No Word From Winifred

by Amanda Cross

  Nor did it improve markedly at dinner, when Kate told Reed her plan. “Winifred disappeared in England, as far as we know,” he pointed out. “Why look for her in California, because some twerp connected her name with a gorgeous woman teaching in the history-of-consciousness program somewhere on the California coast?”

  “I admit it isn’t shatteringly logical when put like that,” Kate said, “but there is some sort of connection, even apart from Stan Wyman.”

  “Just the sort of connection I find most compelling. If I remember rightly, the gorgeous woman’s husband gave a paper on Robert Graves in 1980 in Texas at a session in which someone else who has nothing to do with anything gave a paper on Charlotte Stanton and saw Winifred Ashby.”

  “What a clearheaded way you have of putting things,” Kate said, refilling his wineglass. “Somehow, I didn’t think the connecting links were as tenuous as that.”

  “Why not just admit you want an excuse to visit California? As the secretary at Heffenreffer’s college said, all academics have to visit California sooner or later, like Christians to the Holy Land. I was in California once, and found it dreary, though admittedly, the Bay Area is supposed to be better—better climate, better politics, better scenery.”

  “Would you like to come?” Kate asked. “Everyone says San Francisco is wonderful. We can have a week scuba diving in wet suits, and eating alfalfa sprouts.”

  “Very amusing. Law schools are not on as abandoned schedules as the rest of the academic world. They have to meet a certain number of days a year, and still get out in time for the best jobs. Besides, I believe in letting you fly away; you’re always glad to get back, and especially obliging, I’ve noticed.”

  “If I’m not usually obliging, why do I pay the phone bills, and go to parties for Larry’s associates?”

  “I didn’t say you weren’t obliging; I said when you come back you’re especially obliging, with fonder heart and all that.”

  “I don’t think law school is improving your disposition,” Kate said. “Just for that, I won’t send you a postcard of a seal, or a picture of a redwood.”

  “Yes, you will,” Reed said. “And Mary Louise Heffenwhatever will turn out to be at the very center of your search. Your instincts are always right.”

  “But will she see me?”

  “If she refuses,” Reed said darkly, “you’ll have to send Leighton to pretend she has developed a passion for obscure fifteenth-century Italians, and their place in the history of consciousness.”

  “Would you rather she went to law school, like everyone else in my family?” Kate asked.

  “To Leighton as Watson forever,” Reed said, raising his glass. “Why don’t you try Santa Cruz again? Your prime suspect might just be getting home about now.”

  “She’s not a suspect,” Kate said. “Is she?”

  “You must always suspect everybody. Even Charlie and Toby. Don’t forget.”

  “No,” Kate said. “I won’t.” And she went to make the phone call.

  Mary Louise was not just getting home, she was making the children’s dinner. Of course, Kate thought, children. They were all living, Biddy explained—”Do call me Biddy, everyone does, even the children”—at one of the colleges, Santa Cruz being divided into separate colleges with separate programs. “It’s a bit hard to explain, but it becomes clearer when you see it. I’m in Cowell College, which has apartments for visiting faculty.” Kate had taken the precaution of again consulting the colleague who had advised her on Pulci and getting permission to use his name. Biddy was happy to meet with Kate. It appeared that Californians were naturally hospitable, and that those who visited picked up the habit. Kate, however, said she would stay at a motel nearby. “Well, all right,” Biddy said, “but remember that ‘nearby’ is a relative term in California. Two hours there and back for dinner is as nothing.”

  “I’ll rent a car too,” Kate said.

  Two days later, she picked the car up at the San Francisco airport, and drove out to Santa Cruz. Leighton, leaning more to her research-assistant than her Watson duties, had provided Kate with copies of several recent articles on Santa Cruz, the town. One gathered it had a certain sixties atmosphere, which Kate was far from scorning. Excesses there may have been, but selfishness had not yet been sanctified and called, patriotically, American, nor had consumerism and militarism been declared the chief aims of a democracy. Kate did not really think people changed; but she did think institutions, from religions to governments, shifted in what they condoned as the word of God. His word, in Kate’s opinion, was permission to do exactly what served one best. If Santa Cruz had contrived to remain backward in this regard, Kate, for one, was glad. However annoying radicals could be, they at least did not have power on their side.

