Scholarly Pursuits

by M. Louisa Locke

  San Francisco

  “Taffy—Seductive Small Talk,” College Slang Dictionary, 1881 Blue and Gold Yearbook

  “Well, I can certainly see why you don’t think much of my boarding house,” Caro said as they crossed Geary to catch one of the horsecars going to the Western Addition, where they had an appointment to meet Grace’s friend Ruth. “Such a lovely, warm home, and you are absolutely right to praise your cook. And what an interesting group of boarders. Does everyone always eat their meals together?”

  Laura chuckled, remembering how Caro’s eyes had widened when the elderly dressmaker, Miss Minnie, had commented loudly that the watered black silk Caro was wearing was an excellent choice for a mourning outfit, while Miss Millie, her silent sister, had nodded vigorously in agreement. At this point in the meal, Jamie had crowed that Ian had found the wishbone in his slice of turkey breast, and Ian’s sister, Kathleen, who was serving, swooped in and snatched the hooked bone, saying she’d put it on the windowsill to dry. She had then admonished that well-behaved little boys were to be seen and not heard at table. Everyone had laughed very heartily at that patently ridiculous statement.

  “Heavens no, Caro. Breakfast is usually a buffet, with eggs and such in chafing dishes. Most of us are off working at mid-day, and Mr. Chapman, Mr. Harvey, and I seldom get home early enough to eat dinner with the rest of the boarders. However, the Sunday main meal is the time everyone tries to be there, and it is the only meal that Annie eats with the boarders. That was true even before she became pregnant. She told me this morning that she thought that this Sunday might be the last time she will do so until after the baby comes. I am really glad you were able to come and eat with us so you could meet her.”

  “Well, I must say, your brother and sister-in-law were more welcoming than I expected…since I imagine that at least your brother wishes me in perdition for dragging you into investigating what happened to Grace.”

  “Oh, Annie completely understands why I’m involved, and Nate learned long ago that he can’t stop me when I put my mind to something.” Laura looked around and saw that there weren’t any pedestrians coming up the street, and she said, “Let me tell you what I learned this morning about Ruth Leverton from Mrs. Stein. She confided to me that the rumor is that Ruth’s marriage to Mr. Foster Lawrence in late May was one of convenience. Lawrence was the head clerk in Mr. Leverton’s Portland office, but he’s now been made chief purchasing agent. And…they now have a four-month-old baby.”

  Laura watched as Caro did the sums and then said bluntly, “I sincerely doubt that Mr. Foster Lawrence is the father.”

  “And now she’s living with her parents, the new husband conveniently on the road in his new position. Poor girl.”

  Laura looked down the street at the horse car making its slow way towards them. Steeling herself, she took a deep breath and said, “Caro, what if Ruth was assaulted by one of her classmates?”

  Caro adjusted her glasses and said, “One of her classmates certainly might be responsible for the child, but why do you think the pregnancy might be the result of an assault?”

  “Because of something that happened on Friday.”

  Laura then told Caro about how Bart Keller had been bothering her during the week, culminating in his outrageous behavior as she, Kitty, and Celia left the Neolaean meeting. She didn’t actually recount how Bart had groped her; this was somehow too embarrassing to share. Instead, she said, “I don’t know how I am going to look him in the eye on Monday in class, although I guess it might be possible he won’t even remember; he really seemed very drunk.”

  “And you are thinking that something similar could have happened to Ruth?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I just thought, what if some drunken student—like Bart—encountered Ruth walking to the train one night or cornered her after one of the school dances, when there was no one around to help her?”

  Laura paused, realizing her voice had started to quaver. Friday night’s scuffle with Bart had brought back memories of a former student she’d taught and all the associated trauma of a year ago.

  “Laura, do you think Bart was trying to rape you on Friday?” Caro sounded suitably shocked.

