The Anatomy of Ghosts

by Andrew Taylor

  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?’

  ‘Lord bless you, sir – why should they? Did you meet Mr Norcross?’

  ‘I believe that was the name of the attendant in Mr Frank’s room.’

  ‘Just so, sir. George Norcross is my brother-in-law. He’s in charge when Dr Jermyn is away from home. I’ve always found him most obliging and reasonable.’

  ‘I should take it as a great favour if he would allow me to speak privately to Mr Frank, or at least to attempt to do so. So would her ladyship.’ Holdsworth abandoned the coppers in his coat pocket, inserted two fingers into the pocket of his waistcoat and drew out a half-guinea. ‘I wonder whether this might help? And another when I have seen Mr Frank.’

  Mulgrave stopped, and so did Holdsworth. Mulgrave looked at the coin between Holdsworth’s fingers.

  ‘Mr Norcross would not wish to imperil his position, sir.’

  ‘That goes without saying.’

  ‘However, the man that opens the gate, seeing us together, and knowing your face, might think it all quite in order. If we arrived together, he might assume we’d come together.’

  ‘He might indeed.’

  ‘Nothing is certain in this world, sir,’ Mulgrave said piously. ‘I cannot answer for Mr Norcross, for example. And even if you were to see Mr Frank, the poor gentleman may be too disordered to talk sense to anyone.’

  ‘That is entirely understood. But there is half a guinea for both you and Mr Norcross whatever the outcome. If I am able to talk privately with Mr Oldershaw, whether or not his wits are disordered, there will be another half-guinea.’

  Mulgrave nodded. ‘You can’t say fairer than that. And on the nail?’

  ‘Her ladyship would insist on it.’

  ‘So that makes half a guinea apiece now,’ Mulgrave said with the air of one making an interesting arithmetical discovery. ‘And another half-guinea apiece if all goes well.’

  Mr Norcross was taking his ease in a small parlour next to the butler’s pantry. He sat in an elbow-chair by the open window with a pipe in his hand and a jug of ale on the sill. He had removed his wig and his coat, and unbuttoned his waistcoat. When he saw Mulgrave in the doorway, he sat up and made as if to stand.

  ‘Pray do not disturb yourself, George,’ Mulgrave said quickly. ‘I brought Mr Holdsworth with me because he begs the favour of a private word.’ Here Mulgrave winked in a knowing fashion. ‘If you’re quite at leisure, that is. As you know, he comes on her ladyship’s business.’

  Holdsworth lingered in the passage, examining a large basket containing vegetables newly brought in from the garden. Mulgrave murmured confidentially in his brother-in-law’s ear. Mr Norcross nodded and slowly rose to his feet. The top of his skull was a dome of grey bristle. He had no visible neck, and something about his appearance reminded Holdsworth irresistibly of an unwashed potato. He put on his coat in a leisurely way, clapped his tye-wig on his head and came over to Holdsworth. It was almost as if without his coat and wig he had not been able to see his visitor beforehand.

  ‘Mr Holdsworth, sir,’ he said. ‘I hope I see you well.’

  ‘Well enough, thank you.’

  ‘Always glad to oblige her ladyship,’ Norcross went on. ‘And a gentleman like yourself. However, there’s ways and means.’ He tapped his nose at this point and nodded. ‘I don’t think I see you standing there, sir.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Norcross appeared not to have heard Holdsworth either. ‘When Mr Mulgrave came this morning, there you were at the gate at the same time. And the porter knows Mr Mulgrave, of course, he knows he’s coming up to see me, and that’s all right, and so he thinks you’re with Mr Mulgrave, as you happen to be exchanging the time of day with each other. And along you come, up to the house, I shouldn’t wonder, and you see the gentleman working outside and you slip away before I have a chance to clap my eyes on you. You want a private conference with Mr Oldershaw, and no doubt you turn the matter over in your mind and think maybe he’s working in the garden with the others. And as chance would have it, you direct your steps behind the stables, which is where the kitchen gardens are. If you did that, I shouldn’t be surprised if you was to catch sight of Mr Oldershaw among the lettuces and suchlike. But you could put it another way, and say I shouldn’t be surprised in any case because I wouldn’t know anything about it. Do you follow me so far, sir?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ Holdsworth said. ‘Will an attendant be watching over Mr Oldershaw?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course. We look after our gentlemen very carefully here. I should think an attendant will be in the kitchen garden the whole time. I expect he will be sitting on the bench by the door, or keeping an eye on one or two of the other gentlemen working there. He’ll see your black coat, and maybe he’ll think you’re one of the doctor’s colleagues. After all, you was here with him only yesterday, so that would be a natural mistake to make.’

