The Madwoman Upstairs

by Catherine Lowell

  “Or maybe it was the opposite,” I said. “Anne wanted her book read by as many people as possible. What did she plan on offering her readers in return for their close attention?”

  Orville slapped his napkin down on the table. “Both of you, don’t bring Anne Brontë into this,” he said. “We’re speaking of Helen.”

  “Of course we’ll bring in Anne Brontë,” said Sir John. “Anne Brontë set up her novel as one end of a bargain. What was her intention?”

  Orville’s eyes flashed in a way I now knew he had inherited from his father.

  “Ah,” said Sir John, smiling ever so slightly and turning to face me. “You see, Samantha, my son does not believe in authorial intent.” He spoke as though his sad little heathen child did not believe in God.

  The heat rose to my professor’s cheeks. The two of them seemed poised to enter a dangerous but well-practiced intellectual sport. I had a feeling that this subject was one they had debated many times before—so often, in fact, that it had become something of a crusade.

  “It is humiliating that every conversation we have about the Brontë novels ends with their intention,” said Orville. “You cannot judge a work of art by the intentions of its creator. I will not allow you to fill an innocent mind with nonsense. This is my student.”

  I wasn’t sure where he meant to place the emphasis—on my or on student—but I wished he had made it more obvious.

  “Some books do not have the privilege of having ‘produced’ anything,” said Sir John. “Some books have been overedited; they have been restrained by the author’s concern over their reception. In these cases, you must look at external clues to piece together a text’s original intention.”

  “If a novel did not produce anything of value, then I wonder why you find it necessary to study it at all.”

  “It is your responsibility as a reader, and as an empathetic human being, to unlock the author’s true purpose.”

  Orville seemed very close to losing his temper, which fascinated me. “To reconstruct a dead person’s intention is to create a piece of fiction yourself,” he snapped. “You of all people should know this.”

  “Isn’t there some truth in all fiction?”

  “There’s some fiction in all truth too.”

  There was a silence. Did they notice I was here at all? I glanced at Sir John, whose smile had frozen on his face. It was hard to tell whether he was proud that his son was an academic or embarrassed they had managed to end up on opposite sides. Orville, meanwhile, looked as hostile as I had ever seen him. Perhaps I had stumbled over the reason he had chosen his mother’s name.

  To my surprise, Orville turned to me. “What do you think, Samantha?”

  The mention of my name made me jump. I wasn’t keen to enter a family squabble, but it was nice to be asked for my opinion for a change.

  “What do I think?” I repeated. “I think the interpretation of a novel depends on the reader far more than it does on the text or the author’s intent.”

  Both Sir John and Orville scoffed at the same time. Orville rolled his eyes, and said under his breath, “The reader-response approach.” Sir John gave a small chortle. I wondered if I had just been insulted, somehow.

  “You’re both wrong,” I explained. “Ignoring the author’s intention is just a way of not dealing with personal and emotional things. And yet, Sir John, you’ve twisted the notion of ‘intention’ in the exact wrong way. You assume that the Brontës’ biographical objects—sketches, for example—attach new significance to Brontë novels. Have you ever considered that the Brontë novels allow us to attach new significance to simple objects?”

  I was expecting some sort of response—a nod, a smile, even a grimace—but Sir John was silent. Was he listening to me at all? Perhaps not. He looked vaguely constipated.

  I said, louder this time: “The books pointed us in the direction of possessions we might otherwise overlook, and gave those possessions meaning. And that, I believe, was by design. Intention, if you will.”

  “Who said that?” Sir John said, finally. “Your father?”

  “No, sir,” I said, and I could feel my cheeks redden. “I did.”

  Sir John stared back at me with the disinterest of someone who was too old to take a young person’s ideas seriously. He wanted to talk to my father, and only my father. Instead, he was stuck with my dad’s young, naïve public relations associate. Without saying another word, he clasped the edge of his seat and moved himself upward, slowly. He looked rumpled—damaged, even—the way you would after a failed marriage, or a wasted career. He took his empty glass in one hand and walked into the kitchen. A door closed behind him.

  “Did I offend him?” I asked.

  Orville was considering me gravely.

  “What?” I said. “Are you going to tell me I’m ridiculous too?”

  “No,” he said. “For once, I’m not.”

  “Why not? Are you ill?”

  He let out a breath. “What you propose is a risky way to analyze literature. But I do think it might be the only way to understand your father.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Please pass me The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I’ve been denying you something for quite some time now.”

  I passed him the thin volume. He took it from me and flipped halfway through. It took him several moments to land upon the right page, but when he reached it, he said, “You once asked me about the ‘Warnings of Experience.’ ”

  I stopped. “Yes?”

  In response, he handed me the open book. I took it from him. Orville had opened it to page one hundred. It was the scene in which Helen throws Gilbert her entire diary. He takes it home with him, and says:

  I have it now before me; and though you could not, of course, peruse it with half the interest that I did, I know you would not be satisfied with an abbreviation of its contents, and you shall have the whole, save, perhaps a few passages here and there of merely temporal interest to the writer, or such as would serve to encumber the story rather than elucidate it. It begins somewhat abruptly, thus—but we will reserve its commencement for another chapter, and call it—THE WARNINGS OF EXPERIENCE.

