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The summer of 1853 passed in a kind of torture by pleasantries, scholarship, and a handful of outdated letters, creased and worn by constant rereading.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 inte
rested 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.
Dr. J. B. Ferguson, the Presbyterian minister who sponsored the boys, introduced the demonstration. “What you will see here tonight is no trickery but a true manifestation of beings from another realm,” he assured us. “These innocent boys are only the channel through which the spirits touch our world, and to prove to you that there is no collusion here, we shall ask two strangers from the audience to assist us.”
Kate released me and leaned forward in her chair, thrusting her hand in the air and waving like an overeager schoolgirl. Dr. Ferguson could not resist her charms and motioned her to come forward, then chose one of the journalists as well. The two Davenport boys seated themselves on the benches in the cabinet while Dr. Ferguson gave Kate and the other gentleman each a rope and pantomimed how they should secure the mediums. While Kate wrapped her rope round and round William Davenport’s legs, I searched for some sign of subterfuge, but I could not detect a thing. Impulsively, I leaned across Kate’s empty chair and whispered to Leah, “I miss Calvin.”
My sister turned her head to regard me impassively, then looked away without comment. After all this time, I still did not know what depth of feeling she’d had for her second husband, or whether she had married him, as she did so many other things, to further her own purposes.
Kate, meanwhile, was laughing, casting flirtatious glances at the audience while twining the long length of rope through the bench and around the arms and torso of the elder brother. The gentleman from the newspaper finished securing Ira Davenport and came to assist her, taking the rope and giving several sharp tugs before tying it off across William’s shoulders. If Kate had been a planned distraction, she could not have done a better job. All eyes were upon her, and even William Davenport seemed taken with her, gazing at her foolishly with his mouth agape. Dr. Ferguson took her hand and thanked her, holding onto her fingers just a moment longer than he needed to, and she saucily swept her smile across the audience before returning to her seat beside me.
“Nothing in the boy’s hands,” she murmured to me, settling back in her chair. “And nothing up his sleeves.” I just stared at her, astounded at her boldness and audacity.
Dr. Ferguson, with the assistance of Mr. Partridge, closed the three doors to the cabinet and locked them. He turned down the gaslights in the room to the merest flicker of illumination, scarcely enough to see the person seated beside us. Apparently, the Davenport boys would perform their miracle not only while locked in a cabinet and concealed from our sight but in darkness as well.
For the next quarter of an hour, we were treated to a variety of perplexing phenomena, including the clamor of a badly played trumpet and an off-beat tambourine, a clatter of bells, and luminous hands that appeared from the sides of the cabinet making strange, meaningless gestures at us. After a time, all fell silent, except for the murmurs and whispers of the audience. Dr. Ferguson rose from his seat and gradually turned the lights up to their full strength. Then he made quite a show of unlocking the three cabinet doors, finally throwing them back to reveal William and Ira, still seated on their respective benches, trussed from neck to feet in ropes as before.
The audience broke into applause, which I joined wholeheartedly, while Dr. Ferguson selected two other persons to come and untie the boys. “Please indicate whether you feel they are sufficiently restrained,” he asked them, and the two chosen assistants agreed heartily that the boys were still tightly bound. The young man releasing William’s feet even complained, “Miss Kate Fox ties a devilish knot!” bringing a surge of laughter from the assembly.
Finally, when the boys were free, Mr. Partridge thanked the assembly for attending the demonstration and smoothly informed the journalists and other sundry guests that the event was over. The mediums who had gathered to participate in next week’s examination were all invited to a late evening supper at the Partridge home, but everyone else was subtly encouraged to depart.
The audience broke into applause. The two Davenport boys scuttled over to their father, who ushered them to the side door, where supper would be waiting. As the company began to disperse, some to the street and some to Mr. Partridge’s dining room, I asked Kate whether she had figured out how the boys had escaped their bindings and gotten back into them so neatly.
“I do not know,” she admitted, “but I am going to do my best to find out!” With that, she sashayed off in pursuit of William Davenport, a predatory gleam lighting her eyes.
I gathered my cloak and picked my way through the scattered chairs. When I reached the point where I would have to choose my path, toward the front door or toward the dining room, I looked up to find Leah observing me curiously. I paused, and she raised one eyebrow significantly, a knowing smile on her lips. There was no doubt she knew exactly how much I would rather attend Mr. Partridge’s supper than return alone by taxi carriage to Mrs. Walters’s house.
But I had given my word to Elisha that I wou
ld not allow my name to be linked with spirit rapping anymore.
And so I turned away from her, walking with dignity toward the street door, grateful only that she could not see my face.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Maggie
I dragged out my stay in New York as long as possible, and in December when I had run out of excuses and reasons for delay, I returned to Crooksville. I shed tears on the journey but resolved to demonstrate an improved temperament upon arrival at the Turner house. Susannah Turner and her husband had been good to me and did not deserve the brunt of my ill temper.
Besides, I told myself, it was only for six months more.
I had latched on to the idea that Elisha’s expedition would take exactly a year and had refused to entertain the possibility of it extending any longer. Thus, in May 1854 I sent a package of letters to the Grinnells for Elisha, asking to have them forwarded to his first expected contact. Then I applied myself to my studies virtuously in the expectation that I would hear from Elisha by June and spent many hours imagining how we would celebrate his return.
My patience chafed, however, as the weeks and then the months passed with no sign of Elisha’s vessel. I knew very well how short the Arctic summer was and how briefly the ice floes parted to create a passage for ships. The speculation in the newspapers about the extended silence from Elisha’s expedition did nothing to alleviate my growing anxieties.
Months slowly passed, and in the early days of September a package arrived at the Turner house. Seeing that the sender was Cornelius Grinnell, I tore into it with soaring hopes—only to have my heart torn out by the contents. The package was filled with my own letters to Elisha. Young Mr. Grinnell had returned them to me with a brief note explaining that no contact had been made with the Advance, and none could now be expected until the following spring. “Whaling vessels report that it has been a very bad year for ice,” he wrote. “Dr. Kane will have no choice but to wait out a second winter above the Arctic Circle.”
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