An Imperfect Spy (19 page)

She looked at Kate to see if she agreed. Kate nodded.

“One critic,” Betty continued, “one I remember particularly, compared Tess’s journey to
Pilgrim’s Progress
. Probably many critics said that. And that same critic pointed out that Tess’s pilgrimage had no goal, no way of ending satisfactorily. That was Tess’s tragedy, and I guess it was mine. Neither Tess nor I seemed to fit into any of the usual categories for women; that’s probably why Hardy didn’t like his subtitle. She wasn’t pure or impure, she wasn’t anything a woman was supposed to be. Except a victim. That’s what Tess was, that’s what I was, a victim. But she only seems to be a victim—you told us that—because she does something about her life. She refuses just to be passive.”

She looked up at Kate, who again nodded, smiling encouragement.

“I mean,” Betty went on, “it’s all there. The birds left to die, with no one caring, killed for the fun of it; the poor animals in the hay field after it’s
mowed, trapped and clubbed to death. The rats—were they rats?—in the corn rick. And Tess most of all, laid out like a sacrifice at Stonehenge. Maybe you were wrong and Tess was a victim because she never thought about escaping, not ever, not even at the end. So what I thought”—here, Betty paused and looked up at Kate—“what I thought is maybe I should think of ways to escape. Maybe I don’t have to be a victim like the animals in the hay field, like the birds, like Tess at Stonehenge.”

Bless you Thomas Hardy, Kate thought with reverence. One thing I have that Reed doesn’t is the very occasional assurance that literature matters. Reed always knows the law matters, so it becomes incapable of suddenly revealing its significance.

“Reed thinks there’s a good chance the case can be reopened,” Kate said. “He’s going to do his best, and you should, too. If the hundred years between you and Tess haven’t got us the right to appeal, well, that would be too bad, wouldn’t it?” Kate, quite against prison rules, held out a handkerchief to Betty, who took it, crying freely now.

“You’re right,” Betty said into the handkerchief. “I’ve decided. There’s no point in just giving up; I’ve got to try. At the end, Angel says to the police, let her finish her sleep. Well, I’m not going to finish my sleep. That is, if you think that’s the right move.”

“Of course it is,” Kate said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “You have to talk it all over with Reed; he has to decide how to go about it. But I’m hopeful, I really am.”

“They all lied,” Betty said. “All of Fred’s friends at the school. They said he never beat me, that I was crazy, and made scenes, and drank, and neglected the children. They all testified, lying through their teeth. Do you think Reed can do anything with that?”

“Perhaps we can find some witnesses the defense should have called and didn’t,” Kate said. “But I’m not a lawyer, and law isn’t justice. Still, it sounds promising.”

“There were people at the school who knew what Fred was like. But they were afraid to say anything; they were mostly secretaries. Do you think they might help now; do you think they might remember?”

“I can’t pretend to know, Betty, but I certainly think they might be willing to. I don’t know much of anything about the law, but if Reed is hopeful that you have a chance, then you do have a chance, and he’ll know what to base it on. I’m very glad you asked to see me. I hope the next time I see you, it will be away from here, somewhere you have chosen, somewhere nice.” Kate had glanced at her watch, and knew her time was almost up. Reed still had to talk to Betty.

“Be sure to tell Reed all you’ve told me—about the case, I mean—and everything else about it you can think of,” Kate said. “He’s the one who matters when it comes to getting them to allow an appeal.”

“I know,” Betty said. “But I wanted to talk to you about Tess. I didn’t think he’d know about her, and I knew you would. It must seem stupid, thinking
about a novel that way. It’s almost as though I knew her, watching her life destroy itself.”

“I’d rather have talked to you about Tess,” Kate said, “than read a hundred critical essays on Hardy.”

“But I think the essays helped me to understand the book, helped me to remember what was important about it.” Betty might be ready to attack law professors, but she meant to defend literary critics.

“I’m glad,” Kate said, letting it go at that. “Don’t go to sleep like Tess,” she finally added. “Wake up.”

“I have,” Betty said, smiling, sad, but still smiling. “I’ve woken up.”

Kate waited in the car for Reed while he talked to Betty. When he finally emerged, Kate closed her book and looked up at him inquiringly.

“You shook her up,” Reed said. “I think we’ve got a chance for a retrial.”

“I didn’t shake her up,” Kate said. “Thomas Hardy did.”

“She never mentioned Hardy to me,” Reed said. “Isn’t Hardy one of the major authors you’ve written about?”

“You know what Betty Osborne is?” Kate said. “She’s a pure woman, that’s what she is.”

“If you say so,” Reed agreed. “I’m going to do my best to prove it. You drive, if you don’t mind. I want to make some notes.”

This time they went back by the bridge, eager to reach home.

Ten

A
S
the semester progressed, landing them all eventually in sight of the end, three important announcements were made by the dean of Schuyler Law. They were made quietly, in a Xeroxed notice to the faculty that it was hoped would look innocuous, and perhaps remain unread not only by the faculty to whom it was directed, but by the student community as well. Blair gleefully announced to Kate—after, as he elegantly and originally put it, the shit had hit the fan—that the dean and those members of the faculty who comprised his main support did not yet realize that they had lost their control of Schuyler Law. The students were no longer going to do as they were told, and what had started as a fuzzy memo threatened to erupt into wide, highly regrettable publicity.

