The Spirit Room (23 page)

And this evening at home was sweet summer cherries. The July light was orange and soft like a robin’s belly and it seemed it would linger all night.

Reading out loud in Mrs. Purcell’s front parlor window seat with Euphora, Clara couldn’t remember being so happy with a book. It was
Gulliver’s Travels
from Mrs. Purcell’s library. Since Izzie had left, Clara had taken on being chief reader for Euphora.

In her parlor chair, Mrs. Purcell was concentrating hard on what she called her favorite embroidery of all time—a scene of a cottage by a brook with a little bridge over it. One of her lady friends who helped with making dresses for the freed slaves had loaned her a book with complicated designs in it.

“
We’re starting to lose our light,” Mrs. Purcell said.

“
A man is coming up the path.” Euphora flitted from the window seat to the front door.

Clara looked up from the book and out. The man was broad in the shoulders and tall. He wore a flat summer straw hat and a light-colored summer coat. A cigar jutting from his teeth puffed out so much smoke, he looked like a steamboat trying to break a speed record.

Carefully setting her embroidery and colored threads on the chair as she stood, Mrs. Purcell walked to the front door, which Euphora had already opened. Eager to see the smoke-puffing, broad man up close, Clara joined them.

“
Evening, Sheriff Swift.”

Sheriff? He wasn’t wearing guns, a silver star, or any kind of uniform. He took the cigar out of his mouth and held it down at his side. His eyes were blue, his face wide, big-boned like a cow’s.

“
Evening, Mrs. Purcell. Would Mr. Benton be at home?”

Clara swallowed. Why was the sheriff looking for Papa? Oh,
Lawky Lawks
, don’t let Papa be in trouble again. Mrs. Purcell looked down at Euphora, one brow raised as if to ask whether Papa was up in his bedchamber. Euphora shook her head in a jittery “no”, tousling her red hair, and Clara shook her head too.

The sheriff held his cigar up and studied it a moment. It smelled rank, like a heap of old garbage burning slowly in someone’s back yard. Why did men go to all the trouble to wash and comb and shave and then get themselves stinking with stinkpot cigar smoke?

“
I’ll be needing to talk with him. Tell him I’ll come ‘round again tomorrow.”

“
It’s not urgent, then?”

He started to bring the cigar up to his cow face again. His lips parted a little like he was about to draw on it, but then he let it fall back to his side.

“
Not yet.”

“
Then I’ll tell him you’ll come by again. Would you like some herbs, sheriff? My garden is bursting. Lavender, primrose, or some sage for the headaches? Your wife might like some.” Mrs. Purcell smiled at him.

She was someone’s perfect grandmother. The sheriff’s big-boned cow face looked confused. Was he supposed to come into the barn or stay out in the pasture, Clara wondered. And what the
jo-fire
did he mean “not yet”.

Finally, he said, “No, thank you, Mrs. Purcell.”

Clara suddenly felt her feet grow cold and heavy. When the sheriff in Homer started coming around asking for Papa just over a year ago, everything started to go into a long, dark rabbit hole. Papa was headed for hot water again. He was up to something with Sam Weston that the cow-faced sheriff was looking into.
Tarnation. A hundred times tarnation.

After the sheriff said good evening and left, Mrs. Purcell and Euphora returned to the front parlor, but Clara stayed in the foyer by the open door watching him walk away. She couldn’t move. Her feet were like two anchors deep in ice-cold water. Even after the sheriff had long since disappeared down the street, the smell of his cigar remained in the warm summer air. Two blackbirds in the border garden fussed and hopped about collecting something they just had to have before nightfall.

“
Come on, Clara, let’s read,” Euphora said.

“
Close the door, dear. You’ll let in the mosquitoes,” Mrs. Purcell said.

<><><>

THE NEXT MORNING, the sheriff came right after breakfast and after Billy had gone to work at Maxwell’s Nursery. Papa talked to old Cow Face privately in Mrs. Purcell’s library, doors closed. They weren’t in there more than two minutes when Clara, who was perching on Mrs. Purcell’s footstool in the parlor, smelled the stinkpot cigar smoke. The Carter spinsters were nearby sitting on the window seat, the sunlight streaming onto their almost matching white-haired heads.