  ‘How is Mr Oldershaw today?’

  ‘Quieter than yesterday, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Is he capable of rational conversation?’

  Norcross shrugged. He pulled out a watch. ‘I am doing my rounds upstairs now,’ he informed them. ‘That’s why I didn’t catch sight of you.’

  Without a word of farewell, he walked away, his heavy body rolling from side to side as though his thighs were made of granite.

  Mulgrave joined Holdsworth in the passage. ‘This way, sir.’ He directed Holdsworth to a side door to a gravel roadway. ‘Follow the path past the stables, sir. The kitchen garden’s beyond.’

  A groom looked curiously at Holdsworth as he passed the entrance to the stable yard but made no move to stop him. On the edge of the lawn, five or six elegantly clad gentlemen were trimming the grass along a belt of trees. Another man was standing on the bowling green, reading from a volume of Thucydides in a loud and carrying voice as if addressing a large but invisible public meeting. Two attendants chatted in the shade near by.

  Holdsworth opened the gate into the walled kitchen garden. A third attendant sprawled on a bench near the door with a newspaper spread open across his knees and a pipe on the seat beside him. He looked up and then away, as if satisfied that Holdsworth was not one of the inmates absconding from his allotted work.

  Three men were at work among the vegetables. Two of them, both middle-aged, were hoeing weeds. At the far end of the garden was Frank Oldershaw, a solitary figure on his hands and knees.

  Holdsworth walked down the brick path that bisected the enclosure. Frank’s coat and waistcoat were draped over a wheelbarrow near by. He was kneeling in the freshly turned earth in black silk breeches and a fine white shirt. In his hand was a little fork with which he was harvesting radishes. He must have heard Holdsworth’s footsteps on the path but he did not look up.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ Holdsworth said. ‘Would you allow me a few words?’

  There was no reply.

  ‘We met briefly yesterday,’ Holdsworth went on. ‘I give you my word, I shall not act in any way you do not wish.’

  Frank paused in the frantic digging. Still he did not look up.

  ‘If you do not wish me to be here, if I do anything that is not agreeable to you, you have only to call to that attendant and say I am troubling you, that I have no licence to be here. The doctor has no knowledge of my visit. He has forbidden me to talk privately to you.’

  For the first time, Frank turned his head and looked up at Holdsworth. Despite the quality of his clothes, he hardly looked the gentleman now. The face was smeared with mud, the hands grimy, the fingernails broken. He was still on his hands and knees, and he swayed slightly to and fro, as though the weight he supported was too much for him to bear.

  ‘I must finish this row,
’ he mumbled, ‘and the next. Else they will not give me my dinner.’

  ‘There is time enough for that,’ Holdsworth said. ‘Let us talk a little.’

  Frank stuck his little fork in the earth, rolled his body over and squatted on the brick path. ‘I am so tired. I could sleep for ever.’

  ‘It is because they drug you.’

  Frank nodded. ‘To murder grief.’

  ‘What? Do you grieve? Why?’

  Frank shook his head but did not answer.

  ‘They tell me you saw a ghost,’ Holdsworth said, speaking casually, as though seeing a ghost was of mild interest but nothing more. ‘I suppose it was Mrs Whichcote’s?’

  Frank let his head fall forward to his breast.

  ‘So it was? How did you know it was she?’

  ‘Who else could it be?’ Frank muttered. ‘Where else would Sylvia walk?’

  ‘Why? Because she died there?’

  With his forefinger, Frank drew a circle, a zero, in the earth.

  ‘Tell me, pray – why did you go outside that night? Were you going to the necessary house?’