  Laura shook her head. “No…not really. I mean, if that was his intention, why would he accost all three of us? It just made me think about what could have happened…to Ruth. As far as Friday went, Bart’s anger seemed equally directed at Kitty and Celia, because they are Irish. Or maybe he has a general hatred of women—or at least all women studying at Berkeley. I just happened to be one of the women he hates.”

  Frowning, Caro said, “Laura, has it occurred to you that his harassment of you this week, and what happened on Friday night, happened after you talked to Professor Sanders? Could he have directed Mr. Keller to accost you?”

  “Of course, I realize there might be a connection. I am just having trouble imagining Sanders and Keller working together. But what if Sanders told his wife about what I had discussed with him?”

  “Yes, that would make more sense. Bart Keller was one of the students that Mrs. Shepard specifically mentioned as frequently attending Mrs. Sanders’ little parties. What did Kitty and Celia say? Had they had any previous encounters with Mr. Keller? They don’t have any classes with him, do they?”

  “They didn’t want to talk about it. Celia pretty much cried the whole way home, so Kitty was occupied with comforting her. I was pretty shaken myself. I didn’t see Celia at all yesterday. She was still asleep when I got up to go to work, and she spent the rest of yesterday and last night at Kitty’s.”

  Caro reached out and squeezed her hand, saying, “Oh, Laura, I’m so sorry this happened. But have you thought about the fact that it might not have been Ruth who was assaulted, but Grace? I’ve never accepted that the harassment, even the public humiliation she suffered, explained why Grace fled home, why she felt ashamed. I can’t get it out of my head…the way she left Berkley, telling no one, not even her landlady, that she was going. What if she had been raped? And for some reason she felt it was her fault…perhaps for not being careful enough, leaving herself vulnerable to attack.”

  Laura thought about why she hadn’t told Caro or anyone else about how Bart had put his hands on her. Did she feel that she was somehow responsible? That she shouldn’t have sent Kitty and Celia away and baited Bart?

  Pushing this thought away, she said, “Didn’t you tell me that Grace had some scrapes and bruises on her when she arrived home?”

  “Yes, she did, and I always feared they might have been the result of some sort of physical or sexual assault. But how can we find out? Who would know?”

  Laura heard the pain in Caro’s voice, and she said, “Do we know what Grace was doing the day she left?”

  “Chad said that in the afternoon she attended the Field Day event that was held at the Oakland Trotting Club…that she went with some of the students from the Deaf and Blind Institute.”

  Laura waved to the horsecar that was crossing Jones, making sure it would stop for them.

  As she swung up onto the car, she said over her shoulder, “That’s why we are going to see Ruth Leverton, isn’t it? Because they both volunteered with the Institute. Maybe she was even there that day and can tell us something that will help.”

  Caro and she sat together in the small study in the O’Farrell Street boarding house, looking down at a leather-bound scrapbook in front of them. They hadn’t said more than two words to each other on the trip back from Ruth’s home, both of them were so busy with their own thoughts.

  Laura opened up the scrapbook, which was crammed with miscellaneous pieces of memorabilia—photographs, calling cards, restaurant menus, shop receipts, newspaper articles, play bills from different theaters, and dried leaves and pressed flowers. Some of these were carefully pasted into the pages of the book, with neat dates and captions under them. Others were just stuck between the pages. There were even odd objects, like burnt-out matches, a twig, a button, a soiled glove.

&n
bsp; On the cover was embossed the initials RL, and Laura had the stray thought that marriage hadn’t changed Ruth’s initials. Everything else in the young woman’s life had certainly changed.

  Caro was the first to break the silence, saying, “I know your friends are going to be here soon to do school work, and I suspect it will be better if I’m gone before then. But before I go, I need to know if you came to some of the same conclusions I did.”

  “Mostly, I felt sorry for her. She’s so thin, and the baby was huge! I kept thinking that he must be sucking the very life out of her.”

  “He’s not really that big for a four month old. However, trying to pass the child off as younger isn’t going to do her any favors. From what Mrs. Stein told you, no one is going to believe the child was delivered early. You are correct, however; Ruth did look unwell, although it was my impression that she primarily looked starved for adult company.”

