Scholarly Pursuits

by M. Louisa Locke

  “I suppose I had some equally unrealistic expectations. I was so pleased the next semester when the chief editor chose me to be one of the sub-editors. A real honor for a woman, and I thought it meant the other members of the paper accepted me as their equal.”

  Caro didn’t want to get distracted from her main purpose, to find out if Julia knew anything more about Grace, so she didn’t pursue this last comment. Instead, she said, “You guessed that the letters sent to the paper from Astraea were from my cousin? What led you to that conclusion?”

  “We weren’t in any of the same classes her freshman and sophomore years. But I did attend a few tutoring sessions with Proctor, her French instructor. When the topic of fraternities came up in one conversation, she made no secret of her feelings on the subject. Plus, she used a few phrases that reminded me of some of the wording in the letters we had started to receive from Astraea.”

  “Do you remember the letters themselves?”

  “The first arrived in the second month of her freshman year, September of ’79, and its subject was how students had a responsibility to work for the common good. The author recommended that students should actively support charitable organizations for those less fortunate.”

  Caro said, “Ah, I believe she wrote to me about that letter. She had started tutoring blind and deaf students at the local institute.”

  “I didn’t know that, but it makes sense. I had no trouble persuading the other editors to publish that letter, nor the second one that argued for the formation of a temperance society on campus. However, in spring, the letters she sent more pointedly deplored the violent hazing that had gone on in the fall. They also suggested that the fraternities on campus should be ashamed of the role they were playing in encouraging what the letters called ‘the drunken and immoral behavior’ that the author felt was making the university a laughing-stock. I think my fellow editors felt it was good to have their own opinions put forth by a woman, since by that time the paper’s editorial policy had become quite hostile to fraternities. In addition, we were being swamped by letters to the editor saying that the paper was being run by men who were just sore losers because they hadn’t been invited to join any of the campus fraternities.”

  Caro was feeling very pleased at how forthcoming Julia was being, as if she had some need to talk about her experiences on the Oestrus. She said, “I confess I was surprised to see that the Oestrus had a female editor…although I didn’t notice any other women listed as being on the paper. Pretty progressive of them.”

  Julia smiled again and said, “Not all of the men working on the paper were all that progressive. In fact, there was a rather heated discussion about whether or not the letters from Astraea weren’t by a male student who was using the name of a Greek goddess to hide his identity. One editor said that the letters were too well argued to be by a woman and that the logic used was too masculine.”

  “Oh, Grace would have hated that! She would have been upset that someone didn’t believe a woman could be as capable as a man in the academic arena…and at the same time she wouldn’t have liked being seen as doing anything in a masculine fashion.”

  Julia nodded. “I must say your cousin always impressed me as being very traditionally female in her dress and demeanor, which is one of the reasons I wasn’t perfectly sure that she and Astraea were the same.”

  “Yes, she was a bit of a contradiction. I assume, however, that these more masculine letters of hers were published anyway?”

  “Oh yes, including several that arrived the next fall during the controversy over the ban on fraternities. By that time, those of us still working for the paper were desperate to demonstrate that there were students on campus who supported us, and her letters were so very well written. Once again, there was some question over who the author of the letters could be. This time the speculation was that they were actually from one of the faculty members who didn’t feel he could publicly take such a strong position against the fraternities.”

  This seemed an excellent time to bring up Professor Sanders. Caro said, “I know very little about internal divisions within the faculty. Politics in general was not something that interested Grace. Do you know who those faculty were?”

  “It’s really very messy. For instance, the young science instructors—Parker, Stillman, as well as the librarian, Rowell—are all Zeta Psi alumni, so you would expect them to be firmly on the pro-fraternity side, wouldn’t you?”

  “And they aren’t?”

  “They stayed pretty quiet. You see, they are all recent graduates of the university, they don’t make much money teaching here, and if they want to get anywhere in their professions, they can’t completely alienate President LeConte and his supporters. The only exception I can think of is Edwards, the math instructor.”

