“I did find out who was in each tent, including the information that Willie shared a tent with Elliot Sinclair, Bart Keller, and Professor LeConte’s son, and that Elliot is saying that Willie’s death must have been accidental. His explanation is that Willie must have left the tent in the night and somehow got confused. Sad to say, this could actually be true, since they had a bottle of whiskey stashed a little way outside their camp.”
“You mean Willie could have gotten so drunk he didn’t notice in the dark that he was about to step off a cliff?”
“Well, it could have happened. And Elliot and Bart could have been too inebriated themselves to notice when he didn’t return. However, I still have trouble believing his death was purely accidental. Not when we know that at least three of the people who were with him on this camping trip might have had a reason to shut him up before he could talk to you. That is just too many coincidences, don’t you think?”
“Meaning, Mr. Sinclair and this Bart Keller, and…?”
“Professor Sanders.”
Caro adjusted her spectacles and said, “Then you think I was right to suspect him?”
“Something definitely happened to upset Grace in that class, just around the third week of the semester. But, Caro, we need to consider whether or not the dramatic changes in her notes might simply reflect the point in time when the campaign of harassment against her started. Did you find similar changes in her notes in the other classes she was taking?”
Caro waited to respond until the waitress had deposited Laura’s meal in front of her, as well as placing a pot of tea, two cups, and the plate of cookies Caro had ordered. The dinners at her boarding house might be barely adequate, but the desserts were generally awful.
As Laura cut in to her potpie, letting the steam escape, Caro said, “I did see some changes in her other notes. But the changes were more subtle. Mostly she became inconsistent. Sometimes she would have detailed notes; other times she would write very little. Hard to say if this reflected her mood or simply the nature of the class content in the math and science classes she was taking.”
“What about her history of Europe class with Moses? Didn’t you say he was the one other professor besides Sanders who Grace had both last spring and again this fall?”
Caro nodded. “The changes in her notes were more dramatic in that class than in the others, following the same pattern you saw in Sanders’ class.”
“Could you tell from these notebooks exactly when these changes started?”
“Yes, for every one of her classes, at least some discernible shift began to appear the third week of September.”
“Really? That’s interesting. The changes I saw in Sanders’ class started at least three weeks earlier. Did you notice if Grace made any negative remarks about any of her other professors in her notes?”
“You mean like when she wrote the word ‘hypocrite’ next to a quotation in Sanders’ class?”
“So you did see that. She went from nothing but positive comments to what seemed like asides that were really quite hostile.”
Gratified that Laura had picked up the same shift in attitude to Sanders that she had, Caro said, “So, while all her notes could reflect that she’d become generally upset over something, and we are just speculating that it was the beginning of the campaign of harassment against her by other students, it was only in Sanders’ class that she seems specifically upset with the professor.”
“And that hostility starts almost three weeks earlier in the term,” Laura said, her voice rising in excitement. “What if something happened between her and Sanders, and as a result he got the fraternity boys to start targeting her?”
“The question then becomes, what happened? Hard to fathom that saying something dismissive about female poets would be enough to upset her so…or for him to get upset enough that he would respond in such a fashion.”
Laura frowned down at her potpie for a moment, then said, “Could she have learned something about him that suggested he wasn’t the moral, upright person she believed him to be? If so, her decision to drop the essay on female poets and start to work on the topic of public ethics would make a lot of sense. And, if Professor Sanders is the person behind the harassment, then she must have confronted him with whatever she’d learned.”
“Yet her letter to me indicated that she couldn’t be sure who was ultimately behind the hazing she underwent, although surely she would see the connection between her confrontation of Sanders…if she did confront him…and the harassment. She also wrote she confided in someone. Someone who failed her. Maybe the Reverend Mason? Now that I know he was on the camping trip, it will be even more important to speak to him. I wrote him a letter, but I haven’t gotten a reply yet.”
Laura waved her fork in the air, saying, “Just make sure you tread carefully with him. I’m nervous about talking to anyone we feel might be a suspect, until we have found out more background information. We need to find someone who was in classes with her last fall who will talk to us, tell us if they noticed anything about how she was being treated by the fraternity men.”
Caro thought for a moment about the chilly reception she’d gotten back in January from the five junior women in Moses’s political economy class. When she showed up again on campus, four of them made the effort to express their condolences to her about her cousin’s death, at the same time expressing a thinly veiled surprise that she hadn’t told them about her relationship to Grace at the beginning of the term. What seemed significant, however, was that all of them had waited to find some time when they caught her alone to have this conversation. As if they feared being seen speaking with her. This reinforced her impression that her presence on campus was causing some degree of fear…or maybe it was simply guilt.
She sighed. “I certainly must talk to Julia Beck, the former editor of the Oestrus. She doesn’t seem to have any close friendship with the other juniors, which may be because she started with the class of ’81. That would explain why the only women I see her with outside of class are the four senior women. Consequently, if there is some sort of agreement among the other junior women to keep silent about what happened to Grace, she might not feel constrained to go along.”
