The Gilded Years (34 page)

Lottie stood up, walked to her bedroom door, and closed it loudly enough to rattle Anita, but not loudly enough to disturb their neighbors. That was the only thing that could save Anita. The fear Lottie had for her own reputation.

F
or the next week, it was just rumors. Lottie stayed true to her word and moved into a large single room the next morning, but Anita had no idea what she had told Mrs. Kendrick. She would have had to give some explanation for why she needed to move a month before graduation, but she could have used illness or any number of other credible excuses. She was Lottie Taylor, and everyone was in the habit of saying yes to her.

In the days after Lottie’s relocation, the students were scarce in the college’s common areas as final examinations crept up on them. But Anita could barely see the words on the pages she was studying. In the quiet of her room, as she tried to prepare for her tests, all she could feel was panic. She was unable to sleep without waking up crying, her bed soaked in sweat. The walls in her parlor room were bare, except for the small picture of the Artemis statue still glued up in a corner. They seemed to Anita to be closing in on her, caging her. She made excuses not to see Belle or Caroline, floated through her classes in silence, and somehow never saw Lottie Taylor closer than thirty feet away. Even in the dining room, where Lottie had switched tables, Anita only saw the back of her head.

Among the seniors who lived in the same hall as Anita and Lottie, rumors flew fast, but it was Sarah Douglas who first told Anita what the women of ’97 had been saying since Lottie moved out of room 21.

After the final meeting of the Federal Debating Society, Anita found herself one of the last two people in the room. Lottie wasn’t there, having dropped the only club in which the two had overlapped. Distracted as always by the hell that had shattered her happiness, Anita looked up and realized that she was alone with Sarah.

“I have to say, Anita, you are quite the stoic,” Sarah said, picking up her books. “I’ve always thought there was more to you than your quiet, reserved exterior suggested. Your cold presence, as some describe it. There must be, if Lottie Taylor had such affection for you.”

Anita opened her mouth to protest, but Sarah held up her hand to stop her. “I know we’re not close, Anita, but if I were in your position, I would want to know what everyone was saying about me.”

“I would like to know,” said Anita, alarmed. “What are they saying?”

“The gossip is that it’s all about Porter Hamilton,” said Sarah, unable to disguise the thrill in her voice. “That you and Lottie are desperately in love with him. Everyone says that you both were rather physical with him and that now a war has erupted between you.”

Anita flushed with relief. A love triangle involving Porter Hamilton—was that what the students truly thought? Perhaps she had been wrong. It was not Lottie’s concern for her reputation that might save her, it was her affection for Porter.

Anita’s extreme panic started to ebb after her conversation with Sarah. Lottie, she was sure, appreciated the rumor about Porter as much as she did. She could imagine the satisfaction
she took in being seen as the victorious party in a love triangle. If they were still rooming together, they would have laughed at such a rumor. Anita could see the two of them kneeling on the couch under the window, looking down at the gatehouse, Lottie’s sentences tumbling out at their usual rapid-fire pace. But that world, as Lottie had said, was gone.

The dreams that sent her into a pool of sweat and despair every night started to subside, too, and she was able to sit in the empty parlor without crying or thinking of the blissful times she had experienced there. It was now two weeks since Lottie had confronted her, and nothing had happened. No student had looked at her strangely. No one had ostracized her. She was starting to feel dangerously safe. Lottie would never speak to her again, but it appeared that she would have the decency to keep her secret, to let her graduate.

Belle and Caroline split their time between the estranged roommates and told Anita they were trying their best not to take sides.

“But of course we’re actually taking your side,” said Belle one day when Caroline had gone. “Lottie is the most selfish girl who will ever graduate from this school. I like so much about her, but increasingly, there is more to dislike. I will never forgive her for what she did to you. You were right to exile her from this room. It would have been too much for me to handle, as well.”

“You shouldn’t be angry with Lottie,” said Anita, terrified of saying a word against her. “She isn’t all bad.”

“Sometimes, Anita,” said Belle, standing up to leave Anita’s bare parlor room, “she is.”

It was just two days later, as Anita was walking to chapel with Belle for choir practice, that she heard the low-pitched female voice so many students feared. This time, it was saying her name. Repeating her name.

