The Northbury Papers

by Joanne Dobson

  I glanced up at my student. “You think …?”

  She nodded. “Tibby’s noted for his cartooning skills; as you can tell, he’s good at it.” And, indeed, there was undeniable graphic skill apparent in the clownish sketch.

  “Do you want to take this to—?”

  “No!”

  “You could have a legal case against him. I think this could be considered hate speech; it was mailed to you and was obviously intended as a message.”

  “I don’t ever want to go to court again.” Her lower lip trembled. “I just want to understand why someone would do something like this. I thought maybe you could help me figure it out.”

  “He’s a racist pig.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not good enough, Professor. I’ve been living with racism since I was born; it’s in the air I breathe. There’s something more going on here. Some peculiar twist …”

  Three students with varying degrees of African-American heritage appropriated the table next to ours. The dark, slender young man I’d seen with Shamega earlier in the semester grinned at her, made a fake gun out of his fingers, and pulled the trigger. She stuck her tongue out at him. “See you, later?” she called to him.

  “You bet!” All three young men at the next table were garbed in the baggy apparel of the streets. An in-your-face style statement directed at the more typical preppy types of the dominant white student population.

  She turned back to me. “My break is over, Professor. Can we talk another time?”

  “Sure. How about later this afternoon? Right now, I’ve got to get back to those papers.”

  I spent the rest of the workday reading through sermon drafts, account books, and dutiful family letters. None of them bore any signs of the passion Pinkworth had shown in that one letter to Serena. It was tedious and boring work, and I was relieved when I came to the end of the material in the last file box. But that final document jolted me awake.

  6 November 1860

  Father,

  Word of your condition has reached me here in New-York, and I am reluctant to allow the breach between us to remain unmended into Eternity. You are a cold, hard man and I—as you have made quick to inform me on a multitude of occasions in my unhappy youth—am a passionate and willful woman, even so far beyond your imagining. Yet, Father, I am willing to tender forgiveness on the edge of the grave, and do so with a whole heart despite both our failings. If I were sufficiently well to travel, the first cars would see me on the way to Enfield and to the long watch love would not begrudge. But I am—[Here she had scratched a word out, and I was unable to decipher it under the heavy scoring of the dark brown ink.]—ill, and my position is precarious. Nonetheless, did not my children depend solely upon my efforts for their earthly support, I would risk the journey, and happily so. Its consequences in any other case might prove a welcome reprieve. But my duties lie more with the living than with one soon to be gathered to his own Father’s divine bosom.

  Go peacefully, my father, and think upon your prodigal with some slight fondness in the end.

  Your Daughter,

  Serena Northbury

  Whew! Twenty-five years between his letter and hers. Had the estrangement lasted that long? And had the letter reached Edmund Pinkworth in time? I wanted to know more—much more—about the family tragedy unfolding here after a century and a half of oblivion.

  “Millie,” I said to the librarian, “there’s no more Pinkworth material listed in the computer. And nothing at all by the reverend’s daughter, Serena Northbury, even though she was a well-known writer. Is there any possibility you’ve got more secreted away somewhere in the collection? Maybe filed under some other heading?”

  Millie’s nostrils flared, as if I’d impugned her cataloging abilities. “Everything I know of has been listed, Karen. Of course, there’s no saying what might have been misfiled in the past. As you, yourself, know,” she added, portentously, “from your unfortunate experience at Harvard.”

  “Yes,” I replied, “I do know.” A misfiled document at Harvard’s Houghton Library had led to murder during the previous year’s “incidents” at Enfield College. I shuddered as I reluctantly recalled the peril I myself had faced because of some anonymous librarian’s long-ago oversight. I didn’t particularly want to gossip about that occurrence with Millie, so I changed the subject. “Is Shamega still around? There’s something I want to ask her.”

  “She left at four. That poor girl works two jobs, here and as a cook at Rudolph’s.”

  “That’s right. I’d forgotten,” I said. There’d be no talking to Shamega until tomorrow morning.