“Do you think she will talk to you…now that she knows who you are? I mean, didn’t she brush you off in January when you first mentioned Grace?”
“Yes, but now I can understand why she did. It’s very possible that she was a target of harassment herself in the past and doesn’t want to get involved. But she is also the person who would be most likely to have noticed when the harassment against Grace started, if it occurred in the classroom, and who was involved.”
Laura mopped up the last of her potpie and wiped her mouth, looking up at the clock. “We should get going to the meeting. Maybe you can figure out how to meet Julia away from prying eyes. She might be more forthcoming. Meanwhile, I will pressure Ned on Sunday to tell me which of his fraternity brothers were the most vociferous in their complaints about Grace, see if any of them talked specifically about the kind of ‘pranks’ they pulled on her. He’s not going to want to talk to me, but, frankly, he needs my help during the rest of the semester if he has a hope of passing our German class. I don’t imagine he will be able to shed any light on Sanders, though. Any suggestion on how we go about investigating him?”
Caro said, “I will ask Julia what position he took in the controversies surrounding the class of ’81. She should know if he’d been one of the faculty who opposed the anti-fraternity ban. That might tell us if there was any likelihood that he could have had the kind of relationship with the Zetas or other fraternities that would let him use them for his own purposes. She might also know if there are any rumors about Sanders we haven’t heard.”
Laura leaned closer. “Do you think it’s possible he made unwanted advances towards Grace? There was a bit of a scandal among San Francisco public school teachers last year. One of the accusations was that members of the school board and a school prin
cipal had bartered teaching jobs for sexual favors. Sanders is an attractive man, and he is known for being unusually supportive of female students. What if he’s abused that position, and no one ever challenged him before…too flattered or too afraid?”
Caro hated where that thought might lead. Of course she’d wondered about Grace and Willie. Wondered if her cousin’s growing disaffection with her fiancé and her verbal disgust over his drinking hadn’t been the result of his trying to take liberties with her. And she had feared that Grace might have acquiesced to his demands and then later regretted doing so, which would explain the emotional turmoil and shame Grace expressed. But what if she’d been “seduced,” that was the word she had used in the letter, by a professor, a man whose pursuit of her would be flattering, but a man with the power to destroy her academic career if she refused?
Laura said, “My brother would say I am just being fanciful. I mean why would a man, married to a young beautiful wife, risk his reputation in that way?”
Caro’s stomach turned, remembering a scene she’d witnessed as a child. She had been home for Easter, spending her few vacation days at her dying mother’s bedside. One evening, as she went down the hallway to the back stairs to the kitchen, she saw her father as he leaned over the youngest parlormaid, who looked terrified as he stroked her cheek.
Gritting her teeth against the anger that flared anew at this memory, Caro said, “Something caused Sanders to fall off the pedestal Grace had put him on, and it is possible if we discover what that was, we will have the key to everything.”
Chapter 28
Saturday morning, March 19, 1881
Berkeley
“The Oestrus Indictment against Fraternities: Fourth—Fraternities interfere with college discipline.” San Francisco Chronicle, August 23, 1879
Last night, when Caro saw Julia Beck standing near the punch bowl during the intermission of the Neolaean society, she left Laura talking to the society vice-president, May Shepard, and went over to corner the young woman. Julia Beck’s most outstanding characteristic was a tendency to blush fiercely whenever the object of attention. Cara assumed she hated this tendency, although the young woman was otherwise so nondescript that her bright red cheeks were the only thing that made you notice that the eyes behind her thick glasses were an usually deep shade of blue and that the tight coronet of braids that crowned her head was more a dark auburn than plain brown.
Miss Beck’s cheeks were definitely aflame as Caro came up to her, and she felt almost criminal standing in such a way that the young woman had no means of escape. After a stilted exchange of polite pleasantries about the weather and Professor Moses’ interesting lecture on the Hapsburg Empire, Caro asked her if they could meet the next day, perhaps at the Golden Sheaf restaurant, because she had something of importance to discuss. When Julia countered by asking Caro to come see her at her boarding house at ten the next morning, Caro agreed and took pity on her, stepping aside so she could excuse herself and move back to the main meeting room. As she watched Julia leave, Caro realized that the young woman never asked her why she wanted to speak with her, which certainly seemed odd.
This morning, Julia’s behavior was one of the many things Caro thought about as she walked the two blocks down Dana Avenue from her own boarding house to the address Julia had given her. Looking around, she was struck by how much more prosperous the houses on this block looked. The homes were in good repair and there were shrubbery and flower gardens in most of the front yards. Julia lived in a three-story building in the Empire style, and the walk up to the house was lined with rose bushes that were beginning to bud. Julia had mentioned that she boarded with a family, which explained the rocking horse that guarded the front door and the two kites leaning against the porch railing.
