Bloody Lessons (13 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Saturday evening, January 17, 1880

"The Plymouth Pilgrims - We learn that the 2500 Yankee prisoners, captured by General
Hoke's forces at Plymouth, left Wilmington last night, and may be expected to pass through Charleston this evening, on their way to the Prison Depot at Americus, Ga." ––
Charleston Mercury,
April 26, 1864

When Kathleen opened the door, she gave him her usual smile, then whispered, “Mr. Dawson, if you would step into the small parlor, Miss Laura and Mrs. Fuller are expecting you. Miss Minnie and Miss Millie, you see, are currently using the formal parlor.”

Nate, taking off his hat and gloves and handing them over to her, said equally quietly, “Thank you, Miss Kathleen. How thoughtful.”

He was finding it easier to withstand the double assault of Miss Minnie’s loquaciousness and Miss Millie’s odd silence when they decided to chaperone his visits with Annie, but tonight he would have found an hour of being polite to the elderly seamstresses quite trying. He went quickly through the door to the room where Annie, as Madam Sibyl, saw her clients. His sister and Annie were sitting side by side in two chairs that had been drawn next to the fireplace. He was struck by the contrasts between the two of them. Annie, with the red tints glinting in her blonde hair and her pale skin and soft curves, shared only the brown of her eyes with his tall, lean, dark-haired sister.

But, damn, they both look so beautiful in the firelight
. Beautiful but tired. He dragged a third chair over and said, “I am glad to find you both together. Laura, I hope Annie explained I would have come earlier, but I am in the middle of a case that is taking up my every spare minute.” He wanted to gather her into his arms the way he did when she was a little girl, but instead he reached out and took her hands between his.

“Of course, I am glad you are finally getting some trial work,” she replied, giving his hands a squeeze, then pulling away to wrap her arms around her waist as if cold. “Annie has been taking excellent care of me. Everyone has. I know you were worried, and I am sorry I made such a fuss.”

“And I have assured her that she has nothing to apologize for,” said Annie. “But she has had a bit of excitement today. Do tell your brother what happened this afternoon.”

Laura started off describing how she had been persuaded to go with Kathleen, Patrick McGee, and the two boys to Woodward’s Gardens, and he could tell she was stalling when she started describing the camels they had seen, but he let her take her time. At least she wasn’t weeping, although her eyes seemed sunken in her face, and he knew their mother would be worried if she saw how thin her daughter had become. Now that he thought about it, she had already lost some weight when he saw her at Christmas.

“…then Seth Timmons appeared out of nowhere. Remember when I asked you about those Union soldiers who were called Plymouth Pilgrims?” asked Laura, her voice rising, a sign to Nate that she was getting to the point of her story. “The ones who ended up in Andersonville prison?”

“Yes, Annie mentioned that Mr. Timmons was a classmate of yours at San Jose and that he visited you a few times when you were teaching at Cupertino Creek school,” he answered.

“It was more than a few times. It was almost every weekend. I thought at first it was because my school was conveniently located on the road he took to get into the Santa Cruz foothills to the west. Hattie always…well, she had mentioned that he often went camping there. I thought he did this to get away from the rest of us. I think he felt more at ease with the male professors who were also veterans.”

“But now you think there was more to his visits with you?”

Laura took a deep breath and looked at Annie, as if for courage, and then she said, “I started to wonder if maybe he was…sweet on me or something. I didn’t know why he would be. I never encouraged him. When we met outside of classes, well, he made me feel uncomfortable. He was…is…so intense. I never knew what to say to him, and anyway, I thought it was Hattie that he…well, it was clear he respected her greatly. Me, he just sort of ignored. I don’t think he said two words to me before this September.”

“But this changed?” Nate asked, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible.

“Well, he didn’t suddenly become talkative. Beyond offering to take me home on Friday afternoons or asking if I would like to take a ride the next day, he didn’t say much. I did most of the talking, usually about my students or commenting on the landscape. He must have been bored silly. But I was glad to escape from the homes I was staying in and to avoid Buck Morrison, so I kept going on buggy rides with him. Annie told you about Buck?”

