‘Tom saw you walking by night in the garden with Mrs Whichcote.’
She glared at him. ‘What has that to do with anything? She stayed with me at the Lodge sometimes. And she found it hard to sleep too.’
‘It shows that she was familiar with Jerusalem at night.’
‘What of it?’
‘Is it possible that you were abroad on the night when Frank Oldershaw believed he saw Mrs Whichcote’s ghost?’
She did not answer. She turned away from him and began to walk slowly down the path in the direction of the Long Pond. His footsteps followed her. She wanted to scream with frustration. Why was he so provoking?
He drew level. ‘You understand what an alluring hypothesis it is, madam, I am sure.’
She did not look at him. ‘Alluring?’
‘Why, it is alluring because it answers every question at a stroke.’
‘Alluring,’ she repeated, with great care, as though the word were as fragile as a bird’s egg and needed the most careful handling.
‘Yes, alluring.’ Holdsworth was very close to her, and she wondered what echoes the adjective set off in his mind. ‘The hypothesis offers an entirely rational explanation for what occurred that night. On the one hand, we have young Mr Oldershaw who, by his own admission, had drunk a great deal, and then rammed it home with copious quantities of coffee and laudanum. He woke suddenly from a deep sleep. He was in any case in low spirits. And there he was, wandering about in a dark garden, believing himself to be entirely on his own, when he encountered a woman where no woman should be. The death of Mrs Whichcote in the very same place was lying heavily on his mind. It is not surprising that the experience should have temporarily overset his reason, given that he was already in a state of nervous exhaustion, and taking all the circumstances together. So, if true, the hypothesis would explain the alleged ghost. I am persuaded that it would convince Mr Oldershaw and satisfy Lady Anne.’
He stopped speaking and looked at Elinor. She ignored him, turning aside to study the surface of the pond.
‘Madam,’ he said gently. ‘It is the truth, is it not? It is more than a hypothesis. It is what happened.’
Still looking down at the water, she said in a voice scarcely louder than a whisper, ‘And does the night-soil man claim that he saw me then? Is this your witness?’
‘No, ma’am. He was not aware of your presence that night. Indeed, he was not at Jerusalem at all until much later that morning. But this is not a court of law and it is not a matter of convincing the jury. It is merely a matter of finding a theory that covers the facts, such as we know them. And you must see the attraction of this one.’
‘Does it signify what I say, sir? You have already fixed on your theory, and if my answer does not suit, no doubt you will ignore it.’
‘I can never ignore anything you say, madam.’
He stopped, but she did not speak, though she felt her colour rising at his impudence.
‘Lady Anne has laid a heavy responsibility on my shoulders,’ he went on. ‘I must discharge it as best I can. Were you in the garden that night?’
‘It is only my word one way or the other. You will believe it or not, just as you like.’
‘I had rather hear it from your own lips, madam. Whether or not you were there.’
‘I was not,’ she said.
‘It is my duty to try to restore Mr Oldershaw to himself. Even if I cannot adduce absolute proof, this remains a perfectly valid alternative to the idea that he saw an apparition of a dead woman. Surely the very knowledge of this possibility may be of service to him?’
She turned and looked up at him. Her skin was hot and clammy, and it no longer seemed to fit her very well. ‘Pray say nothing of this notion to anyone. I know her ladyship. Her principles are firm, her judgement severe. She would be horrified by the very idea of a lady in the habit of rambling alone and unprotected at night, the only female in a college full of young gentlemen. She would not hesitate to condemn both the sin and the sinner. And there would be no appeal.’
‘Madam, I cannot believe -’
‘Wait,’ Elinor interrupted. ‘That is but a part of it, and the smaller part. You are aware that Dr Carbury is not in the best of health, I think?’
Holdsworth bowed.
‘May I confide in you?’
‘I should be honoured, ma’am.’
‘If the worst happens, I cannot risk losing Lady Anne’s friendship. There is no one else I shall be able to turn to. A friendless woman cannot afford to be poor in this world.’
She looked up at him. She had never before noticed the lines that cut into his face, horizontally across the forehead and splaying out from the outer corners of the eyes. He had not shaved for a few days and there were dark flecks over his chin and cheek with a few grey ones scattered among them, particularly above the upper lip.
‘I hope your future will not be as bleak as you fear, madam,’ he said softly. ‘It may take another, happier direction altogether.’
In the silence that followed they looked into each other’s faces. Here, Elinor thought, is yet another complication. From another man, such a pretty speech might almost have amounted to a declaration of sorts.
‘I will say it again if you wish,’ she said, suddenly angry with Holdsworth because Dr Carbury was alive, and suddenly guilty too because part of her wished he were not. ‘Just to make sure. I was not in the garden on that night. Do you hear me, sir? I was not. There, does that satisfy you?’
‘Very well. But it’s a pity. It would have been an elegant solution to the difficulty.’
‘Elegant for you, perhaps, but inconvenient for me.’
He looked away. ‘There is also the other matter, and I do not think Mr Oldershaw will be entirely quiet in his mind until that is settled. If it ever is.’
‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘Why, what led to this story of a ghost in the first place: I mean the manner of Mrs Whichcote’s death.’
33
When he left the Master’s Lodge, Holdsworth walked swiftly through the passage into Chapel Court. The more he knew of Jerusalem, the more he glimpsed beneath its surface strange and unsettling shapes he had no wish to examine closely. During that terrible interview in the garden, he had hardly been able to restrain his desire for Elinor Carbury. His own stupidity nauseated him. He could hardly have fixed his desires on a less suitable person.
Worse than stupid. Adulterous. Elinor was married to Dr Carbury. And Maria had been in her grave for little more than three months. How could he betray his dead wife even in his desires?
He forced his mind into another, safer channel. Had Elinor Carbury been lying? Had she walked under the plane tree on the night that Frank Oldershaw went mad? Was she herself the ghost? Or did she merely find other ways to haunt a man?
It was not until Holdsworth was halfway down Chapel Court that he noticed the two familiar figures standing outside the doorway to the library. Mr Richardson was talking to his pupil, the dapper Mr Archdale, who seemed even pinker and more inflated than usual. Holdsworth was too late to alter course to avoid them but he put on a preoccupied air and tried to slip by with a rapid bow as though absorbed in the execution of an urgent errand. But Richardson turned towards him, his hand held out.
‘Mr Holdsworth, the very man! Pray, sir, will you join us a moment? I am in urgent need of your advice.’
There was no help for it. He allowed Richardson to draw him aside. Archdale waited a few yards away, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
The tutor lowered his voice. ‘I am afraid we have a thief in our midst, sir. Mr Archdale went up to the library just now and found that the lock on one of the cupboard doors had been forced. It’s the cupboard where we house our more valuable books and also those of a delicate nature. You remember it, no doubt? I pointed it out to you. To the left of the fireplace.’
‘Yes. Set in the wall. When did this happen?’