The Anatomy Of Ghosts

24

You never knew with Mr Whichcote.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, Augustus slept fitfully for nearly two hours in a chair drawn up to the dying glow of the kitchen fire. Even in his dreams he heard the jangling of the bell over the kitchen door. He was not summoned, however, and he dozed until the scullery maid came down at five o’clock.

The girl, who was the next best thing to a halfwit, coaxed the fire into life and made an almighty clattering as she set pans of water to warm. One by one, in order of seniority, the other servants appeared – the wall-eyed maid, the old man who had tended the garden with gradually decreasing efficiency since the time of Mr Whichcote’s great-uncle, and finally the cook, a majestic but sour-faced woman who was at present working out her notice. None of the servants liked the day after a club dinner. The day itself was hard work, but it was a break in routine, undeniably exciting, full of strange faces, and with the tantalizing possibility of discarded trifles or unexpected tips. Afterwards, though, came the unpleasant task of clearing up.

A little after eight o’clock, Mr Whichcote’s bell rang. Augustus took his jug of warm water upstairs. When he returned, thirty minutes later with tea and rolls on a tray, he found the jug had not been touched. Mr Whichcote was still in his dressing gown, sitting up in bed and making notes in his pocketbook. He gestured towards Augustus to leave the tray on the night table. As he did so, the footboy glanced down and saw that the master was adding up a column of figures, against which he had made a number of entries.

An hour later, there was a knocking at the front door. Augustus opened the door to Mrs Phear. Her maid Dorcas was two paces behind her.

Mrs Phear advanced into the hall, as implacable as a small black cloud in a clear blue sky. She addressed the air in front of her. ‘Where’s your master?’

Augustus hastened to open the study door. Mr Whichcote was already rising to his feet. Mrs Phear said that she had brought her maid with her: the girl was so idle at home that a little work would be good for her.

Whichcote turned to Augustus and held out a key for him to take. ‘You and the girl will make the pavilion neat again. I wish to see it clean and swept and garnished, with everything restored to how it was.’

Augustus bowed and turned, believing he had been dismissed.

‘Stay. Come here.’ Whichcote towered over the footboy. ‘Only you and the maid are to work down there. I hold you responsible for that, as well as the rest. Now go.’

Mr Whichcote kept the pavilion locked. According to Cook, this was because the building was reserved for the master’s obscene and blasphemous activities, especially those that occurred on the nights of club dinners, so the master’s caution was entirely understandable. Cook said that she herself would not go in there alone for all the tea in China. Mr Whichcote, she said, was a gentleman who made your blood run cold, which was one reason why she had handed in her notice; the other reasons being the death of her late mistress (God rest her soul), the impious activities of the master and his friends, and (worst of all) his inability to pay his servants on time. Cook also said that if Mr Whichcote made your blood run cold, then Mrs Phear made it freeze in your veins and turn your very heart to a block of ice; and Cook was right.

Augustus took Dorcas through to the service side of the house, where they collected the brushes, mops, cloths and buckets. He carried the key of the pavilion in his pocket and was conscious of its weight and the responsibility it signified. Dorcas, who was half a head taller than he was, stared straight ahead. She had a white and bony face with freckles like flecks of mud on her skin.

‘We’ll do the big room upstairs,’ he said as he unlocked the pavilion door. ‘Then the little room they used downstairs and the staircase.’

‘You please yourself,’ the maid said, still without looking at him. ‘I want to see the bedchamber first.’

Augustus stared at her. ‘How do you know there’s a bedchamber?’

‘Because the girl told me. The one who had to lie in there last night all trussed up like a bird for the oven.’

‘You’re making it up,’ Augustus said uncertainly. ‘I was here last night.’

‘But you weren’t in that bedchamber, were you?’

‘No more was you.’

‘That girl was, though. She had to pretend to be a virgin. But she’s no more a virgin than my grandmother. She had this fat young gent come to her. He was too drunk to do it but he gave her three guineas.’

‘Where’s she now?’

‘Gone back to London.’

