Chapter Five

The Pride of Peacock Academy

Harvard College, April 28, 1865

Justice Thomas Nash stood behind the classroom lectern at the invitation of Francis Child, Harvard’s Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory. During the winter term, Professor Child’s sophomore class met every Friday at four o’clock for his vaunted course, Rhetoric: Themes—Readings in English Literature. Harvard did not yet have a professor of English, something that Child hoped to rectify by providing lectures on the relevance of literature to politics, society, and the law.

For this term’s guest lecture, Professor Child had asked his friend Justice Thomas Nash to speak to the second-year class. Small of stature but large of heart, Frank “Stubby” Child had graduated from Harvard a few years ahead of Thomas Nash, but the two men had long shared an interest in rhetoric—the art of effective writing and speech—as well as markedly humble origins. A proud sailmaker’s son, Professor Child particularly appreciated the democratic nature of oral speech. Everyone could understand a folk ballad—everyone loved a fireside tale.

For his lecture today, Justice Nash—the son of a poor widow—wanted to discuss rhetoric in the context of a much more surprising source: the novels of Jane Austen. No one was teaching Austen at Harvard; no one was writing academic dissertations on any of her works. Thomas Nash firmly believed that more men needed to read and study Austen, who so brilliantly used the rhetorical device of irony to satirize society and show up the natural weaknesses shared by everyone, regardless of class.

Nash surveyed the lecture hall full of boys—for there really was no other word for them, with their beardless faces and cheeks made ruddy by Boston’s coastal winds. Only once they were settled did Nash spot two young women huddled together in the middle row, their little hats askew as they flipped through a shared copy of Pride and Prejudice, tumbles of wavy hair and yellow and purple ribbons everywhere.

Charlotte and Henrietta Stevenson.

Nash looked down at his notes. His colleague William Stevenson had not warned about his daughters’ attendance today—perhaps he didn’t even know. That would be just like the two of them. The practice of allowing women to audit lectures at Harvard was a fairly recent phenomenon and at the sole discretion of the professor. Looking back up to see Chubby mischievously grinning from the side of the podium, Nash reluctantly began his lecture.

“Austen’s use of alliteration is particularly impressive. Such repetition of sounds is, in fact, one of the most effective of all rhetorical devices. You were asked to read chapter twenty of Pride and Prejudice in preparation for today.” With a lawyer’s sense of audience, Nash had tailored his talk on a lady author to the disinterested male youth before him. “Who can provide an example of how Austen uses alliteration in this scene to convey character and theme?”

Charlotte immediately threw up her hand, and Nash glanced over again at the grinning Professor Child. “I am afraid, Justice Nash, that our rules for auditing do permit participation.”

“Yes, Miss Stevenson?”

Charlotte stood up and began to recite. “‘Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?’” she quoted Mr. Darcy from the book. “‘To congratulate myself on relations whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?’”

Charlotte seemed to transform into Darcy before everyone’s eyes. Her erect carriage, her haughty expression, the deep, resonant tone to her voice: all became strangely masculine in an instant. Discomfited by the sudden display, Nash recalled William’s frequently voiced worry over his younger daughter’s interest in the stage.

“And how does Austen utilize the device of alliteration here to advance theme?” Nash felt almost desperate as he looked about the room.

The eldest Stevenson daughter slowly put her hand up next. The rest of the class remained silent, and Nash motioned for Henrietta to stand.

“That harsh c consonant repetitively used here acts two-fold. It sounds as angry as Darcy is, and it shows his lack of composure. His hurt pride has caused such ungentlemanly behavior in that moment—the very behavior that will further put Lizzy  off.” Henrietta paused as if for effect. “This illustrates the book’s theme of the follies and dangers of pride.”

“It is certainly no way to treat a lady,” one of the male students called out.

“It’s no way to treat anyone,” Charlotte fired back.

William had taught his girls well, thought Nash. Aloud, he said, “Very apt—yes, very apt indeed. Thank you, ladies, both.”

