Bloody Lessons (12 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Saturday afternoon, January 17, 1880

"MOST WONDERFUL CLAIRVOYANT––Tells everything without question." ––
San Francisco Chronicle
, 1880

Annie’s morning wasn’t progressing well. The sleep she’d lost the past three nights was finally catching up with her. Not only had she stayed awake all Wednesday night watching over Laura but she found herself unable to go to sleep the next two nights until well after midnight. This was when the squeak of bedsprings from the next room told her Nate’s sister had finally retired to bed. Consequently, her morning’s work as Madam Sibyl had suffered. Despite the preparation she did before seeing each client––one of the reasons for Madam Sibyl’s “by appointment only” policy––she often had to make snap judgments about whether or not to dissuade her male clients from acting on the latest “tip” they got from their barber, brother-in-law, or bar-room buddy. Usually, her financial expertise and experience helped her respond quickly and confidently, but today her brain felt like it was filled with over-cooked oatmeal. She feared she may have steered Mr. Hackett in the wrong direction when he asked about the new stock offerings by the California Electric Light Company, and Mr. Watkins had gotten very huffy when she said his astrological reading indicated that he should invest in the new Inglenook winery that Captain Neibaum was starting up the valley. She had forgotten Watkins was an abstainer from all things alcohol.

Removing her wig, she told herself that the waiting list of people who were anxious to pay the two dollars she charged for an appointment meant that if these mistakes cost her some business, she would still be all right. Yet the years she had spent without a cent to her name, dependent on the not-very-kind charity of her former in-laws, had ingrained in her a level of anxiety that never quite went away. It kept her from moving forward in her plans to shed the Madam Sibyl charade and see if she could still support herself as plain, non-clairvoyant Mrs. Annie Fuller, financial advisor.

Looking at the dark circles that appeared under her eyes as she removed the powder from her face, she wondered if she could find time for a short rest this afternoon. She didn’t want to look quite so wrung out if Nate was able to make it this evening. He tended to get protective when he thought she was overdoing, and her tears Thursday morning had already produced a worried note from him in the mail yesterday.

Ever since Hattie’s death, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her own miscarriage. Something she had avoided doing for years. Last year
, when she was giving advice to Ruthann Hazelton, she’d never thought to connect that woman’s troubles with her own past. But a strange little girl she’d encountered this past fall and the recent experience of holding Ruthann’s baby, Lillian, in her arms had started her thinking about that past and her lost chance at motherhood.

She wondered if Hattie had kept her condition secret from her fiancé, Russell, the way Annie had from John. What if Laura was completely wrong? What if Hattie had been upset, not because she didn’t really want to marry Russell but because she was terrified he wouldn’t marry her, leaving her to raise a child on her own, her reputation ruined
? If so, might she have flung herself down the stairs in a desperate attempt to end the pregnancy? Once, early in her own pregnancy, Annie had contemplated doing something similar when her husband had been particularly brutal. Only for a moment. But she’d never completely let go of the guilty fear that her own miscarriage had happened because she hadn’t fully wanted the child.

Burying her head in her hands, Annie whispered to herself, “What if that was my last chance to be a mother, and I threw it away?”

“Ma’am, are you all right? You’re not coming down sick, are you?” Her maid Kathleen stood frowning in the doorway between the small study and Madam Sibyl’s parlor.

Annie sat up and gave her face an unnecessary scrub with the towel so she could regain her composure. She then said, “Yes, Kathleen, I am quite well. I am just feeling tired. I have promised myself a nap once I have eaten. Are the plans still on for the excursion to Woodward’s Gardens?”

As she had intended, this change in subject diverted Kathleen, who moved into the room, her voice lowering into a confidential whisper. “Yes, ma’am. This morning, I asked Miss Dawson if she would be willing to come with me and Patrick this afternoon.”

“And she agreed to go?”

“Well, I hinted that she would be doing me a great favor. Told her about how we’d promised Jamie and Ian we’d take them along but how I was worried that watching after two such lively lads could put a crimp in me and Patrick’s time together.”