Augustus opened the door, thinking that Dorcas must be telling the truth because she knew it had been the fat young gent, Mr Archdale. She pushed past him into the lobby and looked about her.

‘Where is it?’

Without waiting for an answer, she opened the nearest door, which led to the passage running the length of the pavilion’s ground floor. With Augustus at her heels, she walked briskly along it, trying the doors until she found the bedchamber.

With a bucket in one hand and a mop in the other, Augustus stood in the doorway and watched Dorcas inspecting the room for all the world as though she were the mistress of the house looking for evidence of her maid’s shortcomings. She tutted over the puddle of wax at the foot of one of the candlesticks on the table. She sighed loudly as she replaced the cork in a bottle of cordial. She raised her eyebrows at the heap of bedclothes on the floor and touched with her forefinger one of the silken white cords that were still attached to the bedposts. She studied the red stains in the middle of the sheet on the bed and wrinkled her nose.

‘Up to all the tricks, that one.’

‘What?’

She stared at him not unkindly. She was three inches taller and nine months older yet her expression hinted that in her superiority to him she might just as well have been as tall as King’s College Chapel and roughly as old too. ‘She lay with me last night and she wouldn’t stop talking. That’s how I knew all about the young gent being unmanned. Happens a lot, she says, and they have to pretend. It’s worth their while, mind you.’

Augustus felt hot and uncomfortable. He turned away, wanting to assert his control over the situation; after all, he was in some sense the host and besides he was a man and Dorcas was nothing but a girl. ‘Come upstairs,’ he said. ‘That’s where the worst of it is.’

He went out of the room without looking at her. He led her back down the passage and up to the long room on the first floor.

‘Pho,’ Dorcas said as she passed through the doorway. ‘Worse than a midden on a hot day.’

She walked round the room, with Augustus once again at her heels. The air stank of stale alcohol and tobacco and the smoke from the candles. Underlying that were other and less agreeable odours. Two of the chairs had been overturned. There were pools of wax and wine on the table and the floor. At least half a dozen glasses had been smashed, some intentionally, and the fragments of glass lay around the empty fireplace. There was a pool of vomit on a bowl of fruit at one end of the table. They found far worse behind the screen, the source of the worst smells, where one of the commodes had fallen on to its side and a chamber pot had smashed. The floorboards here were slippery with urine, more vomit and even a pile of excrement.

‘Take days to set this to rights,’ Dorcas said, and for the first time she sounded awed and even a little scared.

Together they examined the debris on the table. Dorcas picked up a strawberry and ate it. Augustus found a half-eaten chicken leg. They foraged for a few minutes, cramming scraps of food into their mouths.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Do you think they enjoy it?’

A door banged below them. There were footsteps on the stairs. Dorcas seized a brush and began to sweep vigorously. Augustus righted one of the fallen chairs. The door of the room opened and Mr Whichcote appeared on the threshold.

‘I don’t pay you to be idle,’ he said to Augustus.

He might have replied that Mr Whichcote did not pay him at all. Instead, he hung his head and blushed.

Dorcas curtsied low and said nothing, fixing her eyes on the ground.

‘Begin by airing the place,’ Mr Whichcote said. ‘What are you waiting for? Open the windows.’

They sprang to obey him. Whichcote made a leisurely circuit of the room with a handkerchief raised to his nose.

‘Remember,’ he said. ‘I do not choose to have what passes here to be talked about abroad. If there is foolish gossip in the town about it, I shall know that one or both of you have been talking out of turn. And if that happens, Mrs Phear and I will know what to do.’ He looked from Augustus to Dorcas and then went on in the same low, unhurried voice: ‘It is a singular coincidence that neither of you has friends in the world, is it not? It follows that Mrs Phear and I must stand in place of them. And you shall find that, just as we know how to punish wrongdoing, we know how to reward fidelity.’

Without another word, he sauntered out of the room and down the stairs. Neither Dorcas nor Augustus moved until they heard the closing of the big door in the lobby.

