We Hear the Dead (25 page)

Maggie

On Tuesday, the last day in May 1853, Elisha sailed away from New York in command of his first ship, the
Advance
, on a route to Greenland by way of Newfoundland. The newspapers were full of the story, even in Crooksville. Even before he had accomplished anything at all, Elisha Kent Kane was a hero, a dashing adventurer who had already captured the hearts of Americans with his great feats.

For me, he was a hopeless romantic who had given up a night's sleep amid all his important occupations to bring me a lost bird, one that he had located by the simple expedient of advertising a reward. I was simultaneously overjoyed and embarrassed by this diversion of his attention to duty. “I am shamed to have been so careless,” I agonized to him. “I have dragged you away from your ship and your preparations! Everyone who needs you aboard the
Advance
must be furious!”

“I account to no one for my whereabouts,” Elisha reminded me. “I am the commander. Besides, I was wishing for a handy excuse…I wanted to see you here, to know by my own observation that you were well and happy. Your mother told me that it was a tear-filled journey.”

“I was distraught,” I admitted. “But the Turners have been nothing but kind. Their home is lovely and welcoming, and I am content to be at my studies.” I turned to Mrs. Turner at this point, to acknowledge her presence and my gratitude, and I was startled to find her observing me shrewdly. It had not escaped her notice that the despondent, weepy student in her house was suddenly flushed with color and come alive with animation.

“I am pleased to be able to depart knowing that you are comfortable and contented,” Elisha said.

He stayed only long enough for tea, then departed in his hired carriage for Philadelphia to return by train to his point of origin. All those hours of travel for an afternoon's visit! I tried making a lame explanation to Mrs. Turner regarding his kindly patronage and true friendship.

She was having none of it. “I hope you will pardon me if I am being too forward, Miss Fox, but it is plain to anyone with eyes to see that Dr. Kane holds you in tender regard.”

I sighed. “People keep telling us that.” That was the end of keeping any secret from Mrs. Turner. It was a relief to admit my feelings, and on Saturday, when we knew the
Advance
was under way, I did not have to hide my tears.

“Now, now, Miss Fox,” my tutor comforted me, “you just look at that canary and remember what Dr. Kane said.”

***

I lived for letters.

It was not to say that the Turner house was unpleasant. Although I was a paying boarder, I had not been brought up to idleness, and so I helped with the household duties. My studies had been chosen by Elisha with my consultation, and so were precious to me—in theory. However, in practice, it could not be denied that I had never been a diligent student. I loved to read, but only the things that pleased me, and submitting to another's tutelage at my age chafed a bit.

Letters from Kate came regularly, describing her lively activities in New York with spiritualists and artists and intellectuals. There were letters from Mother as well, badly spelled and filled with inane details of the lives of people scarcely known to me. Still, I read them and was glad for the occupation. Leah was silent by post, thus making known her displeasure at my defection.

Most precious of all were the letters from Elisha. They arrived in Crooksville weeks and weeks after they had been written. By the time they reached my hands, Elisha had already passed out of the known, inhabited regions of Greenland and into the frozen silence of the North. Therefore, it was with some faint shivers of dread that I read his hearty descriptions of the Atlantic passage, his crew, and the outposts of southern Greenland, knowing that for him, these events were long past. I only hoped that during the very same moments that I was reading his treasured letters he was safe and well and somehow sensing my love for him.

***

The summer of 1853 passed in a kind of torture by pleasantries, scholarship, and a handful of outdated letters, creased and worn by constant rereading. The lovely and rustic Turner house mocked me with its charm, which had concealed at first its devastating isolation from the world I loved.

As for Mrs. Turner, having learned the true purpose for my education, she decided to include extra tutelage in deportment, to teach me to blend in with the society of the Kane family. “No extra charge,” she chirped amiably. One of the first things she wished to change was my outspoken belief in such social reforms as abolition and women's suffrage.

“A lady should be well informed and capable of speaking intelligently on politics, religion, and social issues,” Mrs. Turner instructed, “but hold no strong opinions of her own.”

