We Hear the Dead (12 page)

Mrs. Langworthy sniffed and dusted at her fingers as she released me. “I don't know why you have involved yourself with these two, Mrs. Post. One would think that stuffing Negroes beneath your floorboards would keep you busy enough for two women, let alone adopting a couple of charlatans fit only for a carnival show!”

The doctor's wife gathered her skirts and sailed out of the parlor like a great ship, with Miss Bissel scurrying in her wake. The third woman, who had cowered in a corner throughout our ordeal, retrieved my dress from the floor and thrust it at me in some embarrassment as she passed me. Then she, too, departed, closing the door behind her.

Leah covered her face with her hands, giving way to tears at last. Amy Post put her arms around me, and I pressed my face into the crumpled mess of my dress and sobbed with humiliation.

At that moment, in my heart, I despaired of ever being free from the spirits that I had created, in boredom and devilment, on April Fools' Eve in Hydesville.

Maggie

We were greatly shaken by our treatment at the hands of “the Ladies' Committee,” although Leah recovered her wits sooner than I did. “I cannot say that I ever received much respect from the ladies of society,” she observed ruefully while repairing the damage done to her hair, “although this is the first time I have ever been treated like a slave girl! Still, I suffer no pangs of remorse for the lack of friendship from the Bissels and the Langworthys.”

“Indeed not,” agreed Amy Post, who was combing my hair in a motherly manner. “In fact, they rather remind me of inbred pedigree dogs, which yip and yap all the more fiercely to mask their own inherited deficiencies.”

Recalling how the doctor's wife had compared me to a poorly bred mongrel, I shivered and did not join in their merriment, forced as it was. Never in my life had anyone spoken with such hostility to me, and I marveled that Leah could pass it off so lightly. She was tougher than I was, without a doubt!

My nerve broke entirely that afternoon when a letter came from Mr. Whittlesey, the lawyer on the examination committee. Apparently he had received an anonymous note warning him not to attend the public presentation at Corinthian Hall that evening if he found in favor of the Fox sisters, for he would be mobbed. In his letter to us, Mr. Whittlesey tried to discount the possibility of real danger and personally guaranteed our safety.

“Although honor bound to inform you of this unpleasant piece of news,” he wrote, “I assure you that no harm will come to any good woman in the city of Rochester while I am resident here, and to this end I intend to escort you to and from the hall in my own carriage.”

I began to cry, and even Leah paled somewhat. “I think it would be best if Mother did not come to the hall tonight,” Leah said grimly. “I will think of some excuse and ask Calvin to stay with her.”

“You can't possibly be thinking of going!” I cried out. “Leah, we can't! Please! Not if there's a mob waiting for us!”

“I don't think there is any real danger,” Leah spoke hesitantly, turning to Amy. “What do you think?”

“You must appear tonight when the committee makes its report,” Amy replied, “or your guilt will be assumed and your reputation will be shattered. I will go with you; I shall sit beside you and take whatever risk there may be along with you.”

“Then I will go, even if it means going to the stake!” Leah resolved, turning to me with a slight smile to show that she was exaggerating. But her words frightened me all the more.

“You'll go without me!” I cried. “I've already had a narrow escape from a mob back in Hydesville, and if it hadn't been for David, we might all have been killed!”

Leah would have argued with me, but Amy put a hand upon her arm to quiet her. “Maggie must do as her heart tells her,” said Amy. “To force or coerce her against her will would be wrong.”

As it happened, Calvin sided with me when he found out about the threats, and he was furious to discover that Leah wanted to leave him at home. “I cannot remain behind and let you face a lynch mob!” he said in a voice tight with emotion. He bristled all over with tension, and his burning eyes would not leave Leah's face.

She tried reason first. “Mr. Whittlesey has sent a letter stating that he is aware of the threats and that he is acquiring police protection for us in the hall.”

“Half the police are in the pocket of Josiah Bissel,” Calvin countered. “You know that, Leah.”

