Chapter 18
“This appetite of the mind for particulars of great crimes and criminals has been stigmatized as vulgar. It is only vulgar in so far as it is universal, the common attribute of every age, people and clime.”
Professor Currier was sent for, but as it was a good fifteen minutes until the class period was slated to end, President Irvine invited Marigold to take a seat to wait. “For we have other things I should like to discuss with you—namely your missing classes.”
“I am sorry, ma’am,” Marigold began. “But when the information came to me—from others, as I promised you, professionals in Boston—I felt I had to act.” For a moment she wondered if she might appeal to the president’s sense of history.
Wellesley originally organized itself as a strictly nondenominational female seminary, to raise up a generation of genuine but practical Christian young women, for whom doing good was always seen as equal to merely being good.
“You have also gravely upset Miss Burke,” the president rebuked her. “She was greatly distressed.”
“I am sorry,” Marigold apologized again. “I realize I was rather too single-minded in my quest to find someone to identify the body, and she seemed eminently suitable.”
“Please don’t be too hard on her. She has her own reasons to refuse, Marigold. Which I will ask you, as a favor to me, to accept without going into private matters and histories that are not yours to know, nor mine to tell. Suffice it to say, we are not all so steely as you.”
If before Marigold had felt herself rebuked, now she felt as if she had been slapped.
As if she were steely by nature. As if she had not chosen to steel herself to make her way in the world. To be both diligent and determined. And as if that choice had not cost her.
Marigold raised her chin and firmed her resolve.
“You, of all people, ma’am, should know that every piece of steel has to be tempered and purchased, for a price.
” She blinked furiously to keep herself from an unseemly display of frustrated emotion—it would only delay their doleful mission.
“Today, Professor Currier will have to pay the price that Miss Burke would not.”
Julia Irvine raised her gaze to look directly into Marigold’s eyes.
“In case you did not understand, Marigold, I appreciate your steel, greatly, for I understand the very grave cost. To you and Professor Currier both. But pray do not make the mistake of thinking that no one else has ever tried to carry such a burden. Some people, through no fault of their own, the burden breaks.”
Only Julia Irvine could make Marigold so ashamed while complimenting her.
“Yes, ma’am.” Her voice sounded as vanquished as she felt. “So noted. And my apologies.”
“Thank you. If I am hard on you, Marigold, it is only because I know you and want to help you find your better self. The better self I seek for myself daily. You have both a rare ability and a rare opportunity, if you will return your focus to your academic studies instead of—”
Miss Burke stuck her head in the door. “Professor Currier, ma’am.”
“Imogen. Do come in.”
“Julia,” Professor Currier greeted her colleague. “You wanted to see me? I’ve only got a moment between classes.”
“Yes. I’m afraid this is not going to be a pleasurable conversation, Imogen. Please have a seat.” Julia Irvine gestured to the other chair in front of her desk before she turned to Marigold. “Let me reintroduce you to Marigold Manners.”
“Yes, I remember Marigold well.” Professor Currier put out her hand to shake, even if she was clearly confused about both Marigold’s presence and the potentially unpleasant news. “What has happened?”
“I’m afraid Marigold has discovered some unsettling information with regard to the identity of the young woman found in the lake,” President Irvine explained.
Professor Currier put her hand to her chest as if she might ward off whatever bad fortune was about to come her way. “Yes?”
Marigold sat in the other chair opposite the professor and tried to be as gentle as possible.
“The young woman’s clothing bore several labels indicating where it had come from—which store.
In Boston,” she added incrementally, parsing the unhappy information out in small doses. “Beacon Street. Madame Watteau’s.”
Professor Currier gasped. “But … it’s a popular shop,” she stammered.
“Yes, ma’am. But Madame Watteau herself confirmed that she sold the exact ensemble that the deceased was wearing—black velvet jacket with stiffened gigot sleeves and a rounded, edged collar, over a plaid-patterned blouse of forest green, aubergine, and royal blue, worn with a skirt of the same plaid wool—to Miss Olivia Thayer and her mother. ”
“No.” Professor Currier closed her eyes as if in pain.
“No, it wasn’t her mother. It was me.” She swallowed before she could speak again.
“Her mother, however accomplished in her own right, is … unworldly, and dressed Olivia in simple girls’ dresses, all bows and cambric.
