It was very cold. Though the roof was well tiled, draughts passed through that empty space with little impediment. I raised my lamp and shone it all about me. Trunks, wooden boxes, tea-chests, some items of furniture we had disliked and relegated to this oubliette—all tumbled together in a state of confusion, waiting for a day when someone would find time to tidy them. I held my breath lest something move, but nothing did. I expected at any moment to hear a voice, but the deep silence continued uninterrupted.
I walked round slowly, searching for some indication of what might have caused the sounds that had frightened young Mary. It was not impossible, I tried to persuade myself, that what she had heard had been nothing more than the cooing of pigeons, or the cries of some other animal, transformed to human speech by a vivid imagination. But of living creatures I saw no sign, save for some mouse droppings and the dried excrement of birds. This latter I took as evidence that pigeons might well have been here recently.
Just as I was about to leave, I noticed something on the ground near the door. I took it at first for a dead mouse or something of the kind, and made to pass it at a little distance. Looking more closely, however, I saw it was nothing more than a scrap of black rag, very like the piece Simone had picked up outside our chalet in the Lakes. I did not bend to touch it.
As I shut the door of the main attic, it occurred to me that it might be worth my while looking into the room in which Mary had been sleeping. I thought perhaps I might find some clue as to the source of the sounds she had heard. Even then I was still desperate to find a rational explanation.
I opened the door of the little bedchamber and went in. My first impression was that the room was empty. Mary’s paltry possessions had been taken away, leaving the walls bare and the dressing-table unfurnished. As I stepped further into the room, however, letting the door close behind me, I caught sight of something on the bed. Something white. Something unmoving.
And then it moved. Tendrils curled about my heart, choking it. I very nearly screamed. But the white thing on the bed lifted itself and turned, and as it did so I realised it was Mary. She must not have left after all, but had returned to her room to sleep. She was dressed in nothing but a shift, and it crossed my mind that she must have been cold up here.
“Professor Asquith.” She was the first to speak, for I was still frozen with fear. “What are you doing here?”
“I . . . I was going to ask you the same thing. Have you changed your mind after all?”
“I felt tired, sir. I came up for a sleep.”
She lifted herself further, arching her back as she slid to the side of the bed. Her hair was untied, and it fell down her back and across her slim shoulders. It was long and luxuriant, darker than I remembered it. But I had not seen it untied before. I became uncomfortably conscious of her state of undress, of the impropriety of my being there.
“I’m sorry, Mary, I should not have disturbed you. Do you mean to stay on?”
“Of course I do, sir. You don’t want me to leave, do you sir?”
“I’ve already said so. We’ll bring your things up again later. But I shouldn’t be here in your room. I only came to see it was tidy.”
“There’s no need to apologise, sir.” She moved her head to one side, and her hair fell back, exposing her neck and the edges of her shoulders. I felt myself blush.
“I think it’s better I should go. I’ll be downstairs when you’re ready.”
Before I could turn to go, Mary stood. “There’s no need to go, sir. I’d like you to stay. Really I would, sir.”
Saying this, she reached down and lifted her shift and pulled it over her head in a single, rapid movement. She held it for a moment in one hand, then dropped it and tilted her head so that her hair fell back with it and left her quite naked.
I am not a sensual man. Until I married Simone, I had not slept with a woman nor seen one naked in the flesh. I was not unaware of this woman’s good looks or that one’s figure, but I never accorded such things the importance I knew some other men did, and I had never let my life be disrupted by them. My lack of that pleasure did not trouble me greatly in my youth, and in later life I was well accustomed to it.
In the short time that I had been married, however, I had come to understand how a man could be so drawn to a woman as to lose his mind in pursuit of her. It had been an emotional and physical awakening, the first time in my life I had discovered the body to be fiercer than the mind, and more fulfilling. In only weeks, my senses had undergone a transformation fully as great as that my heart had known months earlier, when I first acknowledged that I loved Simone.
I will now confess that it was this keen awareness of what was beautiful in a woman that prevented me from acting as I should have done, and dashing from the room. Mary’s body was exquisite, just as I might, in an unguarded moment, have imagined it for myself. She possessed the nubile perfection common to so many girls of fifteen or sixteen, when the grossness that may later mar their form is still some years away. Her little breasts and narrow, fluted hips seemed to me at that moment objects of the most inexpressible desire. I could not help but look at her, and she could not fail to see the spark of interest in my eyes.
It was only with the most extreme exertion of my will that I was able to prevent the whole incident descending to yet deeper levels of infamy.
“Mary, this is outrageous! Put your shift back on at once! You don’t know what you’re doing.”
She laughed and took a step closer to me.
“Oh, that I do, sir. I knows exactly what I’m doing.”
“What if someone found us like this? What would they think? Mrs Lumley could come in. Or my wife.”
She laughed again, and as she did so ran her hands across her breasts and down the front of her body. I could not take my eyes away, and I knew that if I stayed a moment longer I was lost.
“Why, Mrs Asquith won’t be back for ages yet, sir. No one’ll find us here. No one need know. Just take your clothes off, sir, and we’ll have a little fun. I’ve always had a liking for you, sir, and I know you’ve had a fancy for me.”
