Mr Archdale was summoned to see the Master. Elinor learned from her husband that Soresby had attended chapel as usual and had dined in hall. But the sizar sat by himself and talked to no one, and no one talked to him.
The Master’s vigour stayed with him until the middle of the evening. He returned early from supper, leaning on Ben’s arm, and had to be helped into bed. Elinor went to see him. He was exhausted and clearly in pain. But he would not allow her to send for a doctor or even for a nurse to sit up with him.
‘No, no,’ he said testily, rolling his head from side to side. ‘I shall do very well as I am, Mrs Carbury. Besides, if we send out for someone, the news will be around college in five minutes.’ He smiled grimly, wincing as he did so. ‘And Dirty Dick will start work on his eulogy of me. If he’s not written it already.’
He turned his face away and groaned. Elinor had had the apothecary make up a supply of opium pills. She took the little waxed box from her pocket, summoned Ben to help her, and persuaded her husband to take two of them. Ben raised him up and, ignoring her husband’s discomfort, she forced him to take his doses. The pills at least eased the pain, which was more than the physicians had been able to do with their diagnoses and their degrees.
Dr Carbury dozed fitfully. Elinor, Susan and Ben took it in turns to sit by the bedside. Elinor did not sleep. Throughout the night, the chimes of the college clock relentlessly announced the slow procession of quarters and hours. Day and night the chimes reminded her that she was in Jerusalem, her prison and her sanctuary.
She wondered whether she should summon another clergyman but decided against it on the grounds that it would only infuriate her husband because his true condition would then become known outside the Lodge. Also, it might make him more afraid because it would show that Elinor thought he was dying. Through the long hours, she told herself over and over again that he – and she – had grounds for hope. Her husband’s constitution was enormously strong and he had survived worse crises than this one. She did not let herself think of what would happen to her if he died. She did not let herself think of John Holdsworth.
Two o’clock was striking as she left the sickroom, where Susan now sat beside the bed. Dr Carbury was awake but comatose. He seemed free from pain. Elinor closed the door behind her and walked slowly and softly down the passage towards the door of her own room. She was tired but not sleepy. She paused by the window that lit the landing and pulled the curtain a few inches aside.
The window looked west, across the little court in front of the Lodge and over the town beyond. The rain had stopped during the afternoon. The sky had cleared. There were many stars and somewhere behind her there was a moon. The roofs, towers and spires lay before her like a sleeping herd of monsters. In their shadows clustered the lesser buildings of the townsfolk.
A movement caught her eye. There was somebody moving in the court below. She made out a dark figure making his way towards the railings that separated the court on its north side from Jerusalem Lane. The man’s awkward and erratic movements reminded her of ungainly, long-legged insects like crane-flies.
In an instant, she remembered that when she and Sylvia were young at school, they had called such insects daddy-long-legs, and that Sylvia had trapped one and removed its legs, in a spirit of experiment rather than cruelty. It was true that Sylvia had never been cruel. But she had always been desperate for knowledge and hungry to experiment, and sometimes that had amounted to the same thing, for desire had always been its own vindication.
The memory of Sylvia brought with it a sour and nameless sensation, bitter as wormwood. Simultaneously, as if Sylvia herself had ignited a flare that threw a brief light on to the present, Elinor recognized the figure below as that of Mr Soresby. He had reached the far corner of the court, where the railing met solid masonry. He hauled himself up and gingerly negotiated the spikes. For a few seconds she watched him clambering over the barrier, but suddenly he was gone, swallowed up by Jerusalem Lane.
She let the curtain fall across the window and returned to her room. Mr Soresby had absconded. Her duty, she supposed, was to inform her husband immediately or, if that proved impossible, to send Ben with a message for Mr Richardson. On the other hand, who would gain by it? Certainly neither the college nor Mr Soresby. She could not blame the sizar for running away from a situation that promised him only disgrace. And who was she to make matters worse for him?
On Wednesday morning, Holdsworth woke to hear Mulgrave whistling cheerfully as he went about his work in the kitchen. It was nearly eight o’clock. He went downstairs, washed and sat in the cottage parlour, where Mulgrave brought him tea. The gyp had returned late yesterday evening. He had said nothing except that he had concluded a little business on his own behalf and that it had gone as well as could be expected.
‘Is Mr Oldershaw downstairs?’ Holdsworth asked.
‘Still abed, sir. Might I have a confidential word, sir?’
‘What is it?’
The gyp took out a pocketbook, extracted a small news-paper cutting and laid it gently on the table. ‘From the Chronicle, sir. February last.’
Holdsworth scanned the item. It recorded a verdict of accidental death on a fatality in Trumpington Street – a girl named Tabitha Skinner, fourteen years of age, who had suffered a fit as she slept and suffocated. The melancholy event had occurred on the night of Thursday, 16 February, at Mrs Phear’s house. Four months ago, Holdsworth thought, almost to the day. There was a particular pathos to the story, for the girl had been an orphan from the Magdalene Hospital in London. Mrs Phear, the widow of a clergyman, was active in the affairs of the charity and had brought the girl to Cambridge at her own expense in the hope of apprenticing the unfortunate girl into domestic service.
He looked up. ‘When was Mrs Whichcote found at Jerusalem? What date, precisely? Do you know?’
‘The morning of Friday, the seventeenth of February, sir,’ Mulgrave said.
‘Who is this Mrs Phear? Does she come into this?’
‘She once worked as the governess in the household of Mr Whichcote’s father, sir. I’ve seen her more than once at Lambourne House, and I believe Mr Whichcote sometimes visits her in Trumpington Street.’ He waited a moment, his face impassive, but Holdsworth did not speak. ‘Shall I bring the rolls, sir, or will you wait until Mr Frank joins you?’
‘No – rouse him now, will you?’
The gyp limped up the stairs, dot and go one. He knocked on Frank’s door. He rattled the handle. His footsteps descended, dot and go one.
‘Not answering, sir. And the door’s bolted.’
Holdsworth went upstairs. He tried the door and called Frank’s name. He raised the latch and threw his shoulder against the door. It burst open. He plunged into the room so quickly that he almost fell.
The bed was empty, the covers thrown back. There was no sign of Frank, and nowhere he could be hiding.
Mulgrave came up behind him. ‘At least he ain’t hanged himself, sir. Not here, anyway.’
‘Hold your tongue,’ Holdsworth snapped, though a moment earlier the same thought had been in his own mind. He went across to the window, a small casement, which was immediately under the eaves and overhung with thatch. He put his head out and looked down. It was no drop at all for a man of Frank’s size, not if he had managed to get through the window feet first and let himself down. There had once been a flower bed directly underneath, now full of weeds. It would have given him a soft landing.
Holdsworth withdrew his head and looked about him.
‘He’s took the coat and hat he wears for shooting,’ Mulgrave said. ‘And the stout shoes.’