The Spirit Room

by Paul, Marschel

  His smile fell. Dang, she shouldn’t have said that. She ruined it. She wouldn’t say anything else the rest of the evening, wouldn’t open her mouth, unless it was something he wanted her to say.

  “Don’t worry about your father. He takes care of himself. I want you to think about me right now.”

  She nodded. He was the one thing she was trying not to think about, trying with all her heart, all her mind, but he was strange, big, confusing. Ignoring him was harder than she had expected.

  “Can you think about me?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s better, but I wish you would smile. You’ve not smiled once since you’ve been here.”

  “I apologize. I’m nervous, Mr. Weston.”

  His grin flashed up again. “Yes. That’s natural.”

  He reached down and opened the buttons on his trousers, then withdrew his prick. It was already large.

  Stepping toward her, he embraced her tightly and picked her up. He held her in the air a moment, then carried her around to the side of the bed. Slowly he let her down onto her back, her legs dangling off the side. Her pulse began to pound. She felt like she might vomit. Taking one of her feet in a hand, he pulled her leg up and rested her ankle on his shoulder, then he did the same with the other. He grabbed her hips and slid them just off the edge of the bed toward his prick. Then she felt his hand putting his prick between her legs, the prick press into her, then plunge inside her.

  Pain shot through her. It felt like he was going to bust her open from the inside out. His hands digging into the skin at her waist, he lifted her hips up and thrust himself into her again and again, each time hurting, each time bouncing her on the bed. After the third thrust, she searched for bedpost number two and pondered on it so hard that she couldn’t move on to number three and four as she had planned. She stared at it, concentrated on the dark brown wood, the particular set of curves toward its top, smooth round carved shapes, shining with polish, a larger one, then a smaller one, then a third smaller one, trying to get him away, get him out of her.

  When he finally withdrew, she left the bedpost, came back down into herself on the bed. She felt scorched and raw. It was over. Her body was hers again, no one in it, no one praying to it or smelling it. It was just hers.

  She lay still, eyes closed, legs hanging off the side of the bed where he had left her. She listened to him shuffling about the room. Tucking her knees up against her, she rolled over and lay on her side. A blanket landed softly on her, then drifted up onto her shoulders. There was a slight rustling noise on the bed near her. She wouldn’t open her eyes to see. She didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to see the mirror. Please, please don’t ask for a smile, she begged in silence. Water splashed in the basin, then more fussing and rustling, then the door creaked opened and clicked shut. He was gone. Under the blanket she held the sore place between her legs. It was over, finally over.

  In a long while, when she was sure he was gone, she opened her eyes and searched the bed for whatever had been left there. A folded piece of paper lay on the pillow. Draping the blanket around her, she sat up and opened the paper with hands still wearing black lace mitts. A gold dollar coin plopped from the folds of a note onto the white bed spread, the Indian head facing her.

  My Dearest Clara,

  This is for you, and only you, to do with what you please. I will not tell your father about it. It is our secret. Please tell no one about us or this gift. There will be more. Now that you are my paramour, I am the richest man in the world.

  Your Devoted Lover, S.W.

  CLARA DID NOT WANT to have a heart-to-heart talk with Minnie Stewart behind the Dutch door, so she slipped out as quietly as she could. The grandfather clock read ten fifteen. If Papa had really waited in the cold wind for two hours, he would be chilled deep to his bones. As she opened the door into the night, she felt ugly inside, ugly and withered, not a flower blossoming into womanhood, but a flower expired, lying on the ground all thirsty and tired and limp.

  She glanced up the street. Papa was there in the shadow of the street light where she had left him, coat collar turned up around his neck, shoulders up to his ears, hands holding something at his waist. He watched her walk toward him, but when she got close, he looked down at the thing in his hands, his empty pipe. Even though he only smoked a pipe once in a while, he often had one in his coat. He clutched its bowl, twisting the mouthpiece one way, then the other.

