he had moved off. Harry had followed because he did not know what else to do. Now his shoes and stockings were spattered with mud and he had made the unwelcome discovery that one of the shoes leaked. His clothes were too heavy and too smart: he had dressed with pavements in mind, not country rambles. Worst of all was the sensation that he was making himself ridiculous. But he could not turn back without making himself even more ridiculous.
He paused to take out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his face. When he looked up, Tom Turdman was no longer to be seen. Harry swore and set off down the path again, walking more quickly than before. Everything looked unfamiliar. He was used to seeing this stretch of country from the water, not the land.
The path came to a stile set in a thick hedge. He climbed up and peered into the field beyond. Half a dozen cows were further along the path, at a point where the land shelved down to the water. Two of them were drinking from the river. The others, however, were lumbering in his direction.
Harry was no expert on the habits and temperaments of the bovine species. But it seemed to him that there was something particularly menacing about the way these cows were approaching, picking up speed as they did so and quite clearly taking a personal interest in him. It was also possible that one or more of them were not in fact cows but young bulls that would see him as a dangerous intruder and therefore try to trample him to death.
Prudence was undoubtedly the better part of valour. Harry was about to jump down from the stile and return the way he had come when he heard somebody say his name. Startled, he imagined for a nightmarish instant that one of the putative bulls was so ferociously intelligent that it was endowed with human speech. But then he saw Soresby standing not five yards away, down by the water in the shelter of the spreading branches of a large willow tree, with the night-soil man beside him. Lying in the water behind them was a rowing boat.
‘Soresby! What the devil do you mean by this charade?’
He heard a familiar crack as the sizar tugged at his fingers. ‘So kind, Mr Archdale,’ Soresby said in a rapid mumble. ‘So truly condescending. Would you be so good as to step this way, sir, and into the boat?’
It was an unexpectedly attractive offer. In front of Harry were the approaching cattle. Behind him lay a sea of mud and the certainty that if he walked back he would get even hotter and filthier than he already was. He pointed at Tom Turdman with his stick. ‘What about him?’ Even the mud and the heat were preferable to sitting in a small boat with the night-soil man.
‘My uncle’s leaving us now, Mr Archdale.’
Tom Turdman nodded and bowed, making a curious twisting motion that seemed to spread from his hands to his arms and then up to his shoulders. The gesture said, as clearly as if he had spoken the words aloud, that he would be delighted beyond all measure to have the honour of drinking Mr Archdale’s health.
Harry dropped a sixpence into the waiting palm. He scrambled down to the water. Soresby crouched, an ungainly spider. With one hand he held the boat close to the bank, while he offered Harry the other. The boat rocked alarmingly as Harry clambered aboard and settled in the stern. Soresby followed him and pushed off with an oar. The cattle had stopped moving and were now eating grass.
The oars dipped and rose. Harry listened to the creaking of the rowlocks and watched the green river slipping past them. Soresby was taking them towards Grantchester. The boat transformed him: the clumsiness and the diffidence dropped away. He rowed as Mulgrave opened a bottle of wine or – and here Harry blushed – as Chloe fucked, with the unassuming assurance of someone who knows exactly what he is about.
‘Well, this is a fine thing,’ Harry said.
His words were rougher than his tone. It was cool and agreeable to be borne along on the water and, besides, he was a man who found it hard to be irritable with anyone for very long.
‘I am sorry, Mr Archdale, I didn’t know what to do – who else to turn to. And I thought perhaps -’
‘There’s nothing I can do. Anyway, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. They haven’t laid information against you.’
‘Not yet. But they may at any moment. I wondered whether perhaps Dr Carbury has restrained them?’
‘Jerry Carbury’s not doing much of anything at present. They say he’s at death’s door.’
Soresby leaned on his oars and the boat glided into the silence. ‘That’s what I feared.’
‘You’d hoped he might stand your protector? But why should he do that even if he was well? Oh, I know he took a liking to you before but – well, the fact remains, that library book was in your room. The evidence against you looks black, very black.’
‘But I didn’t do it. If only I could see Dr Carbury -’
‘But you can’t. In any case, what could he do?’
Soresby looked up. ‘Mr Archdale, may I tell you something in confidence?’
‘If you must, I suppose you must,’ Harry said.
Soresby’s mouth was working and for an instant Harry thought he might burst into tears. ‘Through no fault of my own,’ the sizar began, ‘I have in my possession a piece of information. It is of a delicate nature.’
‘There’s nothing I can do about that so pray don’t tell me what it is. I don’t want to know.’
‘It’s something that Dr Carbury would not wish to have made public.’
‘Ah.’ Harry stared at him, sensing that at last there was a glimpse of a pattern in all this. ‘Do you mean to tell me that’s why Carbury offered you the Rosington?’
‘I – yes. But it was not like that, I swear – I did not make interest with him for it – I merely sought an interview and I believe he mistook my motive.’
‘Very likely,’ Harry said. ‘But when you went over to Carbury’s camp, you burned your boats with Ricky, eh? And now Carbury’s dying, Ricky won’t do you any favours.’
‘But the information, Mr Archdale. I simply do not know what to do. It weighs on my conscience. Is it my duty as a Christian to tell someone or should I simply let it lie? Or perhaps I should see Mr Richardson and make a clean breast of everything?’
Archdale sighed. The fresh air was making him hungry. ‘This information, Soresby – is it of a sort that would damage the college if it came out?’
Soresby nodded.
‘Surely that would have some weight with Ricky?’
‘Perhaps not in this case.’
Harry felt his bewilderment grow. Ricky identified his own interests with the college’s. If Carbury died, and he became the next Master, that identification of interests would strengthen rather than diminish.
Unless there was something that Ricky thought was a greater good? Or was this not a matter of deriving benefit so much as satisfying hatred?
He stared at Soresby’s pale, thin face, which was sprinkled with muddy freckles like small sultanas. The sizar’s expression reminded Harry of a stray dog fearing a kicking but hoping against all hope for a pat. It was true he was an able scholar and a good teacher; if Harry were going to pursue his studies any further, then Soresby’s assistance might be useful, though not irreplaceable. Over and above this, Harry felt that he had acquired without conscious volition a sort of responsibility for Soresby. It was as if he had patted the stray dog once or twice and the brute had responded by selecting him as his master throughout all eternity.
‘Damnation,’ he said aloud.
‘What’s wrong, Mr Archdale?’
Harry opened his mouth to tell the fellow to go to the devil but, as he was about to speak, he glimpsed a way that might resolve the problem, or at least transfer it. ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘If Carbury’s too ill to see you and Ricky hates you too much, there’s only one person who can be of any use. Only one person who can protect you: and that’s Lady Anne Oldershaw.’
‘But she’s in London, Mr Archdale, and I -’
‘I don’t mean you should go to her directly. That wouldn’t answer at all. But you could talk to her man Mr Holdsworth. He’s back in Jerusalem with Mr Oldershaw now, did you know? You may depend upon it, Mr Holdsworth can tell you what to do if anyone can.’
‘Good afternoon, Mr Holdsworth,’ Elinor said.
‘And how is Dr Carbury, ma’am?’
‘He is awake now, and more comfortable in himself. He has just eaten a little soup. Susan and the nurse are changing his nightgown. He asked after you when he woke. I shall ring for Ben and send him to ask whether my husband is in a fit state to receive you.’
‘Shall I ring the bell?’ Holdsworth moved towards the rope that hung to the left of the fireplace.
