Dangerous and Unseemly Page 11

  “Here we are!” he said brightly. He placed the albums in front of her, along with her grading book and a pile of student themes. “It took me a little while to find everything. Thank you for indulging me, ladies. I would truly appreciate your opinion of the photographs,” he said, addressing both women, but his gaze lingered warmly on Concordia. She flushed.

  She realized that her best chance of recovering her composure was to stop looking at Mr. Reynolds and instead turn her attention to the albums. They were beautifully bound, in supple burgundy leather. Concordia turned over one of the volumes to look at the back cover. The Signal Printing Company. A local business? They did excellent work.

  The rest of the visit passed uneventfully. Finally, she and Sophia took their leave. The late-afternoon sun streaked the clouds in deep shades of pink as they walked. Concordia described what she had seen of the house, carefully omitting her encounter with Mr. Reynolds.

  Sophia was quiet for a while, thinking. “There is a simple explanation,” she said at last. “Reynolds cannot manage a household. It shouldn’t be surprising. Men aren’t very good at it, you know; although,” she continued, her determined chin thrust forward, “they will need to learn, since modern women will be taking on new responsibilities of their own.”

  Concordia recognized a favorite subject of Sophia’s, echoed by her fellow settlement house activists. Personally, Concordia doubted that, if she ever married, her husband would assume any domestic tasks so that she could follow a career. She would not be offered a teaching position, anyway; she didn’t know of any college that hired a married woman. And then—mercy!—there would be children to manage.

  “Perhaps,” she said wearily. She would be happy to return to her uncomplicated life back at the college tomorrow.

  Chapter 22

  Weeks 9 and 10, Instructor Calendar, March/April 1896

  Concordia’s vision of a quieter and simpler life back at school was at least a brief reality, as she had returned during the students’ spring recess. Many of the faculty and administrators scattered during this time as well. Only a few students, those who could not travel home because of distance, remained in the care of the house matrons.

  Concordia was content to work uninterrupted during the week. Besides grading midterm examinations and student themes, she also spent time composing a carefully-worded letter to Dr. Samuels, asking for information about her sister’s illness. She felt better after sending it off. Annie had not yet contacted her about the search for Mary’s journal or letters, and Concordia chafed at the wait. She tried not to think about the earlier plans she and Mary had made for Concordia’s spring recess—the exhibit at the Wadsworth Atheneum they had wanted to see, the shopping they would have done together.

  The tranquility on campus was broken soon enough, as April brought its cacophony of bird calls and returning students. Concordia was immersed once again in the day-to-day routines of campus life: meals, chapel, classes, meetings, teas, rehearsals. She had not seen Mr. Reynolds since her visit to his house in town.

  Concordia still flushed at the memory of their encounter in that dusty back room. What would have happened if Olga had not come in? What would she have wanted to happen? That question made her blush even more, so she firmly set it aside.

  There was one activity in particular that Concordia had been looking forward to, now that the warm weather was making its return. On one temperate afternoon, she opened her wardrobe to pull out her bicycle outfit, complete with jacket, skirt, bloomers, leggings and cap. She felt a familiar rush of excitement as she put them on. This would be the first time in months that she had been able to ride. It was an odd feeling to wear the outfit, after so long a time; it showed a shocking amount of leg, which took a little getting used to.

  After pinning her hair beneath the cap and casting a dubious glance at the mirror, she pushed her machine through the door, and headed for the paths. In the distance was the bell tower and clock. Although the bell had fallen into disrepair and been removed long ago, the tower’s clock still worked. Concordia squinted, shading her eyes for a better look. Almost three. More than an hour before she would have to return and change for dinner.

  Concordia was a skilled rider, having bicycled for several years. Soon the awkwardness of being on the machine after so long ebbed, and her greatest challenge was dodging the clumps of students who were also out enjoying the sunshine. She made her way to the less frequented back pastures, which were seamed with smooth dirt tracks.