“But Mrs. Turner,” I objected, “I have never noticed Miss Leiper to hold back her own opinions.”

Mrs. Turner pursed her lips as she considered the most tactful way to reply. Finally, she said, “Miss Leiper was born into an illustrious and well-respected family. You, Miss Fox, were not. Miss Leiper has no need, or dare I say interest, in winning the acceptance of anyone. You do. And I might mention that for all her breeding and social standing, Miss Leiper never married. Therefore, one might assume that her plainspoken viewpoints may not have been well received even by her own peers.”

I rather thought that Miss Leiper's maiden status was by her own choice, but Mrs. Turner had made her point.

Spiritualism, too, came under fire from my tutor, and not for the reasons one might think. “I express no opinion on messages from the spirit world,” she told me frankly. “I care not whether they are a miracle or a hoax. But I will tell you that any activity that places men and women together in a darkened room is a shocking breach of propriety and must be avoided at all costs!”

***

The green vegetation of the Pennsylvanian summer grew brown and dry through August and then flourished briefly again in the chill damp of September. I despised it in all colors, and with the autumn came a hay fever that brought me low with new misery. I am sure the Turners found me terrible company, and I know that my tutor was vexed by the growing number of excuses that kept me from my work. Toothaches and chest ailments provided one delay after another, not to mention pure peevishness. I was not proud of my behavior, but I had no more control of it than I did my own life anymore.

I spent hours locked in my room, reading all my old letters from Elisha and writing new missives of my own, which I burned when finished. Knowing that he would never read my words, I railed at him for imprisoning me here, for selfishly pursuing his own ambition while caging me as securely as the little canary he had given me. On other days, I poured my unending and undying love for him across the page. I was nineteen years old, soon to turn twenty, and I was dying by degrees of loneliness and despair.

Just when things seemed blackest, when I imagined the early winter ices closing in upon Elisha and dooming me to eternal emptiness, Kate, my darling sister and my closest friend, reached out her hand to me in my isolation and beckoned me to her:

You must come to us in New York. We have the most delicious opportunity to demonstrate our spiritual talents! I know that you will not take part, but I cannot bear to think of you pining away in the country alone without your family. You need not rap nor sit in circles with us, but you must come!

The New York Tribune has offered a reward of $500 to any spiritualist who can prove his or her power to communicate with the other world. Leah has decided to accept this challenge. There are other mediums who will gather in New York for this opportunity, including the Davenport brothers. I expect the entertainment of watching the others will be just as satisfying as proving myself.

I know you will say that Dr. Kane would not approve. I know you will say that Mrs. Turner will not release you from your studies and the Grinnells will not permit you to live under Leah's roof. I have taken measures to overcome all these objectors—save, of course, Elisha, who is quite out of my reach. Still, he who loves you would not want to see you so unhappy. He would let you come and visit with your darling sister (me) as long as you promised to avoid the influence of the Tigress (Leah). Have I judged him rightly?

Bear up, dear Maggie, and await rescue. You will know it when it arrives.

With love,

Kate

I did not know what to make of her letter, although the tantalizing thought of spending the rest of the year in the city with Kate and a flurry of social engagements lifted my hopes. I did not see what she could do to influence Mrs. Turner or Henry and Cornelius Grinnell, but if I had learned anything in all the years since 1848, it was to not underestimate my little sister.

The letters, when they arrived, caused Mrs. Turner some distress. “I wish you had told me, Maggie,” she said to me with some indignation, “that your mother has been begging you to come to New York. It makes me seem like a tyrant for not allowing you a visit, when in fact you never even asked me!”

“I am sorry, Mrs. Turner,” I replied contritely, feeling my way carefully because I was not privy to the contents of the letter in her hand. “I wanted to do better in my studies. I know that my progress has been slow this fall, as I've been ill so often.”

“But if your mother has been pining for a visit and her doctor will not allow her to travel…You never told me she suffered from the gout.”

“It comes and goes,” I said weakly.