***

After each guest lecture, Professor Child held a small reception in his residence at Miss Upham’s rooming house. Despite the lady proprietress, however, female visitors were not allowed. Flushed with scholarly victory, Henrietta and Charlotte, the pride of Peacock Academy, gave dismissive waves of their hands at the news and left for Gore Hall instead. Only two decades earlier, Margaret Fuller had become the first woman allowed to use its library, said to be the largest academic and private one in the world.

The Stevenson sisters spent a pleasant hour separately wandering the stacks inside the Gothic , cathedral-like building—Henrietta drawn to anything classical or historical in nature, Charlotte always on the lookout for high drama. Charles Dickens, with his reams of eccentric characters as familiar as friends, was her great favorite. No one made Charlotte laugh out loud like Dickens did. She loved to entertain their father after supper by reading from the latest monthly serial of his work. They had recently started book three of Our Mutual Friend, which William Stevenson was importing from London. Charlotte enjoyed amusing her father by acting out all the characters, especially that Bella Wilfer, so lively and ambitious, so unafraid to ask.

With a new stack of novels under her arm, Charlotte searched in vain for Henrietta, always the last to leave any library, before heading out to Harvard Yard. Spying reporter Denham Scott on a nearby bench, Charlotte spun around in another direction and discovered Henrietta and Justice Nash in conversation up ahead. Nash gave a gentlemanly wave upon seeing Charlotte; she narrowed her eyes back at him.

“Professor Child’s little shindig is over?” asked Charlotte, still smarting from not being allowed at the reception due to her sex.

Nash put both his hands up as if in surrender. “I don’t make the rules.”

“Ha!” Charlotte laughed as she caught up to him and Henrietta. “I’d say that’s exactly what you judges do.” He smiled back, and there it was again—that little spark between them that lately flickered in his eyes and ran like a current along her skin. Charlotte wondered if Henrietta could tell—Henrietta, who could verbally counter any argument but was strangely obtuse about men. Charlotte suspected her older sister would require great and persistent pursuit when it came to the matter of love—or a knock on the head.

But Henrietta was not observing Charlotte and Nash’s interaction. Instead, she was watching with increasing consternation as Denham Scott crossed the grassy square in their direction.

“The Reynolds’s?” Nash repeated when Henrietta introduced the British reporter. “I’m afraid that’s not one of my subscriptions.”

“Father says the courthouse brings in a dozen different papers at least,” Charlotte piped up.

“There is never enough news for us.”

“Well, there is for me!” she protested. “Father reads aloud all the disasters at breakfast.”

“Followed by the inevitable proclamations for our safety,” Henrietta added.

“There is still much social unrest out here.” Denham gave her an intimating nod. “At least among the ladies.”

“Mr. Scott is not a friend of the suffragists,” Henrietta turned to Nash to explain. “He attends our lectures with a somewhat dubious eye.”

“I am no foe,” Denham corrected her. “Just endeavoring to understand you.”

“But you are happy with things as they are,” Henrietta replied.

“I’d say all happy people are.” He raised an eyebrow inquisitively at her. “You are not so happy then, I take it, for all your efforts at reform?”

To Charlotte’s amazement Henrietta failed to refute him—if anything, she looked caught out by the question. Was Harry happy? Charlotte wondered to herself. Ever since their president’s assassination, her sister’s reserve had only intensified. At least Charlotte had her dream of the stage to occupy her thoughts—poor Henrietta didn’t seem to have any dreams at all. She was simply there for her family, as reliable and stalwart as the many Greek sculpture replicas that watched over their house in the absence of the mother who had collected them.

“Where is your carriage?” asked Nash. Both sisters, grateful for the change in subject, nodded in the direction of Quincy Street. “Are you ladies dining at home tonight?”

“Are you angling for an invitation?”

“Justice Nash, pay Charlie no mind,” Henrietta, looking somewhat red-faced, apologized for her sister. “I’m sure Father would love for you to join us.”

“I do get a little spiky when hungry,” Charlotte had to admit.