  The campus of Santa Cruz, beautiful though it was in the midst of a huge redwood forest, had clearly been designed with radicals, of the sort who had instigated the Vietnam protests, in mind. There was no central space on the campus, nowhere to meet, to gather, to protest. The separate colleges, each of an individual architectual style, kept themselves to themselves in their shelter of redwoods, rather as though they were estates scattered in a resort area. Kate, who was used to stumbling through open spaces crowded with students celebrating everything from Central American autonomy to the return of spring, felt rather uncomfortably like Daniel Boone, walking through forests and over ravine-traversing bridges.

  Having settled in her motel on the borders of the town, Kate had driven up to the campus, past herds of browsing cattle. She had acquired a map, and found Cowell College, having passed it only once. Ordinary enough from the parking lot, its grounds looked over the bay—the sort of view, Biddy explained to Kate, that induced in Californians their notoriously long view of life. Unfortunately or otherwise, as one cared to look at it, the apartments for visiting faculty were viewless and dark, though spacious enough. Kate, accepting a glass of iced tea, admitted her confusion about what clothes to wear in this climate. “First I was cold,” she said, “now I’m hot. Is every day like this?”

  “Every day,” Biddy said. “You start the day in layers, which you remove as it heats up, placing them in the de rigueur day pack. It takes a little time to figure it all out.”

  “Are the children enjoying it here?” Kate asked.

  “Oh yes, though they find the school amazing. Everyone is into EST, and terribly relaxed. I suppose it’s a good thing, but when you come from the East, you have a terrible inclination to tell everyone to shape up.”

  “And the students?”

  “Very good. And a really first-rate faculty; it’s an interesting place.”

  Kate, these opening moves concluded, looked about her with some doubt as to how to proceed. The room itself struck her as oddly paradigmatic of her problem. The sun poured in from the French windows in the back, heating the room so that it was necessary to pull the drapes. The picture windows in the front required drawn curtains for privacy. As a result, of course, the room grew dark, and had to be lit, in the middle of a bright afternoon, by lamps.

  It helped that she had immediately liked Biddy; they did not need to circle each other, like domesticated animals of different breeds meeting on neutral turf. Biddy, Kate realized, probably assumed that Kate was looking over Santa Cruz in connection with some job offer, or some hope of changing jobs. She waited courteously for Kate to state the reason for her visit. But Kate, momentarily funking it, asked instead about Pulci. Biddy responded with an account of her newest theories, outlined in her recent MLA paper, which Kate did not say she had heard. “Do you know Winifred Ashby, and why she disappeared?” seemed rather too direct as a question. On the other hand, Winifred was not an easy subject to lead up to delicately. Biddy might not know her at all, and Kate could hardly explain that some awful man had suggested that Winifred had been having an affair with Biddy’s husband.

  “I’m afraid what I want to
ask you is rather awkward,” Kate said. “Some time ago—I’ll tell you how all this came about if you turn out to be at all interested—I had the opportunity to read the journal of a rather extraordinary woman. I found I liked her, and would like to get to know her, but when I tried to find out where she was, it seemed she had disappeared.” Kate paused, but Biddy’s face held nothing but genuine, if polite, interest; she was waiting for the point to emerge.

  “Somehow,” Kate went on, “your name was mentioned, very casually, in connection with her, and I wondered if you could tell me where she is, or indeed, anything about her.”

  “Certainly, if I can,” Biddy said, mystified and smiling.

  “Her name is Winifred Ashby,” Kate said.