  Frank shook his head. His face filled with flickering animation, the muscles twitching and dancing under the skin. ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he said. ‘Wanted air. Nothing mattered.’

  ‘You went outside,’ Holdsworth said. ‘You wanted air, and nothing mattered. I see.’

  Frank shook his head with a vigour that was almost manic. ‘You don’t. You’re stupid. I could do anything. Don’t you understand? I was free. I was God. I was the Holy Ghost.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘And now I’m mad. My wits are disordered, do you hear? I do not understand anything. Nor do you. You’re a perfect blockhead.’

  Holdsworth stood up. A shift had taken place in the conversation. Frank had spoken to him as an angry young gentleman talks to an inferior.

  ‘I am the Holy Ghost,’ Frank went on in a quieter voice. ‘And so I saw a ghost. Quod – quod erat demonstrandum.’

  ‘Are you happy here?’ Holdsworth asked after a pause.

  ‘I hate the place and all who live here.’

  ‘If you wish, perhaps you may leave.’

  ‘I cannot go home,’ Frank said. ‘I will not go home.’

  ‘Is that why you attacked Mr Cross? To stop them sending you home?’

  Frank lowered his head and drew another circle in the earth, another zero. ‘Poor Cross. The fit was upon me – I could not help it. I can help nothing now. It would be better if I were dead. I wish I were.’

  Holdsworth had felt the same way himself when they brought first Georgie home and then Maria. Unhappy people spoke a common language. He would have given his life for Georgie. Hadn’t Maria known that? He would have given his life to save hers too, but instead he gave her a wound the size of a penny piece and a desire for death.

  Forgive me.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said to Frank. ‘What if I could persuade her ladyship to order Dr Jermyn to release you into my custody?’

  ‘How can I trust you? You would take me back to my mother. You would take me somewhere worse, for all I know, worse than this.’

  ‘I cannot force you to trust me. So let me appeal to your reason.’

  ‘I have no reason.’

  ‘You have enough reason for this, sir, I think. At all events, let us suppose you have. If I ask her ladyship to release you into my custody, and if we find somewhere quite retired where we shall live – will that not be better than this? As for this matter of trust – consider it from my perspective. I can only carry out this suggestion with your mother’s agreement. If anything happens to you, if anything at all undesirable occurs because of this move, then her ladyship will lay it solely at my door. Simply for reasons of self-interest, I cannot afford to do you anything but good. Even if there is nothing I can do to cure you, at least you will be away from here. You will be away from Dr Jermyn and his moral management.’

  Frank drew another zero in the earth. ‘I do not want to see my mother or Cross or Whichcote or Harry Archdale or my tutor or any of them. Anyone at all.’

  ‘That would be entirely understood. If you permit me to raise the matter with her ladyship, I shall say that you and I must live in seclusion. That would be a necessary precondition.’

  Frank looked up sharply. ‘What if I shouldn’t want to be cured? Have you thought of that? What then?’

  Before Holdsworth could reply, there was a sudden commotion behind them. Holdsworth and Frank turned. Two men had come into the kitchen garden – Norcross and Jermyn himself. Norcross had a mastiff on a short leash. The other attendant leaped to his feet, his newspaper fluttering to the ground. The only people who appeared quite unaffected were the two middle-aged patients, who continued with their work as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Shall I write to her ladyship?’ Holdsworth said in an undertone. ‘Yes or no?’

  ‘You, sir,’ Jermyn called. ‘Come here this instant or I shall order my man to unleash the dog.’

  ‘Yes,’ Frank whispered. ‘Quickly.’

  19

  After divine service, a sea of caps and gowns flooded through the doors of Great St Mary’s and gradually dissipated itself among the streets, alleys and colleges. Holdsworth paused outside the railings of the Senate House to watch the spectacle. Most of the worshippers were in academic dress, and their gowns and hoods were of many colours and textures. Some slouched, some strolled; some walked in chattering groups, others in silence, one or two with their noses in books. Here was the University in its Sunday finery, and the sight was both magnificent and slovenly.

