by Owen, K.
Concordia balled her hands into fists. “I had to try it.”
The results had been disappointing, though. There was such a commotion when the planchette sailed off the table that she’d had no opportunity to observe Mr. Rosen’s reaction to her question, or that of anyone else for that matter. And when she’d turned back around, the reporter was gone.
She sighed.
David grabbed her shoulders, angry. “You told me that your father’s letter called Red his enemy and yours. If Red was truly here tonight, you have tipped your hand. He now knows that you are aware of his existence. You could be in danger.”
Concordia had never seen him so angry before. While she was touched by his concern, she didn’t appreciate being talked to in this way. She shook off his hands. “It’s not your responsibility. It is mine, and I will do as I see fit.”
“You are a damnably stubborn woman,” he said. He pulled her to him, and brought his lips down upon hers.
The kiss was born of frustration and anger, and, with fury on her own part she tried to push him away. He had kissed her once before, last spring, but not like this.
The kiss softened. She found herself kissing him back.
Mercy, what was she doing?
Finally, she pulled away from him, and put a hand to her lips in shock.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you, Concordia,” he whispered.
She couldn’t trust herself to speak.
The sound of nearby voices brought Concordia back to her senses. “I have to go. A group of us are walking back to the cottages. It wouldn’t do for anyone to see us together like this.”
“Let me go with you,” he said, taking her hand in his.
“You’ve taken enough liberties for one evening,” Concordia snapped.
She was about to pull away when Miss Grant stepped through the arbor, eyes gleaming with malice. Actually, only part of her could step through, as her enormous skirt hoops, attached to an already wide build, prevented her from clearing the wicket gate, which shook in protest. But she got far enough.
“I might have known I’d find you here, Miss Wells. And alone with a young man! Hardly the model of propriety, is it?” she sneered.
Concordia flushed a deep red.
Do not let anyone – even someone in authority over you - make you doubt yourself, President Langdon had told her. He was right.
Ready to come to her defense, David stepped toward the lady principal. Concordia stopped him. “No. I have something to say.” And she was going to have her say, even if it meant losing the job she loved. Enough was enough. She turned to face the lady principal. Her heart thumped hard in her chest.
“Miss Grant, you see impropriety because you look for the ill in people.” She held up a hand, forestalling that lady’s interruption. “In fact, it is you who have been outraging the propriety of our sex all this semester: your heavy-handed punishments, your malicious delight in the pain of others, your rank disregard for the welfare of those committed to your keeping. You leave misery in your wake, as tangible and malodorous as a plague.”
Concordia paused to catch her breath. Miss Grant’s face went white, then red-blotched.
A chorus of clapping, whistles, and cheers erupted from the far side of the shrubbery.
Land sakes, they’d had an audience. Concordia glanced uncertainly back at David, whose mouth was hanging open.
Miss Grant had finally recovered her voice. “You are finished,” she said, between gritted teeth, and flounced out.
Chapter 21
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
I.ii
Week 7, Instructor Calendar
October/November 1896
It was a subdued walk from Sycamore House to the cluster of student cottages. The path took them through the quadrangle, past Founder’s Hall, the chapel, and the classroom buildings. Miss Grant maintained a stony silence, marching slightly ahead of the group of students, which included the Joan of Arcs. All of the girls had heard Concordia’s outburst. Concordia herself trailed behind them, Miss Jenkins at her side. That lady had also heard the interchange and cast anxious glances her way.
Concordia felt utterly weary. The days to come would be no better. She would have to pack her things and leave in disgrace. Explain to her mother what happened. Live with her mother until she figured things out.
The clouded and waning moon cast a faint, intermittent light upon the quadrangle scene, giving the buildings ghostly forms. Concordia’s teeth chattered in the chill air and she wrapped her cloak around her more tightly. There would be frost upon the pumpkins tonight, for sure. Strange how, when everything in one’s life was falling apart, the rest of the world went on unaffected.
The dim pathway lights provided only modest illumination. All other lamps were out at this late hour.
Except for one.
“Look!” Miss Jenkins pointed to Founder’s Hall library. The main door was ajar, and a light burned within.
Miss Grant’s face puckered in anger, those currant eyes burrowing further into her face under the force of lowering brows. She put on a surprising burst of speed for a woman of her size, and waddled full-tilt toward the building. Concordia and Miss Jenkins followed close behind. The students stayed where they were on the path: some gaping, some grinning ear-to-ear.
Miss Grant let out a little oomph as she batted at something against her face and slipped on the floor. When Concordia and Miss Jenkins reached the door, they too were swatting at something sticky. Strips of ribbon, coated with molasses, dangled from the transom. They clung to Concordia’s cheeks and hair as she fought to pull them off.
“Miss Grant, are you all right?” Miss Jenkins called out. They stepped farther into the room. Moving away from the dangling stickiness, Concordia groped for the electric lights and snapped them on. They froze at the sight.
There was a horse in the library.
It seemed a particularly large horse, although any horse would have looked enormous inside a library. He was munching contentedly on what was left of a bale of hay the thoughtful pranksters had supplied. How the animal had been coaxed up the steps and through the door was anyone’s guess, as was the impending problem of how to get him out. As Concordia knew from sad experience at her aunt’s farm in the country, down was much more difficult than up when it came to farm animals.
