We Hear the Dead (19 page)

Leah sniffed doubtfully and settled herself on the settee, her broad, hooped skirts resembling a hot-air balloon in descent. Kate hovered in the background, eyes twinkling with confidences to share in private. “I suppose,” ventured Leah, “that the house will be swamped with gentleman callers, now that Maggie has begun to collect beaux.”

“I am not at home to gentleman callers, save Dr. Kane,” I stated carefully.

She eyed me shrewdly. “Do you have an understanding with him, then?”

“Oh,” Mother interjected, “Doctor is absolutely smitten with our Maggie! Anyone can see that!”

Leah grimaced and waved frantically for Mother to be quiet, while I gave my truthful answer. “No, we do not have any formal understanding at this time.”

“I thought not,” she said. “He didn't give me any indication of an agreement between you.”

I gasped. “He was here?”

“Yesterday,” she affirmed.

“He was
dashing
,” Kate said appreciatively.

“He came to pay his respects,” Leah continued, shooting an irritated glance over her shoulder at Kate.

Mother clutched at my arm. “Maggie, he
is
serious about you! Such an honor, for an important man like him to call upon your sisters, just out of courtesy!”

“He did not state his intentions for Maggie,” Leah said firmly. “And I would just as soon not see her lose her head over him. Why, I know five respectable young men who would offer for Maggie's hand with no hesitation, including Amy Post's son Donald—don't make that face, Maggie; his complexion has considerably cleared up! You don't have to put all your eggs in one basket. Dr. Kane is not likely to engage himself to a girl of Maggie's station. You have said yourself that he made no such promises, and I strongly doubt he ever will. He is a self-proclaimed explorer from an aristocratic family who is far more engaged in the pursuit of fame than respectable marriage. He could ruin Maggie's reputation with a few careless words and put her entire future at risk!”

“I liked him,” said Calvin.

There was a long moment of silence from a tableau of startled women. Then everybody turned to look at the one person who rarely had a word to say and never, ever contradicted Leah. Up to that point, I had not even noticed he was in the room.

“He was pleasant and courteous,” my brother-in-law continued. “He has shown courage and fortitude in his world explorations and has earned his fame as a hero. I am sure Maggie is proud of his regard for her.” Calvin graced me with his shy, brotherly smile while Leah looked like she was sucking lemons, and the subject was closed for discussion that evening, firmly concluded by the man of the house.

***

Quiet days of solemn spiritual discussion with Quakers and other believers in Philadelphia were decidedly over. New York City embraced me with a whirlwind of social engagements and entertainments. Spirit sittings were a lively affair, with Leah and Calvin expertly coordinating the supernatural phenomena. The dying candles awed the guests, and in the darkness Leah plied a collapsible pole to tip over a pewter jug and wave a phosphorescent cloth in the air.

Mother, being singularly unobservant, remained oblivious to our artifice. She was an inconvenient presence nevertheless, often drawing attention where we did not want close inspection. For instance, she had a habit of fumbling with the candles after a sitting, complaining that she could not get them lit again. Calvin would smoothly intervene in his unobtrusive way, slicing the top off the offending instrument with his pocketknife before someone noticed the missing wick. “Candles touched by spirits are often troublesome thereafter,” Leah coolly remarked. It was a relief when Mother finally left for an extended visit to Hydesville.

Meanwhile, Leah seemed determined to marry me off, or at least divert my attention from Elisha Kent Kane. The average age of guests dropped twenty years as a series of engaging young bachelors vied for my attention. These included the dreadful Donald Post but also enterprising reporters in the employ of Mr. Greeley, earnest psychology students recommended by Mr. Capron, and social activists of varied professions. Many of them were quite handsome, and some were very charming, but all truly believed that I was a spirit medium, and secretly I thought them all fools.