Whispering and leaning shoulder to shoulder, they were trying to hear whatever conversation drifted from the library. Clara was trying too, but there wasn’t anything to hear. The longer that library door was closed, the more Clara chewed on the inside of her mouth until she made it sore. After a while, the cigar smell gave her the notion that she might vomit.

Out of the kitchen came Mrs. Purcell wiping her hands on her apron. Like a little echo of Mrs. Purcell, Euphora followed on her heel, wiping her hands on her own apron. They’d grown to be a real pair. Big E for Emma and little E for Euphora.

“
Why don’t you take Euphora with you to the Spirit Room this morning, Clara? I’ve got wonderful left-overs for supper so I won’t need Euphora’s help in the kitchen today.” She placed a hand on Euphora’s shoulder and walked her to the front door. Mrs. Purcell asked it like a question, but when Mrs. Purcell marched around like that, she didn’t really mean it to be a question. “Go on now, girls. Have a nice day. Will you look at that blue sky?”

<><><>

THAT AFTERNOON, Papa came by the Spirit Room and found that Clara and Euphora had drawn hopscotch lines on the floor with chalk and were tossing old coat buttons into the squares.

“
Git home with Mrs. Purcell.” He grabbed Euphora’s arm.

He jigged and jagged Euphora like he was a wild dog trying to break a squirrel’s neck. Her sweet little freckled face drained to ashen. The second he released her, she burst into tears and ran out.

“
You’ve been up here all day doin’ nothin’. You should have had two or three ladies’ circles by now. You’re doing somethin’ to keep them away.” He scuffed at the hopscotch game with his boot, smudging and ruining it. “Clean up this dang mess.”

“
Papa, there’s no one to keep away. No one even asks about what we do anymore.”

“
You think you’re a little angel in that white dress? Well, you ain’t. You’re makin’ them stay away so you won’t have to do anythin’ but sit around and play games.” Spit sprayed from his mouth. “How is this family supposed to get by? Huh? Answer me that.” He jammed his spectacles back against the bridge of his nose, then strode toward her. Looming over her, whisky on his breath but hands steady on his hips, he didn’t seem completely drunk, just half-shot.

“
Papa. I’m doing my best. I’m doing everything you taught me. Honest.” She felt her heart crumple like a piece of paper in a fist.

“
If this is your best, you’re worthless, worthless.” He glanced around the room. “Not even that. Less than worthless. We’re payin’ the rent on this Spirit Room and gettin’ nothin’ back.”

“
I’m sorry, Papa.” Tears bursting, Clara looked down at his dusty boots, then covered her eyes.

“
Snivelin’ ain’t goin’ ta help. If you don’t git some customers by next week, we’ll let the room go and you can sew your fingers off or clean some rich house on your knees all day. You ain’t goin’ ta sit around playin’ girls’ games, I’ll tell you that.”

Clara sobbed. “I don’t know what to do, Papa.”

He walked to the open door and turned back toward her a moment.

“
You better figure it out.”

After he disappeared, she stretched out on the floor and cried for a long while. “Worthless.” He called her worthless. How the blazes was she supposed to figure anything out about anything? She couldn’t get the customers back. They weren’t interested in her antics anymore. Isaac Camp saw to that and besides, her spark was gone. It wasn’t the same without Izzie.

<><><>

THE NEXT MORNING, dressed in her white séance dress, Clara went to the Spirit Room as always, and as always, no one came by. She stood, leaning into the sunny window and looked down at the wooden sidewalk near the street door to their stairs. Perspiring slightly in the heat of the sun, she started to nibble on her thumbnail and soon had eaten it down until her thumb bled at the fingertip. Then she went on to her little finger until that nail was so short that the tender pink skin was showing. How could she get people to come back to her séances? If only she could just get the chance to dazzle again, she could make Papa see she was still his angel.

