Bloody Lessons (10 page)

Chapter Twelve

Late Wednesday evening, January 14, 1880

"The sudden death of Minnie Williams better known as Minnie C. Baldwin, on Monday last...received but little attention. Since then, however, certain matters connected with the death have been elicited which tend to throw a shade of suspicion over the matter." ––
San Francisco Chronicle
, 1880

“Kathleen, please tell Mr. Dawson that I won’t be coming back down. He should go home because there is nothing more he can do here. You can inform him I will be staying in Laura’s room tonight so she won’t be alone. Then off to bed with you and make sure Mrs. O’Rourke has retired.”

Annie stood just outside the door to Laura’s room on the second floor of the boarding house. It was nearly midnight, and she knew Kathleen would need to get up in about four hours to start the kitchen stove in preparation for breakfast for the early risers among the other boarders.

“Yes, ma’am. Can I bring you more tea first?” Kathleen asked. When Annie shook her head no, the young maid moved swiftly to the back stairs on her way to the first floor parlor where Nate would be waiting impatiently for news.

Annie noted that even in the midst of this crisis
, Kathleen didn’t even think of taking the more direct route down the front stairs.
Such foolishness
. Yet having once been a domestic herself, if only for a short time, she knew how ingrained it was for a maid to use the back way.

Esther Stein, who occupied the suite of rooms across the hallway with her husband, sat with Laura while Annie went next door to her own room to change into her dressing gown and slippers. She didn’t expect she would sleep, but she knew from experience how wretched she would feel sitting up all night, fully dressed, with her corset stays becoming increasingly unbearable.

When Annie returned to Laura’s room, Esther whispered, “I will be glad to stay with her if you want, since you have to get up and meet your clients in a few hours.”

“You are kind, Esther, but no. I promised I would stay close. My heart just breaks for her.
Her mother is who she really needs right now. I hope she will let us send word, but…that can wait until tomorrow. No, you go on back to bed.”

She gave the older woman a quick hug and closed the door behind her. Kathleen had undressed Laura and gotten her into bed, but she was sitting up, her arms clasped around her raised knees, her long dark hair hiding her face. Annie noticed that Queenie, the old black kitchen cat, had snuck in and was curled up beside Laura.

She stood for a moment to see if Laura would raise her head. When Nate’s sister didn’t acknowledge her presence, Annie walked over to the rocking chair that sat by the fire. She lowered the flame of the oil lamp on a nearby table and sat down. There was an active fire going in the fireplace, and Annie found the heat oppressive. Nevertheless, she knew that Laura needed the warmth to counter her shock and exhaustion. She sat and rocked and thought back over what had happened earlier in the evening after Mrs. O’Malley had shared the startling information about Hattie’s pregnancy and predicted she would not live through the night.

Annie hadn’t had time to tell Nate what Mrs. O’Malley said before they’d heard Laura’s screams. When they got to the hospital room, the Sister of Mercy was trying to pull the sobbing girl back from where Hattie lay. Annie had sat by enough deathbeds to know what that waxen stillness meant. Nate rushed past her and grabbed Laura from the nun, folding her in a tight embrace. This seemed to quiet her for a moment, but then she tore herself away from her brother and threw herself back on the bed, crying and pleading for Hattie not to go.

Annie had just moved forward to see if she could do anything to calm Laura when a harsh male cry arrested her attention. A man who she guessed must be Hattie’s fiancé, Andrew Russell, stood in the doorway. Out of breath, brown hair standing up in clumps, eyes hidden behind thick glasses, he held out a soft slouch hat in his extended hands, as if in supplication. Before either Nate or Annie were able to act, Laura scrambled up and launched herself at Russell, hitting him in the chest and screaming that Hattie was dead and that it was all his fault. It had been an appalling scene, with Russell feebly pushing Laura away as he struggled to get to Hattie’s bedside. Finally, Nate had to pick up his hysterical sister from off the ground in order to move her out of the room. The Sister of Mercy had stood in shocked silence.

