“The day Grace left town?”
“Yes. Robbie had a cold and was feeling chilled, so Grace offered to take him home early, around three-thirty, instead of waiting for the carriages that were to transport them all to the institute around five. Sally wanted to come with them, so Grace and the two of them took the train back up to Berkeley, getting off at the Dwight Street station around four in the afternoon. You haven’t been there, but the Deaf and Blind Institute grounds are at the far western end of Dwight, just outside the southwest corner of the university.”
“Didn’t they have a fire there some years ago?”
“Yes, the whole school burned to the ground; thank goodness no one was killed. They have built new dormitories for the children, but it’s going to take time to finish the educational buildings. My point is that the last few blocks on Dwight are pretty isolated, with only a few scattered residences. Robbie and Sally later told Mrs. Goodall that they were about halfway to the institute when a bunch of ruffians appeared behind them and started taunting them and throwing stones.”
“Oh dear, town or university?”
“She said that Robbie thought he recognized most of them as town boys, who often give the children at the school a hard time. But he also told her that there was an older boy with them, taller, dressed like one of the students from the university, with a battered gray top hat on. He seemed to be encouraging the young town boys.”
“Ah, you told me that old grey plugs are what juniors wear, didn’t you? So not Proctor, but maybe one of the fraternity boys?”
“That’s what Mrs. Goodall thought. Sally, who of course couldn’t see them but could hear them, said one of the boys talked like he was from the university and that the younger boys called him Beak.”
“Beak? Is that significant?”
“It is if what they were calling him was B.K. and Sally misheard them.”
“B.K.? For Bart Keller? He’s the Zeta who accosted you a couple of weeks ago? The one you said was the ringleader in harassing Miss Sutton and probably had been involved in harassing Miss Atherton?” Annie put her hand on her stomach where the baby steadily kicked at her rib cage.
“The very one. However, the most significant thing Mrs. Goodall told Caro was that Robbie said he’d seen this university student earlier when they were getting off the train at Dwight. He said that this boy got out of the car in front of them with a blond man with a cane—the same man Robbie had seen outside the church with Grace.”
“And you think this proves Proctor was the one who was giving Bart instructions to harass Grace, in this case, on her walk to the institute?”
“Caro reminded me that the class of ’81 was notorious for petty vandalism in town, so it doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility that Bart knew precisely how to round up a group of local boys, who for a few coins would be delighted to harass Grace and her companions.”
“What reason did Miss Goodall give for telling you all this? Did Grace mention what happened when everyone got back to the institute?”
“No, she didn’t. I don’t know why she didn’t. Maybe she was simply embarrassed that she had been the cause of distress to her young charges. But what Caro and I wonder is what if Grace also saw Proctor and Bart get off the train and finally figured out that the person she had trusted was the one who had betrayed her? She could have been too upset to say anything.”
“Poor dear, I can’t imagine how she must have felt. Do you and Caro think she would have gone to confront him, or Bart, after she left the institute?”
“We don’t know. Mrs. Goodall did say Grace stayed with Robbie and Sally, trying to distract them from what had happened, until the rest of the students and staff returned, right around five. The children told Mrs. Goodall they tried to get Grace to stay until one of the staff had time to walk her home, since it was dark by then. They were worried the ruffians would still be there. Grace told them not to worry, that no one would bother waiting around for an hour, and she would be fine. But they never saw her again.”
Chapter 47
Friday evening, May 13, 1881
Berkeley
“The ceremony of burying Bourdon took place at the University at Berkeley on Friday night. The ceremonies commenced at 9 o’clock, and it is supposed to last until sunrise on Saturday.” San Francisco Chronicle, May 16, 1881
“Laura, I apologize profoundly for Mrs. Feltzer’s burned pot roast. Maybe we should have gone out to one of the restaurants in Oakland.”
“And watch me pitch head first into my plate from exhaustion? No, thank you. Plus the potatoes and green beans were actually quite good, and we have this whole sponge cake that Mrs. O’Rourke sent with me today. You put on the water for tea, and we will have a lovely dessert. Why don’t you use that fancy oolong tea I got you?”
This morning, Laura took her last final examination, and she had spent the afternoon at Caro’s doing one more round of edits on her essay for Sanders on female poets before handing it to him on the dot of five o’clock.
Caro lit the gas ring and put on the kettle, taking the tin box with the ornate curlicues down from the shelf. “I must say, Professor LeConte’s zoology exam this afternoon was quite challenging. As was Moses’ political economy exam yesterday. In light of Moses’ disparaging remarks to me about women not being able to handle upper division courses, I had a special motivation to excel in both subjects.”
“Oh, Caro, you will probably get a first on those exams, while I, on the other hand, will be content if I simply pass all my subjects. Iris, my forewoman, has been accommodating, giving me today off and not chastising me when my proofs weren’t perfect over the past two weeks. But my brain feels very much like it’s scrambled right now. This summer, just working a fifty-five hour week, will feel like a vacation.”
“How did your friends, Miss Blaine and Miss Beale, feel they did?”
