The Anatomy Of Ghosts

42

Mrs Phear made Augustus work for the privilege of having her roof over his head. He was up before dawn and set to cleaning shoes and scouring pots. Dorcas had her own tasks; and besides she was cross and there were dark smudges under her eyes. ‘That Tabitha,’ she muttered as they passed each other in the scullery, ‘she don’t let me rest. Worse than the old cow herself.’

Mrs Phear sent him away in time for him to join the crowd of college servants waiting for admission on the forecourt outside Jerusalem. Early though it was, he found Mr Whichcote already out of bed. Still in dressing gown and nightcap, he was at the table in the little study with his papers spread out before him. He swore at the boy, but absent-mindedly, and set him to tidying the rooms and laying out clothes.

Slowly the college came to life. The bell rang for chapel. The footboy had just begun to brush his master’s coat when Whichcote sent him out to fetch breakfast.

With a feeling of release, Augustus ran downstairs. He joined the queue of servants at the college kitchens. After chapel, everyone wanted breakfast at once, some in hall, some in their own rooms. The worst part of the waiting were the smells – hot rolls and coffee in particular – which seduced his tastebuds and set his mouth watering.

There was a tap on his shoulder. Startled, he looked up. Mulgrave was looking down at him, his mouth pursed and nose wrinkled.

‘Do you know how to find Mr Oldershaw’s rooms?’ he demanded in an undertone.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Cut along there now.’

‘But, sir, Mr Whichcote’s breakfast -’

‘This won’t take long. You won’t get served for at least another ten minutes. I’ll hold your place.’

Augustus hesitated.

‘See that?’ Mulgrave pointed to the weal on his cheek. ‘That devil Whichcote did it to me. If you’re not careful he’ll do worse to you. You don’t want to stay with a master like that. This is your chance, boy, so for Christ’s sake take it while you can.’

‘There’s not much time,’ Holdsworth said. ‘Listen carefully.’

They were alone because Frank was still in his bedroom. Holdsworth stared down at the boy, who was standing with his head bowed and his scrawny little body trembling.

‘You’re in want of another situation. As I told you yesterday, Mr Oldershaw is a very rich man. He and his family have many servants. He has promised he will find you a position. I don’t know in what capacity yet but I assure you it will be vastly more satisfactory than the one you have now.’

The boy raised his head. ‘But what do I have to do, sir?’

Holdsworth concealed his relief. ‘Mr Whichcote brought certain papers into college with him. He intends to use them to cause harm. I wish to remove them before he can do so. Do you remember when I called on him yesterday after dinner?’

Augustus nodded.

‘He was sitting in the little room when you opened the door to me. I think he was working on these papers then. Do you know the ones I mean?’

‘Yes, sir. He keeps them in the little valise. He takes them out when he’s writing his letters.’

‘Letters? To whom?’

‘Don’t know, sir.’

‘This valise – I believe I saw it on the table.’

‘It’s got his crest on, sir, and two big locks. Most particular about locking up, he is, every time – the valise and the study door.’

‘And where does he put this valise when he is not there?’

‘There’s a cupboard in the window seat. They keep extra coals there in winter.’

‘Good. One more thing. If Mr Whichcote forms the design of leaving college, for any reason, you must find a way to let me know.’ Holdsworth felt in his pocket for a coin. ‘Here – take this.’

He held out a half-crown. Augustus moved as if to take it but then stopped when his hand was a few inches away from Holdsworth’s.

‘Dorcas, sir?’

‘What about her?’

‘Can Mr Oldershaw find her a situation too?’

‘Mr Oldershaw is always generous to those who have rendered him a service,’ Holdsworth said, wondering whether this was in fact true. ‘I have already told him of her frankness yesterday. He will find a position for her if she wishes to leave her mistress.’

He let the coin fall. Augustus caught it in mid-air.

When Augustus had gone, Holdsworth walked up and down the room. By talking to Augustus and Dorcas, he had inevitably placed himself in their power. But there was no other way to achieve what he wanted. If they exposed him, which was possible, he would become an embarrassment to Frank and to Lady Anne. He thought the Oldershaws would protect him but he could not be entirely sure. On the whole, the great ones of the world had become great and remained great partly because they resolutely placed their own interests first.

The bedroom door opened and Frank emerged.