Out in the hall, Laura continued to sob uncontrollably, scarcely able to take a breath. Annie finally told her sharply that if she didn’t settle down
, they would have to take her home immediately, and she wouldn’t be able to say a proper farewell to her friend. This got through to Laura, and she gradually stopped crying. While Nate continued to hold her tightly, Annie went back in to the room, where Russell was now sitting in the chair next to Hattie, holding her hand and whispering endearments. Apologizing to both Russell and the sister for Laura’s outburst, Annie asked if Laura could come back in for a minute. Russell had been most kind, assuring Annie that this would be acceptable, and he went and stood in one of the dark corners of the room. Nate had led his sister back in, and she sat in the chair that Russell had just vacated. She took up Hattie’s hand and silently stroked her hair.

Annie went over to Russell to tell him how sorry she was for his loss and ask if he would be able to inform Hattie’s parents of her death. He’d said he would take care of this,
then took off his glasses to wipe the tears from his eyes, looking like a lost boy. Haltingly, he explained that he had arrived at Hattie’s boarding house earlier that evening to learn that she had fallen and been taken to St. Mary’s. Then he asked Annie if she knew exactly what had happened. Annie told him that she understood that there had been internal bleeding, but he should ask the Sister of Mercy for more details. She didn’t feel it was her place to break it to him that he had lost both future wife and a child at the same time. Maybe he didn’t even know Hattie had been pregnant. Annie hadn’t told her own husband about her pregnancy, and John had died never knowing about the miscarriage.

About this time
, Laura had begun to cry again, and Nate gently informed her that they needed to leave. She had kissed Hattie’s forehead and let herself be led away. She continued weeping until they were nearly home. Nate carried her up to her room, where Kathleen brought her a cup of sweetened tea. After Laura gulped down two cups, she listlessly accepted Kathleen’s offer to get her ready for bed. That was when Annie had sent Nate back downstairs and Esther had come out of her room, exhibiting her clear disapproval that Nate had been up on the second floor.

Annie
, who was thinking about how her older friend had shifted so rapidly from stern guardian of Annie’s reputation to sympathetic friend once she learned the true state of affairs, heard movement from the bed. She said quietly, “Laura, can I get anything for you? Do you feel able to lie down and try to go to sleep?”

Laura looked up and pushed her hair away from her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her nose and lips raw from the extremity of her grief. Annie got up and fetched a towel and
wash cloth from the washstand. She dipped the cloth in the cooling water in the basin, wrung the cloth out, and then gently bathed and dried Laura’s face. Noticing a brush and ribbon on the bedside table, she said, “Would you like me to brush and braid your hair for you? Would that help?”

Laura nodded and lowered her knees into a cross-legged position, turning slightly so Annie could sit down on the bed behind her. Queenie got up in a huff, walked majestically down to the end of the bed and back, and climbed into Laura’s lap, deigning to permit the girl to stroke her back. For some time
, there were no other sounds in the room besides the purr of the cat, the pop of the wood fire, and the brush sliding through Laura’s dark brunette waves.

“Annie,” the girl whispered. “I’m sorry for all the trouble.”

“Shush, now. Never you fret about it. No one blames you. You’ve had a terrible shock.” Annie began to braid the hair in one long plait.

“Nate told me your mother died when you were young. I can’t imagine how awful that would have been.”

“Yes, but I was here visiting my aunt and uncle at the time, so I don’t know what it is like to actually be with someone I loved when they died. And Hattie was so young and her death unexpected. That makes it worse. I do think that in time you will be glad you got to say goodbye. I have always regretted that I wasn’t present for either of my parents’ deaths.”

Laura didn’t respond, and Annie worried that she’d gone too far. Laura, seven ye
ars her junior, seemed very young and inexperienced. Yet when Annie was just a year older than Laura, she’d already lost her mother, her father, her unborn child, her fortune, and her husband. And she’d no one to confide in, no one’s shoulder to cry on. No one at all. She hoped that the younger girl would make it through this terrible tragedy with fewer scars than she herself had accumulated.

