“First thing in the morning?”
“That’s what I said. She pats my cheek jest like this. Jest soft like this. Walter—alive! That’s what she says.”
I looked at him and grinned. “Come on now, Walt!”
“I’m not kiddin’,” he protested. “And I’m not complainin’ neither. It’s a nice way to wake up. I’m probably jest as surprised as she is that I’m still breathin’.” He sank back into his chair. “And I’m not the only one who’s heard her. No, sir. Don’t let that Edna say I’m the only one makin’ all the trouble.”
“Who else has heard this…ghost?”
Walt ignored my question. “Some of us are thinkin’ that the new lady up on the third floor—maybe she’s got somethin’ to do with it.”
“Why’s that?”
He cleared his throat. “Somebody said somethin’ about her being pretty darn old. Like too old to be alive.”
“Walt, listen. I’ve met her. Believe me, she’s not a ghost. Her name is Marged Brice.”
“Brice?” He gave me a sharp look.
“Yes. Did you know the Brices? Hugh Brice the lightkeeper? You used to live up near Cape Prius, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know ’em, but I had a girlfriend—Esther—she worked for the daughter, for Miss Brice. In that big place of hers, off Dyer Bay.”
“Do you remember the address? Or anything about the house?”
“Nope. Can’t say I do. It was a long time ago, Perfessor.” Walt closed his eyes.
“Think back, Walt. Did your girlfriend ever talk to you about Miss Brice?”
“Lemme think. Esther said she was a real nice lady. But—” He lowered his voice. “We all knew about her. We knew about her havin’ a baby by the doctor. Back in those days, that was thought to be pretty bad. Not like today, eh?” He looked at me rakishly.
“What doctor?” I was careful to sound casual.
“You musta heard a’ him. Yer a perfessor, I’m sure you heard a’ him.”
“Do you mean a Dr. Reid?”
Walt shook his head. “Doc Reid? I knew him. He lived over in Griffon. I almost married the doc’s housekeeper. Angela’s her name. A real good-lookin’ girl! But she chose Tom Phelps over me. Ha—he’s dead and I’m still livin’!”
“Was Dr. Reid the father of Miss Brice’s child?” I asked.
“Come to think of it—nope—I think it was the painter fella. But the baby died, and she went a little crazy. She kept on like it was still alive. Miss Brice kinda had a reputation as bein’ a bit of a wild one.” He yawned and slumped back into his chair. “She’s long dead, though,” he added, dropping his sunglasses. “Went to her funeral,” he muttered.
“You went to her funeral?” I repeated quickly. “When was that?”
“Poor Esther.” Now Walt could barely keep his eyes open. “It was in the wintertime. She died of the cancer. Couldn’t get her in right away because the ground was froze hard…”
Just then I heard the sound of frenzied barking.
I picked up Walt’s glasses, carefully placing them in his lap, and then quickly went to fetch Farley.
He was standing near a flower bed at the back of the house, his body quivering and his eyes riveted on one of the upper windows.
“Farley,” I called, but he wouldn’t move.
I marched over to get him. “Farley! Come!”
I looked up to see what had caught his attention. My eyes roved across the side of the house until they came to rest at Marged Brice’s window.
I stared—there seemed to be a small figure standing at her window, looking down at me. The form of a very small child with one hand raised and its forehead pressed against the glass.
A sharp stab of pain shot through my left shoulder. I blinked and shook my head.
And then the figure was gone.
Eleven
A low roll of thunder came off the Bay as we sat out on the deck, watching a storm gathering on the horizon. I was handing Clare a glass of wine while Doug rummaged through my father’s tackle box.
“Did you see Miss Brice today?” she asked.
I told her that Marged hadn’t been up to it, but that she’d left me another diary.
“I’m getting pretty hooked,” I confessed. “The last one left off with George Stewart going off to get married—and not to Marged Brice.”
“Not to Marged Brice? What do you mean?”
I shrugged and kept my expression neutral. “Marged had a rival: an American heiress named Caroline Ferguson. So far I haven’t found any marriage record, so I don’t know that he actually did marry her. But didn’t you mention something about a secret marriage?”