  Laura remembered how pleased the young brunette had been at the start of their visit, welcoming them into the parlor, saying the proper words of condolences to Caro, but quickly moving the conversation on to more pleasant topics.

  As she had jiggled her son on her knee, Ruth avidly asked to hear “all the gossip” from Berkeley, quizzed Laura about what classes she was taking, reminisced about math instructor Clarke’s habit of leaning against the chalk board, and asked if married life seemed to be agreeing with Professor Royce. She was especially pleased when Caro passed on greetings from Alice Pratt and Julia Beck.

  When Laura asked after her husband, she rattled off what seemed to be a set piece about how much her father valued his new son-in-law and how he was delighted to have Foster to help manage the business. She added rather defensively that living with her parents made sense with her husband on the road so often. Then she said how much her two younger sisters loved being aunts to their new nephew. The young man in question, named James for his grandfather, had by this time fallen asleep in his mother’s arms.

  When this topic of conversation began to peter out, Caro told Ruth how much Grace had enjoyed working with her and the deaf and blind students, inquiring if she was proficient in sign language, as Grace had been. This started the conversation back up, and Ruth became animated again, talking about the fact that she tutored both blind and deaf students in math. She recounted how a number of the blind students could do sums in their heads, punching out the answers in braille. She also said Grace’s ability to sign was a big help to her when she needed to explain a more difficult concept to one of the deaf students.

  That was when Caro asked if Ruth remembered the name of the student, the one Grace accompanied to church in Oakland on Sundays, and if there were any other particular students or teachers at the institute she might contact to talk to about her cousin.

  In response, Ruth hefted her son onto her shoulder and went over to a cabinet, where she pulled out the scrapbook that now lay before them. Flipping through a number of the thick pages, she found what she was looking for, and she detached two photographs, handing them to Caro. Ruth said the first picture, a formal cabinet photograph of a boy and a girl standing stiffly between Grace and Ruth, had been taken early last spring and that the gap-toothed boy next to Grace was Robbie Watson, the deaf student Grace took to church on Sundays. The pretty girl next to Robbie whose eyes were half-closed was Sally Jackman, a young blind woman Ruth tutored in math. The second photograph showed an older woman and man, who Ruth said were the Goodalls, a married couple who taught both deaf and blind students at the institute and had worked closely with both Ruth and Grace.

  While Caro had been examining the two photographs, Laura had continued to turn the pages in the scrapbook. When she came to a number of cheaper tintype photographs that featured Grace and Ruth with a couple of men and women, she asked what had been the occasion for these pictures.

  That was when the visit fell apart.

  Ruth made a small inarticulate sound and shut the book with a snap. As if attuned to his mother’s visible agitation, her son began to wail.

  Ruth rocked the child in her arms, but the boy’s cries only grew louder. Her face flushed, Ruth hurriedly told Caro and Laura that she really must excuse herself and attend to her son, leaving the room in a rush.

  Then the oddest thing of all happened.

  Ruth’s mother, who had been sewing quietly in the corner throughout the visit, had calmly walked over and picked up the scrapbook, handing it to Caro. She told them that she was sure Ruth wouldn’t mind if they borrowed it for as long as they liked. She then rang for a servant, repeated her early condolences on the loss of Caro’s cousin, and they were swiftly ushered out of the house.

  Now, back home, Laura looked to see if she could find the pages that seemed to have gotten Ruth so upset.

  As she continued to turn each page, she said, “You know, Caro, this isn’t at all the kind of scrapbook I would expect Ruth Leverton to have compiled. Not after the description of her you got from Julia. I would have expected to find a book filled with edifying quotations and academic articles. But it’s so full of life! Restaurants, plays she attended, trips to Woodward’s Gardens. Look, she went to see a bicycle race, and I recognize the program from last year’s July Fourth celebration in San Francisco. She and Grace must have really been close, because so many of the captions mention Grace as being with her. Although I notice that a good number also mention Willie Caulfield.”

