Jane Austen in Scarsdale

by Paula Marantz Cohen

  “That’s exactly right!” exclaimed Peter.

  “I liked having you read me the poetry,” she continued. “It made me feel better, even when I felt like shit.”

  Peter nodded. “I’ll come by tomorrow with Wordsworth. He’s a very calming poet. We can start on The Prelude; it’s this superlong poem.”

  “I’m sure it will have a palliative effect,” declared Rachel contentedly, settling back in the bed and closing her eyes. “And I’m in no hurry.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  AFTER ANNE HAD RETURNED TO THE HOUSE AND GIVEN WINNIE A report on Rachel’s condition, she took a breath and relayed the news about Ben Cutler’s decision to buy the house.

  “Is that so!” said Winnie.

  “It will serve as his office, as well as a home for his family,” Anne elaborated quickly. “That includes his sister and nephew, and his fiancée. She’s a very attractive Danish woman, who works with him on the guides.”

  “Mmmm,” said Winnie.

  “He said he always admired the house, and that it would suit his purposes very well,” Anne continued, feeling the need to spell this out.

  “Of course,” said Winnie. “It’s a fine house.”

  “Anyway,” concluded Anne, “he wants to close right away and have you stay on until your ankle is better. It’s ridiculous, of course, but I thought I should tell you.”

  “Why is it ridiculous?” asked Winnie.

  Anne looked at her grandmother incredulously. “You’re not saying that you’re going to accept!”

  “Well, my dear, we need the money”

  “A month isn’t going to matter. You’ll be walking in a month.”

  “I may be, but then again, I may not. At my age, it’s hard to predict these things. And you live in a third-floor brownstone. God only knows when I’ll be able to climb those stairs.”

  “Then, we’ll find another apartment. We’re going to do it anyway, so why not now?”

  “Because we don’t have the money now,” responded Winnie bluntly. “I’m hoping to pry it out of your father after the sale of the house, but doubtless it will take some doing, and finding an apartment in Manhattan isn’t easy. Sally may be a real-estate genius, but she’s not a magician. All things considered, this seems a more reasonable option.”

  “But how can you stay in the house? You don’t know these people. They’re complete strangers!”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” said Winnie lightly. “You wanted to marry this Benjamin Cutler, didn’t you? That makes him almost a relative.”

  Anne was silent a moment, then burst out laughing. “You’re too much, Gram! You really are!”

  That evening, Sally called to say that the family interested in the house wanted to stop by the next afternoon. “Mr. Cutler said he spoke to you,” said Sally with crisp efficiency. “He also wants to speak to Winnie, so be sure she’s not napping.”

  If Sally knew anything about Ben’s intentions, she did not let on. It was one of her strengths that she had no interest in the personal except as it intersected with the professional—a fact which might account for her three marriages, each useful for obtaining something—sex, children, money—and rendered obsolete once the requisite item had been obtained. “If my instincts are right,” continued Sally, “this guy may be willing to pay top dollar for the house. At this time of year, with no island in your kitchen and the state of your bathrooms, that’s saying something. So do me a favor,” she warned, “don’t screw this up!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  THE NEXT DAY, ANNE WAS HOME BY THREE P.M. AND WATCHING General Hospital with Winnie. As Sally had instructed, she had put the good lace tablecloth on the dining room table and set out pound cake and what was left of the Courvoisier, which Elihu consumed in great quantities with his golfing buddies. “The types that like houses like yours go in for that sort of thing,” Sally had explained. “They have refined taste—or at least pretensions to it.”

  At four P.M., Anne saw Sally’s BMW pull up in the driveway followed by a Volvo station wagon from which Ben, Jonathan, Pauline, and Kirsten emerged. She had suspected that Kirsten would be there, but the sight of her, this time dressed casually in jeans and a white cable-knit sweater—an outfit that emphasized her unpretentious natural beauty—still had a jarring effect. She felt a fresh pang at the idea that Ben and Kirsten might raise a family together in this house.

  Amid the bustle of introductions, the awkwardness of Winnie seeing Ben again was reduced by Pauline’s effusive chatter.

