The Anatomy Of Ghosts

14

After dinner, Elinor Carbury ordered her maid to bring the tea things to the parlour. She had hardly settled herself before she heard voices in the hall below and steps on the stairs. The door burst open and Dr Carbury advanced into the room. Behind him was Mr Holdsworth.

‘Ah – Mrs Carbury!’ her husband exclaimed, clinging to the back of a chair for support. ‘And that is the tea urn! What is it that Cowper says? “The bubbling and loud-hissing urn throws up a steamy column, and the cups that – that…”’

‘ “Cheer but not inebriate,” sir, I believe,’ Elinor said, acknowledging Holdsworth’s bow.

‘Yes, yes,’ Carbury said, throwing himself in a chair with such force that its legs moved an inch or two backward.

‘Pray be seated, Mr Holdsworth,’ Elinor said. ‘I am about to make the tea, and I am sure Susan is already bringing more cups.’ She smiled at him and saw an answering smile on his face; it quite transformed his countenance. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure. I had thought you engaged with Mr Richardson this afternoon.’

Carbury suppressed a belch. ‘Later. The bishop is dining at St John’s, and Mr Richardson wished to wait on his lordship. For the usual reasons, no doubt.’

Elinor was still looking at Holdsworth. ‘Dr Carbury means that the bishop may be able to put Mr Richardson in the way of preferment.’

‘I do not hold out much hope in that quarter,’ Carbury said. ‘We shall have to put up with him a while longer.’

Elinor stirred the teapot with unusual vigour, and the clatter of the spoon was enough to stop her husband in his stride, as she had hoped. He broke off, and swiftly changed the subject, asking Holdsworth how Frank Oldershaw was. While Holdsworth was talking, Elinor passed the cups to the men.

‘Ah – poor fellow,’ Carbury said. ‘So the long and the short of it is that Jermyn is making no progress?’

‘He believes it will come in time.’

Carbury took a sip of his tea, wrinkled his nose and set down the cup, spilling some of its contents into the saucer. ‘But something must be done now! This brings the college into disrepute, it displeases her ladyship.’ His voice rose in volume. ‘And what about this ghost, Mr Holdsworth? If you could show it’s nothing but the boy’s wild imaginings, that would be something. A ghost means gossip, and there’s been too much of that already. Why, I fear we shall have fewer admissions next year, and merely because of this wretched story. No one wishes to send his son to an establishment with a ghost.’ He broke wind in a long rumble. ‘It is scarcely genteel. If you can scotch that foolish rumour, we shall be eternally grateful to you.’

‘It would be helpful to know more of the circumstances in which Mrs Whichcote’s body was found.’

‘Why, pray? There is no question about her identity.’

‘In case I can employ some fact about her discovery to undermine at least part of Mr Oldershaw’s conviction that he encountered her ghost. For example, how did she get in?’

‘She had a key,’ Carbury said. ‘She often visited us at the Lodge. My wife had given her a key to our private gate from Jerusalem Lane so she might come and go without having to suffer the disagreeable experience of passing before so many masculine eyes.’

‘The gate was locked,’ Elinor said. ‘The key wasn’t found.’

Her husband scowled at her. ‘Because it’s probably in the mud at the bottom of the pond.’

‘What was the lady wearing when she was taken from the water?’ Holdsworth asked.

‘A gown,’ Elinor said. ‘Her feet were bare. She wore stockings but they were torn and muddy. We -’

‘We tried to avoid that circumstance becoming generally known,’ Carbury interrupted. ‘But the servants prattled. No doubt the shoes came off in the water and were washed into the culvert that drains the pond. Or perhaps she lost them as she ran through the streets – and on a night like that!’

Holdsworth rubbed his eyes, which were bloodshot and weary. ‘But why would Mrs Whichcote come to Jerusalem at that time?’

‘To see Mrs Carbury, of course. Noctambulants are not, strictly speaking, irrational in their actions. I have discussed the matter with Professor Trillo, who has made something of a study of the subject as it occurs in classical antiquity. The actions of sleepwalkers are often guided by considerations which would have seemed reasonable to their waking selves.’

‘Still – forgive me, sir, if I labour the point – was Mrs Whichcote feeling low? Despair is the foe of reason, is it not? One may commit terrible actions under the influence of despair.’

Carbury broke wind again, and winced. ‘Mrs Whichcote was not in despair, sir. You will oblige me by not mentioning even that possibility to anyone. It might create a misleading impression. One would not want the lady’s reputation to be stained posthumously by a baseless suspicion of self-murder.’ He edged forward in his chair and rose unsteadily to his feet. He tried to bow to Elinor but the movement was converted into an awkward nod. ‘I – I find I must withdraw for a moment. Pray excuse me.’

Elinor listened to his stumbling footsteps on the stairs and the bang of a door below. She turned to Holdsworth and found that he was looking directly at her. She looked away.

‘I hope the Master is not indisposed,’ Holdsworth said.

‘No – I’m sure not. He – he sometimes is obliged to withdraw after he has dined. But to return to Mr Frank. I shall write to Lady Anne today. Should I say that he is in good health as far as the body is concerned? And, as to the infirmities of his mind, he is at least no worse. May I say more?’

‘It is a part of Dr Jermyn’s regime that he oversees very strictly any intercourse his patients have with the outside world. I wish I could talk privately to Mr Frank, if he would let me. He seemed perfectly placid at first. Then the doctor said I had come from her ladyship, and that I might be able to convey him back to her in a few weeks if his progress continued satisfactorily. After that Mr Frank flew into a passion, and there was no point in my staying. I should like to see if it would answer to talk to him in private, without the doctor, or the attendants. It is necessary, too. He believes he has seen the ghost of Mrs Whichcote. How can I attempt to disprove it unless I know the precise nature of the delusion? Only he can tell me that.’

