The Spirit Room (8 page)

Izzie chuckled and looked at her. “You have a lot of growing up to do. If that’s what you want, you better marry above your station then, Clara, and I don’t mean a little above. I mean quite well above.”

“Why don’t you find a wealthy, smart gentleman and I’ll marry his brother?” Clara laughed and slid closer. “There!” She pointed outside. “What about those two?” A bearded man wearing a fine greatcoat and holding a stovepipe hat and cane climbed into a plum-colored runabout hitched to two dapple, gray horses. He leaned over the side of his carriage and spoke to another man on the walk who was also well dressed in a fitted black coat.

“You saw them first. Go ahead, Clara. Which one?”

Clara shook her head and twisted the ribbon around her finger. “Not yet.”

Izzie looked down. “I’m afraid of that spiritual world. Why did Anna Santini say those things about me?”

“Are you sure you don’t have a gift for spirits?”

“I don’t. I don’t.”

“Well then, see, you don’t have to worry about being like Mamma or Anna. Besides, we won’t have to always be mediums. Just for a while. If we’re good at it, we can make money like Mrs. Fielding and travel to different cities. The Benton Sisters of Geneva. That sounds just as good as the Fox sisters of Hyde Park. You won’t be like Mamma, Izzie. You won’t.”

But Clara knew there was something for Izzie to be at least a little afraid of. Izzie sometimes did know things in a mysterious way and Mamma used to tease her when she was little and tell her she would have spirits visit her when she got older.

Clara wrapped the hair ribbon she had been playing with around Izzie’s wrist and tied it with a bow.

“Izzie, I’m afraid. I’m afraid Papa will leave us again if we don’t make some money right away. Please, Izzie, for me?”

Izzie looked at her a long moment, then sighed. “Only for you, Clara. Not for Papa, not for Mrs. Fielding, not for Andrew Jackson Davis and his Harmonial Philosophy.” She looked into Clara’s eyes. “If I don’t like it, I’ll quit, Clara. I don’t care what Papa says. I’ll defy him. I’ll leave. I’ll do whatever is necessary to end it if I hate it. I’ll be a governess.”

Clara bounced up and down on her toes. “Oh, Izzie, you’ll see. Being mediums will be thundering fun, much better than being a governess.”

“I swear, Clara, you could charm a fish out of a stream. You’ll certainly be a better medium than a seamstress. You’d be wasting yourself with a needle and thread. Maybe those pompous people who say that reading novels is bad for girls are right. Once we girls have visions of the world outside the home, we’re unwilling to stay put and happily perform our domestic duties.” Izzie gently untied the red and white ribbon, wrapped it around Clara’s wrist and tied it again. “We can’t go back. We’ve already read too many books. Julianna taught me to read. I taught you and Euphora to read. We’re corrupted.”

The plum runabout was on the move and caught Clara’s eye. Slapping his reins on the backs of his gray horses, the fancy man’s carriage began to climb Seneca Street. Clara waved at it.

“Goodbye. We don’t need you now. We’re the famous Benton Sisters,” she said and then she extended her hand to Izzie and they shook like gentlemen partners.

Izzie pushed up her dress sleeves. “This place is foul with dust. Let’s clean it up.”

Seven

CLARA WAS READY FOR THEIR FIRST SPIRIT CIRCLE. This was the most excited she had ever been in her entire life. As Papa drew the new muslin curtains across their three windows, she took her place opposite Izzie at one end of the heavy oak table in the center of the Spirit Room. The room was cozy, lit by a fire in the hearth, the dull glow from gas street lamps filtering in, the candle near Izzie, and two oil lamps on the mantel. Also on the mantel was the small mahogany clock that Clara had found left behind by the previous tenant of the room. It was broken, stuck at eleven o’clock. Dead silent, it added something mysterious to the Spirit Room so they kept it. Izzie’s face was buried from sight behind her small notebook. She was going over what she wrote down the night before, things Papa told her.

