Bloody Lessons: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery

by Locke, M. Louisa

  Until very recently, she’d never experienced a strong desire to be a mother, even during her own failed pregnancy. But what if her own miscarriage hadn’t been caused by the shock of her father’s death? What if she had inherited some essential barrenness from her mother who had only conceived one child? Did she dare tell Nate of her fears? Would that change the way he saw her? Annie began to rock Lillian side-to-side, as much to comfort herself as to comfort the child.

  Ruthann began to speak again. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression about my mother-in-law. When Bertram and I married, she sent a lovely letter telling me how pleased she was her ‘darling boy’ had found his life’s companion. And she couldn’t have been more delighted when Bertram wrote to her about the impending birth of her newest grandchild. When she first arrived, even though we hadn’t invited her, everything was fine. She was an enormous help in the weeks before and immediately after Lillian was born. It’s only been these last few weeks that she has become so critical.”

  “Can you think of what may have precipitated her change in attitude?” Annie asked.

  “No. I have wracked my brains over the change. Did I say or do something wrong? Did Bertram?”

  Annie rubbed her chin over Lillian’s soft curls and said, “Have you asked your mother-in-law how long she is intending to stay?”

  “Not directly. Bertram has hinted. He asked her if she isn’t missing her friends back in Chicago. She was very active in her church, and she doesn’t seem at all pleased with the Lutheran minister at St. Mark’s.”

  “Is it possible she is just tired? How old is she?”

  “She is in her early seventies, although she seems in remarkable health. But if she is tired of helping out, why doesn’t she go back home? She has plenty of servants. She brought her own lady’s maid but left a butler and a housekeeper back in Chicago.”

  Annie was reminded of one of Madam Sibyl’s other clients, Mrs. Crenshaw, whose daughter and grandson were visiting from Iowa, glad to escape the cold and snow of the Midwest in winter. Maybe the answer was that simple.

  Annie walked back over and sat down, continuing to cradle a now-quiet Lillian against her shoulder. “Could Bertram’s mother not want to go back to Chicago yet because it is the dead of winter? Maybe she is afraid that if you do take over all the housekeeping chores, there will be no excuse for her to stay.”

  Ruthann’s expressive face turned pensive, then she frowned. “She has said a number of times how the warmth of the mid-day sun has eased her arthritis. She won’t even hear any complaints from Bertram about the fog. Says his blood has gotten thin. Now that I think about it, I expect she might be finding running our house, with only the cook, one maid-of-all work, and a part-time laundress, pretty exhausting. I just feel churlish. If that really is the explanation, of course she can stay as long as she likes.”

  Annie thought for a moment then shifted into the decisive tone she recognized as Madam Sibyl’s, saying, “I would advise you, after consulting with your husband, to ask your mother-in-law if she would please agree to stay until the end of March. This gives you a definite end to her visit, but she will feel good that you want her.”

  “Yes, I can do that. I know Bertram will agree. He really does love his mother, but he could see I was becoming unhappy.”

  Annie continued. “Since she has sufficient income to travel, tell her she is welcome to visit again, next summer, to escape the extreme heat and humidity of that season. It will be easier for her to part with her precious grandchild if she knows she is going to be able to see her at regular intervals. Finally, tell her that you have discovered you just aren’t up to running the whole house by yourself and ask her if she could continue to help out with the meal planning. You can then take up some of the other household tasks if you wish or talk to your husband about getting some temporary help.”

  As Ruthann exclaimed over Annie’s advice, exploring different ways to broach the subject with her husband and her mother-in-law, Annie saw that Lillian’s eyes were closed fast, the impossibly long dark brown lashes etched against her cheeks. Surely it would be worth the risk of another loss if it means the possibility of holding my own child in my arms someday?

