The Madwoman Upstairs (42 page)

I scanned the fragment of the article on my stomach.
Did Tristan Whipple Secretly Attend Oxford?
I pushed that one aside and reached for another that I had already read once, twice, three times.

. . . It is not the first time that he has faced questioning of this sort; Dr. Orville drew sharp criticism from the Old College staff several years ago after a close relationship with student Abigail Baasch. Both were cleared of charges on the grounds that no one could prove Baasch was a student during any of the assignations. Others, however, still contest that the affair remains a violation of Oxford’s very foundation: the sanctity of the relationship between the educator and the educated.

“Dr. Orville has brought this upon himself,” Dr. Ellery Flannery told the
Hornbeam
on Sunday evening. “I will always maintain that an education is useless if corrupted of its objectivity.”

Others, however, insist that the fault lies not with Dr. Orville, but with “immature and reckless” undergraduates, and that the ability to induce infatuation in a young student is not an intrinsic flaw, but rather, as one anonymous academic commented, “a regrettable occupational hazard.”

In response to recent developments, Dr. Orville has taken an indefinite leave of absence. Neither Abigail Baasch nor Samantha Whipple could be reached for comment.

Carefully, I folded the sheet of newspaper into an airplane and tossed it into the corner of the room, where
The Warnings of Experience
was now resting, serving a lengthy time-out. I hadn’t touched it since I had discovered it. Yes, I had found my inheritance, and yes, the thought was somewhat satisfying, but everything was tainted now. What did it matter if I had the book, when Orville was lost to me? Who would I show it to now? I wasn’t sure what a “leave of absence” meant, exactly, and if that weren’t just another phrase for “solitary confinement.” Oxford was Orville’s life, and I had destroyed it. In the process, I had also truncated the best education I had ever received.

Mom, to my left, cleared her throat.

“I didn’t realize that Halford’s Well was also the scene of a similar assignation twenty-five years ago,” she said. She had moved away from the
Hornbeam
in favor of the
New York Post
, which she had brought with her as a present for me. I had made page six.
Jane Eyre Rises from the Grave
. I refused to look.

I said, “Yes, it was.”

“How strange.” She made a face. “I mean, what kind of person fornicates in public?”

A small silence. I didn’t answer because I didn’t want to say
Your ex-husband,
and she didn’t continue because I think she was afraid I would say
Me
. I sneezed violently, and the conversation ended.

Mom took off her glasses. “Well, are you ever going to tell me the truth? Why were you at that well?”

I blinked. “To commune.”

“With?”

“Dad.”

Her expression fell. She looked disappointed, then angry. “Don’t tell me he was the one who put you up to this.”

I pointed at
The Warnings of Experience
at the other end of the room. “That’s my inheritance.”

Mom looked over. “I see an old book.”

“Correct.”

She frowned and stood up so she could walk over and pick up the small, ragged volume. She brought it back to the bed. I couldn’t look directly at it.

“This is what he left you?” Mom said. The book was dangling between her index finger and thumb as if she had encountered an unsavory piece of raw meat.

“It’s a diary,” I said.

The longer Mom stared at it, the more triumphantly sympathetic her expression became. If this was my inheritance, then she had won. This was nothing but an old, dirty, disgusting, rotten old wad of paper with some illegible print inside. As usual, Dad had screwed up. He had tried his best to do something epic, but he had failed.

Mom must have sensed my mood, because she checked her cheerfulness and gave me a “you’re right, this isn’t funny” frown.

She turned the book over in her hands, reading the cover.
“The Warnings of Experience.”

“Yes.”

“What will you do with it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you read it?”

“Not yet.”

Mom put down the book and cleared her throat. “I want you to come live in Paris with me,” she said. The way she said “Paris,” it sounded like “mental hospital.”

“I’m happy here.”

“You are miserable here.”

“I’d still like to stay.”

“I can see no reason for that.”

“I’m learning.”

“About?”

“Myself?”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

“Don’t swear. It’s very American.”

We fell into silence. Absently, I took the
Hornbeam
in my lap and looked at the photograph. Orville’s fingers were clutching my waist as if in a death grip. Had I enjoyed it, being so close to him? I had forgotten to appreciate the moment. The two people in that grainy black-and-white photo were wrapped around each other like they were in love. The image sent an ache through me, in a way I hadn’t experienced during the moment itself. The girl in the newspaper was just another woman I envied. Orville—the real-life Orville—had not responded to my e-mails or messages.

I took Mom’s hand in mine. “Thanks for coming.”

She seemed momentarily taken aback. “Well, of course I came. I can’t have my girl sick and alone, can I?”

I let out a gulp.

“What is it?” Mom said. “Have I upset you?”

“Can I tell you what bothers me the most about all of this?”

“Sweetheart. Tell me.”

“He’s gone.”

“He’s always been gone.”

“No—but now he’s really gone,” I said. “I found what he wanted me to find.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“No,” I said. “Now he and I have nothing left to talk about.”

I looked down and away. I was crying openly—again. It was very embarrassing, and I had a terrible feeling that at any minute Hans would enter with his camera.

Mom’s voice softened. “Samantha, the man left you a diary before he died. You say he also left you a painting. God knows how many other things are out there, waiting for you to pretend they’re important.”

I didn’t respond, and wiped my nose on my sleeve. Mom paused, as if uncertain of whether or not she should express her next thought out loud. Finally, she took a breath and said: “It doesn’t sound like you’re ending a conversation with him. It sounds like you’re just beginning one.”

