The Madwoman Upstairs

by Catherine Lowell

  To my surprise, a muscle in Rebecca’s neck twitched. I had caught her attention.

  “That’s what he left you?” she said, her voice at a higher pitch. “A bookmark?” Her foot started tapping—soft and uneven.

  “It was my Emily Dickinson bookmark,” I clarified. “Red. Gold tassels. Looks a bit like yours?”

  Rebecca was visibly uncomfortable. I don’t know how, but I had struck a nerve. She stood, then walked toward me again, quickly this time. I thought she might be going for the jugular, but instead she stopped in front of me.

  “I thought there were only two bookmarks,” she said. “His and mine.”

  “He gave one to all his women, I guess.”

  Her poker face was even worse than mine. She took a few steps back, turned to face the fireplace, and stood there for a longer time than I thought she would.

  “While you’re ruminating over there, may I blackmail you?” I said. “I know several thousand people in the press who might like to give the story of you and my father a fresh go. Don’t you think it will be a particularly interesting slant when this time, it’s told by the wronged daughter, the Last Brontë? I’m very sorry to threaten you—really, I am—but I don’t want to be expelled.”

  When Rebecca turned around, her eyes were steely. I had never blackmailed anyone before, and it didn’t feel as great as it seemed to in films. Rebecca was expressionless. Her mind was somewhere else entirely. Had I won?

  I didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out. I said, “I’ll go.”

  “Not so quickly,” she snapped. Again, she walked toward me. She was not a young woman, and up close I could see how the years had carved wrinkles around her mouth.

  “Yes?” I said.

  Silently, she reached out to me with one hand. “My bookmark, please?”

  I didn’t know quite how to respond. I said: “I—that is—I don’t carry it around.”

  Our eyes met. There was a cold malice in her face that told me how little I understood of her story—or anything, really. I took her silence as an opportunity to escape. Quietly, I opened the door and stepped into the hallway, leaving her in Orville’s office.

  With the door shut safely behind me, I ran down the hall and down the stairs and ejected myself from the building. I was gasping for air. I should have been relieved: I had avoided expulsion, for the time being. But as I walked into the cold, bright afternoon, I couldn’t help but think that Rebecca’s rancor was merely biding its time before it found me again. So wise so young, they say, do never live long.

  At two fifteen that Saturday, there was a knock on my door. Three taps, followed by a loud bang. I leapt to the door to find Marvin, dressed in a scratchy black coat. Behind him was the usual pile of tourists—a smaller crowd, this time, perhaps owing to the arctic weather. Usually, Marvin apologized for taking me by surprise. This time, however, I’d been expecting him.

  He frowned when he saw me. “Is everything all right?”

  I realized that I was holding a broom and wearing a Sweeney Todd smile. I had been waiting for the tour all morning. My room was nearly sterile. The bed was made, the socks were gone, the bedsheet was no longer covering The Governess. Rebecca had suggested I pay attention to his tour, so here I was. It was possible—just possible—that Marvin was the answer to my problems.

  I said, “Come in, please.”

  The tour group filtered inside. Marvin seemed to be debating whether he was entering some sort of trap. My cleaning spree had left the tower looking and smelling like a newly minted hotel room.

  “Please, step inside, step inside,” I said. “Come closer. That’s right.”

  “Yes, yes,” Marvin said. “Do come in.” His voice was thin but loud, and he seemed to be grasping for authority. The last of the tour group squeezed inside.

  “As I mentioned, this is the tower,” Marvin said. “It was built in 1361 to quarantine victims of the bubonic plague. It is known by some as the Tower of Extinction.”

  I interjected: “They call it that because no one in here procreates.”

  Marvin looked at me in mild surprise.

  I cleared my throat. “Is it all right if I take the tour too?”

  He seemed surprised, then mumbled something I did not understand. It might have been “How delightful.”

  I heard a click. Someone had already snapped a photograph. It was the woman up front—baggy jeans, a pale rag of blonde hair—who was looking between me and Marvin as if waiting for the show. Marvin pointed the tour group in the direction of the back corner, and I took a seat on my bed, cross-legged.