  Good God. I sat in an astonished silence. There it was, in—of all things—capital letters. The Warnings of Experience. My inheritance. The heat rose to my cheeks. It was a cruel joke. The answer had been in the book all along. The Warnings of Experience was the title of Helen Graham’s diary. It constituted a whopping two-thirds of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I had been searching for something that had been in plain view for one hundred and sixty-five years. My father had dotted the boundary of the paragraph with small, friendly smiley faces.

  I looked at Orville, flushed. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  He ran his hands through his hair. “Because I thought you’d misunderstand it and assume the Warnings of Experience might be literal.”

  My breath was quick. “Of course it’s literal. If a painting can exist outside of a book, then what’s to say a diary can’t? Is this Anne Brontë’s personal journal?”

  A look of pain crossed Orville’s face, which now looked ravaged in a way that I had not been expecting.

  “No,” he said. “Samantha—no. I knew about this passage—of course I knew. But I also anticipated the way you’d react. Your ideas about literature lead to a dangerous way of looking at life. You cannot assume that if you believe hard enough, something will always physically materialize in front of you.”

  “Cathy Linton’s ghost did, when Heathcliff called for it.”

  He looked at me with a gentleness that took me off guard. “I know what you really want, Samantha, and I’m so very sorry, but I’m afraid none of this will bring your father back to you.”

  My breath hitched in my throat. Instinctively, I looked away. My enthusiasm for the Warnings of Experience momentarily waned. Orville reached over and, to my great surprise, wrapped his entire palm over my hand. It was warm and smooth, and when he gave my hand a squ
eeze, I thought he really meant it.

  There was a noise behind us. Immediately, Orville retracted his arm, like a child who has been caught cutting carpets with scissors. I swiveled around to find Sir John standing at the doorway to the kitchen, a fresh glass of water in his hand. I wondered how long he had been listening.

  “You take an above-average interest in this young woman’s education,” he said to his son.

  Orville didn’t respond.

  “What was her name, Jimmy?” asked his father. “The last student you dated?”

  An ugly silence hit the room. My eyes widened. Sir John’s nostrils flared as he breathed in and out, in and out. I turned to face my professor. I felt a strange new emotion, which was too unfamiliar to be properly articulated. It wasn’t exactly terror—was it hope? James Orville had just become either heroic or evil.

  His expression was immobile. He looked down and picked a fallen crumb from his sweater, only to pitch it to the floor. Then he stood, slowly.

  “Abby,” he said. “Her name was Abby.”

  And with that, he quitted the room.

  Later in the evening, long after Sir John had gone to bed, and long after I had taken a shower and slipped back into Orville’s oversize T-shirt, I descended upon the kitchen to find my professor sitting alone, on a rickety chair, hunched over Far from the Madding Crowd.

  I sat down next to him. The oversize T-shirt, I knew, did not look good on me. It was too large, and drooped around the muscular shoulders that were not there. We didn’t say anything. Slouching and despondent, the two of us could have been in an advertisement for the Great Depression.

  I cleared my throat. “Are you going to tell me about it?”

  He didn’t look up. “No.”

  “Please? I like romantic comedies. Or maybe this one is a drama.” I paused. “Film noir?”

  “It was a very long time ago and I was very young.”

  “Was she younger than I am? Is that why your dad is mad? Because you’re a felon?”

  “She was older. A fourth-year.”

  “So she’s a cougar? I guess here you call them ‘sharks.’ ”

  He put down the book and it landed on the table with a slap. “Nothing happened between the two of us, Samantha,” he said. A pause. “At least not while she was my student.”

  “Then why can’t you eat in hall?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Please? I’d like to know.”

  He let out a breath. I knew he was angry, but I didn’t much care.

  “My colleagues didn’t much fancy the idea of a recently graduated student dating a don,” he said. “It was torturous, the interrogation they put me through.” He reached for the table and took a swig of something—what was in his mug? Tea? Whiskey? “They were probably right,” he said with a note of defeat. “I should have called it off long before I did.”

  I frowned. I had been wrestling with the idea of Abigail for the last hour. On one hand, I knew I should see his relationship with her as vile, immoral, one that violated its contractual and educational duty. On the other hand, I couldn’t find the idea quite as revolting as I should have. A consensual relationship forged upon intellect and inquiry seemed immediately worthier than its more lustful counterpart. And it seemed somewhat contradictory that an institution dedicated to pushing the boundaries of human endeavor should be constricted by so many human rules. I found that I was bothered not by the fact that Orville had dated a student, but by the realization that he must have really cared for her. I had the dispiriting image of the two of them—Orville and his pale, articulate girlfriend—bicycling around some photogenic English town.

  “Your father seems upset about it,” I said.

  “I believe it was very embarrassing for the family,” he said shortly.

  I tried to be comforting. “Your dad will get over it.”

  “My dad will ‘get over’ everything soon enough.”

  “Pardon?”

