Annie said, “And you don’t see Willie Caulfield as the leader in the campaign or the mastermind behind it?”
“No, I don’t think he was clever enough. I think he was just a convenient tool for someone else. His death would then be collateral damage—either accidental, self-imposed, or on purpose.”
Annie saw Nate looking at his sister with concern. She knew what he was thinking. How to make sure that Laura, whom they both loved so much, didn’t become collateral damage herself.
Chapter 36
Sunday afternoon, April 3, 1881
Berkeley
“Chi Phi Fraternity. Lambda Chapter Established 1875. Frater in Urbe. Rev. G. W. Mayer,” 1881 Gold and Blue Yearbook
As Caro left her boardinghouse and walked north on Dana to Bancroft Way, she thought about how to approach Reverend Mason, who said he would be available to meet her at three this afternoon at the Church of St. Mark’s, located on Bancroft, on the corner of Ellsworth.
For one thing, she needed to hide her hostility towards this man she’d never met. She had never held much respect for religion, or the clergy in general, not since her childish prayers failed to save her mother’s life and the chaplain at her exclusive boarding school told her that she should be grateful that her mother was now in heaven. The only time she attended church was when she was with her cousin’s family because she knew staying away would hurt them.
She recognized that her resentment of this specific minister started when the man persuaded her cousin to move thousands of miles away from home with some half-baked idea that Grace could act as a moral influence on the spoiled, juvenile men who would be her fellow students. Now, however, her resentment had turned to anger: anger that Mason had, at the very least, failed to help her cousin when her attempts at being a good moral influence resulted in the fraternities’ campaign against her. She wasn’t sure what she would do if she discovered that he’d known about the campaign. Even worse, if she discovered he had been the one to organize it—perhaps, as Laura suggested, out of some misguided desire to protect Sanders.
Nevertheless, she needed to go into this meeting keeping her emotions in check. If she doubted Laura’s conclusion that Sanders was not complicit because she thought Laura’s admiration for the professor had clouded her judgment, she needed to make sure her antipathy for Mason didn’t cloud her own judgment.
She and Laura had discussed the approach she should take and decided she should confront him directly with the idea that Grace had been harassed. If he was complicit in any way, he’d already know this, so there was no reason to pretend. If he were innocent, maybe she could get him to help her find out who was behind the hazing.
She reached the corner of Dana and Bancroft, where a group of young men sat on the front porch of the Chi Phi fraternity house. As she walked past them, aware of how they were staring at her, hearing the irritating clucking that young men, whether in Nebraska or California, seemed to feel was a clever response to seeing a woman, her good intentions wavered. How could the Reverend Mason give respectability to these idiots by agreeing to be their house advisor?
When she got to St. Mark’s, a moderately sized wooden church with a stunning stained-glass window at the apex of the roof, she went around the building to a side entrance, where Mason had directed her to go. When the door opened, and Mason welcomed her in, she found him much older and less imposing than she expected—his hair, mutton chop sideburns, and mustache all a uniformly steel gray. Yet his handshake was warm and firm, his voice deep and resonant, his brown eyes friendly, and he walked with a definite spring in his step. It wasn’t difficult to imagine him hiking through the Berkeley hills with Sanders and a troop of fraternity boys.
In her letter arranging this meeting, she had told Mason of her relationship with Grace. As a result, the first few minutes he spent telling her how much he had admired her cousin and what a tragic loss her death had been. He sounded sincere. Cynically, she told herself that sounding sincere must be an occupational requirement for a minister. What struck her as more significant was the way he appeared to be fishing for details about Grace’s death. This struck her as a sign that he had heard from someone—maybe even Willie—that she believed that her cousin’s death was related to something that had happened to her on campus.
When he told her how sad he was that he hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye to Grace before she went home, she decided to get right to the point, saying, “I’m sorry, Reverend Mason, but my cousin was in such distress that she left precipitously, not telling anyone. Unfortunately, that haste contributed to her eventual death. Surely she told you about the terrible hazing she’d been undergoing, which had become unbearable?”
Mason gasped, put his hand to his mouth, and said, “Miss Sutton, what are you saying?”
“I am saying that starting in September, members of the campus fraternities, including the Chi Phis, started harassing her, in part because they found out that she had written some letters to the Oestrus. I am saying that she wrote these letters because you told her that she had a calling to come west and be a beacon of morality among the Berkeley students. I am saying that in her haste to get away from that harassment she subjected herself to the wretchedly cold and crowded emigrant train east, arriving home near to death. I am saying that she was so distraught over what happened to her that she temporarily lost her faith and eventually succumbed to her illness and died.”
Goodness, is the old fool going to faint?
Caro looked around quickly and saw there was a carafe of water on the sideboard. She got up and poured a glass, bringing it to him.
He murmured thanks, took a long sip, and removed a white handkerchief, using it to wipe his eyes. His voice stronger, he said, “Please Miss Sutton, believe me, I had no idea. I thought her illness is what sent her home. I should have done more…”
“You did know about the letters she sent to the Oestrus?”
