“Who?”
“Jane Austen. Maybe you want to see it. Got to be worth millions.”
“Billions,” said Stella.
“Get out,” said the professor.
2.
The professor lived with his mother only because he had a wing of the house to himself. He wasn’t proud of being born wealthy, but he was proud of the job he’d landed and felt that eight years of grad school were enough debasement for anyone. He refused to live in Somerville.
He set aside the latest political screed from Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and looked across the bed at his most promising student. An open paperback of Pride and Prejudice lay upon Cheryl’s naked middle like an oak leaf in an old painting. Next week’s reading.
“What did that pirate give you?” he asked.
“What pirate?”
“The one in class. I saw him give you something on the way out.”
“It was a museum brochure. Something about a Jane Austen exhibit.”
“Angling for a date. That explains it. The one thing pussy literature is good for is meeting girls.”
“You’re as sexist as he is. Why do you teach Jane Austen if you hate her so much?”
“You don’t have to be sexist to hate girly books.” He tried to take her hand, but she swatted his fingers away. It suddenly seemed crucial to persuade her that she too was on the side of the lustful, the vigorous, the great writers. “The female writers I love are the ‘problem women’ of their time, too passionate for polite society, like the Brontës, Flannery O’Connor, Patricia Highsmith, Toni Morrison. They never confuse wit for intellectual courage. Their characters scheme, cry out in fury, and sometimes even think about sex. You’re more like them than Elizabeth Bennet. So was Jane Austen, if she was honest.”
“So why do you teach her?”
“Because the class is popular, I’m a first-year prof, and I value my job.”
“If you value your job, what am I doing here?”
“What else could we do? You don’t choose love; it takes you.”
She leaned across the bed but instead of delivering the deserved kiss to his cheek, she whispered, “Is that your mom?”
He heard clomping down the hallway. They tumbled off the bed and scrambled for clothes. His mother’s seagull voice careened into the room. “Charles!” The door began to open. He was tenure-track at one of the city’s top five (or so) universities, but neither his wing nor his bedroom had a lock.
His mother stared at him and Cheryl. He had at least managed to pull on jeans and a t-shirt. He tried to toe his boxers under the bed.
“So the rumors are true,” she said. “Here’s your mail.” She tossed a few envelopes on the dresser. Charles snatched up one from his department chair and stuffed it in his pocket.
“We’re discussing Pride and Prejudice,” he said. “She’s in my seminar.”
His mother looked at Cheryl, then at the cotton dress she’d just whipped on, then at the tag sticking out the back. “I’m sure a disadvantaged girl like yourself finds much encouragement in that book.” She had turned to direct her words to the room’s centerpiece painting , which she always swore was a Poussin, though its dodgy provenance meant she couldn’t display it in a more public place. His mother was well known for her accommodating tastes in art dealers. “I suppose your father is something virtuous, like a policeman or a tennis instructor?”
“You’d have to ask him,” said Cheryl. “First you’d have to find him. My mother’s a bank teller.”
“And you’re an English major. I’m sure she hopes you go to law school.”
“All she wants for me is a job where I don’t have to make change.”
“Consider taking credit cards, dear. Charles, when you’re done disgracing your profession, please make an appearance downstairs, where the Boston Austen will assemble at eight this evening. I promised them the benefits of your wisdom on Fanny Price and her disgusting family. Good-bye.”
“The Boston Austen Society!” Cheryl’s hastily assembled expression of awe was dynamic enough to impress, if not fool, Charles’s mother, who always accepted flattery. “Mrs. Cowen, maybe you can help me. If somebody found a letter written by Jane Austen, how much would it be worth?”
Mrs. Cowen could never resist being taken seriously on her favorite subject. “Nothing. A few thousand at best. Our Jane wrote countless letters, and hundreds survive. Unless, of course, it were something like the Wentworth letter she wrote to her sister Cassandra. Why do you ask? Rounding out your collection of Georgian correspondence?”
Charles was used to suppressing rage at his mother’s snobbishness, but Cheryl’s willingness to be mocked was almost as infuriating. Her imperviousness to embarrassment was one of the traits he least loved and most admired in her. He thought of the letter in his pocket.