  The air moving across her face was a delight, and soon Concordia found her mind freed from its worries, content to follow the tender green hills on the horizon, to fill her nostrils with the scent of new growth. This was as close as one could come, perhaps, to flying….

  “Ho! Watch out!” A voice sharply brought her attention back to the trail, which she had drifted from. She saw a young man dive for safety. Concordia swerved, braking hard, which caused her to tumble head over handlebars. She felt a painful wrench to her shoulder. Worse yet, she heard the sickening crunch of a bent bicycle frame as it tumbled, riderless, down the hill.

  The young man stooped over her, his face creased with concern. “Are you all right, miss?” he asked, helping her to her feet. “That was a nasty spill you had.”

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she answered, grimacing as she rubbed her shoulder. “It was my fault. I wasn’t minding the path.”

  Concordia righted her spectacles. Miraculously, they had stayed on her face. She took her first good look at the gentleman, who had bits of brambles and dried grass stuck to his hounds-tooth tweed jacket and trousers. “I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed. “Are you injured?”

  “Not at all,” he reassured her, with a smile at her equally bedraggled appearance, “we seem to have escaped serious harm. Which is more than I can say for your bicycle, unfortunately.” He gestured down the hill.

  “Oh, no!” Concordia exclaimed, looking down at her ruined bicycle, which lay on the embankment below, the stream washing over part of it. She started to scramble down to get it, ignoring the pain in her shoulder.

  The gentleman stopped her. “Please, allow me. You can rest here,” he pointed to a blanket, upon which several books and a picnic hamper rested.

  Concordia didn’t protest, and sank gratefully unto the blanket. As he climbed down to fetch her machine, she re-pinned her straggling hair under the cap. She found her eyes straying to the stack of books. The one on top caught her eye.

  Burton’s College Chemistry. Hmm. Hardly light reading. Who brings a chemistry book on a picnic? He was a Trinity student, no doubt. But why picnic alone, on a women’s campus? Had she broken up a planned tete-a-tete?

  He reappeared a few minutes later, now damp and muddy, dragging her bicycle. It looked far worse than he. The fender was smashed flat against the rear wheel, whose wooden rim had split; the chain and pedal seemed inextricably entwined. The horn and parcel basket were missing—no doubt washed downstream by now. He laid it down and sat beside her.

  “Whew!” he panted, out of breath from the exertion. He wiped his hands on his handkerchief. “I don’t think it’s irreparable,” he commented, as she looked over the bicycle in dismay, “in fact, I have a friend in the machine shop at Trinity College who can try to fix it for you, if you like.”

  Concordia could not help but laugh out loud. This man, a stranger to her, whom she had nearly run down, had seated her comfortably, fetched her bicycle, and now offered to have it repaired.

  He appeared momentarily disconcerted, but soon was chuckling himself. Perhaps he was relieved she wasn’t complaining of her injuries, or fainting.

  Finally Concordia was able to gasp out a response. “I…am…most grateful…Mister—?”

  “Bradley. David Bradley, at your service, miss,” he finished, with a mock gallant bow. Concordia, giving him a longer look, noticed that he was close to her own age. He could not be called a handsome man; he was perhaps a bit shorter than average, but well-built and muscular. His face
was his most appealing feature, with heavy black lashes over brown eyes, and a dimple in one cheek when he smiled, which was often.

  Concordia realized that the silence had been lengthening. “Are you here visiting a student, Mr. Bradley?” She must sound quite matronly, asking such a question. But the staff was charged with screening male guests and their business on campus.

  Mr. Bradley gave her an amused grin. “Hardly, Miss—?” Now it was his turn.

  “Oh—sorry! Concordia Wells. I teach English Literature and Rhetoric.” Her tumble must have rattled her brains.

  “Wonderful! We are colleagues, then. I teach the senior Chemistry Seminar here this semester; I also teach Chemistry and Physics at Trinity.”

