All He Ever Wanted (25 page)

Heaving for air, I glanced up to see that Nicky and Abigail and Mary had come out of the house to see the chase. Etna, her
hands to her mouth, was watching from an upstairs window. I picked up the trembling Clara from the floor and held her to my
breast. I trust we comforted each other.

That night neither Etna nor Clara came down to dinner. Clara I could well understand, but not my wife. Abigail reported that
Etna had gone to bed without a meal in the guest room, since she did not want to bother me.

Bother
me? I thought but didn’t say, since I shared the table with Nicky, who was still trembling from the earlier incident. Bother
me about
what?
I wanted to know. (Quite possibly Nicky was trembling from excitement; for a six-year-old boy, the wild descent of the motorcar
would have been thrilling.) I thought my wife a coward and determined to wake her up after the meal and tell her so; and I
might have done so but for a phone call I received during the tomato bisque.

Ferald’s tone was businesslike. He wanted to speak with me at his home first thing in the morning. Could I come at nine o’clock?
Yes, I said, I would be only too happy to do so.

I hung up the telephone and half fell into the hallway chair. What did Ferald want? His tone had been chilly, but, then again,
Edward Ferald was not known for his warmth. Was he calling to tell me I was being dismissed from consideration for the post?
No, no, I did not think so, for why would he bother, when the vote was only a few days away? It was then I had another, more
pleasant, thought. Was it possible that word of Asher’s Jewishness had reached Ferald via some other route? And, if so, could
it be that Ferald, speaking on behalf of the board, was about to offer Nicholas Van Tassel the post of Dean of Faculty of
Thrupp College?

I did not sleep at all well that night. How could any man have done so? When I wasn’t wondering why my wife had lied to me
about being in a foreign cottage (had she lied to me, though? I tried to recall the precise series of questions and answers),
I was thinking about the dialogue that would shortly take place between Edward Ferald and myself. I imagined the conversation,
my grateful modesty (modest gratitude), and the solemnity with which I would accept the post. It seemed likely, based on past
experience, that Ferald would not be able to refrain from conveying to me that I was not his first choice. But would he not,
after all this time, bury the hatchet and congratulate me in the manner of a patron to an academic? No matter. Even if he
could not rise to a moment of graciousness, the outcome would still be the same. I would leave his home in time for my ten
o’clock class as the new Dean of Faculty of Thrupp College.

I dressed with care, donning my best worsted suit and striped silk tie. I wore a diamond tiepin, a gift from Etna, an ornament
I wore only on the most important of occasions. I tried as best I could to groom myself. As I may have mentioned, my hair
was beginning to thin, leaving a bald semi-circle at the top of my head, as if someone had taken a bite. I shaved carefully
and sprinkled cold water on my face repeatedly in an attempt to reduce the puffiness around my eyes, a result of my excitable
condition.

I was glad of the Stevens-Duryea, for I thought I should make a better impression arriving in Moxon’s touring car than on
foot. I tried to drive steadily and keep my thoughts even, warding off images of Etna in the cottage. I did not want to be
preoccupied or distracted on this most important of occasions. I pulled up to the front door of Ferald’s house, my opinions
about his manse softening as I did so. Perhaps the English limestone and the Greek columns were not as pretentious as I had
thought. Why shouldn’t a man design a house to suit his fanciful whims?

I stepped smartly from the automobile, and I trust I appeared confident and composed as I knocked on Ferald’s door. A butler
answered (yes, a full-fledged butler in Thrupp, New Hampshire, but never mind), took my coat and hat and gloves, and said
that Mr. Ferald was expecting me.

I followed the man a fair distance to a set of massive double doors that I had not remembered from my previous visit to that
house; the porcelain handles were near chin height. The butler ushered me into a large, well-lit room, in the center of which
was a highly polished oval table. He suggested I take a seat near the center of the table, which I did.