Kate had a fair share of admirers herself. My little sister had developed into a winsome fifteen-year-old beauty while I was away. Her fair, translucent complexion and delicate features appeared almost luminous against raven hair and wide-set violet eyes. Grown men neglected their proper manners and stared openly at the first sight of her. One frequent visitor confessed to me, “I think this is all a humbug, but it is well worth a dollar just to bask in the light of Miss Kate's eyes!”

We had a lot of fun. Kate and I blended our wits and our talent for mischief together seamlessly, no matter the months we had spent apart. We flew from one event to the next, accepted invitations to plays and musical revues with Leah and Calvin to chaperone, and reveled in the life of New York society.

But with Dr. Kane's first letter, guilt for my deceptions came flooding back.

Leah called me to her parlor on that day, looking like a thundercloud in the summer, and laid before me an envelope, addressed in a familiar hand that made my heart leap. When I picked it up, the envelope gaped open, the seal already broken. I gasped.

“You opened it!”

“Of course I opened it, as would any married sister of a maiden girl. It is my duty to oversee your correspondence, although I see by your reaction that Mother was not as diligent.” Leah's scowl was fierce, and she moved toward me like a steamboat propelling its way upstream. “Dr. Kane seems confident that what we do here is a hoax,” she growled.

I trembled, holding the open letter in my hands, and I prayed fearfully that Elisha had not mentioned the kiss in the cemetery or the lock of hair I had smuggled to him the next day. “I swear to you, Leah, I have not told him so. I did not confess a thing. But he has his strong opinions.”

“So I see. He seems particularly intent on persuading you to renounce spiritualism and give up rapping.”

What could I do but nod? She had already read the letter, and I had not. I had no doubt that Elisha had renewed his plea for me to reform my life.

“And yet he makes no claim upon you, professes no interest beyond kindness and affection. If you are expecting more from him, you will be disappointed.”

I stood before her, mute in my suffering. His letter in my hand burned with the need to be read, but, then, why bother? Leah already knew the contents. It would be more preaching and nothing else. A kiss, a passionate gaze, personal tokens exchanged—these things had meant far more to me, an inexperienced girl, than to a sophisticated, worldly gentleman like Elisha Kent Kane. His interest was no more than that of an older brother who simply wished a different kind of life for me.

Leah took pity upon me and invited me to sit beside her on the settee. I did so, still clasping the letter pitifully and trying to blink back the tears that threatened, now that my expectations had been so lowered. “How did you meet Dr. Kane?” Leah asked me in a gentler voice.

“In a sitting.” I glanced at my sister's face. “He is not a believer in spiritualism, but in a moment of despair, he did reach out to his late brother.”

“Very human of him, for such a grand hero,” Leah said wryly, unable to resist a dig at his character. “I'm sorry, Maggie, but my point is that you would never have met this man if it were not for the business of rapping. It is all well and good for Dr. Kane to assert so righteously that our business is not respectable, but I allow that our business is all that affords us the respect and social status we currently enjoy! Your reputation protects you, Maggie. In a way, our names are as well known as his. Without this cloak of respectability, he would never have met you, or if he had, he might have persuaded you to give up your virtue and then cast you aside.”

I resented this implication. “You do not know him, Leah. And you do not know me very well if you think me so much a fool.”

“I have met him,” she countered. “And other men like him. I was once a young girl easily led by an attractive man. You may think me too old for romance, Maggie, but I remember what it was like. A person of goodwill might have warned me of my fate. Sadly, there was no one who bothered, no one who cared enough to intervene on my behalf.”

We sat for a moment in silence, with Leah reflecting on her poor, neglected younger self. However, the question begged asking: “If there had been such a person, would you have heeded the advice?”

Leah gazed at me solemnly. I could see her consider a lie, but she seemed to understand that I would never believe it. After a moment, she replied, “No. I would have scolded them for jealousy or spite. I would have followed my heart and ended up just where I am right now, even though I had been forewarned.”

Then she laid her hand over my own, the one that held Elisha's letter, and said, “That's why I am so worried about you.”