Caro was about to lift the knocker on the front door when it opened and Julia ushered her into a crowded hallway, which contained an assortment of mismatched wooden furniture, including a bench loaded down with books, wooden toy cars, a spinning top, and a pair of roller skates and a coat stand weighted down with jackets and coats of different sizes, its foot hidden under a pile of boots. A cat peeked out from behind the boots, not even flinching when a small white dog, barking loudly, ran down the stairs and disappeared down the back hallway, chased by two young boys, yelling at the top of their lungs.
Julia said calmly, “If you follow me, my room is on the third floor. Mind the basket of clothes at the top of the stairs.”
Caro found that the clothes basket was the least of the obstacles they encountered as they made their way to the top floor of the house. A small tricycle, a broom and dustpan, more wooden cars, and what looked like a fort made out of blankets on the third-floor landing were just a few of the objects that Julia led Caro around until she stood at the door to one of the back rooms on that floor. She ushered Caro into a large sunny room. On either side of the room, there were two narrow beds that bracketed a large desk pushed up against a window, which appeared to overlook the back yard.
To her surprise, Alice Pratt, one of the four senior girls in the class of ’81, was sitting at this desk, and she stood up quickly to shake Caro’s hand, saying, “I will leave you two alone to talk in private. Julia, I promised the boys I would take them for a walk down to the shops, but I will be back within the hour.” She then lightly squeezed Julia’s shoulder before taking a cape down from a hook on the door, picking up a small straw hat and a pair of gloves from the dresser, and leaving.
Not quite knowing how to start this conversation, Caro said, “I didn’t know you roomed with Miss Pratt. I understand she is quite an accomplished poetess.”
“Yes, she has been asked to read one of her poems for Senior Class Day. Do have a seat.”
Julia indicated the rocking chair to Caro’s right and then swung the wooden desk chair around to face Caro. As she sat down, she said softly, “I assume you would like to talk to me about your cousin, Grace Atherton.”
Momentarily speechless, Caro just nodded. Finally, she said, “That would be so helpful. You see, I recently learned that you were an editor, the only female editor, of the Oestrus, and I believe my cousin submitted letters to that paper under the name Astraea.”
Julia looked down at her hands, tightly intertwined in her lap, and said, “That is my belief as well, although I never knew for sure. The Oestrus was started the spring of my freshman year. I assume you know I was originally part of the class of ’81. I was the only female to join when the paper started in January of 1878, only one of two members from my class. I was asked to be an editor the next year, and my responsibility was to go through letters to the editor, decide which we would publish.”
“Am I correct that the paper was against fraternities?”
“Eventually that became our main objective. However, the students who started the paper were upperclassmen who were disturbed by what they saw as the pernicious effects of the weekly ‘beer busts,’ and their conviction that the abuse of alcohol among men on campus was the primary cause for the number of students failing to pass their courses.”
Caro nodded and asked, “And did you agree with that assessment? A friend of mine showed me a San Francisco Chronicle article from that year that argued the high failure rate at the University of California was the result of the faculty imposing unreasonable standards on students. The article pointed out that Harvard students only have to pass forty percent of their courses to remain enrolled, but at this university they have to pass sixty percent of their classes.”
Julia shook her head. “I remember that article. I believe it was from some irate parent whose precious son had probably just failed his exams. Our senior editor pointed out in the paper’s response that expensive private schools like Harvard probably couldn’t afford to make their courses too difficult. He said that if the state of California was going to provide free education to our citizens, we should ensure that those students are not wasting the state’s money on wine, women, and song.”
Caro saw a brie
f smile cross Julia’s face before she shrugged and continued. “I thoroughly agreed, but my main motivation for writing for the Oestrus was personal. I’d watched one of my oldest friends, a young man from my hometown of Watsonville, leave in disgrace at the end of fall term. He’d failed every single exam, and I knew it wasn’t that the courses were too hard for him. The problem was that some of the men in the fraternity he joined that fall convinced him that in order to stop being seen as some ‘cow college hick,’ he had to model himself after the boys from the city. You know, the students whose rich parents give them lots of spending money and don’t see any problem with their boys ‘sowing some wild oats.’ What that meant for my friend was, when he wasn’t drunk, he was suffering from the aftereffects. Consequently, he was frequently tardy, cut classes, and got behind in his work. All the last-minute cramming in the world didn’t save him. He also couldn’t pay his laundry bill or his last month’s rent, so he had to ask his parents for a loan, and I can tell you they could ill afford it.”
“That must have been difficult for you to witness. So you started writing for the paper?”
“Yes, for all the good it did. My class lost about forty percent of the students who initially enrolled the first year. Then came the scandals the next year that decimated the rest of the class. You heard about those?”
“Yes, I did. I assumed that these events were what prompted my cousin to submit letters to the paper. Grace had grand ideas about how the mission of women is to civilize men, persuade them to be their best selves. Unfortunately, her success with her three younger brothers may have given her an unrealistic estimation of her power as a single individual to do good.”
Scholarly Pursuits Page 19