  “Isn’t this the most exciting coincidence!” she exclaimed to Anne. “You knew Bennie way back when, and you work at Jonathan’s school, and now we’re thinking of buying your house. It’s a small world, I always say. Is this your grandmother? I see the resemblance. What a fabulous house! I thought the driveway would go on forever. Like that house in that Hitchcock movie. What was that movie, Bennie?”

  “Rebecca,” said Ben with amusement.

  “Yes, Rebeccal!” exclaimed Pauline. “It was haunted by the man’s first wife, wasn’t it? This house doesn’t look haunted, thank God.”

  “We’ve tried our best to keep the ghosts at bay,” said Winnie drily.

  “I think the house looks more like Mr. Darcy’s house in Pride and Prejudice, though admittedly on a much smaller scale,” said Kirsten in her intelligent, lightly accented voice. “As I recall, it was his house that made Elizabeth Bennet fall in love with him—she thought it reflected his character.” She turned to Winnie. “I’m sure this house reflects yours.”

  “Well, it should—I lived here long enough,” declared Winnie, sitting very straight in her wheelchair.

  “I’m sorry,” murmured Kirsten, realizing that her observation might be painful.

  “No need to be.” Winnie shrugged. “It’s just a house. People who get too attached to things are fools. Besides, this one’s been too empty for too long; it’s about time someone else got some use out of it.” Having dismissed the subject in her usual com-monsense manner, she turned her attention to Jonathan, who was standing off to the side, reading a book. “What’s that you’re reading, young man?” she called out in a peremptory tone.

  Jonathan held up the book: it was Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

  “Vonnegut,” said Winnie. “That’s a name from the past. He has a certain shallow whimsy, I suppose, but you’d do better with Ken Kesey or even Tom Wolfe. Not that they’d be my first choice.”

  Jonathan appeared interested: “What would be your first choice?”

  “Well,” Winnie ruminated, “if you’re after the absurd, I’d suggest Kafka. After that, maybe Conrad.”

  “Heart of Darkness.” Jonathan nodded. “I heard that’s really bleak.”

  “Yes,” said Winnie. “Conrad is bleak but that’s no reason to avoid him. You must have a bit of the bleak to steel yourself for when life gets, well, bleak. After Conrad, something lighter. Wodehouse, perhaps.”

  “I read one of the Jeeves books,” said Jonathan. “It was funny.”

  My, my,” exclaimed Winnie, “a well-read young person. You don’t see that much nowadays.”

  “Yes.” said Pauline, who had caught the end of the conversation. “All Jonathan ever does is read.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?” demanded Winnie. “Much better he should read for the first half of his life and then live for the next half. That’s the proper sequence to know what you’re doing. Nowadays, they start off by living and never get around to reading—it explains the mess we’re all in. I predict great things for this boy.”

  “Really?” said Pauline, who appeared ready to be convinced.

  “Yes. And he’ll be right at home in our library.”

  “You have a library!” exclaimed Jonathan. “A library is awesome!”

  “It is awesome,” acknowledged Winnie, “and I’m glad to see you realize it. We’ve had people traipsing through this house who see the library and say, ‘Oh so many books. What do you do with them?’ �
��We read them, you fools,’ I want to say. But I hold my tongue. You see I was well brought up.”

  Jonathan laughed and closed his book, having finally found someone whom he thought was more interesting. Ben, meanwhile, had sauntered over to where Anne was standing off to the side. “Did that fellow who wanted to kill you the other day ever come back to apologize?” he asked casually.

  “As a matter of fact, he did,” said Anne, relieved to address a neutral topic. “He came in with his wife yesterday morning to say he was sorry he got so worked up. He even told me I should thank the gentleman who calmed him down.”

  Ben nodded. “I knew he would see things differently once he had a chance to think about it. A little distance always puts things in perspective.”

  “Ben told me what happened.” Kirsten joined the conversation. “It sounds like you have a dangerous job.”

  Anne agreed that it had its perils, given the fierceness with which Westchester parents became invested in their children’s futures.

  “That seems to be very American,” asserted Kirsten, “In Denmark, you’d never see parents behaving that way. We take a more philosophical view.”

