Nonsense. Nothing but wind and rain in the chimney and the rustle of water in the downpipe outside the window.
He sucked his finger where the pin had pricked it. The wound was deeper than he had thought. His blood was salty. What had he done with the lock of hair she had given him? He had no idea.
Still with the finger in his mouth, he carried the candle to the bedroom door. He stood in the doorway and stared at the shadowy outlines of the great bedstead.
A cage of wood, he thought, a prison for shadows and secrets.
‘Sylvia?’ he whispered. ‘Sylvia? Is that you?’
18
When Susan woke her, Elinor Carbury told the girl to open the window as wide as it would go. The sky was cloaked with high grey clouds. The air was cool and smelled pleasingly of damp earth. The rain had been heavy for much of the night but by dawn it had quite fallen away. She asked after her husband and learned that Dr Carbury had not risen yet.
Elinor decided she would take her breakfast downstairs. It would only be civil, she told herself, for otherwise Mr Holdsworth would breakfast alone. She was not habitually a vain woman but she changed her cap and ribbons twice before leaving her room.
The Carburys’ dining parlour was a small square chamber overlooking the open court on the west side of the Master’s Lodge. Holdsworth was already at table with a bowl of tea in his hand. As she entered, he rose and bowed. They asked after each other’s health, and speculated with polite insincerity that the noise of the storm had prevented Dr Carbury from sleeping well. Elinor inquired, very delicately because she did not wish to seem unduly forward, about Mr Holdsworth’s plans for the day.
‘I believe I shall go to Barnwell again, ma’am.’
‘Are you expected?’
‘No.’
Grim-faced, he drank the rest of his bowl of tea. Elinor continued to crumble the roll she had been failing to eat; her own tea was untouched.
He looked up suddenly and caught her staring at him. He drew in a breath and seemed to come to a decision. ‘If I am to understand the nature of Mr Oldershaw’s delusion, I must speak to him directly, without any intermediary or interpreter or eavesdropper. If I am to move at all in this matter, I must begin with him, whether he is mad or not. But Dr Jermyn is opposed to this. No doubt he has his reasons.’
‘You will probably not find Dr Jermyn at Barnwell.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He and Mrs Jermyn come to church in Cambridge every Sunday. They attend Holy Trinity. She is most devout, and she will make a particular point of it this Sunday, for Mr Revitt is preaching, and all the Evangelicals will be there in force. Afterwards they generally dine at Mrs Jermyn’s parents’ in Green Street.’
He smiled, taking the hint at once. ‘I’m obliged to you, ma’am.’
Elinor began to smile back, and then made herself look serious. Mr Holdsworth’s manner could not be said in any way to be flirtatious, and yet it was almost as though he were flirting – or rather attempting to flirt – with her. She reminded herself sternly that he was but recently a widower, that he was a guest in her house and moreover that he was a tradesman in humble circumstances. And then she thought also of her absurd behaviour yesterday afternoon when she had looked at him through the gate of the Master’s Garden, and when he had inexplicably and no doubt accidentally touched her hand.
‘If you see Mr Frank this morning, and if – if he gives you the opportunity, pray give him my compliments.’
‘You may depend on me to do so, ma’am. And may I wait on you later today when I know the result of my visit to Barnwell? In case there is news?’
She nodded and began to crumble another roll. ‘Of course.’
He thanked her again for her kindness and left the room with a want of ceremony that verged on rudeness. Elinor became aware that her plate was almost entirely obscured by a mound of crumbs.
The streets were quiet, and they smelled sweet because the rain had settled the dust. Most of the people Holdsworth encountered were on their way to church. He pulled his hat low over his eyes and kept his head averted from the passing carriages that rumbled past him, splashing through the puddles from last night’s storm. He did not want to encounter Dr and Mrs Jermyn on their way to Holy Trinity. As he came into the village, he saw and almost immediately recognized a small figure limping in front of him. He accelerated and drew level with him.
‘Mr Mulgrave – good day to you.’
The gyp bowed. ‘And to you, sir.’ He showed no surprise at the meeting.
‘Are you going to see Mr Oldershaw?’ Holdsworth asked.
‘No, sir. I see him next on Tuesday, I believe. But it’s cooler this morning after the rain, and I thought I would walk over with my account for Dr Jermyn.’
‘I thought he was at church.’
‘Indeed he is, sir.’ Mulgrave’s dark eyes were full of malicious intelligence. ‘Saw him and his lady on the road not ten minutes ago.’
‘What happens at the doctor’s house on Sunday? Do the people go to church?’
‘A parson comes in to read prayers in the morning, sir, and in the evening Dr Jermyn often takes some of the gentlemen to church. The more sober ones, sir, if you take my meaning.’
Holdsworth nodded. They walked on in silence, with Holdsworth shortening his stride to fit with Mulgrave’s.
‘You work for quite a number of gentlemen, I apprehend?’
‘Oh yes, sir. A man must make ends meet the best he can. And it is not always easy, however hard a man works, because not all gentlemen are prompt payers. And some of them run up bills they can’t hope to pay.’
Holdsworth glanced at him. ‘When I kept a shop, I could not help but notice that gentlemen have a very different view of money from the rest of us. Indeed, some of them appear not to have any view at all, nor indeed any money. Yet that did not stop them spending what they had not got.’
‘Young gents ain’t so bad. You can always have a word with their tutors, and they generally knows what’s what. The trouble is the older gents. That Mr Whichcote, for example.’ Mulgrave turned his head and spat on the roadway. ‘Trying to get money out of him is like trying to get a pint of blood out of a veal cutlet.’
There was another silence. They covered another hundred yards of their road.
‘I like a man who pays his way,’ Holdsworth observed, jingling the loose coins in the pocket of his coat. ‘You may know that I am here on Lady Anne’s business.’
Mulgrave looked sharply at him.
‘She has a mother’s tender feelings for her son’s plight,’ Holdsworth said.
‘As is very natural, sir.’
‘It is indeed. She wishes me to talk to him as soon as possible, to see how I may best help him. However, I find that Dr Jermyn is fixed upon a certain method of treatment that does not allow of a patient to have a private conversation with his own mother’s representative. It is most vexatious.’
Mulgrave shook his head solemnly. ‘Dr Jermyn can be very set in his ways, sir.’
‘I shall of course write to her ladyship and obtain the necessary permission,’ Holdsworth went on. ‘But that will take time. I have very real grounds for believing that I can be of material assistance to Mr Frank in his plight, and I would not wish to extend his distress by another minute if I could help it. Nor would her ladyship, I am sure.’
The two men walked along, side by side, with Holdsworth jingling the coins in his pocket.
‘Her ladyship is not one to forget a service,’ he said. ‘Nor for that matter am I.’
They were now only a few hundred yards from Dr Jermyn’s gates.
‘They know me here pretty well,’ Mulgrave said. ‘I come and go for Mr Frank, and I’ve been here before many a time, for other young gentlemen.’
‘So they will make no difficulty about admitting you at the gate this morning?’