“That’s it, Benton. I ought to take you down to the sheriff and have you explain it to him.” Grimacing, Camp turned to Clara and stabbed her with his ice-shard eyes again. “And you. I trusted you with my grieving heart. You took my dear wife’s memory in vain. You lied to me. You’re abhorrent. Coddling me, kissing my hand.”
Warm tears streamed down her face. Her shoulders quaked.
Weston grabbed Camp’s arm. “No more. Leave now or I’ll kick you down those stairs.”
Camp jerked his arm free. “You’re already ruined, Benton. I’ve already told everyone I know about your hoax. I’ve told them down at the Geneva Gazette. It’ll take just two days for the entire city to know you’re nothing but a scoundrel.”
The newspaper. They really were jiggered now, thought Clara.
“Come on now, Camp. Sit down. The spirit talk ain’t gum. Let Miss Clara tell ya what her trances are, how she uses the knowledge to call forth the spirits.” Papa gestured toward her.
Holy rolling Moses. Why was he offering this? She didn’t want to lie right now. She wanted Camp to leave.
A mean winter storm came over Camp’s face. “No, Benton. I’m through with her.”
He rammed past Papa and Weston and walked out. The two men stood there, eyes locked. Then Papa left too. He didn’t even look at her. All she ever did was what he wanted her to do and did it the best she could. She buried her face in her arms on the table and cried.
Weston’s footsteps grew close. “Would you take my handkerchief, Miss Clara?”
Why couldn’t he leave too? Why couldn’t everyone get out and leave her alone? Why couldn’t Izzie be here?
Clara looked up at Weston through the blur of her tears and took his red silk hankie.
“Thank you, Mr. Weston. I wish Izzie were here. She’d know what to do.”
“She would, but we’ll think of something, Clara. We’ll think of something.”
<><><>
LATER THAT NIGHT, Clara woke to rustling noises.
“I’m gonna fix it. You’ll see.”
She bolted up. Billy was already sitting up braced against the wall and there was Papa standing by Mamma’s rocking chair in the eerie, silvery moonlight. Drunk? Papa yanked off one suspender, then another, fell back into the rocker, and struggled with a boot.
“Gonna fix it. No grimy little skunk Isaac Camp is goin’ ta wreck my enterprise. Ain’t smart enough. You hear me, Clara?”
His boot came off and flew several feet before clunking down. He was definitely drunk. Euphora stirred. Billy lay back down and pulled his blanket over his head.
“Do you hear me, Clara?”
“Yes, Papa. You’re going to fix it.”
“Thass right.”
He wrenched his other boot off, let it fly, then stood. The movement of the rocking chair nearly shoved him to the floor but he caught himself. Clara gripped the top of the quilt. If only Izzie were here. Papa rambled and weaved his way to the foot of Billy’s bed and stood there staring at the lumpy blanket for a moment. His breathing sounded like the shushing of a fireplace bellows.
“Look at him. Coward boy hidin’ from his Papa under a blanket. I ain’t hit you in months. What’re you skeered of? Puny jackrabbit.”
Suddenly Billy threw off the blanket and was up, all the way up, standing on his bed, higher than high in his white long johns, like a swirling ghost in the moonlight.
“I ain’t skeered of you, old man.” He leapt from the bed.
Clara’s heart stopped. Tarnation. He was going for Papa. But Billy landed next to Papa, not on him, then ran from the room. He slammed the door hard.
“See? Skeered, like a puny jackrabbit.” Papa chuckled, swayed, sniffled, then wiped at his nose with the palm of his hand.
Clara sat still, waiting, biting the inside of her lip. What was he going to do next? She felt Euphora press against her side under the quilt. This is when Izzie would stand up to him, stare him down, yell him down, send him to bed, or at least make a good try of it. Clara put her hand on Euphora’s warm back and patted her. If only she could stand up like Izzie for Euphora’s sake. She waited. Euphora waited.