Anita turned around to see Mrs. Kendrick approaching, her skirt taut on her ankles as she walked swiftly and with purpose. She wanted to whisper to Belle to jump with her out the nearest window and run until they were far from the campus, never to return.

Instead, she simply said, “Hello, Mrs. Kendrick.”

Belle also greeted the lady principal, who was still wearing a high-necked winter shirtwaist though the air outside was scented with spring, then put her hand supportively on Anita’s back before slipping into the chapel to give them privacy. Anita knew Belle assumed that Mrs. Kendrick wanted to speak with her about her feud with Lottie and the gossip they were generating around the school, distracting other girls in the midst of their finals. Mrs. Kendrick was known to abhor distractions. But there could only be one reason why Mrs. Kendrick would single her out, and as the reality of it set in, the nerves in Anita’s body felt like they were being split, one by one.

“Miss Hemmings, would you mind stopping by President Taylor’s office this evening after chapel?” Mrs. Kendrick said evenly. “Something has come to our attention that we need to discuss with you promptly. I imagine you know what it is I’m speaking of, but I do not want to bring such a sensitive matter up at an inappropriate moment.”

“Yes, Mrs. Kendrick,” said Anita quietly, her eyes cast down. She wanted desperately to close them, to keep the room from spinning, and to shut out the lady principal’s stern face. But that would not be possible. From that moment on, Anita knew, she would have to comport herself as the most dignified student Vassar had ever known. She had to be the good Negro, the exceptional Negro. “Maybe then,” she prayed, “they will let me graduate.”

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Kendrick levelly. “I’ll let you get
to choir practice now. I assume that’s where you were going with Miss Tiffany?”

Anita nodded.

“You have a beautiful voice,” Mrs. Kendrick said, even her compliment devoid of emotion. “I will greatly miss hearing it next year.” She gave Anita a nod and walked off down the hallway.

Anita felt that her heart had started pumping twice as fast, and she longed to be far from campus, but she could not run from her fate.

At choir practice, she sang flatly, her high notes breaking. During chapel, she feared she might hyperventilate. She wanted to stand up and denounce Lottie to the school at the top of her voice, but instead she bowed her head along with the other students, in silent, despairing prayer. Then she stood up and walked to the president’s office.

Except for a polite hello in passing, Anita had never spoken to President Taylor. At that moment, she wished she had. If they had developed a rapport, then maybe she would be more than a word on a page to him: Negro, the school’s only Negro.

His secretary guided her to his office, knocking on the door and ushering her inside. The president was seated behind his simple wooden desk, his short silver hair parted on the side, his mustache trimmed and neat. Seated on a chair to his right was the lady principal, next to her was Lottie, and surprisingly to Anita, across from the desk was Miss Franklin, her Latin professor.

“Miss Hemmings. Come in, and please have a seat,” said the president, with a look on his face that Anita interpreted as friendly. But of course, she thought to herself, firing squads were never in tears. “I assume Mrs. Kendrick has already informed you what this meeting is about?” said the
president, superfluously. The presence of Lottie Taylor told everyone what the meeting was about.

“She has,” said Anita, politely. She would remain calm, unshaken. She sat down in the empty chair and thought of her father, putting money away week after week for her and her siblings’ educations. Sweep the floors, clean the toilets, scrub the windows, wax the building until it gleams like a glass palace. The faceless Negro janitor. She thought of that. For him, she had to persuade the people in that room to let her graduate with the class of 1897. For him.

President Taylor lifted several sheets of paper from his desk and glanced through them. “Miss Hemmings, I’m afraid a sensitive matter has arisen for us all. Are you aware of what I’m implying?”

Was she aware that she was a Negro? Up until two weeks before, she had been the only one who was aware. Her nerves were jumping, but she managed to look squarely at the president and said, “Yes, sir, I am aware.”

“Good,” said the president, picking up the first paper in his stack. “Then this delicate matter with Miss Taylor is what I want to address first. This document here represents the findings of a private investigator hired by Miss Taylor’s father. It states that he traveled to the Boston home of Miss Anita Hemmings in the Roxbury neighborhood and discovered that her parents are both Negroes. Light-skinned, it says, gray eyes, whiskers, nearly able to pass as white. Nearly.” He looked up at Anita and said, “This refers to your father, I presume?”

