his back until Frank cried out. Holdsworth shuffled his legs back, away from the flailing feet. For a moment, neither of them moved.
With one fluid movement, the ginger cat streaked into the still silence. It had been watching events from the kitchen doorway. Now, choosing to interpret them in its own way and judging its moment had come, it leaped lightly on to the table. It miaowed. It nudged Frank’s forehead repeatedly, demanding affection from the source that experience taught was most likely to provide it. Frank shook his head, trying to repel its advances, but the cat took the movements as caresses, primitive perhaps but worthy of encouragement. It pushed the side of its head against Frank’s hair and rubbed it enthusiastically to and fro. It began to purr.
Holdsworth trembled with suppressed emotion. The laugh erupted from him in a great bellow. The cat licked Frank’s ear, as if to inspire him to further exertions. Holdsworth felt the tension ooze from Frank’s body and from his own too.
Frank joined in the laughter, so far as he could with his cheek pressed hard against the tabletop, producing a snuffling, snorting sound that made them both laugh all the more. Holdsworth released him and stood back.
The laughter died. The cat continued to purr, looking from one man to the other. Frank stood up slowly. He turned to face Holdsworth. He held out his hand.
‘I beg your pardon, sir.’
They shook hands.
Holdsworth said, ‘I do not think there is anything more I can do for you. I shall write to her ladyship and resign my position.’
‘No. I beg you not to act hastily. Do you believe I’m cured?’
‘I am not perfectly convinced you were ever mad in the first place.’
Frank sat down in the chair by the window. ‘You’re talking in riddles.’
‘It’s clear enough to me, and largely a matter of common sense. You’re not a maniac.’
‘I am obliged to you, sir. But Dr Jermyn would not agree.’
‘For all his learning, Dr Jermyn sometimes behaves like an ass. I believe you’ve been liverish, and in low spirits. I believe you received a great shock, or rather a series of them. If you saw or sensed the presence of another person in the college garden that night, it was not a ghost but someone as alive as you or I. Or perhaps what you saw was a creature of your disordered fancy – born of too much laudanum, too much wine, too much unhappiness. It doesn’t matter. The point is that you were predisposed to see your ghost, and that is where the real heart of this mystery lies. I’m persuaded that the solution to it will also reveal the reason why you do not wish to mix with the world, and why you do not wish to see your mother.’
The ginger cat leaped on to Frank’s lap. Automatically the young man began to stroke its head. The cat arched its neck and purred even more loudly than before, while its tail waved like a flag of victory.
‘You see that animal?’ Holdsworth said. ‘It interprets our actions in terms of its own wishes and fears, as is very natural. It is equally natural for us in our way to do the same. You feared to see the ghost of Mrs Whichcote in the garden, and there she was. Dr Jermyn looks for madmen for he has been trained to do so and he wishes to find them. Do they not provide him with his place in the world and a comfortable income? He interprets your ghost as a symptom of mental disturbance, whereas his father or grandfather would have seen it as a sign of demonic possession or some other supernatural interference in our mundane existence. We put the labels we choose on things, Mr Oldershaw, and for our own purposes: that is the long and the short of it.’
Frank moistened his lips. ‘And you? Is that what you do?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then it follows you may be as wrong in your conclusions as Jermyn is in his.’
‘You may be right. But the difference between us is that I gather my evidence before I construct my theory, while the doctor looks for evidence that supports his theory. In all events, it seems to me that none of us can get very far unless we know what set all this in motion.’
‘But who can tell the causes of madness?’
‘In this case, I believe you can. Leaving the question aside of whether this is truly madness or some lesser form of nervous disturbance, it is impossible for any of us to come to a rational conclusion if we do not know what happened at the meeting of the Holy Ghost Club that you attended in February, shortly before Mrs Whichcote’s death. This is the heart of it, sir, is it not? The Holy Ghost Club and the death of Mrs Whichcote. That’s why you have played host to an entire regiment of the blue devils. That’s why you made matters worse with laudanum and wine and the rest of it.’
Frank leaned forward and pushed the cat from his lap. He put his head in his hands. With his smooth skin and his fair disordered hair, he might have been a boy, no more than twelve, prey to some sorrow, or trapped in some misdemeanour. Holdsworth realized something so obvious that he could not understand why he had not seen it before: Frank’s youth had played a part in all this. For all his airs and graces, for all his wealth and position, he was no more than eighteen. He was a desirable prize, too – a boy who would have a great fortune and a great place in the world. But still a boy. He had few defences against older people who knew what they wanted and knew how to get it. He was easy meat for the likes of Philip Whichcote, Dr Jermyn and even Mr Richardson and the Carburys.
‘What happened at the meeting of the Holy Ghost Club?’
Frank did not reply.
