Scholarly Pursuits

by M. Louisa Locke

  “I’ll see you on Sunday, won’t I, Kitty?” Laura asked. “I could really use some quizzing on my Latin from you both.”

  “Of course. Around three?” Kitty replied as she moved into the aisle and began to follow Celia to the back of the math classroom.

  Laura remained sitting as she placed her math text in her satchel and then looked up to see that Ned was taking Celia solicitously by the arm and escorting her out of the room. As expected, Ned had apologized for his “boorish behavior,” on Charter Day and been on his best behavior the past week. She hoped, for Celia’s sake, this change was permanent. She understood that Colonel Edwards had put the fear of God into Ned and his compatriots.

  Caro also told her that she had noticed a distinct change in the way she was being treated by the fraternity men since Charter Day. She said that the disparaging comments and jostling had dropped almost to nothing, except for Bart Keller. Even more interesting, this past Wednesday, after Bart had slammed into her, knocking her books to the ground outside South Hall, Elliot had come over and apologized as he picked up her books. Later she witnessed him corner Bart, apparently giving him a scolding.

  Laura thought this proved Elliot was the leader of the harassment campaign, but that he’d had second thoughts after his sister’s public outburst and the bad newspaper coverage. Question was, did this mean there wasn’t anyone else, like Sanders, behind this campaign or the actions against Grace? Or did it mean Elliot had decided to break with the person who had been operating behind the scenes?

  She hoped that the action she was taking today wouldn’t stir things up again. But if it did…that would certainly be confirmation that the fraternity men were doing Sanders’ work for him.

  She went through her satchel and pulled out the volume of Sanders’ poetry and the book about female poets, checking to make sure the slips of paper that marked the poems were still there.

  “Are you heading out to catch the train now?” Seth stood in the aisle, looking down at her.

  “I have a scheduled appointment with Professor Sanders to go over my possible essay topic—the one on female poets.” Laura avoided glancing up to see how Seth reacted to that statement.

  “See you Monday, then.”

  Laura watched as he turned and left the classroom. She wished she were going to accompany him on the trip back to San Francisco. She missed their Friday afternoon train and ferry rides together, the only time she had him to herself, without Kitty or Celia around. Most Fridays last fall she’d left campus with Seth so she could get her work done by five o’clock, early enough either to make it back for the Neolaean meeting or get home in time to have dinner with the rest of the boarders. But this term, it felt as if she always had to stay on campus for at least an hour—meeting with Caro or doing work in the library.

  Was it possible Seth thought she was avoiding him on purpose? That would be awful.

  Hooking the satchel over her shoulder and holding the two volumes to her chest, Laura slowly left the now empty classroom, noticing that the hallways were momentarily empty in this ten minutes between classes. As she trudged up the stairs to the third floor, where the faculty who taught in North Hall had their offices, she sighed. As frustrated as she was with Seth’s negative attitude about her quest to find out the truth about what happened to Grace, the plain fact of the matter was that she missed the close friendship she thought they’d been building in the fall.

  Was it wrong of her to wish that she had time to take a walk or a carriage ride with him? Or go to a dance, the way Celia and Kitty had been able to do on Charter Day? What would it be like to waltz around a dance floor with him…talking about inconsequential things like the weather or the band’s trumpet player?

  Maybe this summer she could find a way to spend more time with Seth and stop wrangling with him over things. Celia wouldn’t be living in the boarding house anymore. That should help, since it seemed so many of her arguments this term with him were about Ned and Celia.

  Laura had finally gotten up the nerve last Sunday to tell Celia that she would need to find another place to stay at the end of the term, expressing how sorry she was to be giving her less than two months notice, hoping this wouldn’t be a problem. Celia had blushed and said that Laura needn’t worry. She explained that she had been asked to accompany Kitty and her father on the European tour they were taking this summer. This meant she would be moving her things to Kitty’s the first of May so they could work on getting packed. They were scheduled to leave immediately after finals were over.

  Laura couldn’t be happier for Celia, who’d worked since she was twelve, first on her family’s dairy farm, then as a public schoolteacher. She deserved this chance to travel. And she was equally happy for Kitty, who had confessed to her when the trip was first being planned that she feared she would be stuck with some frightful hired companion to go around with her to the museums while her father made his business connections.

  What had hurt was that Celia and Kitty hadn’t told her about these plans, as if they feared she would be upset that she wasn’t invited to come along. Do they see me as such a small-minded person?

  Reaching North Hall’s top floor, she turned left and ran right into her German professor, Putzker. The two books flew from her grasp, as did a stack of papers from his, and for several moments she hid her confusion by trying to help him pick up his exams, while he uttered profuse apologies.

  Proctor, the handsome French instructor, came up to them and handed her the poetry books, saying, “Here, I believe these must be yours, Miss, and Albin, your apologies aren’t of any use if the poor woman doesn’t understand your thick accent.”

  “Ach, Theodore, Fräulein Dawson is one of my best students.”

  Proctor said, “Ah, well then, Mademoiselle Dawson, I hope that someday you will decide to try learning French, the true romance language.”