  “Some of the most famous and enigmatic inhabitants of Old College lived in this tower,” he said. “If you look closely, you’ll find that it became a tradition for each one to leave something behind for posterity, which is perhaps why the room holds so much interest for us today. Right over here—turn this way, please—you can see the exact location where Sir Michael Morehouse’s cat was buried alive. Do you see the discoloration of the brick, right about here? That is exactly where the poor creature was buried. Not two centimeters away, right here, you can also see the claw marks left by the Beast of Bologne.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Someone interrupted—I realized it was me. I was hugging my pillow, rocking back and forth slightly. The tour group turned to have a look in my direction.

  Marvin looked back at me, eyebrow raised. “Yes, Miss Whipple?”

  “Who was the very last inhabitant of this tower before me?” I asked.

  Marvin looked ruffled. His mustache twitched. I wondered if I should tell him that it was slightly uneven.

  He said: “I prefer to go chronologically.”

  I pressed, “Did anyone live here during the last century?”

  “We are not quite there yet.”

  “Can we go in reverse order? I’m impatient.”

  Apparently, I had chosen to unleash my inner American at a very bad time. Marvin let out a shallow breath before saying, “Yes, yes—one inhabitant. You can glimpse his faded initials over that way—do you see?”

  He pointed to three very faint, quiet letters etched into the wall, about a foot below The Governess.

  J.H.E.

  I paused. “I see.”

  “It—”

  I interrupted him again. “The initials,” I said. “What do they stand for?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The initials, the initials.”

  Marvin blinked. “Jack Halford, Esquire.”

  “Jack Halford.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Esquire?”

  “Miss Whipple, are you quite all right?”

  “I mean, shit.”

  Marvin’s eyes flew open. “Pardon?”

  “Shit.”

  Marvin looked around. Censors, censors?—where were the censors? I reached under my pillow and pulled out The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Rebecca’s bookmark poked out of it like a land mine. Marvin, now considerably miffed, continued talking. I stopped listening. It seemed as though I was standing on top of a tall building, seeing a city from a great distance. I flipped open the book. In enormous font at the top of page one were the words To J. Halford, Esq. J.H.E was Gilbert Markham’s “very old friend.” A fictional character, it seemed, had just popped up on my wall.

  My chest rose and fell in quick succession. It was impossible, for a brief moment; then it was the most possible thing in the entire world. Tristan Whipple. Snodgrass Diddleworm. Jack Halford. My father’s entourage of names. Dad was here—he had been here all this time, hiding in the corners of this room. I looked around in quiet disbelief. J.H.E. What had my father once said? It’s the only place you can read the writing on the wall.

  “Jack Halford lived here?” I interrupted. My mouth was dry. “He was a student? When?”

  Marvin, who I realized had been midsentence, turned to face me. “The Thatcher years,” he said, agitated. “Really, we’ll get there in a moment, if you’ll just wait—”


  “Thirty years?” I said. “Goddammit, thirty years.”

  Marvin waffled, then turned to the tour group apologetically. He explained, “Jack Halford was one of Old College’s most famous eccentrics. His misadventures were legendary.”

  “Did he ever have an affair with a professor?” I asked.

  Marvin snapped: “Let’s not get off topic.”

  “Is that why they call it Halford’s Well?” I asked him. “Because that’s where they did it?”

  “Would you kindly be quiet?” said Marvin.

  The tour group stared at me blankly. Marvin cleared his throat to try to regain control of the situation. I leaned back on my bed. The room around me was fattening with significance, squeezing everyone else out. There seemed to be ghosts materializing all around me—applauding, applauding—welcoming me into the small world of people who had figured it out. Everything around me was suddenly different and precious. The boarded-up fireplace no longer seemed like a prison accessory; it was an intimate secret between friends and outcasts. All of this had once been my father’s. He had been a student here, somehow. Every time I had paced or tripped over a loose floorboard or contemplated banging my head against the desk in frustration . . . my father had done the same, once upon a time. This room—this glorious, unruly room!—was designed for people who were hopelessly lost and trying to find each other.