  Caro looked at the page Laura was pointing to and said, “I don’t know why Mrs. Leverton loaned this book to us. Seemed such a strange thing to do. However, I must say I am grateful. I have been so focused on last fall, imaging how unbearable life was for Grace, I forgot how much she seemed to be enjoying her first two years here. Willie Caulfield might have turned out to be a bounder, but for two years she had a beau and, it appears, a best friend and was having lots of fun.”

  Caro took out a handkerchief and carefully removed her glasses, polished the lenses, then replaced her spectacles.

  Wanting to give her friend some privacy to deal with her emotions, Laura continued to turn the pages of the book until she found another batch of photographs with a number of students. This was the section she had been examining when Ruth got so upset.

  Puzzled, she said, “Did Grace mention a French Club? Did you see any mention of one in the yearbooks?”

  “No, although the yearbook for last year said there was a German Club. Can you imagine meeting weekly with Albin Putzker? No wonder it seems to have disappeared this year. But I do remember Grace telling me this summer that she and a few other students met together to practice their conversational French. She took French her first two years here, which is why she was taking German this year. Why do you ask?”

  “Look at these photographs, the ones I was looking at when Ruth shut the book in our faces. All of them have Grace and Willie in them, along with Ruth and a couple of other student types. And all of them have a different date and ‘French Club’ in their captions. These must be the people in the conversational French group Grace told you about. I suppose the goal was to speak French on their outings, including going to have their pictures taken. Look at this one. They’ve all put on funny hats and are making silly faces. This one has Elliot Sinclair, of all people, in it and some young woman I don’t recognize. Wait, is the older man standing behind the students who I think it is? The one with his hand on Ruth Leverton’s shoulder. The one she is looking up at in adoration.”

  Caro pushed her glasses firmly up on her nose and leaned over the book to peer closely at the photograph. With a short intake of breath, she said, “My stars, it’s Proctor, the French instructor. Laura, do you think it is possible we may have just discovered who the real father of Ruth’s little James is?”

  Chapter 39

  Late Sunday afternoon, April 10, 1881

  San Francisco

  “In the education of our girls, the attempt to hide or overcome nature by training them as boys has almost extinguished them as girls.” Sex in Education, Edward
H. Clarke, 1873

  “What was she doing here?” Celia moved into the room in a rush.

  Taken aback at the unusual venom in Celia’s tone, Laura said with equal heat, “I am not sure why you ask, but Miss Sutton and I had been to see a friend of Grace Atherton’s, a former Berkeley student, who lives in town.”

  Laura stopped, afraid she would blurt out something she shouldn’t.

  Caro and she had barely begun to discuss the implication of the photographs of Proctor and Ruth they had found in the scrapbook, when they heard voices in the hallway. Caro hastily gathered up the book, buttoned her coat, and headed out into the hallway.

  All the questions these photographs prompted were swirling in Laura’s head. The last thing she wanted to do was deal with Celia, who was, once again, feeling aggrieved about something.

  Questions like, if Proctor were the father of Ruth’s child, did Ruth’s family know? Had he been paid off in some fashion to keep quiet?

  And what did this say about Proctor and Grace? Could Proctor be the person who Grace trusted, but who she then felt had betrayed her?

  The photographs certainly suggested Proctor had spent a good deal of time with Grace and Willie Caulfield, so it didn’t seem farfetched to see the French instructor as someone Grace might have gone to when she learned about Sanders and his plagiarism. If so, it appeared he must have counseled her not to go to Sanders or make the information public.

  But why? Out of loyalty to Sanders or something more nefarious?

  Maybe, as Laura had speculated earlier, it had been a matter of blackmail. Could Proctor have believed that he could use this piece of information in some way to get Sanders, as a senior member of the faculty, to do something for him?

  Like help him get a raise or help him get a better job somewhere else?