by Kathy
The Historical Society turned out to be another waste of time. The premises consisted of two rooms: an antechamber, formerly the upper landing of the mansion, which had high windows and a molded ceiling and no furniture except an antique rug and a mahogany desk; and a small cramped room behind it which contained all the society's records. Karen's hopes plummeted when she saw the piles of dusty papers heaped haphazardly on the shelves. The Historical Society was an ineffectual amateur organization—another of the games the old ladies of the town liked to play. Regally ensconced behind the handsome desk, they awaited visitors who never came and exchanged genteel gossip instead of filing materials.
It was impossible to work with Mrs. Fowler around. She was an accomplished ditherer, and she never stopped talking. Settling Karen at the single small table, she bustled from shelf to shelf shifting stacks of papers and murmuring to herself. "Now where has that box got to? I know I put it here; Flora Campbell must have moved it, she's always shifting things around ..."
The box in question contained the correspondence of a late-Victorian Cartright lady. She had been a tireless traveler and letter writer; the letters had been sent to her friends from all over England and the Continent, and all of them contained a demand that the recipient keep the letter. "She'd go visiting and collect them after she got back," Mrs. Fowler reported with a giggle. "Quite an eccentric, Eliza was. Fancied herself an intellectual. She talks somewhere about having tea with Disraeli."
That particular letter was not to be found, though Mrs. Fowler spent fifteen minutes searching for it—to Karen's poorly suppressed fury. The other treasures eventually deposited on the table consisted of yellowed newspaper clippings, most of them obituaries of turn-of-the-century Cartrights, a collection of rust-stained caps, gloves and moldering fans ("I'm almost certain these came from Fanny . . . unless it was one of the Grants . . .") and seven volumes of Eliza's diaries.
"You can borrow those if you like," Mrs. Fowler said, with the air of one making an enormous concession. "I know you'll take proper care of them."
She had begun glancing at her watch. Karen didn't feel she could refuse the offer, though nothing on earth interested her less than Eliza Cartright's reflections on travel. "I had hoped for something from an early period," she said hopelessly. "Or a genealogy. Surely one of the family must have belonged to the D.A.R. or the Colonial Dames."
"They were members of the Daughters of the Confed'racy, of course," Mrs. Fowler said.
"That's later in time than the period in which I am interested. It is necessary, isn't it, to submit proof that one of your direct ancestors served in the Revolution before you can join the D.A.R. ?"
"Yes, naturally. My dear grandmama traced our family tree when she applied for membership; our ancestor was a Colonel Byrd, who served under Washington and Lafayette."
From what Karen had heard, there had been very few privates in the ragtag American forces.
"Now that's a very good question," Mrs. Fowler mused. "Seems to me there was a genealogy. We might even have a copy somewhere. I'll have a look for it another time."
Gently but inexorably she urged Karen toward the door. Lips compressed, Karen accepted the loan of boring Eliza's diaries. If she could persuade Mrs. Fowler to let her rummage through the shelves by herself, she might find something useful, but she doubted the remote chance was worth the effort. The D.A.R. was a better bet, even if it would necessitate a quick trip to Washington. They might have a copy of the Cartright genealogy, if one existed.
She dropped Mrs. Fowler at her front door and then went shopping, picking up a number of odds and ends she had forgotten the previous night. After returning to the apartment she unwrapped the bundle she had bought at the hardware store. It was a heavy, unwieldy object, but it seemed to work as advertised. Karen stowed it away in the bedroom closet.
When she returned to the living room she saw something she had overlooked when she entered, her arms full of bundles. The envelope must have been slipped under the door. Her foot had kicked it farther inside.
The envelope was sealed but not addressed and the enclosure began abruptly, without salutation. "I spoke with Lisa. She assures me she will offer you the same opportunity she gave Meyer—a chance to examine the papers in her presence. Call her to make arrangements."
He had signed his full name. So much for her effort to establish a friendly relationship. Not even a "sincerely" softened the curtness of the note.
She went at once to the telephone and called the number he had given her. There was no answer.
Did Lisa's willingness to let her have a chance at the papers indicate that Bill Meyer had refused to make an offer, or that Lisa was looking for another bidder in the hope of running the price up? In either case, Karen felt she was already at a disadvantage. If there was anything of value in the collection, the first person to get a look at it would have a head start. Pacing from living room to kitchen and back again, Karen tried to reason with herself. She was behaving like a teenager on a treasure hunt. The worst possible scenario was the least likely, and even if the box contained what would amount to a signed confession by Ismene, that would only be the beginning of a long process. The winner would be the one who dealt most professionally with the material. Rushing into print, risking the chance of error, wouldn't add luster to a professional career. It might have an adverse effect. Meyer wasn't the only one of her colleagues whose idea of criticism was splitting hairs.
She called the number twice more before she persuaded herself to calm down and relax. She was eating a nutritionally balanced and carefully prepared lunch (a lettuce-cheese-and-tomato sandwich on whole-grain bread) when there was a knock at the door.
Hoping her visitor was Cameron, with good news, fearing it was Mrs. Fowler wanting to gossip, she was struck dumb by what could only be an answer to prayer. Lisa Fairweather wore a dress that had a strange resemblance to her despised pink voile. She also wore white gloves and a matching pink hat.
