by Kathy
Peggy was not wearing a coat, and Karen realized it was a mild, sunny day. She hadn't taken notice of the weather or the flowerbeds, which were bright with crocuses and daffodils.
"Are you going deaf, or just trying to avoid me?" Peggy demanded. "I've been bellowing at you for five minutes. Where the hell do you think you're going?"
"Home. Why the hell shouldn't I?"
"There is an extremely exasperated young woman outside your office door who could answer that. She claims she had an appointment with you at eleven."
"Oh, Lord." Karen bit her lip. "Debbie. This is the second ... I suppose I'll have to see her."
"Don't bother. She went stamping off after she'd unloaded on me. I don't know why they all unload on me. I certainly don't invite— Hey, wait a minute!" Karen turned. Peggy caught her by the arm. "I didn't chase you all this way just to tell you you'd screwed up. Why do you think I went by your office in the first place? I haven't seen you for over a week. Let's go have lunch."
"Sorry. I really don't have time."
Peggy gripped Karen's other arm and swung her around so that they stood face-to-face. The expression was not entirely accurate; Peggy was five inches shorter than Karen, and she had to tip her head back in order to meet the latter's eyes. Apparently she did not approve of what she saw.
"You look terrible," she said bluntly. "What have you been doing? Not eating or sleeping, obviously. Is something wrong?"
Not sleeping, Karen thought. Dreaming. The flash of memory—palpable darkness, weighting her down—shivered through her body, and Peggy's grip tightened. "What is it?"
"Nothing. I'm fine. I've been working, that's all. A new project. I've got to get back to it, I don't have time for—"
"Then you'd damned well better make time. You'll fall ill if you go on like this, and then where will your precious project be? This isn't an invitation, it's an order."
"Did Joan put you up to this?" Karen demanded. "Or Sharon?"
"They're worried about you too. You didn't show up for lunch last week, or call to tell them you weren't coming. You aren't answering your phone and you're hardly ever in your office."
"So? I've been busy. Those lunches aren't formal meetings, we just get together when we can. They aren't my keepers, I don't owe them—"
"They are your friends," Peggy interrupted. "You owe them. It was Sharon who called me; you know these psychologists, they're always reading sinister meanings into sudden alterations of behavior. Joan's theory is that you have a new boyfriend."
Karen smiled in spite of herself. She didn't need Peggy's critical stare to know she did not look like a woman in love. Her panty hose had a run and her lipstick must be ... Had she put on makeup that morning? She couldn't remember. "Oh, all right," she said ungraciously. "Where do you want to go?"
"Anyplace that has a liquor license and does not serve tofu in any form. Come on. I'll drive."
Once she had her prisoner safely in the car, Peggy relapsed into tactful silence, and Karen felt herself beginning to relax. Wilmington was a pretty town, nestled in the folds of the hills Marylanders euphemistically referred to as mountains; the spring sunshine freshened the facades of the old houses, and the new green of the lawns was freckled with bright-yellow dandelions. Quite a contrast to that gloomy day a week ago when she had driven back from Baltimore through a last-of-the season snowstorm. Spring had come on unnoticed by her; she had scarcely left the house since, except when she happened to remember she had a class or a faculty meeting.
They passed through the old town and headed west toward one of the shopping centers that had sprung up, with their cluster of surrounding subdivisions. "I thought we'd try that new Mexican restaurant at the mall," Peggy explained. "They say the food is pretty good."
"You're just trying to get as far away from campus as possible," Karen said. "Don't worry, I won't leap out and try to escape. You were right; I do need a break. Thanks."
"For what? My motives were purely selfish, as they always are."
Karen studied her with an affectionate smile. Peggy's gruff voice, deepened to bass-baritone by years of chain smoking, and her disdain for feminine fripperies concealed a personality as soft as marshmallow. It wasn't surprising that Joan and Sharon, Karen's closest friends on the faculty, had appealed to Peggy; everybody unloaded on her, including students in other departments. Even the least perceptive of them realized within a week that there was a mother hen under the gruff facade. Peggy yelled at them and scolded them and was always there when they needed her.