I looked up. Her chest rose and fell. I reached for her warm, compact hand and held it very close.

My last tutorial took place on a Thursday afternoon.

We had reached the final week of Hilary term. In two days, faculty and students would enter a four-week holiday before Trinity term. To celebrate, small white flowers recklessly crept out of the ground; leaves blushed with faint color. The sun ended its retirement, and so did a population of pale students, who emerged from their dormitories like wide-eyed shock victims. All around was a delicate beauty that you couldn’t help but resent for having been gone for so long.

In anticipation of this meeting, my professor—ex-professor, I suppose—had his office door open and his curtains pulled back. The room looked like an opera house during the daytime—tranquil, somewhat nostalgic. The windows were open and a light, apologetic breeze came inside, perhaps repenting for an entire season of bad behavior.

I had not seen Orville since Halford’s Well, and our only communication had been to set a time for this meeting. Today, he was clad in jeans and an Oxford sweatshirt, with a red rag draped across his shoulder. He was pulling out books from his shelves and stacking them around the room in teetering, uneven cliffs. I noticed empty boxes and packing tape. On my way inside, I passed over several piles of Molière, Twain, and Dumas, which were bathing in columns of daylight on the floor. There was little organization, and I doubted he knew what he was doing.

He must have heard me walk in. He said, “Hello, Samantha.”

I blurted: “Are you really moving to Ireland?”

“Who told you?”

“About fourteen people, all separately.”

The wind ruffled the curtains. Orville and I didn’t say anything else for several minutes. We seemed to be approaching the strange and inevitable end to our contractual relationship. I would leave this room and his life would go on. The memory of me would be wiped clean; the entire last two terms would simply vanish. I would become nothing but another data point in his growing list of would-be lawsuits. I would graduate, grow old, and die, and James Orville III would politely disappear from my life, as swiftly as a boat drifting out of a harbor.

“Well,” he said at last, from across the room. His voice was low, and it seemed to echo among the empty shelves. “You found it?”

“Hmm?”

I realized that he was motioning toward the book in my hands. I had almost forgotten that I had brought
The Warnings of Experience
with me. I was holding it to my chest the way some people clutch their cats. Compared to the beautifully bound, engraved editions all around us, my book looked like a discarded human organ.

“Yes, I found it,” I said, taking a seat on the couch. On the way there, I bumped into a pile of Hemingways, which toppled over like vaudeville props.

“Where was it?” he asked.

“Behind the painting,
The Governess
, in my room. It was tucked in the back.”

“In the back.”

“Of the frame.”

“This whole time?”

“This whole time.”

He opened his mouth as if to ask a question, or offer congratulations, but the thought must have only lasted a moment, because he turned back to the shelf. We lingered in silence. I couldn’t look directly at him, not when he was stuffing his boxes with such indignity. I was sweating profusely.

Finally, when I couldn’t take it any longer, I let out one, perfect sob. “God, I’ve ruined your life, haven’t I?”

“Please,” he said. “Have a seat.”

I was sitting already. I put the book on the table.

“Are you furious with me?” I said. “Let me fix this for you. I will do anything to get you your job back. Please.
Please
.”

He looked back at me, surprised. “I am not at all angry,” he said. “Why would you say that?”

“You’re quitting the career you’ve spent your entire life building. Let me come out to the press and show them this book. I’ll explain what I was really doing there, and you’ll be off the hook.”

“I’m afraid that will be seen as an even more outlandish and desperate excuse. And can you imagine the hysteria that will ensue if you reveal this book? I’m trying to protect you.”

I leaned back in my seat, hands to my head, wanting to writhe, or bellow, or implode—anything but watch Orville pack his books. I moved my hands so they covered my ears, in the style of
The Scream
.

I said, “What did your father say about the newspapers?”

“Don’t worry about him,” Orville said.

“Then I suppose it was awful. I don’t even have the vocabulary to express how sorry I am. I wish I could jump into a hole.”

Something must have struck him as funny because when I removed my hands from my head and looked over at him, his lips had curved into a half smile.

“I’m proud of you,” he said.

“Don’t make me feel worse.”

“You dreamt all of this up, and now that book is in front of you. How does that feel?”

I looked at
The Warnings of Experience
. “It feels okay.”

“Just okay?”

I turned the book over in my hands, then back again. “I never realized how much effort my dad went through to make sure I’d read
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
before finding this diary.”

“What do you mean?”

I glanced up at him. “What if I’d mistakenly found the diary first, and didn’t think anything of it? Or, worse, what if I thought the diary was just a tool to understand the novel, when really it was the other way around? He was trying to teach me the right way to read.”

Orville didn’t seem to be listening. He was very intent on unloading all his copies of
The Epic of Gilgamesh
from his shelf.

I held up
The Warnings of Experience
. “Here,” I said.

He turned back around. “Pardon?”

“This is for you. A gift.”

Orville just smiled and returned to his work.

I said, “Don’t you want to read it?”

He took the red rag from his shoulder and began wiping down the now-empty shelf in front of him. I didn’t understand his disinterest. This was a literary treasure.

I pressed, “I brought this for
you
. As a present? I thought you’d want to see it. Is this the diary of Anne Brontë or Bertha Mason? Or Helen Graham? I promise you that this diary will change the entire meaning of Anne Brontë’s novels.”

Silence. Orville had the otherworldly look of someone who was contemplating his next meal.