At the moment, all Miss Jenkins and Concordia seemed able to do was stare at the beast. He must have been in here a while, judging by the mess; books strewn and stepped on, carts knocked over, hay covering everything.
“Help me up, if you please,” Miss Grant snapped.
With considerable effort, they pulled the lady principal to her feet, only to find that she had slipped on one of those disagreeable barnyard deposits commonly left by a horse.
Concordia’s eyes watered from the exertion of not laughing at the sight of the hopping mad Lady Principal, a smear of manure up the back of her gown, farthingale hoops now twisted at ludicrous angles. Miss Grant stomped back outside to yell at the students, getting smacked yet again by the molasses-coated booby trap in the doorway. Once she was out of the building, Concordia and Miss Jenkins collapsed against each other in hiccupping laughter, tears streaming down their cheeks. It was wicked, it really was, to be laughing at the lady principal this way. But they couldn’t help it.
Once they recovered sufficiently for speech, Hannah Jenkins walked over to the horse, careful to sidestep additional droppings. Concordia, never fond of horses, nonetheless decided it was safer to stay with Miss Jenkins and the animal than go outside and observe the lady principal’s tirade. With her luck, Miss Grant might find a way to blame her for this.
“Well, they certainly pulled a memorable one this time,” Miss Jenkins said, patting the animal’s neck, whereupon he started licking the molasses from her hair.
“And to do it while everyone was busy at the ball,” Concordia agreed. “I suspect our Joa
n of Arcs were responsible. That would explain why nearly a dozen of the girls wore identical costumes. A few could then slip out to pull the prank while the others created the impression that all were still in attendance.”
“Using coifs to cover their hair, which would have been a distinguishing feature,” Miss Jenkins added, with a hint of admiration in her tone. “Diabolical.” She looked the animal over as he whinnied softly. “At least they picked the most placid horse from our stable. If he panicked he could have injured himself.”
“But it’s still quite a feat to sneak him out of the barn and into here,” Concordia said. She looked around. “The librarian isn’t going to like this.”
“The students will be doing the cleanup, obviously. With the sharp-tongued Miss Cowles to answer to, I don’t envy them that task.”
“In the meantime,” Concordia said, as she stepped around a fresh dropping, “how do we get it out of here?”
Miss Jenkins didn’t answer. She stared at the horse with a troubled frown.
“What is it?” Concordia asked.
“That talking board,” Miss Jenkins said slowly, turning to look at her. “The answer to ‘Will Miss G. find true love?’ It was a horse.”
Concordia shook off the uneasy prickle at the base of her neck. “Well,” she answered with a bravado she didn’t quite feel, “either the girls shared their secret with Madame Durand, or the spirits have a mischievous sense of humor. Which would you rather believe?”
Chapter 22
There is a special Providence in the fall of a sparrow.
V.ii
Week 7, Instructor Calendar
November 1896
The next day – All Saints’ Day – Concordia began her packing. No sense in waiting until the lady principal, gloating in her triumph, walked in to hand-deliver her termination notice. The cause for dismissal, of course, would be insubordination. She was flagrantly guilty, and in front of witnesses, too.
Witnesses who had applauded.
She couldn’t help but smile briefly at the memory. She’d been wanting to do that for weeks. Odious woman.
As Concordia amassed piles on her bed, she realized that the cottage was strangely quiet. Even on class days there were usually students in and out all the time. She hadn’t heard Ruby bustling about, either. Concordia had hoped a few of the girls in her charge would have stopped by and offered some words of sympathy or support, but there’d been no one. Had she made so little difference in their lives? Was she to be forgotten so easily when she was gone? Her eyes stung as she blinked back tears.
After she had most of her things sorted, Concordia realized that she still had to tackle the contents of her office. But of course, Miss Grant’s office was just down the hall from hers. The thought of seeing the woman again settled like a cold lump in her stomach. But there was no help for it.
She locked the door to her rooms, went down the hall, and opened the front door. Eli was standing on the porch step, reaching a hand to the bell.
“Oh!” Concordia jumped back in surprise. “What are you doing here?” Had Miss Grant, with her twisted sense of humor, given the boy her termination notice to deliver?
“I’ve been sent to fetch you, miss,” the boy mumbled, not meeting her eyes. “Mr. Langdon wants to see you.”
Concordia’s heart sank. So this was it. She closed the door behind her. “Let’s go, then.”
All of the faculty offices, including President Langdon’s, were in Founder’s Hall. At least, she thought wryly, she could start packing up her books right after talking with him. Her office was on the floor above.
As they approached the Hall there looked to be an unusual amount of bustle and activity. She passed students in a long line: outside the building, up the two flights of stairs, and ending immediately outside the president’s office. They smiled as she walked past.
“Do you know what this is all about?” Concordia asked Eli. The boy shrugged. Taking a deep breath, she rapped on the door.
“Come in.”
She opened it.
The sight that greeted her made her draw in a quick breath. What on earth?
