The Madwoman Upstairs (35 page)

“How did you recognize this as Anne’s painting?” I asked. “It looks different from everything else she painted.”

“Stylistically, it is the same.”

I nodded. “Can I see it up close, please?”

“Pardon?”

“This watercolor. I’d love to see it.”

“The parsonage is closing.”

“It will only take a moment.”

A pause. “It’s not here.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s in its logical place.”

“A more logical place than the Brontë museum?”

“You’re very irritating, Miss Whipple.”

He stood and turned to face the back window. His body was thin. With his sleeves rolled up, I could see every detail in his arms, which were covered with ropy veins and signs of decay. I walked around so that I was standing right in front of him.

“Well then—where is it?”

“Where is what?”

“The painting. Did you give it back to the man who owned it? What was his name—Elmes?”

“He asked me to see to it for him.”

I paused. “Was there a knife at his throat when he said this?”

Sir John’s eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”

I swallowed. “Sorry.”

“What are you insinuating?”

“Nothing.”

We paused.

“Or—” I said.

“Out with it.”

“Well—why would he give it to you if it’s so valuable?”

“Not everyone is as selfish as your father was. He recognized that relics such as that painting should be in the hands of a qualified historian.”

“So do
you
have it, then?”

“Why does it matter to you?”

“Because this is
my
family.”

The words tumbled out of me with more verve than I’d anticipated. I had meant to put the emphasis on
family
, not
my
—but, well, there you had it. I had never been much for possessiveness, but I suddenly couldn’t help but feel like these were
my
relatives,
my
story, and maybe even my house, too, that Sir John had rudely invaded, like it was the Ardennes.

Sir John’s lip curled. “How similar you are to your father.”

“What did you do with the painting, sir?” I pressed.

“I had to put it in the hands of someone who would appreciate and take care of it. Edward Elmes had no idea what this sketch was worth.”

“And how much was it worth?”

“Nearly a million British pounds.”

My eyes widened.

“There are people who would pay,” he said.

“So that’s what you did?” I asked. “You cashed in? You stripped it and sold it for parts?”

“I am an academic, not a pirate.”

“Which means you probably needed the money.”

His gaze turned brutish. “I will not be insulted like this. You may collect your belongings.”

“I’m right, then?” I pestered. “No wonder my father didn’t trust you. I bet you wanted to hunt down every single possession the Brontës ever owned, only to auction everything off. He was in the business of resurrecting his relatives; you were busy prostituting them.”

“Don’t be crude, Samantha, it’s very unbecoming,” Sir John said. “And to ease your overly inquisitive little mind, it was only the
one
painting, which would have been severely damaged had it been left above Edward’s decrepit fireplace any longer. The man who now owns it is one of the premier art collectors in the country. It is in very, very safe hands. There. Has your curiosity been satisfied?”

“The man who bought it—is he a gravedigger, too?” I asked.

Sir John straightened his scarf. “The term you’re looking for, Samantha,” he said with a note of finality, “is
grave robber
.”

I pressed my lips together. He walked straight past me, to the coatrack. It bothered me that he wasn’t more ashamed. Professors were supposed to be bastions of intellectual integrity, forces to be revered by friends and enemies alike. They weren’t supposed to think of money, the same way they weren’t supposed to think of women.

“Where will you stay tonight?” Sir John asked, changing the subject. He didn’t seem to care what I thought of him at all—a talent I wished I could have stolen from him.

I crossed my arms. “I’m not sure. Some bed-and-breakfast.”

To be honest, I had no idea where I was supposed to go. My phone was dead, and the storm was bellowing. I could hide away in this house, maybe, or else I could just wander out into the storm and die on the moors, like a true Romantic.

“You will never find a taxi,” Sir John said.

“Don’t be dramatic.”

I brushed past him and opened the front door. A gust of frosty wind greeted me like a shock wave. I squinted. It was no longer light, but I still could make out the front yard, which was cupcaked in snow. He was right. I would never find a taxi. I shut the door.

We were silent. Sir John looked severely displeased, like a father whose duties disgusted him. He let out a breath. “I have guest quarters at my home, should you require them.”

I paused. He paused. He seemed as unhappy with the prospect as I was. After all the insults I had just thrown at him, his magnanimity made me feel somewhat guilty.

I glanced behind me. “Maybe I should just stay here.”

“You cannot stay here.”

“I’ll burrow under the carpet like Emily Brontë.”

“Emily Brontë did not burrow under carpets.”

“That’s what you think.”

He threw on his coat. “Make up your mind. Will you stay with me, or will you try your luck on the streets?”

I didn’t answer.

He said, “Well?”

“I’m thinking it over.”

He began fiddling with his keys.
No, no, no.
I did not want to spend an entire evening with Sir John. But when a blast of snow thumped against the door, I realized the decision was out of my hands.

I let out a breath. “How do we get there?”

He threw open the door. “We walk.”

Sir John’s home was close to the parsonage, yet it took us over thirty minutes to make it there, on account of how slowly he moved and how easily the storm confused him. Outside of a classroom, his disorientation was severe. More than once, he stopped where he was and sniffed the air like an old lion who knew he would one day collapse and be consumed by a rival pride. Cautiously, I offered him a steadying hand. He did not say anything, but his grip on my arm was tight.

His home was a squat, secluded house on top of a small lump of the moors. Next to nothing and no one, it was the sort of house you’d only buy if you were the curator of the Brontë Parsonage (and divorced). In the dim outside lights, the snow-covered shrubs looked like paws poking out of the padded white earth. We were thoroughly soaked.

