“I have no bad feelings about it,” Kate replied. “I only have the sense that the trip will do you good, and I scarcely need the sight to know that!”
I sighed. “I wish we could go together.”
“Someone must stay and obey Leah’s every command,” Kate said wryly. “Otherwise she will have no one to bully save poor Calvin, and his fate would be upon our heads!”
***
It was a restful trip, and we were lucky to enjoy a stretch of warm, early summer weather. Philadelphia, while quite a large city, seemed more personable and warm than New York, and our hotel suite was better than promised, with a sunny sitting room and a spectacular view. We were hosted by Mr. Simmons and a number of spiritualists from his Quaker meeting. They were polite and gentle folk, quite typical of Quakers, and the demand for spirit circles was far less than I had expected. They seemed content to have me there, to meet me, and to talk about spiritualism.
In the afternoons we held public circles at our hotel in a parlor given over to our use. Any of the known Quaker and spiritualist associates could attend for a dollar’s fee and converse with the spirits on matters of religion and philosophy. For a slightly larger fee, we also held private meetings with people wanting a more intimate conversation. Mr. Simmons met with prospective clients ahead of time, and it turned out to be quite easy wheedling information from him before meeting the sitters. Leah would have been proud. Mother was a great help, as she was a natural gossip, and her forthright, friendly manner not only put our guests at ease but also encouraged them to talk freely about themselves.
Occasionally, someone of high stature in the city would approach Mr. Simmons, and he would send this person directly up to our parlor without prior warning, never realizing he was lessening my chances for a successful sitting. Such was the case one afternoon in our second week there, when a diffident knock came upon the door and Mother opened it to a stranger.
I was seated in the window seat of the parlor at the time, enjoying the sunny warmth and reading a book. I scarcely looked up when I heard a mild voice say, “I beg your pardon. I have made some mistake. Can you direct me to the room where the spiritual rappers can be found?”
I smiled and turned back to my book while Mother assured the gentleman that he had found the correct room. She invited him in and ascertained that Mr. Simmons had met him downstairs and directed him up, a sure sign that he was an important person. Under those circumstances, it was probably inexcusable that I continued to direct my attention to my book, but I was keenly aware that the visitor kept glancing in my direction as if unable to help himself. It was my first deliberate flirtation since I was in Troy, and after a moment’s enjoyment of the old thrill, I put down my book with a sigh and approached the sitting table with a mind toward getting down to business.
He was a man of slight stature, scarcely taller than I was, well dressed, with dark hair. As I seated myself across from him, I noticed that he had remarkable eyes, very wide and warm brown in color. They were kindly eyes, and I smiled naturally at him and watched those eyes widen in reaction. It was easier to manage these unannounced sittings if the client’s attention was drawn to a pretty girl instead of being on the alert for manipulation.
“You have come to us today because someone dear to you has died,” I said, by way of introduction.
“Yes, my youngest brother, Willie,” he helpfully replied.
I nodded sympathetically. I looked at his careworn face, showing the ravages of recent grief and sadness. “You feel some guilt,” I went on, “because your younger brother is gone but you have survived him.” This was not a difficult guess, but I appeared to strike some deep feeling in the man. He started in his seat and looked nearly overcome with emotion.
“I have never been a completely well man,” he admitted. “My health has been delicate for years—although I have never let that prevent me from living my life,” he quickly amended, as if I might think less of him for being sickly. “But I always assumed that if any one of us might die young, it would be me. Not Willie.”
I had gathered enough information at that point to commence the sitting. Mother drew the curtains, bringing the room to semidarkness, and we called upon the spirits to join us.
It was not a remarkable sitting. Young Willie appeared and rapped out a message for his brother, encouraging him to continue living as he usually did and to enjoy every day that came to him. There was no need for guilt, and the spirit of Willie expressed surprise that his beloved brother would succumb to such a fruitless emotion.
