by Clea Simon
‘Ms Schwartz, please.’ The weight – the weariness – made her finally listen. ‘I don’t want to tell you what to do, and frankly I am glad you called me rather than bothering Lieutenant Wardley, and I promise I will let him know your concern. But I have something to say to you too, Ms Schwartz. This is an ongoing investigation. A criminal matter. Not something out of one of your books. You need to leave this alone.’
‘That’s easy for him to say.’ Several minutes later, the effect of that deep rumbling had worn off and Dulcie was regretting her silence. For relief, she vented to the cat. ‘He’s not in jail or in the hospital.’
Esmé’s silence, however, seemed as pointed a response as Rogovoy’s, and so Dulcie tried to turn her mind toward organizing her day. Usually, she’d head into the Square, but with her office closed and the situation with the library iffy, she wondered if that made sense. If the main library were closed, she could probably avail herself of Griddlehaus’s reading room, she knew. The director of the Mildon had invited her to use it, but she felt to do so would feel a little funny. For starters, the little room was clearly a private sanctuary. And while she knew that her niggling concerns about Griddlehaus were just that – bits of nightmare salted by her mother’s half-digested visions – she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the librarian knew more than he was telling. Besides, a peek out the window showed a heavy cloud cover that threatened rain, if not sleet, which made a venture outside seem particularly unappealing.
What she ought to do, of course, was write, and there was no reason that she couldn’t do that in her apartment. In fact, if Esmé was going to insist on ignoring her – and Dulcie found herself interpreting the small cat’s silence in the most pointed terms – she might actually be able to get something done.
Assuming the persona of the protagonist, here an unnamed female whose limited point of view both defines and extends the central mystery, to be a stand-in for that authorial voice as well as for the intended audience, would be in line with the standard post-structuralist theory in that the text may be read at times as contradictory and transgressive, a key signifier in the works previously identified as having been written by the author of The Ravages of Umbria, or the Ravages author, for ease of reference.
Ease of reference indeed. Forty minutes of wrestling with that one sentence, and all Dulcie wanted to do was hit ‘erase.’ Instead, she soldiered on.
This commonality not only helps place this previously unidentified work in the Ravages canon, it opens an intriguing door on the later career of the author, which as has previously been posited, took her from her native England to the shores of the fledgling United States, where her political views, though welcomed at first during a period of intellectual receptivity (ref: Franklin, 247) would soon have found themselves as the increasingly anti-intellectual foment of the war years brought in a new conservatism (see … ).
Pushing aside her laptop, she reached for her yellow legal pad. Surely, she had made a note there of the citation she wanted, the nineteenth-century legal scholar who had published a series of papers about the intellectual backlash of the century prior. She flipped through the pages. What was his name? Crabitch? Cravish?
Never mind. She tossed the pad. Better to keep writing. She’d find the reference later.
If, as the evidence suggests … That was weak. Thorpe was going to be all over that. One reading of the retreat … No, too negative … of the return to fiction, specifically, the popular and often melodramatic stylings of the earlier work (see Ravages) is that such works served the dual purpose of camouflaging the author’s more radical message, which may be strongly identified with the first-wave feminism of Mary Shelley, et al., and also of delivering it directly, one might almost say covertly, to its intended audience: the female reader, which is to say literate women with the means and independence to either buy or subscribe to a lending library and the leisure time as well as the not inconsiderable luxury of adequate lighting (cf. candles, oil lamps, etc., in an increasingly urban society) with which to enjoy such novels.
Dulcie sat back, rather pleased. In an earlier chapter, she had already made the case for the importance of the author’s female characters, stressing how even the villainous companion was important because she had an active role. Now, she felt, she was making the case for these novels as more than mere entertainment. Their very existence meant something – and the message they carried? Well, women were writers and readers, and maybe the heroines of their own tales.
‘Like me?’ A soft, warm weight pressed against Dulcie’s legs. Esmé had evidently woken from her early-morning nap. ‘What is my role?’