I folded my hands and was told that Mr. Ferald would be with me shortly. All around the table were shelves of books reaching
to an upper gallery that held even more volumes (but the man did not even read! I protested silently). The windows’ deep sills
and the thick carpet rendered the room so silent that I could hear my watch ticking in my pocket. I waited for what seemed
an age, glancing at said watch at intervals. Ten past nine o’clock. Twenty past nine o’clock. If Ferald didn’t come soon,
I thought, I would be late for my class. No matter, I told myself; by then I would be Dean, and it would not be long before
I was excused from teaching any classes at all — a delightful prospect, to say the least.

The latch of the massive doors clicked at precisely nine thirty. Edward Ferald, in moss green jacket, his beard shaved to
a point, entered the room. Under his arm, he carried an old and worn folder of the sort that we had once used at the college
years ago. I stood, but he waved me down. He sat opposite me at the table.

“I have summoned you here today,” Ferald began (no greeting at all; the man’s manners were deplorable), “because there is
a small matter which has come to my attention.”

“What small matter?” I asked, uttering my first words of our encounter.

Ferald consulted his folder. “Noah Fitch kept files on all of the men directly under him when he was Hitchcock Professor,”
Ferald said. “I thought it prudent to go into the college archives and find yours, as we are considering you for the post
of Dean of Thrupp College. You were at that time an associate professor.”

“Was that necessary?” I asked, suddenly aware of a ribbon of perspiration on my upper lip. Why did Ferald keep the room so
warm? I needed my handkerchief, but I would be damned if I would take it out in Ferald’s presence.

“And upon reading your file,” Ferald began, “I find that there is…how shall I put this…a disturbing notation.”

“Yes?” I asked.

“It seems,” he said, “that there was once a question of
plagiarism.”

Ferald said the word with evident distaste. “A monograph on the early novels of Sir Walter Scott?” he asked. “Does that sound
familiar to you?”

The perspiration which had begun on my upper lip now seemed to have blossomed from every pore of my body, even from my balding
pate. “Scarcely,” I said.

I had no choice now but to take out my handkerchief and wipe my head and face and neck. Ferald smiled patiently, waiting until
I had put the sodden linen away before he resumed speaking.

“You did have a chat with Noah Fitch regarding your paper, did you not?”

“We may well have done,” I said. “I should hardly be expected to remember a chat that took place… when did you say?”

“In March of 1900.”

“Fourteen years ago.”

“Nevertheless.” Ferald paused. “This is a charge of plagiarism, a most serious crime.”

“I believe Noah Fitch apologized to me for bringing the matter to my attention,” I said. “Yes, I am certain that he did.”

“Then you do recall the conversation,” Ferald said.

“I may,” I said, waving my hand as if to shoo the matter away.

Edward Ferald took a long sip of water from a carafe on the table. He had thin lips and a pointed tongue that curled into
the glass. “Water?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” I said.

“Apparently,” Ferald continued, his thirst satisfied, “Fitch did not think this a minor matter at all. Not if we are to believe
his notes.”

“I’m sorry?”

“To be precise,” Ferald began, “the notation here, in Fitch’s handwriting — and I am afraid there can be no question as to
its authenticity — reads, in part …” Ferald cleared his throat.
“‘VT denies the accusation of plagiarism regarding his monograph on Scott and its uncanny resemblance to that of Alan Dudley
Severance of Amherst College. I’ve let this go with a severe warning, as VT is a valuable, if uninspired, teacher of rhetoric,
and I doubt we should find another on such short notice for the remainder of the term. Nevertheless, VT’s scholarship will
be examined with utmost care in future. Perhaps a formal review is warranted?’”

“I… There was no such review,” I said, the word
uninspired
having pricked my ears.

“No. Quite,” Ferald said, taking another sip of water. “To this document is appended a series of phrases, also in Fitch’s
hand, which seem remarkably similar to phrases contained within Severance’s monograph, which was published a good number of
years before your own paper and which, by the way, I have read.” Ferald looked up at me and smiled. “Would you like to see
these addenda?”

“No,” I said, “I would not. I denied the accusation vigorously at the time,” I added, “and do so now.”

“Yes, yes. No doubt.”

“It is a very old matter,” I said. “Of no significance.”

