The Anatomy Of Ghosts

28

Elinor heard the shuffle of Dr Carbury’s slippered feet outside the door. A moment later her husband, still in cap and dressing gown, came slowly into the sitting room, leaning on a stick. She knew from one look at his face that he had not passed a comfortable night. She went to him at once and guided him to a chair. Since he had given her the news about his health, her emotions had been in a jumble. She scarcely knew what she should or could feel. She did not like being married to him but it was preferable to not being married at all, and without him she would have nothing to fall back on except the uncertain generosity of Lady Anne. Strangest of all, she felt pity for him and even a certain respect. Here was a man who knew he was in the very antechamber of death. His plight seemed more a source of irritation to him than terror.

As if purposely to destroy any sympathy he might have occasioned, the Doctor broke wind lingeringly and with the unselfconsciousness of a child alone in its own bed. ‘You go to the mill this morning, I collect? I shall depend on you to examine Mr Holdsworth very carefully. I do not know whether you will see Mr Oldershaw himself – he may require restraint and be under lock and key; you must allow Mr Holdsworth to be your guide.’ He stared at her with his small dark eyes, partly concealed by the folds of skin. ‘I judge him to be reliable on the whole. Like ourselves, he has a pressing reason to want Mr Frank restored to health. What time does he expect you?’

‘Two o’clock.’

‘Go earlier. One o’clock, perhaps, or even sooner. Take them by surprise, and you will see them as they really are. Her ladyship wants accurate intelligence above everything, and that is the way to obtain it.’

‘Very well. If you wish it, sir.’

‘And I should like us to give her ladyship what she desires,’ he said slowly. ‘I have a particular favour to ask her.’

He paused, allowing Elinor time to conclude that the favour no doubt concerned herself, and what would become of her when she was a widow. Then she was distracted by the realization that her husband was trembling. She started up in her chair. His lips were quivering, and his great barrel of a chest shook slightly as though a small, heavy object were bouncing about inside. She opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, and in that instance became aware that there was no need: Dr Carbury was laughing.

‘I wish you had seen him, my dear Mrs Carbury – Mr Richardson, that is – it was most diverting. He did not know what to do or say.’

‘About what, sir?’

‘About the Rosington Fellowship, of course. I told him when we were at the dinner, in front of everyone. The poor man almost fell off his chair.’ Carbury folded his hands over his great stomach. ‘He desires above all things to be Master of this college. If her ladyship will use her influence against him, it would be a great thing. And Soresby too may have his uses, for if he holds the fellowship, he will have a vote in the election.’ He winced as a spasm of pain struck him. Slowly it passed. Then he smiled at her so broadly that his eyes entirely disappeared in the surrounding folds of skin. ‘My dear Mrs Carbury,’ he repeated. ‘You should have seen his face. You really should.’

Elinor smiled and nodded, as a good wife should when her husband invites her to share his enjoyment. Her dying husband cared more about the fate of his enemy than about the future of his wife. In the antechamber of death, hate was more powerful than love.

The problem with the pony phaeton was that it had a single bench seat that Elinor was obliged to share with Ben. The servant was a large, perspiring man whose thighs had a way of spreading along the seat. It was hard to avoid all contact with him, and it was impossible not to think of his white thighs pumping up and down in the wash-house. The poor pony laboured as it drew the phaeton up the gradient of the Huntingdon Road. The vehicle was a small four-wheeler, lightly constructed and with cane sides. Elinor would have been perfectly competent to drive it herself, and indeed it had been designed for ladies’ use. But Dr Carbury would not permit her to drive alone on the public roads.

Soon after leaving Cambridge, they left the high road and plunged into a network of lanes confined between high embankments and hedges. Streamers of white dust billowed behind them, marking their progress. The surface under the wheels became gradually rougher and the pony stumbled over ruts and potholes.

They rounded a bend, and about quarter of a mile away a handful of roofs came into view. Ben said that this was Whitebeach, and that the mill lay on the other side. Dogs barked in a ragged chorus as they drew closer. It was a hamlet, so small and insignificant it hardly deserved a name of its own. Two or three cottages huddled about a dilapidated alehouse. Beyond them was the farm, a more substantial house with a yard and barns, and the home of most of the dogs. Ben sat up a little straighter and gave the pony a flick with his whip. Distracted, it stumbled again, and the phaeton lurched towards the hedge on Elinor’s side. The pony slowed. It was hobbling.

Ben swore under his breath. ‘Beg pardon, ma’am, the brute’s lost a shoe.’

‘It will do us no harm to walk the last little way. We shall throw ourselves on Mr Smedley’s mercy.’