As she was for me, Karen thought, dutifully stuffing herself with the taco salad Peggy had made her order. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until she had actually eaten most of the monstrous object— chili, guacamole, lettuce and tomatoes and shredded cheese and a mound of sour cream in a casing of puffed dough.
"You can have a margarita now if you want," said Peggy. She had had two.
"No, thanks."
"Coffee, then." Peggy summoned the waitress with a peremptory flourish of her arm. With a wry smile, Karen nodded agreement. The preliminaries having been concluded, Peggy was about to get down to the real business of the meeting.
"Has somebody been complaining about me?" Karen asked for openers. She was pretty sure she knew the answer.
"You've missed two classes and God knows how many student conferences," Peggy said. "But of course you know who's done the complaining—your favorite departmental chairman, Joe Cropsey. All under the guise of fatherly solicitude. Perhaps you've been ill? Perhaps you've had bad news from home? Perhaps—giggle, smirk, nudge, nudge—your personal life has gone sour?"
"He would think of that," Karen muttered, shoving a wilted scrap of taco around the plate.
"He wants to be part of your personal life," Peggy said. She added dispassionately, "Nasty little prick. You'd better tell me, or you'll have him oozing around offering to console you."
"A fate worse than death. I'd like to tell you, actually. I guess I've reached the stage where I need some dispassionate advice. I hadn't ..." She brushed a lock of limp brown hair away from her face. It was long overdue for a shampoo. She went on, "I hadn't realized how madly preoccupied I've been. It may take a while; do you have the time?"
"I have all day," Peggy said.
She had finished her coffee by the time the tale was told. She accepted a refill and asked the waitress to replace Karen's untouched, tepid tea.
"So did you dope the old gent?"
"Of course not." With a wry smile, Karen added, "I wouldn't have gotten away with it; he watched me like a hawk. In the end he consented to take my check. He made me read some of the manuscript first, though, honorable soul that he is. Not that he had to force me. That's why I stayed the night and missed half my appointments next day. I'm too noble to steal and copy it, but I'm not noble enough to resist the chance to read as much as I could."
"So what is it?"
"It is a novel. A Gothic novel."
"Ruined castles, dastardly villains in hot pursuit of the helpless heroine's virginity?" Peggy grinned. "I used to read that sort of thing. I was still in my twenties, which is some excuse."
"You're thinking about the imitation Gothics, most of which were nothing of the sort, that were all over the bookstores thirty years ago." Unconsciously Karen assumed her lecturer's pose. "The original Gothic novel began with The Castle of Otranto in 1764, and reached its height in the novels of Mrs. Radcliffe thirty years later. They were certainly overburdened with dastardly villains and vapid heroines, ancient castles and Deadly Secrets; but the Gothic romance represents a significant development in the history of the modern novel. The images of imprisonment and danger represent the social, intellectual and economic frustration of women in a rigid paternalistic society—"
"Spare me. I'm not knocking literary criticism, but I just don't give a damn about analysis of that sort, be it Freudian or feminist. The only thing I care about is whether it's a good read."
"Do you consider Jane Eyre a good
read? How about Wuthering Heights?"
"They aren't Gothic novels."
"They are in the Gothic tradition. Gloomy, isolated old houses, glowering Byronic heroes, threatened heroines—"
Peggy's eyes narrowed. "But those are great works of literature. Are you saying that this manuscript is of the same caliber?"
"I don't know what it is yet," Karen said in a low voice. "Simon gave me a copy of the first thirty pages. He's doing the same, damn him, for all the other potential buyers. I've spent the last week going over and over those pages and making a typewritten copy. The text is awfully hard to read. The ink has faded, the handwriting is minuscule—paper was expensive in those days, they crammed as much as they could onto a page—and there are a lot of interpolations and abbreviations and interlineations. I can only do a few pages at a time before my eyes start aching."
