Scholarly Pursuits

by M. Louisa Locke

“Oh, that’s worrisome. My sister-in-law, Annie, told me about one of her first husband’s relatives. Said the woman became quite dependent on laudanum, sleeping all the time and becoming agitated when Annie tried to limit the amount she took.”

  “All the more reason I need to speed up my investigation, so I can get home and make sure old Doc Ratchetter isn’t making things worse. Maybe we will find out something tonight at the Neolaean meeting.”

  Chapter 10

  Friday evening, January 14, 1881

  Berkeley

  “To the right is a row of six cottages…and the uppermost has been made over into Literary Hall, the meeting place of the Neolaean and Durant Debating societies…” 1886 Blue and Gold Yearbook

  Yesterday morning the winter rains had once again descended on the San Francisco Bay area, but the storm out of the northwest had departed as quickly as it arrived, leaving the cold night sky unusually clear and filled with stars. A nearly full moon was halfway up the sky, helping Laura and her companion navigate around the puddles that remained on the path to the clubhouse cottage. Once in the cottage, she paused at the door to the parlor while Caro Sutton took off her spectacles to wipe off the moisture that had fogged her lenses.

  “Caro, it looks like Willie Caulfield is here tonight, without Miss Sinclair. That will make it much easier to engage him in conversation.”

  They had decided to come early to the Neolaean Society meeting to see if Laura could corner May Shepard, the society vice-president. Willie’s presence was an unexpected bonus since Laura didn’t know if he was actually a member or had only attended last week’s meeting because he and Miss Sinclair had been out to dinner with Celia, Ned, and Kitty.

  With her glasses back on, Caro peered into the parlor. “Should you try to talk to Miss Shepard first? See what she knows about what happened when Grace couldn’t finish reading her essay.”

  Noting that the society vice-president was deep in consultation over the placement of the punch bowl, she said, “Not yet. She looks like she’s busy setting things up. And there is no guarantee Willie won’t sneak out at the intermission. Let’s try to talk to him now.”

  Without looking to see if Caro was following, Laura walked to where Caulfield stood near the parlor fireplace looking at his pocket watch, his battered gray plug hat crammed under his left arm. He had light brown hair, just long enough to show a little wave, and his snub nose, high forehead, and widely spaced, pale blue eyes gave him a pleasant expression, when he wasn’t looking irritated or bored, as he was now. Objectively speaking, Laura guessed she could see what had attracted Grace to him in the first place, if you liked that boyish look.

  He was of medium build, not much taller than she was, and slender, although she noted that his suit jacket looked a bit tight across the shoulders, as if he had put on some muscle since it had been tailored for him. Grace had mentioned to Laura that he’d been spending more and more time at the gymnasium in his determination to shed his image as sickly.

  Laura stuck out her gloved hand and said, “Mr. Caulfield, good to see you this evening. Are you a member of the society this term? I thought that Grace Atherton said you had decided not to join this year.”

  “Not a member, Durant Society’s more my style. Just said I’d meet a friend, Miss…ah…”

  Dratted man still can’t remember my name.

  “Dawson, Miss Laura Dawson. And this is Miss Sutton. I believe I introduced you to her at the meeting last week. I just learned she is from Nebraska, and I was telling her it’s such a shame that she didn’t start at the university last term, when she could have met a fellow student from her state…make her feel less homesick.”

  Laura gave a little flutter of her hand in Caro’s direction and then leaned towards Caulfield, lowering her voice in a conspiratorial whisper. “I was telling her that you’d be the one who would know why Miss Atherton suddenly left right before Thanksgiving. Went home, I heard. I was surprised she didn’t leave me a note. Did she become ill? Do you know if she plans to return later this term?”

  A distinct blush stole across Caulfield’s cheeks, and he said stiffly, “I don’t know why you would presume that I would know any more about Miss Atherton or her plans than you do. Now if you don’t mind, I need…”

  “But you’re her fiancé. Surely she’s written to you, explained, even if she had to leave precipitously.”