  Chapter Five

  Saturday morning, January 10, 1880

  "MONTGOMERY'S TEMPERANCE HOTEL, 227 and 229 Second street; six meal tickets, $1: board and lodging per day, 75c to $1; by the week, $4 to $5: lodging per week, 75c to $2; nice single rooms, $1 25; baggage free." ––San Francisco Chronicle, 1880

  Laura relished the feel of the sun on her face as she and Barbara and Jamie turned northeast onto Market Street. She had already learned that the unexpected gusts of wind that funneled down the city streets could be bitingly cold at this time of year, so she welcomed the wool scarf Mrs. Fuller had pressed on her as she left the house. The quiet concern she’d seen in Annie’s eyes had almost undone her resolve to keep her suspicions about the attack to herself, but she needed to talk to Hattie first. In just a few minutes, they would be at Second Street, where they would turn south a block to Mission Street and Hattie’s boarding house. Her companions would continue on to the Ferry Building to watch the ship traffic in the Bay, evidently one of Jamie’s favorite pastimes. The Grand Hotel on their left, with its four stories of ornate arched windows and cupolas, looked small and old-fashioned compared to the Palace Hotel across the street, which was taller, longer, and more streamlined in its proportions. Laura marveled at the sheer magnitude of traffic on Market. Hansom cabs, carriages, and men on horseback wove around heavily loaded wagons, and pedestrians darted past moving vehicles to make it to the center of the street where the Market Street Railway horsecars plodded along their tracks. Even on a Saturday morning, the bustle of commerce rang in her ears, and the sheer energy of the city began to lift Laura’s spirits.

  Thursday had been awful. A sleepless night anxiously going over every detail of the assault, looking for evidence to refute her suspicions, left her tired and irritable. Her class of over forty students required enormous energy to keep quiet and attentive, but she had learned the hard way that if she didn’t find the right balance between discipline and encouragement, she would spend the rest of the term making up for the mistakes she made in this first week. She had handled the incident when one of the boys “accidentally” dropped a bag of marbles all over the classroom floor and given a stern reprimand to the students who hadn’t done their assigned work. But she had also ended the day with the students laughing at her spirited reading of Carroll’s poem, “You Are Old, Father William.” Not surprisingly, she was completely wrung out by the time she got home.

  Friday had gone more smoothly. She slept better, and walking to work with Barbara and Jamie began to feel routine. She was able to recall all the students’ names, which obviously pleased them, and everyone had their homework assignments completed. Even the weather had improved and was sunny and warm at noon when Laura nipped across the street to Foster’s Drugstore for a few necessities. She’d barely made it back to school in time, entranced as she had been by the array of choices Foster’s offered in tooth powders, hand soaps, and headache remedies. One of the advantages of living and working in San Francisco was going to be its shopping opportunities, and Laura knew that she would have to be careful not to spend all her earnings. At least she had been able to save money this fall, since the pokey country store near her school contained nothing to tempt her.

  She hoped she would get Hattie to come out with her today to shop in the City of Paris dry goods store. Just a block north of Market on Montgomery, it would be an easy walk from Hattie’s boarding house. As soon as she saw how smart and fine most of the teachers at Clement dressed, she’d promised herself she would have a new dress made. Besides the brown wool suit she had worn all week and the royal blue polonaise she was wearing today, she didn’t have any dresses fit for public wear. She certainly had no desire to be seen by her students or fellow teachers as some country mouse. Miss Minnie and Miss Millie Moffet, the
odd, elderly seamstresses, had offered to sew something up for her if she got the material. Annie’s maid, Kathleen, seeing Laura’s hesitation in accepting their offer, whispered that they were much in demand and they had made the beautiful navy outfit Annie Fuller wore when she visited the ranch after Christmas. Yes, shopping with Hattie seemed just the thing to take Laura’s mind off of her worries.

  “Have you gotten to know any of the other teachers yet?” Barbara Hewitt asked, breaking into her thoughts.

  “Jamie’s teacher, Miss Chesterton, was quite nice about introducing me around the teachers’ room and showing me where the supplies are kept. I gather that she transferred to Clement this fall but that she has been teaching in the San Francisco schools for over twelve years. She speaks highly of Jamie. You must be proud of him.”

  Barbara laughed. “He does know how to ingratiate himself with his elders. I’ve had to caution Mrs. O’Rourke and Mrs. Stein not to spoil him too much. But he is a good boy.”