Leah turned then to another, more personal form of persuasion and, taking his hands, led Calvin to a seat beside her on Amy's settee. Leaning forward and looking directly into his worried eyes, she began to speak softly and urgently to him. Amy motioned for me to join her, and we withdrew from the parlor to give them privacy. After a minute or two, Calvin departed with his shoulders slumped in a way that gave us little doubt who had persevered.

Arrangements had been made with the manager of the Corinthian for our reappearance that evening. A previously scheduled event had been postponed because of the popular demand to see the rappers revealed or confirmed, and the carriage arrived for us at the Post house promptly at seven. Mr. Whittlesey himself called upon us, and when he discovered only Leah, Amy, and Isaac dressed in their cloaks, with me cowering upon the stairs, he exclaimed, “Why, Miss Margaretta! Aren't you coming this evening?” I shook my head vehemently, wide-eyed and petrified. The lawyer looked startled. “You cut me to the quick, child! I will not let any harm befall you!”

I looked from his face to Leah's, then to Amy and Isaac, feeling more and more foolish. No one else seemed frightened, and for a moment I felt like a small child who had been terrified by a bogey tale. “Oh, for land sakes!” I burst out in a sudden decision. “I cannot let you go without me. Let me get my cloak and I shall come, although I expect I will probably be killed!”

***

A line of people had already formed outside the Corinthian, jostling their way out of the wind and into the rather narrow entranceway to the hall. As before, our carriage brought us around to a side entrance, and we hurried into the shelter of the building.

My companions seemed calm and at ease on the journey to the hall, and I thought that only I retained a sense of nervous apprehension about the evening's event until we met Mr. Capron inside the hall. He hastened to speak to Mr. Whittlesey as soon as we arrived, his face drawn and pale. The lawyer responded with surprise and alarm. Unable to hear them, I pulled away from Leah and tried to get closer, but all I overheard was Mr. Capron saying that he had “removed it from the hall and dumped it into the street.”

Before I could make sense of this, the manager of the hall took our cloaks and once again directed us through the corridors that led to the platform. Even more so than the previous evening, the hall echoed with the voices of an excited audience. It seemed to me that the first row of seats was filled with a different sort of group than the night before, composed of rough-looking young men with no female companions in sight. Resolving to keep my gaze cast downward, I seated myself as demurely as possible and waited patiently for the presentation to begin.

Mr. Whittlesey joined Mr. Capron at the lectern and raised his hand for silence. The audience quieted but did not completely stop talking. Thus, it was evident even from the first minute that the two men did not have the control over the event that we had been promised.

Mr. Whittlesey began by summarizing the previous evening and then describing the examinations conducted that day. When he stated that neither he nor his colleagues had discovered any evidence of deception, several members of the audience rose from their seats and started to make catcalls. The lawyer stammered a bit, taken aback by this reaction. I had given up holding my gaze in my lap and was staring at him and Mr. Capron with growing horror. They had been warned! They both had been warned! How could they have been so foolishly unprepared after promising to ensure our safety?

A sudden battery of loud cracks, like gunfire on a battlefield, erupted at the back of the hall, echoing riotously off the vaulted ceiling. Women screamed in fright, but from my position on the platform I could clearly see the cause of the disruption: firecrackers, set alight at regular intervals along the back row of the auditorium. Instantly, the promised police protection appeared from behind the red curtain. They rushed across the platform, leaped down into the audience, and sprinted toward the back of the hall.

No sooner had the policemen run to the back of the hall than Mr. Bissel appeared out of the crowd and clambered up onto the front of the platform. “This is a fraud!” he shouted. “Perpetrated by frauds, with the collaboration of more frauds! Mr. Whittlesey is a friend of these women! He arrived here tonight in their company, in the same carriage! His committee is a farce! I say we form a new committee right here and now and examine these females to our satisfaction!” Before anyone could react or stop him, Mr. Bissel grabbed me by the arm, dragging me from my chair and thrusting me toward the raised edge of the platform. “Who wants to examine this one?” he challenged, spittle flying from his lips.

I screamed, teetering on the edge of the platform, staring straight down at a sea of faces, ugly with violence.