Finally the liquor got the better of Papa. His breathing slowed down, his shoulders sagged, his chest caved, and lastly, his eyelids drooped. He swayed another moment, then crawled onto Billy’s bed and, almost instantly, began to snore. Maybe it would be just this one binge. He was upset about what Camp had done. Maybe he could fix it tomorrow when he was sober again. Papa could do almost anything. She’d help him.
She bent over and whispered into Euphora’s ear. “It’s all right. He’s asleep. He’ll be better tomorrow. I’ll help him fix our reputation and get our Spiritualism business going again. I know I can do it. Go back to sleep. It’s all right.” She stroked Euphora’s long hair until she heard her drift off.
She didn’t sleep herself, though. She just listened to Papa’s snoring, gravelly at times, whistling at others, and watched his tuckered out face in the moonlight. After a long while—hours probably—the silvery light seemed to vibrate and his head started to look like a big granite rock. It disturbed her so she closed her eyes. If they could get a handful of people coming back for spirit circles, she knew she could touch their hearts, amuse them, delight them and build things back up. Papa would be proud of her again and he wouldn’t have to get drunk. She slid back down under the quilt and turned her back to Papa.
Where had Billy gone? He wasn’t dressed. Maybe he was only down in the parlor on the sofa. He wouldn’t wander undressed around town in the wee hours of the night. No, he’d be on the sofa downstairs or maybe out in the woodshed. That’s what she would do, and her twin would do the same. Wouldn’t he?
<><><>
A FEW DAYS LATER, the Geneva Gazette article came out revealing that Isaac Camp had found them out. The weather turned miserable and hot that same day and all their spirit seekers just vanished. The following muggy days had been dreadful. Clara lazed around the Spirit Room with nothing to do but wait for anyone at all to come by.
Finally, after a week, the heat broke. Clara was home for the night, standing by the open window in the Blue Room. It was raining hard, pounding on the roof and windows, soaking the sill in front of her. Every once in a while thunder rumbled far off down the lake. Euphora was already asleep and Billy was out with his friends from Maxwell’s Nursery. Behind his closed bedchamber door, Papa and Sam Weston were talking business.
The small news story quoting Isaac Camp was titled Benton Spiritualists Exposed. In it, Camp was quoted, “I found out that I was tricked on more than one occasion by Miss Clara Benton into thinking she was communicating messages from my beloved departed wife. A reliable person in Geneva, who I will not name to protect her privacy, told me that Mr. Frank Benton sought her out almost daily to gather personal knowledge of those gathering for the spirit circles and then had his daughters use that information to play humbug with the audiences. Miss Clara Benton is a full-fledged hoax.”
Once in a while there were stories in the papers about Spiritualists. Often, as with Mrs. Fielding’s visit, the newspaper ran notices of lectures and spirit circles. When Mrs. Fielding came to town, the Gazette notice said “PUBLIC RAPPING – It is announced that Mrs. Adele Fielding, a medium of considerable note, will give two public exhibitions at Linden Hall on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.”
“Of considerable note.” That would have been just what Papa wanted, not “full-fledged hoax.” And that little bitty article was all it took to dry up the rest of the seekers. It had slowed down after Izzie left, but now no one was coming at all, not a single sad or curious person.
Papa riled like a mad man at first when the Gazette came out. Billy stayed clear of him. Billy didn’t even come home for a couple of days. Then Papa went sullen and silent, like the humid weather was holding him down for a while, but now, like the rain breaking the spell of heat, he was up to something with Sam Weston. She could tell by the sound of their voices through the closed d
oor.
They’d already been in there a couple of hours. She was pretty sure they were hatching a new big idea. She crossed her fingers and hoped it had nothing to do with Spiritualism or her.
She couldn’t hear much through the door, but she could hear enough to know it was about shipments on the canals and she heard the words “bank notes” a few times. She heard Gazette a few times, too. Reaching her hand out the open window to feel the rain, she caught some water on her fingers and brought it to her throat.