Lisa's first act was to remove the hat and toss it onto the sofa. Her second act was to strip off the gloves. "What a relief. I feel like a kid let out of school."
"The Garden Club?" I ought to have known, Karen thought.
"Uh-huh. The uniform is obligatory. I hate pink. And gardening."
"Why do you go?" Karen asked curiously.
"It's called good manners, honey. Also tact, respect for tradition, kindness to your elders. Would you think me rude if I begged for a cup of coffee—good strong coffee? The dear old ladies brew a beverage that looks like weak tea and tastes like warm water."
"Just instant, I'm afraid."
"That'll be fine."
She followed Karen to the kitchen and perched on a chair, chatting, while the kettle came to a boil. "I swear to you this is the first and last time I'll appear uninvited. But Cam said he'd been in touch with you, and I thought you might have called while I was out. I feel as if I owe you an explanation—an apology, even. I had no idea those papers would interest you."
Give her the benefit of a doubt, Karen thought. Aloud she said, "I suppose you couldn't have known. I haven't been exactly forthcoming about my reasons for being here. Reticence can become a bad habit with academics; I've known historians who sat on some obscure bit of research for twenty years, hoarding it like a miser."
"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," Lisa said, looking at Karen from under her lashes. "But I'm not exactly stupid, and if I knew exactly what you were looking for, I might be able to help. I know more about the family history than Cam does. He's never been interested."
Karen gave her a brief run-down. Lisa didn't appear to find the story interesting in itself, but the possibility of making money definitely aroused her interest. "I don't see why an old book is so valuable, but I'll take your word for it. So you want to find out who this woman was? Are you sure she was a Cartright?"
"Pretty sure. I may never know for certain." It was the first time Karen had admitted this to herself. The idea of failure was s
o appalling she had to swallow before she could go on. "At least I hope to come up with a strong possibility."
"Like, a woman who lived at the right period and who fits the other clues?"
"That's the general idea."
"Then some kind of genealogy might help."
"It certainly would." Karen's eyes opened wide. "Don't tell me you have—"
"I sure do. Bill practically fainted when he saw it, so I figured it must be important. He thought I didn't notice. Men never think women have right good sense, do they?"
Her smile invited Karen to share her amusement. Sisterhood was a word Lisa would probably reject, just as she would deny being a feminist. What she had invoked was the age-old secret understanding among women who manipulate men without letting the poor fools know they are being manipulated.
"You've got that right too," Karen said. "You—you didn't let him have it, I hope."
"Course not. You want to see those papers?"
"As soon as possible."
"They're in my car." Lisa finished her coffee and rose. "What about right now?"
Chapter Six
America is now wholly given over to a d------d mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash—and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Letters, 1854
KAREN had never been particularly interested in tracing her, or anyone else's, ancestors. What was the point? Discovering that a remote predecessor had carried a musket or a pike in an old, pointless battle, or tracing a connection to a set of illiterate, bloodthirsty noblemen? Even if you could claim a distant relationship with Erasmus or Shakespeare, it didn't mean you had inherited their talents or were entitled to increased respect.
She had pictured the genealogy as a chart, a family tree with names and dates. Some of the ones she had seen had been designed to look like trees, with the names inscribed on leaves—more decorative than useful. When Lisa handed her a thick sheaf of papers her hopes soared. There might be more information here than she had expected.
She and Lisa had wrestled the heavy carton up the steps and into the living room. Lisa was stronger than she looked, and she didn't shirk her half of the weight. She sat watching in silence as Karen examined the papers.
The pages consisted of printed forms which had been filled in by hand. At the top right corner was the word "Generation." After puzzling over this for a moment Karen realized it referred to the number of generations since the original ancestor—in this case, the first settler in America. The form was fairly easy to decipher once she got the hang of it. A separate page for each individual listed the name, the names of father, mother, spouse and children, and the appropriate dates—birth, death, marriage—as well as the names of the spouse's parents. The spouse was always female, since (of course, Karen thought sourly) descent was traced through the male.
The Cartrights had been a prolific lot. The farther back in time she went, the greater the number of offspring. Six, eight, nine, twelve . . . Dates of death were not always given, but it was safe to assume that a good many of those children had died young. The infant mortality rate had been high.
She stopped at a page labeled "third generation." The name was that of Andrew Cartright, born February 26, 1771. One, two, three . . . eleven children. She felt a pang of pity for Elizabeth, Andrew's wife.
The birth dates of the children ranged from 1791 to 1810. Seven of them were girls: Catharine, Elizabeth, Maria, Sarah, Ann, Alexandra, Fanny. No dates of death were given, but there was an additional column, "Married to." The names of the husbands of Ann and Alexandra were listed. The others were described as "Never Married." Because they had remained spinsters or because they had died young? A vital question, that one, but the form did not answer it.
Karen turned back to the preceding generation, to Andrew's father Josiah. Andrew had had sisters, six of them. Some had married, some had not. The youngest of the girls would have been twenty years old in 1800, if she had lived that long.