Maggie

Elisha's letter was not as much a disappointment as Leah had suggested, especially after she had lowered my expectations. He mentioned our last carriage ride into the country, the significance of which Leah did not know. Nor could she have understood his reference to patting his right breast pocket for luck before each of his lectures—the promised residing place of my carefully clipped curl. I embraced these small allusions to his affection, cherishing them all the more for having been told they did not exist.

It was true that he devoted the bulk of the letter to his concern over my calling as a spirit medium.

“Oh, how I wish that you would quit this life of dreary sameness and suspected deceit,” he wrote. “We live in this world only for the opinions of the good and noble. How crushing it must be to occupy a position of ambiguous respect!”

I expected this was the comment that raised Leah's ire and caused her to assert so firmly that our role as mediums had brought us respect in society. In truth, I skimmed this part of his letter, simply desiring to devour his words and seek out tender phrases.

He confided in me his worries about collecting sufficient funds for the second expedition. Although his lectures in Boston had been well received, private contributions had not met his expectations. The letter continued, “I present my theories to an uninterested audience, and my pleas for support sound desperate even to my own ears.”

Over the next three days, I planned and savored and replanned my reply to him. I did not presume upon his affection but matched the tone in which he fondly recalled our days in Philadelphia. I did make bold enough to comment on his desire to reap more revenue from his lectures. Carefully and most logically, I suggested that he rely less on the scientific theory behind the polar sea and the lands above it and more upon his experience during the expedition. His tale of falling through the ice with his sled dog had enthralled listeners in Philadelphia, and if there were any other harrowing adventures he could recount, I felt sure he would see an increased enthusiasm in his audience.

When my letter was completed, after much revision and several copies, I presented it dutifully to Leah for reading. She declined, waving her hand and saying, “I rely on your good sense.”

Leah was very busy with spiritualist business at that time. Most recently, Mr. Capron had invited us to Auburn to visit a newly discovered medium, a young girl named Cora Scott. Leah accepted the offer on behalf of the whole family, feeling that we owed Eliab Capron the courtesy of a visit and the medium Miss Scott a gesture of professional support.

The Capron household was crowded but cozy, overflowing with a passel of giggling girls and the warm hospitality of the plump and amiable Mrs. Capron. Kate was welcomed like a long-lost sister, and after only a few minutes of acquaintance, so was I.

I felt some trepidation regarding our meeting with Cora Scott. I knew, of course, that spirit mediums had cropped up all over the country, but I had never met any. It was daunting and troubling to think of these people who imitated the example set by my family. Did we greet them as devoted believers or as artisans exchanging professional secrets?

Miss Cora Scott turned out to be a tiny thing, very pale with wide-set green eyes and hair the color of dark honey. She spoke hardly a dozen words to us, completely dominated by her hatchet-faced father. Her mother, Mrs. Scott, was a ghostly presence, floating along the perimeter of the room and avoiding eye contact with anyone. We, the guests, were directed to seats in a parlor elaborately overdecorated, cluttered with furniture, and heavily muffled with curtains. The room was uncomfortably close, and the smell of perfumed oil rose from the cushions and draperies.

Mr. Scott required us to place our hands on the arms of our chairs “to await the coming of the apparition” and warned us against moving from our assigned places. The spectral Mrs. Scott fluttered forward and presented her daughter with a cup of pungent tea. Miss Cora sipped delicately, then allowed her mother to remove the cup while she slumped in her seat with a soft sigh. Soon the child's eyelids began to twitch and her mouth worked silently, flecks of froth appearing on her pale lips. Her limbs jerked stiffly and her body began to convulse. I assumed the fit was faked but still glanced at Leah for reassurance. And then Mr. Scott put the gaslight out.

For a moment, we sat in total, impenetrable darkness. Then, with a sudden burst of noise, a powerful light exploded into the room, a harsh, unnatural light that caused sharp pain in our dark-adapted eyes. It was nothing like I had ever experienced, magnitudes of brightness beyond any gas flame and accompanied by a harsh crackling sound. In the center of this supernatural illumination a figure appeared, moving toward us.