Farley darted past me, and Clare bent down to scoop him up. “Yes, but I’ve been hoping that Marged Brice was the bride.”
Farley started producing one of his sputtering motor sounds.
“You’d never be tempted by one of those nasty heiresses, would you?” she cooed at him. “You’re far too sensible to do something like that.” Mars instantly came over and sat down at her feet, fastening his eyes on Farley. “Or you, Mars,” she added, reaching down to stroke his ears. “Of course you wouldn’t be dazzled by all that money, either.”
A deafening clap of thunder rent the sky above us.
“Hey, Garth, what’s this?” Doug held up a silver fishing lure with a dark feather dangling off the end.
“That’s one of my father’s creations,” I said, still watching Clare. Now she was cradling Farley in her arms and stroking his belly. I reached over and put my hand firmly on Mars’s collar. “My dad claimed there wasn’t a fish on the Peninsula that could resist it.”
Clare glanced up at me, startled. “Your father’s creation?” She quickly put Farley down. “But it couldn’t be!”
We waited, both of us surprised at her outburst.
“What I meant was—it must be the same lure I used to catch that enormous whitefish. The one in the photograph I knocked off your wall, Garth.”
Doug stared at me. “What photograph?” he began, and then stopped abruptly. “Oh, never mind. Can I borrow it? I’m thinking of taking the boat out early tomorrow.” He turned his attention back to the tackle box. “Do you want to join me, Garth?” he asked, not looking up.
“Sure,” I said vaguely.
“Aren’t you going to open your delivery?” Clare gestured toward the package she had placed on the table. “I’m surprised the driver let me sign for it. It has ‘confidential’ and ‘express’ and all kinds of urgent markings all over it.”
Doug grunted. “Ha! That’s a good one. As if he stood a chance! You probably—” He stopped himself midsentence.
“Oh, I managed to resist steaming it open,” she said mildly. “But I’ll confess to reading the return address. Who’s Muriel Hampstead?”
I picked up the package and turned it over, explaining that Muriel was a classics professor who had taught with my father. “She’s an expert on Greek and Roman mythology, and my father collaborated with her on several projects.”
“Ah, you think she can help explain who Miss Brice’s Perdita is!” Clare’s expression brightened.
I nodded. “That’s the idea. I called her up a few days ago. She wasn’t up to talking long, but she told me that she and my father were working on a paper about a myth involving a Perdita.”
We both got up as the first drops of rain hit the awning above us. Clare shivered slightly and reached for the shawl she had brought with her.
“We’d better get inside,” I said, taking her arm. “Why don’t you go ahead and open Muriel’s package and I’ll lay a fire. Then I’ll see if I have anything edible to offer you two.”
Clare sat down in my father’s chair while I started to rip up some newspaper and carefully arrange the kindling. Doug followed with the tackle box and noisily dumped it
on the dining room table. “Mind if I help myself?” he asked, eyeing the bottle of scotch I’d left there.
I heard the rustle of pages as Clare thumbed through the manuscript. After a few minutes, she raised her head. “The paper Muriel wrote with your father looks murderous! It seems to be all about Aeolian dialects and one of Hesiod’s works, the Theogony. But she’s also included a letter addressed to you, Garth—a rather longish letter.”
“Hesiod?” Doug muttered. “Am I supposed to recognize the name?”
Clare got up and placed the package on my desk. “Douglas, must you always play the cretin?” She walked over to him and gently laid her head against his shoulder. “You know perfectly well Hesiod was a Greek poet, writing about the time of Homer,” she added.
“Of course!” Doug quipped, putting an arm around her. “How could I possibly forget! And who’s Homer, by the way?”
“Hopeless.” She sighed as he gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Just hopeless!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Doug silently hand Clare the silver lure.
She took it from him hesitantly, holding it up to the light and watching it slowly twirl at the end of her fingers. Suddenly she released it, and the lure dropped silently back into the tackle box. Doug gave her a quick look and fished it out again, but she’d already turned away.
