Scholarly Pursuits

by M. Louisa Locke

  But what if it hadn’t been an accident or suicide? What if that night someone acted out of fear of being exposed? Someone ruthless enough to wait patiently for a foolish boy to get so drunk that he’d be easy to convince that a walk in the moonlight was just the thing to do? Someone who would, without compunction, guide that boy to the edge of a cliff and then shove him off into oblivion?

  Chapter 25

  Early Thursday morning, March 17, 1881

  Oakland Ferry

  “…taking him to the gymnasium, cut off his hair, treated him to a cold bath and tossed him in a blanket for the space of thirty minutes.” San Francisco Chronicle, October 2, 1881

  Seth listened to Miss Blaine and Miss Beale debate which of two choices provided a better translation for the Greek word for honor and watched Laura, who sat huddled on the ferry bench across from him, trying to read, despite the fact that the sun was barely up over the mountains to the east. She had a brown shawl he’d not seen before wrapped over the shoulders of her cloak, and it looked to him like she was shivering. Maybe he could block some of the cold wind that blew off the bay if he went and sat next to her, asked her what she was working on. She was reading through a dark red notebook that he didn’t recognize.

  She looked up and smiled at him, and his heart, as usual, misbehaved.

  As he rose, she patted the open space on the bench to her right, saying, “If you don’t mind sitting here, you won’t be in my light, and I will be able to block some of the wind. You really can’t be warm enough with just that coat, with no gloves or scarf. Surely you’ve lived in San Francisco long enough to know that spring just means it’s wetter, not warmer.”

  Seth sat as instructed but thought how like her to be concerned primarily about his well-being, not her own. Selfless, that’s what she was. He admired her for that characteristic and yet daily feared the trouble she would find—had already found—because of it. Just last August she’d risked her reputation and even her life to protect him. Not that he wasn’t grateful. But for once he wished she’d let him protect her, even if it were from something as trivial as a stiff breeze.

  What was it about the women in the O’Farrell Street boarding house? Mrs. Dawson, if the tales were true, was as independent as they came, and even the young maid, Kathleen, seemed determined to rescue others, rather than be rescued, even though her beau, Patrick, was a San Francisco policeman.

  Feeling that his silence had gone on too long, he said, “What are you studying so diligently? I trust it’s more interesting than delving into the origins of Greek words?”

  “Shush, Seth, Kitty will never forgive you if you make light of the importance of getting every translation perfect. Speaking of the linguistic roots of a language, I’m looking at the notes that Grace Atherton took last fall in Professor Sanders’ Anglo-Saxon class. The subject is really fascinating, and I would think much more practical than Greek or Latin, for that matter.”

  “Not if you consider the importance of Roman law to understanding some of our nation’s jurisprudence.” Seth paused. Maybe this would be a good time to finally tell Laura of his decision to apply to law school in the fall.

  Laura looked at him with a puzzled expression and said, “Yes, I suppose you’re right, although the professor who taught the course in English history at San Jose went on and on about the roots of English common law in Anglo-Saxon traditions.” She paused for a moment then said, “But you haven’t asked me why I am looking at Grace’s notes?”

  Seeing the way Laura was jutting her chin upward, a sure sign she was feeling defensive, Seth sighed and rose to her bait. “I assumed it had something to do with a renewed determination to help Miss Sutton uncover evidence of some sinister plot to drive her cousin away from the university.”

  “Yes, and I suppose you are going to tell me that we should drop our investigations, particularly in light of Willie Caulfield’s death.”

  Startled, he said, “You believe there is a connection?”

  “It’s hard to believe there isn’t a connection. As I started to tell you last Saturday, we have evidence that Grace wrote anti-fraternity letters to the Oestrus and that Willie told his fraternity brothers about this.”

  “Willie told you this?”

  “He said as much to Caro last Friday, and he agreed to meet with her this Monday to give her details about who exactly was involved in the attacks against Grace.”

  “That’s surprising. I wouldn’t have thought he would be that disloyal to his fraternity brothers.”

  “Oh yes, that’s right, heaven forbid that he be disloyal to his friends. Of course, he had no trouble selling out his fiancée.” Laura glared at him, then continued, “Actually, he didn’t want to cooperate until Caro suggested that she might have to take what we learned to the university authorities.”

  Seth suddenly wished he’d not come over to talk to Laura. This was information he did not want to have. He’d not felt that bad about telling Nate last Saturday that Caro Sutton had returned to campus, figuring that this information wasn’t much of a secret. He’d even volunteered that he suspected Laura’s sudden interest in writing a paper about the divisions within the university over fraternities on campus was most likely a sign that she was still helping the woman find out why Grace Atherton had left campus so abruptly. But he could just imagine how Nate would react if he learned that Miss Sutton had started to make specific accusations, accusations that could leave her open to charges of slander.

  He said, “Exactly what was this evidence you’ve found?”

  As Laura talked about the attempted destruction of the decorations for the Junior Ex day, the fake essay designed to humiliate Miss Atherton, he began to understand why she was upset…yet it all seemed so petty, some flowers destroyed, a moment of embarrassment that could be easily passed off as nerves.

