The Spirit Room

by Paul, Marschel

  “What is it, Euphora? What’s wrong?” Clara stepped into the kitchen.

  “Mrs. Hogarth wants to talk to us together.”

  “What about?”

  “She wouldn’t say. Only that we had to be together. Do you think she has to let me go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Biting at a fingernail, Clara followed Euphora to the parlor. Tarnation. Mrs. Hogarth was going to tell them Euphora couldn’t stay there? What else could it be? What would they do now? Without a job, how could Clara take care of Euphora? How the blazes could they find another domestic situation for her sister? They didn’t know anyone to ask.

  Mrs. Hogarth was sitting with quilting work by the coal fire. She held a red and blue patch between the two fingers on her left hand, and a needle and thread in her right.

  “Girls, come in and sit down.”

  Euphora took a seat on a small pink sofa and sat close to her, leaning into her sister’s shoulder.

  “Clara, I understand our friend Mr. Stebbins couldn’t take you on now at the umbrella factory. I am sorry, but he tells us you are on his waiting list. Can you make do until your name comes up?”

  “I still have some savings and I have some piecework and I am asking at other factories.”

  “I am sorry. We hoped Mr. Stebbins could take you straight away. We wish we could help you more, but we just make our own rent and with Euphora to feed, there’s not a penny left over at the end of the month.”

  Euphora couldn’t eat all that much, Clara thought. She worked every day and evening except for these few hours on Sunday and they were only paying her seventy-five cents a week. Maybe that’s all it was that Mrs. Hogarth was going to tell them. Maybe they were going to withdraw the wages. Maybe they could still keep her working just for meals and room.

  “We’ve had sad, terrible news. We got a letter from my cousin’s other boarders, the Carter sisters.” Mrs. Hogarth’s two fingers flicked uncontrollably. The quilt square slipped off her lap. “My cousin, Mrs. Purcell, had a deathly accident. She slipped on the ice on her porch stairs late at night and passed away. It was right after you left.” Mrs. Hogarth’s throat convulsed. “The Carters were in Boston at the time and the following weeks so it took a while for them to write. They say your father disappeared the night of the accident and the sheriff is still looking for him.”

  Clara fell back against the sofa, the air sucked right out of her. Euphora turned, blue eyes wide, and gawked at her. Clara couldn’t speak.

  Mrs. Hogarth’s two fingers twitched like a giant spider squiggling around in her lap. “The Carters found our address among Emma’s things. They also told us that Mrs. Purcell left the house and all its contents to them in her will. They don’t know you two are here, do they? Emma said no one knew.”

  Clara shook her head.

  “If your father had anything to do with Emma’s death, he deserves to be hung. If he somehow traces you here, I will bring in the police right away. I mean it. The second he shows his face, either Mr. Hogarth or I will be out that back door on our way to the police.”

  Trembling against Euphora’s shoulder, Clara slumped down, but then Euphora stiffened and sat up straight as a pine tree.

  “May I still stay and work for you, Mrs. Hogarth?”

  Mrs. Hogarth’s bitterness melted from her eyes. “Oh, yes, dear. You may stay. Mr. Hogarth and I want you to stay, but if your father comes here, it could be very complicated. He has the right to take you away, but we have the right to call in the police. I think you should consider going to your older sister’s in Rochester.”

  “Not yet. He would find us there for certain,” Clara said.

  Euphora jumped up. “May we go to the kitchen now?”

  “Of course, dear.” Mrs. Hogarth said, looking a little surprised.

  Clara was surprised too. Euphora wasn’t crying. She didn’t even seem shaken. She seemed cool and distant. It wasn’t like her at all. Clara was still trembling on the sofa, feeling too heavy to even get up. Had Papa anything to do with Mrs. Purcell’s accident? She thought about Mrs. Purcell’s white flowing hair and how brave she was holding her lantern up high the night that Papa was drunk on the stairs. She had saved her and Euphora and Billy that night. Now she was dead. Papa was gone. Where would he go? There was no way he could find them here at the Hogarth’s. Maybe he would travel somewhere new and far like he’d talked about, where no one knew him. He’d want that.

  “Come on, Clara.” Euphora reached over, took Clara’s hands and pulled her up off the sofa. “I made biscuits this morning and we have honey. Would you like me to bring you some, Mrs. Hogarth?”

  “No, you girls go on.”

  When they got back to the kitchen, Clara sat on the bench at the table while Euphora gathered biscuits, butter, and honey and plunked them in front of Clara.

  “I wish Billy were here with us. I wish he had run away to New York with us so we could be together. Do you think there’s any chance he’s here somewhere?” Clara asked.

  “He never said anything about New York City. It was always the Freedom Fighters and Kansas. Don’t worry, Clara. Papa’s gone. We don’t know where, but he’s gone.” She picked up a knife and buttered a biscuit, then dripped a golden dollop of honey onto it. “Here. Eat this. Mrs. Purcell always said tea and a buttered biscuit could fix just about anything.”

  The mouthful was sweet and thick, but hard to swallow. Clara didn’t like not knowing where Papa was or Billy, either. She didn’t like it at all.