Ferald leaned back in his chair. He folded his hands and tucked them under his chin. “Ah, but there, you see, Van Tassel,
I must disagree with you.” I noted that his shirtfront, as ever, was so white as to appear new. Did he have shirts made by
the dozens and wear them only once? “It is, in fact, why I have summoned you here today. You see, any man we elect to the
post of Dean must be above reproach,” Ferald added. “No blots on the record.”

“There are no blots.”

“There is, shall we say, a faint stain.”

“I…”

“And if I may say so, Van Tassel, it seems to me that Fitch let the matter go for pragmatic reasons, not because he didn’t
think it was true.”

“Pragmatic reasons?” I asked. “That is an outrageous misinterpretation of the incident.”

“I think I am rather good at interpreting,” Ferald said.

“You were not in your tutorials!” I said before I could stop my mouth.

Ferald smiled. “No, I was not,” he said. “A weakness for which I was severely rebuked, as I recall. With a failing grade.
An F. Which caused me to have to repeat the second term of my third year.”

“A student must accept the consequences of his shortcomings,” I said.

“As must a professor,” Ferald said, shutting the folder. “If you don’t withdraw your candidacy, Van Tassel, I shall reveal
this indiscretion to the corporators.”

“You cannot…”

“But if you withdraw, no one shall hear of this, and you may stay on at the college.”

I blinked.
Stay on at the college?
“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Keep your job is what I mean,” he said. He worried a vertical line on his forehead. “This isn’t to say that we might not
want to review, at a later date, your suitability for the chairmanship of your department.”

I shook my head. I needed time to think. I unbuttoned my suit coat. “This is monstrous,” I said.

Ferald shrugged as if to say,
This is scarcely of any importance.

“And all this because I once failed you in a Scott tutorial?” I asked.

Ferald stood. “I’ll announce your withdrawal at the December fourth meeting,” he said, tucking the aged folder under his arm.
He studied me for some time.

I would have stood with him, but for the moment I could not. My arms were quivering with shock, and my mouth was dry.

“Did you enjoy your tour?” he asked.

“Tour?” I asked, unable to think. “What tour?”

“Of my house.”

I wanted to undo my collar. “I have no idea what you mean,” I said.

“The night of my party, Van Tassel. I’m told reliably by a servant that you had a tour of my house.”

“I…”

“The pool?” he suggested.

I retrieved my handkerchief from my pocket and wiped my brow.

“The conservatory?” Ferald asked. “The night of the reception?”

“I…I had lost my wife,” I stammered.

Ferald smiled. “Had you indeed,” he said.

I forced myself to a standing position, though I had to put my hands on the table for balance. I cleared my throat.

“I assume you are aware that Phillip Asher is a Jew,” I said, a man playing his trump card long after all the other players
have left the room.

For a moment, Ferald was silent.

“A Jew,” I repeated.

Ferald regarded me curiously. “Good day, Van Tassel,” he said.

I hardly remember my drive to the college. I parked the motorcar on the lawn and made my way into Chandler Hall to my classroom.
I entered the populated chamber (I was late) and sat with weakened legs at my desk. After a time, I glanced up at the young,
expectant faces before me.

I did not recognize a soul, not a single one of the astonished visages.

I sat in an attitude of perplexity for some time, the baffled students waiting for a pronouncement. I could think of no words
with which to address them. Had I had a stroke, I wondered? Had an occlusion of a blood vessel caused this hideous memory
lapse, this quaking in my limbs?

A figure stood in the doorway, and I turned my head. It was Owen Ellington, a junior faculty member. He carried a cup of tea
and he, too, looked somewhat perplexed, though kindly so.

“Professor Van Tassel,” he said. “What a pleasure. What can I do for you?”

I may have offered a greeting. I stood and collected my briefcase. Ellington moved aside, and I stepped out into the hallway.
For an uncertain moment, I did not know in which direction to head.

With deliberately careful strides, I went in search of my own classroom. I could think of little but the humiliating scene
I had just endured at Ferald’s house. What recourse did I have? Could I not tender an appeal? Yes, I thought, I could do that.
I would do that at once. Surely I had more respect than Ferald did among the faculty. And yet… and yet…to bring such an accusation
to the notice of the college might end in catastrophe for me. I leaned against a wall. I knew only too well what such a revelation
might do to my career.