“Garth, do you know if your father kept any of Hesiod’s works in his library?” she asked.
“Check the shelf to the left—way up at the top,” I answered, returning my attention to the kindling. I placed two logs in readiness to one side, and then I turned around.
I froze, my eyes on Clare.
She had paused in front of the bookcase, her expression slightly pensive as she looked back at Doug, his attention still focused on the fishing gear. She was pushing her hair away from her face—almost exactly as she had done in the photograph—the shadow of a frown playing across her features.
Our eyes suddenly met.
“I don’t think I can reach it; I’m not tall enough,” she said, just a shade unsteadily. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask Douglas to get it.”
I got up quickly and went over, reaching past her and pulling down the volume.
“Clare,” I said quietly, then I raised my voice. “And, Doug. I think you’ll both have to stay for dinner.” There was another crash of thunder, and this time a sizzling stroke of lightning. “It seems to be the will of the gods. You can’t go back out into that storm.”
“Sure we’ll stay,” Doug said easily. “I’m getting desperate. Practically all I’ve eaten since I got here is chicken potpie.”
Clare glanced up at me, her expression curious but her eyes twinkling. “Well, it’s not fair to expect Garth to eat it all, is it?”
I laughed and took Clare’s hand. “Would you take a look at Muriel’s letter for me?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
She searched my face, a little surprised. “Of course.”
“Bring it into the kitchen, then.” I released her hand as Doug looked up. “And why don’t you read it out loud. That way I can get started with some whitefish and listen at the same time.”
“Actually—you know, I think I’ll pass on dinner,” Doug announced. “I want to turn in early. Feel free to join me bright and early—if you’re up.”
“But, Douglas, the lightning!” Clare warned.
“I’ll be fine. Believe me, the odds are on my side.”
“It’s probably because you’re cooking fish,” Clare whispered. “Douglas is funny. He likes to catch them, but he absolutely hates to eat them.”
“I’m sure I could have found him something else,” I muttered, secretly pleased at Doug’s sudden exit.
“I guess it means more Georgian Bay whitefish for us.” Clare pulled a stool up close to the counter. “All right, are you ready?”
“Please don’t feel obliged to read it all the way through.” I watched her tie back her hair while she glanced rapidly over the first page.
“Dear Garth,” Clare began, putting down her wineglass.
Twelve
Dear Garth,
How pleasant it was to speak with you last week, even if only briefly. I meant to put something in the mail days ago, but I have delayed fulfilling my promise. Please excuse this belated package, but needless to say, I’m very glad that you came to me with your questions about Perdita.
Most people associate Perdita with Robert Greene’s Pandosto or Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, but she has much deeper roots in the ancient world and Greek cosmology. I am one of perhaps only a handful of scholars who know this—your father was another. He deeply shared my interest in Perdita. We had great debates about her: wonderful arguments and disagreements that surely would have continued had he not slipped away from us in so untimely a manner. I hope that I do not reopen old sorrows by mentioning this, but there is not a day that goes by that I do not miss my dear friend, esteemed colleague, and generous mentor.
Now—if I may state my position succinctly—Perdita has been my passion for almost forty years. I am convinced that she plays a vital role in the cosmology of the ancient Greeks and is critical to how they understood destiny and fate. But she is also a terribly elusive figure, even more neglected by classical scholars than Iacchos, one of your father’s favorites.
I first came across a reference to Perdita during one of my stints at the Vatican Library. In fact, I believe that you had just been born, for I seem to remember hearing the news while I was in Rome. Though there were many troubled years that came later, I know you were a source of great joy to your father. I can attest to that firsthand, though I must admit he never complained of the severe trials that ensued as a result of your mother’s health.
My research at the Vatican was on Aeolian dialects in the works of Hesiod, a Greek poet who lived in the eighth century BC. I am sure you must know of his major work—the Theogony—and its account of how the world was created.
