The Anatomy Of Ghosts

16

The gates were still open. As Whichcote came into college, he glimpsed Mepal in the porter’s lodge angling his newspaper to catch the lamplight. In Chapel Court, he walked over to the staircase in the south-eastern corner, climbed to the first floor and rapped on Archdale’s door with the head of his stick.

‘Go away!’ Archdale shouted.

Whichcote turned the handle and threw the door open. The rooms were smaller than Frank Oldershaw’s on the other side of the landing and had fewer windows. But they were similar in layout. Archdale was not in his sitting room but in the little study beyond. He was visible through the open door, sitting at a table beside the window, with a pile of books before him and a pen in his hand.

‘Damn it, I told you -’ He broke off when he saw who it was. ‘Philip! What are you doing here?’

Whichcote stood in the doorway of the study and looked down at him. ‘A fine welcome. And what the devil do you think you’re up to?’

Archdale was wearing nothing but shirt and breeches, and round his head he had wrapped a damp towel in an untidy turban. His breeches were unbuttoned at the knee and the waist for better ventilation.

‘Had you forgotten my uncle is in Cambridge?’ he said. ‘He’s already here – Ricky’s doing the polite at the Blue Boar with him now. Didn’t ask me, mind you – I’m sure the old fellow’s plotting something. He has a bee in his brains about the Vauden Medal.’

‘He thinks you might win it?’ Whichcote said, so surprised that he did not bother to keep the incredulity from his voice.

‘And why not?’ Archdale said.

‘I’ve never seen you at your books before.’

‘I’ve done a lot of reading in my time,’ Archdale said truculently. ‘Just because a man likes other things, it don’t follow he never opens a book. Anyway, I haven’t got to win the damned thing, thank God, and I’ve got a sizar to help. I’ve merely got to make my uncle think I’m having a stab at it. The trouble is, if I don’t, he’s threatening to withdraw me from the University. He’s cutting up savage about some of the bills, though he don’t know the half of it yet.’

‘When do you show it him?’

‘Tomorrow. He dines in college after church. And afterwards he and Ricky will put me through my paces.’

Whichcote leaned against the jamb of the door. ‘But you’ll not fail us on Wednesday, I trust? We’re depending on you, Harry. But if you’ve got cold feet, let me know now. I’ve a list of postulants as long as my arm.’

‘No, no.’ Archdale waved at the books and papers in front of him. ‘Upon my honour, once I’ve disposed of this, I shall think of nothing else. They sent me the suit of clothes this afternoon. I’ve tried it on already and it looks most handsome. Sans souci, eh?’ He smacked his lips. ‘That’s me. All the preparations are made? The – sacrifice awaits?’

‘Oh, indeed. You need not trouble yourself on that score.’

Archdale wiped the sleeve of his shirt across his forehead. ‘Damn me if it ain’t growing hotter.’

‘I shall leave you to your labours.’ Whichcote began to move away but stopped, as if a thought had suddenly struck him. ‘By the way, a word in your ear about Mulgrave. I’ve discharged the fellow.’

Archdale’s mouth fell open. ‘I thought – I mean, you’ve employed him for years.’

‘I don’t choose to any more. I caught him thieving – I’ve suspected it for some time. I advise you to consider very seriously whether you wish to continue using him.’

‘Good God.’ Archdale sat back in his chair. ‘That’s a bit of a facer. He’s a most obliging fellow – seems to know where to get anything one wants.’

‘But he’s not to be trusted,’ Whichcote said. ‘And there’s an end to it.’

Archdale was following his own line of thought. ‘Ah – I wonder if Ricky’s heard something too?’

‘What?’

‘Since Frank’s been away, Mulgrave’s been in and out of his rooms, fetching what he needs. Frank must have let him have a key. But Ricky went in there with Lady Anne’s man just before dinner today, and they found Mulgrave there. There was hell to pay. He took Mulgrave’s key away.’

Whichcote frowned. ‘Lady Anne’s man?’

‘I met him in Ricky’s rooms this afternoon. Name of Holdsworth.’

‘I know.’

‘He probably works under that old steward of theirs – what’s his name? You know – the one who looks as if he’s almost dead.’

‘Cross,’ Whichcote said. ‘Holdsworth’s been to see Frank. Did you know that?’

Archdale glanced at him. ‘And?’ Alarm flared in his eyes. ‘Have they heard something, do you think?’

Whichcote laughed, though he was privately concerned about that himself; Archdale didn’t know the half of what had happened during that night in February. ‘How could an old lady in London know anything? But enough of this – I’ll leave you to your labours. Until Wednesday, then. And mind you are in the pink of condition. You cannot be half-hearted when you make such a sacrifice to the gods.’

The entrance to the Angel’s yard was off the Corn Market. Holdsworth went into the coffee room, where a waiter directed him to a porter, who, with the encouragement of a sixpence, was willing to conduct him to an outhouse beyond the kitchens. The shed stank like the midden in the stable yard. A man lay snoring on a heap of sacks in the corner.

‘There you are, sir,’ the porter said. ‘Tom Turdman at your service.’

He seized the shoulder of the sleeping man and gave him a shake that would have unsettled a sack of coal. The night-soil man groaned, opened his eyes, rolled on to his side and vomited on to the floor.

‘Easy come, easy go,’ said the porter. ‘Dined on beer and a drop or two of spirits by the smell of him.’ He gripped Tom’s ear between finger and thumb and hauled him into a sitting position. ‘Gentleman to see you. Look sharp.’

‘Thank you,’ Holdsworth said to the porter. ‘That will be all.’ He waited until the man had gone and turned back to Tom Turdman, who was wiping his mouth on his sleeve. ‘Mr Mepal at Jerusalem sent me.’

