Bloody Lessons (5 page)

Chapter Six

Saturday noon, January 10, 1880

“It practically says that these ladies who propose to teach in our public schools must devote themselves to a life of celibacy…”
San Francisco Chronicle
, 1879

“So how are you liking my seventh grade students? Are they behaving for you?” Hattie asked as she urged Laura to sit on the ancient armchair under the room’s one window.

Laura looked around as she gingerly sat down, hoping the wire spring she had seen poking through the cushion wouldn’t end up snagging the twisted satin drapery at the back of her best dress. The green stripes of the chair would have clashed terribly with the blue floral print of the window’s draperies if they both weren’t so badly faded. At least they seemed clean, as did the chenille bedspread covering the narrow bed on which Hattie perched, there being no other place to sit in the tiny room. Laura wondered why Hattie had moved from the boarding house she had been living in when she moved to San Francisco this fall. Her letters had described a large airy room, complete with bookshelves and a desk, just a few blocks from Clement Grammar. Not this cramped fourth floor room reached by a set of uncarpeted stairs so narrow that Laura felt like she was Christian climbing up Difficulty Hill in
Pilgrim’s Progress
. Of course, since Hattie was no longer working, she wouldn’t have been able to afford the room and board where she had been staying, but how was she affording any room at all, now that she was unemployed?

And was she ill? Hattie, as befitted a farm girl of Iowa heritage, was usually round of cheek and hip, her sky blue eyes sparkling with good health, and her light brown hair shiny and neat. Today, while the curves were still there, her cheeks had thinned, there were dark circles under those blue eyes, and the general disorder of her hair suggested she had been lying down when Laura knocked at her door. Did she quit teaching for health reasons? If so, why hadn’t she returned home to let her parents nurse her, and why hadn’t she said anything to Laura?

Laura mentally postponed asking these and all the rest of her questions, thinking that she just needed to give her friend time. Taking Hattie’s lead, she replied, “The students are such a wonderful change after the Cupertino Creek School. They actually sit in their seats, well, all except John Jenkins. Do tell me you discovered some way to keep him from wandering over to look out the window right in the middle of recitations.”

“Oh my, John. He really is a bright boy, particularly good with math, but I swear he is a perfect example of what Miss Frobisher called the ‘ants in the pants’ malady. Do you remember?” Hattie laughed. “I found that if I assigned him the task of helping some of the other boys who were having difficulty with their sums, it helped keep him occupied, at least for awhile. Now tell me, did Frank Spencer, the small snub-nosed boy who sits at the back, drop his marbles yet?”

Laura spent the next hour delightedly sharing notes on the boys and girls in her class. Hattie confirmed many of Laura’s first impressions, and she was thankful to learn which of the pedagogical strategies they had been taught at school worked and didn’t work with this group of students. The information was invaluable, and Hattie, who had always been a superb mimic, had her in stitches as she described some of the students’ little idiosyncrasies. Laura was also glad to hear from Hattie that she shouldn’t be worried about accepting Miss Thorndike’s request to place one of the practice teachers in her class.

“Della Thorndike is really a very experienced teacher,” she’d said. “I had quite a few conversations with her at lunch time when she dropped by to check on one of her students, and she gave me a good number of useful suggestions on how to exert better discipline.”

Laura, thankful that she’d reintroduced the subject of discipline, started to tell her of her own difficulties with teaching in the fall and how miserable she’d been, but Hattie immediately changed the subject. Hurt, she thought,
Why won’t she let me talk about this? Doesn’t she care?

In September, Laura had written several letters to her friend about how insecure she felt managing the littlest children, and Hattie had been quite sympathetic in her replies. Then in October, Hattie’s letters had changed, were less frequent, and
stuck to mostly safe topics like the weather and mundane classroom activities. By that time, Laura had begun to worry that the local postmistress in Cupertino Creek, a terrible gossip, wasn’t to be trusted, so she’d shifted to neutral topics in her letters as well. She certainly wasn’t going to write about some of the awful secrets she had discovered about the families she boarded with or tell her about the bullying she’d been subjected to by Buck Morrison or report on Seth’s unexpected visits each weekend. But she had hoped once she was face-to-face with her friend that she would be able to unburden herself. She had missed her so. Missed getting her wise counsel. Missed her ability to turn the petty problems of a day into a humorous story.