  Embarrassed, Laura thanked both men and hurried towards Sanders’ office at the end of the hall. When she got there, she saw the door was open, revealing that Sanders had a spacious corner office, with two sets of tall windows, one facing west, the other to the north, providing spectacular views of the Golden Gate and the hills along the eastern bay. She could see Sanders sitting at a desk to the right, head bowed, writing. Wooden bookshelves filled every wall, with tasteful sepia etchings of various nature scenes hanging above each shelf. A large easy chair sat in the corner between the two sets of windows, with a lamp set on a side table. A small gas ring sat on another table, with all the fixings for tea, along with a large tin marked Biscuits.

  If Laura had been asked to design the perfect study, this would have been it. Suddenly, it made perfect sense that Sanders might spend as much time as possible here, coming home late enough to disturb Mrs. Shepard at her slumbers, young wife or not.

  Moving into the doorway, she hesitated to interrupt him, since he seemed to be marking up a student paper. Then he glanced in her direction, and smiling, he stood up and said, “Miss Dawson, please come in and have a seat. I won’t be but a minute.” He motioned her towards the straight-backed chair that sat across the desk from him.

  She sat down and watched as he finished writing something at the bottom of the paper in front of him. He must be at least thirty years older than Putzker or Proctor, who looked to be in their late twenties, but she found him much more attractive, with his silver hair and well-weathered face. Maybe it was the kindness in his dark blue eyes. Laura realized with a start that she didn’t want this man, probably her favorite professor, to be the evil mastermind behind Grace’s downfall. She would have to guard against this feeling, wondering if that was what had gotten Grace into so much trouble…trusting a man who had such natural charisma.

  Sanders took a small silver-backed ink blotter and rolled it quickly over what he’d just written. Then he stacked the piece of paper at the bottom of several more, re-inserted a pin in the corner to hold them together, and placed the stack on the corner of his desk. He looked up, folded his hands, and sa
id, “Now, Miss Dawson, you wanted to talk to me about your topic for your final essay?”

  Holding out The Female Poets of America, Laura said, “I came across this book of Grace Atherton’s. You had heard that Miss Atherton passed away last January, didn’t you, sir?”

  Sanders eyes darkened, and he blinked rapidly. “Yes…such a tragedy. So young and such a promising scholar. She was a friend of yours?”

  “Yes, well, perhaps more of an acquaintance. However, when I mentioned to her cousin, Miss Sutton, that I was thinking about writing about female poets, Miss Sutton found this book among Grace’s things and loaned it to me.”

  “Miss Sutton is the student auditing my lectures who sits next to you in class? She’s Miss Atherton’s cousin? Professor Jones, the university recorder, had explained to me that Miss Sutton had been missing from class because there had been a death in her family, but I hadn’t realized the connection. So sad. Do convey my condolences to her.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  Sanders leaned back in his chair. “So you would like to write a paper on female poets? Do you have any ideas about how to narrow this topic?”

  “I was thinking about examining whether or not women poets dealt with certain subjects differently than men, which seems to be the thesis of this volume’s editor—a Rufus Griswold. However, it occurred to me that Grace might have written a paper on this subject for you, so I didn’t want to do something that sounded like I was copying her work.”

  Mentioning the idea of copying another’s work didn’t garner any visible reaction from Sanders.

  He leaned forward and said, “May I see the volume? I know of it, even recommended that Miss Atherton see if she could order it, since as far as I knew we didn’t have it in our library. However, I haven’t ever read it.”

  “Of course, sir.” Laura handed the book over, wondering if Sanders was telling her the truth.

  He began to run his finger down the table of contents, saying, “At the beginning of fall term, Miss Atherton did mention that she was interested in writing an essay about women poets—for the Neolaean Society, not for my class. However, I believe she settled on a different topic. Even if she had written a paper on this topic, it wouldn’t preclude you writing on the same theme. If you knew how often, for example, I get essays on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, year after year, often several papers in the same term.” He chuckled and continued to examine the table of contents.

  While he was speaking, Laura took the copy she had of Sanders’ own collection of poems and pulled it up to her chest, where it immediately caught his eye.

  “I see you have a copy of my own humble work, Miss Dawson. Were you intending on using some of my poetry in your comparison of male and female poets? I must say that is brave of you.”

  Sanders gave her a friendly smile, clearly designed to show he was only joking, and she took a deep breath and said, “Actually, sir, I thought I might use some of your regional poems as a comparison. I was particularly interested in the poems of Alice and Phoebe Carey, who lived in Ohio, where I believe you also lived. Did you know them?”

  “Oh, does this collection have some of their poems? I didn’t realize. Yes, I knew them…” Sanders’ voice trailed off.

  “I was particularly interested in Alice Carey’s poem about Edward Burroughs. It seemed such an odd topic for a woman to write about.” Laura could see that the mention of the Carey sisters had shaken Sanders. “Have you ever read it?”

  He found the title of the poem in the table of contents and quickly turned to the right page and read the poem slowly. When he finished, he looked up at her and said, his voice flat, “What edition do you have of my work?”

  Laura looked quickly at the title page and said, “1869.”

