Eleanor, Alice, and the Roosevelt Ghosts

by Dianne K. Salerni

  “Of course,” Alice replies, sounding offended he would think otherwise.

  “No more sudden excursions.” His voice takes on an uncharacteristic sternness. “I mean it. I understand that you were curious, but you dredged up painful memories and emotions, which are difficult in her present state.”

  Tears spring to my eyes. “I’m sorry.” It was my fault. I was the one who eavesdropped on a conversation not meant for me and pursued it in the library files. I drove Alice to that house.

  “I’m sorry too,” Alice says, and I whip around to stare at her because I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say those words before. “What should we do about the ghost?”

  Uncle Will glances around as if the ghost might be lurking in the billiards room or peeping over the banister. “It won’t hurt to clear out the attic. But wait until your cousins arrive and get them to help you. Your aunt needs your full attention today. In fact, you should sit with her, eat breakfast, and convince her to eat too.”

  I have no appetite, but Aunt Bye needs to eat for the baby’s sake, so I’ll try.

  The world has turned upside down since I woke this morning, convinced I’d have the better of Grandmother before the breakfast dishes were cleared away. But she has won. I can’t pursue plans for my education in the midst of a national crisis. She might even be right about the Wadleigh School being canceled or postponed.

  A ribbon of frigid air follows me and Alice as we make our way back to the dining room. A draft, perhaps. Or maybe the ghost is letting us know it’s here and listening. For the time being, it too has won.

  12

  ELEANOR AND THE COUSINS

  GRANDMOTHER chooses not to take the switch to me for my disobedience. I suspect she doesn’t know whether I would submit, and neither do I, so it is just as well she doesn’t test me. Instead, she gives me the cold shoulder.

  One plate set for her evening meal.

  One plate set for her breakfast.

  If this is meant as a punishment, Grandmother has overestimated the pleasure of her own company. I eat with Rosie in the kitchen, listening to her stories about her grandchildren and feeling nothing but relief. Grandmother’s silence means I don’t need to tell her that I am leaving the house again after breakfast—or argue with her excuses for keeping me home.

  By the time I reach Aunt Bye’s the morning after Uncle Will’s departure, my cousin Corinne has already arrived, having taken an early train from New Jersey. She’s grown taller since she turned twelve but otherwise looks the same, with her cheerful round face and a huge bow on the back of her head restraining thick brown hair.

  “Why do you never visit us in New Jersey?” she asks, hugging me. “My brothers miss Gracie!”

  “I’ll try to do that this spring,” I say, even though Grandmother won’t allow me to travel with my six-year-old brother on my own, and she would never take us.

  “Well, good! Because we see Alice more than we see you, and she lives farther away!”

  Alice, who is perched on the arm of Aunt Bye’s chair, casts her eyes down and makes no comment. Her stepmother and Corinne’s mother have been close friends since childhood. I happen to know (because this is the kind of gossip Grandmother loves to tell) that Uncle Theodore met Edith through his sister when they were in their teen years and fell in love. Everyone thought they would get married, but unexpectedly, Uncle Theodore abandoned Edith for Alice Lee and married her instead. I once overheard Aunt Edith say that it was a lucky thing Aunt Alice died young because she would have bored Uncle Theodore to tears if their marriage had lasted longer. When Corinne’s mother and Aunt Edith get together, they probably look at Alice as an embarrassing leftover from her father’s mistake. I can’t imagine those visits are comfortable for her.

  The doorbell rings, and seconds later there is a great commotion in the hallway. The Hyde Park branch of the Roosevelt family has arrived.

  Aunt Bye struggles to stand. Alice takes one arm to assist her, and Corinne slips under her other arm. “Do you have names picked out for the baby?” Corinne asks.

  “William, if it’s a boy. We haven’t chosen a name for a girl.”

  Corinne’s smile dimples both her cheeks. “I suggest you name her after your only sister and your favorite niece. Corinne!”

  Aunt Bye smiles wanly. “Don’t you think we have enough Corinnes in the family?”

  “You can never have enough Corinnes.”

