which enclosed her like an enormous green tent, with its branches hanging like curtains to the ground.
It was cool and private here. No one could see her. She could think of anything she wanted. Goodbye, Sylvia; forgive me and now leave me. She hugged herself and tried to imagine what it would be like to have a man’s arms around her.
Come what may, she decided, she would write to Lady Anne when she got back to the Lodge. She would tell her that Dr Carbury was dying.
But she was not alone after all. Wheels rattled and scraped on the flagstones of the chapel arcade. Someone was talking. Keeping well back, she changed her position so she could see through a gap between the branches. At first she thought Tom Turdman was making his rounds. She realized her mistake as a man and a woman appeared, framed in one of the arches of the arcade.
It was Philip Whichcote. And on his arm was a dumpy little lady old enough to be his mother.
As Elinor watched, they walked along the facade of New Building. Behind them came a barrow piled high with portmanteaus and boxes and drawn by two servants, scarcely more than children. Elinor recognized Whichcote’s footboy. The other was a tall, thin girl whose legs and arms had grown too long for her dress.
The rooms in New Building were arranged in sets served by three staircases. Whichcote went into the nearer of the staircases, accompanied by the lady. The barrow stopped and the servants set to unloading its cargo.
Whichcote was coming into residence. It was a sign, Elinor thought, a manifestation of God’s displeasure with her for her adulterous desires. How could she forget Sylvia when Whichcote was here?
38
‘What the devil do you think you’re up to?’ Holdsworth said.
‘None of your business.’ Frank glared at him. ‘You said you could do nothing more for me, so I’m doing it myself instead.’
They were on the corner of Wall Lane and King Street. Holdsworth’s irritation subsided rapidly, for Frank was so clearly safe and more or less in his right mind.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ Frank said.
‘I met a sheriff’s man at Lambourne House when I came searching for you. Why did you run off like a thief in the night?’
Frank flushed. ‘I knew you’d try to stop me. But I won’t be stopped, do you hear? I’ve been living a nightmare all these weeks, and I have determined to deal with it once and for all.’
‘I am rejoiced to hear it,’ Holdsworth said. ‘And I would not stand in your way for the world. Have you seen Mr Whichcote?’
‘They would not let me in.’
‘Have you eaten this morning?’
‘I’ve not had time.’
‘Nor have I. Let’s remedy that now. If they won’t allow you to see Mr Whichcote, there’s nothing you can do here for the moment, and we cannot talk in the street.’
Frank allowed himself to be drawn down King Street, where the smells through the open door of a coffee house added to the force of Holdsworth’s arguments. They went inside. It was a down-at-heel establishment frequented in the main by poorer students. No one paid much attention to the newcomers.
They ordered a substantial breakfast. While they waited, Holdsworth tried to initiate a conversation, but Frank avoided this by seizing one of the newspapers that were about the place and reading it with great concentration.
After they had eaten, however, he laid down his fork and said casually, ‘I’m damned if I’ll skulk in the country any more.’
‘No more quack quack then?’
Frank laughed. ‘No more quack quack.’
‘What will you do?’
‘Why, I shall go back to Jerusalem. And I shall deal with Whichcote as he deserves, one way or another. For Sylvia’s sake.’
Dear God, Holdsworth thought, pray do not let the young fool call him out. The romantic and quite possibly fatal trappings of a duel were just the thing to appeal to a young man in Frank’s condition.
‘There’s no point in delaying,’ Frank went on. ‘I shall return today. Now, in fact.’
‘Now? Should you not at least write and -?’
‘I do not think there is the slightest need to do so.’ He stared down his nose at Holdsworth. ‘I do not think I am under any obligation to consult anyone’s convenience in the matter.’
‘I have a question for you.’
Frank shook his head. ‘I’ve nothing more to tell you so you need not trouble to ask. Besides, I have told you enough already. My mother hired you to be my keeper, Mr Holdsworth. Whatever I say will go straight back to her.’
‘You forget, sir. I discharged myself. And you confirmed that yourself when you told me why you walked into Cambridge without informing me of the fact. Anything we talk about will therefore be in the nature of a private conversation. If you tell me anything that you wish to remain confidential, it will be so.’
Holdsworth sat back and poured himself another cup of coffee. He knew his argument was sophistical. But that, he thought, might not signify very much. This was not a matter of reason, and never had been. The only problem was that Frank was sitting tight-lipped and silent. He showed no sign of wanting to talk about anything.
‘Tabitha Skinner,’ Holdsworth said, abandoning finesse.
‘Never heard of her. Who’s she?’
‘A fourteen-year-old girl. She died on the same night as Mrs Whichcote, apparently in consequence of a fit, in the house of Mrs Phear in Trumpington Street.’
Frank shook his head. ‘Never heard of her either.’
‘I cannot believe that the two deaths are not linked in some way,’ Holdsworth said. ‘The same night. The connection between Mrs Phear and Mr Whichcote. And the meeting of the Holy Ghost Club.’
‘Well, if they are I know nothing about it,’ Frank said, pushing back his chair. ‘You’ll oblige me by putting this out of your mind entirely. I shall go back to college now.’
‘Perhaps you’d permit me to walk with you,’ Holdsworth suggested. ‘I shall have to call at the Lodge to tell Dr Carbury that I am no longer acting for her ladyship, at least in regard to you. And I’d better advise Mr Richardson of it too, as your tutor.’
‘You may accompany me,’ Frank announced in a lordly manner. ‘It would not inconvenience me in the slightest.’
‘Then once we have paid our shot here, we may as well be on our way.’
Frank waved to the waiter. Suddenly his assurance dropped away. ‘I have no money on me, as it happens. That’s why that blockhead at the sponging house wouldn’t let me in.’
Holdsworth said nothing.
‘I’d ask them to send me the bill,’ Frank rushed on, ‘but they do not know me here and it might be a little tiresome. If you’d advance what’s necessary, it would oblige me extremely.’
Holdsworth bowed politely. Frank see-sawed between needy schoolboy and imperious young gentleman. When he opened his mouth, it was hard to know which of them would speak.
On their way back to Jerusalem, Frank’s irritation evaporated and he grew more and more cheerful. He looked about him as they went, peering in shop windows and surreptitiously glancing at the prettier girls they passed. ‘I have been so dull these last few weeks,’ he said as they were passing Christ’s. ‘I had not realized how much I missed all this.’
They met no one they knew on the way. Frank was travel-stained and dressed in the clothes he wore for shooting. He was not immediately recognizable, shorn of his trappings as a fellow-commoner. But all this changed once they passed the gates of Jerusalem. Mepal saw them enter and was outside his lodge in a flash.
‘Mr Oldershaw, sir.’ He doffed his hat and bowed as low as he was able. ‘A sight for sore eyes, sir, if I may be