Ruby Hitchcock and all twenty-two of her cottage students were crammed around the president’s desk. Langdon himself stood behind it, as if barricaded in. Concordia never imagined that his office, spacious though it was, could hold so many people.
He waved a hand at everyone else. “All right; she’s here. Give us some privacy, please.”
Ruby and the students murmured in discontent, casting concerned glances at Concordia as they left. Finally, the room was cleared. Langdon pointed to a chair. “Have a seat.”
“What is going on? What were my girls doing here?” She gestured to the hallway outside the door. “There are more students out there, by the way. Are they all waiting to see you?”
Langdon gave a weary sigh and sat down. “I imagine so. Nearly two-thirds of the campus has already passed through my door this morning, wanting to talk to me about you.”
Concordia looked incredulous. “Me?”
“More correctly, you and the lady principal,” Langdon said. “Miss Grant, of course, had come to see me early in the morning” – he winced – “with a litany of complaints against you, culminating in the incident last night, of which I was not a witness. She recommended I dismiss you for insubordination, moral turpitude, and dereliction of duties.”
Concordia felt her stomach clench. With such charges against her, she would not be hired anywhere.
“But my day had only begun,” Langdon continued. “Since my interview with the lady principal, I have been…haunted is as good a word as any, I suppose. That young man who works for Grundy – Mr. Bradley? – was one of the first. He tried to take sole responsibility for you being out in the arbor with him to begin with. Not that I believed you capable of anything sordid. Since then, there has been a steady procession of students, teachers…even the cook and the messenger boys. Each of them with grievances regarding the lady principal, and staunch support for you.”
Concordia felt a lightness in her chest. So that’s what the students had been doing today. Not ignoring her but defending her, pleading her case to the president. And David Bradley, trying to protect her. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Several students were quite distraught,” Langdon added. “It seems Miss Grant had been coercing a few of them to spy upon you, in order to stay in her good graces. A troubling pattern has emerged about the lady. I have some difficult decisions to make.” He shook his head at Concordia. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
She looked down at her hands. “I guess I thought I could handle things myself.”
He shook his head. “I regret allowing the situation to continue. I didn’t want to undermine her authority, but I had no idea how bad the conditions had become.”
“What will happen now?” Concordia asked.
“Even before this perpetual visitation upon my office, I did not take the majority of Miss Grant’s claims at face value,” he continued mildly, “but your behavior toward her last night must be addressed.”
Concordia, flushing, looked at the floor.
“I impressed upon Miss Grant how burdensome it would be to find someone to assume the entirety of your duties so late in the semester, both in teaching your classes and overseeing the girls in your cottage,” Langdon continued. “With the prank in the library still painfully fresh in her mind, I also pointed out how your dismissal could foster an additional wave of ill-feeling from the students. We want the pranks to stop, not add fuel to the fire. So, Miss Wells, you will not be dismissed, but you will write a pretty little note of apology to the lady principal, and future dealings between you two will be civil. I have said as much to Miss Grant on that score as well. Agreed?”
Concordia felt nearly giddy with relief. “What will you do about the student prank?” she asked.
“The students responsible – there has been a startling upsurge of confession and contrition today
– are cleaning up the library, even now. In addition, until the Thanksgiving recess, all club activities, meetings, frolics, teas, and visits of any kind on campus are suspended. Curfew will be moved two hours earlier, to eight o’clock. I am giving the lady principal the authority to restore privileges earlier, if she sees fit.”
That was highly unlikely, Concordia thought. She sighed. No diversions outside of the classroom? Early curfew? She didn’t relish dealing with the students over the next few weeks.
Langdon stood, as did Concordia. “I imagine we shall both have our hands full in the near future. Send in the next student on your way out, would you?”
Chapter 23
How, now, Horatio! You tremble and look pale.
I, i.
Weeks 8 and 9, Instructor Calendar
November 1896
The campus was, indeed, a cheerless place after the horse prank. The restrictions imposed by President Langdon last week were beginning to make themselves felt. As a result, Concordia and Ruby had two dozen grumbling and restless girls to deal with on a daily basis.
Miss Phillips’ cold had developed into bronchitis and she had been moved to the infirmary under the watchful eye of Miss Jenkins. She was in no condition to decipher Randolph Wells’ journal.
Concordia wondered if she should ask David to write to his cryptologist friend. She hadn’t seen much of him since the disastrous incident in the arbor, although she thought of him a great deal. She suspected he was avoiding her, but didn’t know if that was the result of embarrassment or caution. Of course, she imagined that his laboratory work and frequent visits to Amelia took up a great deal of his time.
Sophia wrote to Concordia nearly every day to report on Amelia’s progress. The child was calmer now, and beginning to talk normally, unless asked about what she had seen or remembered the night of the murder. Sophia was convinced that, given more time, the girl would recover. Mrs. Adams, however, insisted upon going forward with the commitment proceedings. Sophia was able to stall sufficiently by having the family doctor declare that Amelia first undergo the expert examination of child specialist Dr. Bridgers, who was currently on a steamer on the far side of the Atlantic. He wasn’t due to return for another month.