  “Then again, you don’t aspire to much,” observed Ben. “Your people are content to remain where they are for generations.”

  “That’s true,” agreed Kirsten, “but aspiration isn’t always desirable. There are times when it’s better to accept one’s place.”

  “It’s a very class-bound society,” Ben explained to Anne. “Very much a herd mentality.”

  “And you don’t think competing over which silly college your children will attend reflects a herd mentality?” Kirsten laughed.

  “I suppose it depends on which herd you want to graze with,” mused Ben.

  The conversation was interrupted by Sally, who announced loudly, “Time for the tour,” and proceeded to lead the group through the house, concentrating attention on the wainscoting and the views from the windows, and moving as quickly as possible past the bathrooms and the island-less kitchen. Anne remained behind with Winnie, who was still talking to Jonathan.

  Suddenly, Ben, who had started on the tour, reappeared and stood quietly nearby.

  “Why don’t you show Jonathan the library, Anne,” Winnie directed, interrupting her exposition on the deficiencies of Vonnegut and the merits of Kafka. “Find him a copy of ‘A Hunger Artist.’ It should be on the second shelf, next to The Kinsey Report. What a fuss they made about that book when it came out”—she began ruminating irritably—“there was nothing there that any intelligent woman didn’t already know, but a man writes it down and everyone acts as though its a revelation. Yes, the men have the advantage there. They make the money and write the books, and the women, poor things, stay home and mope.”

  “That’s a rather old-fashioned view,” Ben responded with surprising vehemence. “I see plenty of women making money and writing books. And if you’re implying that men feel less than women, I’d have to disagree there too. Men mope as much as women do. Perhaps more.”

  “Well, I think you’re wrong!” asserted Winnie. “It may be an old-fashioned view, as you say, but old-fashioned views generally have something to them. I have nothing against men, mind you; I’ve spent many enjoyable hours in their company. But the truth is, they can’t sustain emotion; it’s not in their nature. Aren’t I right, Anne?”

  Anne seemed flustered to be drawn into such a topic, but she spoke after a moment’s pause. “From my experience with high school students, both sexes are extremely sensitive. Boys are more stoic—they’re taught to be—but I wouldn’t say they feel less than girls; they just don’t express their feelings in the same way.” She delivered this with embarrassment, without looking at Ben, whose eyes she could feel were on her.

  “You say men don’t express feelings, and women do,” said Winnie, “but it’s the tree falling in the forest sort of thing: if no one hears, who in God’s name cares? But how did we get onto this topic? It’s quite irrelevant. Now, if you don’t mind, dear,” she addressed Anne brusquely, “please take the young man to the library and find him the Kafka while I speak to his uncle. Give us twenty minutes; that should be all we need.”

  At the end of the afternoon, after the pound cake had been eaten and the Courvoisier finished off (by Pauline), Sally shepherded everyone outside, where she could be heard expounding on “the authentic English heath” in the backyard.

  Anne finally turned to Winnie. “Well?” she said. “What did you tell Ben Cutler?”

  Winnie sat a little straighter in her wheelchair: “I told him that I would accept his invitation to stay in the house until I’ve regained my mobility,” she pronounced with a certain formality. “In return for his generosity, I will serve as reading adviser to his nephew and companion to his sister. I am also capable of giving instructions regarding meals, and, if necessary, can direct the housekeeping as well. He offered to pay me a stipend, which I declined. I am not Jane Eyre, just an impecunious gentlewoman with ties to the estate. The arrangement promises to work very nicely; I am quite pleased with it, all things considered. Now if you don’t mind, dear, I’m a tad weary. I’d like to take a nap.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  As MARCY HAD PREDICTED, HARRY FURMAN DID CALL AND ASK Anne out. “to dinner at the Four Seasons,” Anne reported to her friend. “Rather pricey for a first date with someone you didn’t really get along with, don’t you think?”

  “Don’t take the choice of restaurant too seriously,” explained Marcy. “Rich and his partners only know two restaurants in Manhattan: Tavern on the Green and the Four Seasons. It’s where they take all their clients. Rich took me to dinner at the Four Seasons on my birthday even though he’d been there for lunch the same day. I would have liked something a little more original, but I didn’t eat much anyway.”

