The Anatomy Of Ghosts

‘Then let me hazard a conjecture or two.’

The boy did not move but his stillness seemed to intensify.

‘It seems to me that Lambourne House is a species of college and Mr Whichcote is a species of tutor,’ Holdsworth went on. ‘And the club members are in a sense his pupils. In return for your money, he teaches you the vices of a gentleman.’

Holdsworth waited, but still Frank said nothing.

‘But something out of the ordinary occurred that night. Something that drove Mrs Whichcote out of the house. Something that led to her death. I do not believe this nonsense about sleepwalking. Was she taken away? Or did she run away?’

Frank raised his head and looked at Holdsworth. He shut his eyes, as if to close out the world.

‘Tell me,’ Holdsworth said. ‘I promise it will not harm you. And it may help.’

‘It was my doing,’ Frank whispered.

‘Yours? How?’

‘It was arranged that after the club meeting I should spend the night at Lambourne House. She… came to me, in my bedchamber.’

A silence grew between them. The cat surveyed the room. After a moment’s consideration it jumped on to Holdsworth’s lap.

Frank stood up. ‘I have laid too many burdens on your shoulders already, Mr Holdsworth,’ he said, with the vertiginously lofty dignity that only a very young man can achieve. ‘I apologize. I must learn to carry a little of the load myself.’

‘Come, sir, you can’t stop now. Tell me the rest.’

‘I burned for her. I worshipped the very ground she trod on. I would have done anything for her. To my amazement, I found she returned my passion and – not to put too fine a point on it – on that very night she granted me the last favours.’

Holdsworth stroked the cat’s head. ‘And where was Mr Whichcote in all this?’

‘He was not in the house – he was escorting some of the club members back to their colleges. Most of them were in their cups and quite incapable of finding their way.’ Frank sat down again and rested his arms on the table. ‘But he came back, that was the trouble. He saw her coming out of my room, and then – well, God knows what happened. That devil Whichcote. I heard him shouting and her crying out. I think he beat her.’

And what were you doing to prevent it?

Frank blundered on, as if Holdsworth had spoken the question aloud: ‘I would have stopped him if I could but he locked me in my chamber. And then it was too late. Early in the morning we were roused by Mepal banging on the door with the news of what had happened.’ He buried his head in his arms. ‘Dear God, Sylvia was so beautiful, Mr Holdsworth, so lovely. She was all the world to me. And for her to end like that, running alone through the streets by night and drowning in a pond. Was ever anything so cruel?’

36

Adversity, like competition, brought out the best and the worst in Dr Carbury. At times, he seemed almost his old, vigorous self. He bustled about the college and, as did Richardson, talked individually to most of the fellows. He announced that an extraordinary meeting of the fellowship would be held at midday tomorrow.

It would not do, he told Elinor, to let the college think he was skulking in the Master’s Lodge because his protege had been disgraced. She watched over him anxiously, as a wife should, though she scarcely knew whether her concern was more for him or for herself.

Mr Archdale was summoned to see the Master. Elinor learned from her husband that Soresby had attended chapel as usual and had dined in hall. But the sizar sat by himself and talked to no one, and no one talked to him.

The Master’s vigour stayed with him until the middle of the evening. He returned early from supper, leaning on Ben’s arm, and had to be helped into bed. Elinor went to see him. He was exhausted and clearly in pain. But he would not allow her to send for a doctor or even for a nurse to sit up with him.

‘No, no,’ he said testily, rolling his head from side to side. ‘I shall do very well as I am, Mrs Carbury. Besides, if we send out for someone, the news will be around college in five minutes.’ He smiled grimly, wincing as he did so. ‘And Dirty Dick will start work on his eulogy of me. If he’s not written it already.’

He turned his face away and groaned. Elinor had had the apothecary make up a supply of opium pills. She took the little waxed box from her pocket, summoned Ben to help her, and persuaded her husband to take two of them. Ben raised him up and, ignoring her husband’s discomfort, she forced him to take his doses. The pills at least eased the pain, which was more than the physicians had been able to do with their diagnoses and their degrees.

Dr Carbury dozed fitfully. Elinor, Susan and Ben took it in turns to sit by the bedside. Elinor did not sleep. Throughout the night, the chimes of the college clock relentlessly announced the slow procession of quarters and hours. Day and night the chimes reminded her that she was in Jerusalem, her prison and her sanctuary.

She wondered whether she should summon another clergyman but decided against it on the grounds that it would only infuriate her husband because his true condition would then become known outside the Lodge. Also, it might make him more afraid because it would show that Elinor thought he was dying. Through the long hours, she told herself over and over again that he – and she – had grounds for hope. Her husband’s constitution was enormously strong and he had survived worse crises than this one. She did not let herself think of what would happen to her if he died. She did not let herself think of John Holdsworth.

Two o’clock was striking as she left the sickroom, where Susan now sat beside the bed. Dr Carbury was awake but comatose. He seemed free from pain. Elinor closed the door behind her and walked slowly and softly down the passage towards the door of her own room. She was tired but not sleepy. She paused by the window that lit the landing and pulled the curtain a few inches aside.

The window looked west, across the little court in front of the Lodge and over the town beyond. The rain had stopped during the afternoon. The sky had cleared. There were many stars and somewhere behind her there was a moon. The roofs, towers and spires lay before her like a sleeping herd of monsters. In their shadows clustered the lesser buildings of the townsfolk.

A movement caught her eye. There was somebody moving in the court below. She made out a dark figure making his way towards the railings that separated the court on its north side from Jerusalem Lane. The man’s awkward and erratic movements reminded her of ungainly, long-legged insects like crane-flies.

In an instant, she remembered that when she and Sylvia were young at school, they had called such insects daddy-long-legs, and that Sylvia had trapped one and removed its legs, in a spirit of experiment rather than cruelty. It was true that Sylvia had never been cruel. But she had always been desperate for knowledge and hungry to experiment, and sometimes that had amounted to the same thing, for desire had always been its own vindication.

The memory of Sylvia brought with it a sour and nameless sensation, bitter as wormwood. Simultaneously, as if Sylvia herself had ignited a flare that threw a brief light on to the present, Elinor recognized the figure below as that of Mr Soresby. He had reached the far corner of the court, where the railing met solid masonry. He hauled himself up and gingerly negotiated the spikes. For a few seconds she watched him clambering over the barrier, but suddenly he was gone, swallowed up by Jerusalem Lane.

She let the curtain fall across the window and returned to her room. Mr Soresby had absconded. Her duty, she supposed, was to inform her husband immediately or, if that proved impossible, to send Ben with a message for Mr Richardson. On the other hand, who would gain by it? Certainly neither the college nor Mr Soresby. She could not blame the sizar for running away from a situation that promised him only disgrace. And who was she to make matters worse for him?

On Wednesday morning, Holdsworth woke to hear Mulgrave whistling cheerfully as he went about his work in the kitchen. It was nearly eight o’clock. He went downstairs, washed and sat in the cottage parlour, where Mulgrave brought him tea. The gyp had returned late yesterday evening. He had said nothing except that he had concluded a little business on his own behalf and that it had gone as well as could be expected.

‘Is Mr Oldershaw downstairs?’ Holdsworth asked.