Papa’s friends were coming any minute. The spirit circle was going to be a rehearsal, the way actors do in the theater. A “dress rehearsal” Papa had called it.

“You girls have to practice what you learned from Mrs. Fielding before we can charge money,” he told them.

From Papa, she and Izzie now knew something about each of the men coming. He kept her and Izzie up half the night telling them personal things about the men, then making them repeat it back. Sam Weston was a canal contractor. Herbert Washburn owned three canal boats all himself, and John Payne was a barkeeper at Ramsey’s, Papa’s favorite saloon. Washburn and Payne were both married but Payne’s wife died several years ago.

Papa said that Payne being a widower was significant, and she and Izzie should look to fit the dead wife into their trances. Weston never married, but was engaged once. The woman went off with someone else at the last minute before the wedding. Papa had lots more about brothers and sisters and where they grew up, things like that, pieces of a life puzzle.

When Papa and Izzie worked out the plan for the séance, they had decided that Izzie was going to imitate a serious deep trance. She was the oldest, not to mention smartest, but Clara could try out a light trance or a little song about heaven if she felt inclined.

While Papa paced up and down in front of the fireplace, Izzie shuffled and shuffled through the pages of her notebook. What on earth was she looking for?

Trying to get rid of the twitters in her stomach, Clara sighed noisily. She decided to remember the most important things that Mrs. Fielding had taught them. The very most significant thing of all was making people think their loved ones on the other side, in Summerland, were happy as could be. That’s exactly how she said it. The spirits were spirits, not human, not suffering at all. These spirits loved their dear ones left behind and were looking forward to the day when their earthbound family members and friends died and came over to Summerland, although she and Izzie weren’t supposed to say outright that the spirits were eager for the loved ones to die.
Lawky Lawk
, so much to remember, thought Clara. She stared up at the fine cracks in the ceiling.

“Happy as could be. The departed ones are happy as could be.” Whispering out loud, she churned the rule over in her mind so that nothing could make her forget it. Grabbing the seat of her ladder-back chair, she pulled as close to the table as she could, pressing her chest against the weight of it.

Three loud knocks rattled the door. Clara flinched. Papa stopped pacing and stared at the door. With a smart little slap, Izzie shut her notebook, slipped it into her dress pocket, and then winked at her.

Clara took a deep breath and nodded. In the candlelight, Izzie looked calm and ready for something new. If anything went wrong with the three men, if they got angry or sad, Izzie would steer things the right way. And Papa would be nearby, too. Clara exhaled and put her moist palms on the bare table.

“Here we go, my young mediums.” Papa tugged down on each of his jacket sleeves. He glanced at Izzie and Clara, grinned, and strode to the door. Clara bit down on her lower lip so that the fluttery feeling in her stomach might not turn into laughter.

Papa opened the door and the three men entered bringing in a cold draft with them. The men greeted Papa as Ol’ Frank and laughed about something that had happened on the way to the Spirit Room. They hushed down lickety-click though, when they looked over at her and Izzie standing in their good dresses near the table.

“These are my talented daughters, Isabelle and Clara.” Papa stepped toward the table and the men followed.

He placed a hand on the shoulder of the man next to him. “This is Sam Weston.”

Clara could hear Papa’s instructions in her head. Notice everything you can about every customer. Try to understand them by the things they say, the way they look and dress, the way they move around, and even what their posture is like. It would all come in handy. So, when Weston took off his hat and while Papa was introducing him, Clara noticed that his slicked-down hair had far too much pomade in it. Even from where she stood, several feet from Weston, his hair smelled like over-ripe apples. He was the one whose fiancée had run off. He looked older than thirty years, though, his eyes hollow and tired with dark circles below and the skin on his face sagged like the gravity in his world had more pull on him than other people’s gravity did.

He dressed fancy for being in Geneva. His clothing was like the pictures in those magazines Mrs. Beattie, the milliner, had downstairs. His coat was the prettiest brown color and had a thick, soft look to it. It fit him to perfection.

“This feller is John Payne.” Papa, gripping his lapel like a statesman, pointed at the man in the middle of the three.