Anita nodded, trying to keep her expression perfectly compliant.

“It was presented to me two days ago by Miss Taylor herself,” said the president. “Very unusual to approach me directly, but I suppose in this case it had to be done.”

Anita looked over at Lottie, but Lottie kept her eyes fixed smugly on the president.

“While I think this is certainly crossing a line into personal matters, the hiring of an investigator and so on, it is something we have to address,” said President Taylor. He looked at Anita and said, “So this is true, Miss Hemmings? Your parents, and therefore you, are Negroes?”

The moment Anita had dreaded for four years had arrived. The cold fear of it had governed her life, causing her to wake up in plashes of sweat, to destroy her unsent letters to her mother, to forbid Bessie Baker to write to her or Frederick to visit her on campus. Full of sorrow and regret, she took a breath so deep that it made her stomach swell and said, “They are, I am. We are Negroes.”

“I see,” said the president, still looking at her for an explanation.

“I was never asked whether I was a Negro, so I never addressed it. If I had been asked, I would not have lied.” Anita looked down at her hands, half-shocked that she was still breathing after such a confession. But there she was, alive, and now at the mercy of the people in this room.

A sigh of protest came from Lottie, but Mrs. Kendrick silenced her quickly. She handed a few more papers to the president, who read them slowly. Anita immediately recognized her handwriting.

“Miss Hemmings, the application to the school asks specifically about a family’s origin. Mrs. Kendrick has pulled your record here, and I see that you wrote French and English in response to that question. Why did you claim such?” asked the president, without looking up. President Taylor was known to be conservative in his views on women but also deeply religious. Anita prayed that his conscience would sway him her way in this instance.

“I am French and English,” she replied simply.

“Fine,” said the president, now studying her light complexion. “But if you are a Negro, there must also be African blood.”

“I suppose there must be,” she replied.

“So you are not denying the accusation,” he said.

“I am not denying it,” Anita replied. “My mother is a Negro, though light-skinned. My father is a Negro, though very light-skinned, with gray eyes, as the Taylors’ detective mentioned. And until I went to Dwight Moody’s Northfield Seminary to prepare for the Vassar examination, I lived as a Negro.”

Lottie’s smug smile widened.

“I have known for many months now that Miss Hemmings is a Negro,” said Miss Franklin suddenly. “That is why I’m present. When Mrs. Kendrick approached me a few days ago, since it was I and Miss Macurdy who had recommended Anita for several postgraduate scholarships, I told her that I had suspected it for some time and had had my suspicions confirmed in December.”

“And you never spoke up?” asked President Taylor. “Why not, Miss Franklin? You certainly should have. The school must always be first and foremost in your considerations.”

“It didn’t seem the Christian thing to do,” said Miss Franklin, stealing a quick glance at Anita. “She earned her place in the school. She is a well-liked student with excellent grades. Who was I to disturb such an equilibrium? It did not seem right. And if I may raise my voice now, all of this does not seem right, either. Should we really be entertaining the findings of an investigation done out of malice?”

Miss Franklin had known. The day she had approached Anita after class, she had known the whole truth. She had not been supportive then, even of the idea of Anita rooming with a Negro, but perhaps time had softened her. Anita let
her head fall back, thankful to have one person speaking on her behalf.

“But how did you come to know when the rest of us did not?” asked President Taylor. “We did not know, did we, Mrs. Kendrick?” he asked. The lady principal was supposed to be his eyes and ears on campus regarding everything to do with the students.

Mrs. Kendrick shook her head no, and everyone in the room looked at Miss Franklin expectantly.

“I have a friend, a Latin instructor at Northfield, where Anita was a preparatory student. Because of Miss Hemmings’s close friendship with a quadroon woman there in 1892, this instructor always suspected that Miss Hemmings was a quadroon, as well. She shared these thoughts with me last year when I mentioned Miss Hemmings by name. I was speaking of my most gifted students. Miss Hemmings is certainly one of them.”