Dangerous and Unseemly

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Week 3, Instructor Calendar, February 1896

“Composition books out, ladies.” Concordia turned to the large chalkboard behind her on the instructor’s platform, and wrote out the day’s assignment for her “Masters in English Poetry” students.

With a rustle of skirts, satchel flaps, and a number of stifled groans, the sophomores began copying the essay question. A few squinted at the board; the weak daylight filtering through the leaded-glass windows of Moss Hall did little to brighten the room. Concordia switched on the electric lights along the walls. She caught a whiff of burnt filament as a bulb behind her flickered and went out. She suppressed a sigh. Third one today. Gas lamps are more reliable than this faddish invention.

Discontented murmurs in the back corner of the room caught her attention.

“Yes, Miss Landry; you have something to contribute on the subject of Mr. Wordsworth’s Preludes?” Miss Landry and her cohort, Miss Spencer, were a popular duo. Give them any latitude, Concordia had learned, and discipline in the classroom would quickly degrade.

Miss Landry was a pretty, brown-haired girl, with a snub nose and a demeanor to match. The girl assumed an aggrieved air. “Oh, Miss Wells, Wordsworth is such a grind.”

Several students nodded their agreement. Miss Spencer managed a pretty pout.

“When are we going to study someone exciting—and radical,” she continued, “such as Lord Byron?”

Concordia had been expecting some sort of mutiny from the girl; it had been weeks since she last staged a rebellious display.

“One’s course of studies should not be determined by popularity, Miss Landry,” Concordia answered evenly. “Mr. Wordsworth shaped an important poetic tradition, and was England’s poet laureate, both of which you should know by this point.”

More sighs.

Concordia plowed on. “We cannot proceed to Lord Byron and his company until you and your fellows show mastery of today’s writing theme. Furthermore, I am expecting better work from the class than I have seen heretofore.”

There was an uneasy shifting in seats.

She drove her point home. “I cannot countenance sloppiness – neither sloppy thinking nor sloppy handwriting. This is not a ‘snap course,’ ladies.”

After a pause she pointed to the question on the board.

“You may begin writing.”

As the students bent over their work, Concordia wondered if her rebuke had any effect upon Miss Landry and her set, each of them the product of long-established New England upper-society families. These particular girls were part of a new breed of privileged young ladies: those here for the “college experience.” It was the social life of the college, rather than the pursuit of higher learning or a vocation, that mattered to them.

Such a phenomenon produced dismay among the older women professors. Concordia had listened to a number of lamentations on the subject in the professors’ lounge. Miss Cowles, who had an opinion on nearly everything, was particularly vocal.

“These young things have no idea how the women before them have fought to get a college education,” Miss Cowles said, spectacles quivering down her thin nose in her agitation. “My poor mother, the good Lord rest her soul, lived in terror that I would return home from college a raving lunatic. She believed everything she read in Harper’s, especially the Clarke article – remember that one?—about the damage that academic study can produce in a young lady’s brain. Oh, the rows we had!”

Concordia recalled her own struggles with her family when she wanted to attend college. Although she was younger than Miss Cowles, the early ideas about a woman’s “limited” intellect still lingered.

Another teacher chimed in. “I agree with you, Jane. I find it exceedingly odd that now it is fashionable for these society girls to go to college, but, oh, not to study, mind you. If we are not careful, women’s colleges will be in danger of becoming social clubs.”

Concordia didn’t believe the situation was quite so dire, but she had kept her opinion to herself. There was no denying that, for at least some of these young ladies, college life was a round of teas, frolics, dances, clubs, and boys.

And, lately of course, pranks. Concordia found her thoughts straying to yesterday’s incident, and Miss Hamilton. How did she feel about a knife being plunged into her effigy? Why hers, and no one else’s? Such overt hostility was perplexing. Concordia could think of nothing the woman had done to provoke such a response. The knife suggested spite, rather than harmless mischief.

It had been a relief, at least, to find one matter resolved, upon President Richter’s return yesterday afternoon. According to the faculty gossip chain (Miss Bellini was an excellent source of information), Richter had little to say about the prank when it was reported to him, and had, in fact, been rather brusque in the face of Miss Hamilton’s questions. He had a meeting with the trustees, and that was the end of the subject. He did, however, express concern over the disappearance of Miss Lyman.

No one knew where the bursar could possibly be. She wasn’t in her office, or her faculty quarters; she had not been seen by anyone, nor had she left word about a family emergency requiring her to leave campus. By all accounts, she had seemed upset lately, so perhaps a family crisis was to blame. But why depart without notice of any kind?

Word spread throughout campus that the lady principal had sent telegrams to Miss Lyman’s immediate family this morning, inquiring as to her whereabouts. President Richter, reluctant though he was to contact the police and invite negative publicity for the college, pledged to do so if the bursar had not been heard from today.

Concordia suppressed a sigh and, checking her watch, brought her attention back to the task at hand.

“Pass your papers forward, please.”

She continued with the lesson as she collected them.

“Perhaps you would find Mr. Wordsworth more interesting if you had made yourselves better acquainted with his biography. You would have learned that he was quite the radical in his youth, and supported the cause of the French Revolution.”

She suppressed a smile as the students leaned forward more attentively. Wordsworth, a revolutionary? Perhaps he was not such a grind, after all.

“He and his fellow activists,” Concordia continued, “William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Thomas Paine, among others, dreamed of a society of equals, with a government run by the consent of the people, for the common good. But Wordsworth found, to his horror, that the Revolution had turned their dream for France into a bloody nightmare.” Concordia quoted from memory:

Friends, enemies, of all parties, ages, ranks,

Head after head, and never heads enough

For those who bade them fall….

“Some of you may recognize Wordsworth’s allusion to the guillotine. Turn to Book Ten of The Prelude, beginning with line 307,” she directed.

As the students flipped through pages, Concordia turned her attention to the instigator.

“Miss Landry, you may begin reading aloud.”

Miss Landry, momentarily bested, stood and smoothed her skirt, and began.

A shriek from outside stopped the recitation and sent Concordia and the girls rushing to the windows.

The disturbance came from the pond, just below. With a quick glance at the sight of hand-wringing girls crouched at the pond’s edge, Concordia snatched her jacket.

“Fetch the custodian and tell him to bring a long pole. Quickly!”

Open-mouthed, Concordia’s students watched her dash out of the room.