The Gilded Years (11 page)

“Of course,” said Anita, who had been quite unaware that the successful staging of their secret tree ceremony had been Lottie’s doing.

“Come on, Anita!” said Belle, unfolding a towel for her friend and walking with her to change. “We have to help the poor sophomores. As a class they really lack the deceit and trickery of 1897.”

Anita, the most deceptive of all, changed quickly, stepped around the girls flocking upstairs to Philalethean Hall for play practice, and followed her friends to the Vassar Brothers Laboratory.

There were many traditions the Vassar classes took very seriously, and one of the most important of those was the planting of the class tree. It was done during sophomore year, at a secret time on a secret day, and the role of the freshman class was to try to foil their plans and attend the ceremony. The sophomores would go so far as to perform mock ceremonies with sickly trees and post notices around campus advertising fraudulent times and days. But this sophomore class had proved itself insufficiently
cunning and now needed senior assistance to thwart the freshmen.

“We are to distract those nosy 1900s so the sophomores can make it from Strong Hall to the lake,” said Lottie.

“And how will we distract them, fearless leader?” asked Belle, raising her skirts slightly and trotting alongside Lottie. Belle was tall and athletic, a star on the class of 1897 basketball team, but her appearance-consumed mother refused to buy her clothes conducive to movement.

“Bicycles,” whispered Lottie, with big, enchanting eyes. “The answer to every problem is bicycles. A life on wheels for all! I even bought a special hat for the occasion.” She reached into her bag for a straw hat with a straight brim and a navy blue ribbon tied around it. “One cannot be duplicitous without the right headwear.”

Belle, Caroline, and Anita stopped, looked at each other’s bare heads, and all reached for Lottie’s hat.

“You three leave the duplicity up to me!” Lottie said, guarding it. “I just need your help pedaling. So much pedaling until we emerge with legs like gladiators.”

The four of them walked past the laboratory to a wide space where several cherry-red bicycles were set upright. Five girls, all freshmen, were already inspecting them.

“Are these yours?” asked Flora Dean, the freshman class treasurer, who had come to Vassar all the way from California. She looked at Lottie, the person everyone knew as the most likely to own the nicest things.

“Why, yes, they are!” said Lottie, so gaily that Belle shot her a look warning her to tone it down. “We’re having our October meeting of the Vassar chapter of the National Ladies Bicycling Club today, and you’re just in time.”

The freshmen swallowed Lottie’s plot like a piece of warm French cheese. Lottie immediately hopped on one of
them and started circling round the freshmen, even managing to pedal without holding on to the handlebars.

“Lottie! You will break all your teeth!” cried Caroline.

“Never!” screamed Lottie before falling off. She stood up unconcerned, wiped her dress, and motioned for the others to join her. Anita, who had never ridden a bicycle, merely sat on the seat of one and posed the way she had seen it done in pictures.

“I’m the president of the bicycling club, and today is the day when the freshmen can join up,” Lottie explained. “You should round up your friends and become a part of Vassar’s most exclusive society.”

At the prospect of being in a new club founded by Lottie Taylor, the girls ran off to Main and Strong and came back with a large group. Lottie spent the next hour attempting to do tricks with her bicycle, only falling on her head one more time, but managing to keep a great many freshmen entertained. With all the commotion centered far from the stretch between Strong and the lake, the sophomores were able to plant their tree in peace.

At dinner that evening, Lottie, Caroline, Anita, and Belle were hailed as heroes by the sophomores. Lottie stood up on her dining chair to curtsy, her ostrich feather tucked into her coiffure, despite the loud exclamations of horror from the lady principal.

“We really should consider hiring a mute lady principal,” Belle whispered. “This one makes such a racket.”

Though the girls feared the lady principal, as she was in the habit of criticizing their table manners, and chided them when they did not wear plain dress, they also recognized her as the president’s closest aid, and the person who set the character of the college. She served as confidante to many of the underclassmen, but by the time the women had reached
their senior year, they did their very best to avoid her and her observant eye.

“Ladies, I am going to be president of this school one day,” said Lottie, stepping back down. “And the first thing I will do is make the position of lady principal redundant. The second thing I will do is devote less money to ridiculous trinkets like this spoon holder,” she said holding up the small silver utensil. “Does every girl really need a spoon holder in college?”

