Scholarly Pursuits

by M. Louisa Locke

  As Sanders had predicted, the university had covered everything up. The inquest had concluded that Bart Keller had been killed by Proctor in self-defense. And, since Proctor had testified that Bart had been “insane with drink,” the Coroner had only issued a stern warning that the university needed to consider that this was the second death of a university student in what appeared to be an alcohol-related death.

  Laura continued, “I’m really having trouble accepting that Proctor’s only punishment for Bart’s death was the loss of his job. Bart paid for whatever he did, with his life. Even Sanders ended up having to retire. The official explanation is that he is leaving academia for health reasons, but I’m sure it is related to the potential scandals surrounding his wife’s infidelity…and maybe the plagiarism, if he told LeConte the way he said he would do.”

  “I confess, Laura, I don’t have that much sympathy for Sanders. Like Reverend Mason, and so many of the people Grace knew and admired, he certainly failed her. But I agree, it’s a travesty of justice that none of Proctor’s crimes came to light.”

  “You regret not going to the police?”

  “I won’t deny that I wanted to, desperately. But what good would it do? We have no evidence to prove Proctor’s role in Grace’s harassment. I am certain Ruth’s father would never permit her to come forward. And you know if we told anyone in authority what really happened the night Proctor killed Bart, it would end up ruining Kitty’s life. Grace wouldn’t have wanted that to happen.”

  Caro took off her spectacles and looked through the lenses, pretending to look for a smudge, while she got her emotions back under control. Her cousin had always said her problem was that she saw everything too clearly, a problem Laura Dawson had as well, which, of course, was what had made her such a good companion in the quest for the truth.

  Putting her glasses back on, she said, “My real concern is that if Sanders has resigned, how will he be in the position, as he promised, to ensure Proctor won’t work in academia again? Who is to say that the man won’t be able to convince some college president or board of a young ladies’ academy that he was unfairly maligned by Sanders, who just wanted revenge for Proctor seducing his wife?”

  Laura glanced into the hallway, then leaned close and said very quietly, “I don’t think you need to worry about Proctor getting off scot-free or starting up his exploits somewhere else.”

  “Why not?”

  “My brother told me that right before Celia and Kitty left town, Kitty’s father came to see him. Seems that the one thing that no one had figured out was how to explain why Kitty no longer had her gun. When he read in the paper that a Berkeley student had been shot with a pearl-handled derringer in Sanders’ cottage the night she got ill, he put two and two together. He knew that I had been the one to send the telegram telling him about Kitty’s illness, and he’d worked with Nate and Annie on a case before, so he figured he would get a straight answer from my brother. Seth was working in the law office that day, so Nate brought him in and urged him to tell Mr. Blaine exactly what happened.”

  Caro said, “Surely Kitty’s father won’t do anything that will threaten his daughter’s reputation.”

  “Oh, no. Nate advised him of the importance of maintaining the fiction that Kitty was never anywhere near the Sanders’ cottage that night.”

  “Please don’t tell me he’s going to buy Proctor’s silence!” Caro chest tightened.

  Looking completely serious, Laura said, “I don’t think you need to worry about that, Caro. Mr. Blaine is both enormously wealthy and totally ruthless. Let’s just say, I won’t be surprised to learn, some time in the very near future, that Proctor has paid a very steep price…for his sins.”

  With a sudden lightening of her spirit, Caro knew that she could finally let her thoughts of revenge go and that there was now the very real possibility she would be able to return to this city by the bay and Laura Dawson’s friendship.

  “Are you sure Mrs. Dawson won’t mind me coming up with you?” Seth stood in the study, twisting his Stetson.

  “Not at all. She’s declared that if everyone is going to insist that she stay in her bedroom for another couple of weeks, she is going to throw reputation to the wind and invite people to come see her there. You were the first male visitor, besides Jamie and Ian, of course, that she demanded be admitted, so don’t you get all shy on me. Kathleen will come and tell us when she is ready for us.”