A vision of a young woman, veiled and robed in diaphanous silks flickered in and out of existence. The apparition approached us in a disjointed and frightening progression, so that I drew back in my seat with horror. She was bleached of all color in the terrible light, inhumanly pale with dark eyes just visible beneath the obscuring veil, drawing inexorably closer with undulating ripples. Then, just when I thought I might scream, she began to retreat, writhing backward like some feminine snake. She descended into the brilliance, which abruptly popped out of existence, leaving us in darkness with bright images still dancing across our eyes and a harsh smell permeating the room.

Shortly thereafter we were escorted from the house by Mr. Scott, leaving his daughter limp on the couch and his wife hovering nearby. There were no questions to the spirit, no messages, no significance to the ghastly phantasm beyond, apparently, scaring the wits out of us.

We spoke among ourselves in the carriage on the ride back to the Capron house. Leah seemed amused. “Impressive,” she said, “but rather a one-trick pony for all that. What did you make of it, Calvin?”

“They used an arc lamp,” her husband affirmed with confidence. “It's an electric device, probably run from a battery in this case. If you looked directly into the light, you could see it on the floor.”

Look directly into that light? I admired Calvin's fortitude of eyesight while Leah asked questions about the device.

“I saw one demonstrated as part of a science lecture in Rochester. It was some years ago,” said Calvin, “but the lack of color in the light and that crackling noise make it unmistakable. Clearly, there was a hidden door or cabinet behind one of those curtains. Their accomplice started the battery and threw open the door. All she did was walk across the floor toward us, then backward away from us. She closed the door and dropped the curtain, then extinguished the battery.”

“But she kept popping from place to place,” Kate observed, with a tinge of jealousy in her voice.

“The light was flickering, too fast for you to realize. Her movement forward was steady, but it appeared fragmented to our eyes.” Calvin turned to Leah. “If you want one, I know where to inquire.”

My sister laughed. “I think not. Our business is best done in the dark. Besides, all it will take is one visitor to reach out and grab that spirit, and I expect she will squeal like a stuck pig. It is a doomed venture.”

“They will be exposed before the year is out,” Kate uttered in the flat, throaty intonation she used for her supposedly true predictions. Leah simply snorted her derision and commented that she did not need the second sight to predict that!

***

After a week's stay in Auburn, we returned by rail to New York City. Awaiting us, I found another letter from Dr. Kane. This time I sat in the room with Leah while she read it, fidgeting anxiously and trying to interpret the expressions on her face, ranging from raised eyebrow to scowl. Finally, she handed over the letter with obvious reluctance.

Dearest Maggie,

Your letter has been a comfort and a stimulus to long sessions of self-reflection. I can hear your voice in every written word, and I discover that I am bereft of a cherished friendship in your absence. How I miss you when listening to the nonsense of my fashionable friends who flatter and fawn and drown a man in empty praise! Only you, Maggie, have the sharp wit and intellect to puncture a man's folly and sense of overworth and still retain your sweet innocence of expression. Your words are honey, laced with a sharp tonic!

It was a blow when you suggested that “harrowing” tales were valued more than science and philosophy. What a comedown to think that I was simply being paid for an evening's worth of vicarious entertainment! I have chastised you, dear darling, for wasting your youth and conscience for a few paltry dollars, but when I think of the crowds who come nightly to hear wild stories of the frozen North, I realize that we are not so far removed after all.

However, I hasten to add that my accomplishments are true, and however entertaining, my stories harbor no exaggeration. If I must face the reality that the public will open its pocketbooks more out of sensation than humanitarianism, then I will be content to know that my intentions are pure. Can you, Maggie, claim a similar virtue in your rapping?

