The Spirit Room

by Paul, Marschel

  “I brought you a gift too, something just for you.”

  Weston left her there in the corner and retrieved the parcel from the table. Maybe this gift was how he wanted to show his fondness. He held it out to her.

  “Open it. I hope it fits.”

  “A dress?”

  He grinned at her. She took the package and reached inside the folded paper. As her hand searched its way in, the paper crumpled. She grasped a thick, soft fabric and, as she slid the item out, it cascaded toward the floor. It was a beautiful cotton summer dress, a print with indigo blue dots on white, with wide flared, short-to-the-elbow sleeves, loose bodice, and a low, off-shoulder neckline. She had seen that low neckline on girls recently in town. It made them look older, like young ladies.

  “This is lovely. Is it really for me?” She pressed it to her chest.

  “Yes. Yes. Clara. I wish it could be even fancier, but I think this will look nice on you. A girl like you deserves something new.”

  Stretching out the shoulders of the dress, she spread the garment against herself, smiled, sashayed slightly.

  “Is this what you wanted to show me?”

  “It is one thing, but there is another, Clara. Here, let’s put that aside for a few minutes. You can try it on later.” He clutched the waist of the dress and tugged it slowly toward him, but she held on. The dress floated between them. If only she could try it on now, but Weston kept smiling, easing it from her until she unfurled her fingers and let go. Then he took the dress to the table and draped it carefully over her chair.

  While she waited, he removed his cream-colored linen jacket and hung it on another chair, then took off his maroon silk cravat and returned to her in his clean, white flowing shirt and vest. He faced her, stood close, then placed both his hands on her shoulders and, as if they were indeed dancing, slowly walked her all the way into the corner so that her shoulders nearly touched the walls. She could barely see around him. It didn’t feel like a dance, though. Was it some kind of game?

  “I have the most warmhearted feelings for you, Clara. You are very dear to me.” Standing no more than two feet from her, he let his hands drop.

  She let out a long sigh. There was nothing to worry about. This was Sam Weston; Sam Weston who brought her flowers all the time, who always attended her séances, and who protected her when Isaac Camp was hot as a red coal. There was nothing to worry about. He was always polite, helpful, even if a little odd sometimes. But odd was nothing. She and Izzie always laughed about him.

  “All you have to do is stand where you are.” He began to roll up one of his billowy sleeves to his elbow, then the other. “Do you know you are one of the prettiest girls I have ever seen, anywhere? I just want to look at you. That’s all. Just look for hours and hours.”

  Why didn’t he tell her what the game was and get it started? If he wanted to look at her all day, why do it in a dim and dusty corner? Why not go to the window and throw open a curtain? She could pose for him the way she did for the illustrator at the newspaper office when Papa had the posting bills made. Yes, maybe he would like that and she could put on the new dress with the low shoulders.

  “Do you want to move over to the light? I could wear the dress.”

  “No. I like it here. While I’m looking at you I’m going to do something to myself you probably haven’t seen a man do before. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s a harmless thing. You’re thirteen or fourteen now?”

  She tried to swallow, but couldn’t. Her tongue locked against the top of her mouth. She nodded.

  “See. That’s plenty old enough.” He reached for the button just below the waist of his pants and opened it.

  “No.” She stepped sideways along the wall, but he stopped her with a firm hand on her arm.

  “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.” He looked down at his hand, descending slowly from one button to the next, while his other hand gripped her arm. “You’ve seen your brother, father?”

  “This isn’t right, Mr. Weston. I think I should call for Papa now.”

  “But your Papa agreed about this. Because I admire you so much. I promised him I wouldn’t hurt you. I won’t even touch you, Clara. I won’t touch you. I promised your father.” With his fly now open all the way, he settled both hands on her shoulders, looked straight into her eyes. “Please. Please, Clara. I am so very fond of you.”

  “Let me talk to Papa first.” Clara took his wrist and tried to dislodge his hand from her shoulder, but he tightened his grasp.

  His forearm muscle bulged. “I promise I will absolutely not hurt you. Please. I would never hurt you, Clara. All you have to do is stand there.” His mouth curled up at one corner. “Everything will be all right. I’ll be very happy.” His grip relaxed, but his hands lingered on her. “I’ll tell your Papa that you were very good, and I’ll give him the five dollars. You don’t want to disappoint him, do you? And the family needs the money?”

  Then he released her altogether. Five dollars. Hell-fire. What was going on? Papa wouldn’t want to give that up and he’d hate her if he had to. He’d think she robbed him of the money. He’d be mad as a hornet. She tried to look around Weston’s broad shoulders into the room but couldn’t see much. If she really had to, she could squeeze by him, wiggle, twist, hit, maybe duck down and crawl lickety-click and low if she was afraid of being hurt. She could scream for Papa. He was out there on the landing, wasn’t he? He wouldn’t want her hurt, five dollars or no five dollars.

  “You don’t want to disappoint him.” Weston carefully put his hand under Clara’s chin, brought her face around so that she had to look at his watery light brown eyes. Suddenly the room seemed airless, stifling. Her undergarments now drenched in sweat, she shivered with a chill.