"I see." Peggy lit another cigarette. "At least I think I do. This is really important to you, isn't it?"
"It could be the most important thing that's ever happened to me. Or ever will happen. Grants, job offers from big universities, a step, maybe two steps, up the academic ladder, national recognition."
"Whew. That big, huh? For heaven's sake, relax," she added in some alarm. "You're bending that spoon into a circle. Your friend the bookseller promised it to you, didn't he?"
"He promised me I could top the highest bid. It's not like a regular auction, he's only giving the others a chance to make one offer. That's damned decent of him, really, he's doing me a big favor. He says this is the only way he can determine what it's worth."
Peggy's eyes narrowed. "What kind of money are we talking about here? And where are you proposing to get it?"
"I don't know; I don't know." Karen brushed at the fog of smoke hovering over the table. "I haven't even thought about it. I've been too absorbed—"
"Obsessed is more like it." Peggy blew out a rather wobbly smoke ring. "Don't bother defending yourself; I know how I'd feel if a comparable discovery came into my hands. There's no sense worrying about money yet. Maybe the other bidders won't be interested. Maybe they won't be able to come up with the cash."
"You don't understand."
"So tell me."
"Simon has contacted a number of people. Two of them have expressed interest and asked to see the merchandise. He won't tell me their names, but I'm sure one of them is Bill Meyer. Once that bastard sees it . . ." Her voice rose.
"Calm down," Peggy said. "Who's Bill Meyer?"
"Yale. Associate professor. Specializes in Early American literature and in smart-ass, nasty reviews. His critique of my edition of Ismene's poems was a masterpiece of snottiness. He's also a die-hard male chauvinist and a defender of the canon." Seeing Peggy's look of exasperation, she explained, "The traditional literary canon of great works was defined by men, and consists mostly of male authors. One major book on nineteenth-century literature doesn't even admit Jane Austen or the Brontes or George Eliot into the sacred ranks. Meyer and his kind claim there aren't any great books by women on the list because women didn't write any great books."
"Huh," said Peggy. "Then why would he want—"
"This is a major discovery, Peggy, whatever its eventual literary status may be. There are a number of eighteenth-century novels by women— more than most people realize, because they have been neglected and rejected by critics. For example, I'll bet you've never heard of Charlotte Temple. Yet it was the first American best-seller; it went through over two hundred editions, official and pirated, after it was published in 1791, and it was still being read in 1912 by 'housemaids and shopgirls,' as some critic condescendingly put it. That was its problem, of course; any book popular with women was by definition—"
"You've made your point, and exposed my ignorance. Let's concentrate, for the moment, on this particular book. I take it that most of the neglected and rejected books were in print at one time. This is completely new—never published?"
"I've checked every reference I can think of. That's why it's so important, Peggy. Even Bill Meyer, male chauvinist though he is, would love to be the discoverer of an unknown American author."
"You think he can talk Yale into coming up with an offer? Money's tight these days."
"You're telling me. The other buyer has to be Dorothea Angelo, from Berkeley. She's a full professor and she's got a lot of clout. She was green with envy when I published the poems; she's been sniping at me ever since, in print and in person. She'd kill to get her hands on this."
"But Simon promised you—"
"I may not be able to raise the money." It was the first time Karen had admitted it, even to herself. Her voice was unsteady. "And even if I can, they will have seen it. Simon won't let it out of his hands, he'll insist that they examine it in his office; at least I hope that's what he'll do. But I wouldn't put it past either of them to steal the damned thing."
"Your friend Simon doesn't sound like a patsy."