  Orville glanced at me. “He is in a steep decline. Or haven’t you noticed?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “His physical strength is deserting him by the day,” he said. “We can leave him alone in a classroom; we cannot leave him alone outside of one. The last time my brother and I visited, my father called to let me know he was on his way home from the parsonage. He never made it back. He got lost. I found him—my excellent father—up to his knees in mud.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it. I wished I knew how to be sweet with him. I wanted to put my arms around his elephantine shoulders and rub the pain out of him. But the only thing I seemed to know how to do was to brood and squabble. When Orville did look at me, it was with dead eyes.

  “Listen to me—please, just listen to me,” he said. “There is no artifact out there for you to find that will bring you anything resembling happiness. My father discovered a painting, once upon a time, just like you did. That painting was enough for him to abandon his career, his family, and the better part of his judgment, all so he could move north and pursue his one wild and fragile dream. Can you imagine? A fellow at Cambridge, taking a position at an insignificant museum. My father’s disillusionment has been great. He will not admit it to you, even now, but he has failed. That painting brought him nothing. The book he just wrote is useless, and he knows it. He did not find any Brontë artifacts. He did not become wealthy. He did not satiate his curiosity, or find inner peace. This is what happens, Samantha, when you believe in things and not in ideas. You disappoint yourself, and then you die.”

  I blinked. I had never seen Orville so dramatic.

  “Maybe he’s still more rational than you think,” I said, trying to lift the mood. “Maybe he discovered plenty of worthwhile things and he just doesn’t know what they mean. It wouldn’t be fair, exactly, to burden his passion with charges of insanity—didn’t you teach me that?”

  A fist smacked the table with a booming crack. It was Orville’s, and I flinched. For the first time, he raised his voice at me, cruelly.

  “Why is this difficult for you to understand? Listen to me carefully. The Warnings of Experience is not a physical diary. It is the story of what happens to a promising young man who ruins himself with alcohol, and of what happens to a young woman when she chooses not to read the simple signs in front of her. I thought, on some level, that you’d understand this. No? For God’s sake, Samantha. You are desperately alone and I’m afraid that this is what desperately alone people do—you attach significance to imaginary things to ease your sense of emptiness.”

  I blinked. Gone, it seemed, was the nice man who had taken my hand earlier. His voice was strident, and I found that he had managed to genuinely hurt me. I looked down, to the right, to the left. There were tears in my eyes. Curious, I thought, that they decided to show up now, years after they had begun to form. Orville was right. I made a quick mental tally of all the friends I knew in this world, and realized that the only one I had was sitting in front of me, and was this really the best I could do?

  To my surprise, when I looked up, Orville wasn’t making eye contact. He was massaging his palms, over and over again. It seemed as though an unexpected emotion had come into his repertoire and he didn’t quite know what to do with it. He stood up and moved to the freezer. When he returned, it was with a bag full of frozen lemon bars. He set the plate on the table, and waited.

  I said, “Those look terrible.”

  “I’ll get you a fork.”

  “Americans eat with their hands.”

  Orville sat back down across from me. I didn’t eat. I wondered if every dessert he had ever eaten had to come from a freezer.

  He said, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “What did you mean to do?”

  “I meant to be honest. I don’t think many people are honest with you.”

  “I don’t think many people are honest with anyone. That’s why people have friends.”

  I could feel that Orville was staring at me but I refused to retur
n his gaze. I was already retreating to a very dull, colorless place, one that did not accept visitors.

  “Tell me what is upsetting you,” he said.

  “You, mostly. I am not ‘desperately alone.’ ” My words sounded pouty and childlike, even to me. “And I don’t think you’re allowed to blame me for attaching significance to imaginary things. Not when you teach literature.”

  “You have something under your eye,” he said.

  “Leave it. I like it there.”

  “Hold still.”

  “Stop.”

  But he leaned over the table anyway, his massive right arm extended like a tree trunk. In a different world, I might have thought he was leaning in to kiss me. But instead, he rubbed one thumb right underneath my eye, slowly. It was wet from the tear and a half I had managed to squeeze out, and I wondered if this was what he meant by “something under your eye.” His skin was smooth and warm and my face felt small in his hands. I thought I might collapse right into him.

  The moment didn’t last long. In a flash he had returned his arm to his side of the table, then exited the room. I had the feeling that I had received the first apology he had ever given.

  That night, I dream of going to the parsonage again.

  The road is wet and the melting snow has left a muddy path. I am walking quickly because it is cold. The house looks quiet and cozy tonight. Circular puffs of smoke erupt from the chimney, as if a large man is lying on his back somewhere inside, smoking a cigar. There is a number of grotesque carvings lavished over the front entryway, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins.

  Inside the front door, I see a long, clean corridor. It is warm and smells of lavender. I walk down the hall. To the left is a fine living room, whose palatial fireplace defies the skinny proportions of the house’s exterior. It is a dimly lit chamber, filled with the echoes of recent laughter. The chairs are pulled away from the table, and one has tipped over. I spy fresh parchment, two quill pens, and a half-eaten chocolate chip cookie. The inhabitants must have fled, quite suddenly, without saying a word.