  “I might be able to bring you another new dress in a month or two. Now just stay where you are so I can look at you. Don’t move until I tell you to. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  He reached inside his new cream-colored linen trousers, inside his drawers, and retrieved his prick, just as Clara had seen Billy do a thousand times when he was going to piss, but it was big, firm-looking.

  “Just stay where you are. That’s perfect.”

  Cupping his right hand around the prick, he braced his other hand on the wall near her ear. He leaned toward her. His head was almost hanging over hers, but he was still not quite touching her. He pumped the prick slowly with his hand, back and forth, back and forth. It swelled and grew longer. Tarnation. How could it change like that? As his stroke quickened, the prick rose in his hand and turned red.

  Don’t get any closer, she thought. Not one inch. Not one. She looked away, up at the ceiling. She felt trapped, a rabbit, stuck, flailing in a snare. The room was stuffy, blazing. She was sweating, shivering, sweating.

  He groaned down inside his throat. She looked away from the ceiling to his face. Mouth open, skin slack around his eyes, he locked his gaze on her like he was sighting a rifle. His warm pipe tobacco breath ate up the air between them until his used air was all that was left for her to breathe in.

  “Clara, Clara, Clara.”

  She gritted her teeth. Stop it, she wanted to say. Stop saying Clara, Clara. Beads of sweat leaked from his temples. She stared again at the white ceiling. Stop saying it. Stop groaning out Clara. Clara. Oh, pretty Clara.

  She could get by him. She could, like a rabbit thrashing, wriggling free. No. Don’t ruin it for Papa, don’t lose the money for Papa. Stand still, perfectly still. It will end. It has to end.

  He pumped and moaned. This was what he wanted to do? This was what he wanted to show her?

  “Clara, my beautiful Clara.”

  She turned her head to the side and peered over his leaning arm. At least he wasn’t holding her chin again, forcing her to look at him, his face, his hard red prick. At least he let her turn her head away. She stared at an oil lamp mounted on the striped wallpaper. If she concentrated on the lamp long enough, he’d eventually finish. Then it would be
over. Why was it going on so long?

  Outside the door footsteps shuffled and scraped. Papa was pacing back and forth on the small landing. He was there, waiting for it to end too, waiting like she was. The frosted-glass globe on the lamp was pretty, the etching delicate. The lamp might need oil soon. She’d tell Billy. It was his job to keep the lamps filled. Now how was she going to remember to tell him? There were four lamps altogether in the Spirit Room, and there were three in the Blue Room at home, and one in Papa’s room. Some of the shops in town had gaslights now. The pacing outside the door quickened. Papa was nervous. Her chemise was soaked with sweat. She’d have to wash it tonight.

  “Come on you old nag. Yawwh.” A man outside on the street was probably having trouble with his horse and wagon, she thought. “Yawwh.”

  “Clara? Clara? Clara!”

  Why the jo-fire was he yelling at her now?

  “Yes, Mr. Weston.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? I said that wasn’t so terrible was it?”

  “No. No. May I go now?”

  “Would you just give me a little kiss on the cheek so I know you aren’t angry with me?”

  Clara rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. His skin smelled of shaving soap and cologne, but the tobacco smell lingered in his cropped beard. She glanced at the lamp again. She mustn’t forget to tell Billy about the oil.

  “Now let’s see if that dress fits you. Try it on, then show me. I’ll wait outside with your father.”

  Weston stepped aside, his trousers already buttoned. She had missed that somehow. She sprang out of the corner, released from the snare, took a deep breath, then another. Rushing to the windows, she pushed back one of the pale curtains and threw open the window, letting in a warm lake breeze. After Weston tied his cravat and put on his hat and coat, he disappeared out the door. She eyed the dress on the table. Two sets of footsteps and Papa’s scolding voice rumbled down the stairs, then faded away.

  The dress was lovely. How strange. For standing in a corner, no, for being jailed in a corner, but only for a short while, she had received such a glorious gift. She quickly shed the white séance dress and, as she draped it over one of the straight back chairs, she noticed a wet patch on the front of the skirt. She touched it with her fingertip. It was slimy. From him. From his prick. She’d wash it as soon as she could. It was warm out, the dress would be dry by morning. She flipped it over to hide the stain.

  As she stepped into the new indigo blue and white print dress and pulled it up over her sweaty pantalettes, shimmy, and petticoat, her hands trembled. Her entire body was vibrating oddly. Struggling, hands behind her back to button the dress, she could only get at the bottom button. Because of the low-shoulder cut, she couldn’t get the dress to stay up without holding it, so she perched one hand on the fabric at each shoulder. She looked down at the fabric. It really was a beauty. She wanted desperately to see herself in a mirror, but that would have to wait. How could she show the dress to Weston when it wasn’t on properly? Why couldn’t he go away and see it another time? Maybe they’d left. Maybe he and Papa had gone to a tavern.

  It was quiet outside the door. She’d wait a few more minutes, then if Weston didn’t come back, she’d go home. While she stood and waited by the fireplace, her arms grew heavy, tired from the awkward crooked position of holding the dress up.