This one was the widower, Mr. Payne. Payne beamed like he just won a bet. He was short, but his neck was thick and his shoulders were wide as a wagon and he looked strong enough to pull one if he had to. The top of his right ear was gone. Darn sure there was a story to that, but Papa hadn’t mentioned the ear. Mr. Payne’s eyes were blue and his hair light blond like a Norwegian’s, but Papa never said anything about Norwegian either.

“And this last feller is Herbert Washburn.” Now with both hands on his lapels, Papa indicated Washburn by nodding at him.

“Miss Isabelle, Miss Clara, a pleasure,” Washburn said.

This one was polite, but he wore no smile. He was the married one with the boats. He was the plainest of the three, plain clothes, plain hair, plain eyes. Was there anything about him to notice? Clara stared hard at him, but then all of a sudden Izzie stepped a little away from her chair.

“Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you for coming to our very first spirit circle. Will you sit with us, please?”

Holy rolling Moses. Izzie never spoke like that. It was Mrs. Purcell, Mrs. Fielding, Anna and that Jane Austen all in one.

Washburn walked by Clara. He smelled like steaming vegetables, maybe beets. That was the best she could do for now. He went straight for the chair by the fire. Was he cold? Weston and Payne took the places opposite him, with Weston next to Clara and Payne, the little Norwegian, closest to Izzie. Even from two seats away, Payne smelled like his saloon—cigar smoke and ale. Papa smelled just like that many a night.

The men stood a moment looking back and forth between Izzie and her. Finally Mr. Washburn went over and put a hand on the top of Izzie’s ladder-back chair. Izzie smiled at him and sat down. He was treating Izzie like a lady.
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. Before Clara could take her seat, Weston grinned and imitated Washburn’s courtesy by shifting Clara’s chair for her. Clara bit her lower lip, but a giggle slipped out anyway. Finally everyone was sitting at the table. Except Papa, of course.

That was planned ahead. He walked over to his shadowy corner near the tie up for the secret bell and folded his arms across his chest. Although he said he was itchin’ to test the bell in the wall and for Clara to try out the new knocking device in the floor, he had said they weren’t going to do anything tricky this time. They were to work on the alphabet.

Izzie reached for Clara’s handmade alphabet sheet in the middle of the table and drew it toward her. It was nothing to be sneezed at, that alphabet sheet. Hardly a drop of ink in the wrong place and the curve of the letters only a little lopsided.

“You ready to be hounded by your ghosts, Washburn?” Sniggering, the little Norwegian, Payne, slapped a square hand on the middle of the table.

“What about yours, Payne? I’m sure they’ll come and collect moral taxes of some kind from you.” Washburn seemed almost angry, like they’d been having a bull and cow before, but Weston laughed and looked over at Izzie.

“Tell us what to do. I promise they’ll behave.”

“Well, the first thing is, we all put our hands out on the table and spread them out so that our little fingers are touching.” She put her hands on the table to show them. “This lets the magnetism that’s naturally in us connect with one another and gives us enough strength to draw in the spirits. It would be better if we had equal males and females, but I think we are close enough with three and two.”

Lawk-a-mercy
. Izzie sounded like she had done this a thousand times. The men placed their hands as they were told and Clara, spreading her much smaller hands out, touched fingers with Weston and Washburn. Her heart kicked up with excitement. These men needed to understand she was a medium in training too, not just the young sister of Izzie.

“Yes, I think three and two will be fine. Equal men and women is because equal positive and negative works best.” Clara glanced at each man, and then looked at her sister. “I’m ready, Izzie.”

But no one looked back at Izzie. Everyone kept looking at Clara with stone faces. They seemed tarnal fixated. Maybe she hadn’t explained it correctly. Her stomach was twittering wildly.

Then, Weston burst out laughing and got the others laughing. He looked toward Papa in the corner. “You’ve been hiding these daughters from us, Ol’ Frank. Your Clara is a rare and extraordinary beauty. And Isabelle is charming.”