‘I don’t know yet, kitty.’ Dulcie reached down to pull the cat up into her lap and was rather surprised by how heavy she was. ‘I would say it’s considerable, though.’
‘Hunh!’ Esmé settled with a soft snort and began kneading.
‘Esmé …’ Dulcie waited a minute. It was very nice to have the warm, soft body on her lap. Even the sharp pinpricks of claws as her pet worked her paws rhythmically against her legs wasn’t too bad. However, there was one inescapable fact. ‘Esmé, darling, I think I have to put you down.’ The black and white cat kept on kneading, refusing – Dulcie suspected – to meet her eyes. ‘I don’t think I can type with you on my lap. You’re too large.’
From habit, she’d been stroking the cat’s sleek black back, but now she removed her hands. In return, Esmé tipped her head up, pinning her with those green eyes.
‘I’m sorry, kitty.’ Dulcie shifted slightly, hoping the cat would leave of her own accord.
‘Meh.’ She did, finally, kicking off with what may have been a bit too much force in a move that dug her hind claws into Dulcie’s legs. ‘As if you ever notice the cat … ’ Dulcie caught the tail end of the feline comment, as the tail end of the actual feline disappeared around the door. ‘As if you paid any attention … ’
Maybe it was guilt, but Dulcie had a hard time concentrating after that. Without Chris, the apartment felt too big – too empty. And to top it off, the heat had come on with a hiss like a perturbed puss, and the clanking and banging of the old building’s pipes were giving her a headache.
‘I’m going to see if I can get back into the library, Esmé.’ She called into the other room as she began to pack up her bag. ‘I promise I won’t stay so late tonight.’
The cat did not deign to answer.
TWENTY-FIVE
The library, to Dulcie’s surprise, was open. It was also buzzing, which while unusual was not an unexpected consequence of everything going on. As a result Dulcie made her way in almost without notice, swiping her ID card as a guard – one of the older men – waved her by without a glance, so absorbed was he in his conversation.
Dulcie paused in the main lobby, taking in the unaccustomed hubbub. With all the voices she must, she figured, be able to find someone to tell her what was going on.
‘Ruby!’ She called out to her friend, who looked up and waved her over to the circulation desk, where she was in a deep conversation with two other staffers.
‘Dulcie, you’ve got to hear this,’ said her friend.
‘Erin, multimedia.’ The redhead on the other side of the desk introduced herself. ‘You know Kyle?’
‘Kind of.’ Dulcie shrugged, Chris’s words of caution echoing in her ears. ‘I hadn’t known he was Stuart Truckworth’s son until just this week.’
‘Poor kid.’ Erin shook her head. ‘Yeah, he didn’t like that to get around. You’d think his dad did all kinds of favors for him, but the truth was, he was really hard on Kyle.’
‘He seemed upset that Kyle was arrested.’ Dulcie tried to imagine how her father would have reacted in a similar situation, but there were too many impossible variables involved.
Erin and Ruby exchanged a glance that Dulcie couldn’t read. ‘Yeah, maybe,’ the redhead said.
‘What?’ Dulcie waited.
‘I think his dad thinks this all reflects badly on him.’ The redhea
d made a point of emphasizing the last word.
‘He can’t be that bad.’ Dulcie thought back. ‘He seemed quite distraught.’
Erin shrugged. ‘I guess. I think Kyle was an embarrassment to him – like Kyle could never be a buttoned-down professional, like he is.’
Somehow, this didn’t jibe with the image in Dulcie’s head. ‘But he’s facilities and maintenance, right?’
‘He’s still management.’ Ruby leaned in. ‘I heard that the cop who arrested Kyle is being called on the carpet.’
‘I heard that he was gunning for Kyle because of his dad.’ This latest came from Brian, the head of digital services. ‘That it’s a departmental rivalry thing.’
‘Does anyone know anything concrete?’ Dulcie’s head was spinning from the gossip and speculation. ‘Like, what evidence they have?’