“I’m quite attached to my spoon holder,” said Belle, clutching it in her hand and looking fondly at the silver and china room, which was connected to the dining room. “Don’t take it away.”

“Spoon holders or not,” Anita broke in, “a very good president you would make.”

After dinner and chapel were over, the girls retired to lounge in the senior parlor, still relishing the privilege of having their own class-dedicated space, redecorated, as was done every year, just for them.

“Lottie!” said Lillian Lovejoy, who lived in their hall and was sitting on a small divan near the Steinway piano surrounded by four other girls. “And all the Gatehouse group, just in time. Come and sit with us. Annie Chase’s mother sent her the funniest little newspaper clipping.”

Anita was one of four girls from Massachusetts in the senior class, as was Annie Chase of Fall River, a few hours south of Boston. Anita had kept her distance from Annie and the other Massachusetts girls during her three years at Vassar, not wanting to speak about the state she’d seen so little of or have them inquire about her life in Boston. Anita was sure they would have family in the city. That was why her first friend at Vassar had been Caroline Hardin. Anita deemed Syria a safe distance from Massachusetts.

Lottie crossed to the group, treading lightly on the Oriental rugs that had just been placed artistically around the room, and the rest followed.

“My mother cut this out of the
New York Tribune
because she saw the word
Vassar
in it,” Annie said. “She was traveling through New York calling on a Vassar graduate at the time, so the coincidence had her in a frenzy. You should see her letter that accompanied it. It’s eight pages long.”

“She’ll spare you that horror,” said Lillian, lifting up the clipping to show the newcomers a photograph of a small Negro child. “It’s all about a woman who adopted this funny little Negro baby and plans on sending it to Vassar in twenty years time.”

“Here, hand it back to me,” said Annie. “I’ll read it aloud.” She sat up straight and waited until Lottie and Caroline had moved behind her for a better view of the photo.

Anita stayed standing, staring at the group, until she felt Belle’s hand tug her to the floor with the others.

“The headline is ‘
MRS. GRANNIS’S PICKANINNY WAIF MAY GO TO VASSAR
.’ ” Annie looked at the picture again, holding it close to her nose. “Now isn’t that extraordinary? And the article goes as follows. ‘Little Christian League Woodwea [
sic
] is the adopted daughter of Mrs. Elizabeth B. Grannis of No. 33 East Twenty-Second Street. Christian League, or “Tummy” as she is familiarly called, is a genuine little pickaninny, as brown as a mud pie, with the bow legs and kinky head of the typical African baby. She is just three years old and a tot of many accomplishments.’ ”

“Black as the night sky is more like it,” interrupted Lillian from her perch next to Annie.

“The storyteller is still telling, Lillian,” said Annie, tapping the article with her index finger.

“Did that woman really name her child Christian League?”
said Gratia Clough, laughing loudly. “Is she unsound? I understand one’s devotion to one’s religion, but this woman has an air of mental illness. Little Christian League’s skin color is the least of her problems.”

“Tummy is not much of an improvement,” said Lillian. “Sounds like me after two plates of dessert.”

“The storyteller is still telling!” said Annie again. “How do these professors keep you all quiet?” She took up the paper and read faster. “ ‘Dressed up in a fantastic colored garment and a Fourth of July cap made of flags, she sang and danced before the mirror, lost in admiration for her own reflection, and looking much like an organ grinder’s dancing monkey. She chats volubly, or, as her adopted mother exclaimed enthusiastically, ‘ “She’s a fine linguist and I’ll match her physically and mentally with any child of her age in the country.”’ ”

Annie stopped reading and looked up. “It does go on a bit but the most fascinating excerpt is at the end. The child’s mother mutters on about sending her to the best kindergarten and then closes with this remark: ‘I shall teach her to be above all snubs that may be offered on account of her color. I expect to send her to college, and I mean that she shall have the best advantages—go to Vassar, perhaps.’ ”

“Such lofty ambitions,” said Belle. “With that ghastly name she’s destined to do missionary work in Africa. Not that there’s a thing wrong with that,” she said, smiling at Caroline.