H
attie’s voice sharpened, and Laura realized she hadn’t been paying close enough attention to what her friend was saying. Hattie repeated her question about what Laura thought of Andrew Russell, the Vice Principal at Clement Grammar. Laura replied that he seemed nice enough, but she could tell that Hattie was miffed. She knew her friend’s face as well as her own, and that little knot that appeared between her brows meant she was upset. Realizing that many of Hattie’s stories of the classroom had been interspersed with references to what Mr. Russell had said or thought about this and that, Laura leaned forward and said, “I gather that you think very highly of Vice Principal Russell?”

“Oh yes, he was so helpful to me when I started teaching. I don’t know what I would have done without his support during those first months of the term. I’m confident you will love and respect him as I do when you get to know him as well.”

“What do you mean, love him?” Laura was taken aback by Hattie’s statement. Then, trying to soften her reaction, she continued on in a teasing way, saying, “Hattie Wilks. I am surprised at you. Taken in by a handsome face!”

Hattie lifted her chin, a flush covering her cheeks, and snapped
, “This isn’t a joking matter. Andrew is the most intelligent man I have ever met.”

“Don’t get angry with me,” Laura replied, startled by her friend’s reaction. “I am sure he is a very capable man. I just haven’t had a chance to do more than say hello to him yet. I was just startled to hear you say you love him. I know how careful you are to avoid using that sort of over-blown sentimental language.”

At San Jose Normal School, watching as other classmates lost interest in their studies or even dropped out because they had “fallen in love,” they had sworn to each other they wouldn’t let romantic impulses interfere with their dreams. Laura couldn’t believe her friend would have changed that much in such a short time. This must be just an infatuation on her part. With growing unease, she watched as Hattie remained silent, eyes downcast.

“Hattie, talk to me. What is going on? This isn’t why you resigned your position, is it? You haven’t thrown away your future because a man has paid you compliments. I won’t believe my dear, sensible Hattie would do such a thing.”

Hattie cried out, “Laura, you don’t understand. It isn’t like that. Andrew loves me and I love him, and I have pledged to spend my life with him.”

“What about the pledge we made to each other?” Laura stood up, her hands clenched. “You promised me! We were to teach and save our earnings so we could afford to start taking classes together at the University. Are you saying you have given this all up for some starched-collar bureaucrat?” Laura turned her head sharply to the side, fighting off tears.

When she turned back to look at Hattie, her friend looked ashen, her lips visibly trembling. Laura’s anger drained away, and she moved to sit beside her on the bed, saying, “Oh, dearest, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to berate you. I am just so confused. You gave no hint of this in your letters. Now do tell me exactly what has happened. Help me understand.” She put her arm around Hattie’s shoulders.

“I know I should have written to you about Andrew and me, but I wasn’t sure you would understand
,” Hattie said haltingly. “We never meant it to happen. He offers a small class in the evening in Greek and Latin for seniors at Girls' High and those in the Normal class who want to go on to the University, and when I could, I joined them.” Her voice grew stronger, and she continued. “One evening, when the others left, I stayed on. We talked about, oh, everything. His mind is so superior and elevated compared to most of the boys we knew at San Jose. Laura, he is a follower of Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill, a true altruist.”

“Well I can see how attractive that might be, but how does Mr. Russell feel about your plans to go to the University, eventually medical school? He must recognize how brilliant you are.” Laura’s impatience returned. “Doesn’t he realize what a travesty it would be if you didn’t have a chance to fulfill your dreams? Did you tell him what Professor Norton said about you having the finest grasp of scientific principles of any student he had taught, male or female?”

“Laura, you are wrong. He isn’t the kind of man to see a woman as just another pretty face, good for nothing but home and hearth. He respects me and wants the best for me.”

“Then why did you quit teaching?”

“I had to quit. There were…reasons. For one, as my Vice Principal, he could be accused of favoritism if our relationship became public while I taught under him.”

“Couldn’t you have simply asked to be transferred to another school? How will you support yourself? How are you even affording this place?”

Laura stopped. Hattie had gotten up and walked over to the window, her back to her. After a moment of silence, she saw her friend’s shoulders pull back and recognized that Hattie was screwing up her courage.
To say what?

