The Spirit Room (28 page)

“
Papa, I want to stop Mr. Weston’s courting arrangement. I don’t like it.”

“
He hurt you?” Papa’s voice climbed fast like he was about to rile.

“
No, he didn’t hit me or break anything, but he made me do something I didn’t want to do and that hurt me. In a way, it did.”

Papa’s eyes bulged. He looked like he might explode. “He kiss you?”

“
No.”

“
Make you embrace him?”

“
No.”

“
Make you take any clothing off?”

“
No.”

That seemed to calm him. He turned his eyes down toward the candle lantern and stared at it a while. He swayed a little. He had been drinking some, maybe with Weston.

“
I said if you were hurt, you could stop.”

Was all the hurt Papa knew being clobbered or knocked down or getting a bone broken? Weren’t there other kinds of hurt, like Mamma dying? He should know that kind of pain.

“
What’s hurt, Papa? What about being a prisoner to someone?”

“
You’re no one’s prisoner. If anything, it’s the other way. He’s yours.” He snickered quietly, stroked his dundrearies. “Think of it. In one day, for less than one hour, you got yourself a new dress from him, five dollars for the family, and some purty gloves from me. Now, what prisoner has all that?” Placing his hands on her shoulders, he smiled at her and looked straight into her eyes. “You are my Little Sweet Plum. I am prouder of you than any of my children. You did somethin’ hard, somethin’ brave and you’re helpin’ the family.”

Brave, proud. She took another deep breath. He was right about the five dollars. It was a lot of money. With that kind of money, the family would be clothed, housed, fed, and maybe more. And maybe Papa would slow down his liquor again, like he did before, and lay off Billy too, and then Billy would stay home and not run off with his friends to join up with that rebel John Brown down in Kansas or wherever he was.

“
Put the other mitt on.”

She raised her bare hand, the one holding the other glove, and looked down at it. She had crumpled the lace glove up in her hand and hadn’t realized that she was squeezing it so hard her fingers were cramped.

“
I want something too, Papa,” she said as she put the other glove on. “If I do keep up with Sam Weston, I want you to never hit Billy.”

He chuckled. “A father has to discipline his boy, Clara. That’s how it is.”

“
You know what I mean. You go far past discipline. You have to stop that or I won’t go on with Sam. It’s only fair.”

“
I’m the Papa here. I say what’s fair.” He studied her a moment. “But I want you to be happy, my little one. I’ll do as you ask.”

She sighed and clasped her gloved hands together.

“
There’s somethin’ else, Little Plum. This arrangement between you and me and Weston has got to be a secret, the biggest, most fierce, kind of secret. You can’t ever tell a soul about it, even your sisters. They wouldn’t understand. It’s private. It ain’t anyone else’s business anyway.” He kissed the top of her head, then looked into her eyes again, candlelight glinting off his spectacles. “It’s just between us.”

The truth of it was that she didn’t want to tell anyone. People, especially her sisters, might think something awful about her.

“
All right, Papa.”

Twenty-Two

AFTER THREE MONTHS IN THE NEW HOME with Mac, Izzie’s furnishings were still very modest and their only pots, pans, and dishes were the ones purchased on their honeymoon day. Izzie had thought there’d be more by now—a desk, a wool rug perhaps—but Mac had his priorities and nearly every penny was going into building his Upper Falls Water-Cure Institute. Even so, he bought her a book every week and he had scraped together the money to buy her a small cherry side table, an oil lamp, and a rocking chair for the parlor. “This will be your first reading chair. It’s a perfect design from the Shakers,” he’d said.

Izzie had visited across the street at the Mead’s home a few times. Their parlor and dining room were full to the ceilings with things she’d never seen before: a side cabinet with flowers painted on the drawers and doors, a lacquered corner cupboard, a walnut card table with ornately carved legs, a mahogany wine cooler, and there wasn’t just one desk, but several.

Although the pieces were lovely and Mrs. Mead called them by specific names that sounded English or German, Izzie was still happy to write her letters to Clara at their simple pine table, the dining table she shared with Mac. Her walls were entirely bare, without wallpaper or paintings, but they were freshly painted white. There wasn’t a scrap of clutter.

She’d been sewing all day and it felt good to stop a moment and lean back into the rocker. Her fingers ached from jamming the needle in and out of the calico trousers. Mac wanted two dozen American Costumes for women patients when his institute opened in the coming spring—different sizes, different materials. He’d told her that all the best water-cure establishments offered women the reform dress with short skirts, straight trousers, and a comfortable bodice to wear during treatment. He’d said, “Women should not be constricted where they shouldn’t be constricted, especially the lungs and uterus. The weight of those senseless long dresses with their useless underskirts and hoops, and those preposterous corsets pressure vital organs. All that clothing ruins circulation and makes women ill. I’ve seen terrible things, terrible.”

Izzie had been amazed. Even though she had spent nearly as much time as Clara looking at the
Godey’s Lady’s Book
and
Peterson’s Magazine
at Mrs. Beattie’s millinery shop and longing for the very garments that Mac was railing against, once he explained what dress reformers wanted to do—free the body to breathe and move in a natural state—it made utter sense. Mac told her that hydrotherapists, both men and women, were leading a movement to transform the way women dressed for improved health. That meant he wanted to go along with it and it meant she would too. “We’ll join the National Dress Reform Association and go to the conventions. All the important reformers do,” he’d said.

So now it seemed that not only were they to become reformers, but
important
reformers as well. Mac’s ambition was swelling by the day. She’d never met anyone like him. He was electrifying and more interesting than she could ever have imagined when she met him back in Geneva. She was finishing her third American Costume, a smallish one. She didn’t mind doing the seamstress work. It was one way she could aid Mac in getting his Upper Falls Water-Cure ready.