  Helen Roosevelt flies through the parlor door in a flurry of dark curls and feathers. She kisses Aunt Bye, then envelops Alice and Corinne in kisses while white downy tufts escape her swan-feathered wrap. When she turns to me, she gasps. “Eleanor, I almost didn’t recognize you!” Helen bestows a feathery kiss on my cheek. “You’ve grown into an Amazon! Or, with that hair, maybe Boudica.”

  “Who?”

  “Boudica.” Helen winks. “Celtic queen. Slaughtered many Romans.”

  “That doesn’t sound like our gentle Eleanor,” Aunt Bye says with a laugh.

  “Oh, I think Eleanor can be fierce if the occasion calls for it,” says a voice from the doorway.

  I didn’t see Franklin come in behind Helen. “Hello,” I say, my cheeks growing warm.

  “Hello right back at you,” Franklin replies with a smile.

  I don’t dare look in Alice’s direction. Once, a long time ago, I told her I thought Franklin was the handsomest of the Roosevelt boys, and Alice assumes that means my affection for him is more than cousinly. Which isn’t true.

  Franklin and Helen are fifth cousins to me, once or twice removed—whatever that means. When I was younger, I assumed they were first cousins to each other, just like me and Alice and Corinne. Then I came to understand that Helen was the daughter of Franklin’s much older half brother, which left me very confused. How could Franklin be Helen’s uncle when they were almost the same age—and, in fact, Helen was the older of the two?

  The answer is that the Roosevelt family tree is very complicated.

  While Maisie collects hats and coats, Helen jokingly peeks behind the parlor curtains. “Where is this ghost I’ve heard about? Hiding?”

  “Watching us,” Alice says.

  Helen gives a theatrical shudder. “Alice, you tease! Well, I have an idea I’m dying to try out. We should hold a séance. My friend Judith attended one at her cousin’s house, and they were able to get a ghost to tell them its name.”

  “If we find out who the progenitor was, it’s supposed to be easier to break its ties with the house,” Franklin says. “You remove anything the progenitor might have a connection to.”

  “That’s right,” Helen agrees. “Judith gave me a pamphlet with instructions on how to do it properly, if everyone’s game to try.”

  Franklin and Corinne chime in with enthusiasm. I look to see Alice’s reaction. Since investigating the haunting with the “ghoal” of fading the ghost was her idea, I expect to see consternation over Helen taking charge of the plan. But Alice nods without comment, which is very unlike her.

  I turn to see what Aunt Bye thinks, and that is when I realize she is no longer in the room. Which is as unlike Aunt Bye as subdued compliance is to Alice. Aunt Bye likes to be in the thick of things when the family is together. Walking out of the parlor, I head for the back of the house. She’s likely in the kitchen, giving instructions to the servants or fetching a plate of freshly baked cookies. But I find only Ida and Maisie, preparing the midday meal. “Have you seen Aunt Bye?” I ask.

  “Isn’t she in the parlor?” asks Maisie.

  I shake my head and take the servants’ stairs because they’re handy, even though I hate the enclosed stairwell. When I knock on Aunt Bye’s bedroom door, she answers, “Come in.” I discover her reclining in bed, fully dressed.

  “Aunt Bye! Are you ill?”

  “No, sweetheart. Just fatigued. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

&nbs
p; Of course she didn’t, not with her husband on a boat to Cuba. Today’s newspaper had no new information on the explosion but plenty of editorials calling for a military response. I was shocked by the number of prominent citizens ready to declare war before the facts have even been discovered.

  Downstairs, a doorbell rings. “Who can that be?” I wonder.

  “Helen’s friends,” Aunt Bye says. “They’ve been sending calling cards all morning.”

  Helen always has a flock of friends wherever she goes, but…“Do they have to come today? It’s her first day. She should spend time with you.”

  “Let her friends visit. I’m happy to host them.” Aunt Bye’s eyelashes flutter and close. She won’t be hosting anyone this morning. When she begins to snore lightly, I cover her with a blanket and return to the kitchen.

  Ida and Maisie look at me expectantly.

  “She’s taking a nap.”

