The Collected Stories of Amanda Cross (18 page)

“I suspected, in short, that your picture, dear Monica, had come under the eye of your rich benefactor, who believed it, not the one in the Dutch museum, to be the original, and who determined to acquire it. Whether he did, and how, only you know, and you are not telling. My guess–yet another guess–is that he meant to leave you with a reproduction, but either was unable to because of someone’s unexpected return to the adobe, or decided against it in the belief that you would know the difference.

“Guard your painting well, Sister Monica. You might request insurance on it from your benefactor, who would no doubt be pleased to offer so appropriate a gift. I draw no conclusions about your Leyster painting, or about the identical one now in the Netherlands, but rest simply content to rejoice in the happy return of your property. The priest was wrong. It is entirely appropriate to the sisterhood that owns it.

With all good wishes,
Kate”

K
ate Fansler gazed at the candidate undergoing his Ph.D. oral certification examination with a steadiness that she hoped conveyed genuine interest in his theories about George Eliot. And, indeed, her interest was not feigned. This student, a highly talented young man, had chosen George Eliot as his major author and was discoursing upon her novels and the theories about them with grace and intelligence, revealing easy familiarity with Eliot and the major works of criticism she had inspired. He finished up with an elegant and short disquisition on Eliot’s ideas of vocation, using a few well-chosen examples, and the chair of the committee signaled that the time allowed for that section of the examination had expired. Kate smiled at the candidate and thanked him, quite sincerely, for his presentation.

The next section of the examination was on the medieval love lyric, and while Kate would assign a grade to this as to all other sections of the exam, she allowed her
mind to wander. The fact was that if the candidate had made up out of whole cloth every one of the love lyrics he quoted, Kate would not have known the difference. Besides, George Eliot reminded her of the strangest bit of detective work she had ever been called upon to do. The case had only recently wound its way to its odd conclusion.

KATE HAD BEEN
sitting in her office reading through applications to the graduate program when there came a knock on her door. She had called “Come in” before she remembered her determination to get through this pile of applications without interruptions. A young woman entered the office, her hand still resting diffidently on the door handle.

“May I talk to you for a moment?” she asked.

“If it really is only a moment,” Kate said. “I’ve got to finish up dealing with this.” She pointed to the bundles of purple folders on her desk.

“Well,” the girl said, as though honesty were the only possible answer in this and in all matters, “it is longer than a moment. But everyone I consulted said you would be the only person who might help. Not that I consulted many people,” she added. “Only three, to be exact, but they all mentioned you.”

“In what connection?” Kate could not resist asking.

“George Eliot,” the young woman said.

“Ah,” Kate answered. “What’s your name?”

“Luellen Sampson. I have a Ph.D. in English literature from another university, not here, and I’m an assistant professor of literature.” Which, Kate thought, explained nothing, except that the interruption would have better been directed to another professor, whose office was quite elsewhere.

“Could we make an appointment, Ms. Sampson?” Kate asked. “I really must get through this job.” Again she pointed to her desk.

“Of course. You couldn’t help me with only one meeting anyway. I don’t know if you can help me at all. You see”–and here Luellen Sampson paused; even her body seemed to come to attention as though she were about to attempt a difficult dive, which, Kate later acknowledged, was indeed the case–“you see, I’ve found an unpublished play by George Eliot and her companion George Henry Lewes, but mostly by George Eliot, apart from the main plot. Lewes probably outlined that.”

Kate put her pen, which she had been grasping with the air of one determined to return to her task despite all disruptions, down on the desk. She leaned back in her chair. “All right,” she said. “Tell me.”

“I’m afraid it’s a long story.”

“It can hardly help being a long story,” Kate agreed. “Why not start from the beginning, that is, with George Eliot. What year are we in?”

“1863. A man named Theodore Martin, who was an old friend of Lewes’s–they’d met before Lewes went to live with George Eliot as her husband, though not legally; of course her name was Marian Evans when she went to live with Lewes, she hadn’t begun writing novels yet.…” Luellen paused as though unable to disentangle herself from that sentence.

“I know about George Eliot’s life,” Kate said, not unkindly. “I’ve even heard of Theodore Martin. Wasn’t he married to a famous actress?”

“Oh, very good,” Luellen burst out, as though Kate were a student she was encouraging. “That’s the whole point, you see. He was married to an actress named Helen Faucit, whom Lewes thought the best tragic actress he’d
ever seen, and since George Eliot was in one of her sad phases, he, Lewes, suggested that they write a play for Helen Faucit.” Luellen paused; her sentences, Kate noticed, tended to become unduly extended although the elements of proper syntax were never quite abandoned. “They decided to call the play
Savello
,” Luellen concluded with a sigh. “That’s the play I’ve found.”

Kate considered this statement in a deepening silence. The woman was probably demented, though not necessarily in a dangerous way. George Eliot materials had been searched out endlessly and thoroughly; the chance of anything else, certainly anything more than a letter, being found was unlikely to the point of impossibility. On the other hand, of course, a first novel of Louisa May Alcott’s had just been discovered in, of all obscure places, the Houghton Library at Harvard, where it had been misfiled. And then there were Boswell’s journals, which had surfaced more than seventy years ago, in a croquet box. All the same …

Luellen had risen to her feet. Kate rose also, to stretch her legs and to escort her visitor to the door. But Luellen was taking a large brown envelope from her backpack.

