The Gilded Age, a Time Travel (12 page)

Li’l
Lucy busily rearranges five of the chairs around the table, scraping three
chairs into a corner of the room. Mariah lights the black candle, holds the
match to incense burners slung on brass chains mounted on the wall among the folds
of black velvet. The room is heavy with the scent of lavender oil and incense
and candlewax.

Yes!
Just the way Jessie likes it.

Next
Mariah sets out a crystal decanter filled with sherry and five heavy crystal
tumblers. She scowls with disapproval, her black eyes flickering. She turns
down the gaslamp, makes the sign of the Cross over her breast, and flees,
shutting the door behind her.

Madame
De Cassin generously pours out sherry in each of the tumblers. “To the sweet
spirits,” she solemnly toasts Jessie and seats herself, swirling her black cape
over her shoulder.

“Well,
now. Didn’t know they nipped a tick before the mumbo jumbo,” Mr. Heald mutters
to Mr. Watkins with a wink. “No wonder the wife goes in for it.”

“To
the sweet spirits,” says Mr. Watkins enthusiastically, tossing sherry down his
throat and reaching for the decanter.

Li’l
Lucy noisily slurps, burps, and giggles.

“To
the sweet spirits,” Jessie says passionately, ignoring the others’ disrespect.
They shall see! Madame De Cassin insists on the ritual imbibing of
spirits—spirits for the spirits, you see—which opens our mortal door to the
Summerland. The great spiritualist supplies this particular sherry to Jessie just
for this sacred purpose, and this purpose only. The sherry establishes a
certain sympathy with the madame’s spirit guide, Chief Silver Thorne, who
during his life on earth much favored the beverage. Jessie happily gulps the
smoky-tasting liquor, which warms her just as the medicinal benefit of Scotch
Oats Essence is beginning to fade. This particular sherry makes her head spin
unlike any other. “I want to speak with Rachael, Madame De Cassin.”

“Of
course you do,” the spiritualist says. She sets her tumbler down, staring severely
at the other sitters. Even Mr. Watkins gets the hint, reluctantly relinquishing
his tumbler. Madame De Cassin makes long, sweeping motions with her gloved
hands, clearing the magnetic energy over the table. Her handsome face goes
slack in the candlelight. Her eyelids flutter and her pupils roll up, showing
the whites beneath them.

“You
will all join hands,” she whispers.

Jessie
takes the spiritualist’s left hand and Mr. Watkins’s right hand. Her heart
begins to pound and her head whirls in the perfumed darkness.

Mr.
Heald sits next to the spiritualist on the right, Li’l Lucy blinks nervously
between the two gentlemen. They all join hands, and the circle is complete.

Madame
De Cassin wastes no time going into a trance. She begins to moan and sway,
keening louder and louder till she leans over the black candle and, with a
chilling screech, blows out the flame.

“Chief
Silver Thorne?” she calls out. “My dear friend in the Summerland, my noble
Cherokee chief, where are you-oo-oo?”

A
shudder rocks the spiritualist, and Jessie trembles with fear and excitement.
She grips the spiritualist’s gloved hand. Lordy, her hand is so firm from
equestrian activities! Jessie cannot see a thing in the darkness. A ghostly
caress tickles the back of her neck. “Sure and I feel the chief’s hand,” Jessie
whispers, dread rushing deliciously up her spine. Shapes blacker than the
darkness reel and totter before her blinded eyes.

From
the other side of the table, Mr. Heald makes little yelping noises.

Madame
De Cassin lets loose a bloodcurdling yell, and a horn blows softly just above
Jessie’s ear. Then a bizarre masculine voice spills out in the vicinity of the
spiritualist’s mouth. “I am here, Rebecca.” The voice has a strange accent
Jessie can’t quite place.

The
spiritualist’s cloak rustles as she sways and lurches. “Forgive me, Chief
Silver Thorne, but we have strangers with us today.”

“Yes,
I sense their presence,” Chief Silver Thorne answers irritably. “Two gentlemen
who do not support woman suffrage.”

Mr.
Heald sputters and says, “Well, I’ll be a fiddler’s bitch.”

Mr.
Watkins says, “I certainly do not. Women suffer enough. Ha, ha.”