“Talking about Jane Austen always works up one’s appetite,” Nash agreed. “I’d be honored.”

An awkward silence followed as everyone’s eyes went to Scott’s leather satchel, where a crumpled plain brown wrapper from the butcher poked out from the top.

“Should we—” Charlotte widened her own eyes inquiringly at Henrietta, who gave the slightest shake of her head in response. Scott watched them both with amusement until breaking the silence himself.

“No need to stand on ceremony with me—besides, my deadline awaits. Ladies, Justice Nash—enjoy your evening.”

***

Dinner at Eleven Beacon Street was at seven p.m. sharp every night and a carefully orchestrated affair, given William Stevenson’s dislike of meat, Charlotte’s hearty appetite, and Henrietta’s surprising weakness for sweets. For this evening’s meal, Mrs. Pearson had prepared parsnip soup, roast lamb, green salad with pickled beets, scalloped Irish potatoes, and stewed rhubarb for dessert.

Justice Thomas Nash looked quite at home whenever he visited. Having the previous year joined the state supreme court at the tender age of thirty-four, Nash had become a trusted friend and colleague of Justice Stevenson over the course of the past judicial term. Nash had been first to leap at William Stevenson’s suggestion of a discussion group dedicated to novels, while Stevenson had been first on the bench to welcome the young justice into his home.

This was an unusual invitation because the justices rarely socialized outside the courthouse. In fact, such congregation was frowned upon—something not difficult to heed, since one half of the court fundamentally opposed the politics of the other. Three of the seven men believed in treating the constitution like the Ten Commandments, set in stone—three men believed in its Darwinian evolution—and one of them changed his mind depending on the issue of the day.

After dinner, the party of four moved into the Stevenson front parlor. William and Nash sat amiably together by the fire, smoking their pipes with one hand, a cut-crystal glass of port in the other. Charlotte rested on the floor near her father’s feet, playing with the family spaniel, Coco; Henrietta silently worked by the light of a kerosene lamp on some half-finished needlepoint in her lap. The two men were discussing Nash’s plans for the summer, which included a trip to London.

“I’m hoping to see Mr. Dickens speak at St. James’s Hall.”

Charlotte widened her eyes again at Henrietta, who looked up from her work at Nash. “Which steamer, may I ask?”

“Cunard’s the China—a British ship recently built in Maine. It sails twice monthly to Portsmouth. I’m booked for July.”

The sisters exchanged another silent look. “How much is first class on the China?” Henrietta asked again.

Nash shrugged. “A hundred and thirty dollars or so.”

“Or so,” teased Charlotte.

“That’s three months’ wages for a schoolmaster.” Henrietta had on her maths face as her sister liked to call it. “Twice that for a schoolmarm.” She kept the books in the family with her logical, mathematical mind, which was how both sisters knew their father’s salary of four thousand dollars a year.

“That’s one reason why we don’t teach,” added Charlotte.

“Only one?” Nash put down his pipe and nodded at her with a smile. “Tell me the others.”

“We would be taking jobs away from hardworking women who need them.”

“It’s a matter of principle, then?”

Charlotte let him think this even though it was only partly the truth. The other part was that the idea of teaching—the only acceptable profession for women like Henrietta and Charlotte—bored each of them stiff.

Henrietta put her needlepoint to the side. “How many days will you be on the water?”

“Eleven each way—ten, if we’re lucky with the winds.”

“You’re lucky the full court is in recess until October,” William now spoke.

“Very lucky all around, I’d say,” added Charlotte.

“Charlotte, really!” her father exclaimed. “Your mood tonight!”

“It’s all right, William. I’m afraid Stubby’s reception earlier was men-only,” Nash explained.

“Ahh.” Justice Stevenson gave a smile of fatherly comprehension.

Meanwhile, Charlotte gave her sister a meaningful stare, then returned to stroking Coco as if there was not a thought in her head. Henrietta halfheartedly resumed the labor of her needlepoint, by candlelight such a strain on the eyes. All the while the men smoked and drank and talked, happily oblivious to any insurrection in their midst.