  Seth relaxed and took a seat next to her. “I was glad that I had a chance to say good-bye to Miss Sutton. Is there any likelihood she will return?”

  “I don’t know. She has asked her aunt and uncle to let her middle cousin, Josh, accompany her on a trip to Europe this fall. Her plan is to settle in Germany, to study at one of the universities there, which would let her return here in time to start at the medical college, which for some reason starts its year in February. Caro says Josh is the brightest of the boys, and Grace was always afraid he’d find it difficult to leave the farm to attend college. Coming with her, working on his German, will give him a taste of a wider world, and her aunt and uncle agreed to let him go when Caro pointed out that he could act as her chaperone.”

  “Chaperone? That’s ridiculous. How old is the boy?”

  “Sixteen! Caro said that much as she loved her aunt and uncle, the fact that they thought that she needed a chaperone, and they saw nothing wrong with the idea that a sixteen-year-old boy could play that role, explains a lot about what was wrong with American society.”

  “Well, I hope what happened here doesn’t leave Miss Sutton with such a bad opinion of this part of the world that she doesn’t return.” Seth touched her hand lightly and said, “I know you enjoyed her friendship.”

  “I wouldn’t blame her if she doesn’t come back, Seth. I know I am having trouble accepting that everything, including the harassment that Julia Beck and Grace suffered from the fraternities, never came to light. The papers are even suggesting that the firing of President LeConte was the result of a number of the Regents who were still unhappy with his handling of the fraternity ban. That’s why I was glad to hear from Julia that a couple of juniors and sophomores are talking about starting a new anti-fraternity publication called the Occident next fall.”

  “Do you think you might join them?”

  “Maybe. If I can find the time. Although it might be hard for me not to mention some of what I learned about what happened to Grace and Julia, which really aren’t my secrets to share.”

  Seth gave her a warm smile and said, “Oh, I suspect that some students, no doubt a few of them who belong to a fraternity, will behave in stupid and immature fashion—thereby giving this new paper plenty to write about. For Kitty Blaine’s sake, I’m glad all the uproar over the Regents’ report happened when it did. Certainly made sure that Proctor’s firing, Sanders’ retirement, whispers about Mrs. Sander’s infidelity, and even Bart’s death—all which would have usually been tremendous scandals—simply disappeared from sight. Yesterday’s news.”

  Laura lay her head on Seth’s shoulder and thought about how the birth of Annie’s daughter had played the same role in her own life…completely over-shadowing her memories of what happened in the Sanders’ cottage.

  Annie’s lying-in had been long, nearly thirty hours, and difficult, the baby appearing reluctant to leave the womb. At the very end, it had become pretty harrowing when, for a brief few minutes, it looked like the doctor might need to use forceps. All had ended well, thank goodness. Abigail Elizabeth Dawson—named for Annie’s mother-in-law and mother—was a lusty seven pounds at birth and had steadily put on weight in the past month. She also had wispy red hair and eyes the color of silver, which the doctor said would turn brown in time; and Abigail had completely won Laura’s heart when she blew a bubble and grabbed onto her finger the first time Laura held her.

  A good thing, because there was a short period in the midst of the whole thirty-hour ordeal when Laura found herself furious with the baby for causing Annie so m
uch pain. Annie herself said she didn’t remember much about any of it, but Nate swore he’d have nightmares for the rest of his life about sitting in the study downstairs and hearing his wife’s footsteps as she walked back and forth for hours and hours in the room over his head.

  After the first ten hours of labor, they finally had to banish Kathleen to the kitchen, the young maid was so upset. Not surprising, since she’d lost her own mother during a difficult childbirth. Mrs. O’Rourke kept Kathleen busy washing dishes, while the motherly cook baked enough to keep the house in sweets for weeks. The boarders, Mrs. Hewitt and Mr. Chapman, had helped by taking the children out to Woodward’s Garden all day Saturday, while little Tilly took care of the terrier, Dandy, who had felt called upon to sit outside Annie’s room and howl in sympathy.

