The Spirit Room

by Paul, Marschel

  “Doesn’t the bell need more of a pull than a push of the heel?”

  “That’s what’s brilliant. I’ve got a reverse lever in here.” He jumped up, shoved his spectacles back with a finger, and beckoned to her to come and look at the spot where he was tinkering.

  There was a hinge piece attached to a metal rod that ran toward the table to the new foot lever. The hinge was on a pivot so that the other end of it would move opposite the direction of the push and cause a pull of the cord. That pull would ring the bell hidden in the wall.

  “Papa, it’s very clever. You should invent things, get patents and make new things for foundries or farms or homes, like coffee grinders or engine parts.”

  He was kneeling now, smiling in a relaxed way. He removed his spectacles and started polishing them with his handkerchief. He looked satisfied, even proud. Replacing his spectacles, he broke into his full out crooked-tooth grin.

  “You know, I’ve been thinkin’ that same thing. I’m goin’ to look into it when I git a chance, maybe next week.”

  “I think you should, Papa.”

  “Let’s test the jingle. Go sit in the chair.”

  This was the best she could have hoped for. He was hopeful, happy, and best of all, sober. There wouldn’t be a better time than this to tell him about Mac and his proposal.

  Izzie sat at the oak table, her back to him.

  “Now, try it,” he said.

  She had to find the new foot pedal with her heel, to the right of the old one. After a little searching with her foot, she jammed it down. There was a small pop. No bell.

  “Blam’d cord broke. Too much tension on it.” He knelt back down again to study the damage. “It ain’t bad. Needs more slack. I can fix it, yessir.”

  Izzie turned sideways in the chair and watched him. He wasn’t daunted by the setback. Only a few months ago something that small might have set his temper off if he was drunk or hung-over or even in between. He would have yelled at whoever was nearby or stormed out and gone to one of his taverns for hours, even days.

  “Papa, I have something to talk to you about.”

  He stood and walked to the bookshelves by the door, picked up a roll of cord, and returned to the floor opening.

  “I’m all ears, daughter. It about the séances? You got some new idea?”

  “No, it’s about my future.”

  Her throat tightened as soon as the words were out. He returned to his levers and hinges in the floor and began unwinding a length of brown cord. Izzie scraped the chair around to face him, then scratched at a prickle in the crook of her elbow.

  “I’ve had a marriage proposal, Papa.”

  Her heart slowed as she waited for him to digest her news. And he took his sweet time. After a long while, he stood up, stared at his cord beneath the floor, and then began measuring, pacing foot by foot, letting out new cord until he reached the bell in the wall. The inside of her left elbow began to itch so much that she had to press down on it with the palm of her hand.

  Finally, his back still to her as he untied the old broken cord on the bell in the wall, he said, “Well, that was bound to come, but I haven’t seen any gents callin’ on you. Who is it?”

  He sounded steady, not angry at all. Now she had to be careful, but how could she soften the fact that it was Mac the physician?

  “It’s Doctor MacAdams, the physician who looked after Euphora and me when we were sick.”

  He dropped his hands from his task, turned around to face her.

  “You mean the water-cure quack who you paid without my say so?”

  Izzie nodded, trying to hide the flash of anger that charged through her.

  “And who you been sneaking behind my back courting, I guess.”

  “Not sneaking, Papa. I’ve seen him a few times. The proposal was unexpected, very surprising to me. I ran into him at the bookseller’s, then we had tea at the Gem. Then he invited me to tour the Hygienic Institute and that’s when he proposed. He’s going to Rochester and wants me to go with him.”

  “Rochester. One of them racing fast fellows, in and out of town like a train, pick up a wife and go. And that’s it? You ain’t seen him since he proposed?”

  “Once.”

  If he asked the circumstances of the “once” she’d have to lie about Sunday at Silver Thread Falls now or admit she lied before. And had she been sneaking? Or was it just being private, being a grown woman on her own. He’d never asked where she was before, not for years, and certainly not since last summer when they arrived in Geneva. She held her breath.

  “No, Isabelle.” His voice was stony.

  “No, what?”

  “No, you ain’t marryin’ him and you ain’t goin’ to Rochester.”

  “Papa, this is a chance for me to have a better life, a good chance. I may not get another proposal like this.”

  “No daughter of mine is marryin’ a quack.”

  “That’s exactly what I knew you would say.” Anger slipped into her voice. Rot. She didn’t want to do that. She didn’t want to get him riled.

  “Well, why’d you even ask me, then?”

  She rose from the chair and walked to the windows to collect herself and get some fresh air. She grabbed the sash of the middle window and jerked it up a few inches, enough to get a decent grip on the frame, then she hoisted it up. It was a spectacular spring day. She inhaled the sweet, warm air, calmed herself, then walked over to Papa and stood firmly in front of him.

  “Because I hoped you care enough about me to be happy for me. I hoped you’d give me your blessing when I found a good husband, one who would love me and take care of me. Isn’t that what fathers want for their daughters? Isn’t that what you want for me, Papa?”