  “The one who is the commander of the cadets?”

  “Yes, and runs the rifle club and is the chief person behind getting the Harmon Gymnasium funded. He’s a big supporter of sports, military training, and skill with firearms…and fraternities…as the way to train young men to become real men.”

  “And exactly who are LeConte’s supporters?”

  “That’s even harder to say. Obviously, President LeConte’s brother, Joseph, supports him, and then there is the math professor, Welcker, another former Confederate. See, that’s one of the messy things about the divisions. Some of the animosity against President LeConte seems to be based on old Civil War divisions.”

  “What about Professor Sanders? Didn’t I read in the Blue and Gold that he belongs to the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity? Would that make him for or against President LeConte?”

  “I don’t know where he stands on these issues, but he never made me feel uncomfortable about my decision to join the Oestrus. He even complimented me on one of the editorials I wrote.”

  “And that wasn’t true about your other professors?”

  Up until now, Julia had remained very calm, but as Julia’s cheeks flared red, it was obvious that these last questions were getting her agitated. Caro waited impatiently to see if she would be forthcoming.

  Taking a deep breath, Julia said, “All of us associated with the paper faced difficulties, especially in the fall of ’79 when the ban on fraternities was in force. Some professors wouldn’t call on us, and other students wouldn’t sit next to us in class or they made comments when we walked by. If we left a notebook or text unattended, someone would deface it. My male colleagues tried to brush it off. They told me that what was happening was no worse than the hazing they’d been through as freshman.”

  “What was it like for you? Were you subjected to the same treatment…the same…hazing?”

  “Not at first, I mean, no more than usual. You know, the juvenile comments that the North Hall loungers make about you being an old maid or a grind. Then something shifted, and I became even more of a target than the men who’d worked on the Oestrus. My life became a living hell. I couldn’t eat, sleep, concentrate on my studies. To make matters worse, my family wasn’t nearby. I couldn’t even escape the torment on the weekends. By mid-September, my health and my will had broken. I fled for home.”

  Julia stopped, then whispered, “That’s what happened to your cousin, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, I believe it was. The only difference is she died from what was done to her,” Caro said bitterly. “To get home, she spent six days going east on a frigid emigrant train and contracted influenza. That, combined with the continuing effect of the emotional trauma she had undergone, meant she never fully recovered, eventually succumbing to a severe bout of pneumonia.” Caro said, “Tell me, Miss Beck. Did you ever share with anyone your suspicions that my cousin wrote those letters?”

  Julia rose with a start, reaching out to Caro. “Oh no, no! Please believe me. I never mentioned her name to anyone, not even to those working on the paper. I would never have betrayed any woman that way. But someone knew, because all of a sudden this fall it seemed to be common knowledge. I didn’t betray her,
but I did fail your cousin. I should have gone to her this fall when I guessed that she was being targeted by the same people, with the same tactics. I hoped that I was wrong or that she’d gone home because of her broken engagement. But I should have known better. I recognized the haunted look in her eyes at the end, the look I still see when I look in the mirror. But I was too weak.”

  “She was too frightened, and rightfully so, Miss Sutton.”

  Unnoticed, Alice Pratt had come into the room and she came over to stand with her arm around the shoulder of the now weeping Julia. “I am truly sorry for your cousin’s death. But you have no idea what Julia went through or how long it took her to recover, how difficult it was for her to return to campus. If you must blame someone, blame those fraternity men who tormented both Julia and your cousin, and the students who simply stood by and pretended it wasn’t happening.”