  She had been prepared for some reaction—anything from a searching of the memory to an exclamation of recognition, but not for the gasp that came from Biddy; it was close to a howl of pain. “Has something happened to her?” Biddy asked. “Isn’t she still on the farm? We haven’t been in touch in over a year, perhaps longer, except for an occasional postcard in the beginning which said, oh, just: ‘Am fine, lovely cows,’ that kind of thing. She’s all right, isn’t she?”

  “I take it you knew her—know her—well?”

  “My God, what’s happened?” Biddy said, clearly stricken.

  Kate was appalled at what she had done. Damn, she said, to herself, you’ve been clumsy. “I’m sorry,” Kate said aloud. “I’m afraid I’ve been a bungling fool. Could we agree to tell each other all we know of Winifred Ashby?”

  “I don’t know,” Biddy mumbled. Kate felt her pain. It occurred to her, for the first time since her arrival, that Biddy was indeed wildly attractive, but not in a way that Kate kept noticing, as she did with certain women. She was not, despite Wyman’s description, stunningly got up, so that one’s eye was caught as at a good performance, nor blatantly sexy; she was simply beautiful in a quiet, almost concealing way, as though, knowing her power to awaken male lust, she had done her best to subdue it. “I don’t even know anything about you,” Biddy answered. “What do you want, really?”

  Biddy knew Winifred Ashby: that was evident. What could Kate lose by telling Biddy the whole story from start to finish, in exchange, it was to be hoped, for Biddy’s account? But Kate could scarcely demand Biddy’s agreement to such a bargain now. I’ve bungled it, Kate thought. I’ve got to trust her with the whole thing, and hope for some return of confidence on her part. What have I to lose? If she has done Winifred harm, what damage can I do with my story? If she wishes Winifred well, I may do a lot of good. She may well warn her husband, but she will now do that in any case, if such is her intention. All this passed rapidly through Kate’s mind; in the end, as she was likely to do, Kate came down on the side of truth and trust, not out of principle, but because weaving another web of deception could not, as far as she could see, help anyone, certainly not Winifred.

  “Has something happened to Winifred?” Biddy asked again.

  “I don’t know,” Kate said. “No, that’s the truth. I don’t know. No one seems to know where Winifred is. She’s disappeared. Look, I’ll tell you the whole story from the beginning, and then you decide whether or not you want to tell me what you know about Winifred. As to who I am, I am the professor I said I was, at the university I named; at the moment, I’m investigating the whereabouts of Winifred, whom I’ve never met. I told you that. Is there anything else you want to know about me?”

  “Do you think Mary Garth ought to have married Fare-brother?” Biddy asked. “And why didn’t Daniel know he was Jewish? Why didn’t he look down?”

  “What?” Kate said. She glanced around at the closed-in room, and wondered if she had wandered into some Gothic novel in real life.

  “Just answer the questions. They’re obvious enough, if you really are a professor of Victorian literature. I’m not really paranoid; just cautious. Life hasn’t been easy lately.”

  “Mary Garth,” Kate said, “has never been one of my favorite characters. Frankly, whether she married Fred Vincy or not, she would have had only sons and played the patriarchal woman. It’s Eliot’s only phony happy ending, in my opinion, not universally held by any means. As to why Daniel never looked down to discover he was circumcised, I don’t suppose anyone has answered that, but Steven Marcus has tried, among others. Will that do? I thought you were in comparative Renaissance, by the way.”

  “My husband started in Victorian, and moved up into modern. I guess you’re who you say you are. Have you read Shirley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Very much. One of the professors here who used to be a dean wrote a good chapter on it in her book.”

  “Okay,” Biddy said. “You pass. Tell me the story.”

  Kate, while answering Biddy’s simple questions, though not perhaps simple to someone who had not read those novels since college, had been, with the back of her mind, trying to organize her story. She decided to tell it, not as it had revealed itself to her, but perhaps as it had happened.