“I’m sure Kitty and Celia both got firsts in everything. They’ve gone out to dinner with Ned to celebrate, although he will be very fortunate if he passed enough of his classes to keep from being asked to leave the university. Unless he got some help from his fraternity brothers.”
“Do you really think cheating goes on? I know that people buy translations, but do they actually get answers to the examinations?”
“Seth says that there is a brisk business in selling the answers to last year’s exams, but I can’t imagine that the professors keep using the same questions. Although, given the poor pay the instructors get, it could be tempting to supplement your income by selling some crib notes.”
“Maybe that’s what the visiting Regents were doing these past few weeks, tracking down rumors of cheating.” Caro added, “Speaking of Ned, have you gotten any indication that Celia or Kitty told him about your warnings about Proctor?”
“No, but then I haven’t really had any conversations with him the past few weeks. Once he discovered I wasn’t going to help him in German any more, he dropped me. No doubt because of my bad reputation among his friends.”
Removing the pile of books stacked on the table so there would be room for the tea things, Laura noticed Ruth Leverton’s scrapbook. “Would you mind if I took one of the photographs of Grace, to remember her by?”
“Not at all. Even though Mrs. Leverton insisted I keep it, I thought I might figure a way to cut out all the sections of the book from last year that had so many mentions of Grace and give them to Grace’s family. I know it will comfort them. This would leave the sections from Ruth’s first two years at Berkeley intact. I didn’t find any sign of either the conversational French group or Proctor during those first two years. Maybe her mother would at least let her keep those memories.”
“You still believe that Mrs. Leverton wouldn’t let you return the book because of Proctor?”
When Caro had gone back to the Leverton’s, hoping to speak to Ruth, she’d been ushered into the parlor, where Mrs. Leverton was waiting, alone. Ruth’s mother had been gracious, saying that Ruth was busy with th
e baby, but she had also been quite firm about wanting Caro to keep the scrapbook. She also said it might be better if Caro didn’t return, since reminders of her daughter’s life at Berkeley were painful.
Caro now said, “I can’t think why else she would give away something that was so clearly one of her daughter’s prized possessions.”
A sudden rat-tat-tat of firecrackers echoed through the attic windows.
Caro jumped in reaction, and Laura said, “Ah, the first salvo in the Burying of the Bourdon. Although they are starting a little early. It’s only eight and the announcements on campus said it started at nine.”
“Do they really burn their freshman English and math texts?”
“I think they are supposed to do just one copy each, for ceremonial purposes, then they put the ashes in a small wooden coffin and bury them. However, since I heard the main purpose of the celebration seems to be a huge bonfire, at which everyone gets drunk and dances around, I would imagine a good number of individual texts get thrown in. Woe the man who then discovers next week that he’s been conditioned and is going to have to take those examinations all over again in the fall.”
“I thought there was a big parade?”
“Yes, all the freshmen are to gather and march around town and then up to the hills to the east, where the actual bonfire happens. There are speeches, musical entertainment, and then the ritual burning and burying. The sophomores, of course, try to disrupt the ceremony, while the juniors and seniors come to watch.”
“Do women attend?”
“Oh heavens, no! I’ve just read about this in the newspapers when I was doing my research. Ned was very critical of last year’s freshmen class, the ones who were asked to sign the agreement to ban fraternities, because they didn’t have a Bourdon at all. I was surprised our class revived the ritual, although I also heard that the class union took a vote and agreed to make the ceremony free of alcoholic spirits. I doubt very much that they will hold to that promise. Not with all the upperclassmen attending, bringing their own barrels of beer from Bachman’s.”
“Well, I can see why you wanted to eat here tonight rather than be out and about. And I’m glad you aren’t going to try going home. I wouldn’t imagine the streets are very safe.”
Laura noticed Caro’s voice going flat…and suspected she was also thinking about Grace walking home alone from the institute on Field Day. The image of what might have happened next to Grace haunted them both.
Had Bart been waiting for her? Did he pursue her into the woods, assault her? Or had Grace gone to see Proctor to accuse him of being behind her troubles from the beginning? What might he have done if he realized she had figured out what was going on?
Whatever happened to her, it left her bloody and bruised and in such emotional distress that four hours later she was at the Berkeley train station, boarding the train that left at nine-thirty that night, a trip that ultimately contributed to her death.
But no one, even at Grace’s boardinghouse, had seen her between the time she left the institute and when she boarded the train. And Caro and she had run out of ideas how to find out exactly what happened or how to prove who was responsible.
A knocking on the attic door pulled Laura away from these melancholy thoughts, and she said, “I’ll see who it is while you cut the cake.”
Coming down the attic stairs, she thought she heard Chad’s voice, and when she opened the door, he was standing there. But so was Celia, which was a complete surprise. What didn’t seem quite as surprising was that Celia was crying, and she suppressed the unkind thought that she was going to have to listen to her complain, once again, about Ned.
Laura told her to come on up and tell her what was wrong. She also proffered an invitation to Chad to join them, since they were about to have some cake. The alacrity with which he accepted the invitation prompted her suspicion that Chad may have developed a bit of a crush on Celia since the Charter Day dance.