  Blinking rapidly, he took a moment to consider her question.

  “No quacks.” His voice was flat, hard.

  “He’s not a quack. We’re the quacks, lying to people, taking their money.” She strode past the table toward him as she spoke. “We’re the quacks, Papa. We fool people. We take advantage of their pain, their loss.” Her hands were shaking so badly she crossed her arms over her waist to still them.

  “We don’t kill people, Isabelle.” Saliva sprayed from his mouth.

  “Papa, not all doctors kill people. Why do you say that? Why?”

  He was breathing hard, gripping the ball of cord with a stiff hand and arm, his neck and jaw muscles tense and quivering.

  She felt he might strike her. Was he holding himself back?

  “One of them quacks killed my little brother. His chin jutted, shifted.

  “What little brother? You never told us you had a brother.”

  “I ain’t got a brother. A quack killed him when he was seven years old.”

  Her knees weakened.

  “What happened?”

  “Hugh was his name. He was sick with fever. My mother brought the physician. He bled Hugh, and bled him, and bled him ‘til he had no blood left.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell us?”

  “Some things ain’t for talkin’ about. When my family buried him, I was only ten, but I swore on Hugh’s grave I’d never trust a doctor again.”

  “That’s why you wouldn’t ever speak to a physician for Mamma’s spells? Papa, it’s not right. I’m sorry for you, for your brother, but you’re wrong about this. Doctors are not all quacks. We might not have lost Mamma if you had let someone examine her.”

  “You blame me. You blame me?” He stepped close to her.

  “Yes. Yes, I do blame you. You never helped her.”

  His hand flew up, back, then swung fast and struck hard at her face. Pain exploded in the side of her head.

  She dropped swiftly to the ground to get out of his way, to give in, to protect herself. Huddling low with hands over the back of her head, she stayed still. Tears started and she began to sob. Where was he? What would he do now? Was he going to strike her again?

  Then footsteps scuffled toward the door. The door creaked open, then slammed
closed. Then nothing. Her tears kept streaming, dripping onto the wood floor.

  After a while she stopped crying and looked up. She rose and paced around the Spirit Room holding her hand over her face. She had to get away from Papa and his hoax séances and his drunkenness and meanness no matter what she had to do. If he would do this to her when he was sober and seemingly happy, what else would he be capable of? She despised him.

  She stood by the window and looked down at the street. The sun was getting low, sending long shadows after pedestrians and carriages. Soon the evenings would be humid and balmy, soon Mac would leave for Rochester. Her eyes raw from crying, she sighed deeply. At least she finally understood the reason for Papa’s hatred of doctors. Papa had lost his brother because of a physician, but he had lost Mamma too because he had never taken her to one, and maybe he would lose his daughter too if she eloped with one. She could live her life or she could live Papa’s. She would go with Mac whether Papa approved or not. Tomorrow she would try to convince Papa one more time, but if it didn’t work, she’d elope with Mac.

  <><><>

  THE NEXT MORNING, out in the back yard, in Emma Purcell’s long narrow vegetable and herb garden, Izzie squatted at the end of a lush row of rhubarb, the red stalks lustrous, the leaves crinkled, heart-shaped, stretching up to the sun. She was waiting for Euphora to show her little sister how to pick the plant. Rhubarb meant spring, meant the beginning of fresh vegetables and fruits, meant more to come: peas, beans, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, potatoes, onions, carrots, parsnips, tomatoes, corn, peaches, everything to come. Izzie took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a tiny moment. Papa, please stay sober. Please, please, stay sober and let me go.

  “Are you all right, Iz? Why is your face sore?” Euphora stood over her in her smudged apron and blue dress.

  “I’m all right. I had an argument with Papa.”

  Euphora’s eyes widened. “Was he drunk?”

  “No, he wasn’t. Here. Let me show you how to take the rhubarb.”

  Euphora squatted and placed a flat basket on the earth near them. Grasping a red-tinted stalk at its base, Izzie pulled sideways, then away from her, then sideways again. The soil loosened. The plant came free in her hand. She held it up for Euphora to see.

  “You know you can’t cut it because it ruins the plant for next year,” Izzie said. “Mrs. Purcell says these big leaves are poison. We can only use the stalks. Try that one.” Izzie pointed at the next plant in the row.

  Euphora grabbed the base of the stalk with both hands and began to twist it.

  “No. Don’t twist. Pull sideways.” Izzie demonstrated by cupping her hand in the air.

  Euphora worked the stalk until it released, lifted the huge leafy plant up, and broke into a proud grin, but then her blue eyes fixed on something behind Izzie.

  “Hello, Papa,” Euphora said.

  “Take the rhubarb to Mrs. Purcell and leave me with your sister,” he said.

  Euphora scrambled up and took off to the back door of the brick house with her basket nearly empty.

  Izzie stood. “Morning, Papa.”