“The young man in your school who made…unwanted overtures?” Nate winced at how stilted he sounded. This was not a conversation he wanted to have with his little sister.

“He was a bully, plain and simple, Nate. I don’t think he cared a bit for me. He just liked making me squirm.”

“And you told Annie that Mr. Timmons and Buck had some sort of altercation?”

“Yes. Buck was clever at looking as good as gold as soon as there was someone else around, but Mr. Timmons must have picked up that there was something wrong. When he asked if Buck was bothering me, I told him I could handle my students. But he started coming a little earlier on Fridays so that he was waiting for me when I dismissed the rest of the students, including Buck. Buck asked me once if Mr. Timmons was my beau, and I’m afraid I didn’t disabuse him of the notion. While he didn’t stop pestering me during the week, he was more circumspect after Mr. Timmons started stopping by. He seemed intimidated by him.”

“Then what happened?” Nate asked, noticing that Laura was uneasy with his question, hugging herself tighter.

“It was in the last part of the term, after Thanksgiving, and I was scheduled to board at Buck’s home for those last two weeks. I had been dreading it.”

Annie interjected, “Oh my, Laura, I am sure you were. Nate, Laura told me that earlier in the term
, she had tried to speak to Buck’s father about his behavior, but he had been as disrespectful as his son. You didn’t tell me you had to board with him.”

“I was able to get out of it. The only family that had been decent to me the whole term w
as the Spears. They aren’t well off, but they are a lovely, hard-working couple, and their twin boys were two of my best pupils. I’d saved most of my earnings, and I asked if I could pay them room and board in order to live with them for those last two weeks. I knew they could use the extra money, and I would be saved from goodness knows what aggravation.”

Nate asked, “Did they agree?”

“Yes.” Laura leaned forward. “But Buck was enraged that I had slipped from his fingers by boarding elsewhere. He became impossible. He was defiant in class, refused to cooperate at all. Then he must have noticed on Friday afternoon that Mr. Timmons didn’t arrive to pick me up. Seth had told me he wasn’t going to be coming up that weekend because it was final exam week at San Jose. Well, on Sunday afternoon, Buck showed up and cornered me behind the Spears’ barn. I had stayed in all weekend, but when Mrs. Spear asked me to go and feed the chickens, I…” Laura shivered, and Annie leaned over and put her arm around her shoulders.

“What happened, Laura? Did he hurt you?” Nate felt sick
. How could all of this have been going on without any of the family knowing?

“He didn’t get a chance. Mr. Timmons must have changed his mind about coming. Afterwards
, Mrs. Spears told me that he’d driven up to the house and asked if I was available for a ride, and she sent him out to find me. He found Buck…trying to…kiss me.”

Annie cried out, “Oh, Laura, I am so sorry, but Mr. Timmons rescued you?”

“Yes, he pulled Buck off of me and they fought.” Laura paused. “It was terrible. It isn’t as if I have never seen two men fight before; you and Billy seemed to get into a least one scrap every summer, but this was different. They’re about evenly matched in height, although Buck is heavier. Nevertheless, Seth just ignored Buck’s punches and kept hitting him, over and over. It’s as if he’d turned into someone else, and I thought for a moment he was going to kill Buck.”

“What happened?” Annie asked.

“All of a sudden, Seth stopped and just backed away. Buck sort of fell to the ground. His nose was bleeding. There was blood everywhere, mixed with Buck’s tears because he was crying. When he saw that Seth wasn’t going to fight him anymore, he got up and ran away, shouting that his father would make Seth pay for what he did.”

Nate flashed on a night last summer when he’d confronted someone who had harassed Annie at a charity ball, and he found himself clenching his fists, saying, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about any of this. Do Billy or Father know?”