  Jamie wandered down the sidewalk in front of them, looking into the store front windows, oblivious to their conversation.

  After a moment, Laura said, “I wondered what you could tell me about Miss Della Thorndike who teaches the normal teacher training classes at Girl’s High. I got a note from her yesterday that said she wanted to meet with me on Monday to discuss having a student do her practice teaching work in my classroom.”

  “Miss Thorndike has taken over the normal class this year while Mrs. Kincaid is back east. Usually, she shares the duties with me for English literature and composition. Everyone speaks very highly of her. She has a long career as a teacher in all the grades. Before she came to San Francisco and started teaching at Girls' High, she taught briefly at the New York Freedonia Normal School. I assume that explains why she was chosen by Principal Swettto take over the normal class. Jamie had one of these practice teachers last year. Since Clement Grammar is only four blocks from Girls' High and it has all seven grades, it has been designated the main teaching school.”

  “Yes, that makes sense. I guess I rather hoped to postpone having anyone come into my classroom until I had firmly established a routine. The students are just getting adjusted to me, and I…you probably think I am foolish.”

  Barbara looked over at her and smiled. “Oh, no, Laura. I know just what you mean. Establishing the right rapport with your students takes time and is a very delicate process.”

  Encouraged, Laura said, “Perhaps Miss Thorndike will understand if I ask her to find another class for her student, at least until later in the term. Do you think so?”

  “Well…I can’t really say. Miss Thorndike can be a very forceful personality, but her students seem to adore her, and they profess that she is very sympathetic. Oh, here is where we should cross. Jamie, please come hold my hand. It always makes me nervous when I have to cross Market.”

  Laura’s heart lurched as a man pushed by her, hurrying to catch up to the horsecar that was approaching. She was being silly. She couldn’t jump every time a man passed her on the street. He wasn’t even tall enough to be her assailant. And he didn’t look a bit like Seth. But that was what was worrying her to death. Could the man in the alley really have been Seth Timmons? Even before the attack, Laura kept thinking she saw him, despite the fact he was supposed to be in San Jose, finishing up his course of studies at the State Normal School.

  The first time she thought she saw him was when she had just arrived in San Francisco eleven days ago. As the cab she and Nate were riding in pulled away from the railway station, she could have sworn she saw Seth standing in the crowd, his battered Stetson pulled down so low that it shadowed his flint-grey eyes, the full black mustache framing a mouth that was tight-lipped but could quirk up in a surprised smile, and the square jaw and broad shoulders straining a rusty black coat. At the time, she told herself she was imagining things. But a day later, she’d glimpsed that hat and broad shoulders in a man walking up the steep incline of Taylor towards Nob Hill, and the next afternoon, she noticed the hazy profile of a man that looked like him sitting in the depths of a restaurant. Then Friday, when she went to City Hall to register her state teaching certificate, she thought she heard Seth’s voice, deep and raspy, behind a closed door.

  No wonder she had flashed on the possibility that it was Seth in the alley. Like Seth, that man had been tall, wore a hat, and smelled of Bull Durham tobacco. But that could describe thousands of men in San Francisco. Surely the man couldn’t be Seth, a man who was kind and gentle––or had been until his altercation with her student Buck Morrison. Then she’d seen a side of Seth that had frightened her out of her wits.

  “Miss Dawson, come quick before the next horsecar comes.” Jamie took Laura’s left hand and escorted both her and his mother into the street.

  Laura pulled her skirts up with her free hand, watching carefully for any dried dung. As they reached the other side of the street, she looked northeast down Market, seeing the stubby clock tower of the Ferry House dominating the skyline. According to Hattie’s letter, her boarding house was two doors down from the corner of Second and Mission. Ordinarily, she would have left her companions here, just a block away from her destination. But with thoughts of Seth and the alleyway in her mind, she realized she was glad that Barbara had insisted that she and Jamie accompany her to the doorstep. Laura had also promised Annie that she would get a hansom cab home, despite the expense, and that she would be home well before dark.