  “I’m sorry, you have been mis-informed. If you’ll excuse me, my friend has just arrived.”

  Laura and Caro watched as Willie rushed over to greet a young man who Laura recognized as one of his Zeta Psi fraternity brothers, Bart Keller. He spoke urgently for a few seconds, then grabbed his overcoat from a hook in the front hallway, pulled on his hat, and disappeared into the night.

  “That was an interesting response,” Caro said flatly.

  “Heavens, I can see him being unwilling to talk about Grace or their relationship—in fact, that would be the gentlemanly thing to do—but to bolt like that!”

  “Yes, definitely an over-reaction. Who was the young man he left with?”

  “Don’t you recognize him? Bart Keller, his friends call him B.K. He’s in our German class. The one who makes fun of poor Miss Taggart for her stutter. I must say, Willie reaction does suggest he’s feeling guilty about something.”

  Before coming to the meeting, Caro had read passages from Grace’s letters out loud to Laura. The first sections were from letters posted last spring, telling her mother how much she was going to miss “her dear Willie” when she returned home for the summer and that she wished her family could have a chance to meet him. She also mentioned how welcoming Willie’s widowed mother had been, inviting her to Easter dinner and saying she was glad her “precious boy” had found such a sweet girl.

  The first letter she wrote home this past fall suggested the summer hadn’t diminished her regard for him. She wrote about how wonderful it was to see him again, mentioning that when she visited Willie’s mother, the woman kindly invited her to come celebrate Thanksgiving with them.

  Caro said that from that letter on, the references to Willie to her parents became less and less frequent and more and more neutral. It was only in her letters to Caro that she revealed some of the specific reasons for her cooling ardor: his decision to join the Zeta Psi fraternity and move into the fraternity house on College Avenue, his increasing obsession with his physical prowess and what he called the “manly sports,” and his waning commitment to his studies.

  Seth would most likely point out how all this sounded a good deal like the way Ned Goodwin had been behaving at the end of fall term. Thinking along those lines, she said to Caro, “At least his odd behavior this evening gives me a good excuse to ask Celia’s fiancé, Ned Goodwin, about Willie and Grace.”

  “Yes, I think a conversation with your friend Mr. Goodwin is warranted.”

  “I wonder if Willie met Miss Sinclair over the summer and didn’t have the courage to tell Grace outright that his own feelings had changed. That might explain his embarrassment when I mentioned Grace being his fiancée.”

  “Embarrassment? I’m inclined to think that what I saw in Mr. Caulfield’s eyes was fear. And I really want to know what he did that would make him look that way when my cousin’s name was mentioned.”

  Chapter 11

  Saturday evening, January 15, 1881

  San Francisco

  “Dr. Warner’s Nursing Corset…$1.35.” Bloomingdale’s Illustrated 1886 Catalog

  Annie sat down in the rocker next to the fireplace in her second floor bedroom and put her feet up on the footstool with a sigh. She had started tying the back laces of her corset very loosely, even unfastening the last two loops that held the rigid busk together in the front. But she still felt increasingly like she was going to suffocate when she tried to sit down.

  The Misses Millie and Minnie Moffet had advised her to buy a couple of the corsets with side laces that would take her up through the rest of her pregnancy. She ran her hand over her stoma
ch, hoping to feel the slight flutter she’d started noticing at random moments during the day. Although, between her drawers, chemise, corset, petticoats, and the double layer of wool of her overdress and underskirt, she wasn’t sure would feel anything, even if it was the baby moving. She hadn’t told Nate about these flutters yet; she wanted to make sure it wasn’t her imagination…or indigestion.

  She also didn’t share with him how relieved she was when her doctor said that the fact that she had miscarried…back during those terrible times when she was still married to her first husband…wouldn’t have any bearing on this pregnancy.