  Holdsworth was in no hurry to reach Jerusalem. On his way back from Barnwell, he had called at Lambourne House in Chesterton Lane, but the little footboy who answered the door told him that Mr Whichcote was not at home to visitors. Holdsworth declined to state his business. As he had turned to leave, he had glimpsed a gentleman with a lean, handsome face looking down at him from an upstairs window. Whichcote probably took him for an importunate tradesman with an upaid bill, and the footboy had fobbed him off with a polite fiction.

  Afterwards Holdsworth had walked about the town at random. Cambridge was like a place in the grip of an occupying army. The streets were mean and crowded, the houses small and ugly, huddled in among themselves as though for protection. The citizens scurried about with surly faces as though they had little right to be there – the true masters of the place were the gowned figures who lived behind the gates and walls of the colleges. Occasionally he had glimpsed above the rooftops a tower, a soaring pinnacle or, through a great stone gateway, a quiet grassy court surrounded by gracious buildings, some modern, others Gothic and picturesque. In Cambridge, he thought, appearances were deceptive: it was a place that jealously guarded its secrets and its beauties. And perhaps its ghosts, as well.

  When the crowd outside Great St Mary’s had diminished, Holdsworth crossed the road and walked into St Mary’s Passage, which ran along the south side of the church. He saw the dapper figure of Mr Richardson thirty yards ahead, walking beside a tall, stately man swinging a gold-headed cane. Another, smaller figure sauntered behind them, swaying with exaggerated motions from side to side in a manner that caricatured the movements of the man with the cane. It was young Mr Archdale indulging in his sense of humour.

  Holdsworth followed them back to Jerusalem. Mepal made his obedience with particular reverence as the little party passed the porter’s lodge. The three men paused in Chapel Court, standing in the watery sunshine. The tall man looked about him with a proprietorial air. Holdsworth, judging that his presence might not be welcome, was about to slip by when Richardson murmured something to his companions and turned aside to greet him.

  ‘Mr Holdsworth – this is well met, sir: I had hoped to see you before dinner. You will be in the library after dinner, I apprehend? I shall be with Sir Charles. But Soresby will be your guide – he is very able – he knows almost as much about it as I do, I believe. I saw him after chapel this morning and reminded him of the engagement
. Pray ask him anything you want. He will place himself entirely at your service for as long as you wish.’

  Richardson said goodbye to Holdsworth, and scampered after the Archdales, who were strolling across the sacred square of grass in the centre of the court. Holdsworth walked through the passage by the combination room to the door of the Master’s Lodge. When Ben admitted him, he said that his master was now up and dressed; he was with Mrs Carbury in her sitting room.

  Holdsworth went upstairs to join them. Carbury was in his armchair. He was dressed in a smarter black coat than usual, newly shaved and with his hair freshly powdered, but he looked old and ill. Elinor was seated by the window. Holdsworth was uncomfortably aware of her presence.

  ‘I hope you are fully restored, sir,’ Holdsworth said once the greetings were out of the way. His eyes slid towards Elinor of their own volition.

  ‘Yes, yes. I am very vexed, however – that fool Ben let me sleep late and I had intended to go to church. Tell me, sir, was you there?’

  ‘No. Although I happened to be passing Great St Mary’s as they were coming out.’

  ‘Sir Charles Archdale was to attend the service,’ Carbury said. ‘I wish I had been there.’

  ‘I believe I saw him coming out with Mr Richardson and young Mr Archdale.’

  Carbury scowled. ‘I shall have the pleasure of meeting Sir Charles at dinner.’

  ‘Sir,’ Elinor said. ‘Is this wise? You are not entirely yourself yet.’

  ‘I am perfectly well,’ Carbury said without looking at her.

  ‘Indeed you are, sir.’ Elinor rose from her seat and came to stand by her husband’s chair. ‘Still, we must not weary Mr Holdsworth with these little details. He hoped to see Mr Frank this morning, you remember, and perhaps he has good news for us, and for her ladyship.’

  Carbury looked sharply at Holdsworth. ‘Yes, how did you do? Would they admit you without an appointment?’

  ‘As it happened, the doctor was not in the way when I arrived.’ Holdsworth exchanged another glance with Elinor. Neither of them mentioned their conversation at breakfast, and the shared knowledge was a kind of treachery. ‘And I was able to have some private conversation with Mr Frank.’