He climbed down and helped his mistress descend from the seat. She walked as fast as she could, careless of the mud on her shoes and the dust on the hem of her skirt. Ben followed, leading the pony and the phaeton. The farm was at the other end of the village. Elinor heard the chink of hammering, metal on metal. Just before the farm was a small forge, and smoke was coming from its chimney. There might be no need to trouble Mr Smedley.

She sent Ben into the smithy while she waited in the lane with the pony. In a moment he reappeared with the blacksmith himself, a squat, hunched fellow with narrow shoulders and huge forearms like a badger’s.

‘He can do it, ma’am,’ Ben said.

‘How long will it take?’ Elinor said, addressing the smith directly.

The man shuffled his feet and muttered something about maybe an hour, he couldn’t rightly say.

‘How far is Whitebeach Mill?’

He pointed with a blackened forefinger at the mouth of the track beyond the farm and on the other side of the road. He glanced back at her, running his eyes over her, assessing her condition as he might a horse’s. ‘Five or ten minutes, maybe.’

She came to a decision. ‘I shall go on,’ she told Ben. ‘When the pony is ready, come down to the mill.’

‘But, ma’am, shouldn’t I go with you?’

‘No,’ Elinor said. ‘I wish you to wait for the pony.’

She set off at once, not allowing her resolution to wane, knowing that Ben would be looking after her, with that worried expression on his face. He had wit enough to know that his master would have preferred him to accompany his mistress.

In the track to the mill, the air smelled strongly of garlic because ransoms grew thickly in both verges. She walked more slowly now she was out of sight of Ben and the blacksmith. She was not carrying a watch, but she knew from the position of the sun that it could not be long after midday. It did not signify. If no one was in the way at the mill, which seemed unlikely, she would find somewhere to wait in the shade. To be by herself in public, even in this remote place, was a form of freedom. All her troubles were behind her in Cambridge – this business with Sylvia, her husband’s illness and threat of a return to friendless poverty. Here she felt almost drunk with liberty, with the sense that she might do anything and there would be no one to stop her, no one even to witness it. She had not felt so happy for months. Not since Sylvia died.

Soon she would see Mr Holdsworth. Frank, too, of course, but he was just a boy. How odd that she had only known the man for a fortnight; it seemed much longer.

The track passed through a little copse of limes and chestnuts, their leaves blindingly fresh with the green of early summer, and rounded a bend. Suddenly she was at her destination. In front of her was a gate, beyond which was the mill and its cottage. Smoke rose from a single chimney. In the shadow of the horse trough lay a ginger cat. It was watching her.

She opened the gate and crossed the cobbles. The enclosed yard was very warm. A path led her past the end of the cottage to an overgrown garden. The principal door of the house was on this side, and the windows into the downstairs rooms. She peered inside.

No one was about. There were signs of occupation, though – candlesticks, a pewter tankard and a book on the table; a coat flung carelessly over the back of a chair.

The door was ajar. She pushed it fully open and called a greeting, first softly and then more loudly. There was no response. After a moment’s hesitation she went into the cottage, thinking that perhaps she would find Mulgrave in the kitchen, which she assumed must be the room at the side with the smoking chimney. But no one was there. She felt unpleasantly like a spy.

For the first time she also felt a hint of unease. Here she was, an unchaperoned woman in an empty house in the middle of the country. True, her servant knew where she was, but he was hundreds of yards away and out of earshot. Anything might happen to her and no one would be any the wiser.

She went back into what seemed to be the room they used as a parlour and for a moment even wondered whether she should arm herself with one of the candlesticks. She picked up the book that lay beside it instead – a copy of Young’s Night Thoughts. She took it outside, intending to turn over the leaves while she waited.

The sunlight made her blink, for her eyes had already adjusted to the relative gloom of the cottage. The garden stretched down to the water; there was long, lank grass, tall weeds, foxgloves and, near the bottom, a ragged huddle of unpruned fruit trees and then a willow beyond. Something was moving among the branches of the trees, for there were flashes of white among the green. Perhaps Mulgrave had washed the shirts and hung them out to dry on the branches.

Then, as her eyes grew used to the light, there was a strange intermediate moment when she saw quite clearly what was only partly concealed by the branches on either side. The whiteness was not the whiteness of a shirt. It was skin, and the skin belonged to a tall, naked man.

Someone was speaking. The man half turned towards the sound, raising his arm and revealing more of his long, lean body. Drops of water flew away from him, scattering diamonds in the sunlight.

Elinor drew back into the shadows of the house. Her brain at last contrived to marshal the jumbled perceptions of the last few seconds and come to a conclusion.

John Holdsworth was in the garden. He was soaking wet and stark-naked.