She was only a foot or two away, close enough to reach out and touch, close enough to smell.
Only then, in that moment before I took full leave of my senses, before my hand reached out to touch her and pull her to me, did I smell what must have been there all along. Not a young woman’s perfume, nor the smell of her unperfumed body, but that rank odour of decay I had encountered twice before, most recently in Atherton’s rooms.
I took a step back, and another, until my shoulders were pressing against the door.
“You’re not Mary,” I said.
She seemed to freeze. The smile that had been on her lips faded and was replaced by something else, something much less enticing. She started to take a step towards me, raising her arms as though to draw me to her, but I spoke the first words of the prayer I had used earlier: “Domine Deus meus in tesperavisalvum me fac ex omnibus persequentibus me et libera me . . .”
I do not know exactly what happened next. The thing that had taken Mary’s form let out a most terrible cry, a cry that was neither human nor animal. I watched it back away, but even as it did so, all resemblance to poor Mary was vanishing from it. The white skin it had impersonated grew suddenly black, and the whole form seemed to shrink.
I must have fainted then. All I remember is coming to in Mary’s empty room, my nostrils still stinging with that fearful odour, now stronger than ever. I picked myself up, turned, and stumbled from the room.
As I reached the next floor, I heard a voice calling my name. Mrs Lumley was crying loudly, and I could tell at once that something was wrong. I hurried down the stairs and found her running along the hallway, calling for me in a state of great distress.
“Mrs Lumley? Whatever’s going on? What’s the matter?”
She looked up and caught sight of me.
“Oh, sir, do come quickly. It’s something dreadful.”
I thought at once that
something must have happened to Simone, that she was dead or injured. And to think that, moments earlier . . .
“It’s Master Bertrand, sir. He’s been near as drowned. They brought him home a few minutes ago. His poor mother’s in a dreadful state.”
Bertrand had already been brought indoors and laid on a sofa in the morning room. Ned had run to fetch Dr Willingham, while Simone remained with the boy. She and Mrs Lumley had already stripped him of his clothes, which lay in a soaking pile near him on the floor. He was wrapped in warm blankets, and Simone was trying to make him drink brandy from a tumbler. Her hand was shaking so much she could barely hold the glass steady against his lips. He was pale and shaking, but at least he was alive.
“Good God, Simone. What happened?”
I crouched beside her, taking her in my arms and holding her to me tightly. She twisted round, pressing herself against me and bursting into tears. For minutes she was convulsed by them, great gulping sobs that wracked her body and almost prevented her from breathing. I soothed and stroked her, calming her bit by bit until she was able to speak.
“Bertrand . . . fell into the water. It was . . . very deep. He . . . he can’t swim. His head went under, he . . . he started to drown . . .”
She looked at me, and in her eyes I saw an expression so despairing I could not bear to see it. I pressed her against me again and let her go on weeping. She recovered after a bit and went on.
“I tried to reach him, but I can’t swim either, and the only stick I could find was too short. Then two men came running. One . . . jumped in, the other held me back. The one who went into the water . . . brought Bertrand out. I . . . thought he was dead. He was . . . so still . . . so . . . quiet.”
“How long was he in the water?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know . . . It seemed to last for ever.”
“And the men?”
“They carried him back here. I think . . . they’re in the kitchen. The one who rescued Bertrand was wet. Mrs Lumley said she’d find him some warm clothes.”
“Let me deal with that.”
Simone returned to Bertrand, who was conscious, but badly frightened and unable to talk. She stroked his forehead and whispered gently to him. I thought of the thing I had seen upstairs. I thought of the desire it had aroused in me.
At that moment Dr Willingham arrived. He had been at the house only that morning, to check on Simone, and his first thought on being summoned back was that she had suffered a relapse.
As he started to examine Bertrand, I took Simone from the room. Her skirts were wet where she had waded some way into the water in her vain attempt to rescue her son. I told Mrs Lumley to help her upstairs, while I went to the kitchen to speak with Bertrand’s rescuers.
They turned out to be students, two rowing men from Clare who had been walking along the towpath to examine the lie of the river in preparation for a coming race. I thanked them effusively and saw to it that the lad who’d jumped in was brought warm towels and clothes from my wardrobe. Mrs Lumley, calmer now that the doctor was there, busied herself making hot toddies, beef tea, and buttered toast.
The students, whose names were Radcliffe and Elliot, made light of the affair, other than to enquire solicitously after Bertrand.
“His mother and I owe you his life,” I said. I can never repay you. If you hadn’t been there at that moment, he would certainly have drowned.”
“It was a stroke of good luck,” said Elliot, who had held Simone back from plunging further in and, in all probability, compounding the tragedy. “We were debating whether to turn back or head on for Grantchester for a glass of ale.”
“Thank God you stayed. Did you see Bertrand fall in? How exactly did it happen?”
