Frank slumped forward, covered his face with his hands and wept.
Holdsworth no longer wanted to laugh. For where in God’s name was the humour in a weeping boy and a drowned woman? Or, for that matter, in a pair of Barbary slippers and a gilt button bearing the motto Sans souci?
After breakfast, Harry Archdale paid his usual visit to the Jericho. He joined the knot of men waiting their turn at the door. Tom Turdman was wheeling his handcart on the path beside the Long Pond. Afterwards, as Harry walked back to his rooms, he met the night-soil man outside New Building. Tom stood to one side with his eyes respectfully on the ground.
He took off his hat as Harry drew level with him. ‘If it please your honour,’ he muttered in his low, thick voice.
Harry stopped.
Tom held out a grubby square of paper. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, you let this fall.’
Harry had never seen the paper before and he had no desire to touch anything that the night-soil man had touched. Nevertheless he took it. He walked on with the note, holding it a few inches away from his body. He did not look at it until he was back in his keeping room.
He dropped the scrap of paper on the hearth and washed his hands. Afterwards, he crouched in front of the fireplace and picked up the tongs and a pipe spill. Using these implements, he unfolded the note. He was not usually so squeamish but there was something about Tom Turdman’s dirty hands that would make a man break the habit of a lifetime.
There was neither salutation nor signature on the paper but he recognized Soresby’s neat and clerkly hand.
If you would be so good, pray meet the bearer at one o’clock at the river end of Mill Lane. He will guide you to me.
Harry was suddenly irritated. Who did that man Soresby think he was? It was one thing for a gentleman to feel pity for an unfortunate wretch, but it was quite another for him to be summoned by a filthy billet to a squalid rendezvous with the wretch’s disgusting uncle. Why, anyone might see them together. It was quite intolerable.
Elinor heard a knock at the door, footsteps in the hall and the murmur of low voices. She laid down her pen and listened. Then Ben came up with the news that Mr Holdsworth was downstairs and sent up his name, but he did not wish to intrude, merely to ask how the Master did.
‘Ask him to step up,’ Elinor said.
The servant left the room. She pushed her letter to Lady Anne under the blotter, darted across the room and examined herself in the mirror over the mantel. Her own dark-browed face stared back at her, stern and dreary. The gown she wore was a sober grey, fit for the wife of a man in the anteroom of death. She straightened her cap and pushed a lock of hair underneath it. It made no improvement. She still looked a fright.
Ben announced Mr Holdsworth. The notion of him she had in her head did not quite correspond with reality, which was unsettling.
‘How is Dr Carbury?’ he asked immediately. His time at the mill had left a healthy glow on his face.
‘A little better, thank you, sir. You will forgive me if I do not disturb him. He is sleeping now. But I know he would take it as a favour if you would call on him when he is awake. I have told him that you and Mr Frank are back in college.’
‘Would he be well enough to receive me?’
‘That I cannot say. If you were to call at about two o’clock, perhaps, you should find him awake.’
‘I am glad to report that Mr Frank continues to improve. I have every hope that familiar scenes and old friends will complete his cure.’
‘I shall be sure to mention that to Dr Carbury – and to Lady Anne.’ She gestured towards her desk. ‘I am writing to her now.’
Suddenly they ran out of things to say. The silence between them lengthened beyond the point where it was comfortable or even polite. She wished he would not look at her with such close attention, particularly when she was not at her best.
‘There is one other thing, madam,’ Holdsworth said at last. ‘A matter I wished to raise with the Master himself, but I wonder whether in the circumstances I should confide in you instead. If you would permit it?’
She inclined her head, indicating her willingness to be confided in, but said nothing. The hairs on the back of her neck rose.
‘The matter is very delicate.’
She drew back in her chair, preparing a suitable snub in case Mr Holdsworth intended an impertinence. Her caution seemed confirmed when he drew his own chair closer to hers and leaned towards her.
‘It has to do with Mr Whichcote,’ he said in a low voice. ‘He is staying in college to avoid the bailiffs and he has certain papers in his possession. There are many people, in Cambridge and elsewhere, who would prefer it if these papers were suppressed. One of them is Mr Frank. And I am persuaded that the destruction of the papers would also be to the benefit of the college.’
‘What are they about?’
‘The Holy Ghost Club, madam. Whichcote hopes to use them to retrieve his fortunes.’
Elinor moistened her lips. ‘Blackmail?’
‘Unless he is stopped.’
‘Are you sure? It’s a grave accusation to lay at a gentleman’s door.’
‘Gentlemen may grow desperate like the rest of us, madam. The papers are in his rooms in New Building. If we can find them and destroy them, then the difficulty is resolved.’
‘You intend to play the housebreaker?’
‘I can see no alternative,’ Holdsworth said. ‘I know where he keeps them. But I cannot break into the room like a burglar. It would be impossible to do so without arousing attention, even when he is absent. Besides, the outer doors of those sets are made of seasoned oak near two inches thick. I would need to take a crowbar to the lock and even that might not be easy. Which is why I had hoped to apply to the Master for help.’
She frowned. ‘Even if he were well, how he could help you? He could not be seen to condone a forced entry into a guest’s rooms.’
‘The only way to come and go unobtrusively is with a key. I understand that Mr Whichcote guards his own keys very carefully – when he goes out, he keeps them on his person. But Mulgrave tells me that the college Treasury contains duplicate keys for every lock in the college.’
She stared at him, scarcely believing her ears. ‘You wish to borrow the duplicates for Mr Whichcote’s rooms?’