Suddenly there was a scuffling noise in Papa’s room.
“You keep your skunky hands to yourself. You don’t touch her. You hear me? You hear me?” Papa’s voice boomed through the closed door.
“I’m sorry, Frank. It was a compliment.” Weston said.
“No, it ain’t a compliment. You’re a goddamned son of a bitch. Now git out.” Papa’s other door, to the hallway, opened. “Git out!”
“I said I was sorry,” Weston said from the top of the stairs.
“You don’t ever bring that up agin’, ever.”
Papa’s door slammed, but the Blue Room door to the hall was still open and Clara watched Weston in the lamplight in the hallway landing. What the jo-fire was it all about? As Weston swept his palms over his slick hair, Papa’s hall door opened again and Weston’s big hat, the wide-awake, came flying at him. Weston caught it against his chest. Then the door crashed closed again. Donning the wide-awake, Weston took a step toward the Blue Room’s open door and glanced into the darkness.
Clara held still like a cat on alert, hoping he couldn’t see her there by the window. He looked toward the bed where Euphora was squirming a bit and then his eyes searched around, but she was pretty sure he didn’t see her standing against the curtain. Finally he snugged his hat on his head and left.
You don’t touch her. Papa’s words echoed in her head. Who did he mean? Was Papa courting someone Weston was also interested in? Were they fighting over a woman? Thunder drummed in the distance. She closed the window most of the way. You don’t touch her. You don’t touch her. Sliding onto the bed next to Euphora, she shoved at her sister’s hip until Euphora rolled over and made more room. Clara sighed. If Papa was serious about sparking someone they’d hear about it sooner or later.
A flash of lightning illuminated the room with white light. Mamma’s rocker lit up for a snap second. A single tear came to her eye. Why couldn’t Mamma still be here reading her Bible and rocking in her chair with her long silver hair braid sweeping and swaying like an artist’s paint brush? A thunderclap exploded just above the house. She gasped. It grumbled on and on and then faded. Euphora opened her eyes, saw Clara, then closed them again. Lulling, pelting rain pattered against the windows. It soothed Clara until she finally slept.
Nineteen
AFTER A LONG MONTH OF WAITING every single day and every single evening in the Spirit Room for absolutely no one to show up and inquire about a spirit circle, Papa finally told Clara it would be all right to spend the evenings, “just the evenings, mind you,” at home. Clara figured whatever Papa was working on with Sam Weston must have been doing fine because he hadn’t even come by the Spirit Room or said a word about séances.
And this evening at home was sweet summer cherries. The July light was orange and soft like a robin’s belly and it seemed it would linger all night.
Reading out loud in Mrs. Purcell’s front parlor window seat with Euphora, Clara couldn’t remember being so happy with a book. It was Gulliver’s Travels from Mrs. Purcell’s library. Since Izzie had left, Clara had taken on being chief reader for Euphora.
In her parlor chair, Mrs. Purcell was concentrating hard on what she called her favorite embroidery of all time—a scene of a cottage by a brook with a little bridge over it. One of her lady friends who helped with making dresses for the freed slaves had loaned her a book with complicated designs in it.
“We’re starting to lose our light,” Mrs. Purcell said.
“A man is coming up the path.” Euphora flitted from the window seat to the front door.
Clara looked up from the book and out. The man was broad in the shoulders and tall. He wore a flat summer straw hat and a light-colored summer coat. A cigar jutting from his teeth puffed out so much smoke, he looked like a steamboat trying to break a speed record.
Carefully setting her embroidery and colored threads on the chair as she stood, Mrs. Purcell walked to the front door, which Euphora had already opened. Eager to see the smoke-puffing, broad man up close, Clara joined them.
“Evening, Sheriff Swift.”
Sheriff? He wasn’t wearing guns, a silver star, or any kind of uniform. He took the cigar out of his mouth and held it down at his side. His eyes were blue, his face wide, big-boned like a cow’s.
“Evening, Mrs. Purcell. Would Mr. Benton be at home?”