“And here is a letter from Mr. Grinnell imploring me to release you for a month's visit. Release you! As if I had you locked up here! Really, Maggie, this is most unfair. If you had told me about your mother's condition, she certainly would have had no reason to write Mr. Grinnell and ask for his permission.”

“No, you are right, Mrs. Turner,” I agreed. “I never meant to imply that you would not let me go, only that I wished to honor my promises to Dr. Kane.”

“Mr. Grinnell has arranged for you to stay with a Mrs. Ellen Walters rather than at your sister's home. He says that her daughter has chaperoned you in the past.” She put down the letter in her hand in order to pick up the other one, the one from Mr. Grinnell.

“Oh, yes, she was a lovely and charming young lady,” I lied, casually moving over to take a peek at the letter from “my mother.” As I had suspected, it was written by Kate.

I looked up at my tutor earnestly. “I will make it up to you, Mrs. Turner. I will be sure to write my thanks to Mr. Grinnell and let him know that the fault for neglecting my mother is entirely mine.” I smiled. “And I promise to study ever so hard while I am gone.”

***

By the middle of October, I found myself back in New York, seated in the stately home of Charles Partridge, a match factory owner and devoted spiritualist, awaiting a demonstration by the Davenport brothers, the newest team of sibling mediums in the state of New York. Mr. Partridge had kindly offered to host this affair for reporters and interested spiritualists on the week before the official tests.

My return to the city had been a genuine surprise to my mother. She, of course, knew nothing of the letters she had supposedly written to arrange my visit but was nonetheless happy to see me. I was indeed expected to stay at the house of Ellen Walters, the mother of the woman who had served as my chaperone in the spring. Leah was insulted by this slight and blamed Elisha for the offense, despite the fact that he was hundreds of miles away and knew nothing about the arrangement. My relation with Leah was more strained than ever, and my presence at Mr. Partridge's gathering was only barely tolerated.

Being there at all was a matter of some ambiguity. I was attending a spiritualist event, although not as a participant. The Grinnells would have been displeased, and Elisha would not have approved, but technically I was breaking no promises. I was so happy to be in society again that I had no intention of missing out on all the fun. Elisha, I decided, could scarcely begrudge me an evening's entertainment.

Since I had returned to New York, I had enjoyed deliveries of flowers and gifts, invitations to plays and musicals, and a constant stream of callers. My boarding lady, Mrs. Walters, was delighted by the sudden popularity of her house. Unexpectedly, she turned out to be an affable but lonely older woman, confined with an unsociable spinster daughter. The younger woman, Miss Clementine Walters, had not changed a bit since our previous encounter; if anything, she had grown dourer in the intervening months. My presence brought a sudden shower of attention that ill suited her nature, and I thought of her, uncharitably I admit, as a sort of sinister spirit lurking in the background of our sunny days. By contrast, Mrs. Walters, giggling giddily in happiness, welcomed my guests and savored the sudden change in her lifestyle almost as much as I did. If it had not been for my fear that she would report back to Mr. Grinnell, I would have brought her with me this evening, as she would surely have been fascinated by the demonstration.

Kate, my clever rescuer, linked arms with me as we prepared to watch the Davenport boys perform their celebrated talents. We were both wearing new gowns, trimmed in the latest fashion, our hair intricately twisted and curled. “They can't be a day over fifteen,” she whispered, eyeing up the competition.

“Rather less, I think,” I replied.

“They remind me of us,” Kate said reflectively, “when we were young and innocent.”

“
You
were never innocent,” I retorted.

The Davenport brothers were the newest sensation in the profession. Their specialty was levitation and summoning spirits to play musical instruments while they were bound hand and foot. They worked with the aid of a spirit cabinet, in which they were locked while the phenomena took place.

The cabinet was displayed before us this evening in the ballroom of Mr. Partridge's mansion, where nearly four dozen guests had gathered. It was nothing more than a large wooden closet with three doors on hinges. Inside were two benches, at opposite ends, and a number of hooks and pegs from which hung tambourines, trumpets, and cowbells of varying sizes.