  Concordia must have looked doubtful, for he added, “And don’t tell me that my youthful good looks make it impossible for me to be old enough to teach, because,” he teasingly pointed a finger at Concordia, “the same could be said for you, my good miss.” She laughed.

  With the sun on her back easing her sore shoulder, she was content to linger, sharing the apples and cheese from his hamper. For close to an hour, Concordia and Mr. Bradley talked about work and students. Soon the subject of the pranks came up.

  The young man grew serious. “I hope the culprit is caught soon. It’s quite worrisome.”

  “But nothing has happened since last month,” Concordia said. Before Mary died, she added to herself.

  Bradley hesitated. “There has been another incident since then. Miss Hamilton has kept it quiet.”

  “How do you know? What incident?” Concordia asked.

  He hesitated. “It was just before the spring recess. Miss Hamilton offered to loan me a book from her library. When I followed her in, we found her rooms in chaos. Books and papers disturbed. Someone was quite desperately looking for something.”

  Concordia was quiet for a while, digesting this new information. Why was the lady principal a target?

  The springtime sun started sinking lower toward the horizon. She regretfully stood and brushed off her skirt. “I have to get back.”

  Mr. Bradley jumped up and righted her bicycle, looking it over critically. “You can’t possibly ride this now. Let me carry it back with you.”

  She thanked him, and they proceeded across the fields to Willow Cottage.

  Her shoulder felt better by the evening, when she met with a much-depleted senior cast for play rehearsal. She was losing some of her students to basketball practice tonight. Basketball practice and rehearsal times didn’t usually conflict—she had tried to avoid that—but the hotly contested Junior-Senior game was coming soon. Miss Jenkins, true to her single-minded nature, had decided that additional practices were needed for the players. Ever protective of her girls, she had even used her own money for new gymnasium attire, as the old uniforms had been mended until they were threadbare. President Richter had refused to provide school funds for the purpose. “As tight-fisted as they come,” Miss Jenkins had complained, to anyone who would listen. It was pointless to remind her that the school was already in financial difficulties.

  Everyone at school would attend, along with many trustees and town residents, creating a standing-room-only crowd in the gymnasium. The students were quite keen for the game. Concordia had heard the story of a student last year who, ill with whooping cough, had tried to slip out of the infirmary to attend. She didn’t get far, of course, before her coughing gave her away.

  Concordia hoped that she could keep her students on task, both in rehearsals and the classroom. This time of year was rife with distractions: besides the basketball game and the play, there was the upcoming Senior Spring Dance, a formal affair which drew many of Hartford’s most elite families. And then there was the suffrage rally next week. For some unknown reason—Concordia expected a facility usage fee might have been involved, President Richter had decided to allow a rally on campus, marking the first time that the Women’s League had obtained permission to hold such an event at the college. The settlement house ladies were hosting the rally, with Sophia Adams as the keynote speaker.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a student stumbling over her lines.

  “Miss Osgood,” Concordia called to the offender, “It is not

  ‘Away, and hide the time with fairest show

  False heart must hide what the false face must know.’

  “It is

  ‘Away, and mock the time with fairest show

  False face must hide what the false heart doth know.’”

  Concordia stifled a sigh. If Macbeth can’t keep her lines straight, they were done for.

  Louise Osgood looked sheepish, and began again.

  Chapter 23

  Week 10, Instructor Calendar, April 1896

  Over the next few days, anticipation of the upcoming rally began to build. It was the primary topic in the faculty lounge, drawing heated opinions on both sides.

  “And why should we not have the same voting rights as men?” Jane Cowles asked one afternoon, when several of the teachers, along with the lady principal, were taking a tea break. “We make important decisions every day of our lives. Are we not to be entrusted with choosing our leaders?” The tip of her long nose twitched even more than usual, and her thin frame was rigid with anger.

  “Wyoming has had full voting rights for women for more than twenty years now, before it even became a state,” another teacher said. “And just recently, Colorado extended the franchise to women.”