  Chapter 29

  Sunday afternoon, March 20, 1881

  Berkeley

  “OUR BOYS: These are the boys that love their mothers loyally, and hate to grieve them, yet they want to smoke, they want to stay out nights…and their feet are prone to tread in forbidden paths, even against their will.” San Francisco Chronicle, December 7, 1881

  “Yes, Celia, I did promise I would correct Ned’s German translation,” Laura said. “Correct it, not write it for him. He’s never going to learn German, or algebraic equations for that matter, if we keep doing his work for him. And all I am asking is that he tell me who else, besides Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Keller, felt the need to harass Grace Atherton last semester. This shouldn’t take a moment, and then he will have plenty of time to write the two paragraphs Putzker has assigned for Monday.”

  “I don’t understand why you want him to tell you this,” Celia asked plaintively.

  “I told you. Because I would like to interview some of the fine gentlemen among the secret societies on campus for my article. Find out why they thought Miss Atherton was worthy of their distain.”

  “But how would Ned know who was involved…if there was indeed any harassment?”

  Celia wrinkled her brow in confusion, an expression that Laura had come to mistrust, feeling it was her friend’s way of being critical…without appearing to be so. This was a tactic she’d seen Celia use with Ned, and she really didn’t appreciate having it used against her. Consequently, she let her impatience show, saying, “Because, as I am sure you remember, Ned already told us about how some of his Zeta Psi housemates bragged about the jokes they had played on her. Isn’t that right, Ned?”

  Ned Goodwin leaned against the fireplace mantel, pretending to find a hair on his jacket. Well, he probably had found a hair, since the old kitchen cat, Queenie, often snuck into this room in the morning so she could sit in the bar of sun that hit the upholstered next to the desk. The chair that Ned had just vacated, although how he could see a black hair against his black suit coat was beyond her.

  Celia, meanwhile, was fluttering agitatedly at his side, as if she needed bodily to defend him from Laura, while Seth glared at her from across the room. This was exactly why she’d hoped to get a few minutes alone with Ned before Celia got back from visiting her family. Unfortunately, Seth, Ned, and Celia arrived at the house at the same time. Ned also announced that he was going to have to leave the study session early to go back to Berkeley to attend some fraternity function.

  As a result, even though she’d put off talking to Ned for as long as she could, she felt she had to bring up the topic before he slipped away. Her hope was that Celia and Seth were so involved with their Greek studies that they wouldn’t notice when she started asking Ned questions. She should have anticipated that he would not cooperate. Not only did he refuse to answer her questions, but he’d done so very loudly, getting up from the desk where he and Laura had been sitting and announcing that he was going to fail German if she didn’t help him right now.

  This, of course, brought Celia to his defense.

  Exasperated, Laura raised her voice and said, “I’m right, aren’t I, Ned? What exactly were those little jokes you said your friends pulled? I know about how they tried to destroy the decorations for the Junior Exhibition Day celebration and then publicly humiliated Miss Atherton by substituting a fake copy of her essay at the opening of the society clubhouse. What else did Willie and your friends do to torment Miss Atherton to the point that she felt she had to leave campus?”

  Ned’s face flushed, and all his pretense at indifference vanished as he said, “I don’t know what you are talking about. My friend Willie didn’t do anything wrong. What I do know is that your precious Miss Atherton had the reputation of being a grind and a moralizing prig, and maybe some of my friends took exception. I don’t blame them. A fellow comes to the university to get away from his overbearing mother, so the last thing he wants is some girl telling him what he can and can’t do. Something you should really take to heart, Miss Dawson, because if you don’t watch out, you are going to get the same reputation.”

  Furious, Laura pushed past Celia and hissed, “If Willie or his friends didn’t do anything to be ashamed of, why was Willie Caulfield feeling so guilty that he got blind drunk last Saturday night and took a nose dive from the side of a mountain?”

  Seth appeared at her side, his hand on her shoulder as he said, “Laura, let it be. Miss Beale, am I not correct that it is time for you to go to Miss Blaine’s to finish working on your Greek translation? Since Mr. Goodwin won’t be able to accompany you, I will be glad to escort you across town. But I think we should leave now.”