  And thank goodness the morning sickness had abated over the holidays, which made her and Nate’s visit to his parents’ ranch in San Jose a good deal more pleasant than it would have been a month earlier. It was also a cautionary experience, watching how tired and uncomfortable Violet was in her final months of pregnancy. If Dr. Brown was correct, Annie would be entering her eighth month sometime in April, so she had set the beginning of that month as the deadline for taking care of all her long-term clients.

  She didn’t intend on quitting work altogether, but she hoped to avoid anything that required her to leave the house, like working on a company’s books or inspecting factory premises. Instead, she would spend the last two months reading the newspapers and farm reports to stay abreast of details like local harvests, mining reports, and city and state budget decisions. This should permit her to continue to dispense good financial and investment advice to those clients who were willing to visit her here during the last few months before her confinement.

  Confinement…what an awful term. I trust I won’t feel like I’m in prison those last few months…although it does do a good job of describing what this wretched corset is doing to me. That settles it…tomorrow I go to the Silver Strike Bazaar and buy new underthings.

  The fact that she’d been concentrating on developing female clients, both those who represented organizations like the Ladies Protection and Relief Association and the Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum, and those women who controlled their own personal finances, meant that she shouldn’t have to worry about them being unwilling to meet with her as her pregnancy advanced. However, part of the reason she was working so hard now was to build up a financial reserve so there wouldn’t be any difficulties if too many of her male clients felt uncomfortable working with a woman who was with child.

  She sighed, hoping she wasn’t being too optimistic. While she had every intention of getting back to working full time after the baby came, she wasn’t so foolish as to assume everything would go back to the way it was. In a competitive business climate like San Francisco, which was finally coming out of the financial devastation of the seventies, every client she lost might be a client she never got back. In addition, the number of female-run charities and women of independent means was finite in the city…as might be her time and energy as a new mother.

  It was fortunate that Nate’s legal career was really taking off, which was why it was nearly six on a Saturday, and he wasn’t home from his law offices yet. In the two years she’d known Nate, she had discovered that his monthly income could fluctuate wildly, and what he made depended in part on the revenue brought in by the other two partners, his uncle, Frank Dobbes, and Abel Cranston. As with any successful business, growth brought added expenses, which could out-run income in any given month. Consequently, she didn’t want to depend on Nate’s income to make up for any losses in her business. Their marriage was supposed to be a partnership of equals, both of them contributing to their family’s economic well-being.

  The fire flickered wildly as the door to the bedroom opened, and Nate came sweeping in, bringing the distinctive scent of coal and wood smoke, dampness and cold that clung to San Francisco in the winter. Not that the temperature, even during January, got down below freezing very often. Having lived in New York City, and briefly in Boston, Annie continued to marvel at how mild the winter months were, glad that she wouldn’t have to worry about maneuvering her increasingly hefty body through the snow and slush of a winter in the Northeast.

  Nate came over and kissed her forehead, putting his hand on her stomach, saying, “So how are you and our baby doing this fine evening?”

  “We are doing just fine. Aren’t you in a good mood! Any particular reason?”

  “Besides being glad I’ve made it home in time for a cozy supper with my wife?”

  Before her marriage, Annie had established a tradition of eating in her room, except for Sunday dinners when she ate the mid-day meal with her boarders. Back when she’d been supplementing her income from the boarding house as a pretend clairvoyant, she’d explained to everyone that this was so she didn’t have to change in and out of her full Madam Sibyl costume. Deep down, she knew the real reason was because she wanted some quiet time to herself. After her first husband had squandered her inheritance, then taken his own life, she’d been at the beck and call of the various in-laws she was forced to live with as unpaid nurse and companion. All that changed three years ago when her mother’s older sister died and left her this house on O’Farrell Street.