Laura shook her head. “What good would it have done to tell any of you? It was over. Buck didn’t come back to school the last week, and it was already arranged that Father would come and to fetch me and my trunk on the last Friday of the term, so I never saw Buck again. I was worried that since Buck’s father is on the school board I might lose my position. Then Hattie wrote to me about the job at Clement Grammar, the answer to all my prayers.”

“But what about this Timmons? Am I to understand that you thought maybe he was the man who assaulted you in the alley? That doesn’t make sense
,” Nate said.

Laura looked down, where she was now picking at the buttons that ran down the front of her jacket. She said, “You see, after Buck ran away, I kind of lost my temper, said such awful things to Mr. Timmons.
He’d been so ferocious, he’d scared me. I was mad at both of them, men in general, I guess. And after what Buck shouted, I was also worried that Seth would get in trouble over the fight. Buck’s father is very wealthy and powerful, and I was afraid that he might get Seth expelled from the Normal School.”

Nate, feeling more and more confused said, “I still don’t know why you thought he was the one in the alley.”

“The man was a similar height to Seth, and I thought I had been seeing him around town. Frankly, I couldn’t think of who else it might be, because the attack didn’t feel random. I got the impression the man knew
me
, was angry at
me
.”

“Just exactly what did the man say?” Nate asked.

“It all happened so fast. He called me…a bad word. And said something about me being stupid to think he wouldn’t find where I lived and that I had ruined his life. I thought maybe Mr. Timmons had been expelled, ending his chance to become a teacher, and he blamed me for it.”

“Is that what he said when he saw you today?”

“No, he said he had quit because he needed to make money. But I don’t know that I believe him. He
said
he had read a notice of Hattie’s death this morning in the paper and was coming here to see if I could give him more information. He
said
he then followed me to Woodward’s Gardens so he could talk to me in private.”

“What else did he say?” Nate asked.

“Not much. I was flustered by him appearing like that, out of the blue. I’m afraid I lost my temper again and told him to go away, which he did. But don’t you see, this means he knows where I live and that he really could have been the man in the alley!”

Chapter Eighteen

Later Saturday evening, January 17, 1880

"MINNA AGAINST WADHAM - Progress of her Suit for Damages for Seduction." ––
San Francisco Chronicle
, 1879

“Are you sure you are warm enough? We can go inside if you wish.” Nate pushed open the back gate that led from the alley to Annie’s back yard.

Light spilled from the windows on this side of the house and from the upper stories of the adjacent houses as they walked on the path between the garden on their right, all prepped for spring planting, and the empty clotheslines on the left. With the sunset, the unusually warm temperatures of the day had cooled, but the sky was still clear of clouds or even a wisp of fog. The steady breeze from the west had even cleared out some of the perpetual haze of smoke that came from every house chimney. Consequently, the sliver of new moon was visible, the stars twinkled, and the leaves of the apricot tree shimmered.

“No, I’m fine, and I’m not ready to go in.” She tucked her arm through his and said, “We have so little opportunities to be by ourselves nowadays. I’m not ready to share you with Bea or Kathleen, who I can see are still in the kitchen. Let’s go sit under the tree.” She suspected that Beatrice and Esther were in the kitchen busy discussing their favorite topic, which was Annie, Nate, and why they weren’t married yet, and she wanted to spare both Nate and herself the inevitable effect of all that loving concern.

When they got to the bench, Nate leaned down and used his gloves to sweep off the seat. Annie tried to be as graceful as possible as she sat, tucking in her skirts so he wouldn’t sit on them. She’d been pleased when he suggested they take a walk around the block, knowing how he would worry about damaging her reputation if they’d stayed alone in the small parlor once Laura retired for the night.

She wasn’t surprised, either, when he immediately brought up the circumstances surrounding Buck Morrison’s behavior this fall. Nate said, “I’m not condoning what that young man, Buck, did. In fact, I would like to horsewhip him. But what if he saw Laura’s buggy rides with Timmons as making her fair game for his attentions?”