  He smelled like pipe tobacco, but not liquor. Had he really been standing there for two hours without going to one of his taverns?

  “You all right?” He lifted his eyes just enough to see her face.

  Even though she was as far from all right as she could get, she nodded. Lowering his eyes as soon as he saw her answer, he stared at that pipe like it was the inside of a fine watch he was set on repairing. He shivered, then started to clomp along the wooden sidewalk. She stepped in stride with him.

  The whole walk home he never looked away from that pipe. It seemed he might snap it in two. Even though there were things she wanted to know like had he seen Weston, spoken to him, gotten his fifty dollars, she was glad for Papa’s silence, glad for the darkness. Wrapping herself in her shawl as best she could, she longed for it to be a thick wool blanket all around her from head to toe.

  She had some trouble walking right. Her feet didn’t seem to connect properly to her legs and with each step she took, she felt heavy—legs heavy, arms heavy—and there was the rawness between her legs. Papa didn’t ask her anything and that was just fine, because she didn’t want to explain anything.

  When they entered the house, there was just the one small lamp burning low in the parlor. Papa slipped his pipe into his coat pocket and when it was gone from her sight, from his crazy twisting, she relaxed her grip on her shawl. Now, finally, the evening really was over. She could go to bed and wake up and it would be tomorrow. Papa took the lamp from the parlor and carried it upstairs with them. After putting it on the upright crate by her bed where Euphora was soundly sleeping, he shuffled off, eyes fixed downward, toward his bedchamber. There was no “goodnight, Little Plum,” no anything. Just as his door was nearly shut, he pulled it back open, and said, “God bless you,” then closed it gently.

  Clara sat for a while on the side of the bed so tired and dizzy she couldn’t rise up to undress. After a long time listening to Billy and Euphora sleep, she untied her bonnet, took it off, and dropped it on the floor. Then dress, boots, shawl, and gloves still on, she lay down next to her little sister and reached over to turn off the oil lamp.

  Billy lifted his head and looked at her just as she was dousing the light. “You all right, Clara? It’s late.”

  “I’m tired out is all.”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded, then Billy burrowed under his blanket. She wanted to rustle him and tell him what Papa made her do, but she never would. First of all, she couldn’t. She was too ashamed, but second of all, Billy might go right into Papa’s room and stab him with his hunting knife.

  If Izzie were here, she would scream at Papa and Weston and tell them both to go to Hell forever. And if Mamma were here, none of this paramour business would have happened in the first place. Mamma never would have let Papa and Weston agree to these awful things. Why did Mamma have to die and let Papa get so peculiar and mean?

  Reaching a hand into her dress pocket, she grasped the gold dollar. It was still cold from the walk home. As it warmed inside her fist, she fell asleep.

  <><><>

  THE MORNING SUN STREAMING INTO THE KITCHEN seemed awfully bright. Clara stood at the worktable peeling potatoes with a small knife. Her tongue like a dusty farm road after months of drought, she swigged down her fourth full glass of water. Just as she had expected, she was weary but it was comforting to be following Mrs. Purcell’s orders in the warm kitchen and knowing that last night was the past. It was today now and Mrs. Purcell, working at the other end of the table, was still Mrs. Purcell, round, white-haired, sweet
as her own canned peaches, and Euphora leaning over the stove, sticking her nose over a pot of beans, was still Euphora, strong, eager, bright as a candle.

  Ten people for dinner meant peeling twenty potatoes brought up from the cellar. The seventeen unpeeled ones sat on the table to her right in a circle surrounded by another circle with one big potato in the center. The peeled potatoes, three, were side-by-side, straight in a row. In the end, there would be four rows of five on her left. When she was finished with peeling potatoes, she would be in charge of peeling turnips. Only ten of those.

  Euphora’s duties were keeping the wood stove at just the right heat, getting out dishes, washing things, setting the table, stirring the beans, and scampering like a raccoon up from and down to the cellar whenever Mrs. Purcell asked for something—pickled tomatoes, canned pears, and “on second thought a few more turnips. Those young men from next door eat like horses.”