The names fluttered around in her head, anonymous and without meaning. She hadn't expected to find a Cartright daughter named Ismene. Still, it was disappointing to discover they all had traditional, conventional names. Elizabeth, Sarah, Mary . . . Andrew's sisters and daughters were all possibles—those of them, at least, who had lived to adulthood. How did one go about finding the dates of their deaths? Was that information missing from the genealogy because it had not been available to the researcher, or because nobody gave a damn about females outside the direct line of descent?
For reasons she would have been hard-pressed to justify logically, Karen believed Ismene had been fairly young when she penned the novel. Jane Eyre had been written when Charlotte Bronte was thirty years old. She was dead before she was forty. Emily had been only thirty when she died, Anne twenty-nine. If genius didn't bloom early in those days, it didn't have a chance to bloom at all.
There was too much in those papers to absorb all at once. When Karen looked up she saw that Lisa was watching her with a faint cynical smile.
"Is that what you wanted?" Lisa asked.
"It's one of the things I wanted." Karen knew she had already given herself away; her passionate interest must have been plain to an intent observer.
"I can't sell it without Cam's okay."
Karen sat back on her heels and tried to marshal her arguments. "He told me he'd rather deal with me. I've already offered to buy the material, sight unseen. Now that I've seen it, I'll settle for a copy, if you don't want to part with the original."
"That's more than William was willing to do."
So Bill had seen the papers. Damn him, and damn Lisa for being such a sly, stupid, greedy little schemer. Karen said with great restraint, "Bill isn't the most scrupulous individual I've ever met. What did he offer you?"
"He wasn't willing to pay for a copy. The original or nothing, he said."
"What he was willing to pay for was sole possession of the information," Karen snapped. She fought to control her fraying temper. "He wanted to prevent me from seeing it. I don't suppose he mentioned that he has a fantastic memory? Not total recall, but damned close. He's already got what he needs to go on with. He won't give you a penny now."
"I don't understand."
"I'll try to explain. You see, all this gives me is a list of possible candidates—women who lived during the right time period. From the literary style of the manuscript and my familiarity with the genre I can make an educated guess as to approximately when it was written. Bill probably can too; he had a chance to look through the manuscript. But I haven't found a terminus ad quern or a quo yet ..." Seeing Lisa's smooth brow furrow, she explained. "I'll give you an example. Suppose there was a reference to the American flag and its ... oh, let's say, fifteen stars. I'm no historian; I haven't the faintest idea when the fifteenth state was admitted to the Union. But I'd find out. And then I would know the book was written after that date."
"Why would she mention how many stars there were in the flag?"
"She didn't. She probably won't." Karen tried to control her exasperation. She had a feeling Lisa wasn't as dim as she pretended. "That was just an example. Suppose she mentions the name of a particular book she's been reading. I would know her manuscript was written after the date the book was published."
"Oh. I see what you mean."
"Good. So far I haven't found anything of that sort. At this point I'm looking at a time span of fifty, maybe seventy-five years. At least two generations. The genealogy gives the names of the Cartright women belonging to those generations, but that's all I know about them—their names. And now Bill Meyer knows those names too."
"So what do you do next?"
What Karen yearned to do was hand the whole thing over to Peggy. This wasn't her field. She tried to sound more authoritative than she felt. "The person who traced the genealogy was primarily interested in the people—the men—in the direct line of descent. There must be
more information about the women in courthouse records and—and obituaries in newspapers ..."
To her critical ears the speech displayed the abysmal extent of her ignorance, but Lisa nodded. "I get it. You'll have to go find out more about them."
"That's right. Actually, I—and Bill—could get the same information without the genealogy. It's only a short cut. By themselves the names are useless."
"That low-down hound dog," Lisa muttered. "He didn't tell me that. I suppose now that you've seen it you aren't—"
"I'd still like to buy it. Not only because I want to play fair with you but because . . . well, you never know what might turn out to be useful. Besides, I don't have that computer-style memory."
Lisa sat in silence for a while. Her face had smoothed out (Karen could almost hear a dear old mammy saying, "Frownin' leaves ugly wrinkles, honey chile.") but she was obviously thinking furiously. Finally she said, "You've been a lot more honest than he was. I'll check with Cam about the legal procedures, but so far as I'm concerned, the genealogy is yours. In fact, if you want to copy down those names right now ..."
Karen definitely did want to.
An inspection of the remaining contents of the carton revealed nothing of interest. There were several photo albums and a box of snapshots, which Karen passed over; she might not be much of a historian, but she knew photography hadn't been in common use until the second half of the nineteenth century.
However, she indicated she was willing to stick to her original offer of buying the whole lot. Then she helped Lisa carry the carton back to the car. Lisa was favorably inclined toward her now, but she wasn't naive enough to hand over the material without payment.
In fact, Lisa wasn't at all naive. Meyer had succeeded in tricking her, not because she was stupid but because she was ignorant of the subject. Now that she had been warned she'd be on her guard. Against me, too, Karen thought. But she didn't regret her candor. In this case at least, honesty was probably the best policy. She must remember not to underestimate Lisa, or assume that the other woman was necessarily an adversary.