Ghostly
caresses patter on the back of Jessie’s head. “Please, Chief Silver Thorne,”
she pleads. “Let us not discuss woman suffrage again. You know I don’t approve
of giving women the vote or a role in politics. It ain’t ladylike.”

“Yes,
my dear chief,” Madame De Cassin implores. “As always, Miss Malone wishes to speak
with her beloved Rachael.”

“Very
well, Miss Malone,” Chief Silver Thorne says. “I will see if I can find Rachael
in the Summerland if you will promise to treat Li’l Lucy with continuing
kindness. She has been ill, Miss Malone, has she not?”

Jessie
clucks her tongue. Chief Silver Thorne is forever going on about equality for
women, rights for Negroes and for the heathen Chinese, and showing kindness
toward the girls she’s got under contract. Why should a Cherokee chief who lived
two hundred years ago give two hoots about such things? Sure and she wishes
Madame De Cassin would find another spirit guide who ain’t so damn self-righteous.

“Has
she not been ill?” Chief Silver Thorne repeats.

“It’s
quite true, sir, I still ache,” Li’l Lucy whispers.

“Yes,
yes, she’s been ill,” Jessie says, vexed. Li’l Lucy fell ill because she failed
to follow Jessie’s instructions on how avoid getting in the family way. Serves
Jessie right, including the pathetic girl at a séance on her most magnetic day.

“You
will promise me, won’t you, Miss Malone?” Chief Silver Thorne persists.

“Oh,
fine and dandy. I promise.” She’s
still
sending Li’l Lucy back to the
Parisian Mansion. But perhaps the Morton Alley cribs can wait.

“Good.
Now, then. Rachael?” Chief Silver Thorne begins to call out in a cloudy voice
that seems to come from the ceiling. “Rachael?”

“Rachael?”
Madame De Cassin says briskly in-between the spirit guide’s masculine summonings.
“Rachael, answer us please.”

The
high, clear voice of a young girl emanates from the ceiling. “Jessie? Oh my
dear one, is that you, Jessie?”

Grief
spills through Jessie like it always does. The sharp, deep yearning for her
Rachael, for Lily Lake lost so long ago. Jessie grips the hands of Mr. Watkins
and the spiritualist even tighter as tears, real tears, spill down her face.
“Rachael? My beloved Rachael?”

“I’m
here, Jessie.”

“Are
you all right?”

“Of
course, I am, Jessie. What about you? How are you, my darlin’?”

“I’m
fine, Rachael.”

“Have
you gone to see a doctor about that pain in your liver we talked about last
time?”

“No.
I. . . .I’ve been busy. You know how it is.”

“You
really must go, Jessie. You must see a doctor. I feel something is wrong.”

“Pah,
never mind about me. Rachael, I saw a lady today. She was attacked by them
hatchet men in the park. I can’t get her out of my mind! Can you tell me if
she’s all right?”

Rachael
hesitates, and Madame De Cassin says in her own voice, “Rachael has been
picnicking in the Summerland today, Jessie. She’s enjoying her own Fourth of
July, and she may not know—“

Now Rachael’s
voice interjects, “Someone else has come. Someone else is here with me. Someone
who has crossed over in recent days. A lady. A pale, pretty lady with such a
sad face. And such deep sea eyes, swimming with tears, always swimming with
tears.”

Mr.
Watkins inhales sharply as if someone has punched him in the gut. He whispers,
“By God, is that you, Mama?”

“Yes,
she is your mama,” Rachael whispers. “Mama is telling me something. Mama says,
‘Beware, my son. Beware, you are in danger.’”

“Yes,
it’s true! A dip pinched my boodle book on the ferry from Oakland.”

“’No,
the pickpocket is not the danger she means,’” Rachael whispers. “Mama says. . .
.”

Suddenly
a freezing wind whips through the sitting room, and an eerie sound whistles.
Jessie’s teeth begin to chatter, a sour taste pools on her tongue. The stench of
rotgut wafts over the table, and a snippet of honky-tonk music blares in her
ear. The darkness turns blindingly white, stark white for an eye blink, then
flips into darkness again.

“Jar
me, what is it?’ Jessie cries and turns toward Madame De Cassin. “What’s
happening?”

The
spiritualist snatches her hand away, leaps to her feet. Jessie hears something
heavy clatter on the floor. Madame De Cassin stoops, whirls, and sprints across
the room. Light blooms as she stands at the gaslamp, turning up the flame. Her
face is drained pale, her brown eyes wide. Jessie has never seen the
spiritualist look frightened before.