Annie chuckled, knowing very well that Kathleen often invited her youngest brother, Ian, to come with her on those afternoons off with her beau, Patrick McGee, just so she could keep him at arm’s length. Patric
k, with his freckles and unruly copper hair, always struck Annie as a boy himself, but she knew he was also good-hearted, dependable, and very much in love with Kathleen, who had confessed last week that she was afraid Patrick was working himself up to “pop the question.” At the time, Kathleen had told her, “Not that I’m not partial to him. But I gotta think about Ian. I say yes to Patrick, and before you know it, he’d be nagging at me to set the date, we’d be hitched, and I’d have a passel of my own young’uns. On what, a beat cop’s wages? No. I’m going to make sure Ian stays in school, makes something of himself. Then’s the time I can start thinking on having my own family.”

This memory had the distressing potential to drag Annie back to her dark thoughts, so she stood up briskly and asked, “How did Miss Laura seem this morning?”

“I’m sorry to say she didn’t look like she got much rest. Sorta like yourself, if you don’t mind me saying so, ma’am. I think the fresh air will do her good, put some roses in those cheeks. Sure you don’t want to come with us?” Kathleen picked up the shawl Annie had carelessly dropped on the floor and removed all signs of powder from it before draping it neatly back over the chair.

“Oh Kathleen, you completely undermine my confidence. Mr. Dawson is coming this evening, and now you tell me I look like a hag!”

“Now ma’am, he’d not notice if you grew warts on your nose and hairs on your chin, he’s that smitten with you.”

Annie smiled, marveling over how this wise young girl could always lift her spirits.

*****

Following Kathleen down into the kitchen, Annie surveyed the room with pleasure. The kitchen, the heart of the house, was of ample size. Its southern
-facing windows over the sink got the full force of the winter sun, and today those windows were open because the rain of yesterday had cleared the skies of the usual grey clouds and fog. What a lovely reminder that the San Francisco peninsula, wedged between the Pacific and the Bay, could produce such warm, spring-like days in late January. A perfect day to ramble around the grounds of Woodward’s Gardens. She was sorely tempted to change her mind and go with the group.

Then she noticed Laura standing near the back door with Barbara, Jamie, and Kathleen’s youngest brother, Ian, while they tried to get Dandy to stand up on his hind legs. Ian, already ten and in the sixth grade, was small-boned like Kathleen, with black untidy hair and a twinkle of mischief in his dark blue eyes. Jamie was sturdier, with light-brown hair and brown eyes, and although he was a year younger than Ian
, he had recently gone through a growth spurt. As a result, when he draped his arm around the other boy’s shoulders, Annie could see they were of nearly identical height. The two boys had met at the boarding house Halloween party last fall and had become fast friends, much to the mutual delight of Kathleen and Jamie’s mother.

When she saw Laura smile a
s the black-and-white terrier did his little dance, trying to stay on his back legs, she knew it would be best if she didn’t go to the Gardens. Laura would find it easier to forget recent events, if only for a little time, if Annie didn’t tag along. She cared more deeply about what was best for the young woman than she’d ever thought possible. In the past, when Nate would tell her stories about Laura, she had blithely imagined what it would be like to have her as a sister-in-law. They would trade secrets, conspire against Nate, teasing him unmercifully, and Annie would provide Laura the advice that was always easier to get from someone other than your parents. What she never expected was the way her heart had expanded and embraced the young woman as she watched over her on Wednesday night.

“Kathleen, dearie, you’ll be late if you don’t get moving,” Beatrice O’Rourke said, rapidly filling up a basket with sandwiches, apples, and what looked to Annie like a whole chocolate cake. “Lovely day like today, the cars to the Gardens will be terrible crowded.”

