‘I saw Mr Soresby this morning.’
‘What! Is he here?’
‘No,’ Holdsworth said. ‘He is too scared to return with this charge hanging over him.’
‘But where is he? I must tell my husband. It will relieve his mind of -’
‘No, madam. I do not think that would be wise.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Mr Soresby’s room in college is at the top of Yarmouth Hall.’
‘And pray what’s the significance of that?’
‘Because one night last February, he felt ill and in need of fresh air. Despite the cold, he opened the window.’
She said nothing.
‘His room is the only one in the building that looks to the south,’ he went on, speaking rapidly in a hard, monotonous voice. ‘It’s the garret above the service yard at the back of the Master’s Lodge. One can even see a little of the Master’s Garden from the window.’
‘Not at night, surely?’ she said sharply. ‘Unless it was clear and there was a moon, of course.’
He bowed, acknowledging the point. ‘Soresby could see nothing of any consequence, madam, but he could hear well enough. He heard footsteps and voices below in the garden.’
‘You say he was not well. Perhaps he had a fever. Perhaps he was imagining it.’
‘I do not think so. And nor, I think, did Dr Carbury. After all, by your own admission, Dr Carbury had already reprimanded you for walking in the garden at night.’
She sat up and glared at him. ‘If you mean to accuse me of something, sir, pray do not beat about the bush.’
‘Mr Soresby was referring to the night of Mrs Whichcote’s death,’ Holdsworth said. ‘Gradually he realized the possible significance of what he had heard. About a fortnight ago, he took his story to Dr Carbury, who told him he must have been mistaken. And in the next breath he offered Mr Soresby the reversion of the Rosington Fellowship.’
With an enormous effort of will, Elinor set her cup down on the table without spilling any tea. ‘I need hardly say that if Mr Soresby insinuates that I was outside at any time that night, it is either a terrible mistake or a gross fabrication.’
‘Why should he lie?’
She forced a laugh. ‘To gain advantage for himself. And it answered admirably, did it not? He’s poor, and he sought to improve his situation. I cannot blame him for that. But I do blame him for slandering me, even by implication. And I blame my husband for believing him.’
‘Madam, I do not believe it was a slander. He said the first thing he heard was a howl that chilled the blood, the cry of a woman in distress. It seemed to come from near the garden door to the Lodge.’
‘And clanking chains, no doubt, and spectral groans. This becomes more ridiculous with every word you say.’
Holdsworth moved away from the window and put down his cup on the writing table. The cup toppled over, and tea flooded across the leather top. He ignored it. She held her breath. She wondered whether he were drunk.
He sat down so suddenly beside her that the chair lurched beneath his weight. He leaned towards her. ‘I will tell you what I think happened: Sylvia Whichcote came here that night, fleeing from her husband’s brutality. She used her own key to let herself in by your private gate from Jerusalem Lane. She came along the flagged path at the back of the house to the garden door. Of course it was locked and bolted. But your bedchamber, madam, is above it. I think she tried desperately to attract your attention – perhaps she threw earth and gravel at your window? And perhaps the cry that Soresby heard was one of terror and frustration when Mrs Whichcote believed she had failed to rouse you. But she hadn’t.’
‘I find that Mr Soresby is not the only one with a lively imagination.’
‘What else would she have done? Having stayed at the house so often, she knew where the bedchambers were. Besides, where else could she hope to find sanctuary but with you? You were her friend.’
My friend.
The words burned into Elinor’s mind like acid on a metal plate. She stood up, moving so clumsily that she jolted the table with the tea things. ‘I had thought you had more penetration, Mr Holdsworth.’
He too rose to his feet. But he did not speak.
‘I loved her and I despised her,’ Elinor said. ‘Sylvia was all impulse and sentiment and vanity. A handsome face or an ardent compliment could turn her head in a moment and fire her appetite. That’s why she married Mr Whichcote. And that’s why she flung herself at Frank.’ She was crying now, the warm tears running silently down her cheeks. ‘She was such a giddy creature, always chasing after a new bauble. For all her winning ways I think she never really cared for anyone. But she always came back to me in the end. Ever since we were children. Because she knew I would not desert her. She knew me, and I knew her.’
She turned away from him and wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. He said nothing. His silence is a blunt instrument, she thought, and I do believe the hateful man will bludgeon me to death with it.
‘Is that all?’ she said, turning back to him. ‘Or does the young fool claim he heard more?’
‘Mr Soresby says he heard movement below – with hindsight he believes it was the sound of a struggle. And later there were other sounds on the gravel path towards the pond. The next morning Mrs Whichcote’s body was found in the water. But Tom T-, that is to say, the night-soil man, picked up her slippers on the flagstones by the house. Not far from the garden door, as it happens.’
‘Her slippers? What’s this?’
‘You will recall that no shoes were found on or near the body. Mr Archdale and Mr Frank retrieved Mrs Whichcote’s slippers from Mrs Tom on Wednesday.’
‘This is a farrago of nonsense. You must see that.’ Elinor sat down again, because otherwise she feared her legs might give way. She squeezed the damp handkerchief into a tight, hard ball. ‘For a start, why did neither of them mention these interesting… inventions and discoveries at the time?’
‘Soresby is a timid and friendless young man. He assumed that some private business of Dr Carbury’s -’
‘Private business! Fudge!’
‘He is poor and afraid, ma’am. He dared not speak out and risk the Master’s wrath. And in any case he did not know the precise significance of what he had heard. As for the night-soil man, he thought the lady could no longer have need of the slippers, and besides no one was looking for them – so why should not Mrs Tom have the benefit of them? He is convinced that such things come his way as of right.’
‘I can’t believe you condemn me on the basis of such flimsy evidence and from such sources.’
‘Of course I do not condemn you.’ He took a step towards her and for an instant she thought he was about to take her hands. ‘But the evidence cannot be wholly discounted and others may condemn you on the basis of it, even if I do not. Consider, madam – this place at night is a fortress. Your servant’s window looks over the court on the other side of the Lodge, and so does Dr Carbury’s. Yours is the only one that looks over the garden. If someone came out to Mrs Whichcote, they will say, who could it have been but you?’
‘And you, sir? What do you say?’
He stared grim-faced at her. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, sir, so now I know where I stand. You have judged me and found me wanting. But now it is your turn: so have the goodness to consider this.’ Her temper had slipped away from her without her noticing, and she was furiously angry. ‘It appears that others leave this house at night. In March my maid slipped out of the garden door on at least two occasions to meet her lover, Dr Carbury’s manservant. Their rendezvous was under the plane tree by the pond. On the first occasion, he had his way with her. On the second, she was before her time, and she met someone else at the rendezvous. Or rather he blundered into her. Frank Oldershaw.’