Frank joined in the laughter, so far as he could with his cheek pressed hard against the tabletop, producing a snuffling, snorting sound that made them both laugh all the more. Holdsworth released him and stood back.
The laughter died. The cat continued to purr, looking from one man to the other. Frank stood up slowly. He turned to face Holdsworth. He held out his hand.
‘I beg your pardon, sir.’
They shook hands.
Holdsworth said, ‘I do not think there is anything more I can do for you. I shall write to her ladyship and resign my position.’
‘No. I beg you not to act hastily. Do you believe I’m cured?’
‘I am not perfectly convinced you were ever mad in the first place.’
Frank sat down in the chair by the window. ‘You’re talking in riddles.’
‘It’s clear enough to me, and largely a matter of common sense. You’re not a maniac.’
‘I am obliged to you, sir. But Dr Jermyn would not agree.’
‘For all his learning, Dr Jermyn sometimes behaves like an ass. I believe you’ve been liverish, and in low spirits. I believe you received a great shock, or rather a series of them. If you saw or sensed the presence of another person in the college garden that night, it was not a ghost but someone as alive as you or I. Or perhaps what you saw was a creature of your disordered fancy – born of too much laudanum, too much wine, too much unhappiness. It doesn’t matter. The point is that you were predisposed to see your ghost, and that is where the real heart of this mystery lies. I’m persuaded that the solution to it will also reveal the reason why you do not wish to mix with the world, and why you do not wish to see your mother.’
The ginger cat leaped on to Frank’s lap. Automatically the young man began to stroke its head. The cat arched its neck and purred even more loudly than before, while its tail waved like a flag of victory.
‘You see that animal?’ Holdsworth said. ‘It interprets our actions in terms of its own wishes and fears, as is very natural. It is equally natural for us in our way to do the same. You feared to see the ghost of Mrs Whichcote in the garden, and there she was. Dr Jermyn looks for madmen for he has been trained to do so and he wishes to find them. Do they not provide him with his place in the world and a comfortable income? He interprets your ghost as a symptom of mental disturbance, whereas his father or grandfather would have seen it as a sign of demonic possession or some other supernatural interference in our mundane existence. We put the labels we choose on things, Mr Oldershaw, and for our own purposes: that is the long and the short of it.’
Frank moistened his lips. ‘And you? Is that what you do?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then it follows you may be as wrong in your conclusions as Jermyn is in his.’
‘You may be right. But the difference between us is that I gather my evidence before I construct my theory, while the doctor looks for evidence that supports his theory. In all events, it seems to me that none of us can get very far unless we know what set all this in motion.’
‘But who can tell the causes of madness?’
‘In this case, I believe you can. Leaving the question aside of whether this is truly madness or some lesser form of nervous disturbance, it is impossible for any of us to come to a rational conclusion if we do not know what happened at the meeting of the Holy Ghost Club that you attended in February, shortly before Mrs Whichcote’s death. This is the heart of it, sir, is it not? The Holy Ghost Club and the death of Mrs Whichcote. That’s why you have played host to an entire regiment of the blue devils. That’s why you made matters worse with laudanum and wine and the rest of it.’
Frank leaned forward and pushed the cat from his lap. He put his head in his hands. With his smooth skin and his fair disordered hair, he might have been a boy, no more than twelve, prey to some sorrow, or trapped in some misdemeanour. Holdsworth realized something so obvious that he could not understand why he had not seen it before: Frank’s youth had played a part in all this. For all his airs and graces, for all his wealth and position, he was no more than eighteen. He was a desirable prize, too – a boy who would have a great fortune and a great place in the world. But still a boy. He had few defences against older people who knew what they wanted and knew how to get it. He was easy meat for the likes of Philip Whichcote, Dr Jermyn and even Mr Richardson and the Carburys.
‘What happened at the meeting of the Holy Ghost Club?’
Frank did not reply.
‘Then let me hazard a conjecture or two.’
The boy did not move but his stillness seemed to intensify.
‘It seems to me that Lambourne House is a species of college and Mr Whichcote is a species of tutor,’ Holdsworth went on. ‘And the club members are in a sense his pupils. In return for your money, he teaches you the vices of a gentleman.’
Holdsworth waited, but still Frank said nothing.
‘But something out of the ordinary occurred that night. Something that drove Mrs Whichcote out of the house. Something that led to her death. I do not believe this nonsense about sleepwalking. Was she taken away? Or did she run away?’
Frank raised his head and looked at Holdsworth. He shut his eyes, as if to close out the world.
‘Tell me,’ Holdsworth said. ‘I promise it will not harm you. And it may help.’
‘It was my doing,’ Frank whispered.
‘Yours? How?’
‘It was arranged that after the club meeting I should spend the night at Lambourne House. She… came to me, in my bedchamber.’
A silence grew between them. The cat surveyed the room. After a moment’s consideration it jumped on to Holdsworth’s lap.
Frank stood up. ‘I have laid too many burdens on your shoulders already, Mr Holdsworth,’ he said, with the vertiginously lofty dignity that only a very young man can achieve. ‘I apologize. I must learn to carry a little of the load myself.’
‘Come, sir, you can’t stop now. Tell me the rest.’
‘I burned for her. I worshipped the very ground she trod on. I would have done anything for her. To my amazement, I found she returned my passion and – not to put too fine a point on it – on that very night she granted me the last favours.’
Holdsworth stroked the cat’s head. ‘And where was Mr Whichcote in all this?’
‘He was not in the house – he was escorting some of the club members back to their colleges. Most of them were in their cups and quite incapable of finding their way.’ Frank sat down again and rested his arms on the table. ‘But he came back, that was the trouble. He saw her coming out of my room, and then – well, God knows what happened. That devil Whichcote. I heard him shouting and her crying out. I think he beat her.’
And what were you doing to prevent it?
Frank blundered on, as if Holdsworth had spoken the question aloud: ‘I would have stopped him if I could but he locked me in my chamber. And then it was too late. Early in the morning we were roused by Mepal banging on the door with the news of what had happened.’ He buried his head in his arms. ‘Dear God, Sylvia was so beautiful, Mr Holdsworth, so lovely. She was all the world to me. And for her to end like that, running alone through the streets by night and drowning in a pond. Was ever anything so cruel?’
36
Adversity, like competition, brought out the best and the worst in Dr Carbury. At times, he seemed almost his old, vigorous self. He bustled about the college and, as did Richardson, talked individually to most of the fellows. He announced that an extraordinary meeting of the fellowship would be held at midday tomorrow.
It would not do, he told Elinor, to let the college think he was skulking in the Master’s Lodge because his protegé had been disgraced. She watched over him anxiously, as a wife should, though she scarcely knew whether her concern was more for him or for herself.