  Nate had been quite happy to continue the tradition of eating in the bedroom once they married and he moved into the boarding house, saying he had little enough time with her to share her with the boarders. Kathleen, who had the primary job of bringing up their meals, said she didn’t mind, professing to find the chance to come up and have a quick chat with her mistress a nice break. Annie wished she could believe her, but as her feet had begun to swell the past two weeks, she was more than happy to take Kathleen’s help if it limited the number of times she needed to go up and down the stairs.

  Annie watched as Nate removed his cravat, took off his suit coat and vest, and pulled on the dressing gown she’d gotten him for Christmas. He also replaced his leather boots with the slippers that were a gift from his sister and sat down across from her, echoing her earlier sigh.

  “That’s better,” he said. He glanced at the clock on the mantel. “I ran into Kathleen on the way in, told her to bring up dinner whenever was convenient. She said she’d be right up, get us served before the boarders come down to the dining room at six-thirty.”

  “So how was today? Get all prepared for Monday’s jury selection?”

  “Yes, I did, and I got the paperwork in order for that appeal I am going to file next week. And that’s because we finally got some additional clerical support. Seth Timmons started working for the firm today.”

  “Seth! How did this come about? Has he stopped running a printing press?”

  “No. He’ll just work for us Saturday mornings and afternoons before going to his evening shift at the press. Turns out that Uncle Frank, who I thought was completely ignoring my demands for increased clerical support, has taken a liking to Mr. Timmons. He was the one who suggested the arrangement. I brought it up with Seth last Sunday, and he started today.”

  “Well, that’s wonderful, and I must thank him personally for freeing up your time so you can get home earlier on Saturdays…and hopefully not go into the office at all on Sundays.”

  Nate leaned forward and took her hand. “You did enjoy our carriage ride last Sunday, didn’t you? We need to do that more often. Get some roses back into your cheeks.”

  “It was fun, and it reminded me of how much carriage rides meant to us back when we were courting and wanted to get out from under the scrutiny of everyone here at the house.”

  “A house that is getting increasingly crowded. I was almost bowled over by Jamie and Dandy as I came in the front door. They were barreling down the stairs on their way to the kitchen. Once Kathleen’s brother Ian is added to the mix, it’s going to be a circus.”

  “Once Ian is up and about, they will be running off their high spirits in the back yard, I can assure you.”

  “Seriously, Annie, are you all right with this decision to let Ian stay? Kathleen cornered me this morning, wanting to make sure you weren’t having second thoughts.”

/>   “Oh, not at all. Besides the fact that it is the right thing to do, I think that all the children will benefit from the companionship…and be mothered to death by everyone in the house. That in turn will take some of the pressure off me during the coming months. Mrs. O’Rourke is so busy figuring out what Emmaline and Ian’s favorite foods are, she hasn’t once asked me this week if I was feeling unwell when I didn’t finish all of my dessert.”

  “Well, you need to promise me you will tell me if it becomes a problem, although putting the boys together up in the attic was a great idea. I know how much my friendship with Tim Newsome meant to me those four years I boarded with Uncle Frank so I could attend Boys’ High.”

  Annie, who’d lost her mother at age thirteen, could sympathize. At least when she got home from the fancy New York academy she attended, her father was there in the evenings to be her companion and educate her in the mysteries of finance. In contrast, Nate’s uncle, although a nice man, was a confirmed bachelor who lived for his work and pretty much ignored his young nephew. This gave Nate a lot of freedom, and she’d heard about many of the exploits her husband and his friend Tim got up to. More crucial was the fact that Tim’s large Irish family had opened up their noisy chaotic house and warm hearts to the young boy, making him feel less alone. She hoped the O’Farrell Street boarding house and its occupants would do the same for its three youngsters.

  However, she felt as if Nate had deliberately gotten her off the topic of Seth Timmons, so she asked, “What does Laura think about Seth working for you?”

  “She doesn’t know, and Seth asked me not to bring it up.”

  “Heavens, why not?”

  Nate explained to her that Seth was thinking about applying to Hastings, the university’s law school, in the fall. Consequently, he was pleased to get a chance to work in a law office.