  “Ah, the first edition.” There was a long pause, then Sanders said, “You may have noticed that most of my poems in this volume deal with nature, written during my travels in California right after the Gold Rush. A very productive period for me in terms of my poetry. The editor of this volume, however, persuaded me to include some of the first poems I wrote when I was a boy. They were more of a, let us say, derivative nature. For instance, the poem ‘Martyr.’ Have you read it?”

  Is he actually admitting he’d copied Alice Carey’s poem?

  Her heart pounding, she said, “Yes, I did.”

  Sanders sighed and picked up the pen on his desk and began to revolve it slowly around. “I suppose you would like an explanation. If you look at later editions of this book, you will see that this is the one poem that is missing. I had the editor remove it, even though I assumed that Alice, who’d become quite famous, would make sure her own adolescent work never saw the light of day. Which is, of course, what I should have done. But that doesn’t excuse my agreement to publish it in the first place.”

  Sanders frowned and said, his voice sharpening, “Wait…did Grace Atherton know about this?”

  “He said what?” Caro turned to Laura in surprise.

  “He asked if Grace knew about the two poems being so similar.”

  Caro had waited for her at the train station, where they had agreed to meet after her appointment with Sanders. The train was due in twenty minutes, so they didn’t have much time.

  “Let me get this straight. Sanders told you he hadn’t ever seen the actual book on female poets, didn’t know Alice Carey’s poem about Burroughs was in it. But he didn’t try to deny the similarities between his poem and Carey’s or that he was the one who copied her work?”

  “Not at all. I would swear that until I mentioned Carey’s name and the title of her poem, he wasn’t feeling any apprehension. And then, when he read the poem, learned I had the edition with his poem in it, he made no attempt to suggest that the similarities weren’t important or that Alice had copied him instead of the other way around.”

  Laura went on to tell her how Sanders explained that he and Alice Carey had gone to school together, both writing poems on the topic of heroes for an end of year contest. He said Alice had shown him a draft of her paper before he wrote his and that he hadn’t realized how much of her language he’d incorporated into his until he saw her final version of the poem, which won first place.

  “He said he’d been embarrassed but didn’t realize until he was older what a transgression this was, being as he said an ‘arrogant boy.’ He said his only thought had been that he should have won, since the subject of his poem, Achilles, was a much more heroic figure than some Puritan minister.”

  “That was his explanation for what happened?”

  “Essentially, although I must say, it seems to me that his teacher was at fault as well, since he didn’t point out the similarities to him or Alice at the time. In fact, he awarded Sanders second place in the contest.”

  “And you believe this story?”

  “What I believe is that he wasn’t trying to downplay what happened. He went on to say that while he could forgive himself the initial youthful error, that he did know better when he let the editor include the poem in the published volume. He called it an ethical lapse of the highest order. And while he said he tried to remedy it by having the poem removed from subsequent editions, that didn’t make up for the fact that if he’d not been such a coward, he would have written and told Alice Carey what he’d done and ask her what he could do to make up for his act.”

  Caro found herself shaking her head. “Well, that’s a nice thing to say, after the fact. But he didn’t do that, did he?”

  “No, but Caro, I would swear he was sincere when he said that he knew he would have to discuss this with President LeConte. That he should have done so long ago, and if it ended his career, so be it. He really didn’t seem that upset, more relieved. As if he’d been waiting years for this to be discovered and was glad it had finally happened. What seemed to upset him was the idea that Grace knew about the two poems and hadn’t come to talk to him about it.”

  “You said that before. What do you mean?”

  �
�I mean that he got quite agitated when I told him that I had every reason to believe Grace had discovered the similarities between the poems. He kept repeating how disappointed she must have been in him, how he had wished she had spoken to him. He told me he knew something was wrong, because her behavior in class and towards him had changed early on in the semester. The previous spring she’d been one of his most involved students, always had her hand in the air to ask questions, came by his office to talk to him about the readings. This fall, however, she seemed less involved in class, acted distracted, only came to his office once, after she’d first broached looking at female poets as a topic.”

  “When did this second meeting happen, did he tell you?”

  “Mid-October. He’d asked her to come to discuss an assignment that she had failed to turn in on time.”

  “Really, that wouldn’t be like Grace at all.”

  Laura nodded. “That’s what Sanders said. Grace told him that she had turned the paper in on time. She didn’t know why it didn’t show up in his mailbox. He told me he was surprised that she felt she had to lie to him.”

  “So you think this was another one of the fraternity boys’ ‘little jokes?’”

  “That was my thought. Sanders said that other professors had noticed a change in her academic performance, as well. Moses asked him one day if he knew ‘what was going on with the little Atherton girl.’ Sanders said that was why, when Grace said she didn’t know why the paper went missing, he asked if there was anything wrong that she would like to talk about. Not surprisingly, Grace didn’t share with him what was going on. He then warned her about overextending herself.”

  Caro felt a flash of anger. “Why is it that men always attribute any problem a women scholar has to them working too hard? No one worries about whether or not farm or factory women are ‘overextending’ themselves when they work twelve hours a day, seven days a week. But any emotional or health problems a female student has is blamed on her overworking her poor little brain.”