‘Surely Dr Jermyn could enlighten you?’

‘Unfortunately not. Indeed, he evinced a perfect lack of interest in the subject of the ghost. His method, you see, does not concern itself with such matters. He takes the view that his patients are mad, and therefore their delusions are by definition unworthy of rational consideration – they are meaningless nonsense. Instead he places his emphasis on the treatment, which seems to revolve around teaching them to reason from correct propositions. He grew quite philosophical while he was explaining it to me.’

‘Locke,’ Elinor said, and enjoyed the flash of surprise on Holdsworth’s face.

‘Indeed, madam,’ he said. ‘Dr Jermyn made considerable mention of him.’

She did not reply.

‘Tell me,’ he went on, ‘what was Mrs Whichcote like?’

Elinor rose and fetched a folder from a drawer in her bureau. She laid it on the table by the window and undid the ribbon. She turned to Holdsworth, who had risen to his feet when she had. ‘Come here and you shall have your answer, sir.’

She opened a folder and took out a sheet of paper. Holdsworth was standing beside her now, and she was very conscious of his eyes and the smell of wine on his breath. He looked down at the paper, at a head-and-shoulders sketch of Sylvia Whichcote, informal in its nature, and done rapidly in pen and ink. The clock ticked on the mantelpiece. Elinor’s breathing accelerated. His forehead was wrinkled. Like a good housewife, she wanted to stretch out her hand and make it smooth again.

‘Yes,’ he said at last, moving away. ‘Yes, I see. She was very beautiful.’

‘It was not just how she looked, sir,’ Elinor said, suddenly desperate to make him understand. ‘Though indeed she was lovely of face. But what counted for more than that, far more, was the charm of her manner, her conversation – something indefinable about her. Something unpredictable. It drew people. God knows – it drew Philip Whichcote, and if she could do that, she could draw anyone. He was head over heels in love with her at one time. I suspect he loved her still in his way, though I fear the marriage was not a happy one.’

She shut the folder and tied the ribbon with fingers grown suddenly clumsy.

‘I would count it a favour if you would tell me more about her,’ he said.

‘She and I were children together. My father kept a school in Bath, and she attended it as a boarder. We became intimate friends, and remained so. When I married Dr Carbury, she visited me in Cambridge and encountered Mr Whichcote. At the time it seemed providential – a way of continuing our friendship.’

‘Who was it who did the portrait of her?’

‘I did.’

‘You are skilled with the pencil, ma’am. Is the portrait a recent one?’

‘The likeness was taken seven or eight months ago.’

Elinor looked up. Holdsworth was staring at her again.

They heard Dr Carbury returning. Elinor stood up and returned the folder to the drawer. Her husband came slowly into the room, walking cautiously as if on the deck of a boat that might be expected to sway at any moment.

‘Still here, Mr Holdsworth? I’m glad – I wanted a word in your ear. A word of warning. I had hoped it would not be necessary, but I find there’s no help for it. Mrs Carbury tells me that yesterday you had scarcely arrived before Mr Richardson called to make your acquaintance. And he has made a dead set at you ever since, eh?’

‘As you know, I saw something of him yesterday evening, sir,’ Holdsworth said. ‘And I called on him earlier because I wished to look over Mr Oldershaw’s rooms. He was so kind as to conduct me there.’

‘Just so,’ Carbury said, nodding. ‘Kind, eh? Kind to himself, I’ll warrant. I regret to say this of a senior member of our society, but I would be failing in my duty if I did not put you on your guard against him. He has been all smiles and smooth talk to you, eh?’

‘He has made himself very agreeable.’

‘Ha! I knew it.’

Elinor rose to leave, but her husband waved her back to her chair.

‘Pray do not disturb yourself, my dear. This will not take a moment and besides, you know all this and more already.’ He stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and stood legs apart with his back towards the empty fireplace. ‘When my predecessor as Master died, Mr Holdsworth, we had, as is customary in these cases, an election for his successor. The fellows are the electors. By statute, anyone may be put forward as a candidate as long as he has an MA and is of course a communicant of the Church of England. Very often the candidates are chosen from among the fellows themselves, as is natural. And this was the case in the last election. The candidates were myself and Mr Richardson.’

Elinor coughed. ‘I’m sure we must not tire Mr Holdsworth with our little affairs, sir. He has -’

‘Pray be silent, Mrs Carbury, and leave these matters to those who understand them.’

Elinor felt herself flushing and turned her head away.

‘As I was saying, I had allowed my friends to put me forward, but in truth I cared very little about the result.’ Dr Carbury stared at the ceiling. ‘Mr Richardson, on the other hand, felt very strongly about the matter. So much so that the methods he employed to advance his case were not – well, I shall not say they were actually corrupt, though I fear others have suggested as much. But I will say that they were certainly not those of a gentleman. Still, as I said to Mrs Carbury only the other day, one cannot make a velvet cap out of a sow’s ear. Mr Richardson’s origins are humble, you know, and despite his undoubted abilities there is a meanness about him that one does not find in a man of breeding. You must not allow his agreeable manner to blind you to his real nature, Mr Holdsworth. We were undergraduates here together, and his true nature was apparent even then. Some of the more unkind students knew him as “Dirty Dick”. They affected to believe that an unfortunate odour clung to him, for his father had been a tanner’s journeyman, and you know how difficult it is to get rid of the smell of stinking hides.’

Carbury paused. He looked at Holdsworth, as if expecting a comment from him.

Holdsworth said, ‘Yes, sir, indeed I do. As it happens, my father was a tanner too.’