  Back at my office, I checked my mailbox before heading home for the evening. Three envelopes, one delivered by U.S. Mail, the others by campus mail. I opened the official Enfield College English Department envelope first. I thought I knew what it was, and I was right: a copy of Miles’s letter to the Administration requesting a reconsideration of the college’s acceptance of the Northbury Center bequest. Naming a research center after a subliterary hack, he wrote, would valorize mediocrity and demean the historical reputation of the college for excellence, integrity, and rigorous scholarship. He recommended that the Board of Trustees gratefully but gracefully decline the generous but misguided gesture of Dr. Lydia Hart.

  In your dreams, Miles, I thought. A fabulous property with a ten-million-dollar endowment? The college would do back flips over a bed of burning coals to keep the bequest. In his letter Miles listed all the reasons he’d outlined to me two days earlier, only without the sputtering. I shrugged, and laid the letter on my desk. This was Avery’s problem, not mine.

  I reached for the second business-size envelope with its Manhattan return address. Once again, a copy of a letter to Avery about the center—this one from Dr. Willis Thorpe. While his old friend Edith’s bequest of Meadowbrook for use as a resource for studying women writers seemed to him to be a particularly appropriate use of the property, he would like to suggest that the college consider the possibility of a name change. Rather than simply the Northbury Center for American Women Writers, the new research library should be called the Northbury/Hart Center. This renaming, he felt, would honor the generosity of the donor as well as the literary accomplishment of her ancestor. Hmm, I thought. I liked the idea, but was it legally possible? I’d talk it over with Avery.

  Preoccupied with Will Thorpe’s suggestion, I reached for the final envelope with minimal concentration, slit it open, and pulled out a sheet of lined notebook paper. One look, and my eyes were riveted. The paper in my hand contained a cartoon sketch. A ludicrous caricature of a tall, skinny white woman with a long, thin nose, and straight dark hair falling over scrawny shoulders. Me. And, like Shamega’s caricature, mine, too, wore nothing but an enormous pointy bra and huge flowered panties. The only difference was, instead of being circled in black, my image was circled—and slashed—in red.

  Was this some kind of a threat? I could call Security, I could call Earlene, and I intended to do both. But first I had to talk to Shamega. I checked my watch. Six-ten. The dinner rush. I wasn’t hungry, but I headed for Rudolph’s, nonetheless. Maybe I could catch her for a few minutes between peeling carrots and boning trout.

  Shamega was inexorable. Wrapped in a huge white apron and standing in front of a half dozen tightly lidded garbage cans in the alley behind the restaurant’s kitchen, she lashed out. “Professor, you can’t do this to me! I showed you that ugly thing in confidence. I refuse to be dragged into another sex scandal! If you tell anyone else about that cartoon, I’ll tear it up, burn it, deny I ever got it. I swear I will! I just want to get through my last year of college and graduate without any humiliation. I deserve that, don’t I? I’m sorry I ever trusted you with this, and I won’t go to the authorities. No. No. No. No!” Her dark skin had taken on a grayish cast; her lips had paled.

  I reached out and placed my hand on hers. “Okay, Shamega, okay. I should have known you would feel strongly about this. I’ve been insensitive, I supp
ose. But I’m angry, and that makes me want to do something about this—harassment. And it is harassment—”

  “One stupid cartoon!”

  I’d forgotten she didn’t know about the one I’d found weeks ago in my classroom, and I didn’t want to tell her; she was upset enough already. “Well, I got one, too, so there’s more than simply one. And—who knows—maybe he’s sent them to other people as well. I’m going to show mine to Earlene Johnson. As Dean of Students, she should know.…”

  “Go ahead,” Shamega said, shoving both hands in her shorts pockets underneath the apron. “And I hope dear little Tibby Two gets what’s coming to him. Just don’t involve me.”

  “Okay,” I replied. “If that’s the way you want it.” More concerned for Shamega than I was for myself, I knew I wasn’t going to take the nasty sketch I’d just received to anyone in authority. I’d file it with the crumpled caricature I’d found in my classroom and hope that nothing further developed.