  Thirty-Nine

  FEET ACHING AND RAW, Izzie was dragging her way back to Mrs. Fielding’s at dusk. The few times in her first week of searching for her sisters that she hadn’t made it back to Mrs. Fielding’s before dark, she’d had exchanges with men on the street that she didn’t like. Since then she’d kept a dusk curfew. In four weeks of searching, she’d been to over a hundred boardinghouses, all the almshouses twice, and all the other charities that helped women and children two or three times each. Every child huddled in a doorway, every young girl peddling matches or hothouse radishes on the street was Euphora or Clara until she got close enough to see their faces. Her feet blistered on that first day, then bled on the second day, and bled again every day after that. At night, in the kitchen, Katie, the Fielding’s cook, would prepare a lukewarm bucket of water for her to soak her feet in.

  Izzie hoped her boots would hold up. She had no money for new ones. This evening she was rushing home from work because Mrs. Fielding and Anna would be arriving home from their Spiritualism tour. She longed to see them again. Having slept in Anna’s room these weeks, and having lived in the Fielding home, and having read through many of the Spiritualism journals in Mrs. Fielding’s study, and having been escorted about town on numerous occasions by Roland Fielding, she felt she knew Anna and Mrs. Fielding quite well. They’d become friends to her while they were away. She picked up her pace as she pictured the two women greeting her with warm smiles.

  She had been lonely. Roland Fielding had been very kind, taking her to a few of the crowded tenement neighborhoods the Children’s Aid Society man had suggested, the Irish neighborhoods on the west side, the Jewish and Italian neighborhoods east of Bowery, and Five Points, but Roland Fielding didn’t want to spend much time in those places. There were swarms of poor immigrants. He was dressed too well and got too many stares. It made him nervous. “One of these waifs or urchins is about to pick my pockets, Isabelle. We best move along,” he’d say when he was particularly on edge.

  Sometimes she’d go without him. She’d put on a plain dress and go back to these neighborhoods in the mornings on her own. She knew how to fit in. It wasn’t as foreign a land to her as it was to Roland Fielding.

  Maybe there’d be another letter from Mac this evening. She’d had a dozen letters from him begging her to come home. He wrote that her attempts would end in vain, that New York City was too snarled and overflowing for her to find her sisters, even if they were there. He needed her by his side at the
Upper Falls Water-Cure Institute, which was now open and had its first customers. He’d already sold the house and was going to move their furniture to their quarters at the Institute in a couple of weeks. It seemed so odd that the home she knew with Mac was hers no more.

  When she returned to him, it would be to his professional residence, not their cozy little honeymoon home in Corn Hill. She’d answered him right away, saying that she believed she would certainly succeed in finding her sisters and she couldn’t leave yet. Surely he would eventually understand that she had to do everything she could to retrieve Clara and Euphora. So far he had not. His letters were angry.

  Something slammed her shoulder hard, jolting her. She turned. A young, nicely dressed man in stovepipe hat and black greatcoat fleeted away behind her. He didn’t slow to apologize, but kept on, disappearing into the crowd.

  She entered the house, then swiftly shed her shawl and bonnet. The rooms were lit. Voices emanated from the front parlor. One voice rose above. It was Anna’s. Izzie hurried to the doorway.

  And there was Mac. Mac. Her heart leapt. Mrs. Fielding, Anna, Roland, and tall, wonderful, Mac were all there.

  “Mac.”

  He turned toward her, his face full of longing, and came rushing to her, knocking against the side of the sofa.

  “My dear.” He took up both her hands and kissed them several times.

  She slid her arms around his waist and pulled him against her. She wanted to feel him against her. He was solid, warm, strong. He held her firmly in return.

  “Thank goodness you’re all right,” he said.

  “You’re here.”

  When they separated, the others were standing nearby. Anna and Mrs. Fielding both glowed at her and took turns greeting her with kisses. Roland beamed from a few steps away.

  “I told him you both must stay here with us. I won’t have you going to a hotel,” Mrs. Fielding took Izzie’s hand.

  “I’ll sleep on the sofa in the study,” Anna said.

  “We’ll only be a night or two. We’ll stay wherever you like, Izzie.” Mac’s brow furrowed down. His beautiful, dear eyes looked worried. He had been fretting.

  “You can’t stay longer?” Izzie leaned toward him a little.

  “I mean to take you home, my dear.”

  She drew back, looked at the other faces. They were all serious. She clenched her fists.

  “I haven’t found Clara and Euphora, yet. I can’t leave. When I saw you standing there, I hoped you were here to help me.”

  “You know I can’t.”

  “Now, now. You two need a long husband and wife talk, but I suggest we have dinner first. Anna and I are completely worn.” Mrs. Fielding marched to the doorway. “And you, Doctor MacAdams? I’m sure you’re worn from your travels as well.” She turned to her husband. “Roland, will you pick something out of your wine cellar for our meal? And tell Katie we’ll sit down in half an hour. Anna, come and get your trunk and move it to my study.”