“Is
it really true? Mama was here?” Mr. Watkins says, looking around. “Mama?”

Li’l
Lucy’s teeth chatter. Mr. Heald looks pinched.

“My
mother passed away a month ago,” Mr. Watkins says. “And that strange presence,
did you feel it? On the Overland, I felt a strange presence, too. A strange
presence, I tell you, and a vision that changed the whole world just for a
moment. She said, ‘Beware, my son.’” He seizes Jessie’s arm. “What does she
mean?”

“Sure
and what does it mean?” Jessie demands, turning to Madame De Cassin.

“Let’s
go downstairs,” the spiritualist says. “All of you, come on.” She herds them
out of the sitting room. The others go as Jessie turns off the gaslamp, crushes
the smoking piles of incense in their burners, plunks a silver snuffer over the
smoking candle. The spiritualist takes Jessie by the arm and resolutely closes
the door to the sitting room behind them. “Let no one in there. Do not go in
yourself.”

“What
was it?” Jessie whispers as they climb down the stairs. “You must tell me,
Madame De Cassin.”

“My
dear Miss Malone,” Madame De Cassin says, “strange times are a-coming.”

*  
*   *

Madame
De Cassin assures Jessie that evil spirits, or whatever the strange presence
was, departed from the sitting room when she turned up the gaslight. But the
unflappable spiritualist looks unsettled herself. Jessie pays her the usual
fee, picking out a few gold coins from those Mr. Heald paid her, and begs her
to return and ensure that the sitting room hasn’t become haunted. The
spiritualist readily agrees, consulting her little black leather appointment
book, and schedules another visit.

“Madame
De Cassin, you must advise me what to do.” Mr. Watkins confronts her as the
spiritualist pins on her riding hat.

“Beware,”
she says. “Beware of others. Beware mostly of yourself, sir.” With that, she
stomps out the door.

Mr.
Heald hurries out the door, too, without another word about going upstairs.
Sure and it’s just as well. Jessie is hardly in the mood for the biz. But an
anxiety grates at her. Truth be told, she must admit that Mr. Heald is a nice
old sport, a dear friend after all, and always flush. Those diamonds swinging
from her earlobes? They were paid for by all the Mr. Healds. Mr. Heald is no
worse than most and better than some. She must remember to invite him to the
musicale on Sunday night at the Parisian Mansion and stand him a bottle of
champagne. She cannot afford to lose the patronage and goodwill of Mr. Heald.

A
séance usually refreshes her. Not this time. She’s only glad that her Rachael
is doing well in the Summerland after life cheated her so cruelly. That
bittersweet thought instantly hardens her heart as she finds Li’l Lucy
lingering in the foyer with Mr. Watkins.

“Pack
your things,” she orders the girl. “Off to Sutter Street with you.”

“But
Miss Malone,” Li’l Lucy says, “I still ache, and Chief Silver Thorne said. . .
.”

“Never
mind Chief Silver Thorne. Be quick about it.” There, you see? Never mix
employees in personal affairs. Oh, give them an inch! The biz is the biz. “And
clean the place up proper, Li’l Lucy. I’m letting out those rooms today.” She smiles
at the young gentleman, who is definitely looking quite the worse for wear.
“Mr. Watkins, we should talk. Will you come up to my parlor? Would you care for
some champagne? I’m as thirsty as a camelopard myself.”

“Gladly.
I’m dry as a bone, Miss Malone. But I do believe you mean a camel. Nasty beasts
that run about the desert and spit and bite and smell something dreadful. A
camelopard, on the other hand, is a lovely creature with an extraordinarily
long neck that lives on the African savannah far south of the desert and
nibbles charmingly on jungle foliage.”

“Ah,
a scholar, then.”

“And
a gentleman.” He shows off his sparkling white teeth. “Please excuse my poor
manners. I just got off the train from Saint Louis, and I’m beat.”

Bang,
bang, bang!
Firecrackers pop in the street. “I’ll show
you, ya lout!” Two bruisers commence a brawl in front of her door, fists
swinging, their pals cheering them on. “Heeey, biff ‘im one, Johnny!” “I’ll
smash yer ugly mug!”