“Hattie, what is it?”

Hattie turned around, her voice tremulous. “I had hoped that I would be able to tell you this after you had gotten to know Andrew. Then it wouldn’t seem so strange to you at all, but…you see, I quit because Andrew asked me to be his wife. We are to be married as soon as my parents can arrange to come up to San Francisco to attend.” Hattie reached out to her, pleading, “Laura, my dearest friend, please just be happy for me!”

Laura’s heart melted, and she ran over to pull Hattie into her arms, her friend breaking into sobs.

“Hush, now,” she said. When she felt the sobs subside, she drew away and took Hattie’s handkerchief, using it to wipe the tears from her friend’s face. “What is all this? You silly goose. How am I supposed to be happy for you if you are in tears?”

Hattie smiled a watery smile. “Oh, I have missed you, Laura. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to have you here, to know my darling students are in your good hands. And now you can help me get prepared for my wedding. We aren’t planning more than a small civil ceremony. But I want you to be my maid of honor.”

There were so many questions Laura wanted to ask. Even if Andrew Russell turned out to be the paragon that Hattie thought him, she still wouldn’t understand why her friend was rushing into this marriage. But she loved Hattie, and so she gave her friend another warm hug and kept her mouth shut. For now.

Chapter Seven

Sunday afternoon, January 11, 1880

"A FORENSIC FEMALE: 'I have associated with me for the defense Mrs. Laura DeForce Gordon. The announcement was listened to with interest as the appearance of a female lawyer in a murder case was a novel sight." ––
San Francisco Chronicle,
1880

“I just can’t fathom it, Nate. It’s as if this Andrew Russell has bewitched her,” Laura said. “We had just begun to get comfortable with each other again when he was knocking at her door. Came right in like he owned the place. I was shocked!”

Nate smiled at his little sister’s outraged outburst, looking over at her fondly for a moment before returning his attention to driving the hired carriage up Fell Street towards the entrance of Golden Gate Park. At least this was the Laura he knew and loved, fierce and opinionated, not the falsely cheerful girl he had seen on Friday when he stopped by the boarding house. At Annie’s urging, his sister had come down to the parlor, just for
awhile, and assured him that she was completely recovered from the assault in the alley. Then she had chatted gaily about her first week of teaching. But Nate agreed with Annie’s later assessment that there had been something manufactured about Laura’s good spirits.

He reminded himself that his sister never liked admitting that she was scared about anything. There was the summer she was thirteen and snuck out early and saddled up Ajax, her father’s stallion. Their brother Billy had told her she was just a little girl and couldn’t handle him, so of course she was determined to prove him wrong. When she came back after breakfast, her skirts muddy from the stream Ajax had dumped her in, she’d turned the whole escapade into a humorous story. But Nate could tell that she’d gotten a severe fright and simply didn’t want to worry her parents. Or admit to Billy, for that matter, that he had been right.

Nate intended to get to the bottom of why she was pretending the assault didn’t bother her, so he invited her to come with him to see the Conservatory of Flowers today. She would have a hard time refusing him since botany was one of her favorite subjects, and this magnificent glass structure, with its exotic plants, hadn’t been built the last time she visited him in San Francisco.

Despite the ten years difference in their ages, or maybe because of it, he’d always been close to Laura. She was only four when he first moved up to San Francisco to go to high school and seven when he went back east to Western Reserve College. Yet every summer when he came home, she shadowed him day and night. Nate may have complained about how much of a nuisance his little sister was, but he knew it was Laura’s hero-worship that gave him a sense of place in the family each time he returned. Laura, bright, energetic, and curious, needed him in ways that his busy mother, and his father who had Billy to depend on, didn’t. He worked with her on her letters and numbers, taught her the Latin names for plants when they tramped in the
foothills east of the ranch, listened to her girlish secrets, and read her to sleep every night with the poetry of Longfellow, Browning, and Tennyson. One of his fondest memories of these years was her head snuggled down on her pillow, a jumbled nest of dark brown curls, her snubbed nose burned from the sun, and her lashes dark against her cheeks.