  Finally there was a knock at the door. When she said, “come in,” Weston entered but not Papa.

  “Miss Clara Benton, you are a sight, very beautiful.” Taking off his straw hat, he approached her.

  “I can’t get to the buttons. Where’s Papa?”

  “We had a little talk. He was in a hurry to leave for a business appointment.”

  Double rot. She had to be alone with him again and there he was showing off his teeth, smiling ear to ear like he was trying for a blue ribbon in a contest for handsome teeth.

  “Let me help you with the buttons.”

  She stepped back. That wasn’t right, him fussing with the dress. He was Sam Weston, Papa’s friend. Even if the dress was his gift to her, he shouldn’t be helping her with it.

  “Please. I want to see how pretty you look in it, how it fits.”

  She stared at him a moment, hoping he would change his mind, but when he didn’t budge, she turned her back to him and faced the mantel. At first he did nothing. What the jo-fire was he doing behind her? He wasn’t opening his buttons again, was he? Then she felt two, or maybe three, fingertips at the base of her neck. They began to inch down, a dry worm crawling along her spine. She held her breath, bit down on the inside of her lower lip. The fingertips arrived at her sweaty shimmy between her shoulder blades. Then the full warm flat of Weston’s hand slid inside her chemise and came to rest on her back.

  Her back tensed up as hard as an iron skillet. Then again, there were his fingertips drifting across her skin just inside the top of her chemise. Papa couldn’t have agreed to this. Why couldn’t Weston just leave now? Tears began to leak from her eyes. Papa couldn’t have agreed to this.

  She felt a small pressure at her lower back. He secured a button and began working his way up, one button at a time. But it was taking him forever and a day. Her tears flowed now. When he finished, she let go of the dress shoulders and brushed her tears with both hands.

  “Turn around then. The dress is perfect from behind.”

  But her face was still wet, her eyes overflowing. He’d see that she was crying.

  “Come on then. Let me see. Don’t be shy.”

  When she spun around, she was still wiping at her face with her palms. His smile vanished.

  “No, no, my sweet Clara. Don’t be sad. The dress is beautiful. You are beautiful. Everything is fine. I haven’t hurt you now, have I?”

  She shook her head, kept mopping at her eyes.

  “I have an idea. Next time I come, I’ll bring you a bonnet to go with the dress. Would you like that?”

  A summer bonnet would be sweet. She glanced down at the indigo blue dots. Were they the color of the sea? Having never seen the sea in person, she couldn’t be sure. She nodded at him.

  “Good then.”

  Was crying and nodding all it took to get a new bonnet?

  “I will talk to your father about our next time together.”

  While he gathered his hat and prepared to go, to finally go, she thought that she would also be talking to Papa about that next time as well. There wouldn’t be one. That was all there was to it. No next time. A bonnet wasn’t enough. Papa said she could call the thing off if she didn’t like it and she didn’t. She despised it. And not only that, there had to be a huge misunderstanding in the first place about the five dollars and Sam Weston’s ideas about courting. As soon as she explained things to Papa, he’d set Weston right. There wouldn’t be any more of that dusty corner, the prick, or those creepy-crawly fingers on her neck. Or anything else for that matter. Papa said she could call it off.

  Weston tipped his straw hat at her from the door, winked, and left. No, sir, Mr. Weston, that’s the end of that. You’ll see.

  <><><>

  CLARA TWISTED, STRETCHED, AND TUGGED until she got the new dress off. It was a perfect dress. It fit as though a seamstress had measured every inch of her body. And the blue against the white was bright and bold. Everyone would notice the dress when she wore it out, but now she wanted to go to the lake and wash her white séance dress, wash Weston’s slime off it. To clean the séance dress, she’d simply swim in it.

  Outside, it was hot, almost evening. People weren’t rushing home. Instead of bustling, the street seemed slowed down, like a dream. People were milling around, talking or sitting on top of crates or up high on the seats of their wagons and carriages, but no one was getting anywhere.

  A horse was hitched just outside her door. The mare’s jet black coat, stinky with sweat, glistened in the late day sun. Clara walked to her and tentatively reached out to touch the horse’s fuzzy snout. The mare snorted and jerked its big head. Clara snatched her hand awa
y, but the horse seemed calm, its tail swishing gently at buzzing flies.

  “You’re not the old nag that was being yelled at before, are you?” The mare looked at her with huge round black eyes. Creeping around the side of the mare, Clara rested the side of her face on the solid warm neck and breathed in the smell of the horse’s damp coat.

  “I’m going swimming. I wish I could take you with me. You’re hot. But don’t tell anyone I’m going. I can’t afford the two dollar fine if I get caught. I don’t think they have fines for horses swimming so you’d be all right.” She kissed the gigantic black neck. “Goodbye, then.”

  If she walked south of the harbor, past the Long Pier, past where Water Street ended at the bottom of the big hill, she’d mostly be out of anyone’s sight. Let the Constable or that cow-face Sheriff Swift arrest her. It wouldn’t matter. She was sweltering, practically dizzy. She had to wash, needed a bath, a cool bath, over her skin, toes, hair—everything all at once. She had to wash the slime away.