‘I done nothing wrong, sir. I told Mr Mepal, I have to do my job, and I can’t help the noise the wheels -’

Holdsworth took a shilling from his waistcoat pocket and held it up. The words stopped as if the tail of the sentence had been chopped off with an axe. Tom’s mouth hung open. In one smooth movement, his hand swooped on the coin, scooped it up and slipped it into the pocket of his breeches. He swayed on his feet and almost overbalanced. He was a small, bent man, probably ten or twenty years younger than he looked. He still wore his long brown coat. His Fen accent was thick and murky, like mud, and at first Holdsworth could make out barely one word in three.

Holdsworth took him into the yard, where the relatively fresh air revived him a little.

‘Done nothing wrong, sir,’ Tom repeated, ‘just my job.’

‘I want to ask you about the body you found.’

Tom looked cunning. ‘Which one?’

‘Don’t gammon me, not if you value Mr Mepal’s kindness. Tell me about the lady at Jerusalem. In the pond.’

‘Thought it was a sheet or a gown in the water, sir.’

‘Why? Was it dark?’

‘Near enough. Just before dawn. I fell in the water. God’s death, the cold. And – and I touched her hand -’ He broke off again, his face working. ‘Thought it was t’other one.’

‘What other one?’ Holdsworth asked, bewildered.

‘His honour’s lady, sir.’

‘The Master’s wife, Mrs Carbury?’

Tom nodded. ‘But it weren’t her abroad, not this time. Were the pretty one.’

‘You knew her face, then?’

The night-soil man’s face cracked into a toothless smile. ‘Wouldn’t forget her, sir, once you seen her. Used to come visiting the other one. I knew who she was soon as we laid her out on the bank. Looked stark staring mad, she did, like she seen a ghost. Lot of ghosts at Jerusalem, they say, and they walk at night, like that other one, other ghost -’

‘Nonsense. Ghosts have no existence outside the minds of fools and children. But I shall not argue the point with you.’ Holdsworth fought down his rising anger, aware of its absurdity and disconcerted by its very existence. Something in his mind surfaced briefly and then vanished. He struggled to retrieve it but failed. ‘Go back to the point where you fell in the water, when you discovered the thing was a body. Was it face up?’

‘Don’t know, sir.’

‘What did you do?’

Tom closed his eyes. ‘It was cold, sir, mortal cold. I yelled, and I screamed, and I thought I was drowning. But then I was standing on the bottom and the mud and weeds were clinging to me like they wanted to drag me down.’

‘Stop this nonsense. Even if there were mud and weeds, they did not want to drag you down. They have no feelings in the matter either way.’

‘Yes, sir. Ask your pardon, sir. I was a-hauling myself on to the shore, when Mr Mepal came running up and he dragged me out.’ An expression of pride settled on the man’s face. ‘And I fainted quite away with the horror of it, sir.’

‘You damned fool,’ Holdsworth said.

‘Yes, sir, but I came round in a flash. And Mr Richardson came, and we got the poor lady out of the water and laid her on the bank. That’s when I see who it was. Mr Richardson told Mr Mepal to get some men and bring back a door so we could lay her on it.’ The man hesitated, looking warily at Holdsworth. ‘Queer thing was her face. She did look terrible afraid. God’s truth.’

‘What did you think had happened?’

‘I thought the lady had been staying with Mrs Carbury, like she did sometimes. And she come out for a breath of air, and maybe tripped. Fell and hit her head, sir, that’s it, then she tumbled in the water.’

‘Hit her head? What’s this?’

‘Because of the wound, your honour.’

Holdsworth stared at him, and Tom Turdman looked guilelessly back at him. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

‘The wound?’ Holdsworth said casually. ‘And what wound was that?’

‘On her head, sir.’ Tom touched his own head in front of the left ear.

Despite the warmth of the evening, Holdsworth shivered. ‘A fresh one?’

‘Yes, sir. We was waiting for the door to lay her on, see, and Mr Richardson was looking to see if there was any life left in her. And I was sitting on the bank near him. He saw it too.’

‘But you said it was before dawn,’ Holdworth said. ‘How can you have noticed all this?’

‘It was growing light all the time,’ Tom said with a note of reproach in his voice. ‘Saw that wound plain as I see you.’

‘A bruise or a wound? Was the skin broken?’

‘Both maybe, your honour. The skin was cut, for certain.’

‘Was it bleeding?’

‘No, sir. The blood must have washed away.’

Holdsworth stared at him. He saw with hideous clarity the little parlour in Bankside, where Maria used to pray, and where they had carried her dripping body. No one had commented on the broken window overlooking the river or the broken chair or the spots of blood on the floor. Someone had closed Maria’s eyes, and he had been glad of that. Even dead eyes accuse. The side of her head was grazed. The wound had been on the left temple, half masked by strands of wet hair.

The colour of a damson. The size of a penny piece.

He prayed that the river had given her that wound. Because if it hadn’t happened then, as she was falling into the water or just afterwards, then it must have happened earlier: when he hit her, when he sent her flying across the room.

‘Anyhow it don’t mean nothing,’ Tom said. ‘Mr Richardson said it don’t signify, it was dark, and the poor lady fell in the water and drowned herself.’

‘How big was it?’ Holdsworth demanded.

‘You what, sir?’

‘The wound on her head, damn you.’ Holdsworth seized the lapel of Tom’s coat. ‘For God’s sake, tell me how big?’

Tom held up a trembling hand. He made a circle with thumb and forefinger.

The size of a penny.