  We were awkward now, standing in the alley. The scent of grilled salmon mingled with the redolence of day-old garbage. “Well,” she said, jerking her thumb in the direction of the kitchen, “I better get back.”

  “Yeah. Let me know if anything else happens, Shamega. You can trust me, you know.”

  “I know. You’re okay.” She grinned at me. “Okay, that is, for a bony white lady with really bad hair.”

  Seventeen

  My name is Emily, I wrote, then scratched the words out with heavy strokes of the pen. I was trying to reconstruct the first two pages of Child of the North Star, the pages I had read aloud in Edith’s parlor on Easter Sunday afternoon. Piotrowski had given me photocopies of the six manuscript pages in police custody, and I’d thought I could add to my understanding of Mrs. Northbury’s unpublished novel if I could remember how it began. Call me Emily, I wrote, then scratched that out. Surely Northbury wouldn’t have begun her story with such a bald statement. I put my pen down. I had to face it; I couldn’t remember much at all about the opening pages of the lost Northbury novel.

  The maples and birches were in full leaf as I drove up the steep mountainside to meet Avery Mitchell at Meadowbrook. It was a beautiful evening, and I was relieved to get away from Enfield and its environs for a few hours. I turned up the sound on the Jetta’s cassette player, rolled the window down, and breathed greedily of the warm spring air. This time, confident of finding my way to the Hart/Northbury place, I could relax and enjoy my trip through the roadside greenery. The prospect of being alone with Avery for a few hours was titillating, in spite of Greg’s caution. And I was the only one who needed to know that my oh-so-casual chambray shirt and denim skirt were top-of-the line, ranch-hand-in-Ralph-Lauren chambray and denim, purchased just that morning at the mall—and at full price, too.

  The higher I traveled on the road from Eastbrook, the fewer working farms and lived-in houses I found. With the decline of the New England agricultural economy, the stony subsistence farms of these steep mountainsides had been abandoned one by one by their impoverished owners, until only showplaces like Meadowbrook remained, playthings of the rich, tax write-offs for city farmers. And now, a new use—a research center for an already sufficiently well-endowed educational institution. I don’t know why I felt so resentful of Enfield’s good fortune; the Northbury Center would butter my bread quite nicely.

  As I wended my way up the mountain, Springsteen sang “Born in the U.S.A.” on my cassette player. I bawled along in as deep a tenor as I could muster.

  Avery’s Volvo was nowhere to be seen on the Meadowbrook grounds when I pulled into the circular drive. Neither was Gerry Novak’s big Suburban. Perhaps he’d locked it away in the commodious white brick barn. I pulled the Jetta into a position facing the house, and turned the ignition key to auxiliary power so I could continue listening to The Boss.

  Avery’s secretary had arranged with Edith’s attorney for us to tour the house and grounds, so Avery had the keys and the code for the security system. I settled back comfortably in my seat and waited. As Bruce began “Cover Me,” I surveyed the building. Meadowbrook was spacious and somewhat grand, but nothing about it was pretentious. The brown shingle siding, modest third-floor dormers, wide, white-pillared porches, French doors leading to the sloping lawn, elegant, arched porte cochere—all was pleasingly married to the landscape. It was a house designed for a person of sensitivity and restrained taste—a person I knew I would have liked. For the first time I felt a smidgen of genuine enthusiasm about the task that had fallen to me—turning this beautiful property into a place where people could come and learn about the women whose books had played such an important role in shaping our culture. Women like Serena Northbury.

  Where was Avery? I checked my watch: twelve minutes late. I turned the sound up on the cassette and tapped my fingertips against the steering wheel to the beat of the music; I really liked this song. “Covah meee,” I sang, “Come on, baby, covah me-ee.” It was early evening, and the June sun was still only halfway to the horizon, but the slanted light transformed the house windows into molten gold. As the sun sank, my voice rose: “Well, I’m lookin’ for a lovah who will come on in and covah me-ee—”

  “Karen?” Avery bent to peer at me through the open car window.

  “Wahhhhhhhh:” I had started to shriek it along with The Boss, but the shriek ended in a horrified croak. My hand flashed out; the music stopped.

