‘What’s that?’ Mrs Farmer said, for she had sharp ears when she wanted to hear, and he had muttered the last words aloud.
‘Nothing, madam.’
A moment later they entered the cool, dark hallway of the house on Bankside. Holdsworth left the baskets on the kitchen table.
‘I do not wish to be inhospitable, sir,’ Mrs Farmer said, resting her hands on her great belly.
‘You are kindness itself,’ Holdsworth said and stared at her until she looked away.
The mound was near the west wall. The earth was no longer freshly turned, no longer as shockingly naked as a suppurating wound. Nature had scabbed it over with a tangle of weeds and grass. The wooden marker was askew and Holdsworth had abandoned the struggle to make it stand upright. Sprays of herb Robert had sprouted around it, a green ruff, and Maria had liked green, growing things. She had tried to grow plants in tubs in the dark, damp yard behind the house but the experiment had not been a success.
When the mason in Queen Street had finished his work, and when Holdsworth had paid him, there would at least be a proper headstone. The stone itself was waiting in the yard. Unless Holdsworth could pay the balance of the money, it would soon have another inscription. But at present he could not even find the price of a good dinner and new shirt.
In the early days, he had worried that he would come to the grave and find it robbed. He had no faith in the gatekeeper’s honesty, and in any case the boundary walls of the burial ground were ruinous in several places. Despite attempts to prevent them, the resurrection men had plied their grisly trade in the past. A few weeks ago, Holdsworth had found an old woman weeping inconsolably beside the empty grave of her late husband.
As Holdsworth passed out of the gate at the corner of Red Cross Street, he saw a familiar figure leaning against a mounting block and paring his nails with a pocket knife.
‘John,’ Ned Farmer said. ‘I thought I might find you here.’
‘You might have saved yourself the trouble and found me at home.’
Farmer pushed up his wig and hat and scratched his scalp. ‘I wanted to speak to you away from the house.’
‘Then let us walk back together, and you may speak all you wish.’
Farmer took his arm and they set off in the direction of the river. ‘First, I am to command your presence at supper.’
Holdsworth looked sideways at him. ‘I should not like to intrude.’
‘Mrs Farmer will not brook a refusal. It is all arranged. I saw Sal coming in with our supper not twenty minutes since, and she is dressing it at this very moment. The nicest-looking veal cutlets you could hope to see, wrapped in a cabbage leaf and accompanied by a most tasty-looking rasher of ham. You must not disappoint us.’
He looked so anxious that Holdsworth said he should be glad to accept the invitation. He did not usually eat with his hosts – Mrs Farmer had contrived to make it clear that though he lodged in her house, he was not part of her household.
‘I am much obliged,’ Ned said as though he were the invited guest. ‘And John – I know Betsy seems a little harsh sometimes, but the truth is, she is a good woman and has all our best interests at heart.’
‘Indeed she has.’
‘She has a head on her shoulders, too – and – and she is wonderfully devout. I sometimes think she is almost too strict with herself on that score, and the devil of it is that sometimes the strictness rubs off in the way she deals with others. Yet there’s no help for it, John, and as I say she means it for the best.’
Holdsworth touched his arm. ‘There is no need to run on like this. I am perfectly convinced that Mrs Farmer is an admirable woman. And words cannot express my gratitude to you both for offering me shelter for so long.’
Ned strode onwards. He was a good man, and Holdsworth gave Mrs Farmer all credit for recognizing that. But she had also recognized that Ned was malleable, someone she could make something of. She had brought more than money to their union: she had brought resolution and a sense of purpose.
‘I wish I could do more,’ Ned burst out. ‘You know it. Yet between you, what can I do? You are as stiff-necked as a hidalgo, whereas Mrs Farmer – well, she examines the books every night, you know. She watches every penny. By God, she is a better man of business than I shall ever be.’
Holdsworth told him that he did not doubt it, at which Ned laughed at him and Holdsworth laughed back.
‘There,’ Ned said. ‘That’s better. Seems an age since I saw you laugh. Are you in a more cheerful humour than you have been? Were you offered a commission by the little monkey man?’
‘I was. I think he is a man of business or something of that nature. A steward, perhaps. At any event, he is acting for Lady Anne Oldershaw.’
‘Widow of the late bishop? Ah – I begin to see which way this is tending.’
‘Not entirely, I think. Her ladyship asked me to catalogue and value the bishop’s collection. But then it became apparent that the library was only part of the reason she had summoned me. She wishes me to go to Cambridge as her emissary. She has it in mind to donate some or all of the books to Jerusalem College there.’
‘Admirable. You are the very man for the task. And all this will occupy you for weeks, months even.’
They reached Maid Lane, where the crowd was thicker and the noise louder. Neither of them spoke until they had crossed the street and passed into a rent leading up to Bankside. The alley was so narrow that they had to walk in single file.
‘There is another reason why she wishes me to go to Cambridge,’ Holdsworth said over his shoulder. ‘Her ladyship wants me to lay a ghost.’
‘What? Are you raving?’
Holdsworth stopped and turned back to him. ‘It is perfectly true. She has read my little book and is convinced that I am the very man to send ghost hunting.’
‘You are funning me.’
‘I assure you, I am not. Watch your step.’ Holdsworth held up his arm just in time to stop Farmer walking into a neat coil of human excrement in the middle of the path. ‘She has a son at the University and he is convinced that he has seen a ghost.’
They emerged from the fetid little alley into the comparatively pure air of Bankside. Holdsworth glanced upriver towards Goat Stairs. The gulls were still quarrelling, this time over something that lay in the water.
‘Shall you go?’ Farmer asked.
‘I am undecided. The mother does not give a fig for the books, of course. She cares only for the boy.’
Farmer grunted. ‘There’s money there. And of course by birth she’s a Vauden, is she not? That means she will have the ear of those who have something more valuable than mere money at their disposal.’
‘When the fit is on him, the boy is violent,’ Holdsworth said. ‘He tried to strangle your monkey man. I have seen the bruises.’
‘Ah. That is not so good.’
‘The likelihood is that I should be of no use to the lad at all. In which case I can expect nothing but trouble from the mother.’
Farmer laid a hand on Holdsworth’s arm. ‘Who’s that, I wonder?’
He pointed to a tall, plainly dressed man thirty yards ahead. He was knocking at the Farmers’ door. As Sal opened it, Farmer and Holdsworth reached the house. Hearing their footsteps, the stranger turned. It was the footman from Golden Square. He held out a letter to Holdsworth.
‘Her ladyship desired me to wait for an answer, sir.’
Holdsworth broke the seal and unfolded the letter.
Sir,