A few minutes passed
, and then Laura said plaintively, “I feel like I have been living in a nightmare, ever since this autumn when Hattie got the job in San Francisco and we had to part. Cupertino Creek School was the beginning of the nightmare. Not just the teaching. I did get better at that over time. But it was so dreadful living with the students’ families, and there was this boy in the school, Buck. He wouldn’t let me alone. For a while, things improved when Seth, Seth Timmons, a classmate from San Jose, started coming over from San Jose on weekends. But then Seth and Buck…well, never mind, the important point is that the term ended and I got the offer to teach here. I thought the nightmare was finally over. I would come up to San Francisco and be with Hattie, as we had planned, and everything would go back to normal. But it wasn’t over. First the man in the alley and then Hattie turning her back on all our plans…then tonight…” Laura’s voice trailed off.

Annie, wishing to divert Laura from where her thoughts were taking her, said quickly, “Who was Buck and what did he do?”

Laura took a deep breath. “Buck Morrison. He was the oldest boy in the Cupertino Creek School. Seventeen, obnoxious, conceited, spoiled, and not very smart. It was bad enough he disrupted class, challenging my authority. Our professors at San Jose told us to expect that from older students. But he kept following me around, being too familiar. I tried to protect myself, tried to make sure that I went to and from the school with the children in whose home I was boarding that week.”

“But that didn’t always work?”

“No, sometimes the children would be sick and I had to go by myself, and there he would be, waiting outside the school house in the morning. He would pretend it was because he wanted to help get the wood in to start the fire, or he would offer to clean the board. On the surface, perfectly innocuous. But he was always brushing up against me, saying…things. I would tell him to stop, and he would just laugh. After a few weeks, he even started showing up outside the homes where I was staying. If I tried to leave, go for a walk or something, Buck would suddenly appear, acting like I should be delighted at his company.”

“Couldn’t you speak to his parents or someone on the school board?” Annie asked, her skin crawling at the thought of what Laura had endured.

“I wasn’t sure anyone would believe me. You see, it wasn’t so much what he said but how he said it. And his father is the wealthiest man in the district and a member of the school board. When I tried to speak to Buck’s father, well, you might say he demonstrated graphically where Buck had gotten his notions of how to treat a woman.”

“Oh, Laura, I am sorry you had to deal with this. Did you tell your parents what was happening?”

“I was going to, but after the first few weeks, Seth, Mr. Timmons, started showing up at the end of the school day on Fridays. He’d rented a buggy, and he would drive me to wherever I was boarding that weekend. He said he was camping in the hills to the west because he didn’t like being cooped up all the time in a city. But it meant he could take me out for rides on Saturdays and take me to church on Sundays. As a result, I didn’t feel so much like I was in a prison. Twice, he even drove me to and from San Jose where my father would meet me and bring me on home to the ranch. That was wonderful. Buck still gave me a hard time at school, but it was easier to take.”

Laura stopped and after a moment continued. “But I never really understood why Seth was being so helpful…it wasn’t as if we were friends before. He just started attending San Jose last year, and he was sort of
stand-offish with the other students. He is older. He was a Union soldier in the war, and I always felt he thought the rest of us were just children. Except Hattie. He was friends with Hattie. Everyone was…and when I got to San Francisco, I wanted to talk to her about him, have her assure me that it couldn’t have been him in the alley…but now, now…”

Laura began to weep, and Annie drew her into her arms and rocked her back and forth, saying, “Oh my dear, I know it hurts, and it doesn’t do any good for me to tell you it will get better. But it will. Look, you have gotten Queenie all upset. Ruffled her dignity.” Annie pointed at the old cat
, who had again stalked to the end of the bed and was licking her back with ferocious concentration. Laura gave a tearful chuckle.

Annie turned serious. “Tell me why you thought it might have been this Seth who accosted you
.”