  I stuffed The Tenant of Wildfell Hall back underneath my pillow, wondering how my father had managed to pull off such an extensive disappearing act. Surely one could not invent a name so easily. And yet, my father always prided himself on his knack for invisibility when the time called for it. I suppose he and the Brontës had that in common.

  All that I should have been doing, this entire year, was listen to Marvin. As he engaged the increasingly disengaged tour group, I made a slow sweep of the space with my eyes. That broom—had that been my father’s? No, no. The desk? The bed? Were those his claw marks on the wall? Then, my eyes alighted on the painting on the back wall. It was half-visible from behind a bald man’s shiny scalp. The Governess and I stared each other right in the eye. I breathed very steadily, in and out.

  Sir Michael Morehouse had left behind his cat. The Beast of Bologne had left his claw marks. And Jack Halford? I kept staring at The Governess. Well—he had left behind his painting.

  The next day, I made my way to the Plodge. I found Hans sitting there, looking like a shiny trophy. His computer monitor suggested he was working on a graph and a spreadsheet, but at the moment Hans had his feet up on the desk and was reading the Hornbeam. He was wearing a beaded bracelet, which I decided was not something I would remember in the story version of our relationship. When I walked in, he put down the paper in a hurry as if he had instead been watching porn.

  “Hullo!” he said. I appreciated the way he acted as though nothing was ever wrong between us, even though nothing had ever been right.

  “They make you work weekends?” I asked.

  “Just catching up on some things,” he said, moving a wad of papers off his desk. I was having a hard time remembering what his job actually was, but it was too far into our acquaintance to ask him now.

  “You look out of breath,” he said.

  “It’s cold out there.”

  “I’ll make us something—hot cocoa?”

  “Some water would be great, actually.”

  “No hot cocoa?”

  “Water sounds easier.”

  He grinned. “So I want something hot, and you want something easy.”

  I blinked and didn’t answer. I’m sure he interpreted my silence as disinterest. Really, I was just awkward. I didn’t know what to say. I noticed he wasn’t getting up to fetch a glass of water.

  I sat down in the seat across from him and said, “Can I ask you for some help?”

  “Always.”

  I let out a breath. “Your computer looks large and official. Does that mean you have the power to look up the records of old students?”

  He laughed. “You have that power, too, through your student account.”

  “I see,” I said. “Would you please look up a Mr. Jack Halford for me? I’d like to know how long he was a student here.”

  “Still thinking about that well?” he asked, smiling. But he turned to his computer and typed something on the keyboard. He was an aggressive typist and the sound brought to mind a horde of cockroaches.

  “Jack Snodgrass Halford,” he read, then looked back at me. “Looks as if he never graduated.”

  “Was he expelled?”

  “It doesn’t actually say, but that seems likely. It’s fairly well known that he had an affair with his tutor.”

  “It was his tutor?”

  “He was a student of math; she was his tutor.”

  I was silent for some time.

  “Is anything the matter?” Hans asked finally.

  “No. Yes. It’s just very strange that he studied math, don’t you think?”

  He thought about it. “No, not really. Why should it be?”

  I didn’t respond. None of this made much sense. I could imagine why Dad chose a fake name—he always opted for invisibility in environments in which Whipple would draw too much attention. Yet I could not rationalize why he chose to study math—or, more important, why he never bothered mentioning it.

  “Do we know anything about him?” I asked. “Where he came from? What he looks like?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Hans. “There was a picture taken the night—”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “But his face isn’t visible.”

  My cheeks grew red. How many people had seen a picture of my father’s little tryst, I wondered? I studied my fingers and pretended to find something interesting under a nail. I suppose I now understand the high scandal Rebecca had spoken of; this was not an affair between two regular adults but an affair between a student and his teacher. Finally, I stood up.

  “Thank you for your help,” I said. “It was very kind.”