‘He’ll kill us if we talk,’ Augustus blurted out.

He glanced sideways at Dorcas. He was alarmed to see that her eyes were full of tears.

‘You remember the other girl, the one that died?’ she muttered.

‘The one who came in February? Tabitha? They said she choked.’

‘Who knows? Maybe they killed her. I tell you this, though – the mistress locked me in with Tabby’s body that night. And now she never goes away.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Every night she’s there,’ Dorcas hissed. ‘I see her shape in the bed next to mine. She talks and talks and I can’t hear what she’s saying.’

Elinor Carbury sat in her sitting room and tried to reread Chapter 31 of Rasselas.

‘That the dead are seen no more, said Imlac, I will not undertake to maintain against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which, perhaps, prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth: those, that never heard of one another, would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers can very little weaken the general evidence, and some who deny it with their tongues confess it by their fears.’

But her mind refused to concentrate on the words before her. Her eyes drifted over the distressingly formal garden to the dark green mass of the plane tree. She thought of John Holdsworth and wondered how he was at the mill. She had felt his absence at breakfast. There was nothing reprehensible or out of the ordinary about this, she assured herself, for in the last few days she had seen more society than she often saw in as many weeks. John Holdsworth had simply been part of that society; and as his hostess she had been obliged to see a good deal of him. Still, there was no denying that she felt flat and dull.

The sitting-room windows were open, and so were other windows in the Master’s Lodge. She became aware that Dr Carbury had a visitor in his book room below. The rumble of their voices, her husband’s and that of another gentleman, grew steadily louder. Their conversation was becoming heated.

She rang the bell. When at last Susan bustled into the room, Elinor asked who the visitor was.

‘Why, ma’am, ’tis Dr Jermyn from Barnwell.’

Elinor sent the girl away. Had she imagined an alteration in Susan’s manner? She had seemed strange for the last day or two – unnaturally cheerful but also watchful, almost wary.

In the circumstances, it was scarcely surprising that high words should pass between Dr Carbury and Dr Jermyn. Though Frank’s removal from the asylum had had nothing to do with her husband, Jermyn would naturally believe that at least some of the responsibility was his.

What did surprise Elinor, though, was what happened next. The gentlemen soon lowered their voices, so they appeared to have made peace. Some ten minutes after that, she heard the garden door opening below her. When she craned her head, in a most unladylike manner, she saw the foreshortened figures of Dr Carbury and his guest walking along the gravel path and through the gate that led to the service yard where the wash-house was.

The gentlemen were gone for perhaps five minutes, and when they returned, their heads were close together and they were deep in conversation. Shortly afterwards she heard Jermyn leaving.

It was most curious, Elinor thought, and she could not for the life of her think what they had been doing in the yard. Surely it could be nothing to do with what had happened there on Tuesday morning?

Susan and Ben snuffling and grunting like pigs in their sty.

On Thursday, Harry Archdale recovered slowly from his promotion to apostolic rank. He faced fines for missing chapel, breakfast and his morning lecture; and he would almost certainly be obliged to endure an unpleasant interview with Dr Richardson and possibly further punishments. He forced himself out of bed when he heard the bell ringing for dinner. But he could not bear to go down to the hall. He sat on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands, and moaned. He did not think it possible that he would ever want to eat another mouthful of food.

He dressed himself very gradually. The dinner was over by the time he had finished. His rooms were unbearably stuffy. He made his way downstairs, pausing at each step, moving his limbs as though they were made of glass and might be expected to shatter at the slightest shock.

In the court, the sun hurt his eyes with its brightness. Soresby passed him, wishing him good day, and the sound of his voice made Archdale moan.

Like a sick animal, he obeyed the promptings of instinct, not reason. He tottered through the arcade, past the chapel and into the gardens. He made his way down to the gate leading to the Fellows’ Garden where as a fellow-commoner he was entitled to walk. The gate was unlocked. He walked very slowly along the path beside the Long Pond. It was cool and shady here, and after a while he began to feel a little better. But even the slightest exertion seemed intolerably tiring. He came to a rustic bench and sat down heavily, wincing as the impact travelled up to his head.