“Is this Wentworth letter important?” Cheryl asked.
“I think so. You might disagree; you might be an idiot,” his mother answered. “It contains, to my mind, the most passionate expression of love in English literature. In the letter, Jane tells her sister that a mysterious Mr. C. wrote to her—I quote from memory—‘You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.’”
“But I just read that in Persuasion!”
“Exactly,” said Charles. “To portray genuine passion, Austen plagiarized her boyfriend.”
“Incorporated his words,” his mother corrected, “in her typically magnificent manner. Yes, these lines become Captain Wentworth’s famous declaration of love in Persuasion. How appropriate to abandon her own style for that of her paramour! If only this Mr. C. hadn’t lost his courage, Jane might have lived.” Mrs. Cowen sighed grandly. “The letter’s discovery three years ago upended Austen studies and inspired the first emergency meeting in the history of the Boston Austen. I would have called another in July, when it was stolen, but for that taxing scandal at the Fornicultural Society, as we call it.”
“The letter was stolen?” Cheryl edged closer to Mrs. Cowen, her tag wagging behind her. Charles was ashamed by his urge to tuck it out of sight, as he had tucked away the poisonous letter from his department chair.
“Stolen along with a Gutenberg Bible and the manuscript of A Christmas Carol. They never caught the thief. The loss is incalculable. I personally would give up everything in this house for the letter: every painting, vase, or underachieving son, just to hold it to my heart for a quiet moment. I’d give quite a bit more to show it off to my friends.” She promenaded out the door, calling, “Come down in 15 minutes, Charles. Without concubine.”
Charles began rummaging in his closet for the tweed jacket he kept solely to impress elderly women with intellectual pretentions. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be leaving,” he said to Cheryl, because for some reason, she wasn’t.
“The brochure,” she said. “The one pirate Alex gave me. It was from the Morgan Library. That guy has the letter. That’s why he came to your class. He wanted to find what it was worth and who he could sell it to.”
“Our friend doesn’t strike me as that crafty. Anyway, if he has the letter he can keep it.”
“What if we tried to get it back?”
“Why would we do that?”
“People like me don’t have time for adventures in search of a hidden truth. Even now I’m thinking about getting to my job at the dining hall. When I have a free moment, I’m just like Jane Austen’s characters—fretting about money and trying not to obsess about sex. Maybe you’re not like that, but I am. I tell myself I’ve never had enough leisure, or money, or genius to devote myself to one of those ideas that demand action. Instead, all I seem to do is worry about being with the man I love. But now here’s my chance to do something—well, not something brilliant, but at least daring. I don’t care what you say: Jane Austen was important, and saving her letter is worth taking a risk.”
Charles wanted to leap up and rescue her from some ravening danger. And then he h
ad an idea of his own. “You’re absolutely right. But I only have his name. It’s probably fake. We’ll have to see if he shows up for the next class.”
“Maybe not.” Cheryl held up a brochure for the Morgan Library. Attached was a post-it note with phone number and the cheery command: “Call me, Gorgeus!”
3.
The next day, after two guarded phone calls to Somerville and one highly illuminating mother-son conference, Charles ushered Alex into the foyer. He wore a Red Sox hat and a Dustin Pedroia shirt and probably Red Sox underwear. He immediately produced the document, which he held between his palms, safe from his considerable fingertip grease. “Don’t touch.” He swept his hands apart and let it drift to the table. Charles was wearing gloves, but he still didn’t touch.
Only a specialist could have deciphered the cramped writing, but the paper looked authentic.
As he sat back, Alex ogled the surrounding paintings.
“My mother doesn’t really want to, ah, be introduced,” Charles said. “She’s in the next room. I’ll just show it to her.”
Alex pulled out a revolver. “No you won’t.”
Charles steeled himself not to glance back at Cheryl. His gloved hands had instinctively drifted up in the air and now hung there like bats. “You don’t need that here. I just want to show my mother the letter. She’s the one with the money. You can watch us if you want. I’ll leave the door open a crack.”