  Mrs. Purcell was peeling and chopping chestnuts for the turkey’s stuffing. When reaching for the next shiny brown nut, her hand accidentally nudged several off the table. The nuts scattered and clacked onto the floor near Clara’s feet. Clara squatted quickly to stop them from rolling. When she bent down, her private place burned. When she stood back up, with three chestnuts in hand, she felt oddly small, like she was sinking again, the floor giving way under her feet.

  Mrs. Purcell took the chestnuts from her palm. “Are you all right, dear? You look peaked. Are you ill?”

  To stop from sinking, from disappearing, Clara grabbed the edge of the worktable.

  “Clara, are you feverish?”

  “No, I’m a little tired from the late night.”

  “Your father should not be taking you out to conduct those spirit circles at those late hours.” Mrs. Purcell flicked her knife at the air. “You are still growing, for mercy’s sake. I am most unhappy with your father right now. If I didn’t care so much and worry so much about you children, and your departed mother, I’d throw him out of my house.” With a scowl on her face, she returned to her chestnuts.

  Clara counted her potatoes one more time, then started peeling again. But suddenly Sam Weston came to mind, shoving his prick into her, looming over her. Her knees buckled a little and she felt like she was shrinking, shrinking lower than the table, a child too short to reach the surface. She seized the potato in the middle of her potato circles and held it like an anchor.

  After taking a few deep breaths, she returned to herself. She shouldn’t think about Weston, or picture him, or remember anything about last night. She had to toss him out of her thoughts like salt from a shaker. Three and one half potatoes done. Sixteen and one half not done.

  “Mrs. Purcell, are you sure twenty potatoes is enough?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  They peeled, cut, chopped, rinsed, stirred, mashed, and cleaned up for hours. All the while Clara asked questions of Mrs. Purcell to keep her mind away from Sam Weston. “What was the most people you ever had for Thanksgiving dinner and who were they?” and “how do you know when the turkey is done?” And of Euphora, she asked, “What’s the best thing you’ve ever cooked with Mrs. Purcell?” and “what book shall we read next?” and on and on until there was no one else in the world but the three of them peeling, chopping, stirring, and chatting.

  In all her life Clara had never smelled so many kinds of food steaming, baking, and roasting all at once. It was splendiferous, heaven on earth. They served golden-skinned roast turkey with bread and chestnut stuffing and gravy, corn bread, mashed potatoes, mashed turnips, and stewed beans. Mrs. Purcell opened three jars of her pickled tomatoes from last summer, and there were three pumpkin pies. No wine or sherry, though. Mrs. Purcell said, “I don’t have a Temperance household, but I am not interested in serving any spirits to your father. I’ve put my few bottles away under lock and key.”

  A friend of Billy’s from Maxwell’s Nursery came to dinner. The Carter sisters wore their Sunday dresses and Mrs. Purcell also invited the widower from next door, Nathan Rose, and his two sons who both attended the Hobart Free College in town. When everyone had arrived and taken a seat, the table was as crowded as it could be, not room for one more chair, and there was enough food spread out on the table to feed half of Geneva.

  After everything was ready, Clara sat and looked around the table at all the faces. Could anyone tell what she had done the night before? Mrs. Purcell said a prayer. Eating began. Talking began. It was all about the north and the south, slavery and freedom, John Brown’s October raid on Harper’s Ferry, and how Colonel Robert E. Lee and his men ended the raid and captured Brown, how Brown was to be executed to death down in Virginia and whether Brown was right or wrong trying to cause an uprising and using violence.

  All four boys—Billy, his friend, and Nathan Rose’s sons—thought Brown was right, thought he was a hero, but Mrs. Purcell said she agreed with Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. Sarah Hale wanted the Union to stay together and for there to be peace between northerners and southerners. “We’re all going to die anyway. No need to rush it along for each other,” Mrs. Purcell said.