  They must see the worry on my face because Ida says, “When my mother was carrying my youngest brother last year, she napped twice a day.”

  “The body knows what it needs,” Maisie adds, sounding older and wiser than her years. She takes off her apron and picks up a basket. “I’m off to the market. We’re having more people for today’s dinner than expected and the grocery delivery is coming up short.”

  She sounds annoyed, and I am too. I wanted to spend time with my cousins, and now I have to share them.

  Franklin and a couple of male visitors have congregated in what was formerly Aunt Bye’s drawing room, now transformed by Uncle Will into a billiards room. In the front parlor, Helen holds court over half a dozen girls, their voices sounding like a cacophony of birds. Dressed in bright colors and rich fabrics, they all look very sophisticated and, to me, intimidating. I stop outside the doorway with no idea how to join them.

  “What are you doing?”

  I startle, hearing Alice’s voice behind me. I’m not sure how to explain why I’m lurking in the hallway, but, glancing past me into the parlor, she seems to guess. “Go in and introduce yourself, Eleanor.”

  “I can’t.” Confessing this to Alice is a risk. I expect sharp words from her, but she surprises me.

  “They can’t make you feel awkward unless you let them. Sit down and join the conversation.” Alice makes it sound easy, and for her, it would be. Before I can ask her to go in with me, she hurries away, calling back over her shoulder, “Franklin wants to meet Emily Spinach!”

  Instead of entering the parlor, I return to the kitchen. If I find Fig Newtons or cake, I can offer refreshments to Helen’s guests. It’ll give me an excuse to go in and something to do with my hands. Looking around for a likely offering to put on a tray, I find instead a single blue teacup sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, with steam rising from the tea in it.

  My blue teacup.

  On the day my mother died, Aunt Bye took me and Gracie from Grandmother Hall’s house and brought us here. Gracie was too young to know what was going on, but I understood. Our mother was gone forever, and our brother Elliott was not long for this world. Aunt Bye sat me down at this table and gave me tea in this blue cup. She told me it was a magical, one-of-a-kind teacup that would ease heartache. “Not today and not tomorrow. But every time you drink from it, your heart will hurt a little less.”

  Now I know it’s only a mismatched teacup, the sole survivor of a set that no longer exists. But Aunt Bye still serves me with it whenever I take tea at her house.

  I look around. Maisie has gone to the market, and Ida is nowhere to be seen. The kitchen is colder now than when I passed through minutes ago, which makes me think this tea is a gift from the ghost. “Thank you,” I say to the empty room. I don’t know if ghosts want thanks, but like Aunt Bye when that handkerchief floated down from thin air, I feel obligated. Reaching for the sugar bowl, I lift the lid—and recoil.

  The sugar is hard and clumped, as if someone put a wet spoon into it. Worse, there are dead ants in the bowl. Remembering Miss Barnstable’s worm cake, I shudder and cross the kitchen with the bowl, open the back door, and toss the contents outside.

  Cold air rushes through the doorway, and strangely, it’s rushing from the inside of the house to the outside, as if my opening the door has created a cross breeze. Riding the breeze is a girl’s voice.

  “Where’s that cousin of yours who was galumphing around here earlier?”

  I recognize Helen’s voice when she answers. “Do you mean Franklin?”

  “No, that great big girl with the long blond hair.”

  “Oh, that’s Eleanor. I don’t know where she is right now.”

  It’s impossible to hear a conversation taking place in the front parlor while standing at the back of the house. And yet I can.

  “Why does she dress like an orphan waif from the 1860s? Can’t someone explain basic fashion sense to her? Or at least dispose of those horrible black stockings?”

  Another voice chimes in. “I’ve seen her around the neighborhood, carrying books from the library. She’s such an odd duck, like an old granny. You’d think she was eighty years old instead of fifteen!”

  Odd duck. Granny. The room lurches. My mother used to call me those things.

  “Eleanor is thirteen,” I hear Corinne say. “Not fifteen.”

  “Thirteen? And already that tall? She’ll be a giantess before she’s through!”

  Corinne laughs.