  “I know what you are going to say, Seth. As unpleasant as these things must have been for Grace, none of them explains why Grace came home and was so distraught that she would go running out into a snow storm…which was ultimately responsible for her death. But Grace wrote Caro a death-bed letter that indicated that there was more to what happened to her than simple pranks. Some sort of betrayal that was so terrible that she lost all faith in everything.”

  “And you and Miss Sutton think that Willie is the person who betrayed her, and what then? Took his own life on the camping trip out of a sense of guilt?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know what to think, Seth. For one thing, Caro doesn’t believe Grace was talking about Willie when she wrote about betrayal in her letter. In addition, her cousin explicitly said she didn’t want to point the finger at the students who had harassed her because she believed they may have been manipulated by some individual who was behind everything.”

  “Are you saying she suggested there was some sort of mastermind who stirred up the fraternity men, encouraged them to target Grace?”

  “Maybe, and that doesn’t sound much like Willie Caulfield, does it?”

  “No, I can’t say it does. But why would someone go to all that trouble to attack a single female student? She obviously wasn’t the only student who is still on campus who had anti-fraternity ideas.”

  “A very good question. That’s one of the reasons I am looking through Grace’s notebook. Because she seemed to have suddenly taken a dislike of Professor Sanders about three weeks into the fall semester, if these notes are any indication.”

  “Sanders? I thought all you women believed he walks on water?”

  “Grace certainly did, which is what makes her change in attitude so odd. Caro said when Grace was home last summer, she went on and on about how inspiring Sanders was, how he was the embodiment of what a professor should be. Grace was especially impressed with how he viewed literature as a way of raising important ethical issues, without getting bogged down with petty denominational squabbles. And, I must say, I have been similarly impressed with his Friday lectures, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, although I sometime
s find his logic too facile. But, even so, it is hard for me to picture him as this mastermind. You said her attitude towards him changed? What evidence do you have of the change? Did Miss Atherton say as much to her cousin or you?”

  “I don’t know why her attitude changed, but something did change.”

  Laura opened up the red notebook and pointed to a page, saying, “This is Grace’s notebook for the Anglo-Saxon course she took with Sanders in the fall. You can see that here her notes are very neat and well-organized. She outlines the lecture, with lots of detail, and frequently writes positive comments next to certain quotations. This pattern goes on for all of August.”

  Seth refrained from making fun of the fact that Grace Atherton had tended to add little hearts to the positive comments she made in her notes. But when Laura turned a few pages and asked him to compare this next page to the ones he’d just been examining, he immediately saw what she was talking about. The handwriting appeared slightly different, sort of uneven, with numerous ink blots, and the notes didn’t follow any sort of structure. And there wasn’t a heart to be seen. In fact, she had put a frowning face next to one of the quotations.

  Looking quickly through a couple more pages of notes, he said, “And the rest of the notes for the term look like this?”

  “Yes, as far as I can tell.”

  “I can see why you think something happened to upset her. But couldn’t this be her reaction to the harassment you say the fraternity men had started against her? Do you know the names of the specific fraternity men involved? Could any of them be juniors taking Sanders’ class with her?”

  “We don’t have names yet. That was what Caro hoped to get from Willie when she saw him on Monday. We do have some suspicions. One of the boys we are looking into is Bart Keller, who is a junior and therefore was probably in Sanders’ class. He also lives in the Zeta house, and his reputation is that he is a leader of much of the hazing the fraternity does. He was also on the camping trip. But so was Sanders. And I don’t see Grace feeling betrayed by Bart Keller. On the other hand, I would think it would be devastating if she’d discovered Sanders had feet of clay.”

  “What are you suggesting? That she discovered something negative about Sanders, and he in turn decided to use the fraternity boys to drive her away from campus?”

  “I don’t know why he would do such a thing. Or why anyone would. All I know is that our best chance of finding out the truth was to get Willie to talk to Caro on Monday, but he died before he could do that.”

  “And you honestly want me to believe that Sanders…or some idiot student like Bart Keller…killed him? Threw him off a cliff to keep him from talking to Miss Sutton?”

  Laura closed the notebook and put it into her satchel. With a definite chill to her voice she said, “The ferry is about to dock. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at your reaction. But I trust you won’t share any of this with anyone else.”

  Damn, when will I learn to keep my opinions to myself? But what if she’s right? If she is really determined to try to track down a murderer, I’ll have to tell Nate.

  Chapter 26

  Thursday morning, March 17, 1881

  Berkeley

  “Library—Conversation Hall.” College Slang Dictionary, 1881 Blue and Gold Yearbook

  Laura sat on a wooden chair, right under one of the tall windows on the west side of the library. She’d heard this room on the first floor of South Hall held nearly 20,000 volumes. Books that lined row on row of the crowded, wooden shelves that formed alcoves that were perfect for studying. She had discovered last term that if she sat under the window of this particular alcove, she was invisible to those students sitting around the two large reading tables set in the center of the room. It was inconvenient not to have a table to put her books on, but the privacy was worth it, and she’d learned that the smooth leather back of her satchel worked fine as a desk.