With a shout, the boys announced Patrick’s arrival at the back door. Barbara Hewitt leaned down and scooped up Dandy, who was adding excited yips to the boys' welcome of the young policeman. Patrick good-naturedly withstood a pummeling by Ian and Jamie, then came into the kitchen and bowed first to Laura and then to Annie. Next, he went over to his aunt and simultaneously kissed her on the cheek and snagged the food basket from her, following Kathleen and Laura as they shooed the boys out the kitchen door.

When the door shut behind them, it was as if all the sunlight and warmth of the day was snuffed out. A profound exhaustion settled over Annie.

Beatrice O’Rourke came up to her and took her face in her plump but calloused hands and said kindly, “Annie, dear, sit yourself down in the old rocker for a bit of peace and quiet while I fix you a plate. Then I want you to tell me just exactly what happened to Miss Laura’s friend and why’s it got you so riled up.” She gave Annie a gentle pat on her cheek. “And don’t go pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about. Weeping into Mr. Dawson’s shoulder t’other day and circles under your eyes so dark you’d think someone gave you a round-house punch. Somethin’s wrong, and you’re not leaving my kitchen until you’ve confessed all.”

Chapter Sixteen

Saturday afternoon, January 17, 1880

"The genial weather and extensive
programme drew a crowd to Woodward's Gardens yesterday." ––
San Francisco Chronicle
, 1880

“Please, Sis, can we go ride the camels?” Ian dragged at Kathleen’s hand.

“No you can’t.
Nasty, dirty animals. I heard they spit on you if you get too close,” his sister said. “Oh, Patrick, do you see that peacock there? How untidy he looks dragging all those great long feathers behind in the dust.” Patrick McGee just smiled down at the diminutive maid, and Laura could tell he was more interested in gazing at Kathleen Hennessey than he was in seeing the sights around him.

The trip on the
horsecar to Mission and 14th Street had been crowded, as Mrs. O’Rourke had predicted, and it had taken them nearly twenty minutes to make it through the entrance gate at Woodward’s Gardens, at which point the boys asked if they could go straight through the 14
th
Street tunnel to the zoo. Laura had visited the extensive grounds created out of the Woodward estate several times before with Nate, but, as befitted a respectable, mature young lady, she had strolled sedately arm-in-arm with her brother through the flower conservatory and art museum housed in the main building. Seeing the animals in the zoological gardens sounded like a lot more fun, so she had gladly seconded the boys’ choice.

Holding determinedly on to Jamie’s hand, Laura now stared in astonishment at the three camels being led around their pen, small children and adult men and women clinging to their backs. She had seen illustrations of camels all her life, a staple in illustrated Bible stories and in her geography textbooks. In fact, she had just taken her seventh-graders through a discussion of the differences between the Arabian camel, or dromedary, with its single hump, and the
rarer Bactrian camels with their distinctive two humps. But to see them this close up was extraordinary. For some reason, she had thought them much taller than a horse, but at least these specimens, definitely dromedaries, looked to be less than sixteen hands high. Their eyes, however, were very different from a horse. They seemed huge, with long lashes that looked like they had been lined with kohl. And the smell! There was a distinctive astringent odor that was more overpowering than the usual manure and urine aroma she associated with livestock. As one of the laden camels was led over to the section of the fence where Jamie and she were standing, it opened its mobile mouth wide, revealing a formidable set of crooked teeth, and she pulled Jamie back a few steps, remembering Kathleen’s comments about spitting.

“Miss Laura, did you see how long its tongue is?” Jamie exclaimed. “I heard they
can spit green slime near four feet. What’s that noise they’re making?”

Laura cocked her head and tried to distinguish the sound he was referring to
from the assorted noises made by the crowds milling around them. Finally, she pinpointed a low rumble that seemed to be coming from the camels.

“Why Jamie,” she said, laughing, “they appear to be grumbling like some old curmudgeons. I suppose that walking around and around in a circle with a bunch of squealing humans on their backs might be beneath their dignity. Hattie always…”

The sadness slammed into her, taking her breath away. Laura had never realized how often she thought or said the words, “Hattie always.” Now, each time she did, she was reminded that she would never hear Hattie say anything, ever again, and her grief overwhelmed her. She’d gone over and over her conversation with Hattie when she’d visited her at the Mission Street boarding house and Hattie’s last words at the hospital, looking for clues to her friend’s state of mind, trying to make sense of everything.