  Stunned, Laura watched as Celia, Seth, and Ned gathered up their things and disappeared into the hallway. Within moments she heard the front door close, leaving her all alone.

  As Seth walked down Geary, having safely deposited Miss Beale at the Blaine’s house, he briefly thought about going back to O’Farrell Street to talk to Laura.

  But what would he say? That everyone had behaved badly and all he could figure out to do was get Celia and Ned out of the house as quickly as possible?

  She wouldn’t want to hear that. Nor would she want to hear that he thought she was dreaming if she thought that Ned was going to help her out. Goodwin might be a hopeless gossip, but he had enough sense to know that his fraternity brothers would turn against him in a second if they thought his loose talk was going to get one of them in trouble.

  While Celia was behaving like a fool, couldn’t Laura see how frightened she was that Ned was going to flunk out of the university? What that could mean for the girl’s future?

  One of the many things he admired about Laura was that she didn’t pin her hopes about the future on marrying some man. She wouldn’t give a damn what the men like Ned or his fraternity brothers thought about her. But surely she understood that not every woman had her strength of character?

  He was pretty sure she wouldn’t want to hear him say that either.

  By now she was probably berating herself for losing her temper. If he showed up at the door, she’d probably pull him back into the study. She might even be crying, and he’d want to take her in his arms and comfort her…

  No, he’d better let well enough alone, go on home, and work on his essay for Royce.

  Chapter 30

  Tuesday morning, March 22, 1881

  Berkeley

  “…personal property is not safe in the vicinity of Berkeley, from malicious mischief.” San Francisco Chronicle, October 2, 1878

  The grey skies matched Laura’s mood as she left campus through the southern entrance and walked down Dana Street to get to Caro’s boarding house. She knew she should put what happened at the study session on Sunday behind her. That was Annie’s advice. She was having difficulty doing so. When Celia had returned that night, Laura said she was sorry for creating a row, which was true. She hated when she lost her temper in that fashion; it made her feel immature. She really thought she had gotten better at controlling her emotions.

  Celia had murmured something in return about how she couldn’t sta
nd it when friends fought. What she didn’t do was say anything about Ned’s role in the altercation. No, somehow he was the wronged party, despite the fact that he’d essentially said that Grace got what was coming to her. It would have taken a saint not to respond to that provocation.

  No one ever said Laura was a saint.

  She just wished she’d not responded with such heat. Or suggested that Willie had committed suicide. First of all, she knew from personal experience how hurtful it was to think that someone you knew had killed themselves. In addition, Laura wasn’t at all convinced Willie had died at his own hands, whether on purpose or accidentally. She guessed she should be grateful she hadn’t come out and said she thought he could have been murdered.

  Yet it seemed unfair that, as usual, Ned got off scot-free. Since Sunday, Celia was treating her with frigid politeness, which, given they shared a room and a bed, was very uncomfortable. Kitty, bless her, was trying to pretend that nothing had happened, chatting in the carriage in the morning about completely inane topics and making efforts to bring both Celia and Laura into the conversation.

  But Seth’s reaction is what really hurt. Ned had made a not-so-veiled threat against her, suggesting that she might find herself the target of the same kind of attacks Grace had faced, yet Seth appeared to think Celia was the victim. He said as much Monday morning as they walked up the hill to North Hall. He did admit that Ned hadn’t behaved well. Nevertheless, he felt Laura should have anticipated his reaction, chastising her for putting “poor Miss Beale” in such an uncomfortable position.

  What was even more upsetting was that he must have gone to Nate’s office to tell her brother about the altercation because yesterday evening her brother caught her in the hall and asked her why Seth said she was on some sort of crusade against the campus fraternities? She then had to listen to him talk about his own experience at Western Reserve College. Actually, this was a surprise. She hadn’t known that he joined a chapter of the Delta Upsilon fraternity when he was there in the late sixties. Of course she was only seven when he went away to college.