The Anatomy Of Ghosts

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‘Where is he, pray?’

‘A pressing engagement elsewhere, that’s what I’d call it.’ Like so many of his fellows, the sheriff’s officer had developed a taste for elephantine humour, a perquisite of petty power.

‘Do you mean to tell me he’s been taken up for debt?’ Holdsworth asked.

‘Ask me no questions, I tell you no lies.’

‘At whose suit? How much for?’

The man tapped his nose with the pipe-stem. ‘Ah – I cannot quite call the name or the amount to mind.’

Holdsworth sighed and felt in his pocket for a shilling. He held the little silver coin in the palm of his hand, just outside the officer’s reach.

‘A matter of eighty pound,’ the man said, his eyes on the shilling. ‘And fees and expenses. Suit of Mr Mulgrave.’

‘Where’s Mr Whichcote now?’

The man tapped his nose again, and continued to do so until Holdsworth had placed another shilling beside the first.

‘At Mr Purser’s in Wall Lane, sir.’

‘Mr Purser’s your master?’

The officer nodded. Holdsworth dropped the two shillings into the outstretched hand, smelling the wine on the man’s breath as he did so. ‘Do you happen to know if a young gentleman called here to see Mr Whichcote this morning?’

‘Big fellow? Fresh-faced?’

‘The very man.’

The man tapped his nose again but then looked at Holdsworth’s face and thought better of negotiating for more.

‘He was in a devilish hurry to see Mr Whichcote, I tell you that.’

‘Was that before or after he was taken up by Mr Purser?’

‘After. You’ve only just missed him. We sent him over to Wall Lane. Maybe he’s going to lend Mr Whichcote the ready. Mind you, he’ll need deep pockets. More to come before the end of the day.’

‘More what?’

‘More writs.’

They had shown Whichcote into an apartment on the first floor near the back of the tall, thin house. The building belied its narrow frontage, straggling back from Wall Lane under a cluster of ill-assorted roofs. He sat with his elbows on the scarred table, supporting his head. Everything he was, everything he depended upon, rested on his being Philip Whichcote of Lambourne House. He had worried enough about his debts before, but in his heart he had felt he was armoured against the worst consequences of owing money to other people. A gentleman lived on credit: that was entirely to be expected. For a man of his rank to be harried by Mulgrave, who was little better than a servant, was against the natural order of things.

Someone was knocking on the street door. The hammering seemed to pound in time with his headache, the one exacerbating the other. In a place like this there was necessarily a good deal of coming and going. He knew that Purser must be entertaining other guests, as he tactfully called them – the more fortunate class of debtors, those who had connections who were likely to pay their debts in the long run, one way or another, and in the meantime were in possession of sufficient resources to pay for their board and lodging at Purser’s. The bailiff’s charges were exorbitantly expensive but the sponging house was infinitely preferable to the debtors’ prison, the only alternative.

There was a tap at his door and Purser’s manservant showed in Mrs Phear. Abandoning ceremony for once, she came straight to him and took his hands in hers. Neither of them spoke until they were alone.

‘I came at once when I had your note,’ she said softly.

‘I am ruined, ma’am.’

‘Whose suit? And how much?’

‘Mulgrave’s. Ninety pounds would see me clear of him and deal with Purser’s fees too.’

She frowned, calculating. ‘Then we shall have you out in an hour or two at most.’

‘If only it were that simple. They will all be at it now. God knows what the whole will amount to.’

‘Hundreds?’

‘Thousands, probably.’

Releasing his hands, she sat down beside him. ‘I cannot lay my hands on a sum like that. Can you raise the money, if you were given time?’

He shrugged. ‘As likely see a hog fly.’

She stared at him, her eyebrows a little raised.

‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ he said quickly, alert as ever to her moods and even in this situation amused by her genteel abhorrence of a vulgarism. ‘I spoke without thinking. But truly, there is no hope left.’

‘What about the house? Can you raise anything on that?’

‘I have only a life interest. And I’ve already borrowed on the strength of that. If I cannot redeem the bill at Michaelmas, or failing that renegotiate it, I am entirely done for. I will lose the house.’

Without the house, there would be no meetings of the Holy Ghost Club. Without the house, he would not have a roof over his head.

‘Are you owed money?’

‘Perhaps a hundred or two. But I have no chance of laying my hands on a penny for months, if not years. You know what these young cubs are with their gambling debts. They run them up and then, if they cannot pay, what can one do but wait?’

She left him and went to the window. He knew what she would see there: the house had eaten up half the little garden. There was a scrubby little yard, a privy and a pigsty, where one could watch the lean backs of two hogs as they rooted in the mud.

‘Perhaps hogs can fly,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘You are wrong to abandon hope,’ she said calmly. ‘I have sufficient resources laid by to deal with Mulgrave. That will buy us a little time.’

‘What use is a few hours? The writs will be flying again before I get home.’

She looked sternly at him. ‘Even a little time may be enough.’

The room was stuffy and smelled of illness. At first Dr Carbury was restless, turning this way and that as he tried to make himself comfortable. As the hours slipped by, he grew quieter. Elinor sat by his bed until she heard eleven o’clock striking, when she rose and tiptoed to the door. She waited there for a few seconds, listening to her husband’s heavy breathing.

The nurse, who was knitting by the window, looked up. Elinor whispered that she would soon return. She left her husband’s bedroom and almost ran downstairs. Without pausing for thought she left the Lodge by the garden door and walked slowly down the gravel walk towards the pond.

More than ever, she needed a clear head. She could no longer rely on the protection of her husband. She had known for months that he was ill, but it was only now, after Milton’s visit this morning, that she was forced to accept that he was dying, and that the melancholy event could be expected within weeks, or even days.

If she was not to be utterly ruined, Lady Anne’s support was more than ever essential. All her ladyship wanted was the restoration of her son to her. If Elinor could earn her gratitude by helping Frank, then truly anything might be possible.

Even John Holdsworth?

The last question set off an undesirable train of thought. Or, to be precise, not exactly undesirable in every sense, but certainly inappropriate, immoral and inconvenient. Breathing faster than usual, she reached the Long Pond at its widest point, opposite the oriental plane. It was here they had found Sylvia. After a moment’s hesitation, Elinor took the path along the bank to the gate by the Frostwick Bridge. She laid her fingers on the gate’s wrought- iron screen, touching it at the precise spot where Holdsworth’s hand had touched hers. The metal was cold, rough and unresponsive. She snatched her hand away. She opened the gate and walked quickly over the bridge.

As far as she could tell, she had the college gardens to herself. She slipped under the shelter of the plane,