  Seth and Mitchell, Seth’s fellow boarder who was a medical student, had stopped by between their work shifts to see if they could get Nate to leave the house for a few minutes and, when they were unsuccessful, stayed to play endless games of poker with him. Mitchell patiently told Nate, time after time, that everything was progressing normally and that bursting into the room and demanding that they do something wouldn’t help.

  This left the nurse who Dr. Brown had recommended they hire, Laura, and Mrs. Stein attending to Annie between the doctor’s frequent visits. Laura thanked the heavens for Mrs. Stein, who provided the steady voice of reason and experience. She sat in the rocker, sipping cup after cup of tea, hour after hour, directing Laura and the nurse. She was the one who insisted they keep Annie up and moving for as long as they could—Laura wondered who ever came up with lying-in as the name for giving birth—and she determined when they needed to let Annie rest.

  Mrs. Stein also issued a constant stream of reassurances to Annie, telling her what a wonderful job she was doing, urging her over and over to breathe through the worst waves of pain and rest during the lulls. And, during the second day of labor, when the doctor had been called away to attend three other women who had decided to have their babies on the same day, it was Esther Stein who decided when it was time for the nurse to examine Annie. Then she would get up from her rocker, peer over the nurse’s shoulder, and engage in intense discussions about mysterious things Laura didn’t understand.

  Finally, it was Mrs. Stein who declared late Sunday evening that the doctor should be summoned, immediately.

  That had been the most frightening time of all. Laura, who hadn’t slept but a few hours here and there since she arrived back at the boarding house Friday evening, had moved beyond being tired into some realm she’d never inhabited before—a realm where all the worry over passing her finals, the frantic rush to rescue Kitty, even having her own life threatened, seemed somehow both normal and definitely preferable to watching her beloved Annie, soaked in sour sweat, face contorted every few minutes in excruciating pain, fight for her own life and the life of her child.

  When Dr. Brown finally came, did her examination, and took Annie’s hand and told her that if the baby didn’t crown in the next half hour that she would need to use forceps, her brave sister-in-law said that she understood but that if they would get her back up on her feet, she believed she would see if that wouldn’t do the trick.

  As Annie clung to Laura, as if they were a courting couple shuffling around a crowded dance floor, she whispered apologies for putting Laura through everything. Then, she gasped and said, “It’s time.”

  And it was. They no sooner got Annie back on the bed, feet up on the nurse’s shoulders, than little Abigail had come wriggling out into the world.

  Laura didn’t remember much after that, beyond running downstairs to tell Nate it was time to go up to his wife and see his new daughter and collapsing in Seth’s arms to sob uncontrollably. Evidently, she fell asleep in that position, and while she was afraid to ask, she had a vague memory that Seth, under the watchful eye of Kathleen, had carried her up to her room and laid her on her bed.

  “Miss Laura, it’s time.” Kathleen stood in the doorway. “Miss Abigail has eaten her fill, and her mother and father are anxious to introduce her to Mr. Timmons.”

  Laura laughed and said, “We daren’t hesitate, Seth. I know Annie wants to thank you for saving my life, once again, and Nate is in strong need of male support for what he now realizes is a life-time of trying unsuccessfully to keep three Dawson women out of trouble. Because if you thought I was headstrong, wait until you meet my niece. Definitely a girl who wants what she wants, when she wants it.”

  The End

  Author’s Notes

  In Scholarly Pursuits, the sixth full-length novel in my Victorian San Francisco mystery series, the historical background of the novel turned out to be unexpectedly relevant to present-day events. As I did the research for this book, the themes that emerged felt like they were being ripped right out of modern headlines.

  However, I did not start out working on this book with any particular agenda in mind. Because I have spent most of my adult life at institutions of higher education—either as a student or a professor—I was simply curious about what life was like for a nineteenth-century college student. I also wanted to find a mystery plot where Laura Dawson and her friends could be the main protagonists since they had such small roles in the previous novel, Pilfered Promises.