  “Personally, I’m looking forward to the Four Seasons,” said Anne. “I haven’t been there since I was young and we were still rich.”

  “It hasn’t changed much,” noted Marcy, “though now they give you your dressing on the side, if you ask. But hold on—are you saying that you’re actually going to go out with Harry Furman? I thought you said he was a creep.”

  “I did,” Anne admitted. “But I decided to accept anyway because I need a lawyer’s advice.” Carlotta was indeed refusing to vacate the Murray Hill apartment and had changed the locks. Her presence had come to resemble the bamboo that Elihu had planted in the backyard of the Westchester home to make it as he put it, “more like a colonial plantation,” and which no army of men with scythes had been able to eradicate. It was Anne’s hope that the analogy would not go so far—or that, at least in Carlotta’s case, a good lawyer would prove more effective than a scythe.

  “You could always ask Rich for help. But of course, Rich is never around,” Marcy conceded sadly.

  “I’m sure that Harry Furman wouldn’t be around either if he were married to me,” Anne consoled her. “But do you think it’s wrong for me to go out with him just to get legal advice?”

  “Since he probably wants to take advantage of you in some other way and since he’ll probably charge the meal to the firm, I wouldn’t worry about it,” concluded Marcy. “Besides, you never know; you might discover that he’s more attractive than you thought. There was an article in Elle that said women will often change their mind about a man when they go out to dinner with him—especially if it’s a nice restaurant.”

  “Maybe,” said Anne, “but I wouldn’t count on it.”

  When the evening of the date arrived, Harry Furman met her at the Four Seasons, as arranged. He smelled of expensive cologne, his fingernails glistened, and his hair seemed an unnaturally vivid chestnut brown. Anne wondered if he had encountered her father in the course of his styling regime. Elihu was a regular at Elizabeth Arden and Georgette Klinger, places once devoted exclusively to women, until men had been liberated to be just as vain.

  “You look ravishing,” said Harry to Anne, without appearing to lo
ok at her. He had been told that this was an effective opening line.

  It occurred to Anne, as Harry stood brushed and moussed before her, that he probably was not interested in her at all. He had simply been programmed to date as much as possible until some woman hooked herself onto him, sucked off a portion of his assets, and discarded him, so that another woman could do the same. She supposed the process had some ecological value that might be worth studying.

  When viewed from this perspective, Harry was not the exploitative male that she had originally thought, but rather a kind of roving innocent, fated to be continually picked up and dropped by savvy, predatory women. It was a new take that rendered him less absolutely distasteful, if more profoundly pathetic.

  They were ushered into the restaurant and settled into Harry’s usual spot. As Marcy had surmised, Harry Furman was a regular at the Four Seasons. Indeed, when he wasn’t there, he was usually at the gym, burning off the calories acquired from being there.

  “Well?” said Harry, once the napkins had been spread on their laps by obsequious waiters. He looked at her hopefully. He was a man who had a hard time with transitions, and whoever had given him his opening line had not gotten around to prompting him on what to say after “you look ravishing.”

  “Well,” said Anne, deciding to get right to the point, “do you happen to know anything about real estate law?”

  Her question had a surprisingly animating effect. Harry breathed a sigh of relief. The law was not only his bread and butter, it was the air he breathed. In point of fact, it was the only thing that really interested him.

  “Real estate law isn’t my specialty,” he began modestly, “but”—his tone grew more confident and boastful—“I pride myself in being something of a Renaissance man when it comes to legal matters. You’d be amazed at the kinds of things that cross my desk. I’ve had clients ask me to draw up euthanasia agreements for their pets and contract killings for their wives.” Since he possessed two cats and two ex-wives, the idea that clients would want to kill their pets out of affection and their wives out of hatred did not strike him as terribly incongruous. “Not that I ever agreed to either,” he hurried to assure her. “But let’s put it this way, I know the law—and if I don’t have the answer for you here and now, I can certainly get it. Did you know that I was a lifeline on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”