  “Avery!” My voice was still croaky as I opened the car door.

  Avery was a gentleman, but, even so, he had trouble keeping the laughter out of his eyes. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long?”

  Did he intend the double entendre?

  “Just sitting here thinking …” I cleared my throat, and spoke in my most academic manner, “… about how best this lovely property could fulfill its function as a research center.” I hurrumphed again, slammed the car door decisively, and walked briskly toward the house. “Now, if we utilized the double parlors as a main reading room and the dining room as a reference area, we could control traffic flow.…” Even to myself, I sounded as if I knew what I was talking about. And a good thing, too; I was still hot with embarrassment.

  Avery was uncharacteristically silent as we wandered through the big, echoing house. Although all was as I remembered it—the massive Victorian furniture, the heavy Oriental carpets on the first floor, the bamboo matting of the upper levels—Meadowbrook seemed lacking in life with Edith’s vivacity gone. Dormant, I chastised myself. The house isn’t lacking life, it’s simply dormant. I’ll have these old rooms alive and hopping again. Just as Edith would want it. Unexpectedly, I was beginning to warm to my task of turning this place into a vital center of learning. As I expanded on my ideas, Avery took occasional notes in a small spiral book, but mostly he trailed after me and listened.

  “Now our space needs,” I said, “will be varied. These smaller second floor bedrooms will function well as offices, the larger as seminar rooms. Housing for resident scholars can be established in the servants’ rooms on the third floor. Book storage …” I was determined to make up for the humiliating scene in the car with a spectacular display of efficiency.

  When we came to the front parlor, I felt, for the first time this evening, Edith’s presence in the house. There was the chintz-covered mission chair where she’d sat and related her family history. There was the flowered sofa Will and Gerry had carried her to when she’d gone into insulin shock. There was the odd little half-keyboard piano covered with framed photos of family and friends. The twilight gloom of the room seemed perfect for conjuring up the spectral proximity of generations of Northburys and their descendants. I recalled the young Serena Pinkworth, disowned by her father because of her burning desire for an education; I imagined her older, a successful author now, recounting to her daughters in this very room the deadly struggle with her father; I envisioned Edith as a child, cowering with her sister under the disapproving daguerreotyped gaze of the Reverend Mr. Pinkworth. Suddenly the room swarmed with gh
osts—generations of them, all here because of the courage and determination of one intrepid woman.

  Then an incongruous image flashed into my mind—the portrait of a Victorian infant. What had Edith done with that photograph? I’d love to have it back. Perhaps I’d find it when I went through the boxes of family memorabilia. The attic rooms were still crammed with boxes and barrels of books, papers, clothing, and worn furniture. And I wouldn’t be allowed to resume my investigation of the stuff in the small room off the kitchen until the will was probated and the title was clear. It was all very annoying.

  When we’d finished our tour of the house, Avery suggested we save the outbuildings and grounds for another day. In the twilight gloom, we stood in the kitchen with its eclectic outfittings—painted wainscoting from the 1800’s, sinks from the 1920’s, stove from the ’70’s, state-of-the-art refrigerator—summing up the possibilities the house offered. “You know what I can see here, in this room?” I asked, rhetorically. “A restored nineteenth-century kitchen. Can you picture it?” A flourish of my arm lacked only the magic wand to make it all materialize. “Icebox, coal-and-wood-burning stove, pitcher pump—a material reconstruction of nineteenth-century domestic conditions. And …” I was really getting carried away now. “The foremost collection of American cookbooks and domestic advice books in existence. Historians, domestic scientists, anthropologists would come from the four corners of the globe to research and practice under actual nineteenth-century material conditions. And—”

  But Avery held up a hand to stem the flow. “Your enthusiasm is contagious, Karen.” He was smiling at me oddly. “And let’s hope you get to put your ideas into practice. But before we go any further with plans, I’d better bring you up to date on certain situations that have developed since we last spoke. Do you think we might muster up a cup of tea while we talk? I didn’t manage to get any dinner this evening.” He looked helplessly around the large kitchen.