The gun muzzle, to the professor’s great relief, slid off Charles’s body. But when it stopped, it was aimed at Cheryl.
“You’ll leave the door open a lot. And you’ll leave the lady here.”
Cheryl shook her head. “I can’t.” Charles could barely hear her.
“We need a moment.”
Alex glowered but nodded with both head and gun.
Charles stood carefully, his knees creaking with the unnaturally slow movement, and drew Cheryl out of her chair and to the far corner of the room, making sure her back was to Alex.
“You can’t leave me with him,” Cheryl whispered. “I don’t want the letter that much. I don’t want anything that much.” She tried to smile. “I guess I’m a Jane Austen girl after all.”
“We’re not after the letter. We’re after the money. Cheryl, they found out about us. The dean wants to see me Thursday. He’s going to fire me.”
“I’ll testify, I’ll lie for you, I don’t care.”
“I won’t do that to you.” He knew it wouldn’t help. They wouldn’t send a letter unless they had hard evidence. Someone was standing up against him, either one of the jealous young girls or one of the jealous old professors. “I’ll quit first. But I need money. We need money. Our cut would be enough for me to chuck off my job and my mother and everything else but you. I’ll take all the risks. You just have to sit here.”
“With him.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not enough anymore just to be passionate and brilliant. It’s not enough to be Jane Austen. You have to take action.”
“Time’s up,” called Alex.
Cheryl slouched back to her chair. From behind, Charles watched her shoulders quiver for a moment, then settle. Or freeze. “Go.”
In the drawing room, his mother seized the letter.
“It’s Jane’s writing.” She had her iPad open to the Morgan Library website. “That’s an image from the exhibition catalog. Expand the view. The script matches perfectly. Oh!”
“What?”
“It’s so beautiful.”
“So do you want it?”
“Of course I do. Try for one hundred thousand, offer six hundred, settle for a million. Not a penny more. The ladies will be so jealous! I can only trust a few, but then, they’re the most important.”
One million dollars. And he planned to get most of it. Everything I’ve ever done, Charles thought, my grades, my essay prize, my PhD., landing the best job of anyone in my program: all bullshit. Now I can admit it. The thing about action, he now understood, is you only have to take it once—as long as you make it stick. “Good. When can you get the money?”
“As soon as Professor Timothy confirms its authenticity.”
“What?”
“He’s one of our favorite archival experts, a great respecter of confidentiality, and thankfully, not an Austenian. He’ll have no idea what he’s looking at, but he can date the paper and the ink as well as anyone. The Fogg uses him. My friends have also relied on him for less regular requests.”
“Mom, we don’t have time.”
“Don’t be a sucker, Charles.” Her eyes shifted and narrowed. Charles turned.
Cheryl, hunched and pale, was entering the room, smiling unnaturally. A gnarled claw lay upon her shoulder. Alex’s head loomed above.
“Unhand the slut,” said Mrs. Cowen, pivoting to speak to the painting of her grandfather, who, according to family legend, should often have taken the same advice. “Or better, take her with you when you go. I don’t know you and don’t wish to.”
“She’ll buy it,” said Charles.
“One million,” said Alex. He had obviously heard them.
“One million,” Charles agreed. “We just need to have it tested. Don’t worry. We know a guy.” Mrs. Cowen snorted at him. “He’ll just date the ink and paper; he won’t read the thing. He’s very discreet.”
Alex grimaced and Cheryl gasped. “Let her go,” Charles said, loudly but too late for his own piece of mind. Cheryl was risking and suffering far more than he was.
“No deal,” said Alex.
Mrs. Cowen deigned to look at him for the first time. She seemed to approve of what she found. “I can hardly write a check for—”
“I don’t take checks.”
“American Express?” Mrs. Cowen giggled. “No, it’ll be cash, of course. I’m not as innocent as I look. But I won’t be taken. Do you know my friend Estelle Hockhauser? Do any of your colleagues deal in African bronzes? I’m babbling. You’ll have the cash, but we need time for expert verification. I’m sure you understand. Perhaps you’ve heard of Professor Nelson Timothy?”