At least she now understood why Hattie had looked ill last Saturday, and her pregnancy explained why she was marrying so precipitously, giving up her plans for a future career. A child would change everything. But what Laura couldn’t decide was whether Hattie had been happy. She’d said she was. She’d seemed genuinely excited about her plans to marry, but maybe she was just putting on a brave face. Oh, why hadn’t she confided in Laura about the pregnancy? Had she been too ashamed? If only that dratted man hadn’t come and interrupted them.
Russell…
how she hated him. He had ruined everything, ruined Hattie.

“Miss Laura, what’s wrong? Do you want to move further back?” Jamie’s brown eyes were looking up at her worriedly, and Laura realized she had been squeezing his hand too tightly.

“I’m fine, but look, Ian is moving on to the next pen.” Laura pointed down the path. “Go ahead and catch up to him.”

Laura followed slowly behind on the path as Jamie wove deftly around a group of three fashionably
dressed young women. She knew it was kindness that had motivated Kathleen to invite her to come with them today, probably prompted by Annie, but she wished she had refused. It felt sacrilegious to be gadding about in company just three days after Hattie’s death. Hattie’s parents were probably already on the train back to Santa Barbara with their daughter’s body. She hadn’t known where they’d stayed last night, so she wasn’t able to give them her condolences in person.

My goodness!
Laura’s thoughts were diverted when the three young women in front of her scattered, squealing, as an ostrich strode majestically across their path. The bird was huge, its long neck towering over the girls, but its head and beak looked absurdly tiny in comparison to the large, round, feathered body. The eyes, and the sinuous neck, reminded her of the camels she had just been staring at, and she wondered if there was something about the desert geography that would account for these similarities. A good question to ask her students.
Maybe I can take the whole class to the Gardens. I wonder how much that would cost?

She turned and watched as the odd bird walked slowly down a path with a sign pointing to the reptile house. Seeing that Kathleen and Patrick and the two boys were looking into the monkey cage some ways away, she began to walk more quickly. She had promised to give Kathleen and Patrick a little time alone, and she thought she would offer to take the boys over to one of the lemonade vendors she could
see up ahead. Get her mind back on more pleasant things…she was sure that had been everyone’s intent in having her come.

Annie told her that first night that, over time, her grief would be
come less acute. That she would even be able to be happy, and that was all right, that Hattie would have wanted that for her. She knew rationally this was true. But when she found momentary relief, in teaching, or today watching the boys having fun, she felt worse, if that were possible. She’d also found herself avoiding Annie, retiring to her own bedroom right after supper, hustling out the front door in the mornings to wait for Barbara and Jamie on the front porch. With everyone else, she was able to keep up the role she had decided to play…the brave but cheerful girl soldiering on in the face of her sadness. But when she saw the concern in Annie’s expression, all her control began to unravel, and she wanted to throw herself into her arms and howl. No, Annie was too dangerous to her equanimity. She had to be avoided until Laura knew what she needed to do next…until she needed Annie’s help in exposing Russell for the seducer he was.

Laura paused when she reached the path the ostrich had taken. The cross-flow of people was too dense to move through easily. The sun was directly hitting her face, her hat’s up-curled brim doing nothing to shade her eyes, and she wished she hadn’t worn her brown wool cloak and her winter-weight undergarments. She should welcome the warmth after days of rain and drizzle, but her head ached and her heavy jean corset was creating a band of fire around her waist that was making breathing difficult.

“Miss Dawson, excuse me, but…”

Laura let out a small cry and stepped hastily back from the man who’d stepped in front of her. Not just any man, but Seth Timmons, her former classmate.

“Mr. Timmons, how did you…I mean, whatever are you doing here?”