‘If Dr Carbury had been well enough, I would have laid the difficulty before him and asked for his assistance.’
‘But the very idea of –’
‘I should not ask you if I could see any other way.’
She did not speak. Her mind worked furiously.
Holdsworth leaned further forward, bringing himself even closer to her. ‘Madam, I must move as soon as possible if I am to move at all. Would you be able to act for Dr Carbury? Would you be able to lay your hands on the Treasury keys?’
She studied him, thinking that he was not plain-featured, after all; there was too much force and expression in his face. Part of her relished the temporary power she held over him, the power to make him wait, the power to grant or withhold a favour.
‘What would you do with these papers?’
‘Burn them, madam. They can do no good, only harm.’
She came to her decision. ‘I know where he keeps the keys, sir. If we are to go into the Treasury unobserved, now is as good a time as any to do it. Susan is out on an errand. The nurse is with Dr Carbury, and Ben will not stir unless rung for.’
Elinor stood up, taking care to turn her face from the window in case her expression betrayed even a hint of what she was thinking, and left the room with more speed than dignity.
She visited her husband’s bedchamber, where the patient was still sleeping, lying on his back and snoring, while the nurse knitted by the window. She found the first key in his dressing-table drawer. Afterwards, she went downstairs and fetched the other key from the book room. She almost expected Dr Carbury to suddenly materialize at her shoulder, his face black with anger, and demand what in heaven’s name she thought she was doing.
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Holdsworth followed her downstairs and was waiting for her in the hall of the Master’s Lodge. The door to the Treasury was set back in a deep alcove. The walls were particularly thick here; Dr Carbury had told her that they might once have formed part of the monastic church that had once stood on the site. The door was blackened oak, bound with iron. The locks were new, installed last year and as cunningly constructed as the locksmith could make them.
Elinor handed Holdsworth the keys. He unlocked the upper lock and crouched to insert the key in the lower. She looked down at the back of his neck and the thick, lightly powdered hair. She wondered what it would be like to touch it, whether it would feel like a dog’s hair, say, or more like a cat’s.
The second key turned in the lock. Holdsworth twisted the handle, a heavy iron ring. The door opened inwards. A current of cold and slightly musty air flowed out into the hall. The Treasury was a small, windowless room, perhaps twelve feet square, with a flagged floor like the hall and a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The walls were lined with shelves and cupboards.
Holdsworth looked about him, pursing his lips. ‘What do they keep here?’
‘The Founder’s Cup and the best of the plate. Some of it is very valuable, I believe. There will be the deeds for college properties and probably the leases. I think rents are kept here, too, and other sums of ready money.’
She made a circuit of the room, treading lightly like a thief and with her ears alert for any sounds in the house. She had not expected there to be so much in here. But she fought back the temptation to hurry for she would not give Mr Holdsworth the satisfaction of believing her to be a poor, weak representative of her sex, easily driven to hysteria. There was enough light from the doorway for her to read most of the labels attached to the boxes. It occurred to her that she might be the first woman ever to be in this room, the first woman ever to read these labels.
She came at last to the cupboards. They were not locked. The first of them contained more boxes, but the second, to her great delight, held row upon row of hooks, and from each of these hung a bunch of keys. They were neatly labelled, too, and divided alphabetically into staircases and then numerically into rooms.
She looked back at Mr Holdsworth. ‘Where are Mr Whichcote’s rooms?’
‘G4,’ he said.
She ran her finger along the rows until she found the staircase G. She unhooked the keys for number 4. She closed the door and turned round.
Holdsworth was nearer than she expected, no more than a yard away, and staring intently at her. Automatically she held out the keys and he took them, his hand touching hers as it had at the garden gate. Despite the coolness of the air, she was suddenly far too warm.
‘Madam …’ he said.
He stopped, still staring at her, and leaving whatever he had been about to say hanging in the air, unformed, full of promise and fear. Slowly his head moved nearer hers. Inch by inch, his face drew closer. Plain-featured? Oh no, she thought, quite the reverse.
There was a knock at the hall door.
They sprang apart from one another. She reached the safety of the hall. ‘Quick,’ she hissed. ‘Close the door. Ben will be here directly.’
For a big man, he moved quickly. He was out in a moment and had the door closed. She snatched the keys from him. She would lock up after he had gone. She glanced at her hands and apron, fearing to find tell-tale dirt or dust there. They were clean enough. What about her face, though? Was there some mark there, some clue to the treacherous desires of her heart?
Ben’s footsteps were approaching in the passage.
‘You called to see how the Master was,’ she murmured to Holdsworth. ‘And now you are leaving and I am come down with you to see you to the door.’
Ben arrived in the hall, hesitated when he saw his mistress with Holdsworth, and then, at a nod from her, opened the door.
Mr Richardson was on the threshold. His eyes flicked past the servant to Elinor, and then to Holdsworth standing behind her. He uncovered and bowed.
‘Mrs Carbury, your servant, ma’am. And Mr Holdsworth too. This is indeed convenient – I find I kill two birds with one stone.’
43
There had been rain in the night and the river bank was muddy. Thirty yards ahead, Tom Turdman slouched steadily along the footpath, moving with unexpected speed. He was still wearing his working clothes and a whiff of the man lingered behind him like a bad dream.
Harry Archdale plodded after him. Tom had been waiting at the end of Mill Lane. As soon as he had seen Harry, 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 bo
ttle 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?’
The Anatomy of Ghosts Page 36
