Chapter 11 #2
“I informed them there was little I could do about the photo, under the First Amendment to the Constitution.” Julia Irvine adjusted her spectacles but did not alter her steely gaze.
“And since neither I nor the college are in any way empowered to act on behalf of this unfortunate young woman who has had the misfortune to die amongst us—”
“Are we positive that she is not a member of the college?”
“As sure as we can be that she is not one of the young women residents this semester.” President Irvine risked a sigh of relief.
“There is no one unaccounted for in College Hall. We have also naturally made inquiries about the very few of our students who live at home in the town, but thus far, all our students have thankfully been accounted for.”
“I am glad to hear that. But I do have …” Marigold lowered her voice, though the corridor they passed along was relatively empty. “I have a …” She hesitated, working for that discretion the president had requested. “… a suggestion of a name.”
President Irvine came to a standstill and turned the lamps of her keen gaze on Marigold. “And?”
“Miss Olivia Thayer, the young woman who was scheduled to give the lecture on universal suffrage this Saturday evening. Do you know her?”
“Yes, of course. Well, I know of her” She turned to gesture toward a bulletin board hung at the confluence of corridors. “The notices are put up in half a dozen other places about the college.” She turned back. “How do you come by this name when no one else has put it forth?”
“During the chapel session, I noticed Professor Currier was overcome with some emotion, and immediately after the service concluded, she left the campus for a house on Washington Street—the Thayers’ house.
And when I found that the intended speaker for this Saturday’s lecture was a young woman named Olivia Thayer, I thought that bore further investigation. ”
Julia Irvine’s brows rose in question. “Marigold.” President Irvine’s tone was only a little chiding, but it was entirely serious. “I hope to heaven you’ve been discreet.”
Marigold swallowed the guilt that threatened to rise in her throat. “Yes, ma’am, although asking questions is never entirely discreet.”
“Well, then.” Julia Irvine took a deep breath. “Let us see if we might sever this Gordian knot with one blow.”
Marigold let President Irvine lead the way to the large amphitheater-like Rhetoric classroom, with its three rows of risers where debates and speeches were practiced. Professor Currier’s desk sat off to one side, away from the dais, so her students might take center stage.
As they approached the open doors, President Irvine said, “If you’ll wait outside? Imogen is more likely to be more candid with a colleague than with a student present.”
“Naturally.” Marigold tucked herself behind the oaken door, giving herself permission to flout her own prohibitions against eavesdropping—President Irvine would just tell her everything anyway.
“Imogen?” President Irvine called as she went in.
Marigold heard the sound of a chair scraping back, “Julia. President Irvine.”
“Julia will do amongst colleagues, Imogen. Please sit back down. You look as if a stiff wind would blow you over. Are you unwell? Can I get you anything for your relief?”
“Thank you, but no. I have my medicine. It’s just been …” Professor Currier could be heard sitting heavily before she sighed. “… a rather trying few days.”
“Yes.” President Irvine took her cue. “I noticed you appeared rather overcome during the chapel service yesterday.”
“Yes, I was … greatly distressed. I …” For a professor who taught rhetoric, Imogen Currier was having an extraordinarily hard time coming up with the requisite words.
“Yes,” Julia Irvine put in for her. “A tragic situation.” She could be heard drawing up a chair. “So tragic, you absented yourself from teaching your classes today?” Julia Irvine’s tone was kind but still somehow steely. “Is there something you know that you ought to share with me, Imogen?”
“No, no.” Professor Currier was quick with her denial. “I mean …” She seemed to take a deep breath. “The truth is, I did think that perhaps, I might know who …” She heaved out another sigh.
Marigold edged closer to the cracked door, willing her heartbeat to stop filling her ears.
“But it turns out not.”
“Then that is good, surely?” President Irvine’s calm tone reflected none of Marigold’s overwhelming disappointment or agitation. “Yet—please forgive my curiosity, but you are still clearly upset about something.”
“Too true.” Another heavy sigh accompanied the admission.
“I had hoped to keep the news quiet as long as possible, but it will all come out in a day or two anyway. I was concerned for a young woman from the town, the daughter of some dear, dear people, and a senior at the wonderful new Wellesley High School, whom I had been mentoring in the hopes that she would come to us at the college. She showed such great promise as an orator—Miss Olivia Thayer.”
Marigold was instantly riveted. She edged closer so she might see into the classroom through the crack in the door.
“She was to speak on universal suffrage at the Forensics and Debate Society lecture on Saturday,” Professor Currier explained.
“Yes,” President Irvine encouraged. “The students have been talking about their disappointment in the postponement of the lecture.”
“Well, I’m afraid it will have to be canceled now.”
Julia Irvine’s face was carefully, stoically blank. “May I ask why?”
“Because she’s gone.”
Marigold’s curiosity careered into confusion.
And inside the room, President Irvine’s patient stoicism cracked. “What do you mean—gone?” Her voice was horrified.
Marigold swiveled her gaze to Professor Currier—who frankly looked diminished, even more than last afternoon.
The professor heaved out another sigh. “Let me explain. I had been worried—dreadfully worried—because she did not come to an appointment we had, regarding the lecture, that she might be this … girl.”
“The girl found dead in the lake?”
“Yes. But she wasn’t that girl, thankfully.
” There was only the tiniest relief in the professor’s voice.
“But the reason Olivia missed the appointment, you see, was because she had run off—eloped with a most unsuitable young man.” Imogen Currier’s emotions got the best of her as she swore, “A damn ne’er-do-well! ”
Marigold was both completely surprised and completely disappointed all at once.
Although her own experience of ne’er-do-wells was limited to her reading of Pride and Prejudice and therefore hypothetical rather than experiential, Marigold felt that such reading as a college-bound suffragist like Olivia Thayer must have undertaken should have been a ward against such an occurrence.
The president’s response also seemed to come straight from Austen. “What has been done to recover her?”
“Nothing could be done,” Professor Currier averred.
“He made sure of that. They sailed that very day, before his telegram to her parents could be delivered. By the time her parents arrived at the White Star Line’s dock in Boston to stop her, the ship had long sailed.
And though they immediately appealed to the port authorities, there was nothing the port police could do to help them at that point—the ship was already outside territorial waters. ”
“Oh, Imogen, that is terribly disappointing.”
“Just so. I just hate to think of her with such a … rotter,” Professor Currier said, as if this were the strongest approbation she could utter.
“But I don’t know when I’ve ever been so crushed as when I feared that this poor anonymous girl found in the lake might be Olivia, when my darling Olivia was already gone with that abominable boy. ”