Laura’s heart was beating so fast she thought she might faint. All her suspicions that he might be the man who grabbed her in the alley came back at the sight of him. She’d told herself he was safely miles away finishing up his classes at San Jose Normal School, but here he stood in front of her, blocking out the sun with his imposing height and wide shoulders. Tall, taller even than Nate, he wore the long, narrow frock coat that always struck her as funereal, and his white shirt was the only part of his outfit that wasn’t black, producing an over-all somber impression. Even in winter, his complexion was the color of tanned leather, as if he spent all of his
days outdoors, and the double curve of his dark mustache was echoed by deep creases in his cheeks. But it was his deep-set grey eyes that always disconcerted her the most.

He took off his
Stetson, smoothed back his black hair peppered with white, and said politely, “Miss Dawson, I apologize. I didn’t mean to startle you. I read a short notice in the paper this morning that a Miss Wilks had passed, and I just had to…I was sure you’d know. Was it our Miss Wilks?”

“Yes, yes it was. She fell down the steps in her boarding house on Wednesday. She died later that night at St. Mary’s.”

Laura stopped speaking, knowing she sounded cold-hearted, but she just didn’t know what else to say, and the “
our
Miss Wilks” had angered her. What did he mean, claiming Hattie that way? Recognizing the note of anguish in Seth Timmons’ deep voice, she wondered, not for the first time, just what Hattie had been to him besides his math and science tutor. When he had started coming out to visit Laura last fall, she had thought he might be doing so because he hoped she would have news of Hattie. Yet, as the months went on and the news she had from Hattie grew less detailed, he didn’t stop visiting. Now she didn’t know what to think.

He turned his hat in his hands and shifted restlessly, saying, “Miss Dawson, you have my sincerest condolences. How did it happen? Did you get a chance to see her before…she…”

“Yes. Yes, I was with her when she died. Look, Mr. Timmons, I am here with friends. I really can’t talk to you right now.” Laura was finding it very difficult to maintain her composure and desperately needed to get away from his penetrating stare. She started to move to go around him.

“No, please don’t go yet.” He stepped sideways, blocking her passage. “I know this must be terrible for you, but I…”

Laura snapped, “I don’t need your condolences. Why are you even here in San Francisco? Shouldn’t you be finishing up your classes?”

“I left. I needed to start making some money. I got a position at the last minute at Pine and Larkin Primary. But that is beside the point. I needed to speak to you about Hat…Miss
Wilks.”

“But how did you find me?” she interrupted. “Did you follow me here?”

Seth looked startled and said, “I came here because I hoped to speak with you. When I read the notice in the paper, I went to your boarding house. I had just gotten there when I saw you leave with your friends, so I followed you, looking for a chance…”

“How did you know where I lived, Mr. Timmons, and why have you been following me? I keep seeing you everywhere I go. Was it you who grabbed me in the alley? No, I don’t even want to know. Just go. I never want to see you again.”

Laura realized that her voice had risen nearly to the level of a shout and that people around her had started to stare, so she again tried to push past Seth, who reached out and detained her by grasping her arm above her elbow.

“What do you mean grabbed you?
" Seth’s voice was so quiet she could barely make out his words. "What are you talking about? Someone
attacked
you? When?”

He had pulled her close, and Laura looked down at where his bare hand wrapped around her arm. She said, her voice shaking with anger, “Take your hands off of me before I scream. Then
you can explain to Patrolman McGee, one of my companions over by the monkey cage, just why you are assaulting me.”

Laura saw Seth’s square jaw clench
, his eyes darken. Then he backed away from her, his hands raised palm out. He said, “Miss Dawson, my apologies. I have no excuse for my behavior, beyond my distress over the tragic news about Miss Wilks. I have not been following you. In fact, it was Miss Wilks herself who informed me of your address. I’m sorry to hear that someone has tried to do you harm. I can only assure you it wasn’t me. However, I will respect your wishes and not impose upon you further.”

With a tip of his hat, Seth Timmons strode away and was almost instantly swallowed up by the crowd, leaving Laura all alone.