“I’m not altogether sure,” replied Radcliffe. He was a tall, well-built man on whom my clothes looked far from comfortable. His own were drying by the fire, deposited there by Mrs Lumley with something approaching religious devotion. “We saw your wife and child a little ahead of us on the towpath, but paid them no particular heed. I was keen to get on back to college, for I’ve an essay to write for Dr Sutcliffe, and he won’t have delays. Tom here wanted to go on to the Lion. He always develops a thirst on our outings.”
“But did you see him fall? He’s not a careless boy.”
“It all happened very quickly, sir. They were quite a few yards ahead of us. Just walking. We’d come to a little before Brasley Bridge. The boy wasn’t running or playing or anything, just going along steadily with his mother. I couldn’t see clearly how he came to be in the water. But I heard the woman shouting, and when I looked I saw him floundering. That’s when I ran up.”
“I saw something,” broke in Elliot. “Just before the boy fell in. I thought it was a black dog, just behind him. It was nowhere to be seen afterwards, must have run off. But I wonder if it might not have pushed him in. That’s funny, though.”
I looked curiously at him.
“Funny? In what way?”
“Well, it was a biggish dog, but not the sort to bowl a boy over, or so I should have thought. It was moving oddly, as though it was lame. Almost like a man on all fours. Not much force, you see. Not enough impetus. Like a man sculling with an injury. Still, it must have knocked him in all the same.”
I stared at him.
“Yes,” I said finally. “You’re probably right. It must have knocked him in.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Whether as a result of what she had suffered that afternoon, or for reasons I alone could guess, Simone was taken ill again that night. This time, she did not recover by morning. Her fever grew more serious, and when Willingham returned around eight o’clock he expressed real concern about her condition.
“I’m worried about her,” he said as he took his leave. “She may have to be moved to Addenbrooke’s if things don’t improve. Do I have your permission to bring in a colleague for a second opinion? He’s a good man, Charlton: you may have heard of him.”
Charlton was a professor at the medical school, and, though I had not met him socially, I had often heard his name mentioned with respect. I readily assented to Willingham’s suggestion.
Bertrand was making a steady recovery, but was upset to hear that his mother was too ill to visit him. I thought it best not to bring him to her, since the sight of her might set him back.
Around mid-morning, I found time to retire to my study. Willingham had sent in a nurse to look after Simone, and Mrs Lumley was seeing to Bertrand. I would have stayed by Simone’s side throughout, but the nurse advised against it, and for my own part I knew there were urgent matters to deal with.
Something in René’s letter had intrigued me. The passage he had quoted from the Fleury chronicle had contained the following words: Abbot Guillaume was thought at first to be a pious man, for his knowledge of the scriptures was unsurpassed, and he spent much of every day immersed in reading of the sacred text.
Whatever the true state of William’s piety, it seemed likely that he not only made a show of being immersed in the Scriptures, but that he was very probably as well read in them as he professed. Scripture may be used to more than one end, and impiety is no barrier to biblical learning. I have seen enough charlatans in my own day, versed in holy utterance from Genesis to Revelation.
Might it not be, I reckoned, that the inscription on William’s tomb was no more than a summary of Bible references? There were, after all, other scriptural quotations on the monument. And had not Edward Atherton before his death assembled copious citations on those slips of paper he had inserted into his Bible? Had he too been seeking to disentangle William’s cipher?
I spent some time collating Edward’s slips, trying to fit them to sections of the inscription, without success. It was as I was about to toss them to one side again that I took note of something I should have seen at the beginning. Edward had written out his biblical quotations, not just in English, but in Latin, the language Abbot William himself would have used. There was
nothing remarkable in that. But Edward had, on one or two occasions, gone a step further, and transcribed the Hebrew and Greek originals.
I wondered what possible use this could be. The abbot was unlikely to have known Hebrew, and his Greek may not have been more than rudimentary. I had, in any case, already endeavoured to make sense of the inscription using Greek as a basis, and had drawn as many blanks as with Latin, French, or English. Hebrew seemed even less likely, given that it used an alphabet yet further removed from that of Latin.
It was then, as I thought about alphabets, that the truth slowly began to dawn, though it was still to take me over an hour before I finally wrestled the conundrum to the ground. My Classics master at school, a stooped man called Runciman (dead these ten years and more), once taught me that Greek, like Hebrew and, I believe, other Eastern alphabets, did not always use simple numbers. The letters of the alphabet themselves might be used for that purpose. Thus, alpha might stand for one, beta for two and so on, through the tens and hundreds. Latin, with only twenty-one letters, was less well suited to this purpose, but I was sure it could be done.
Excitedly, I turned to one of the letter groups with which I had been struggling: IILCD. This came out as 9:9:10:3:4, a combination that made no sense as a biblical reference. Perhaps I was on the wrong track after all. I tried it all the same, looking up the ninth book of the Bible (which was I Samuel), then its ninth chapter, the tenth verse, and (I was nearer than I thought), the third and fourth words: Saul ad. It did not seem promising. And, indeed, as I tried the same method with each of the other letter groups, I came out with as much nonsense as ever, albeit I now had real words to conjure with.
Perhaps it was the sight of actual words that convinced me to plod on. That and the knowledge that, upstairs, Simone was growing more seriously ill. I went up to her from time to time, but the nurse would only bid me be quiet and say she was no better.
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