‘Well?’ Lady Anne demanded. ‘You may speak quite freely before Mrs Carbury.’
‘I have seen Mr Holdsworth, my lady. He will wait upon your ladyship tomorrow morning.’
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘I mentioned only the possibility of his cataloguing and valuing his lordship’s collection, and perhaps advising on its maintenance. Although he never had the honour of having dealings with his lordship, he was of course perfectly familiar with the reputation of the collection.’
‘But you said nothing else?’
‘No, madam. I followed your directions to the letter.’ He cleared his throat. ‘He did, however, ask why I had come to him rather than to someone else with his qualifications. I was obliged to tell him that I was not able to say. I hope I did not do wrong.’
‘It is quite all right, Mr Cross,’ Lady Anne said graciously. ‘How did the man seem to you?’
‘He is in much-reduced circumstances, I fear, and his misfortunes have weighed heavily on him. But there is no doubt that he has the ability to deal with the library – as you instructed, I made extensive inquiries on that point before approaching him. As to the man himself, he is younger than I expected. He has a fine person – vigorous, and well set up.’
‘A point in his favour,’ Lady Anne said. ‘You may continue.’
‘He said little, but what he did say was very much to the point, madam. I would say he has a prudent nature and is a man of some determination. All in all, my first impression was favourable.’
Lady Anne thanked him and the steward withdrew. When they were alone again, she turned to Elinor.
‘You see, my dear. I have taken your hint.’
‘Dear madam, I pray the plan will not go amiss. I would not for the world -’
‘Then let us hope it does not go amiss,’ Lady Anne interrupted, her voice suddenly sharp. ‘Tomorrow we shall discover whether the author of
4
There was money here but not extravagance. A tradesman grows acute in judging such matters. The house in Golden Square had been new and fashionable at the turn of the century but it was neither of those things now. But it had an air of sober comfort, Holdsworth thought, rarely found in the houses of those who are newly rich or who live high on long credit.
The footman conducted Holdsworth across the hall, through an anteroom and into a long and shabby apartment at the back of the house. The books were everywhere – in cases ranged along the walls, stacked on tables and the floor, overflowing from the doorway of a closet at the end of the room.
‘Mr Holdsworth, my lady,’ announced the footman.
Lady Anne Oldershaw was sitting by the nearer of the two windows with a volume open on the table beside her. She signalled Holdsworth to approach. She was small and thin, with features so sharp and delicate they might have been cut in wax by a razor. She could have been almost any age between forty and seventy. Her face was coated very thickly with ceruse, so perhaps the skin beneath had been scarred by the smallpox; for that was an evil that neither wealth nor breeding could guard against.
‘Mr Holdsworth,’ she said in a dry, remote voice. ‘Good morning to you.’
‘Madam.’ He bowed low. ‘I am honoured to be of service to your ladyship.’
‘You have not been of service yet. It remains to be seen whether you will be.’
‘Yes, my lady.’
He waited for her to say what she wanted. She remained silent, studying him with a complete lack of self- consciousness. After a moment he looked away from her white face. Despite the room’s contents, he thought, it was clearly only a makeshift library. The books had been arranged by someone who neither knew nor cared that they were undoubtedly valuable. His eyes fixed on a precarious pile standing on an open escritoire between the windows; they should not have been left like that. There was a similar pile on the table beyond it beside an armchair -
There was another person in the room. The armchair placed before the second window had its back to the room. Holdsworth saw a woman’s cap over the top of the chair and, on one of the arms, an open book with a long hand resting motionless on the page.
Lady Anne clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She looked past Holdsworth at the footman. ‘I shall ring if I need you, James.’
The footman bowed and silently withdrew.
‘Mr Cross has told you that I wish to discuss the disposal of my late husband’s library,’ Lady Anne said. ‘You see some of it in this room. There are more books, but they are still in the country. You are familiar with the collection, I apprehend?’
‘Only by reputation, madam.’
‘I have decided to dispose of the bulk of the library. But first I wish to know what it contains, and indeed what value it has.’
‘Would you wish to sell what you dispose of as a single lot, or in -?’
‘I do not intend to
‘I’m afraid I do not catch your meaning, madam.’
‘That is because I have not expressed it to you yet.’ She waited while half a minute crawled by, emphasizing her power to control the pace and direction of the interview. ‘I wish to consult you about ghosts.’
‘I beg your pardon, my lady. I did not quite catch what you said.’
‘I think you heard me perfectly well. I wish to consult you about ghosts. About a particular ghost.’
After that, silence fell on the room. It was broken only by a rustle as the woman in the armchair turned over a page of her book. Lady Anne sucked in her cheeks, and for a moment he had a fancy that instead of flesh and blood there was nothing but a skull in a lace cap looking up at him.
‘I am a bookseller by trade, ma’am. I am not a ghost hunter or anything of that nature. Your ladyship must look elsewhere.’
‘I do not agree. I have read your – your squib. You seem eminently qualified to advise upon the subject.’
Holdsworth spread his hands wide. ‘I wrote in anger. As a way of assuaging grief.’
‘I do not doubt it, sir. But that is not to the point. I understand that your late wife was preyed upon by one who claimed falsely to be in communication with the world of ghosts. You set out to expose the cheat, but you did more than that. You revealed that the claims of those who believe in ghosts are baseless. With the possible exception of direct divine intervention, such stories may all be reduced to instances of popular superstition in the minds of the uneducated, or to tricks and pranks played upon the credulous, often in the hope of material advantage. That was your argument, which you pursued with great force.’
‘Nevertheless, I cannot put myself up as an authority.’
‘You do not need to do so.’ She sounded bored now. ‘I wish to put a proposition to you.’
‘About his lordship’s library?’
‘I told you: I wish to consult you about an apparition. An alleged apparition. But as it happens the matter is inextricably entangled with his lordship’s books and what becomes of them. So I offer you two commissions: and if you accept the one, you must accept the other.’
‘Madam, I do not understand what you wish me to do.’
‘There is no mystery about it. You have shown that those who prey on the credulous with their tales of ghosts are frauds. You began with a particular case, it is true, but you argued from that to the general. The tools that such people use for their foul trade are spirits, apparitions, hauntings and superstitions; but they trade in dreams, Mr Holdsworth, they trade in other people’s dreams. You have brought the resources of reason to bear upon their evil practices and you have shown them for what they are: traps to gull fools, snares to entangle the fearful. They are nothing but leeches, and they prey upon the sorrows of the innocent. You made all that as clear as day.’
‘Much good it did me. Or anyone else.’