"Well . . maybe not. But there's another aspect to this business— the author's identity. The poems gave no clue to her real name, or even what part of the country she came from. It would be an additional feather in my professional cap to identify her. In fact, without that background it will be impossible to do a proper study of her novel—show how she fits into the tradition, what other writers influenced her, and so on. There's no way I could prevent someone else from pursuing that search, even if I owned the manuscript. I couldn't stand it if—"
She broke off, biting her lip. The last thing she wanted to do was sound like one of the hysterical heroines of the novels they had discussed. Peggy seemed to find her reaction reasonable, though. "Yes, I see. The manuscript offers clues to her identity?"
"I think it may," Karen said cautiously. "Even more important is where it was found. Simon bought it from a person—he wouldn't even tell me whether it was a man or a woman—who had inherited an old house and its contents. He said something about 'local dealers,' so I'm assuming the house is somewhere in this area. He also said the manuscript had been found in a trunk in the attic of the house. You see what that means?"
"Who, me? I'm just an ignorant historian," Peggy said with ineffable sarcasm. But her eyes were bright and intent. " 'In this area' is pretty vague; it could cover the whole East Coast. However, you would probably be safe in limiting yourself to the Mid Atlantic region—from Pennsylvania to the Carolinas. There are a lot of old houses and old families in that part of the country ..." She ended on a questioning note; then she said, "The former owner may have been an auction hound. He could have picked up the manuscript in a box lot at some country sale."
"Then the auctioneer's records would give me the name of the person who put it up for sale," Karen said. "You're right, it may have passed through many hands; tracking it down would be like those treasure-hunt games we used to play, with one clue leading to another."
"Or tracing the ownership of a plot of land." Peggy lit another cigarette from the stub of the last. Karen could tell she was hooked. She wondered why she hadn't thought of confiding in Peggy earlier. This part of the problem required historical rather than literary research and Peggy loved puzzles in all forms, from mystery stories to double-crostics.
"There's another possibility, of course," Peggy went on musingly. "From Mrs. Radcliffe to the Brontes; you're talking about a literary type that flourished around the turn of the eighteenth century, right? This part of the country was well settled by 1800. The author must have been a member of a wealthy, land-owning family; only the upper classes bothered to have their sons educated, much less their daughters. They were lordly aristocrats—slave owners—flaunting their wealth, importing books and furniture from England, building great mansions ..." She had been talking to herself, letting her agile and informed imagination build up a theory. Now she looked directly at Karen and said, "That's what you believe, isn't it? That the seller is one of Ismene's descendants. That the house where the manuscript was found is her home."
"I don't know why the weather is always f
oul when I go to Baltimore," Karen grumbled. "If I were superstitious I'd regard it as an omen, and turn back."
It was rain, not sleet or snow, that darkened the highway that morning. Patches of mist drifted across the road.
Peggy checked her seat belt for the tenth time. She had offered to drive, but Karen had overruled her, even though she knew Peggy hated being a passenger.
"You wouldn't turn back if the clouds opened up and God threw a thunderbolt at you." Peggy reached in her purse, which squatted on the floor at her feet like a malignant black gnome, and then made a face and withdrew her hand.
"Go ahead and smoke," Karen said resignedly.
"And deprive you of ten minutes of your busy, productive, happy, interminable life?"
"I don't want to see a premature end to your busy, productive, happy, interminable life. And I hate having the smell of it in the car. But I'd rather put up with that than have you twitching and snapping at me all the way to Baltimore."
Peggy grinned. "Oh, well. If you insist."
She lit her cigarette, cracked the window, and then leaned back, looking more relaxed. "I'm looking forward to meeting your friend Simon. Do you think he'll mind my coming along?"
"If he does, he won't show it. He's a perfect gent. Your presence will add a certain legitimacy to my claim on the manuscript; he'll think you represent the college."
"Just watch what you say," Peggy warned her. "I don't represent the college, and I don't particularly want to be sued for misrepresentation— by Simon or the board of trustees."
"Don't worry."
"Huh," said Peggy. "Are you still set on that crazy scheme of yours?"
"I have to know who the other bidders are, Peggy! Simon wouldn't tell me."