The Spirit Room (14 page)

“
No. No.” She covered the front of her neck with a hand. “Something scratchy, perhaps that vinegar odor, or the cigars back there.”

“
Forgive me. I have embarrassed you. When I am here I am so involved that I forget ordinary polite standards.”

He had alluded to menses in such a casual manner. She remembered those advertisements in the newspaper. Doctor P.H. Ricord’s Amie de Femme, the medicine that claimed to cure everything female as well as bring forth abortions. Perhaps that was it. He wanted to experiment on her and it was something to do with menses.

Her eyes watered as she fought off another coughing fit. She should leave now, make an excuse and go. He was up to something. There had to be some reason this man, this physician, wanted a young, poor woman under his wing. But she didn’t really want to go. She wanted to know what he wanted with her. No, she wouldn’t leave, not unless she sensed injury or malice.

“
Are you all right, Isabelle? I do apologize.”

“
I’m fine. Perhaps you will tell me more sometime about the women and the water-cure.”

He had called her Isabelle, not Miss Benton.

“
You’re curious about things, aren’t you?” he asked.

“
Always.” She glanced down the hall, then at his face. “I prefer Izzie.”

“
Isabelle is a beautiful name, though.” His mouth curved into the slightest of smiles.

“
But Izzie suits me better, I think.”

“
Well, then, Izzie, you’ve never been to a seminary? A school of any kind?”

“
No, but I’ve read every book I could ever get anyone to lend me. I had a friend back in Ohio whose family had a great many books. She taught me to read when I was only four, then over the years, I read everything in her house.”

Leaning back, Mac laughed. “I knew you were a reader, but indeed, you are an entirely self-educated woman. I thought as much.”

A woman. Mac referred to her as a woman. Even though she was old enough to be married, she still thought of herself as a girl. Women had husbands and children and they weren’t forced by a father to learn how to be mediums and trick people out of their money.

“
I suppose I am self-educated. I never thought of it that way. I just enjoy reading, that’s all.”

“
Well, that’s how it happens.” He half-smiled. “What precisely are some of these books you’ve read?”

“
Novels, Stowe, Bronte, Fern, Dickens, Warner, Flaubert, Austen. A little poetry.” While she spoke, he kept nodding his head, hooking his index finger over his chin and hiding his purple scar. “And history and biographies. Let’s see. I enjoyed Frederick Douglass’s narrative of his life that you mentioned last week, and some political things, and some science.”

Mac’s smile fell and his eyes widened. “Science too?”

“
Not really too much of that. I read a book about meteorology by someone named Wilkes.”

“
Did you understand it?”

“
Not all of it. I had no one to ask questions of.”

“
Why didn’t your father send you to school?”

“
I don’t think he wanted his daughter to know more than he did. I could know what he was willing to teach me, but no more. The romantic novels infuriated him. He said they would ruin me, make me want things I couldn’t have.” She felt an ache behind her eyes and looked away from him. Maybe Papa was right. There was so much she wanted.

“
He told me women with too much knowledge would disrupt the proper balance of nature. Once he tore one of my friend’s books from my hands,
Jane Eyre
. He ripped it from me with the most hateful look on his face, then threw it into the wood stove and watched it burn. After that, I tried not to read when he was nearby.”

“
What about your mother? Did she mind?”

“
She thought the Bible was the only book worth reading, but she watched him burn
Jane Eyre
. The next morning after he had gone out, she gave me a dollar to buy a new copy of the book and return it to my friend. She said, ‘Don’t fuss about Papa.’ I have no idea how she had saved that dollar.”

“
Hmm.” Mac began to walk again, drawing her along gently by the elbow. When they arrived at the end of the hall, he opened a door as big as one in a stable. She expected to see the outdoors, but instead there was another hallway.

“
This is the addition with the bathing rooms. There are four large rooms, each for different water-cure treatments.” He pointed at one of them. “Come along, here’s one not in use.”

When they reached the bathing room, they stood together a moment in the entry and Mac waited while she looked in. The windowless room was a tall pine and white tile box smelling of fresh cut wood. It was empty except for a bar at waist level running straight across, three burning gaslights on one of the walls, and a huge water tank high above them braced by heavy wood crossbeams. The floor was white tile with a drain in the middle to carry water away.

Mac was grinning ear to ear. “This is what is called the douche bath. It uses the force of gravity. Let me show you.”

He strode across the wet floor and over to a cord that ran from a spigot on the tank to a hook on the opposite wall. He untied it and gave it a strong tug. In a huge burst, water flowed in a two-inch stream from twenty feet above. It crackled, pounded, splattered and swirled off into the floor drain.

“
The patient stands naked under the stream of cold water and braces himself on the bar.”

Izzie could scarcely hear him over the smacking of water on tile.

“
It must hurt!”

“
It does hurt, but the impact is necessary to eliminate the body’s morbid matter!”

She cringed as she imagined being pummeled by the water.

Mac looked up at the stream. “We usually only use this treatment at the end of a series of sweats, and hot and cold baths. Every step is designed to rid the body of impurities.”

Mac walked across the wet floor toward Izzie and untied another cord. He pulled it slowly and the spigot above closed, reducing the stream to a trickle, then a few drops. The room became quiet again.

“
What do you think of it?” He looked at her eagerly.

Did he want her to try it?