  “Did you know Miss Wilks prior to attending San Jose Normal School?” Barbara asked politely once they had made it across Market safely.

  “No, but we had become fast friends by the end of the first week of our first term there. Hattie came from Santa Barbara, and we shared the fact that we both felt like hicks compared to most of the students who were from San Francisco, or the teachers, who came from even bigger cities back east.”

  They had also shared a fierce desire to make their first jobs as teachers serve as a means to an end. They made a solemn pact that they would save their money so they both could attend the State University over in Oakland, a plan Laura hadn’t revealed to anyone else.

  Barbara said, “Jamie told me he’d heard some of the older children in her class say she was a first rate teacher. Do you know why she left?”

  “No, I don’t. I can’t imagine what happened. Just one of the reasons I am anxious to see her today.”

  She also hoped her friend would lay to rest her fears about Seth. Hattie had tutored Seth in science and math last year and probably got closer to him than anyone. He hadn’t started with their class at the normal school, but he had arrived in the Fall of ’78, during their last year. He was older than most of the students, but she always suspected that the flecks of white in his otherwise jet black hair, and his reserve, made him seem older than he really was. She did know he had been attending Kansas State Normal School but had to leave when the state took away all its funding. As a result, he needed to make up quite a few of the classes required for the highest grade certificate in California. This was why he didn’t graduate with their class and was supposed to stay on in San Jose this fall. He’d told her he was to finish his classes this spring, so why would he be in San Francisco?

  “You did say Miss Wilks lived at 225 Mission?” Barbara’s words broke into Laura’s thoughts as they turned the corner.

  “Yes, this must be it.” Laura looked doubtfully at the tall, dilapidated four-story residence squeezed between two squat commercial buildings, one housing the Mission Temperance Hotel, the other, ironically, Sullivan’s Saloon.

  “Do you want us to come up with you? Make sure you have the right address?” Barbara asked.

  “No, I am sure that won’t be necessary. If for some reason she isn’t at this address, I promise I will go right next door to the Temperance Hotel, and I am sure they will be glad to get me a cab.” Laura reached out her hand to Barbara, saying, “Thank you so much for offering to walk with me today. I know that Annie put you up to it, and I real
ly appreciate the fact that you didn’t make me feel like it was an imposition.”

  “Well, it wasn’t an imposition at all, and I have learned this past year to respect Annie’s advice. She does seem to have an uncanny ability to ferret out trouble. If she thinks it’s better for you not to travel alone around the city, I would take her concerns seriously. But don’t think about any of this right now; just have a lovely time with your friend.”

  As Laura went up to the short flight of stone stairs that led to an open vestibule, she sent up a prayer that Hattie would be able to put her mind at rest about why she had left her teaching job, about the effect this would have on their plans for the future, and about Laura’s fears concerning Seth Timmons.

  Chapter Six

  Saturday noon, January 10, 1880

  “It practically says that these ladies who propose to teach in our public schools must devote themselves to a life of celibacy…” San Francisco Chronicle, 1879

  “So how are you liking my seventh grade students? Are they behaving for you?” Hattie asked as she urged Laura to sit on the ancient armchair under the room’s one window.

  Laura looked around as she gingerly sat down, hoping the wire spring she had seen poking through the cushion wouldn’t end up snagging the twisted satin drapery at the back of her best dress. The green stripes of the chair would have clashed terribly with the blue floral print of the window’s draperies if they both weren’t so badly faded. At least they seemed clean, as did the chenille bedspread covering the narrow bed on which Hattie perched, there being no other place to sit in the tiny room. Laura wondered why Hattie had moved from the boarding house she had been living in when she moved to San Francisco this fall. Her letters had described a large airy room, complete with bookshelves and a desk, just a few blocks from Clement Grammar. Not this cramped fourth floor room reached by a set of uncarpeted stairs so narrow that Laura felt like she was Christian climbing up Difficulty Hill in Pilgrim’s Progress. Of course, since Hattie was no longer working, she wouldn’t have been able to afford the room and board where she had been staying, but how was she affording any room at all, now that she was unemployed?