“Oh, yes, she showed them to me ahead of time. While I didn’t completely agree with some of the arguments she made, which placed the bulk of the blame on the fraternities for the problems with drinking and other…less than admirable…behavior, I whole-heartedly supported the reasons she sent the letters.”
Caro, about to ask him if he knew about the harassment of Julia Beck, stopped, horrified. She couldn’t let her desire to force this man to confront the consequences of his cavalier behavior bring this young woman under further scrutiny. If Mason had anything to do with what happened to Grace, either directly or inadvertently, she could not trust him with this sort of information. She needed to keep Laura out of the conversation as well, determined that, after what happened to Willie, she was not going to put anyone else at risk.
“Reverend Mason, you said that you should have done more? Why? Did she come talk to you about her problems?”
“She did speak to me about the letters at the end of September of last term. She inquired if I had ever mentioned them or her authorship of them to anyone. I assured her I hadn’t, but I asked why she was concerned about this since the paper had been disbanded for nearly a year.”
“What did she say?”
Mason’s cheeks reddened, but he didn’t look away as he said, “She told me that some of the young men in the fraternities were being unkind to her, and she thought it was because of the letters. I didn’t press her on what she meant. Instead, I suggested that she take the high road, reiterating some of my earlier arguments with her about how she shouldn’t condemn all fraternities for the behavior of a few bad apples, mentioning all the positive ways fraternities helped young men grow in maturity.”
Caro steeled herself against the man’s obvious distress. “Did you ask her what these unkindnesses entailed?”
“No, I didn’t, and she immediately turned the subject to some charity work she was doing. After she left, I told myself that she had become upset because a couple of the Zetas, her fiancé’s fraternity, hadn’t been very gentlemanly. I thought if she took my advice and didn’t
react to their jibes, they would stop.”
He paused, shook his head, and said, “I confess, I didn’t want to pursue it with her for fear I would discover that one of my boys from the Chi Phis was involved. I have lectured them so often about the need to treat all women with respect.”
I wonder if clucking to suggest that all women are as flighty as hens is the Reverend Mason’s idea of respect?
Mason leaned forward and said, “You did say that some my fraternity members were involved?”
“I have every reason to believe that all students from all five of the male fraternities played a role, although there is some evidence that Zetas were the leaders of the campaign against her.”
Caro didn’t tell him that two of his boys had found it terribly amusing only last week when they helped Bart Keller corner her on the stairs down to the North Hall basement book co-operative so Bart could blow tobacco smoke in her face. Instead, she said, “Did she ever speak to you again about this?”
“No. The few times we had occasion to speak alone after that, the subject was about her volunteer activities with the students at the Institute.”
“The deaf and blind students she tutored?”
“Yes. Tell me, Miss Sutton. If I had asked her, what would she have said?”
“Well, Reverend Mason, my cousin was the target of more than immature ‘jibes,’ which I can assure you every woman on campus has encountered at one time or another and which, consequently, would not have daunted my cousin. I’m talking about steady, persistent, and escalating harassment. Some of the details we will never know because my cousin didn’t share them, although I suspect if you asked your Chi Phi boys, they could tell you specifics.”
With some relish, Caro described the constant tripping and pushing, accompanied by degrading and vile comments that would have made just walking from class to class or walking home a torment to Grace. She told him about the hateful anonymous notes, the “mistake” that sent Grace to the Philosophy Club meeting late, and the substitution of a bogus essay at the literary society meeting that had caused Grace such humiliation.
Mason’s agitation increased as she recited the details, and Caro felt only the slightest pang over being the cause of his distress. In her opinion, Mason had been willfully blind to the faults of his boys, and, as a result, he’d failed in his role as friend and pastor to Grace. Nevertheless, she was still having trouble believing that he would have deliberately set out to hurt her cousin. He certainly didn’t seem to be a candidate for a torrid affair with Mrs. Sanders. She did wonder how he would react if she brought up Professor Sanders.
When she finished speaking, Mason cried out, “Miss Sutton, why would fellow students hound a poor innocent woman in this fashion? It is inconceivable.”
“Surely you know this was not the first time that students on this campus, many of them members of fraternities, have felt they had the right to target anyone they believed didn’t adequately respect their place of privilege on campus…engaging in some of the very behavior that Grace wrote about in her anonymous letters. I’ve read about how men of the current senior class damaged property of local citizens, subjected freshmen to public humiliation by stripping them of their clothing and shaving their heads, and how they wrote scurrilous and defamatory publications that attacked fellow students and faculty members. Don’t tell me you were unaware of all this?”
“Yes, yes, but to target a woman in this fashion? What possible threat was Grace Atherton to these young men?”