The announcements were, in substance: (1) that Professors Reed Amhearst and Kate Fansler would not be returning to Schuyler Law after this semester (this was hardly a surprise to anyone, since both had made it clear that they had come for one semester only and had not the smallest intention of returning); (2) that neither the new clinic dealing with the legal problems of prisoners nor the new course in law and literature would be continued after the present semester; (3) (the one that caused the most reaction by far) that a yearly prize, generously offered to Schuyler Law for the best
Law Review
essay on the topic of law and gender, would be refused.

Blair, as a faculty member, received the memo and generously distributed copies of it made for him by Harriet, who did not take any measures to keep the memo out of the hands of students. The result was an uproar such as Schuyler Law had never anticipated, let alone experienced: the students called meetings and made posters, replaced as fast as they were torn down, and increasing in bluntness as resistance to them made itself evident.

The dean and his faculty comrades had not included among their announcements the likely reconsideration of Betty Osborne’s case, but the thought of that, added to the publicity stew, improved neither their tempers nor, as became increasingly clear, their judgment.

The prize they had turned down was an offering from Charles Rosenbusch, Nellie’s brother. He was the inheritor of Nellie’s estate, which included a
life-insurance policy, taken out before her illness had manifested itself. He determined to establish a prize in her honor at the school in which she had struggled and, to some degree, won. Before offering it to the school, he had discussed it at some length on the telephone with Blair and then with Kate, both of whom had helped to focus the wording of the prize. Income from the capital would constitute the prize: a sum not negligible to Schuyler’s students. As an added insult, he had left the investment of the capital to Blair rather than to the dean of the school, which meant in effect that the dean had to agree to whatever investment was decided upon for the money. Neither Blair nor Kate allowed the students to have the least doubt as to the smallest detail about the prize the dean had so cavalierly refused.

Needless to say, Kate and Reed, Harriet and Blair were, during all the student uproar and the publicity that followed, pleased but silent, letting the students carry the ball. (“Why is it,” Kate asked Blair, “that sooner or later we all resort to sports metaphors, even if we haven’t a clue as to what they mean in the game—in this case, football?” Blair had pointed out that she certainly knew what it meant to carry the ball. “But I don’t know how the carrier got the ball,” Kate answered, always ready for a debate. “You do in this case,” Blair answered. “That’s why sports metaphors are so useful. We may not know squat about the sport, but we know what it means to get on the scoreboard.” Kate decided not to pursue the subject further.)

The dean and the faculty decided to have a meeting of the entire school. This happened infrequently—in fact, only at graduation—for which purpose they were in the habit of repairing to a rented hall nearby. The meeting was called, and Reed and Kate, still faculty members, however temporarily, decided to attend, as did Harriet and those on her staff who could be persuaded that it was their business, too. Certainly it was a student protest, but the staff might one day want student support for their own ends. (The dean had, in fact, already decided to dispense with Harriet’s services, efficient as she was, but had bided his time in telling her so; not that she needed telling, being a confidante of the dean’s secretary and planning in any case to hand in her resignation at the semester’s end.)

Above all, the dean strove, as the meeting got under way, for calmness. “Let us not interrupt one another,” he said, “let us speak one at a time, above all, let us remember what this law school means to us all.”

The whole assembly listened to the defense of his actions in silence, a silence he should have found ominous but probably did not. When he had finished, a man stood up, announced himself as representing the students, and asked to deliver a statement no longer than the dean’s and covering the same points. It was astonishingly clear that the dean had not expected this, and could think, in the light of his opening remarks, of no way to stop this evident disaster. Harriet commented to Reed, on her right, on the dean’s stupidity, but Reed pointed
out that when you have been in absolute power, you lose all sense that anyone can successfully contradict you.

“I shall take the dean’s announcements as delivered to the faculty one by one,” the student representative began. Blair whispered to Kate, on his left, that his name was O’Hara, and that he hoped to go to work for the DA.

“Don’t tell Reed,” Kate whispered back.

“I actually think,” Blair hissed, “that he’ll end up a public defender. He’s seen the light.”

“First, we already knew that Professors Amhearst and Fansler, known to us as Reed and Kate, will not be returning. We are very sorry and hope they will come again someday.” (Loud applause and some cheering. “Do you suppose Jake is here?” Kate asked Blair. “I doubt it,” Blair said. “He’s probably writing a letter to your chairman trying to get you fired.”

“That’s just what he’s likely to do,” Kate said. “How clever of you to guess.”)

“While we shall certainly miss Kate and Reed, the class and clinic that brought them to Schuyler shall, we are determined, continue. That is our response to the dean’s second announcement. Professor Blair Whitson will still be here to do the law and literature seminar with someone else, for whom remuneration funds will, we are confident, be provided. Reed has assured us that should the clinic he established be continued, he would help us to find another director. (“Did you?” Kate asked Reed, on her left. “More or less,” he said, “but a long time
before this uproar. Frankly, I assumed they would keep the clinic on.”)