As she got to the top of the stairs, Celia, mopping her tears, said to Caro, “I’m sorry for barging in on you this way, uninvited. But Mr. McCarthy said you wouldn’t mind. I didn’t know what to do. Ned was supposed to take me home tonight, after dinner. But then as we were leaving the restaurant, he said he told his Zeta brothers he would be at the Bourdon celebration. But he’d promised me he wouldn’t go!”
This last statement was made with a wail, and the tears began to flow again.
Laura took Celia’s coat from her, said, “Sit down Celia, and have some tea, and tell me what happened next.”
“He brought me here. The plan for the evening was that after we all ate, he was supposed to accompany me and Kitty to San Francisco, where the three of us would take a cab to the theatre. Kitty’s coachman would pick us up at eleven, when the play we were going to see ended.”
Laura sat down across from Celia and said, “That all seems like a sensible plan, and how disappointing that Ned changed his mind. But where is Kitty?”
“Oh, she went with Teddy Proctor to an end-of-the year party being held this evening. He said they wouldn’t stay for more than an hour and that he would bring Kitty to the train to meet us. Meanwhile, Ned and I were to go on to have dessert at the Golden Sheaf bakery. I didn’t mind not going to the party, which Teddy said was only for faculty and their guests, because I was looking forward to a little time alone with Ned before my European trip.”
“But when did Ned tell you about going to the Bourdon?”
“After Kitty and Proctor went up the hill to Sanders’ cottage. He told me that he could take me to the Golden Sheaf, but he would then go on to the Bourdon, and he wouldn’t be going to the theatre with us.”
“Oh dear, Kitty’s father is not going to like the idea of the two taking a cab and then going to the theatre without a male escort.”
“That’s what I said. We had a fight right there on Bancroft. Then he pulled me down Dana, saying he’d drop me off at Miss Sutton’s boarding house, and I could figure out how to get home from there. Oh, Laura, he was so mean!”
Laura was about to bite back her natural retort when something Celia said rang a discordant bell. “Celia, you said that Kitty and Proctor went up the hill to Professor Sanders’ cottage. Why did they go there?”
“That’s where the party is. Professor Sanders and his wife are hosting it.”
Laura’s heart sped up. “That’s not possible. When I turned in my essay to him, Sanders mentioned that he and his wife were going across the bay to dinner and the theatre, a little celebration before he had to start his grading.”
Getting up and reaching for her cloak, she said, “Caro, we need to go immediately. Proctor’s got Kitty at Sanders’ cottage under false and it sounds like compromising pretenses. Who knows what he’s doing to her?”
Chapter 48
Later Friday evening, May 13, 1881
Berkeley
“It was as much as a Freshman’s life was worth to be caught out at night.” San Francisco Chronicle, October 2, 1878
Chad wanted to come with them, but Laura insisted he stay with Celia, who had completely fallen apart when she finally understood the implications of letting Kitty go off alone with Proctor. By Laura’s calculations, it had been no more than a half-hour or forty-five minutes since Celia had parted from the two of them, but thoughts of Ruth Leverton and Grace, and the fact that he may have played this game before, meant they needed to make haste.
While Sanders’ cottage was only a ten-minute walk away, Caro was breathing heavily by the time they got up the hill, holding her hand to her side, as if she were in pain.
They could see some lights through the windows of Mrs. Shepard’s cottage, but on first glance, the Sanders’ cottage looked dark and uninhabited, certainly not as if a party were in session. As they came up to the front door, Laura thought she heard muffled voices. She pushed on the door, not surprised to find it unlocked, and it gave the squeak Mrs. Shepard had mentioned.
Laura stood for a moment inside the door, listenin
g, but no one challenged her. She stepped into the front hallway, pulling Caro in behind her. As she did, she heard Proctor’s voice. The hallway was dark, but light streamed out of a parlor on their left, and she saw that Proctor was standing in the middle of the room, leaning on his cane and speaking to someone who was out of sight. Laura tiptoed to the parlor door, trying to make sense of what Proctor was saying.
“God damn it, Bart, get on with it. Soon she’ll be completely insensible from the laudanum. I put enough in her fizzy drink to drop a horse, but I want her conscious enough to remember what happened to her, the stupid Irish whore. Don’t make me have to do the deed, myself. Virgins are a bore. Ruth Leverton was bad enough.”
Horrified, Laura looked past Proctor and saw Kitty, lying on a settee, weakly struggling under Bart. He had one hand over her mouth and was fumbling at his pants with the other. Pushing past Proctor, she ran to haul Bart away. Caro joined her, and the two of them pulled feverishly on Bart’s arms. For a nightmarish interval, he cursed and twisted under their hands, as they struggled ineffectually to shift him.
Suddenly, Proctor came up behind them and hit Bart on the side of the head with his cane. He pulled the stunned boy off of Kitty, flinging him to the floor.
Caro sat down on the settee and levered Kitty up into a sitting position while Laura worked to straighten her friend’s skirts. When she looked over at Proctor, he was frowning, but he was back to leaning on his cane as if nothing of note had happened.
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