  Sweet, funny, affectionate Corinne—who never let go of my hand at my brother’s funeral—laughs at me.

  The blow is so great, I double over. Then I plunge directly out the back door into the alley behind the house.

  Without a coat, without a hat, I run home.

  13

  ALICE AT THE SEANCE

  HELEN’S guests stay for the meal but leave shortly afterward—all except for a tall, round-faced fellow named George who seems besotted with Helen. When she declares her intention to hold a séance that very afternoon, George enthusiastically pledges his support.

  So do Franklin and Corinne, which doesn’t surprise Alice. Helen has always been their unofficial leader, and when she plans an activity, be it a game of charades, a scavenger hunt, a picnic, or a masquerade party, the Roosevelt cousins fall into line.

  Opening up the pamphlet she got from her friend, Helen reads the pertinent parts aloud.

  “Under NO circumstances attempt a séance with a Vengeful or an Aggressive Unaware. Even a harmless Unaware or Friendly may become agitated when given an opportunity to communicate with the living. Therefore, choose the venue carefully. Avoid confined spaces. A room with more than one exit is safest.”

  “The dining room is the obvious choice,” Franklin says.

  “It is wise to take precautions for the protection of the participants, such as a circle of iron or salt around the séance table.”

  “I’ll handle that,” George declares, then adds dotingly, “if that’s agreeable to you, Helen.”

  “Not all ghosts are able to produce auditory phenomena, so provide an alternate means of communication, such as a talking board and a planchette or a pendulum.”

  “I have an idea.” Franklin eyes the chandelier over the table.

  “If you make a pendulum,” Corinne says, “I can make the alphabet.”

  As her cousins size up the task, choose a role, and get right to it, Alice recognizes the influence of her father.

  Every summer, Alice’s father hosts the extended Roosevelt family at his estate on Oyster Bay, Long Island. One of their traditional excursions involves navigating the two-hundred-foot incline of Cooper Bluff to the beach. There are other beaches they could visit, but the appeal to Alice’s father is the difficulty. He taught the cousins to work together in one long chain to descend the hill without losing their balance—not just the older ones, but also Corinne’s little brothers and Alice’s siblings. “We’re Roosevelts!” he
r father loves to shout. “If one goes down, we all go down!”

  Alice hates Cooper Bluff. Hates it. As bold as she likes to think herself, she’s not brave about feats of strength and coordination. Usually, while her cousins organize their chain by height and age, Alice complains bitterly, stamps her feet, and threatens not to go. Once, she really didn’t go, and her father left her sitting at the top of the bluff. She spent that afternoon sweating in the sun while her cousins and siblings frolicked on the beach. After that, her refusals were empty threats, but being pulled down that hill as part of a chain of children has never ceased to terrify her.

  Now she feels the same way. Watching her cousins prepare the dining room, Alice wants to stamp her feet and call a halt to this séance—and she doesn’t know why. A chilled foreboding? The unexplained need to look behind her?

  Alice hasn’t been back to the attic since her first visit. She likes to blame that on the circumstances: the harrowing visit to her birthplace, followed by the tragedy in Cuba and Uncle Will’s sudden departure. But the truth is, Alice has stood in the servants’ staircase and stared up at the door to the attic three times in the past two days. And on every occasion the same words dropped into her head: He must have wished you had never been born.

  Alice hasn’t avoided the attic because she’s afraid of the ghost. She has avoided the attic because she’s afraid of what horrible truths the ghost might show her next.

  Meanwhile, her cousins implement the first step in their plan to eliminate the haunting. Franklin detaches a crystal pendant from the chandelier above the dining table and rigs it to hang from a string, its point barely grazing the tabletop. Corinne writes the letters of the alphabet in a circle on a large sheet of butcher’s paper and slides it under the pendant.

  Helen and her admirer, George, collect every iron fire implement—poker, shovel, ash rake, and tongs—from every fireplace in the house. Together, they lay the tools on the floor around the dining table, each one crossing the ones adjacent to it so that the circle of iron is unbroken. To their dismay, they come up short. George rubs the back of his neck. “Well, I’ll be…”