“Here,” she said. “I’ll leave you a copy. You can read it, and then we can talk about it. People said I could trust you, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone I can trust any better. Can we make an appointment to meet after you’ve read it? No hurry.”

Kate should have said that she hadn’t the time, that she didn’t want to be responsible for deciding what might become of a valuable, unknown manuscript, that this wasn’t the sort of problem she could help with, or any of a hundred other things. Instead, her hand, as though with a mind of its own, reached out and took the brown envelope.

“Come back on Monday, this time. Is that convenient? I’ll read this over the weekend and we can confer on Monday.”

“Fine,” Luellen said. “And thank you. I know you won’t show it to anyone or discuss it with anyone.” And she departed with more alacrity than Kate would have given her credit for.

To Kate, the “anyone” she was not supposed to discuss “it” with did not include Reed, and at dinner she told him about Luellen’s visit and about the play that the young woman intended to publish, making her reputation and–so Luellen clearly assumed–her academic fortune. Kate had read the play after her return home and before Reed, who had been kept late by a meeting, joined her for a drink and dinner.

“What’s the play about?” Reed asked, when he had heard an account of Kate’s afternoon meeting with Luellen Sampson. “I know that’s not the proper way to question a literary work. I guess I mean, what’s the plot?”

“That’s easier described than what the play’s about,” Kate said, laughing. “We have this Don Juan type, named Savello, who sees the beautiful Cassandra–and why they chose that name, only God and George Henry Lewes know, and they’ve both forgotten–anyway, he sees her in church, naturally, shades of Dante, and desires her, or lusts after her, whatever.”

“You usually describe literary works more elegantly, Kate.”

“This is scarcely a literary work. I’ll try to be quick about the hideous plot. You can probably guess it for yourself. Savello follows her home and covers her with words and kisses, all gentle enough not to upset her unduly. In fact, instead of defending her virtue, she paints for him a picture of the hideous life he will live if he continues on his feckless way. Deciding she has saved his soul, he sends her a note saying he must see her one more time, he tricks her husband–I think I forgot to say she was married–”

“You certainly did,” Reed interrupted.

“Yes, well, she is, but she tells her husband about Savello, and then tells Savello to come, which he does, and the husband kills him, or maybe Cassandra does–it’s not terribly clear–but she is sobbing over his body; she now understands that he has indeed been ennobled by her love, but she has killed him before he could live his noble life. Curtain.”

“Yikes!” Reed said.

“The perfect comment. But if George Eliot did write it, even with the help of Lewes, finding and publishing it is certainly worth a lot of academic credits.”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite get it,” Reed said. “Why did she come to you, and what’s the problem you’re supposed to be coping with?”

“Good question,” Kate said. “Go to the head of the class.”

“What’s the good answer?”

“Only a guess. I think she needed someone from outside her circle to lend a name to the play, back it, push it, blurb it, endorse it, certify its authenticity. I’m something of an expert in the field of the novel, and something of a detective. If I say George Eliot wrote it, then a number of people will assume that she did. And those who think she didn’t will attack
me
as well as Luellen Sampson.”

“Are you going to endorse it?”

“Really, Reed, of course I’m not. George Eliot never wrote that thing, and while there is evidence that her ‘husband’ wrote the plot or at least the outline, I don’t think he had a hand in it either. It’s not so much the language and the syntax, although that’s not of the greatest. It’s other signs. Commas, for one thing. George Eliot, like Jane Austen, had a view of comma use wholly different from what today’s grammarians condone, and the commas in this play are, so to speak, modern.”

“What about the paper and the type?”

“They’ve gone to a lot of trouble about that. I’m no expert, but I’d be surprised if both aren’t exactly what John Blackwood, her publisher, would have used in 1863.”

“I see,” Reed said. “Well, supposing it is a fake, where did she, or whoever did it, get the idea for the play?”

“The same place where I learned about it, from Gordon Haight’s biography of George Eliot,
^*
a really great biography, even if he was somewhat over convinced that ‘she was not fitted to stand alone.’ What I don’t know is what, if anything, I’m going to do about it. Of course I’m not going to endorse it, but …”

“But,” Reed finished the sentence for her, “you’re damn well going to find out whose plot this was and why they decided to involve you in it?”

“Exactly. Still, easier said than done. I’ll have to do a bit of digging.”

“Starting with Luellen Sampson, assistant professor of literature?”

“However did you guess?” Kate said, smiling at him. But her days were full for the rest of the week, and the weekend too had long since been promised to other activities. And so it was that Kate saw Luellen again before she could begin any of her investigations.

LUELLEN ARRIVED EXACTLY
as she had before, knocking and then entering with an apologetic air, if one could be imagined, Kate thought, to offer apologies for what one was nonetheless determined upon. Invited to sit, Luellen did so.

“I’ve read the play,” Kate said. “If it wasn’t by George Eliot, I doubt anyone would find it of great interest. Do you agree?”

“Well, I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Luellen said, startled by the question. “I mean, since it is by George Eliot, it’s very interesting indeed.”

“From a biographical point of view, I guess so,” Kate said. “I for one have never been able to get my pulses racing over Eliot’s
The Spanish Gypsy
, and this is more or less in that mode, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes. It’s verse, and it’s got a very serious moral point to make. Still, one might not have guessed at what George Eliot’s views would be on a Don Giovanni type.”

This discussion, intriguing to anyone for whom literature was the stuff of life, had to be postponed.

“Tell me about yourself,” Kate said, “with an emphasis on your graduate school experience, unless something dramatic happened before then.”