on what I knew of the times, Margaret was probably shrewd to conceal the extent of her interest in books; wit in a woman was compared to an unsheathed sword, dangerous to herself and everyone around her. And the fact that her husband helped her in this subterfuge indicated that trust and affection, if not true love, was growing on both sides of the marriage.
I knew that I was beginning to like Margaret when I started becoming frustrated with her contempt for the Irish, her class-bound views, and her dislike of life in the rough frontier of early eighteenth-century Massachusetts. I tried to remind myself that they were common views for someone in her position, but cheered for Madam when she recognized some good quality in Nora, the Irish maid she had been so unwilling to take on, or when she observed how the odd manners of her New England neighbors worked well within their own society.
Margaret became a little more real, a little more human to me in spite of her tremendous personal presence in writing, when I recognized that some of the spatters on a page full of the mysterious code were caused by teardrops. I wondered what the rest of the diary would eventually reveal.
So I was able to keep my professional worries behind me until about eleven fifty on Wednesday, when Sasha reminded me about my lunch with Director Whitlow. I bit back a curse; I had planned on just a quick bite eaten in the staff lunchroom, so as not to take any more precious time away from my work on the journal. Making nice-nice with the officialdom just wasn’t as appealing as the life that was unfolding before me.
As I hurried down the hall, I reasoned that talking about one’s work, especially with someone who was knowledgeable about such things, was almost as much fun as actually conducting said work. Whitlow, even if he was friends with Dean Belcher, must have some sympathetic qualities if he was willing to take a position as the director of such an institution as Shrewsbury. And although I knew that Belcher wouldn’t have lifted a finger to get me the fellowship, it probably wouldn’t hurt to have his “good friend” get interested in my project. It was an opportunity I should make the most of.
I was surprised to see how imposing a figure the director was. Evert Whitlow looked more like a businessman than the head of a historical repository, and he worked hard to maintain that image. He wore a crisp charcoal wool suit with a conservative power tie, kept his thinning sandy-reddish hair cut close and carefully, and had a ruddy complexion that suggested an Irish heritage, a lot of weekend golf, and martinis before dinner and port after. He shook my hand firmly.
“I hope you don’t mind a working lunch,” he said as he showed me to a chair. “I don’t like to give up too much time to the nonessentials, not when there’s so much work to get done in a day.”
“Not a bit,” I responded. Even though he was saying exactly what I’d been thinking just moments before, I resented the impression that I was being categorized as a “nonessential.”
“I’ll just have some sandwiches sent up and we can get started. There’s a nice gourmet deli in Monroe with a truck that stops by every day with their classic sandwiches readymade.” He picked up the phone. “It’s a real lifesaver for me, timewise. What do you like?”
“Anything’s fine.”
He told an unseen assistant to order some roast beef and chicken salad. “What else? Chips? I don’t know—” He paused to look over at me. I shrugged and he answered, “Well, maybe some fruit salad. And a couple of waters.”
He settled himself into his chair and tidied some papers out of the way. “So. I understand you are looking at—” he glanced surreptitiously at a notepad—“the Chandler diary?”
“That’s right. Are you familiar with it?”
Whitlow shook his head. “No, not at all.”
Trying to be gracious and get him off the hook, I said, “Well, I’m not surprised. It’s exciting for me, but compared with some of the treasures you’ve got here, it is pretty small potatoes.”
“I’m not really all that familiar with the bigger potatoes,” Whitlow said, shrugging. “It’s not essential to my job; I leave that side of things to Harry Saunders and Sasha Russo. They keep me informed with an executive summary.”
I must have looked surprised that he wasn’t any more interested in the