‘So?’
‘We are taught that when Mary bore the Infant Jesus she was – in a manner of speaking – impregnated by the Holy Ghost.’ He sat back and at last put down his glass. ‘Now do you see?’
Holdsworth shook his head.
‘Mary was a young virgin, sir,’ Frank hissed.
‘Ah.’
Frank recoiled from the distaste in Holdsworth’s face. ‘Mr Whichcote made it seem – made it seem so entirely a matter of course. Indeed, something devoutly to be desired.’
‘I don’t judge you,’ Holdsworth said. ‘I judge him.’
Frank began to speak again, more rapidly: ‘A little room at the pavilion is fitted up as a bedchamber and the virgin waits there for the candidate. She is dressed all in white and tied to the bed. There was also an old woman in the room, though I did not see her properly and I believe she wore a mask. She was an ugly little thing like an old toad in a nun’s wimple. I was not meant to meet her – I was before my time, you see, for I was so hot for the girl I could wait no longer. I went in and the girl was lying on the bed, just as Whichcote promised. But – but as soon as I saw her, I knew she was dead.’
‘How had she died? By her own hand?’
‘I saw no wound on her. She was merely – merely dead. Her face was strange – terribly discoloured and disfigured. Her eyes were open.’
‘You told no one of this?’ Holdsworth said. ‘You realize that lays you open to a charge of misprision of felony at the very least?’
‘It’s worse than that, sir. Whichcote will say her death was my doing, that it was at my hand, and I forced him to help me cover it up. But I swear I never touched her, I never even saw her living face. You must believe me. I swear I did not kill her.’
At suppertime, Dr Carbury stirred. He became conscious and was sufficiently lucid to indicate that he was hungry. First, they got him on to his night-chair. Then they wiped down his stomach, as near as they could judge where the cancer was, with a decoction made from the leaves of deadly nightshade boiled in milk. They changed his nightgown and put him in his bed, propped up against the pillows. He was tired but still in remarkably good spirits, considering everything, and still hungry.
Elinor fed him with a light gruel of oatmeal and butter, and a spoonful or two of a jelly made of calves’ feet flavoured with lemon peel, cinnamon, mace and sugar. He asked for wine, and she allowed him half a glass. He seemed to enjoy the food, though he brought most of it up almost at once. Afterwards, he beckoned Elinor towards him, closer and closer until her face was no more than two inches from his, and she smelled the wine and the sickroom on his breath.
‘Soresby?’ he whispered.
‘No news, sir. As soon as there is, you shall know.’
Carbury patted her hand and said unexpectedly that she was a good girl. Tears pricked her eyelids.
They laid him down and in a few minutes he was asleep again. By now it was quite dark. Elinor left her husband in the care of the nurse. She went downstairs and ordered Susan to take up the sal ammoniac and quicklime to place in the doctor’s night-chair to neutralize the disagreeable smells.
Susan peeped through her lashes and asked whether her mistress knew that Mr Frank Oldershaw had returned to college.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Please, ma’am, Ben says Mr Mepal said he’s quite his old self again.’
As Susan mentioned Ben’s name, she twitched as if someone had touched her skin with the point of a pin. It gave the girl pleasure even to mention his name to a third party. Elinor shivered at the thought of what a man’s touch could do. It led her quite naturally to the next question, though she already knew the answer to it.
‘And Mr Holdsworth?’ she said. ‘Is he returned too?’
Another shiver, a tiny internal tremor, delicious and disturbing.
‘Yes, ma’am, but Mr Richardson decided it was better not to disturb you so they found him rooms in New Building. And he’s not the only one, ma’am. Mr Whichcote’s there too, and the bailiffs are at the gates.’
Elinor sent Susan away. The room had grown intolerably stuffy, which did nothing for her aching head. The stink from Dr Carbury’s night-chair seemed to fill the house. She went out into the garden to escape it. There was no one to stop her now: she could walk there whenever she pleased, day or night.
Her eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness. Here the air smelled clean, of earth and growing things. She drifted down the path towards the gate that led to Mr Frostwick’s bridge over the Long Pond. She had in her mind some half-formed notion that she might take a turn about the college gardens.
But before she reached the gate she stopped abruptly a few yards away from it. It was only a trick of the light but it seemed to her that there was something pale moving behind the elaborate pattern of the ironwork: something pale and formless on the bridge itself.
But it was not in the least like a person. Or mist. Or like anything at all. Merely an impression of pallor, fleeting and fluid. There was nothing unsettling or mysterious about it whatsoever. But the harder she looked the less of it she saw, until it seemed to have evaporated entirely.
Nonsense – there had been nothing there. The more she thought about it, the more she thought that the thing – the pallid patch – whatever one called it – must have been a trivial consequence of tiredness acting upon her imagination, and that there had been nothing really there on the bridge. Alternatively there was a simple physical cause, which the science of optics could explain in a flash. It was probably connected with the headache.
For some reason she wondered what John Holdsworth would say if she told him of these absurd thoughts. She shivered again. She was growing a little cold, and perhaps she should make herself eat something. She must keep up her strength, after all, for everyone knew that lack of food could give a person quite absurd fancies.
42
Mrs Phear made Augustus work for the privilege of having her roof over his head. He was up before dawn and set to cleaning shoes and scouring pots. Dorcas had her own tasks; and besides she was cross and there were dark smudges under her eyes. ‘That Tabitha,’ she muttered as they passed each other in the scullery, ‘she don’t let me rest. Worse than the old cow herself.’
Mrs Phear sent him away in time for him to join the crowd of college servants waiting for admission on the forecourt outside Jerusalem. Early though it was, he found Mr Whichcote already out of bed. Still in dressing gown and nightcap, he was at the table in the little study with his papers spread out before him. He swore at the boy, but absent-mindedly, and set him to tidying the rooms and laying out clothes.
Slowly the college came to life. The bell rang for chapel. The footboy had just begun to brush his master’s coat when Whichcote sent him out to fetch breakfast.
With a feeling of release, Augustus ran downstairs. He joined the queue of servants at the college kitchens. After chapel, everyone wanted breakfast at once, some in hall, some in their own rooms. The worst part of the waiting were the smells – hot rolls and coffee in particular – which seduced his tastebuds and set his mouth watering.
There was a tap on his shoulder. Startled, he looked up. Mulgrave was looking down at him, his mouth pursed and nose wrinkled.
‘Do you know how to find Mr Oldershaw’s rooms?’ he demanded in an undertone.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Cut along there now.’
‘But, sir, Mr Whichcote’s breakfast -’
‘This won’t take long. You won’t get served for at least another ten minutes. I’ll hold your place.’
Augustus hesitated.
‘See that?’ Mulgrave pointed to the weal on his cheek. ‘That devil Whichcote did it to me. If you’re not careful he’ll do worse to you. You don’t want to stay with a master like that. This is your chance, boy, so for Christ’s sake take it while you can.’