Feeling that I had the upper hand, I invited the gentleman to ask a question that would prove the identity of his brother’s spirit and gave him a pen and a paper on which he could write four answers. Our visitor accepted these items with a strangely anguished look at me, and then bent to his task, quickly penning the words “medicine” and “engineering.” He paused a moment, lifting the pen from the paper, and then wrote “languages” and, after another pause, “law.” Then he lay down the pen and looked across the table at me with some apprehension.
I smiled, trying to put him at his ease. “You may ask your question,” I prompted.
“When I first went away to university, what did I study there?” he asked. I directed him to point at each of his answers in turn and when he reached “engineering,” I caused there to be a sharp rap. He stared at me in puzzlement and amazement, and I gazed innocently back at him. My mother and I rose, to signal him that the sitting was over.
It had been a session of rapping like a hundred others that I had done. I was accomplished at my task and used to disconcerting men of intelligence who did not believe I could outwit them. There would have been no reason to remember this man above any other, if he had not turned to me while Mother was bustling toward the door, taken my hand, and looked me directly in the eye.
“This is no life for a young lady,” he said, and I recognized in his frank gaze that he had clearly seen through my deception.
“Good afternoon to you, Dr. Kane,” Mother chirped merrily from the door, having heard nothing of what he said to me. “And may God grant you respite from your sorrow.”
“Good day to you, Mrs. Fox,” the gentleman replied, tipping his hat to her as he departed.
I was startled and a little disappointed that I had been unable to fool him. However, I had no idea on that afternoon that I had met a man who would change my life forever.
PART THREE:
THE AFFAIR AND THE ADVENTURER
Chapter Twenty-Three
Maggie
When we received Dr. Elisha Kent Kane’s note on the afternoon following his first visit, my mother was delighted and flattered. Mr. Simmons was quick to advise us on how honored we should be to receive his invitation to a carriage ride in the city. For my part, I had no wish to spend the afternoon with a man who had mocked my efforts the previous day. But Mother insisted that we accept the gracious invitation of the very important Dr. Kane.
I stumped my way down to the entranceway of the hotel with some ill grace, sulking and petulant, but nonetheless dressed in my finest frock. I recalled the good doctor as slight figured, rather sickly, with a too-high forehead. This description did fit him superficially, and yet did not in any way account for the manner in which his personality illuminated him from within. He met us at the door of the hotel with a smile that sprang naturally to his face and bowed us out onto the street toward his waiting carriage.
I was startled at the sight of him, while recognizing him at once as the same man who had come to us the previous day. But he looked different to me somehow. Yes, he had a high forehead but also rich, waving dark hair. His eyes were fiery and intense. He was a man whose attraction came from his personality, and in the absence of his presence, you could forget how remarkable he really was. When he boosted me into the carriage with a hand upon my arm, I could feel the strength of him, and the sudden flush of warmth to my cheeks
startled me.
He was not the sort of man who interested me. Any flirtation on the previous day had been solely for the sake of the spirit sitting, to unbalance him and acquire information. So why, then, did my heart beat so rapidly?
A second man was seated inside the carriage, and for a moment I was frightened. Before the incidents at Troy, I would never have so easily taken affright, but my constitution had been sorely tested, and I recoiled in shock at the sight of him. But then he smiled affably, and Dr. Kane stuck his head into the carriage to introduce the gentleman as his cousin, Mr. Patterson.
“I humbly beg your forgiveness,” this new person said as the four of us settled into our places, “for my intrusion on your excursion. Heaven knows that I have no need to visit the sights of the Quaker City, but I am in Philadelphia only for a day and have not laid eyes on my cousin in nearly five years. Fearing he might hare off on another excursion to the Arctic before my next visit to the old hometown, I foisted myself upon him for the day, and, as it turns out, upon you.”
“I keep telling my cousin that he is no burden,” Dr. Kane murmured with a slight smile, “unless he continues to apologize so loquaciously, in which case we might very well expel him from our tour.”