‘I thought old Mumbles said something.’ Ruby looked at Dulcie for confirmation.
Dulcie felt the blush rise to her cheeks. ‘I think I started that rumor by accident. Someone saw a cop coming from the direction of Holyoke Center … from the health services …’ She paused. ‘But, no, Jeremy is still not really conscious.’
‘Poor guy.’ Ruby shook her head. Erin, however, looked less convinced.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He creeps me out. He’s always lurking, you know? Like he’s hiding something.’
‘He’s just shy,’ said Dulcie. ‘Kind of like a cat.’
Erin raised her eyebrows at that, and Dulcie realized it was time for her to get to work. ‘So, is the library back to normal?’
‘No.’ Erin had the latest. ‘Level three is still considered a crime scene. I guess it’s a mess. I heard one of the cops say something about seeing an animal down there.’
‘Rats.’ Ruby shuddered. ‘I guess we’ve been lucky. Hey, Dulcie, maybe Mumbles is really a cat, and now that he’s away …’
Dulcie forced a smile and made her farewell, heading toward the main reading room. She had no problem finding a good seat, with a working lamp and far enough away from the main entrance so that the unusual buzz wasn’t audible. But she couldn’t help but feel like an exile. Or, no, a small animal that had been driven from its lair. That, she realized, must have been what Jeremy had felt like, back in the day, when his very achievements had turned against him.
But even if everyone else made light of his plight, she wouldn’t. Unsure where to go, Dulcie logged into the university search engine that Lala had used and entered the name Jeremy Mumbleigh. She saw the same headlines she had viewed before: Wins Dorchester. Mumbleigh Identifies Islington Bible. And finally, Scholar Disputes University Decision, Faces Disciplinary Action. She couldn’t tell for sure if anything here had relevance. But the battle had mattered so much to Jeremy. The least she could do was search for individual titles to see if she could discern their fate.
It wasn’t easy. Perhaps because the disputed works were considered of little value, very few of them were mentioned. There were some novels from the late nineteenth century described simply as ‘sentimental.’ A translation of lesser works by the Abbé Constantin and some early mysteries by Mary Roberts Rinehart. And while the Gothic found on Jeremy, He Could Not Tell Her, was noted once for its length – ‘belabored over two volumes’ – it didn’t merit a second mention. One article did make a vague reference to ‘early commercial fiction’ that intrigued her, while another noted that ‘some of these works may be notable for their rarity today, if not their literary quality.’ But that was it.
What all the journals focused on instead was the battle waged by Jeremy Mumbleigh to save these books – or, at least, to keep them in the original collection.
‘How do you define “value”?’ one piece began. At least the argument hadn’t been totally one-sided. Dulcie found a point-counterpoint in an issue of a now-defunct university quarterly. The writer, as far as she could tell, took Jeremy’s side, arguing that no book was worthless, and that the gift should be kept intact. ‘Even if an individual title is not a prized member of the literary canon,’ she read, ‘it may be useful for the insight it casts on the giver. That is, even a piece of trash fiction might tell us more about who saved such priceless works as the Islington Bible for posterity.’
Well, that probably would not have been Jeremy’s argument, Dulcie decided. Although she couldn’t be sure, she had a strong feeling that the wounded scholar would have valued the books for their own right, not simply because of their use as historical or biographical markers.
The counterpoint didn’t even contest the first writer’s argument, she saw as she moved on. Instead, it focused on practicalities, appealing to the reader’s sense of reality.
‘Clearly, a significant portion of the property was not original to the bequest,’ began the opposing argument. ‘If budgeting were not an issue, the university would happily maintain the gift as it was received. However, we must be practical about both money and storage limitations and harbor our resources for more deserving properties. Even were these pieces lost, the hunt to restore them would be more costly than their worth.’