  “Wait a moment,” said Hans. “Let’s talk this out.”

  My breathing was shallow. “I can’t. I have to call someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” I said. “Maybe my mother.”

  “I thought the two of you didn’t talk.”

  “It’s my father who I’m not speaking to anymore.”

  I started walking to the door. I stopped, then turned around. “Hans?”

  “Samantha?”

  “Out of curiosity, have you ever seen anything perfectly ordinary lying around Old College that might be old and famous? Like a sketch? Or a rug? Or a really interesting doorknob?”

  He frowned. “Pardon?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “Just curious.”

  I stepped outside, head pounding. I was pleased to confirm that Dad was once a student here. But I could not help but wonder whether he and I had been such good friends, after all. Friends confided in other friends; they told them all the lurid details about their pasts, even when those details were unflattering. It unnerved me to think that my father may have been closer to Rebecca than he had been to me. I thought back to the triumphant look I had seen on her face. They had a secret history, the two of them, and I would never be a part of it. I walked back to my lonely tower, with the sudden feeling that everything I’d ever known might vanish in front of my eyes.

  To: “James Timothy Orville” jorville@old.ox.ac.uk

  From: “Samantha J. Whipple” swhipple@old.ox.ac.uk

  Subject: Request

  Dear Dr. Orville,

  Hello. This is difficult for me to write, as I would prefer never to see you again. But would you please drop by my Tower sometime tomorrow afternoon?

  Cordially,

  Samantha

  To: “Samantha J. Whipple” swhipple@old.ox.ac.uk

  From: “James Timothy Orville” jorville@old.ox.ac.uk

  Subject: RE: Request

  Dear Samantha,

  No. I hope
you understand.

  Best,

  O

  To: “James Timothy Orville” jorville@old.ox.ac.uk

  From: “Samantha J. Whipple” swhipple@old.ox.ac.uk

  Subject: RE: RE: Request

  You don’t understand. I have a very old painting to show you. If you’re worried that it will be a waste of your time, I’ll make sure that we also do a dramatic reading of Paradise Lost.

  To: “Samantha J. Whipple” swhipple@old.ox.ac.uk

  From: “James Timothy Orville” jorville@old.ox.ac.uk

  Subject: RE: RE: RE: Request

  It will not work; I will be leaving town later tonight for a long weekend.

  To: “James Timothy Orville” jorville@old.ox.ac.uk

  From: “Samantha J. Whipple” swhipple@old.ox.ac.uk

  Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: Request

  Then come this evening—early?

  To: “James Timothy Orville” jorville@old.ox.ac.uk

  From: “Samantha J. Whipple” swhipple@old.ox.ac.uk

  Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Request

  Sir?

  It grew late in the afternoon, and then early in the evening, and I still had not heard back from Orville. I began packing for my trip to the Brontë Parsonage. I did not appreciate that Orville was going out of town as well. Like an angry wife, I wanted to know where he would be and with whom he would be cavorting. It occurred to me that I didn’t even know where his home was, let alone that he had one. Did he have siblings too? A closet stuffed with old shoes and a living room filled with crayon drawings? A Brazilian wife wearing black leggings and ballet flats? There was a huge storm forecast for this weekend; I wondered if he was about to escape to the tropics.

  I sat down on my bed, staring at The Governess, which was hanging on the wall like an expensive Picasso. I had tried to find her in Sir John’s book of missing artifacts, but she hadn’t made it in. Sir John must have had no idea of this painting’s existence. My father must have wanted it that way.

  I looked my governess friend straight in the eye. Locked in her lonely frame, drowning in an indifferent black sea, she was a Brontë in her own right. Her formless body and blank eyes seemed to take up the whole room. It was a weekend of transformation, and the Governess, too, seemed different. Maybe she was just out for a nice swim with her favorite book. I sat down on my bed and stared at her wonderful, disturbed face. How had I not recognized her as a relative before? Perhaps my entire life was to be spent reevaluating all the people I thought I knew best.