Digging the needle into the blue trousers one more time, she slackened her pace in the rocker. Having a rocking chair of her own reminded her of Mamma, even though her own chair was taller, narrower, and a lighter color wood than Mamma’s. Sometimes, when she rocked gently, the rhythmic sound of wood on wood brought back a vivid memory of Mamma, holding her Bible, whispering to herself. Sometimes the whispers were the words on the page she was reading, and sometimes they were a conversation she was having with herself or her spirit voices.

Now Mamma’s chair was Clara’s. Izzie sighed. Poor little Clara, she thought, still stuck with Papa fabricating spirits for the innocent.

Letting the blue trousers fall into her lap, Izzie looked out the windows at the green lushness of summer. She was free of Papa’s shenanigans, free of worrying that she might hear voices like Mamma did. Those few times she heard something mysterious had only come from her own fears, she had decided. The combination of fear and imagination was a potent mix. That’s all it was.

Having a fever while pretending the spirits were at their séances made her conjure up things the way a child would, a child who concentrated on her own midnight terror so deeply that she saw real goblins, full-sized and horrifying, at the foot of her bed or on the ceiling. Izzie stood and took the American Costume into the dining room and set it on the table. Thank goodness that hoax spirit nonsense was over for her. Maybe Clara would be free of it soon as well. Papa was going to have to come up with something new eventually and hopefully it wouldn’t be as awful as the Spiritualism idea. Summer was coming to an end. Perhaps she would take a coach or train down to Geneva and visit the children.

Izzie walked back into the parlor to the bookcase opposite the fireplace. She had her own shelf, the bottom one, below Mac’s five shelves of medical books and stacks of journals. His biggest pile was the
Water-Cure Journal
, issues going back to 1851, all worn, corners tattered. She squatted down and ran her hand over the spines of her own books—red, green, brown, and black. She smelled the paper and ink. She already had nine books, each one a gift from Mac. It had always been her dream to own books. She never believed she really would.

“
You’re the only thing worth spending money on besides the new institute. We’ll never be hungry if we have our minds and our bodies in their most perfect state,” he’d said one night.

There was the book he gave her for their wedding,
Leaves of Grass
, and then one for every week they were married. He said the books celebrated their new life together and the union of their spirits. He’d given her
Madame Bovary
because that was what she was looking for in the bookshop in Geneva the day he met her by chance and invited her to tea. Even though she hadn’t realized it, he’d decided that was the beginning of their courtship. And then came
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
by Stowe and
Blithedale Romance
by Hawthorne and
Moby Dick
by Melville. It had been a week since that one. Would there be a new one coming today or tomorrow? She smiled to herself. What would he bring this time? Austen? Dickens? He had mentioned something about Thoreau the other day.

The front door flew open, letting in a shaft of evening sun. Mac strode through the light toward her.

“
I’ve had the most phenomenal day. I must tell you about it.” A book tucked under his arm and a colossal smile on his face, he was perspiring and short of breath. “Dr. Trall is here from New York City for a few days advising me and I have just spent the day with him. I have never been so inspired by anyone in my life.”

He seemed about to lift off like a firework.

“
Will you bring him to dinner?”

“
Yes, but it must be vegetarian. That’s what I want to tell you. He convinced me it is absolutely critical to the hygienic system. You and I must be vegetarians. Our Upper Falls Water-Cure Institute must be strictly vegetarian. He really is a genius. And no more alcohol. Temperance only.” He glanced down at her long dress. “You’re not wearing the American Costume.”

“
I want to make mine after the others, after I’ve tried out the different designs.”

His smile turned down. Even though he was eager for her to try the reform dress, she was still preparing herself for being stared at everywhere she went. Clothing that would make her feel free to move however she wanted sounded wonderful, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to pay the price of being ridiculed. She had seen women on occasion being laughed at, teased, sometimes ignored in a shop. Even she and Clara used to have their game of counting the similar bloomer costumes.

“
Were there any letters for me from Clara or the others?”

Every day Mac picked up the mail at the Reynolds’ Arcade and every day she asked. As always, he shook his head. As always, her heart sank a little. Then, grinning, he took the book from under his arm.

“
A new book for you.”

She took it in both hands and read the title.
The Science of Human Life; In Twenty-Four Lectures
by Dr. Sylvester Graham.

“
It’s a bit out of date, but it is definitive. There are several lectures on the effects of vegetable and animal foods on the human system. It’ll guide our views on vegetarianism.”

She paused a brief moment. It was not what she had expected. She opened the cover slowly and studied the list of lectures. They addressed every part of the body.

“
You’re disappointed I didn’t bring you literature.”

“
A little, but if you say this is interesting, I’m sure I will find it interesting too.”

He embraced her, the book in her hands pressing awkwardly between their chests.

“
I had no idea that being a reformer would answer the questions I have never been able to answer before,” he said into her ear.

“
I’ll love the book, Mac. I’m sure I will. Thank you.”

<><><>

ABOUT A WEEK LATER, after Mac’s prodding, Izzie was ready to wear the American Costume out. She buttoned the green cotton-wool jacket and finished dressing. Her new costume was all of one forest color, jacket with wide collar, skirt four inches below the knees, and straight trousers, all matching. She hoped she would be less conspicuous if the pieces were the same color. Each time she wore the American Costume at home she liked it a little better. She had always longed to maneuver through the world more freely. Climbing on wagons, over fences and up stairs had always been frustrating and she abhorred how the yards and yards of material comprising even her meager two or three underskirts made her dreadfully slow.