Of course it goes without saying that there’s no true original of the Theogony; we classicists have had to depend on various copies that have been preserved and passed on over the centuries. Much of my research has focused on copies that were made by a Roman poet named Lumenius (c. 100–160 AD). Although Lumenius is not well known among classicists, his poetry is quite important for Hesiod scholars, namely because he had one strange (and for me very lucky) idiosyncrasy: Lumenius frequently inserted lines composed by his favorite writers into his own poems. Sometimes he even reproduced complete stanzas. Again, luckily for me, Lumenius was very fond of Hesiod and frequently inserted lines from the Theogony into his own poetry.
You may wonder at Lumenius’s method, but let me clarify that he was no plagiarizer. He was always very careful to distinguish between his own work and that of other authors. He had several different ways of doing this, but in the case of the Theogony, his method was to write his own verses in Latin and insert the copied Hesiod excerpts in Greek. This is a most important point to remember. It was this technique that led me to the discovery that Lumenius was working off a version of the Theogony that I had never seen. To make a long story short, after reading the Hesiod excerpts reproduced in Lumenius’s poetry, I began to suspect there must be a longer version of the Theogony, containing pieces of unknown text: a very exciting idea for a classicist!
It has taken me almost forty years of research, but I am now fully convinced that at one time there was a very different and much longer version of Hesiod’s Theogony. By piecing together several of Lumenius’s excerpts, I discovered fifty-one lines that do not appear in standard versions of the work. More to the point, the missing fifty-one lines relate to the segment where Prometheus steals fire and woman is created—and it is here we find Perdita.
Now, to use an expression that your father always used with his students: time to fasten our seat belts and turn to the text.
Let us begin wit
h standard versions of the Theogony, meaning the kind you can buy in any bookstore. Hesiod’s poem recounts Prometheus’s many transgressions against Zeus, including how he steals fire from the gods and gives it as a “gift” to mankind. Furious at Prometheus for giving mankind fire, Zeus decides to give a different kind of “gift.” He commands his son, the blacksmith Hephaestus, to fashion a beautiful but wasteful and deceitful maiden: this is none other than Pandora. Once manufactured, the maiden is sent off to Epimetheus—Prometheus’s brother—with a “box” as her dowry. Yet, unable to quell her curiosity, Pandora opens up the “box.” Zeus, however, has stocked it with nasty spirits, and thus Pandora carelessly unleashes sickness, pestilence, and misfortunes on mankind. (Note: it is actually not a box but more a clay “vessel” or “jar,” but we can thank Erasmus for the confusion.)
Now, as mentioned, the above myths of Prometheus’s theft of fire and Pandora’s creation are included in standard versions of the Theogony, but in the fragment I reconstructed, not only does the sequence of events change, but also the substance of the myth itself.
In the extra fifty-one lines, Hephaestus unexpectedly falls in love with Pandora as he is making her. At first the blacksmith feels affection and friendship (philia) for Pandora, then passion (eros), and eventually unconditional love (agape). Day after day, Zeus comes to see if the maiden is finished and ready to be sent off to Epimetheus, but Hephaestus puts him off, always saying that he has more work to do.
Hephaestus eventually lies with Pandora, and they have a child. Hephaestus names his child Emmenona: a variation of emme/mona, a Greek term meaning “to be lost in a passion.” (It is the poet Lumenius who later translates Emmenona into Perdita, from the Latin for “lost,” i.e., perditus.)
Hephaestus and Pandora’s connubial happiness soon ends. Zeus sends a messenger announcing that the maiden must be ready by the next day. Deeply attached to Pandora but fearful of Zeus’s disapproval, Hephaestus hatches a plan. He tells Pandora that they must part, but he promises that it will only be a temporary separation, for Hephaestus plans to secretly abduct her and put the blame for her disappearance on mankind. As a precaution, he convinces Pandora to preserve their three loves—philia, eros, and agape—by tying them up in a bundle and giving them to their child, Emmenona/Perdita, whom he hides away in his forge. Hephaestus, however (and unbeknownst to Pandora), adds a fourth love to Perdita’s bundle: biophilia.
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