  “Wasn’t Utah’s admission to the union an interesting development,” Miss Pomeroy added, jumping into the discussion, “with their leaders banning polygamy and granting women the vote, nearly simultaneously? They have certainly become progressive in the past year.”

  Given Miss Pomeroy’s single-minded absorption with French literature, Concordia was surprised that the lady was even aware of Utah’s existence. The woman’s placid demeanor was difficult to penetrate. Not a crease or frown puckered her round, cheerful face, whether the subject was politics or the latest translation of La Chanson de Roland.

  Miss Jenkins gave a derisive snort. “Utah? ‘Progressive’ is not a term I would use, Gertrude. It took six attempts before the territory was granted state status. The Mormon elders were forced to outlaw polygamy, finally. And giving Utah women the franchise merely solidifies the Mormon voting base. It was a politically expedient move.”

  Miss Pomeroy nodded and stared off into space, Utah forgotten.

  There was an awkward pause before Miss Bellini picked up the original thread of the discussion.

  “Women are not naturally political beings,” she argued, with a pointed look in Miss Jenkins’ direction. Her olive skin flushed with the heat of debate. “Why should we become involved in areas that men can manage quite capably?”

  Miss Jenkins rolled her eyes. “Their competence remains in doubt in my mind. Our leaders devise ways to make the rich even richer, and the poor more desperate than they were before. We have corruption at nearly all levels of our government. Thank goodness Mr. Cleveland is putting a stop to some of it. But we should not have to depend upon the men to elect such people. It isn’t right that we do not have a hand in the decision.”

  Miss Bellini would not cede the field so easily. “But as Signorina Cowles has said, we women make important decisions every day, do we not?” she argued. “Our sphere of influence—it is wide—as teachers, mothers, advocates. We help the poor. We make the lives of others better. That is all of the power we need to have. Too much power—it brings trouble,” she ended with a frown.

  Miss Jenkins, fiddling abstractedly with the cord of her whistle, didn’t dignify Miss Bellini’s claim with an answer.

  Concordia had been reluctant to join the discussion, but felt the need to interject a middle position. “Some of the suffragists have argued,” she began carefully, recalling her talks with Sophia, “that women as voters would bring more balance to the process. If one takes the position that women are naturally maternal” (here Miss Cowles grunted in
disdain), “and more invested in the future of a society that their children will inherit, then they are better able than men to select leaders who would contribute to the greater good.”

  Miss Cowles jumped back into the discussion. “It is the principle that matters to me,” she said. “Do you know that at this moment, legally, women are classified with children, idiots, and criminals? How can one argue that women have power when we are placed in this position?”

  “Ladies, please,” said Miss Hamilton, silent up to this point. Although sitting at her ease in a rocking chair and balancing a sandwich plate on her lap, her sharp glance brooked no argument. “We will have plenty of opportunity for discussion at the rally.”

  Several of the women settled back to their tea, although Miss Cowles, tight-lipped, stalked out of the room.

  Miss Jenkins attempted a change of subject. “So, Miss Wells, who was that handsome young man I saw walking back with you from the fields the other day? I feel as if I’ve seen him on campus before.”

  Concordia involuntarily flushed. “Mr. Bradley. He teaches the Chemistry seminar here.”

  Miss Hamilton gave Concordia a quick glance, but said nothing.

  Miss Bellini, though, was happy for a distraction. She leaned forward in interest. “Ah! Have you known him long? How did you meet?”

  Concordia shifted in her chair. She decided to opt for honesty. “I ran him down. Almost,” she quickly added.

  They were all familiar with Concordia’s zeal for bicycle-riding. The resulting laughter dispelled the tension in the room, and soon after, Concordia managed what she hoped was a dignified exit.

  As Concordia made her way back to Willow Cottage—she really did have essays to grade—she thought about Mr. Bradley. The day after her unfortunate spill, he had come, true to his word, to collect her bicycle. He had also taken the opportunity to ask her to join him the following week for a picnic lunch.