His eyes were still closed.
“I’m Emma Fielding.”
“Of course you are,” came the reply, heavy with weltschmerz.
My eyes adjusted to the light, and I saw that the bulky lump was not a pile of coats, but a tall man wrapped in an enormous greatcoat and scarf. He pulled his hand out of his pocket, and, not getting up or opening his eyes, stuck it out in front of him, presumably for me to shake.
“Michael Glasscock. You’re looking at that eighteenth-century diary, right?” His eyes opened on pronunciation of his name, and they were stunning, a deep sapphire blue. He looked the way I always imagined Heathcliff did, and I admit, in spite of his odd behavior, my heart beat a little quicker and my breathing got a little shallower.
Damn it. Why does just the thought of library work always have this effect on me?
“That’s right.” He knew what I was working on! “Margaret Chandler’s husband, Justice Matthew Chandler, was a fairly consequential jurist in the early part of the eighteenth century. He had his finger in every important political pie, and there’s been some research done on his life, but no one’s ever done a full-scale excavation at the site of their house. And no one’s ever tried to see how Madam Chandler might have fit into things, aside from a few little articles from the turn of the century, you know, colonial revival “great lady as helpmeet” stuff. So I’m hoping to look at it all together, write the book, a little feminist theory, a little social history…” I did a little cha-cha in time with my plans. I really was showing off, but Michael Glasscock didn’t notice.
“Oh. Goody,” he said in a monotone.
I combed desperately through my memory. “You’re doing something on the American Transcendentalists, aren’t you?”
“Idealists. God, they just didn’t have a clue, did they?” he said. Michael got up and stretched, catlike, then slunk over to prop up the mantelpiece. “I just can’t stand how naive they were. Painful.”
That floored me; shouldn’t he have been acting more the role of the apologist, if he were interested in them? “Sure, naive, but they thought they could change the world with their ideals. Not such a bad thing.” Then I couldn’t resist asking. “What drew you to them?”
“I study the history of American philosophy, and there was money in them,” he said, with a monumental shrug of resignation. “It pays the bills.”
He must have seen the unconcealed look of surprise on my face, but Michael just laughed hugely and humorlessly. “Oh, God. You’re worried that I’m a cynic. Well, Emma, you don’t know the half of it. I take it you met our august colleague already. Jack about half in the bag by now?”
“Uh, he’s in the kitchen.”
Michael looked as if he expected my polite evasion, and it didn’t impress him. “He’s wandering from institution to institution on the strength of the book until it’s time for him to retire. He told you about the book, right?”
I could only nod. Dr. Glasscock was a decidedly odd duck and getting odder every minute.
“Those ‘finishing touches’ have been in the works for about seven years now and counting, so I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it. Why they don’t just let him go early so he can finish drinking himself to death in peace is just beyond me.”
“Oh.” It seemed the only safe thing to say, under the circumstances, but it wasn’t safe enough. Michael picked up on my reticence.
“Oh, come off it, Auntie. I’m just being honest.” Michael patted himself down, then caught himself. “Shit, no smoking in this crypt. This place is going to be the end of me.” He sighed with galactic weariness. “I just thought maybe you would be someone who enjoys the truth as much as I do.”
That nettled me—I always fancied myself as more than usually truthful and open-minded. “Yeah, well, facts are one thing, but I think that we of all people could agree that history—or the truth—is never as straightforward as one person’s take on it.”
Michael was unaffected by my tart response. “Like I said, you don’t know the half of it.” He slunk back and resumed his place on the couch and once again, closed his eyes. “See you around, probably. If you could turn the light off on your way out, I would consider it a great kindness.”
I got my scarf as quickly as I could and shut the heavy door to the house firmly, trying to get a little