In their light summer clothes, cottons, linens, and calicos, people ducked in and out of shops. Now and then women, lucky women, went into Mrs. Beattie’s downstairs and came out with hatboxes, packed, Clara imagined, with the new summer bonnets that had been on display in the window. Cooks and maids came out of the baker’s across the street with packages wrapped in paper and string. Next to the baker’s, the Dayton & Smith produce market had their full summer fare out on the sidewalk—flat wood crates perched on top of barrels, full of splendiferous things; strawberries, blueberries, peaches, melons, carrots, squash, onions and cucumbers. There were plenty of people about spending money and making money.

How could she get them up to the Spirit Room? She bit down on the nail of her middle finger and tore it straight across. It stung. What the
jo-fire
was she doing to herself? In her entire life, she’d never bitten her nails. Papa’s face—red, angry and pinched—popped into her mind.

How was she going to get any of those people down there to come upstairs to a spirit circle? She was empty of ideas, her mind a bucket of water dumped on the ground. But something had better come to her and soon or she’d be sewing stacks of shirts or burning her hands in some fancy person’s hot laundry water. She just had to win back those spirit seekers, spark or no spark.

Later, when she arrived home, everyone was there except Billy. Mrs. Purcell and Euphora were setting out bowls of fish chowder at each place and passing round a basket of brown bread.

“
Does anyone know if Billy is coming for supper?” Mrs. Purcell asked.

Clara shrugged. No one else seemed to know, either. Glancing at Papa out of the corner of her eye, Clara pulled out her chair and sat next to him. He hadn’t shaved for a few days. His chin was turning brown with whiskers. Was he growing his beard the way he had after Mamma died? She hoped not. It reminded her of how sad he was then. The front door clicked open and Billy shuffled in. He came around behind her and slid into his chair.

Mary-mole Carter screeched like a baby hawk and covered her mouth with her napkin. Jane’s eyes got wide and alarmed.

Clara turned to see what the fuss was. Her stomach flopped. Billy’s face was swollen red from his left brow all the way to his chin and his eye was half-shut, bulging and circled by black, blue, and purple. Since his hair was hanging down over his forehead, she wasn’t sure he was mangled above the eye or not.

“
Bless my soul. What happened?” Mary Carter said.

Billy lowered his head. “I had an accident at the tree nursery last night.” He cleared his throat. “We were unloading some heavy timber fence posts off a wagon. I was on the ground and two boys in the wagon were handing the posts down to me.” He raised both hands near his shoulder to demonstrate. “I lost control of one and it flew right into my face.”

He was lying, she thought. Lying like a snake.

“
Billy, why didn’t you come to me for an ointment or poultice?” Mrs. Purcell lightly thumped the table with her palm. She stared at Papa with a worried look.

“
I didn’t want to bother anyone. It was late.” Billy fixated on his bowl of chowder.

Papa glared back at Mrs. Purcell. “Be more careful next time, son.”

“
I’ll make up an ointment with white lily, wormwood, sarsaparilla. Come home right away after work today and we’ll apply it. No dawdling.”

“
Yes, ma’am.”

Billy’s puffy, raw face looked thunder awful. It had to hurt like the devil. What was he lying about? Her flopping stomach suddenly died flat. It was probably Papa that hit him.

“
I’ll bet you were in a fight,” Euphora said as she took a piece of brown bread from the basket.

“
I wasn’t in any fight. It was a timber post.” He snatched the basket away from her.

Mary and Jane Carter proceeded to tell stories of accidents they’d known about over the years in Geneva—fires, sunken canal boats, barn-raising mishaps. There was the servant girl who jumped from the third floor of the Geneva Hygienic Institute a couple of years back during a fire. Everyone thought she was saved at first, but she died later because her fractures never healed properly. Then there was the time their neighbor was knocked senseless when he was thrown from a Lewis & Colvin Stage Coach as it tipped over on a turn, but he revived. Seven times exactly throughout her stories, Jane said, “The world is a dangerous place. One has to be careful.”