‘I heard voices – how did you fare with the lad?’

‘I think you are not the only one.’

‘What?’

‘The boy says that Whichcote is writing letters,’ Holdsworth said. ‘He has other victims. The archives of the club are full of them.’

‘Will the boy help us?’

‘He says he will do it. But he’s in want of a situation, here or in London, and so is that friend of his. Can it be arranged?’

Frank shrugged. ‘Cross will see to it. The boy seems obliging. I met him yesterday, you know. I saw Archdale last night and he said I might tell you about it.’

‘Why should there be any secret?’ Holdsworth asked.

‘Because it concerns Soresby. Harry has a bee in his bonnet about the man. He asked me not to mention it before.’

‘Why?’

‘He feels sorry for him, I think. Or some such nonsense. Mulgrave tipped us the wink that Soresby is Tom Turdman’s nephew. Soresby kept that very quiet, which I suppose is not to be wondered at. And nothing would satisfy Harry but that we should go and ask Tom where Soresby might be. Mepal knew where to find him and Whichcote’s footboy showed us the way. It was the damnedest thing, Mr Holdsworth – Tom wasn’t there but his old wife was. And she was wearing a pair of slippers. Just as we were leaving, the boy pipes up and says they were his mistress’s slippers.’

Holdsworth frowned. ‘His mistress?’

‘He meant Mrs Whichcote.’

‘Then surely the boy was mistaken?’

‘No. You do not understand – I recognized them too. I chanced to be with Mr Whichcote when he bought them. The shopman said he had them from a Barbary merchant, and they were very finely made. And of a particular red with a pattern on it. Ricky had been trying to din some Euclid into me at the time and the pattern seemed to illustrate one of the propositions about congruent triangles. Whichcote made quite a joke of it and the shopman said he had not taken us for mathematical gentlemen.’

‘Are you sure of the identification?’

‘Of course I’m sure. I have them here.’

Frank went into the study. He came out with a pair of slippers in his hand and placed them on the table.

Holdsworth stared at them. ‘Where did Tom get them – and when? Have you talked to him?’

Frank nodded. ‘The boy fetched him out of an alehouse. He was a trifle boozy, but we got some sense out of him in the end. He said he’d picked them up at the back of the Master’s Lodge. It was a day or two after Mrs Whichcote died, he wasn’t sure when. You recall that there is a paved walk from the garden door? One of them was half concealed beneath the hedge that borders it, and the other was nearby beside an urn.’

The slippers were sturdy enough in their way but designed to be worn in the house or when strolling in a garden on a fine day. Holdsworth turned the nearer one over. The original sole was still there but it had been covered with a much heavier one, clumsily stitched to the upper. Both uppers were scuffed and stained.

‘She must have run through the streets in them,’ Frank said. ‘Just before she died. Tom had a cobbler repair them.’

‘Why slippers? Why not something stouter, and a pair of overshoes as well?’

‘I think she was so desperate to leave that brute of a husband that she took what lay to hand – the gown, the cloak, those slippers. After that beating she’d have run stark-naked through the streets to get away from him.’

‘But still, is it possible there is another explanation for the slippers?’ Holdsworth said, half to himself. ‘Why did no one else see them? Could she have left them at the Lodge after a previous visit, perhaps because they were damaged?’

‘I know she was wearing them. Do you hear? I know it.’

Holdsworth looked up. The boy’s eyes shone unnaturally bright, as if with tears.

‘When she came to me that night, at Mr Whichcote’s, I was sitting on the bed in my chamber.’ His voice was hoarse and scarcely louder than a whisper. ‘She heard the sounds of my distress, sir, and she came to me like the angel she was. I was weeping because of that poor girl, because of everything. And Sylvia drew my head against her bosom. She called me her poor love and mingled her tears with mine.’

Holdsworth suppressed an unkind desire to laugh at this affecting narrative. Trust youth to turn an episode of drunken adultery into a three-volume novel and present it to you before breakfast.

‘Then the button dropped off,’ Frank went on.

‘What button?’ said Holdsworth, taken by surprise.

‘The one from my coat – the club livery. I was still wearing the coat. She and I bent to pick up the button at the same time. Which was when I saw those slippers on her feet. And that was when her dressing gown fell open, and, oh God – and I -’

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.

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.’