Then firm hands took my shoulders, pulled me out of Bissel's grasp and backward to safety. Mr. Bissel snarled and aimed a blow at my rescuer, but Mr. Post dodged the poorly aimed fist and responded by punching the smaller man directly in the eye. For a moment, I don't know who was more shocked—Bissel or my gentle Quaker friend! Then Mr. Post took my hand and ran with me toward the back of the platform. “Come, Maggie! This way!”

I could see Leah and Amy ahead, running along the backstage corridors, which had already filled with smoke from the firecrackers. Mr. Capron and the manager of the hall waved us along after them, herding us toward that same side door by which we had entered. As we stumbled outside, the acrid smell of smoke was joined by a sharp, stinging odor that burned my eyes. While Mr. Post pulled me toward the waiting carriage, I turned back and saw quite clearly the source of the other pungent smell.

In the street outside the hall lay an overturned barrel and, in a thick puddle spilling out onto the street, a large quantity of warmed tar.

***

That night, I shivered in my bed for long, long hours, unable to achieve warmth in spite of the number of blankets my mother and sister had piled upon me. Mother sat beside me for most of the night, horrified by the story that had spilled from my lips as soon as I saw her. She was furious with Leah, and rightly so. Over and over again, I saw the faces of those horrible men in the first row, reaching up for me as Mr. Bissel threatened to cast me down. I smelled the tar, which Mr. Capron had discovered before we arrived, and in my nebulous dream state, I imagined having it poured upon my skin…

“Maggie, wake up. It's noon.”

I startled awake, strangling a shriek as I realized that sunlight filled the room and that Leah was seated upon the bed beside me. Mother was gone, and the blankets had been cast aside in my turbulent sleep. I pursed my lips in preparation for some sharp remark, but my sister calmly unfolded a newspaper and held it out in front of my face. “You've made the papers, Maggie. Look.”

The headlines were bold and numerous: “Riot at Corinthian over Validity of Spirit Rapping,” “Firecrackers Cause Panic,” “Pillar of Community Invites Assault of Young Girl on Stage.”

“Mr. Reynolds, the manager of the Corinthian, is pressing charges against Josiah Bissel, because witnesses all state that he handed out the firecrackers to the boys who set them off,” Leah went on as I scanned the article in the paper. “The police chief has all but charged Bissel with inciting a riot and soliciting an assault on you. I doubt anything will come of it, but public opinion has already convicted him. The people of Rochester now believe that Bissel and his friends were conspiring to keep them unaware of the truth behind spirit rapping!”

“I suppose you consider that good news!” I snapped, tossing down the paper and trying to hide the fascination of seeing my name in print. “Never mind that we were nearly tarred and feathered, or assaulted—or killed outright!”

“I am sorry you were frightened.” Leah picked up the paper and folded it neatly. “Nobody expected him to jump onto the platform like that. No one was prepared for that.”

“Nobody was prepared at all!” I retorted. “Except possibly Mr. Post!”

Leah laughed with sudden mirth. “For a pacifist, he packs a mean right cross!”

“It is not funny!” I cried. “We might have been killed!”

My sister shook her head gently and rose from the bed. “I have not led as sheltered a life as you have. I have no illusions about life and death, respectability or poverty. Last night was frightening—no two ways about it—but in the end we came out victorious and virtuous. If you want to lie abed and think about what might have happened, then do so. But if you ever want to grow up, Maggie, then you can get dressed and come downstairs, where the friends who protected you are waiting to be assured of your well-being.”

She strode to the door and then called back over her shoulder, “I believe there are five different floral bouquets downstairs, all with calling cards from young gentlemen wishing you a quick recovery from your harrowing experience. It is a shame that you are not well enough to receive any visitors. I shall have to send them away when they call.”

Swearing softly with words that would greatly distress Mother, and words that I had, after all, learned from Leah, I swung my legs out of bed and reached for some clothing.