Olivia wanted something … more mature. Something suitable for an aspiring Wellesley girl and a passionate, educated young orator making a name for herself in the world.
” She opened her eyes that were now filled with tears. “I took her to Madame Watteau.”
“I am so sorry,” Marigold said. “But I would also like to ask if Olivia was a member of the Société des Belles Lettres?”
“Ah.” Professor Currier’s tears coursed down her cheeks. “The pin—on her hat. She was so proud.”
Julia Irvine came around her desk to put a consoling hand on her colleague’s shoulder and offered a fresh handkerchief. “I wish we had better news.”
“Is it settled then? You’re quite sure?” Professor Currier asked.
“Unfortunately, it has not been made official,” Marigold clarified. “Some one of her family would likely need to make the formal identification of her body.”
“Oh, no.” Professor Currier put her hand to her heart again. “Have they been informed?”
“No, Imogen, not yet. We wanted to speak to you and make sure, before we made our findings available to both the authorities and to the Thayer family.”
“She’s dead, then.” Professor Currier blotted at her fresh tears. “It must—don’t you think—it must have been Valentine?” This was the name the professor had inadvertently given to Lucy. “That bully Valentine.”
“And who is Valentine, ma’am?”
“Her suitor, for lack of a better word. Wilkie Valentine. But he wasn’t really her suitor, was he, if he could do this?”
Marigold agreed in principle, if not yet in fact. She could certainly cast her own suspicions toward the young man, while still reminding herself that the surest way for anyone to deflect blame from oneself was to offer up another suspect.
Professor Currier remained a person of interest in Marigold’s eyes. “Did you have occasion to meet this young man, Wilkie Valentine?” She must have done so, to think he might be behind the disappearance of the photograph from her room.
“Yes. Unfortunately.” Professor Currier wrinkled her nose in an expression of dislike. “He was persistent in his wooing of Olivia despite her avowed disinterest.”
“Can you describe him? His physical appearance, his style of clothing or his habits?” She would need to give such information to Cab at her earliest opportunity—although, if the dead girl did prove to be Olivia Thayer, then the search of the ocean liner records was nothing but a wild-goose chase.
“He was, to me, a moderate-looking young man,” the professor said, “the sort who gets along just fine without any great appearance of intelligence. I suppose he had good looks, but what he had, in overabundance, was charm. A vast deal of it, which he spread like manure, fertilizing and polluting equally, if you ask me. I found him ghastly.”
“When did you meet?” Marigold asked.
“Oh, well, I suppose … when he took serious interest in Olivia, and she came to me for advice on how to dissuade him. Her mother, you see, despite being progressive in most of her views, still believed in romantic love—being very much in love with her own dear husband, Reverend Thayer. She was willing to give Valentine the benefit of the doubt—at first.”
“But you weren’t?”
“No!” Professor Currier said vehemently. She closed her eyes again, as if even the thought of Wilkie Valentine was too much for her. “It didn’t take much to see he was up to no good.”
“Might we trouble you for the introduction to the Thayers?” President Irvine asked.
“Yes, of course.” Professor Currier shook her head as if she were trying to organize her thoughts.
“They—especially her father—were supportive of her career, or rather, the fact that she wanted to have a career. Olivia, that is. Once her father found out that Valentine had been surreptitiously courting Olivia, he did everything in his power to try and keep her head from being turned by the boy.”
“How so?” Marigold asked.
“Asking me to do more things with her—take her shopping, have her come to the college after her classes at Wellesley High School were over. But I suppose that was when Valentine made his appearances, walking with her to campus. We did too little, too late, I suppose.” The professor drew in an unsteady breath, as if she might resuccumb to tears.
President Irvine must have heard it too. “What can I do for your relief, Imogen? I know it’s been quite a shock.”
The professor’s laugh was close to a sob. “Not nearly as much of a shock as I had thinking Olivia had gone with that absolute rotter.” She pronounced the last word with some venom, before she drew in a steadier breath. “My only comfort now is in knowing I was not wrong about her after all.”
“Yes,” President Irvine agreed consolingly. “That will be some small consolation to the cause. But I’m afraid there will be little consolation for the Thayers, who will have to be told, so they may identify and claim her body for burial.”
“And if it’s not her?” Professor Currier asked, hoping against hope.
“Then it’s not.” Julia Irvine was sanguine.