Clara swallowed. Why was the sheriff looking for Papa? Oh, Lawky Lawks, don’t let Papa be in trouble again. Mrs. Purcell looked down at Euphora, one brow raised as if to ask whether Papa was up in his bedchamber. Euphora shook her head in a jittery “no”, tousling her red hair, and Clara shook her head too.
The sheriff held his cigar up and studied it a moment. It smelled rank, like a heap of old garbage burning slowly in someone’s back yard. Why did men go to all the trouble to wash and comb and shave and then get themselves stinking with stinkpot cigar smoke?
“I’ll be needing to talk with him. Tell him I’ll come ‘round again tomorrow.”
“It’s not urgent, then?”
He started to bring the cigar up to his cow face again. His lips parted a little like he was about to draw on it, but then he let it fall back to his side.
“Not yet.”
“Then I’ll tell him you’ll come by again. Would you like some herbs, sheriff? My garden is bursting. Lavender, primrose, or some sage for the headaches? Your wife might like some.” Mrs. Purcell smiled at him.
She was someone’s perfect grandmother. The sheriff’s big-boned cow face looked confused. Was he supposed to come into the barn or stay out in the pasture, Clara wondered. And what the jo-fire did he mean “not yet”.
Finally, he said, “No, thank you, Mrs. Purcell.”
Clara suddenly felt her feet grow cold and heavy. When the sheriff in Homer started coming around asking for Papa just over a year ago, everything started to go into a long, dark rabbit hole. Papa was headed for hot water again. He was up to something with Sam Weston that the cow-faced sheriff was looking into. Tarnation. A hundred times tarnation.
After the sheriff said good evening and left, Mrs. Purcell and Euphora returned to the front parlor, but Clara stayed in the foyer by the open door watching him walk away. She couldn’t move. Her feet were like two anchors deep in ice-cold water. Even after the sheriff had long since disappeared down the street, the smell of his cigar remained in the warm summer air. Two blackbirds in the border garden fussed and hopped about collecting something they just had to have before nightfall.
“Come on, Clara, let’s read,” Euphora said.
“Close the door, dear. You’ll let in the mosquitoes,” Mrs. Purcell said.
<><><>
THE NEXT MORNING, the sheriff came right after breakfast and after Billy had gone to work at Maxwell’s Nursery. Papa talked to old Cow Face privately in Mrs. Purcell’s library, doors closed. They weren’t in there more than two minutes when Clara, who was perching on Mrs. Purcell’s footstool in the parlor, smelled the stinkpot cigar smoke. The Carter spinsters were nearby sitting on the window seat, the sunlight streaming onto their almost matching white-haired heads.
Whispering and leaning shoulder to shoulder, they were trying to hear whatever conversation drifted from the library. Clara was trying too, but there wasn’t anything to hear. The longer that library door was closed, the more Clara chewed on the inside of her mouth until she made it sore. After a while, the cigar smell gave her the notion that she might vomit.
Out of the kitchen came Mrs. Purcell wiping her hands on her apron
. Like a little echo of Mrs. Purcell, Euphora followed on her heel, wiping her hands on her own apron. They’d grown to be a real pair. Big E for Emma and little E for Euphora.
“Why don’t you take Euphora with you to the Spirit Room this morning, Clara? I’ve got wonderful left-overs for supper so I won’t need Euphora’s help in the kitchen today.” She placed a hand on Euphora’s shoulder and walked her to the front door. Mrs. Purcell asked it like a question, but when Mrs. Purcell marched around like that, she didn’t really mean it to be a question. “Go on now, girls. Have a nice day. Will you look at that blue sky?”
<><><>
THAT AFTERNOON, Papa came by the Spirit Room and found that Clara and Euphora had drawn hopscotch lines on the floor with chalk and were tossing old coat buttons into the squares.
“Git home with Mrs. Purcell.” He grabbed Euphora’s arm.
The Spirit Room Page 17