He did not know how long he sat. No one disturbed him. The bench was secluded, surrounded by a large box-hedge on three sides. He closed his eyes and dozed uncomfortably, enclosed in a universe of pain.

The sound of voices roused him. He opened his eyes. The voices came from the other side of the pond, from the Master’s Garden. He yawned and rubbed his head. He glimpsed two black-clad figures crossing a gap between two hedges. First came the portly and unmistakable shape of Dr Carbury himself, lumbering along like a large, tired animal. After him came Tobias Soresby, tall and hunched, his limbs moving with ungainly rapidity. Their conversation continued, the words indistinguishable.

Archdale frowned. Everyone knew that Soresby was Richardson’s pet. That automatically meant that Carbury disliked Soresby, and anyway Carbury was no friend to poor undergraduates, as a class. So what was Soresby doing strolling in Carbury’s garden? It made no sense.

Archdale dozed again. Again, a voice jerked him awake.

‘Be damned to you,’ Carbury said loudly, then his voice became a mumble, swiftly diminishing into silence.

Archdale opened his eyes. No one was there. The Master’s Garden might have been empty. Perhaps he had dreamed it. He closed his eyes.

This time he slept more soundly and for longer. When he awoke with a start, the sun was lower in the sky, and the air cooler. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

‘Harry, I hope I find you well.’

Archdale turned his head and looked up. Philip Whichcote was beside the bench, smiling down at him. He looked offensively sober and healthy.

‘I am in very good spirits,’ Archdale said sourly. ‘Never better.’

Whichcote sat down and stretched out his legs. ‘I looked for you in your rooms but you were not there. Mepal said I might find you here. You look a little pale, I am afraid. I hope you have not been spending too much time poring over your books.’

‘Go away, Philip,’ Archdale said feebly. ‘I am not in the mood for your funning.’

‘You will be as fit as a fiddle in an hour or two, you may depend upon it. Well, your prowess last night was much admired by your fellow Apostles. The general vote was that rarely had a maid screamed louder.’

‘Where – where is she?’

‘The girl? How should I know? Gone back to London, I imagine. The reason I came was to see how you did, and to invite you to dine with me and a few of the others tomorrow. I thought we might run over to Newmarket.’

‘No,’ Archdale said, surprising even himself with his vehemence. ‘It – it would not be convenient.’

They sat in silence for a moment. Archdale privately resolved that from this moment forward, if God spared him, he would become a hard-reading man. Never had sober scholarship seemed so attractive. Never had gambling, whoring and drinking seemed so foolish, unpleasant, expensive and unhealthy.

Whichcote laughed. ‘I should have waited until later, my dear Harry. You must not get in such a taking. You will feel more yourself directly, and then I shall ask you again.’

‘And I’ll give you the same answer.’

‘You must tell Mulgrave to mix you one of his particular tonics. They would revive a corpse. Which reminds me, is he about somewhere? There is something I wish to say to him.’

‘Mulgrave? But you told me the other day he wasn’t to be trusted, and you’d discharged him.’

‘So I have. But I still need a word with him.’

‘Well he’s not here. And nor’s he likely to be.’

‘What do you mean?’ Whichcote said sharply. ‘He is always about the place like a bad smell.’

‘He is looking after Frank.’

‘He’s gone to Barnwell?’

Archdale shook his head and winced. ‘Frank’s not there any more.’

‘What?’ Whichcote gripped Archdale’s shoulder. ‘Are you saying that Frank is cured?’

‘I don’t know about that.’ Archdale moved away from Whichcote. ‘He’s not at Barnwell, though. He’s with that man that Lady Anne sent. Holdsworth. And Mulgrave’s attending them.’

‘But where are they? Has Holdsworth taken Frank back to London?’

‘I don’t know.’ Archdale’s hangover spilled over into irritation. ‘And I don’t much care.’