  She wasn’t the only student who preferred the solitude of these alcoves, so on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when she had a full two hours free between her math class and her German class, she would dash over from North Hall to stake her claim. On a sunny day like today, most of the male students who weren’t in class would be sitting on the North Hall steps, so the library was pretty empty. However, on a rainy day, the tables and chairs in the alcoves filled up rapidly, and the noise level rose accordingly. Those days she usually went downstairs to the Ladies Lounge on the basement floor to study.

  Kitty, Celia, and Seth had their Latin and Greek classes during these two hours, so she wouldn’t have to hide that she was examining Grace’s notebook. She rather regretted having brought up the subject this morning with Seth, although it had been nice to have him confirm her conclusion that there had been a dramatic change in Grace’s note-taking. In addition, his comment about the change being due to the commencement of the harassment, rather than a change in attitude towards Sanders, had started her thinking.

  She pictured Grace having to walk past male students every day to get to her seat in the front of the classroom. Imagined them staring at her, saying unkind things under their breath, laughing. Wondering if someone was going to slip a nasty note into her mailbox? Even worse, what if she couldn’t depend on the support of any of the female students taking classes with her? What if, as she came to the first row of desks, she said good morning, but the other women cut her dead or tittered when a student like Bart made some joke at her expense? Couldn’t that explain why her notes were so disorganized? Could she have been too distracted, perhaps too unhappy, during the rest of the class period to take her usual notes?

  Yet, as Laura continued to go through the notebook, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Professor Sanders himself was at least part of what was disturbing Grace’s peace of mind. For example, at the beginning of the fall term, she wrote down lots of his quotations, on all sorts of topics. Then, starting in early September, she only wrote down quotations that referenced something about morality or ethics. And the positive comments were gone. Instead, she tended to insert large question marks next to the quotations, and once she wrote the word “hypocrite.”

  What could Sanders have done to make her question his ethics? Had he failed to speak up when he saw her becoming the object of harassment in class? Had he even encouraged it? But why would he have done that? Of all the professors she had encountered on campus, Sanders seemed the one who would be least likely to tolerate, much less encourage, male students to harass a female one.

  Yet one thing she had learned in the past year…you never really knew what someone else was thinking…and that a good deal of evil could be hidden behind a smiling face.

  Chapter 27

  Friday evening, March 18, 1881

  Berkeley

  “The Oestrus Indictment against Fraternities: First—Fraternities create social distinctions.” San Francisco Chronicle, August 23, 1879

  Caro watched as Laura Dawson got off the train at the Berkeley station. They had agreed to meet here so Laura could go across the street to the Golden Sheaf to have some dinner before climbing the hill to go to the Neolaean Society meeting together.

  She couldn’t help but note how Laura’s warm smile eased the tight knot of pain that had become her constant companion since the day last November when her uncle carried the unconscious Grace into the farmhouse kitchen. This knot of pain was an old companion, one that had first visited her when she was twelve and had to stand by, powerless, as her mother’s happiness and health deteriorated. Caro had begged to be able to leave her boarding school on the outskirts of Chicago, come home to nurse her mother, but her father insisted that she would only be in the way. He wouldn’t even give her the permission the school required that would have let Caro come home on weekends. Over that wretched year, with every holiday visit, when she saw how much weaker her mother had become, the pain had become sharper…a dagger permanently thrust under her left breast.

  Once her mother died, the wound from that dagger lingered, constantly watered by the tears
Caro never shed, fed by the reserve of red-hot anger she nurtured against her father, believing as she did that his infidelity and neglect had been the true cause of her mother’s death.

  Only her cousin Grace had been able to mitigate the agony of her grief.

  Summers on the farm with Grace and her four years sharing a room with her in Lincoln were the only times she could remember going for days, weeks, sometimes months, without even thinking about the pain of her loss. Not that the sadness and anger ever went away entirely. But Grace helped her believe that her future would be better than the past. Eventually, the physical manifestation of that pain went away altogether, only reappearing when she was forced to deal with her father.

  However, ever since her uncle walked into the farmhouse, carrying the seriously ill Grace in his arms, the dagger was back in place, the pain becoming once again permanent. Somehow, Laura’s friendship made the pain bearable. Maybe it was her simple optimism. Her confidence that they could find out who had hurt Grace, maybe killed Willie, and bring that person to justice. Somehow this gave Caro the hope she needed to move forward, despite the pain.

  After they were seated at the bakery restaurant, and Laura had ordered its famous chicken pot pie, Caro said, “I was really surprised by your note that Reverend Mason was part of the camping trip. Who would have thought he would be a sort of mentor to a fraternity? However, sure enough, when I looked up the Chi Phi page in last year’s Blue and Gold yearbook, there he was, the single listed alumnus for that fraternity. Did you learn anything else from Mr. Goodwin?”