It seemed unlikely, but perhaps Alex had. “I’ll give you 24 hours.”
“He’s never that quick,” said Mrs. Cowen.
“Then no deal.”
“Wait.” Cheryl stepped forward, away from the man and the gun at her back. “I’ll ask Professor Timothy. He flirts with his students. Everyone knows it. He’ll do it quickly for me.”
Alex let the gun droop. “You ask him,” he said. “But talk to any cops and we come for you. I know where you live. I know where you’re from.” He named an address in Ohio. “So do my friends. So don’t try anything smart.”
“We promise,” Charles said.
4.
Nelson Timothy, Stoughton Library Professor and Curator of Manuscripts, clumsily swapped reading for regular glasses to identify the intruders in his office. He grinned at Charles and then gawked at Cheryl. He wasn’t flirting. He knew. Everyone knew. Charles could only pretend not to notice. Alex was waiting outside.
“This crackerjack student of mine,” Charles said, pumping each word full of purely avuncular fondness, “with some help from my mother, has uncovered a fascinating letter in a local archive. It supposedly came from Somerset in England. We think it dates from around 1805. Would you mind examining the paper and ink to test our guess? My mother, by the way, is considering engaging you for another round of lectures for the Society. She always speaks highly of your acumen and, of course, discretion.”
“You know I’d do anything for you and your dear mother, Charles.” His glasses almost skidded off his nose as he accepted the manila envelope.
“We need the results by tomorrow afternoon at two. You can just drop them off at my office.”
“Tomorrow. Impossible!” He grinned gratefully, as if Charles had intentionally provided a way out.
“Professor Timothy.” Cheryl loomed closer, her tanned and delicate hand not alighting on his arm but hovering just within its aura. “I have to subm
it results tomorrow for publication. This could save my scholarship.” The brown butterfly floated up to her cheek in unconscious desperation.
Whether it was Cheryl’s poetic wretchedness or Charles’s implied bribery that convinced him, Timothy agreed.
“Was that intellectual courage?” Cheryl murmured as they left.
“Elizabeth Bennet couldn’t have done it.”
“She wouldn’t have trafficked in stolen goods either. I’m glad we’re saving the letter from that gangster, but I hope our cut is a big one.”
“Bigger than you think.”
Alex lifted his dripping face from the drinking fountain in the hallway and escorted them to their car.
5.
The only clock in Charles’s office was on his computer. A few pixels blinked, and another minute was gone. Cheryl dandled her backpack on her knees like a baby. Alex steadied her with a twitch of his gun.
A knock on the door. “It’s Nelson!”
Cheryl sprang to the door. Alex pocketed the gun and rocked to his feet.
“My dear—” Timothy began.
“Thank you so much! This is the report?” Cheryl snatched an envelope from him.
Alex got in his face. “We’re real busy. Prof gave me a bullshit grade.”
“Oh! Dear.” Timothy stepped back in confusion. “I’ll just—”
“He’ll call you.” Alex shut and locked the door behind him.
Charles stood and started to reach for the envelope. Suddenly, the world spun and before he could even gasp, his face was mashed against his wall calendar, his right arm pinned up against his back, and Alex’s breath in his ear. It was all done with frighteningly little pain.
“You don’t move unless I say.” Alex pulled upward on his arm. Now that was pain. “Sit down.”
Charles turned and slid back into his chair with as little movement as possible. Cheryl, pale, was once again clutching her backpack for comfort.
“Open the envelope.”
Cheryl did. She pulled out a simple printed page.
“Lay it on the desk.”
They all read it together:
Dear Charles and Student,
The watermarks on the manuscript’s paper indicate an origin in the west of England (perhaps Somerset) between 1805 and 1815, certainly no earlier than 1800. Visual analysis of the ink suggests a date in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and a composition of tannin, iron sulfate, gum arabic, and water. When first applied to paper, this type of ink appears pale-gray; as it is exposed to air, it darkens to a rich blue-black tone, as here. Your hypothesis of an 1805 date appears to be reasonable.
The Malfeasance Occasional Page 4