“
I think I’d rather keep my impurities and get my peace and quiet on a canoe ride.”

Running a hand through his wavy hair, Mac laughed. “You shouldn’t judge something until you’ve tried it for yourself.”

“
Some things one doesn’t have to try…and some things one isn’t permitted to try, come to think of it.” She chuckled at her own joke and Mac laughed with her, but she couldn’t wait any longer. Now she was sure. He definitely wanted to experiment on her.

“
Mac, why did you want me to see the Hygienic Institute? Do you want me to be part of an experiment somehow?”

Like a doused candle, Mac’s smile disappeared abruptly. He took a step closer to her.

“
No, Izzie, but you’re right, I do want something.”

“
What is it, then?”

“
I want.” He paused, glanced aside, then down, then directly at her. The skin just under his eyes twitched slightly.

What on earth was it? She locked her jaw down.

“
I want you to be my wife.”

“
Your wife?” Izzie stumbled back, nearly tripping on the hem of her dress.

“
Yes.” He pressed forward, toward her. “That moment when I saw you in the bookstore, and you were well and yourself again, I knew I wanted to marry you.”

“
I don’t understand. You can’t mean what you are saying.”

“
I saw something in you I had been waiting years to see in a young woman.”

Izzie laughed nervously. She held her gut, feeling her face flush hot. What an idiot she had been, thinking he was going to lay magnets across her abdomen or pummel her with a jet of water. He wanted to marry her. Marry her.

She kept laughing. It was like one of those silly jokes very late at night when she was tired in bed with her sisters. One would start a giggle and they all would go on and on and not be able to stop. Then she realized that even though Mac was smiling, he wasn’t laughing with her.

“
Do you think I am ridiculous to tell you so soon in our friendship?”

“
I’m not sure. I thought you were going to perform strange experiments on me.” She wiped her temples, moist with tears of laughter. “I am relieved.”

“
I’m sure I could try something out on you, if you wanted me to.”

“
No. No.” Finally she took a deep breath, straightened up, and exhaled slowly.

Mac was standing very still, very close to her. No man had ever stood so near to her, his feet almost touching the hem of her skirt.

He steadied his earth brown eyes on her. “Will you marry me, Izzie?”

She sighed. She had no idea what to say. She looked away from him to the glistening wet floor, then into his eyes to see if he was truly sincere. He wasn’t even blinking, not even breathing. Not a muscle on his face, or in his entire body, flinched or shifted. He was entirely serious.

“
I would like some time to think about it, Mac.” She stepped back. “You haven’t spoken to my father, have you?”

“
No. I have to admit, I didn’t expect to propose to you today. My heart was racing so fast that I couldn’t slow myself down.”

Racing so fast. Had his heart really been racing with the idea of her? She felt a smile rush onto her face. Oh, but there was Papa—Papa who hated physicians, Papa who couldn’t earn a living wage without the Benton Sisters.

“
Is a week enough for your consideration?” he asked.

“
I hardly know you. I need longer. I don’t even know your given name.”

“
Robert, and we can see each other, and get to know one another, as much as you like, at least until I go.”

“
Go?”

I’m afraid I don’t have much time to court you and take things in a proper stride. I’m leaving soon to build my own Water-Cure Institute in Rochester. I want you to come with me. Come as my wife.”

Rochester was a bustling city, much bigger than Geneva. The thought of it excited her. But could she leave the children with Papa? Could Clara handle being a medium alone? If she said no to Mac and he left, things would be simple, at least, and she could keep an eye on Papa and the children. If she said yes, she would go on to a whole new city life and be free of being a humbug medium. No more humbug.

“
When will you leave?”

“
A month or two.”

“
Well, I will see you until then, and if my father agrees, and that is a great uncertainty, I will give you my answer before you depart.”

He beamed at her, his hands restless at his sides. It seemed he would reach for hers, but he didn’t move.

“
Mac, are you sure you didn’t plan to propose to me here?” She glanced up at the tank.

He laughed loudly, the sound echoing off the bare walls.

“
No, I promise you I didn’t.” He leaned toward her and offered her his arm. “May I walk you home?”

They left the Geneva Hygienic Institute and walked in the dusk toward Mrs. Purcell’s boardinghouse. The wind had not settled down. She held the strings of her bonnet and he held the rim of his stovepipe hat the entire way. As they walked, he told her about his plans for his own Water-Cure Institute. Rochester was about fifty miles west, far enough that, if she went with him, she’d have a completely new life. His proposal in the douche room was strange, but she would consider it. There was something about this tall water-cure physician; something she wanted.

Thirteen

“IT’S LIKE ICE.” Squatting at the
water’s edge, Clara yanked her fingers from the lake water and shook them. Along Seneca Lake’s shore, trees were budding with hundreds of shades of spring green. Even if she tried, she could never count all those shades. Izzie wandered away from her along the water’s edge.

The warm sun soaked into Clara’s shoulders through her dress and shawl. She bent over and picked up one, two, three, four, five small gray stones and crammed them into her dress pocket. Then she walked along the mud and pebbles in Izzie’s direction.

Not far out on the sparkling water, six fishermen in rowboats waited silently for something to happen. The middle of the day in the bright sunshine was the wrong time to catch fish, even stupid fish. Clara knew that. Even she, a thirteen year-old girl, knew that.