“Land sakes, Dr. Kane,” my mother simpered, her plump cheeks flushed with the exertion of climbing into the carriage, “we certainly do not mind Mr. Patterson. We are just so grateful and honored that you have extended your hospitality…”
“Are you intending to visit the Arctic?” I inquired, firmly interrupting Mother’s rambling discourse before she could embarrass us. I did not want these gentlemen to think we were languishing in our hotel for lack of company!
“Just returned, in fact,” replied Dr. Kane with another soft smile, accompanied by a flash of his remarkable brown eyes.
“From the Arctic?” I repeated. “How curious! Whatever were you doing in the Arctic? It is not a typical destination for travelers.”
“No, it is not,” he admitted, “although it is beautiful nonetheless, and if not so deadly, it would be a worthy addition to any serious wayfarer’s itinerary. I was lucky enough to be a member of the Grinnell Rescue Expedition in search of Sir John Franklin’s ships and crew.”
I blinked at him thoughtfully for a moment and then asked, “Do you mean the English explorer who vanished some years ago?”
It was his turn to gaze at me in momentary discomfort, and he said, “Exactly so,” as if he was surprised to find that I knew this.
“It seems unrealistic to launch a rescue at this late date,” I remarked with unwitting coldness. “What has it been, five or six years? Surely Sir Franklin and his crew are dead.”
“Now, Maggie,” muttered Mother.
“Do you know of this through your spirits?” inquired the cousin, Mr. Patterson, brightly.
“Merely common sense,” I demurred. “I have no direct knowledge through the spirit world, but if they lived, they would have returned to civilization by now.”
“Not necessarily, Miss Margaretta,” Dr. Kane replied, and I felt a startling thrill as he spoke my name. My eyes were drawn helplessly back to his own, as though magnetized. “Ships can be lost and, if warranted, abandoned. But there is game to be found, and a living to be made in those lands, if you are determined. Perhaps you have heard of the Eskimo?”
“Of course,” I said. I would not stand for being thought ignorant. “I know that Indians live in the Arctic lands. However, if this Englishman and his crew survived, whether by living like savages or not, wouldn’t someone have encountered them by now? Did you find any signs of him on your voyage?”
“Sadly, no.” The doctor’s eyes remained strangely alight. His mouth was curved upward while delivering his unfortunate statement, as though he was greatly amused by the conversation, if not by the subject. “Our ships became trapped near Baffin Island, and we were unable to continue our search.”
“Trapped?” chirped Mother. “How does a ship become trapped? Do you mean run aground?”
“No,” he said, breaking our gaze and turning to Mother. “The sea around the ship froze into solid ice, preventing us from moving forward or backward and trapping us in our place.”
“How horrifying!” she gasped. “You must have been terrified!”
Dr. Kane broke out an unexpected grin. “Surprisingly, Mrs. Fox, the opposite is true. It was the tedium that horrified, for we were perfectly safe, but fixed fast and unable to escape for months. Terror would imply immediate danger, and our circumstance was more on the order of slow, torturous boredom!”
“Only my cousin Elisha,” interjected Mr. Patterson, “would complain that being icebound in the Arctic for months was a trial of boredom! Mind you, I imagine that after you’ve explored a volcano, all else pales by comparison!”
“Has he explored a volcano?” I asked innocently, darting my eyes first at Mr. Patterson and then back to his cousin in an invitation to tell more.
“He has,” asserted Mr. Patterson proudly, while Dr. Kane continued to grin sheepishly, murmuring, “It is a foolish story.”
It was a matter of moments to convince him to tell us the tale. He made a weak effort to resist, directing our attention out the carriage window to the graceful arch of the Schuylkill Bridge. But we persisted, and with a sigh and a modest shake of the head, he acquiesced, saying mournfully, “The tale does not paint me in a very flattering light.”
“All the more reason for us to enjoy it!” quipped his cousin.