Then, in ’71, he had gone to Harvard to get his law degree, and he didn’t make it home for three years, at which point he joined his Uncle Frank’s law firm in San Francisco. Laura’s newsy letters had kept him from feeling completely cut off, but he had been shaken when he returned and found that the ten year-old little
girl he left behind had turned into a young woman.

“Nate, you aren’t listening to me! I can always tell.” Laura jostled his elbow.

“Yes I was. Your friend Hattie has decided to marry, and for some reason you feel she has betrayed you,” Nate said, looking over with another smile.

“This isn’t amusing.” Laura frowned. “She has betrayed herself. Our science professor said she was one of the brightest students he’d ever taught and that there wasn’t anything she couldn’t do if she put her mind to it. She
was
going to be a doctor. We had it all planned out. Teaching would support us while we attended the University of California. You know they opened up the medical department to women six years ago and…”

“We? Laura, you aren’t telling me you are planning on becoming a doctor, as well,” Nate blurted out.

“No”

Nate looked over and saw his sister was biting her lower lip, which usually meant she was about to say something he would find outrageous.

She turned her head towards him and smiled slyly, saying, “Well…if you must know, I have decided to follow in
your
footsteps. You were the one who told me that women can attend Hastings Law now that Mrs. Foltz has won her case before the state Supreme Court. Wouldn’t it be a treat when Uncle Frank retires for us to be partners? Dawson and Dawson has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

Nate laughed. “I don’t think you should pin your hopes on Uncle Frank retiring any time soon.”

Laura replied, “Oh, that’s all right. Close as I can figure, it’s going to be at least ten years before I can practice law, and surely he will have retired before then. I will need to teach full time for at least three more years to have saved up enough to go to the University full-time, and then there are the four years to get my B.A. and another two years for the law degree, which might take longer if I have to work during that time. I was hoping that Uncle might employ me in the firm as a law clerk while I was at Hastings.”

Hell fire, she’s serious!
Nate tugged at the reins, and the horses turned left to take the short jog to the entrance of the park. He didn’t know whether to be proud that she wanted to emulate him or appalled that she wanted to pursue such a difficult path. There weren’t any women at Harvard Law when he’d been there; in fact, there had been an uproar his first year when a woman had petitioned for admittance and been promptly rejected. His heart constricted when he thought of Laura as the object of the kind of nasty comments his fellow students had made about that woman. But if his relationship with Annie Fuller had taught him anything, it was to be very careful about how he responded to Laura’s news.

“Yes, I see,”
Nate said. “I guess since Uncle Frank once talked to Mrs. Foltz and Mrs. DeForce about sharing offices with us, it would be a bit hypocritical if he objected. Have you discussed these plans with Mother and Father yet?”

He doubted very much if she had. He hadn’t been entirely joking with Annie the other day when he had mentioned that his mother’s hopes that her lovely daughter would meet and marry a doctor or lawyer now that she was living in San Francisco. His mother had been very supportive of Laura’s plans to become a teacher, but only because she thought it was a good job for a single woman to hold while waiting to marry.

“No, I haven’t. There just hasn’t been the right time. You know how much Violet has monopolized Mother ever since Billy married her. And this Christmas, with the new baby, I barely got a second alone with her. And don’t you dare tell them. I want to do it in my own way in my own time. Promise!”

Nate sympathized with Laura, thinking about his own irritation with his brother’s young wife, who had a tendency to cling like some burr to her new mother-in-law’s side. The birth of her first child at the end of November just made things worse. No wonder Laura had been out of sorts during her visit over the holidays. Their mother was completely wrapped up in her first grandchild, and then he arrived with Annie in tow, so he had had little time for her. Well, he would give her the time and attention she needed now.

Nate pulled the team to a stop, letting a young dare-devil with a four-in-hand pass in front of them. He grinned at her and said, “I promise.”
By her own reckoning, law school is a good seven years in the future. No reason to get in a fuss at this point
, he thought. “I can understand your disappointment with your friend Hattie. Did she say she had definitely given up on her plans?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. She went on and on about how supportive her
beloved Andrew
was, but when I asked her directly if he would have any objections to her attending the University after they were married, she changed the subject. Which pretty much tells the tale, doesn’t it? All she could talk about was Russell, where he had gone to school, what a good teacher he was, what he had said on this and that occasion. This is just the reason we had agreed that neither of us would permit any romantic entanglements; a woman’s rational capabilities go right out the window when a man gets involved.”