  Clara peeked at Papa every now and then. Through most of the meal he seemed to be ignoring her, but then out of nowhere, after the John Brown chatter ended, he suddenly looked straight at her, almost with surprise, as though she had just walked in and sat down.

  He gazed at the boys. “Clara’s never been to school a day in her life, but she is powerful smart with numbers. When she’s a wife to the right husband, she’ll be able to manage her household like a proper woman and a businessman all in one. My married daughter Isabelle up in Rochester reads too much, everythin’ on earth. That won’t help her take care of her home. No sir, it’s Clara that’s goin’ ta be the pick of my girls. I’m bettin’ my money on Clara. She’s a picture too, don’t you boys think so?”

  Everyone stopped chewing, set their forks and knives down and looked at Clara for a moment, a long, awful moment. She started to sink down again and felt she was three years old, chin just barely level with the table.

  “She’s lovely, Frank. We all see that. I wish I had a daughter. I always wanted a daughter.” Nathan Rose looked sideways at his two sons. “All I’ve got is these two plug ugly idiots.”

  Everyone laughed, the boys the loudest. Winking, Nathan Rose smiled at Clara and then turned to Mrs. Purcell, “Emma, this is the best roast turkey I have ever tasted.”

  Clara picked up her fork and knife for the first time and cut a piece of the dark meat on her plate. She ate a few bites, but that was all she could get down.

  With bright blue eyes, Euphora looked over at Clara. “I wish Izzie was here, and Mamma too.”

  “Me too,” Billy said. “When is Izzie comin’ for a visit, Clara? I thought you said she was comin’?”

  “I don’t know, but she promised she would.”

  Twenty-Seven

  THE MORNING AFTER THANKSGIVING, Clara was happy as a clam at high tide to get away from Papa. She left the house to go to work for the milliner before he was awake. She was so early that Mrs. Beattie told her to start the coal fire, then sit in the back workroom and wait until she had sorted through her weekly accounting. Then Mrs. Beattie promised to start her on something special.

  Clara got the fire burning in the iron tailor’s stove, then studied the room. The worktable was perfectly neat, everything in little boxes or wooden trays in the middle—colored threads, shears, measuring tape, buttons. Along one wall, large flat shelves held patterns and small pieces of silks, satins, velvets, wools, and black and white laces. A straw basket was half-filled with feathers, brown and black ones, long fine silvery ones, reddish ones, enough to dress a naked rooster, Clara thought.

  Her favorite thing on the worktable was a bandbox. Whenever she could find a minute at work, she’d dwell on it. She drew it toward her. It was an oval shape, tall with a lid that nestled snug on top. It was covered with wallpaper of red, green, brown, and blue that showed six men in uniform pulling, and
one pushing, a fire wagon along a road in front of a beautiful red brick house. The house wasn’t on fire though. It was pretty and peaceful. They were on their way to a fire not in the picture. One man was blowing a horn, calling out trouble. On the fire wagon the number thirteen was painted in a circle in two places. She ran her hand over the lid. It was slightly gritty with dust.

  Suddenly, there was a slap like a whip cracking. She lurched. Her hand jerked, tipping over the bandbox. It tumbled to the floor spilling snippets of colored ribbon in a mess.

  “I cannot, cannot, make these accounts add up,” Mrs. Beattie called out. “It’s the most frustrating thing ever.”

  Then Mrs. Beattie was quiet again for a while, except for some hefty sighing and paper shuffling. When visiting the shop to look at hats and Godey’s Lady’s Books, Clara had heard Mrs. Beattie grumble about her accounts before. Mrs. Beattie’s face would look tortured and she’d scratch her blond hair like a little monkey with an accordion player. When she was really disturbed, she’d slap or pound her ledgers. Clara picked up the bandbox and the tangled ribbons and put them on the table. She plucked at them and began to sort them by color, reds and pinks in one lump, blues and greens in another, black, white, yellow, purple in their own piles. Then she unfurled the ribbons and counted them to see which color there was the most of.