The walk had not been kind to Sir John, who now looked a century and a half old. He took his time locating his keys. On his front stoop, I noticed a miniature Christmas village and several dead plants. When he shoved the door open, a shingle dropped off the wall.

“Leave it,” he barked.

I left it. We stamped the snow off our boots and walked inside, where I immediately let out a small but healthy scream. There, pinned against the opposite wall of the narrow foyer, was a moose head. It stared at me with a quizzical expression that seemed to say,
I died disastrously in Alaska.

I said, “Who shot this?”

“One of my sons.”

“I didn’t know people still hunted moose.”

“They do.”

“How many do you have?” I asked.

“Moose?”

“Sons.”

“Seven.”

Seven! I left my shoes where Sir John had put his, then shed my jacket and hung it on the wall. I found it difficult to imagine Sir John with an entire von Trapp family’s worth of children. Where had they all come from? Certainly he wasn’t the sort of man who thought about procreation. How savage.

I dropped my duffel bag and followed him into his living room. It was damp and smelled of tuna and old dog. The décor was less majestic than I would have anticipated. Half of me thought I would find an entire stash of stolen art, a bureau filled with awards and trophies, or at least a bust of his own head. But all I found in the center of the room was a dilapidated orange couch, awkwardly stationed there as though waiting for its final paycheck. There was a square card table and four old chairs. I recognized the novel on the table:
Peaches of Mirth.

I looked up. “I didn’t know you read my father’s novels.”

This one, I remembered, was Dad’s sequel to
The Grapes of Wrath.
Sir John didn’t respond. He just took a freshly poured drink to the couch, and wilted into his seat. He was panting in a series of short leaks. With each breath it looked like his long, lanky body might fold over like a piece of scrap paper. I sat on one of the chairs across from him. The fireplace was not lit, nor did Sir John seem to have any intention of putting it to use. Would there be a place to dry off? I thought I could feel the onset of pneumonia.

We waited in silence. All I could hear was the ticking of a clock that I couldn’t see. I looked around the squalor of the little room and didn’t tell Sir John what I was thinking, which was that he must have squandered all the dough he got from that original Anne Brontë painting. I bit my tongue.

There was a loud crashing noise upstairs. Someone said, “Is that you?” Sir John didn’t react.

“Is someone else here?” I asked, motioning upstairs.

“My youngest.”

“Is he the one who shot the moose?”

No answer. I wondered if he had even heard me. The stomping upstairs grew louder and louder, until suddenly I heard a series of bearlike footsteps pounding down the staircase. I turned around just in time to see a grown man barreling into the room. Six and a half feet tall, dark hair, heavy eyebrows. I gasped.

There—right there—was James Timothy Orville III.

No.
And yet . . . ? No. My mouth fell open. My professor was wearing sweatpants and bright red socks, and his T-shirt—not quite long enough for his torso—exposed the bottom ribbon of a white, marbled stomach. I looked him over from head to toe, wondering if this could in fact be his impressive stunt double. But no—I saw the familiar scar on his right arm, the acne scars on his forehead, the scowl on his face. Right now that scowl lifted and in its place erupted openmouthed, wide-eyed shock. He might have just seen the bloody ghost of Achilles. We suffered a silence worthy of divorce.

Sir John looked at me. “Meet my son James.”

There was no response from Orville and I gave a small curtsy to no one in particular. My cheeks burned. I found myself staring at him as I would an arresting seascape.

“James, James,” I said. “What a familiar ring.”

Orville recovered from his shock faster than I did. His face was impassive but his voice was pleasant.

“Hello, Samantha,” he said.

His father—God, was he really?—frowned between us. “You two know each other?”

Orville seemed to be picking his words carefully. “This—that is—this is one of my students, Father.”

One of his students. Was that all that I was? I wanted to be his best student, his only student, his wife-student. A look passed between father and son, and it was not a polite one. They seemed to be acknowledging a tapestry of unspoken emotions.

“I see,” Sir John said briskly. “The daughter of Tristan Whipple? How strange that you neglected to mention her before, Jimmy.”

Orville gave an innocent smile, but a look of hostility swept between them. He looked so much like his father just then that I wondered how I had never noticed the similarity before. Big forehead, big chin. Sir John straightened and turned to me not as an academic, but as a somewhat annoying parent.

“Jimmy is the youngest tenured faculty member in one hundred years,” he said.

I nodded. “That must have been tough, going through puberty and a career at the same time.”

Orville ignored me and turned to his father. “What kept you so long? You look terrible.”

“I had to escort the lady home,” said Sir John, with a cough.

“I told you I would come and get you.”

“I am not quite so ancient yet, my boy.”

“Let’s get you changed.”

“I can do it myself.”

“Dad—”

“Enough.”

The two of them fell silent. Orville moved to help his father to a standing position. The old man uttered a meek protestation but let his son lift him to his feet. He looked so very old. I turned away. I realized that Sir John had not invited me over because he had a spare guest room. He simply could not have made it home by himself.

I caught his eye. In that moment, as if he knew my heart was breaking, his expression changed. His near-black eyes, one of the last parts of his body to survive the onset of age, narrowed in resentment. He looked me over from navel to neck.

“You’re nothing like Jimmy’s last girl,” he said.

I said, “Pardon?”

Orville urged his father toward the staircase. “Come, I’ll help you.”

“What was her name again?” asked Sir John, in a voice that let us know he remembered the name perfectly well. “Some rabbit-faced blonde. German.”

I raised my eyebrows intentionally, hoping that Orville would see them and want to explain. But he looked at me and snapped: “Kitchen. Meet me there.”