You say that my last letter was full of preaching, and I know that this one may be similarly received. Know only that I have your best interests at heart, and that my persuasions only serve to divert me from writing at length about other matters…how I long to look—only look!—at your dear, deceitful mouth and your hair tumbling over your cheeks. Better that I devote my attention to your character and your soul than other comely aspects of your precious self.

Thus, I must resign myself to being, fondly…

Your Preacher,

E. K. Kane

I could not control the flush that came to my cheeks nor force down the smile that curved my lips when I came to his final paragraph. I glanced guiltily at Leah, who was scrutinizing me with her stern gaze, but she had no comment to make.

In my reply, I addressed his question, defending myself from the criticism that he had so ably wrapped in silky words. “While I cannot pretend to lofty deeds that will expand the sphere of the globe and the knowledge of mankind all at once, I affirm a smaller, more personal goal in my actions. It is the meek and humble who come to me, broken with grief, racked by guilt, unable to escape the icy grip of despair, and it is to these poor souls I address my efforts.” Honey laced with tonic, indeed!

Thus our correspondence continued for several months, as we debated our positions on faith and honor while slipping endearments between the barbs. Leah commented dryly that if I was suddenly so taken with letter writing, then I could assist with her duties in correspondence, and I found myself sitting with my sister daily, writing letters under her direction to the Posts, Mr. Capron, and various spiritualist supplicants.

Elisha's touring schedule took him to Columbus and Cincinnati, then back to Philadelphia before he headed south to Washington. At first he wrote that he planned on diverting to New York City for a few days, and my hopes soared wildly, but a following letter served as apology when his plans changed.

As the weeks and months passed, I worked more and more closely with Leah in her web of connections between spiritualists and abolitionists and feminists. During our daily toil, she began to pressure me to demand some sort of answer from Dr. Kane regarding his intentions.

“You have known the man eight months,” she said, “although he has spent most of them hundreds of miles away from you. You are eighteen years old, highly marriageable right now, and there would be suitable young men knocking on our door day and night if it were not known that you were holding out for some mystery man who never shows his face here.”

“I cannot ask him if he wants to marry me!” I protested. “That is carrying the feminist cause too far!”

“He continually asks you to abandon your family and quit the rapping!” she retorted. “Yet he has not declared any serious intentions for you. And even if he did, is he really what you want? That man will spend all of his life traveling the world, and any wife of his had better get used to a marriage by post.”

It was hard to listen to her words, as blunt and sensible as they were. As his prolonged absence continued, Kate and Calvin ceased to defend him on my behalf, and all the tokens I had from Elisha himself were philosophical arguments and travelogues signed “The Preacher.” I did not want ministering; I wanted the romance and excitement of our time together in Philadelphia. I needed to see the fire in his eyes, the quickness of his hands, and the energy in his athletic frame. One day Kate solemnly pointed out a newspaper gossip column that listed a sighting of “the eminent explorer Dr. Elisha K. Kane” at an opera in Philadelphia with “a beautiful, unnamed young woman.” It was during the very week that he had failed to come to New York to visit. That's when I finally broke down.

With all his previous correspondence stacked neatly on my writing desk, I composed my carefully worded note. It was very brief and, I hoped, dignified:

Dearest Elisha,

You have spent the last few months trying to reform me from my current occupation, but I have to ask you, to what end? You speak of education in broad terms. Do you wish me to train as a schoolteacher? I know not how you wish me to make my way in the world, because currently the only thing that stands between my family and destitution is our renowned role as spiritual guides.

You have been my dear friend, Elisha, but I cannot continue in such an indeterminate state. I know well that I have no claim upon you. However, I have come to a point where I must know your intention, and while I value the friendship that we have, I cannot turn my back on my family and their calling even for the sake of friendship.

Fondly,

Maggie

No sooner was this missive posted than I regretted my rashness. I spent days in agony, imagining his response. He would profess his love to me. He would be angry at my presumption. He would rush to my side. He would crush my hopes with a laughing rejection. All these and more I spilled out in a torrent to Kate.