“I was in the Philippines,” Dr. Kane began. Mother interrupted to ask where that was, and I darted her a look of consternation that she would so cheerfully display her lack of education. But the doctor patiently explained that the Philippines were islands south of China, in the South China Sea. “I was a member of a diplomatic mission to China,” he continued, as mildly as if remarking that he had made a journey to the state capital. “From there, I was dispatched as part of an auxiliary expedition to Manila—which is a city in the Philippines,” he added for my mother’s benefit, “to inspect a cache of military supplies. While in Manila, I met a young German peer of the realm, the Baron Loë, who was an adventurer and traveler—a rather brash fellow known for taking appalling risks with his life.”
“Nothing like you, then, cousin,” interjected Mr. Patterson, winning a sidelong glance and a devilish grin from Dr. Kane.
“When I met the baron,” he went on, “he had arranged an expedition to the volcano at Taal Lake, bribing some native guides with a ghastly amount of local currency. The natives viewed it as a sacred place, you see, the home of angry gods. Before I knew it, I found myself embarking on a thirty-mile hike into the jungles of Luzon with a crazy German peer and a handful of cowering, untrustworthy natives apt to run off with the money and abandon us.
“The jungle was a miserable place, abominably hot, with insects as large as my hand. Taal Lake, however, was magnificent, awe inspiring, with jewel-blue waters and a fog-wrapped shroud over the volcano that rises from its center. The natives paddled us across the lake in the dugout canoe that we had carried—with some difficulty—upon our heads on our jaunt through the jungle. Then we ascended a thousand feet up the side of the volcano itself, onto the rim of the crater, a vast ring two miles in circumference. Looking down from the height of the rim, we could see the most amazing sight of all, a second lake within the crater, surrounded by a beach of volcanic ash and steaming as if the whole thing were part of a tremendous witch’s cauldron.”
The carriage continued to rattle along on its prearranged tour of Philadelphia, but the sights passed unremarked as we sat mesmerized by Dr. Kane’s every word.
“Loë and I speculated on the chemical composition of the lake inside the volcano, and I became convinced that it must be sulfuric acid. Loë disagreed, however, and suddenly I announced that I would descend to the basin of the crater and acquire a sample of it to prove my theory. Even th
e baron was shocked by such a foolish suggestion, and I am afraid that I became all the more resolved to my course in the hopes that I would impress this seasoned adventurer. Of course,” he said, turning to us and smiling ruefully, “it was a dreadfully stupid thing to do. It was, in fact, almost the death of me.
“Loë quickly rose to the spirit of the thing and helped me create a makeshift rope out of bamboo fibers. I directed the natives to brace themselves to support my weight as I climbed down. Thus, I soon found myself descending into the crater, a rigorous venture that I came to regret.
“The basin was a desolate place, humid and ill smelling, and the lake itself was foul. I wandered about for a moment, awestruck by the otherworldliness of the place, when sudden shouts attracted my attention. Loë had attempted to follow me down, but the fellow was fully six feet tall and half as wide across the chest. The fiber rope could not support his weight and had begun to unravel, nearly dumping him into the crater before he managed to grasp an outcropping and clamber back up. At this point, the natives experienced a sudden reprise of their superstitions and, deciding that the volcano god was angered by the invasion, abandoned their positions and scrambled down the side of the volcano, leaving me stranded inside and Loë unable to haul me out by himself!
“Oh, look!” Dr. Kane interrupted himself, suddenly pointing out the window of the carriage. “There is Congress Hall. Surely, ladies, you would like to alight here and see this prestigious building.”
Mother and I shook our heads, hardly noticing the bustle of the city square outside. “An historic building or two can hold no appeal over a volcano in the middle of a lake on an island in the South China Sea,” I breathed. “Please, Dr. Kane, do not leave us thus, or we shall conclude that you perished there, and that the man before us is only a phantom!”
We Hear the Dead Page 15