“Now Laura, you know that isn’t true. Just look at Mother, or Annie Fuller, for that matter.”

“I am not sure that it says much for Annie’s rationality that she appears to have a sweet spot for you, Nate Dawson,” Laura crowed. Then she continued more seriously. “Much as I love and respect Mother, you know very well that most of what she does day-to-day doesn’t require a tenth of her intelligence. And you told me how frustrating it is for Annie to have to pretend to be a fortune-teller in order for the men she advises to take seriously her business expertise. What will become of Hattie’s talents if she marries? How will she use those talents in a life spent planning meals, managing servants, and burping babies? That life might be good enough for silly widgeons like Violet, but not for me or Hattie or Annie.”

Nate felt the sting of Laura’s words, remembering Annie’s response a few months ago when he made the terrible mistake of assuming that she would welcome the chance to end her career as Madam Sibyl to become his wife. As he urged the horses through the park gates and then gave them the signal to break into a trot, he looked over at Laura, who was pulling a brown scarf tighter around her neck. The bit of sun from this morning was long gone
, and the gray clouds were beginning to deliver a cold drizzle, so he was glad he’d hired a closed carriage and chosen the well-heated Conservatory as their destination.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked. “We will be there in less than five minutes
. The North Ridge Road won’t be that crowded on a day like today. I took Annie here for a picnic in November, and all the drives were packed with horses and carriages. We only had time to go through about a third of the Conservatory. Didn’t even get a chance to look at the famous Victoria Regis lily. I just hope it isn’t too crowded now that the Geary Street railroad goes all the way to the entrance near this side of the park
.
”

“I’m fine,”
Laura said, pulling the carriage’s lap robe up higher, making sure it was covering both of them. “Nate, just what are your intentions towards Annie? You seemed so at ease with her at Christmas. I confess I expected any moment that the two of you would announce an engagement. Mother even asked me if I knew exactly how things stood. I don’t mean to pry, but living in her house as I do, I don’t want to put my foot in it.”

“I wish I knew,” Nate said, then instantly regretted his honesty, knowing he couldn’t leave it there. “Listen Laura, my intentions are straight-forward. I want more than anything to be Annie’s husband. But I played my hand badly in the fall and almost lost any chance of winning her.”

“Yet she still lets you call on her and was willing to meet your family. I don’t understand.”

“It is hard to explain. I sincerely believe that our affection is mutual. Nevertheless, with much better reason than you have, she is equally apprehensive about marriage. From what I can tell, she married in haste
, and her first husband turned out to be a grave disappointment. So she has asked me for time so we can become better acquainted. I am willing to wait as long as it takes.”

Nate didn’t know if Annie believed him when he said that he had changed, that he was willing to accept a life together with her on her own terms, whatever those terms. But what if it meant that, like Laura, she never wanted to get married? Or if they married and she continued to run the boarding house and meet clients as Madam Sibyl, how would that be possible when they had children?
What if Annie doesn’t want to have children?

Nate pushed these thoughts away. Thank goodness, with Cranston as their new law partner, his role in his uncle’s firm was now keeping him so busy it was hard to even imagine taking on the additional responsibilities of marriage and children. Better to go slowly and enjoy the growing depth of their friendship.

After a short silence, Laura interrupted his thoughts with a question that appeared out of nowhere. “Did Charlie or Frank ever fight with any Pennsylvania regiments in the war?”

Nate experienced the usual stab of pain at the mention of their two older brothers. Frank, the younger of the two, had died at Shiloh, and Charles died a year later at Chickamauga. He didn’t really know the answer to her question, although it was his impression that those Civil War battles had been fought mainly by the Ohio troops his brothers had belonged to. “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. Father would probably know. He followed the newspaper reports of the battles pretty closely, but I don’t know that I would ask Father. He doesn’t like to talk about it. Why do you want to know?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t ever ask him or Mother. I wondered because a professor at San Jose mentioned that one of my classmates who fought in the war was a ‘Plymouth Pilgrim.’ At first I thought this meant he was from Massachusetts, but then Professor Childs said that this group of soldiers were mainly from Pennsylvania. Seemed odd to me.”