Andrew Taylor - The Anatomy Of Ghosts

They emerged from the fetid little alley into the comparatively pure air of Bankside. Holdsworth glanced upriver towards Goat Stairs. The gulls were still quarrelling, this time over something that lay in the water.

‘Shall you go?’ Farmer asked.

‘I am undecided. The mother does not give a fig for the books, of course. She cares only for the boy.’

Farmer grunted. ‘There’s money there. And of course by birth she’s a Vauden, is she not? That means she will have the ear of those who have something more valuable than mere money at their disposal.’

‘When the fit is on him, the boy is violent,’ Holdsworth said. ‘He tried to strangle your monkey man. I have seen the bruises.’

‘Ah. That is not so good.’

‘The likelihood is that I should be of no use to the lad at all. In which case I can expect nothing but trouble from the mother.’

Farmer laid a hand on Holdsworth’s arm. ‘Who’s that, I wonder?’

He pointed to a tall, plainly dressed man thirty yards ahead. He was knocking at the Farmers’ door. As Sal opened it, Farmer and Holdsworth reached the house. Hearing their footsteps, the stranger turned. It was the footman from Golden Square. He held out a letter to Holdsworth.

‘Her ladyship desired me to wait for an answer, sir.’

Holdsworth broke the seal and unfolded the letter.

Sir ,

Her Ladyship hopes it will be convenient for you to travel to Cambridge on Friday. All arrangements will be made on your behalf. Pray call at Golden Square tomorrow at eleven o’clock to make a preliminary survey of his Lordship’s collection, and to receive any further instructions she may have. She has instructed me to enclose a banknote for five pounds to defray your expenses. Pray sign the enclosed paper to acknowledge receipt of the money and hand to bearer. I am, sir, yr humble & obdt. servant,

L. Cross

Mrs Farmer came into the hall to see what the fuss was about. She eyed the banknote with curiosity. Her face looked softer, almost girlish. Money was a powerful thing, Holdsworth thought, the true philosopher’s stone, with the power of transmuting dreams.

Farther along Bankside, the gulls rose in an angry, squabbling group, their cries growing louder and more savage. Were there gulls in Cambridge? Surely not so many, surely not such predatory birds as these?

He handed the letter to Ned and went into the house. He turned into the little parlour. It was here that Maria and her friends had done their praying and wailing, their talking to ghosts. He found pen and ink on the table by the window and scrawled his name on the receipt. He sanded the paper, folded it and returned to the footman waiting at the door. He felt giddy, as though he had swallowed a bumper of rum.

The footman bowed and left. Mrs Farmer and Sal retreated towards the kitchen, where supper was moving towards the final phase of its preparation. It was a fine evening, and Holdsworth and Farmer lingered outside by the river. Holdsworth watched the gulls, which were quieter now but still darting and gliding about the water near Goat Stairs. He felt calmer than he had done for months.

‘Well,’ Farmer said. ‘She had already decided you were to go, and that is that. The wheel of fortune turns, eh?’

Holdsworth patted the pocket in which the banknote lay. ‘It is a bribe.’

‘It was delicately done. Not that a present of money needs any delicacy whatsoever.’

‘I shall call in at the mason’s yard in the morning,’ Holdsworth said.

‘To settle the matter of the headstone? Surely that expense might wait a little?’

‘Twenty-seven shillings and sixpence. That’s what the man wants. I shall have enough left over.’

‘I still think it might wait a little.’

‘No, I must do this for Maria if nothing else. I owe her a little square of stone.’ He hesitated, still staring downstream to Goat Stairs. ‘Then perhaps she will leave me alone.’

Ned frowned. ‘You’re full of fancies this evening. What do you mean now?’

Holdsworth waved his arm, taking in the river before them and the City beyond. ‘Sometimes I am – well, no – not haunted, not that, of course, never that. But my mind plays tricks at times, just for the merest instant, for the twinkling of an eye. I think I see the curve of a shoulder across the road, I hear her voice in a crowd, or – or – well, even a child weeping.’ He watched two apprentices sculling upriver against the tide and thought of black treacle rising to engulf him from the grave that Maria shared with Georgie. He said softly, ‘Perhaps the headstone will settle the business.’

‘This is grief speaking,’ Ned said. ‘It is nothing else. It is a natural consequence of an overactive imagination, exacerbated beyond endurance by the melancholy -’

‘Stop prosing. Advise me instead. Should I buy a shirt tomorrow morning? A new hat? I shall be calling on the quality, after all. I must be shaved – I must have my hair dressed. I shall dazzle Mrs Farmer and Sal with my splendour.’

Farmer shook his head. ‘You must go cautiously in this matter.’

‘You are become very serious all of a sudden.’

‘Money makes it serious. Her ladyship has given you all this before you have lifted a finger for her. She will expect a return. The rich always do.’

Holdsworth smiled at him. ‘That is why they are rich.’

On Thursday, Elinor Carbury breakfasted by herself. Lady Anne rose late, and rarely came downstairs before the middle of the morning. The chaise had been ordered for eleven-thirty. Elinor would travel post to Cambridge in far more comfort than by the public coach, and the journey would be two or three hours shorter.

After breakfast, she had a brief interview with Lady Anne, who was not in the best of humours because Elinor would not stay another day.

On her way downstairs she went into her chamber where her maid was packing. Susan was a plump, dark girl with brown eyes and thick ankles. She beamed at her mistress.

‘Anything I can do for you, ma’am? Anything at all?’

‘Try not to crush the silk this time.’

The beaming continued. As a rule, Susan was inclined to be sulky but, a few months earlier, Elinor had given her an unwanted cloak and the maid would revert to being all smiles and sycophancy when she was hoping for another gift. To escape this proleptic gratitude, Elinor fled to the long room with the bishop’s books. She sat down in the chair by the window and took up the volume she had been looking at the previous day. It was Lady Anne’s own copy of Mr Holdsworth’s The Anatomy of Ghosts . Lady Anne had bought it at Elinor’s suggestion when Frank’s misfortune fell upon him. Now, as Elinor reread the first chapter, she paid particular attention to the unhappy case that Mr Holdsworth described there in some detail, since it had aroused his curiosity about ghostly phenomena. He wrote that the wicked fraud had been practised upon ‘a lady of my acquaintance’, who had recently lost her only child in a tragic accident.

Shortly before eleven o’clock, she heard what she had been waiting for – a knock on the front door, followed by the sound of the porter’s husky voice as he let a visitor into the hall. The footman, James, ushered Mr Holdsworth into the room. Elinor slipped the little book on the nearest shelf and rose to her feet.

‘Madam,’ he said, bowing. ‘I beg your pardon. I shall return another -’

‘Pray do not go, sir. I hoped to speak with you before I leave. Tell me, does your presence here mean you are quite determined to go down to Cambridge?’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘You may not find your task an easy one.’

‘I apprehend there may be difficulties.’