‘What a crock,’ muttered Dulcie as she scrolled through the rest. But before she could close it, one more line held her transfixed. The piece, she now read, had been written by the then-assistant manager of facilities and maintenance. A bureaucrat named Stuart Truckworth.
TWENTY-SIX
Why did Stuart Truckworth have it in for Jeremy?
As Dulcie sat looking at the news story, she found she could neither answer that question nor shake the idea that for nearly thirty years the two had been at odds. Maybe there was history she didn’t know of. Maybe Truckworth had resented Mumbleigh back when both had been graduate students. After all, Jeremy had gone on to win the Dorchester, while Stuart had ended up leaving his studies behind for a far-from-unprofitable but certainly less glamorous career. But now, their roles had completely reversed. Truckworth was a success – a senior manager with a son with whom he was developing a relationship. What could such a man have against Mumbleigh, who had fallen so low?
‘It’s just not fair,’ said Dulcie to the screen before her. ‘It’s not fair, and it’s not very nice.’ It was, however, curious, and Dulcie regretted that Griddlehaus wasn’t around. Her friend might have been able to shed some light on his former colleagues. But, no … she looked around the reading room. The bespectacled librarian still had not surfaced. And as much as she was tempted to go look for him, she knew she shouldn’t. Chris was right. The reason she had stayed on campus this week was to get work done. Yesterday was the exception. It would have been hard for anyone to concentrate after all the brouhaha. Besides, her side trip to the conservation lab had proved relevant to her work, sort of.
Today was a new day, and despite the slow start she had hours to get work done. She opened her document and thought about what to write next.
While the conflation of the author and the protagonist is a common mistake on the part of readers, the serious scholar should not assume …
She stopped herself. What she was writing might as well be dogma. Her thesis committee would know this – would know the dangers of reading the heroine as a stand-in for the author. Besides, wasn’t she trying to make the opposite case? That one could use these books – the fragments of The Ravages of Umbria and this one, which Dulcie had privately dubbed The Body in the Library – as clues that would help her figure out the identity of the author?
She tried again. While the conflation of the author and the protagonist is commonly viewed as a mistake, in the absence of other material, the fictionalized world may be examined for clues as to the author’s identity.
There, that was good. Only … Dulcie paused as the thought formed. She did have other clues: the pages she had pieced together. While she had first discovered this new novel from some surviving printed pages, what she was working from now were actual manuscript pages, written in the author’s own hand. Surely, she could apply her own form of literary forensics to those primary sources.
She closed her eyes and conjured up those stained and tattered papers. If only she could get down to the Mildon again. Could once more view those actual pages. When she had first identified them, she had been focused on what they contained. Deciphering the faded words, picking out phrases that in some cases – thanks to corrosive ink – had eaten through the paper like moths in cashmere, had been her priority, and she had worked long hours to put together the bits and pieces. Now, however, she wished she had paid more attention to those pages themselves. They were a direct link to the woman she was seeking.
But Chris was right. This was a diversion. As a scholar, her goal was to trace the author through the text, not through some physical remnants. She looked over her notes again and started once more to write.
The author, whom we may presume to be the same person who … She paused again. Who or whom? ‘Who’ looked right. ‘Who’ was right, she was sure. She looked up. Working in the reading room had its distractions. For starters, the high ceilings and wide open space amplified every sound. She could hear Ruby’s low chuckle all the way from circulation, and one of the guards had the squeakiest shoes. However, if she were downstairs, she wouldn’t have such easy access to actual physical research materials, such as the OED or the various style books that were kept on hand here.
Even more important, she wouldn’t have been able to ask Ruby for advice.
‘Ruby?’ Dulcie had tucked her laptop back into her messenger bag before leaving her seat. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her colleagues. A few weeks ago, she would have left the machine as a place marker, a visible sign that, yes, this particular chair was indeed occupied. All the warnings had spooked her, however. The warnings and the thought that someone – or some group – had actually breached her beloved library. ‘Ruby, may I ask your thoughts on a phrasing?’