  These goals led me to follow these characters across the San Francisco Bay to Berkeley, where they were attending the university in the fall and spring of 1880-81. At that point in time, Berkeley was the only branch of the state’s emerging university system, and having just moved from its temporary housing in Oakland in 1873, the Berkeley campus only had four completed academic buildings. The town itself had less than five thousand residents.

  In the fall of 1880, there were 216 full and part-time undergraduate students enrolled, less than a third of them female. There was no official student housing, and one source estimated that over half of the students commuted to the school from Oakland or San Francisco…generally at least an hour trip each way. The courses offered were fairly traditional. Students in the College of Letters could choose either a classics or a literary course of study, and those students in the College of Sciences could choose to study agriculture, mechanics, mining, engineering, or chemistry.

  None of this was particularly surprising for the period and for a state-supported school that was funded as a land-grant college. What was totally unexpected was what I uncovered about student life during this period.

  Much to my surprise, I discovered that Berkeley students were involved in violent cane rushes where the freshmen and sophomores battled to subdue and tie up their rivals. They brutally hazed fellow students, in one case resulting in a shooting and a Grand Jury report. Throughout the year students engaged in periodic “beer busts,” culminating in an annual night of drinking and revelry called the “Burying of the Bourdon.” And in the three years prior to opening events of Scholarly Pursuits, one faction of students started an anti-fraternity paper, the Oestrus, which garnered its editors death threats, and another group of students published a scandalous “bogus” program for the yearly Junior Exhibition, which resulted mass suspensions and a brief ban of fraternities. Finally, in June of 1881, the Board of Regents recommended that the president of the university and several of his faculty supporters be fired.

  All these things were true. They happened. I did not make them up.

  As a result, apart from fictionalizing some of the real faculty and students to whom I gave walk-on parts, and creating entirely fictional personas for the main characters (although modeled where I could on real individuals), this mystery may be more closely based on real historical events than any of my previous novels.

  I learned about these events through a variety of secondary and primary sources.

  To start off, I read traditional histories of the University of California, Berkeley. The Illustrated History of the University of California, 1868-1895, William Cary Jones (1895), was useful because it listed all the graduates of the university from its f
ounding to 1895. It even included where former students lived and their occupations. For most of the women, instead of an occupation, their husbands’ names were listed! It also had mini-biographies of the various faculty and administrators.

  The University of California: 1868-1968, Verne A. Stadtman (1970), the official centennial publication, included a chapter about student life, with the tantalizing mention of a series of internal divisions within the student population in the late 1870s that led me to look for more detail on student life. However, not a single woman was mentioned in this chapter…it was as if they didn’t exist.

  Fortunately, I did find a recent academic monograph that was all about women who attended coeducational institutions like Berkeley in this period. Bright Epoch: Women and Coeducation in the American West by Andrea Radke-Moss (2008) described in detail the gendered nature of women’s experiences on college campuses, which determined everything from where they were supposed to walk, what courses they should take, and what extra-curricular activities they could participate in. This book also discussed the prevalent expectations that women would be “civilizing” forces on campus and described the kinds of hostility women encountered if they challenged these accepted norms.

  A second source, The Quack’s Daughter: A True Story about the Private Life of a Victorian College Girl, Greta Nettleton (2014), while not giving me insight into Berkeley, did provide an important example of the difference between how a young college woman was supposed to comport herself and how she might actually behave. Consequently, this biography of Cora Keck, who attended Vassar in the mid-1880s, proved particularly helpful. It described the very active social life pursued by young women, whose parents thought their daughters were safely sequestered in an all-female institution. Cora and her friends found a variety of Harvard, Yale, and Andover men (Cora called them “Dudes”) to escort them to ice cream parlors and take them ice skating, boating, and on carriage rides out into the country. Cora also went with different classmates to New York City, where they attended the theatre, went shopping, and had champagne dinners with a number of young men.