  Adele Fielding, hoop skirt wide as a loveseat, gathered the front of it and started up the stairs. Anna scurried up just behind her and Roland headed for the kitchen.

  “She’s right.” Mac’s narrow face was gentle. “Let’s sit by the fire. Tell me where you think your sisters might be. And about the voices. Tell me everything.” He paused a moment, his eyes searching hers. “You’re very thin. Do you feel well?”

  “I am somewhat fatigued.” She felt her shoulders come down, fists unclench. She sighed and led him to the sofa, then sat close to him so she could feel his shoulder. “I don’t want to talk about anything, yet. I’m afraid we’ll argue. I’ve missed you. I want a few moments.” She clasped her hands waiting for him to launch into the reasons she had to go home with him.

  “I understand.” He plied her hands apart and held one between his.

  She leaned her head against his shoulder, smelled his lemon and sweat, felt the coarseness of his wool coat against her face, heard his quiet breathing. He caressed her hand. His touch was dry and warm. Then time stopped. There was nothing but Mac and the fire.

  <><><>

  AFTER DINNER, SITTING ON ANNA’S BED in her pantalettes and shimmy, Izzie slipped off her second stocking. As it came off, it stuck to her open blisters and stung. She cringed.

  “My God, look at your feet. They’re swollen and blistered.” In his long johns, Mac knelt down in front of her and lifted her ankle toward him.

  “I walk all day looking for the girls.”

  “We have to take care of this. You might get an infection and that could lead to gangrene.”

  “No. I’ll be all right. They’ll heal soon enough. That’s how it works, isn’t it? They’ll get tougher?” She touched his long bristly sideburn. “Let’s go to bed.”

  He let her foot drop, then rose up on his knees. He pressed her legs apart and leaned in to kiss her. His lips were warm and moist, his long mustache scratchy and sweet against her face. She felt a rush charge all the way up into her throat. After his lips lingered on hers a moment, he drew back.

  “You are the most lovely woman, Izzie.” His deep gaze tugged at her. “No bed, though, until we take care of your feet. I’m sure the Fieldings have some kind of ointment for this. I’ll go and see.”

  “It can wait.”

  “No it can’t. I’ll be right back.”

  He put his trousers and shirt back on and left. While he was gone, Izzie put her nightdress on and waited for him. She still didn’t want to talk about staying or going. She wanted to hold him, feel him naked against her. That’s what she needed, not talk.

  In a few moments, Mac returned with a grin on his face. “I’ve got some Holloway’s Ointment. It will help. Why didn’t you use this before?”

  “I don’t know. I was soaking them in water every night.”

  “To clean them, that’s all right, but not to bring the skin back. That’s one thing water isn’t very good at.”

  “I thought water could cure everything.” She laughed, trying to tease but he didn’t respond.

  Even though he was gentle as he rubbed the ointment onto her feet, as he touched the sores, pain shot though her. She jerked back her foot several times but he steadied it. By the time he finished, her feet were throbbing.

  “I’m dead serious. You must come home with me, Izzie. This search is in vain. The girls could be anywhere by now. You look emaciated.”

  “I waited too long. I should have brought them to Rochester so long ago.”

  He sat next to her on the bed. “You couldn’t have known things were as bad as they were.”

  “I should have known. I knew Papa was different after Mamma died.”

  All three of her siblings, the twins only fourteen, and Euphora only twelve, were out there somewhere all on their own. Maybe Papa was hunting them down like a bloodhound after runaway slaves. Maybe he’d already found them and taken them somewhere.

  “I’ve missed you, Mac.”

  “I’ve missed you, too. Terribly. The Upper Falls Water-Cure is meaningless without you.”

  His eyes were dark as a midnight lake. She wanted to feel his skin against hers. She scooted back on the bed, drew back the quilt, and slid under. She reached an inviting hand toward him.

  “Let’s not talk about going back to Rochester. We’re here now,” she said.

  As Mac undressed, the sight of his black-haired chest made her smile. He crawled under the covers with her and slid an arm over her stomach.

  “Brrr. It’s bloody cold out there,” he said. “Are you still doing the water douche, my love?”

  “No. I had no reason.”

  He drew back his arm. “We shouldn’t then.”

  “Do you have one of your French Safes?”

  “I’m afraid not. I’ll get some tomorrow.” He swung away from her and lay on his back, crooking an arm under his head.

  It didn’t matter, she thought. She’d longed for him every moment she was away from him. She rolled toward him, kissed his neck, his wiry sideburn.
She raised herself onto his torso, her bosoms coming alive against him. She kissed his mouth.

  For a brief moment his hands held her upper arms firmly as though he might push her back, but she kept kissing him, delicately, then she let her tongue search between his lips. After a moment, he pulled up her shimmy, took it off her and steered her fully on top of him. A flush of excitement exploded inside her. She pressed into him with all her weight, then slid over him. The friction of skin against skin made her dizzy. She spread her legs apart and he guided his erect member inside her.

  He kissed her hard, embraced her tightly, then rolled her over onto her back and began to pump slowly inside her. She was completely open, pulling and pushing with him, her hands tight on his lower back.