Kate

Life in Auburn with Rebecca Capron and her daughters was pleasant and lively, and an opportunity for me to explore my powers without Leah telling me what to say. Although I missed Maggie no less, it was difficult to be lonely with the four Capron girls always about, laughing and teasing and including me as one of their own. They were impressed with my gift but not terribly impressed by me—within hours of my arrival they had teased me, petted me, borrowed my dresses, and lent me their own. I was just another girl.

This is not to say that I didn't sit with Mrs. Capron and other interested parties in spirit circles most evenings. If anything, they believed me all the more for my ability to channel the spirit messages with reverence and then, a little while later, join the girls in a mock battle with pillows and flying shoes. “She's such an innocent thing,” I overheard Mrs. Capron tell her friends. “She doesn't understand the significance of what she does.”

In spite of this, Mrs. Capron did not think I was a featherhead and praised my schoolwork. She said that I was a very apt pupil. There was a particular girls' school near New York City that she wanted me to attend the next fall, and she knew of a newspaper editor and his wife who might be willing to have me stay in their home.

Such a move held little appeal to me. Although it would be exciting to live near a big city, New York was much too far from my family, and I was not quite the city girl that Maggie was. My home would always be with my family, although I was resigned to life in Auburn for now, with the Capron girls making a temporary substitute for my sisters.

It was easy enough to bribe the girls with sweets and other promises to tell me all the stories they knew of their mother and her friends, who gathered each night to speak to the spirits. The Capron sisters hardly had to be enticed at all to listen at keyholes and repeat gossip they had heard, and no one ever linked this girlish pastime with the intimate knowledge of the rapping spirits. Without Leah to direct me, I was free to deliver messages from the spirit world that fostered my chosen purpose: to comfort the grieving, proving by the words of their beloved departed that there was life beyond death.

One might fault me for continuing the carnival tricks that Leah had encouraged, but Mrs. Capron had come to expect them, having learned of the spirit antics from her husband. There was little enough I could do on my own. Leah had made me rip out the hidden seams in my dresses and remove all balls before I left for Auburn, and it was a good thing that she had, because the Capron girls viewed anything belonging to one as available for use by all. Often, the best I could do was to cause the candles to go out while we sat holding hands, and then duck my head under the table in the darkness and bump it around a bit.

I altered the candles myself at night, after everyone else was asleep. Being as cautious as possible, I took them to the kitchen and laid out slabs of bread and jam before going to work on my task. Thus, if anyone came downstairs unexpectedly, I could scoop the candles into my pockets and be scolded for nothing more than an unladylike appetite. It was lonely work. I longed to tell Maggie of things I dared not write in my letters—how I had known the answers to some questions not through reading the face of the asker or listening to gossip but simply through
knowing
. Maggie would have argued as she always did. “Everyone gets a bit of luck sometimes!” she would have cried, or “You must have been told the story and just forgotten.” I missed her stubbornness and the challenge of a good debate with my closest and dearest friend.

Letters could not replace her, although I savored each correspondence as a breath of air from home. Things had apparently taken a bad turn at Corinthian Hall, and Maggie was badly frightened by the experience. However, Leah's letter said that the event had only converted more people to a belief in the spirits, and I would venture to guess that she was correct, for even in Auburn people were outraged over the riot. And because Maggie's letters spoke mainly of the flowers and candy she had received from sympathetic visitors, I assumed she had recovered from her shock and was determined to make as much profit from her misadventure as possible.

After several weeks, Mrs. Capron began pressing the issue of the private girls' school in New York City again. The newspaper editor of her acquaintance had offered me a home while I attended that school next year, provisional upon his meeting me.

Eventually I was coerced into meeting this Mr. Horace Greeley, despite my reservations, and it turned out that he was no different from any of the people who came to see me. He had lost his son to cholera and, more recently, a dear friend to a shipwreck at sea. As a newspaperman he wanted to be skeptical, but even more badly, he wanted to believe.

After our successful spirit sitting, Mrs. Capron and Mr. Greeley spoke enthusiastically about my scholarly potential, worthy of a position as governess or schoolteacher. And yet what each of them wanted most from me was something I was already capable of giving them—spiritual peace. How odd it was that those who most needed my spiritual gifts tried so hard to educate me into a role where I could not use them!