Caro took a deep breath, fighting the urge to tell the man in front of her in no uncertain terms what a bloody hypocrite he was. Instead, she said, “I strongly suspect my cousin was a threat to their own social position and sense of their male superiority. Really, Reverend Mason, you were the one who persuaded Grace to come to Berkeley, in your own words, ‘to provide a moral influence on her fellow students.’ Then why are you surprised that her presence on campus did have an effect? You were correct that my sweet cousin was everything an ideal woman is supposed to be—kind, caring, gracious, quiet-spoken, with strict moral values.”
“Yes, but…”
Caro raised her hand and silenced him. “Don’t you see, sir? The problem was that she was also very intelligent, often getting better grades than the men in her classes. Female students are supposed to be either beautiful and stupid or ugly and obnoxious. Just look at the illustrations and supposedly amusing comments in the campus yearbook. Perhaps even more threatening to the men who harassed her were the very moral values that you saw in her. She made men like Willie Caulfield and his fraternity brothers feel guilty when they drank, never cracked a book, cheated on their exams, and made fun of anyone less fortunate than they were. That could not be tolerated. She had to be taught a lesson and driven from the campus.”
Mason hung his head over his steepled hands and whispered, “There is none so blind as those who will not see. Miss Sutton, I can’t believe I let poor Miss Atherton battle this evil on her own. Tell me, is there anything I can do to atone?”
Conscious that this was the pivotal point in their conversation, Caro knew she must not falter, as she had with Willie. In her experience, men who asked a woman what they could do to help…frequently changed their minds.
She said, “Grace used the same word you did…evil. She thought that perhaps the young men who tormented her were simply the tools of evil, wielded by someone else. Before she died, she asked me to find out if that were true and to make sure that no one else would suffer as she had. That is where you can help me.”
“Yes, yes…that makes sense. I know the very boys to ask, see if they will tell me who suggested that they give Miss Atherton a difficult time.”
Caro could see that the idea that someone else besides his favorite fraternity boys were responsible made Mason more comfortable, so she added, “Sir, it would be helpful to learn if any of them suspected that an older person, say an alumnus, or a member of the faculty, even someone related to a student or faculty member, might have been involved. For example, Grace had learned something about Professor Sanders that upset her, undermined the regard she’d had felt for him. She didn’t mention that when she came to speak with you in September, or later on?”
Mason looked shocked…then cocked his head. “No…no, she didn’t. However, Sanders did ask me on one of our rambles together in the fall if I knew why Miss Atherton was having academic difficulties. Oh, Miss Sutton, how could I have missed that clue? But I’d just had a meeting with her to go over the plans to organize an outing for the older blind students. This would have been halfway through October. She didn’t mention anything about her course work. In my arrogance, I assumed if there was anything serious she would have confided in me. So I told Sanders I was sure that it was just the pressure of midterm exams, combined with all the good work she was doing with the blind and deaf students.”
And hence Sanders’ assumption that Grace’s problem was overwork.
She gritted her teeth and refrained from telling him that he was a blind old fool. Suddenly struck with an idea, she said, “Reverend Mason, if she wasn’t confiding in you, do you have any idea whom she might have confided in? Someone who might shed more light on what was happening?”
He thought for a moment, then said, “Have you talked to Miss Leverton, the young woman who volunteered with her at the Deaf and Blind school?”
Chapter 37
Friday evening, April 8, 1881
Berkeley
“…silent ‘sign language’ throughout the exercises fascinated the eye of all beholders.” San Francisco Chronicle, June 4, 1881
Laura hadn’t been to a Neolaean meeting in a month, and she rather wished she hadn’t agreed to Caro’s request that she come tonight. The book she had been typesetting this afternoon was tedious, and her eyes were tired and her feet sore. At least there was still daylight, so the walk up through campus wouldn’t be difficult. She hadn’t seen any of her fellow students on the ferry or the train, and she wondered if thi
s meant the attendance was going to be sparse.
As she descended onto the platform, she nodded to Professor Putzker, who she assumed was waiting for the southbound train. She thought he lived in San Francisco, so he was probably on his way home. Yesterday in class he’d been very distracted and short-tempered. Well, more short-tempered than usual, which made her wonder about his personal life.
He once remarked he came to America from his birthplace in Austria in the mid-sixties, when he was twenty, which would put him in his mid-thirties, and she knew he had a wife and a couple of small children. Perhaps he had been distracted because he had a fight with his wife that morning or had a child who was ill. On the other hand, maybe his bad temper came from some disappointment in his professional life. Had he submitted a paper for publication and been turned down?
As she walked up the hill towards the clubhouse, she thought about what the career trajectory would be like for a young man like Putzker and the other young instructors like Proctor, the charming French instructor, and Royce. Royce, for one, had told Seth that he was looking for a job back east, one where he could teach philosophy, not endless classes in freshman composition. Wouldn’t he need good references from a colleague like Sanders to get another position? Would protecting Sanders’ reputation be a good enough reason for a young professor to try to forestall any scandal that might be caused if Grace went public with her discovery about the copied poem?
Scholarly Pursuits Page 27