“Nate, you know better,” Annie snapped. “From what Laura told me, he tried to make her life a misery from the first day she started teaching, and he kept at it when she didn’t give him what he wanted. Any proper gentleman would see how innocent Laura is from the moment of meeting her.”

“You’re right. I just worry. And what about Timmons? Do you think she might be right, that Timmons was the man who attacked her?”

“I suppose he could be. Her description of how violent he got suggests there might be some degree of instability in him,” Annie replied. “The man I am most concerned about is Buck. Maybe he got her address through his father. I wouldn’t be surprised if the principal of Clement Grammar didn’t write her former employers for a reference when she applied for the job.”

“But what would Buck be doing in San Francisco?”

“Just because
you
didn’t see fit to come visit me this autumn when you were staying at your parents’ ranch down the peninsula, it doesn’t mean that Buck couldn’t take the train up to San Francisco from Cupertino.” Annie looked up at him, and she could just make out his sudden smile. She did love to tease him.

“At his age, he could have even left home, be living in San Francisco,” she continued.

“I know. It’s just that I had started to relax, thinking the attacker was just some ruffian who wanted her money. But now? I really think I should track down Timmons to see what he has to say for himself.”

“He shouldn’t be too hard to find. He told Laura he was teaching at the Lark and Pine Street School. But do be careful. If he is innocent of doing anything more than protecting your sister, you don’t want your inquiries to jeopardize his teaching position or her reputation. And Laura is so ambivalent about him, she might not welcome your interference.”

“I must say, the idea that it might be Buck makes a lot more sense than her theory that Miss Wilks’ fiancé, Russell, attacked her.”

“I agree
,” Annie said. “Besides the fact that Russell doesn’t seem at all the same physical type as the man in the alley, I just don’t know why he would see Laura as such a threat to his coming nuptials. I think she just looking for a reason to justify how angry she is with Russell and how she treated him the night Hattie died.”

“If she needs a reason to be angry at him, isn’t the fact that he got her friend pregnant enough?” Nate’s voice rose.

Annie put her hand out and stroked his arm. Her words came out haltingly as she again tried to explain what she thought motivated his sister. “I think Laura has to make Russell into some evil and powerful man so that no blame for that pregnancy will fall on Hattie. If she accepts that he is an ordinary man who got carried away but then planned to do the honorable thing, then she has to accept Hattie’s role in what happened. Who knows, maybe her deathbed words were an admission of her own sense of guilt. Maybe the pregnancy was ‘no accident’ and Hattie was saying she was sorry because it was she who had ‘pushed’ them into that kind of relationship.”

“But…I can’t imagine that a woman like Miss
Wilks would…you aren’t saying that she was the seducer?” Nate shifted beside her as if the thought made him physically uncomfortable. “I know that there are women who…well, who lead some men astray.”

“But not well-bred women like your sister or her friend? Or me?” Annie interrupted, charmed by the innocence of his reaction.

“Exactly,” Nate said. “I mean, I can understand how a woman, in her naiveté, might give the wrong impression. Which is what I was saying about Laura and her buggy rides with Timmons, but to actively…no…I don’t believe it.”

“Well, obviously Laura feels the same way, or wants to. She has to make Russell the villain, not someone who has lost the love of his life.”

“I must say,” Nate burst out, “I am not sure my sister thinks very highly of any man.”

“Except her father and brothers.” Annie leaned into him and touched his cheek. He captured her hand in his and brought it to his lips to kiss.

She basked in the comfort of his arms around her. But then she thought about his last comment, and she said, “I think that living with her students’ families was a very rude awakening. From what she told me, she was exposed for the first time to marriages with no mutual respect, marriages where any love that had existed was destroyed by drink or poverty or simply too many children. In time she, will remember there are good men in the world––and good marriages.”

Just as you reminded me of that truth.
Annie pulled his face to hers, gently initiating a kiss.