  She searched his face, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. She knew he wouldn’t apologize for the slap. Even though he didn’t hit her often, he never did apologize. But she did want to know if he would give her permission to marry Mac. Behind his spectacles, the whites of his eyes were white, not red, and he didn’t smell like whiskey. His shirt, top button open at the neck, wasn’t as wrinkled as it was the nights he slept in it. That was good too. There was a chance. A chance.

  “Mrs. Purcell give you one of her poultices for that bruise on your face?” he asked.

  She touched the side of her face and nodded.

  “You’re like me, Isabelle. You want to do everything your own way. You’re stubborn as a mule. You’re always wantin’ to kick me like a blam’d mule, too.”

  Rot. He wasn’t going to give her permission to marry and he was going to make a speech about it, expecting her to appreciate his rationale.

  He anchored his hands on his suspenders. “Even when you were little, you came and went as you pleased. You ‘bout moved in with that Julianna friend of yours with all the books. We called you home, but you only came when you pleased. You took those folks for your family and there wasn’t nothin’ we could do so we just let you stay with them. Your mother always fought me on it.”

  He took his unlit pipe from his pocket and looked into the bowl. “She wanted them to teach you what they knew. I always thought that learnin’ you got yourself would come back and bite us. Hell-fire. It has been bitin’ us all along.”

  Izzie’s shoulders stiffened as she remembered the thrashings with Papa’s strap when she didn’t come home for too long. If he was bringing all this up now, she truly didn’t have a chance.

  “Yesterday I went for a long walk all the way down to that place, Kashong Point, where you found your mother in the lake. I tried talkin’ to her about your marryin’. I said, Almira, if you could turn yourself into one of them voices, I’d appreciate hearin’ what you have to say about Isabelle.” He sniffled, scratched a sideburn with the stem of his pipe. “Waited some time. But I didn’t hear any voice. I guess I didn’t think I would, but I never doubted your Mamma’s abilities that way. Then, I left the lake and started walkin’ home. After a few miles, a thought struck me like lightnin’ and I knew what you was goin’ to do. Because ya see, you are like me. You was goin’ to run off with him. Sure as heck. You was goin’ to run off with him. That’s right, ain’t it?”

  She nodded slightly.

  He blew a puff of air out the side of his mouth. “Knew I was right.” He watched her a moment.

  But she didn’t say anything else. She had the feeling anything she said would get her deeper in trouble with him.

  “I decided if you was set on runnin’ off with him, maybe I could stop it by scarin’ that MacAdams away. I walked straight into that Geneva Hygienic place, barged into his fancy office.”

  “You saw him?”

  Now, it was over. No marriage. No Rochester. No freedom from Papa and the Spiritualism hoax.

  “Acted all pleased to meet me. Mr. Benton this, Mr. Benton that. Sorry for my wife’s death. I nearly spit at him.” Papa turned his head away and spit into the garden as though he had stored it up for Mac and still needed to expel it. “Told him to stay away from my daughter.”

  Izzie wanted to slap his face, slap it as hard as he had slapped her and knock him down. Holding her right hand stiff at her side, she was trying to not let it fly out.

  He pressed his spectacles back against the bridge of his nose. “Don’t know how he did it, but he kept me there a long time, I mean a long time, talkin’. Finally, we come to an understandin’.”

  “What kind of understanding?”

  “Well let’s say that is between us men. You don’t need to know the details, but you can go and marry him, if you have to, and if you don’t have to, stayin’ here is fine.”

  She felt the fire in her slapping arm die out. He turned his back and walked toward the kitchen door, then stopped and turned again to her, poking his pipe in the air. “He ain’t the best one for you as far as I’m concerned, not even almost the best one, but I can see you’re goin’ no matter what I say.” Then he disappeared into the kitchen.

  Izzie plopped down on Emma Purcell’s wood bench at the end of the garden. She sighed. It was money. Mac had offered him something to fill the gap for a while, to compensate for Izzie leaving the Benton Sisters and Papa had accepted it. Papa was smart. He had realized she would go with or without his approval but then he figured out he wouldn’t have to be empty-handed. How much had Mac offered him? What was enough to get Papa to change his mind? She slumped against the back of the bench. She had just been sold like a commodity, a barrel of flour or sugar on the dock, an item on a bursar’s list, Izzie Benton. Sold, a daughter. Purchased, a wife. If only Papa could have let her go because she wanted to, without the “unders
tanding.”

  Papa had nothing at all to send her into marriage with, not one stick of furniture, but Mac wanted her anyway, and not only wanted her without a dowry of any kind, but was willing to help Papa—help her family. Mac’s money would, after all, be better for the children. They would have something besides Clara’s séance fees and Billy’s earnings from Maxwell Nurseries.

  She looked up at the blue sky. She could go. She would be free. She would be with Mac, wonderful Mac. And no more being a humbug medium. No more chance of real voices creeping into false trances. Free. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back, and felt the sun on her face and breathed in the fragrance of grass and apple blossoms. A fly buzzed by her ear. In the distance, in the harbor, a ship horn blasted three times.