In the evening Whichcote laid a coin at one end of the mantelpiece. At the other end of Mrs Phear’s mantelpiece stood a lighted candle, the only one in the room. It was still light outside, and a small creature rustled among the leaves of a pear tree espaliered against the rear wall of the garden. Whichcote laid another coin on the mantelpiece, an inch apart from the first. It had been a long day, and he felt flat and weary.

‘There will be more,’ he said. ‘This is merely an earnest of what is to come.’

‘Have you enough for your creditors?’ Mrs Phear asked.

‘There is never enough for those vultures, ma’am. But thank you.’

He laid another coin on the mantelpiece, this one on top of the first, and then placed a fourth on top of the second. Slowly the columns of gold grew taller. In total, the money amounted to a down payment of ten guineas. For Mrs Phear, he knew, such a sum could bridge the difference between genteel poverty and a genteel competence.

‘We have made up some lost ground,’ he said. ‘But there is more. Can we contrive another dinner before the end of term?’

‘It is always the girl that takes the time. The next committee meeting at the Magdalene Hospital is not until the end of the month. It would not be easy to arrange before then.’

‘It is a pity. They are ready for another one. Or most of them are. And young Chiddingley burns to be an Apostle, and for that we need a girl.’

‘There’s one way.’ Mrs Phear stared out of the window. ‘What if we use the same one? Only Mr Archdale saw her.’

‘But I thought we decided that the less they knew the better, and if we use one of them more than once -’

‘That is true as a general principle. In this case, however, there is much to recommend a relaxation of the rule. This girl is a discreet little chit, I fancy. She handled Mr Archdale very well last night.’

‘What was her name again?’

‘Molly Price. She’s no great beauty, I know, but she looks well enough for the part.’

‘A flower waiting to be plucked,’ Whichcote said drily.

‘Think of the convenience of the thing – there is always trouble and risk in recruiting a new one. Also, it takes time. But if it’s Price again, I can simply tell them at the Magdalene that I have hopes of another lady who’s in want of a girl to train up into service.’

‘Still, it increases the danger, does it not? If the Price girl talks -’

‘You may leave all that to me. I will answer for her discretion. Besides, there is nothing she can say that would be believed.’ Mrs Phear’s voice sharpened. ‘Pray, sir, pass me the money. I do not like to put temptation in the way of servants.’

He scraped the guineas into the palm of his left hand and brought them to her. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I will talk to the Apostles in the next day or two and give you a date.’

‘The sooner the better.’

‘That’s one difficulty disposed of, ma’am. But there’s another that may not prove so easy. I saw Harry Archdale this afternoon. He told me that Frank is no longer in the care of Dr Jermyn.’

‘What? Is he cured?’

‘He must be.’

‘Either that or Lady Anne wished him removed – to the care of another physician, perhaps, or even to her house in London.’

‘All I have been able to establish is that Frank has left Barnwell. Her ladyship’s agent in this seems to be the man Holdsworth, who has been staying at Jerusalem. He has gone too. Archdale said that Mulgrave is with them.’

‘The college servant?’

‘A gyp – his only loyalty is to himself. But he’s a shrewd fellow, unfortunately, and knows what he’s about.’

Mrs Phear stroked her plump little hands, one with the other, looking down at them with an expression of concern in her face, as though the hands were naked little animals in need of consolation. ‘We must wait and see,’ she said. ‘Even if Mr Frank is cured, it does not follow that what he says will be believed. A man whose wits have been disordered does not make a reliable witness. It all depends on his word, after all. And he must be sensible that you could make counter-accusations. He does not come out well from all this, however one looks at it.’ She smiled at Whichcote. ‘I cannot but think that his mother has acted foolishly in allowing him to leave Dr Jermyn’s. With a young man whose wits are so far astray, anything might happen. He might kill himself and those around him before he’s done.’

Whichcote sighed. He crossed the room to the window and stood by Mrs Phear’s chair. They were so close and the room was so quiet that they could hear each other’s breathing. They did not look at each other. They stared out of the window and watched the sky gradually darken above the pear tree.