“I don’t know,” said Lottie, taking the paper from Annie. “It all sounds very bold of this woman, this Elizabeth Grannis. And I do admire daring people.”

“You know who would not appreciate it if you adopted a Negro waif? Your mother,” said Belle.

“Yes, Mrs. Taylor nearly faints when I give the street
children a few coins. I don’t think she could stomach me bringing one in for tea. Or life.”

“I don’t think anything of it,” said Gratia, standing up and moving to the piano. “Why shouldn’t she be raised just like any other child and attend Vassar one day if she passes the exam? I’m sure the world will be a much different place in fifteen or twenty years. Personally, I have always believed in the equality of the races.”

“I tend to agree,” said her friend Marion Schibsby. “In fact, I hope she does make it here. I’ll certainly come back to see that.” Marion was from Omaha, Nebraska, and lacked some of the rigid views of the girls who had grown up on the East Coast. “I think it’s up to women like us, educated women, to lead the charge in changing the perception of Negroes, especially Negro women. To call this poor child an organ grinder’s monkey is just not correct. That newspaperman should be ashamed of himself. Talk like that is much of the reason that prejudices against the colored race exist.”

“She is black, isn’t she,” said Caroline, leaning down to look at the photograph. “A coal black. The natives in Syria aren’t near as black. And some of them have glorious green eyes. The children especially can look quite captivating.”

Anita knew she should have commented on the child’s skin color, like Caroline, or said something disparaging to join the conversation. She surely couldn’t say anything audacious, as Marion had.

“Even though this was in a New York paper, all our mothers will probably read it eventually and send it our way
,
” said Annie. “They are so involved in our Vassar lives.”

No, thought Anita, my mother knows almost nothing of my Vassar life, except that I always behave with self-restraint.

Later that October evening, in their silk-draped parlor,
Anita and Lottie were discussing their afternoon adventure with the freshmen when a maid brought in a letter.

“I’m sorry, Miss Hemmings. I hadn’t seen it in the messenger room this afternoon,” she said apologetically in her thick Hudson Valley accent. Anita took it and thanked her, ripping it open and throwing the envelope down quickly. It was from her brother Frederick.

“It’s not from Porter. My brother is coming to visit me tomorrow,” she said to Lottie, who had come over and was peering at the top of the letter with interest. Anita normally would have lied to her, as she avoided all conversations about her family, but Lottie would have torn it out of her hands if she hadn’t told her more as she read.

“Anita!” Lottie exclaimed, “You have a brother and you haven’t said a thing about it? You’re a devil! How old is this mysterious brother and is he as striking as you are? If so, I’m joining you for lunch in town, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

“What happened to handsome Henry?” Anita asked, angry with herself for opening the letter in front of Lottie and displeased that the maid had delivered it so late in the day. Anita couldn’t afford to make any missteps, and with Frederick, there were ample chances for error.

Lottie walked over to the window, looking at the light from the Lodge spilling into the night. “What happened to Henry is that I haven’t received a letter from him since the football game, so I suppose he has already forgotten about little old me down here in Poughkeepsie and has fallen in love with another.” Lottie put her hand to her head and collapsed to the floor in a mock faint. She turned upside down so that her legs were high and exposed.

“I’ve heard this is a sexual position in India,” she said, wiggling her feet.

“Lottie!” Anita said sharply. “Do not speak like that.”

“Why not? Perhaps if I had at Harvard, Henry would have written.”

“But you’re still set on marrying him?” Anita asked.

“Of course!” Lottie said, jumping upright. “He’s such a brute, it’s hard not to be in love with him. He has a peasantlike quality that I really do find charming. I think it’s from all that football. But he’s not a peasant, he’s from a very good New York family, which makes him a contender. I’ll get him to look my way eventually. If he doesn’t like this version of me, then I’ll just reintroduce myself as someone else entirely. Men are awfully simple creatures. Can you imagine, I have them all figured out and I’m only twenty-two? What will I do with my time from now on?”

The next afternoon, when Anita was walking back to her room after Latin class, the halls feeling much colder with the fall peaking in the valley, one of the maids stopped her again.