  “Winifred Ashby,” Kate said, “may have been at the 1980 meetings of the MLA, in Houston, Texas. I can’t be sure she was there, and if she was, it’s certainly odd that she would have gone all that way to hear a paper on her honorary aunt, Charlotte Stanton, when she could simply have asked the woman who presented it to send her a copy. The next I know of Winifred was last year, when she went to England with an acquaintance of mine. They went to visit a friend of Winifred’s honorary aunt, who has been long dead, and about whom my acquaintance, Charlie, wants to write a biography. Charlie and Winifred visited Sinjin, the aunt’s friend, after which Winifred simply disappeared. Perhaps she returned to the United States, but no one has been able to find her. The detective who was hired to trace her discovered a journal she had been writing at the farm where she worked.” Kate saw Biddy’s head come up, saw her decide not to ask a question.

  “The journal,” Kate continued with a barely perceptible pause, “was mostly about her childhood visits to England, and her life on the farm. That’s all I know, all I can tell you, except that, having read the journal, and heard about Winifred from Charlie, I have grown fascinated with her. I want to find her; at the least, to learn what became of her.”

  Biddy had, by now, got control of herself. “I still don’t see why you’ve come to me,” she said.

  That of course, was the question. It was Martin Heffenreffer who had delivered a paper at the 1980 MLA session, Martin Heffenreffer whom Winifred’s name had been mentioned in connection with. No, not really, it was Biddy’s name Stan Wyman had emphasized. Had that alone led Kate to Santa Cruz? She had had to be honest with Biddy, but only, she now decided, up to a point. It was Biddy’s turn.

  “Did you know her?” Kate asked. “Let’s just say, I think you may have.”

  Biddy got up and walked about the room. “Why should I tell you anything?” she asked. “Okay, you’re who you said you are, but so what? “You say you want to find Winifred. I’ve only your word for it that she’s disappeared. Suppose I refuse to talk to you, what then?” She turned to face Kate.

  “I haven’t any threats ready to hand,” Kate said, “and I wouldn’t use them if I had. What would be the use? Either you want to find out what happened to Winifred or you don’t. She’s been reported to the police as missing; a private detective named Richard Fothingale has spent many months in search of her. My friends Charlie and Toby have paid him handsomely; no doubt he’d talk to you, if you wanted to pay for his time. Sinjin left Winifred half her money, which was also Stanton’s, so the lawyers here and in England know they can’t find Winifred. If you don’t find all that convincing, why don’t you follow the same trail we’ve all followed? Then, many dollars and weeks later, you might decide to talk to me. On the other hand, as I quite see, you might have decided to distrust me on sight, and wouldn’t tell me the time of day if you were wearing fiv
e watches. Life’s like that sometimes. I have to say that I rather liked you on sight, but it has occurred to me lately how untrustworthy are first impressions.” Kate had been talking, meaning what she said, but dragging it out to give Biddy time to collect herself. I made her feel trapped, Kate thought; I sprang it on her too fast, and she feels she’s walked into a snare.

  Biddy was perhaps about to answer, but the door burst open, and children streamed in. Yelling “hi,” they followed one another up the stairs. Biddy called to two of them. “Come and be introduced to our guest,” she said. “This is Professor Fansler; Teddy and Fanny Heffenreffer.” The children came up and offered Kate a hand each. “How do you do?” Kate said.

  “All right,” Biddy said, “you can go now. Try to keep the noise down; we’re talking.” She then turned to Kate. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “More iced tea?” Kate accepted the offer. They were back to formalities.

  Sipping her iced tea, which at least allowed her decently to remain for a few minutes, Kate pondered how to save the situation. It was impossible to ask Biddy to talk about Winifred, even had she been willing, with the children about, running down to the kitchen past the two women. Perhaps in time, a day or two, Biddy would decide to talk to Kate. Kate, meanwhile, might visit San Francisco, or drive down the coast; somehow, neither of these lovely possibilities appealed to her. Sight-seeing, whatever she may have told herself, was not what she had come for.