Worn out, Izzie shuffled over to the sofa near the fireplace and plopped herself down, but she couldn’t feel the fire’s warmth. Fatigued and chilled from head to toe as though she’d walked ten miles through foot-deep snow, she longed desperately to lie down and sleep.
“I’m afraid I’ll lose you forever if you stay here with Mrs. Fielding.”
“Do you mean I’ll lose my mind or my devotion to you?”
He winced. “I’m not sure. Before the trance, you said you might die. Now I’m the one who is afraid.”
“I don’t know what all that was.” She flicked a hand toward the marble table where she had written the trance letters.
Mac leaned over, reached under the sofa, and rose up with one of the paper sheets he’d thrown across the room. He read to himself, then handed it to her.
She stuck her palm out, refusing it. She didn’t want to see it yet. She wasn’t ready.
Mac looked across the room toward the portraits of the Spiritualists. “Do you want to be on that wall?”
“Oh, Mac, I don’t know. I want to find Clara and Euphora.”
“I’m going to see Trall at his hydropathic college. Come with me.”
She shook her head. “I have to lie down. I’m cold.”
“Tomorrow morning we’ll go home. It’s best. The girls will either write you or come there on their own. You’ll want to be waiting. Maybe they’re there now or there’s a letter sitting at the post office.”
The picture of Clara and Euphora standing at the front door of the enormous Upper Falls Water-Cure, and the door answered by strangers, made Izzie feel woeful. She clutched a silk pillow, spread out, and tucked the soft square under her head. Mac took a lap blanket from a nearby chair and covered her, then left her. She heard papers rustle here and there about the room. Finally, from the door, he said, “I’ll see you at dinner and help you pack your things.” She didn’t answer him. She was too tired. She knew she wasn’t leaving though.
<><><>
IT WAS EVENING AND DUSKY in Mrs. Fielding’s spirit parlor when Izzie woke on the sofa. Outside, the sound of rattling carriages was muffled by snow on the street. The fire was still burning strong. Someone must have had added coal to it while she slept. There were voices in the front parlor. In turn, she heard Anna, Mrs. Fielding, Mac, and Roland. Their conversation was heated, but she couldn’t understand what they were saying. No doubt it was about her. Propping herself up, she became slightly dizzy. All she wanted was to go straight up to bed and sleep through the night. She certainly didn’t want be part of the argument going on in the next room and she didn’t want to fight with Mac about going back to Rochester.
She just wanted to stay in New York City and find her sisters. No matter what she had to do. If she had to go into a trance every day until she got some sort of impression of their whereabouts, she would. She’d survived her first trance. She was still here, not lost. She was tired, but she was the same as she had been in the morning. She still had her mind, all her senses. Mrs. Fielding and Anna would help her understand about talking to the spirits.
She made her way to the stack of papers she’d written, where Mac had left them on the table. Gathering the pile up, she returned to the fire and lit a tall glass lamp. She took a deep breath and began to read. The first page was scrawled in a colossal rolling script. The handwriting was huge but it was hers.
Dear Izzie,
Don’t be afraid. You are gifted beyond most others. You must accept this truth and your powers. You must learn and become a great medium. You will bring forth the most astounding physical manifestations. You will travel to London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, and all over America. You will help people understand life and death and find peace and consolation. Your mother struggled, but you will not. You have strength that she didn’t have.
You will be reunited with your sisters one day. You must embrace your spiritual gift. If you deny it, you will suffer in every way, perhaps even illness. If you embrace the gift, you will flourish. There are many of us who dwell in the spirit country who will guide you. Listen to the celestial voices. We speak in divine poems.
The pages shook in Izzie’s trembling hands. There was no signature. Had she written this letter to herself or was it truly from a spirit? It seemed like something Mrs. Fielding would write, but everyone witnessed her and told her she’d written the two letters, one with each hand.
She looked at the next sheet of paper. It was in a different hand, rather wobbly, and in another language, possibly French by the look of the accents. She didn’t know French, but had seen it in Julianna’s family library. But how could it be?
“Nonsense! That’s nonsense. You are all in cahoots to take her from me.” Mac’s voice bellowed from the next room.
“No one is taking me from you, Mac,” she said to herself out loud.
She was simply going to find her sisters. When she found them, she’d go home to him. Why couldn’t he understand that?
She clutched the letter in her fist. Why couldn’t the blasted letter tell her how she’d find Clara and Euphora? Why couldn’t the spirits have told her, “Go now to the corner of Bleecker Street and Fifth Avenue or wait in front of Trinity Church.” If the spirits were able to see and know everything, why couldn’t they just tell her what she needed?
She took the English letter telling her what an astounding Spiritualist she would become, tossed it into the fire, and watched it flame up. She held the other letter in her lap.
The double doors clicked and swung open and Mac led the others into the room. They were like a posse charging in.
“Come, Izzie. We’re leaving right now.”
As the foursome rushed in, she stood up waiting for their attack. They surrounded her. Mac was red in the face, his jaw tight, shoulders square and stiff. Mrs. Fielding, small and erect next to him, looked oddly calm. Anna was without her usual smile and Roland looked worried.
Mac tugged on her elbow. “Please come.”
“I’m staying. I will find my sisters. I won’t leave them here.”
“You are welcome to stay with us as long as you want, Isabelle.” Mrs. Fielding said.
“Is this a coven? What’s going on here? She’s my wife. I am demanding she come home with me.”
His brown eyes flashed from one face to the next as though he expected one of them to break ranks and side with him.
“I think we should leave the MacAdams to confer,” Roland said to Mrs. Fielding and Anna.
Mac threw up his arms. “No, don’t bother yourselves. I’m going.” He peered down at her. “Are you coming?”
Izzie’s felt a pit in her chest. She shook her head.
“You’re in danger here. You may have a mental illness. You know that. You’ve known it all along. I can find a remedy for you. This house is itself a delusion. It is the worst environment for you.” Mac’s face had a gloom and apprehension she had never seen before, his bushy black brow furrowed down, his eyes flitting.
“You are no longer welcome here, Doctor MacAdams. We ask that skeptics at least respect what goes on here. You have crossed over to condemnation.” Like an angry queen railing against an impudent subject, Mrs. Fielding threw her head back, flared her nostrils, and stretched herself to her fullest height.
Mac’s eyes moistened. Was he going to cry? He stared at Izzie a long pleading moment. “Please.”
She longed to fall into his arms, to rush upstairs and grab her valise. She wanted to ride the train home with him, lean into his shoulder, watch forests and towns pass by the windows. She wanted to sleep by his side tonight, every night, work by his side during the day. She wanted him—tall, lanky, dark-haired, inquisitive, passionate Mac.
But she needed more time to look for her sisters. She knew they were here in New York City. She knew it. She shook her head and looked away from him. She couldn’t bear another glimpse of him tortured like that.
Without another word, he slipped away from the group. As she watched him disappear out the parlor
doors, she felt the world ending. Mrs. Fielding began to speak about having tea and sitting together by the fire. Izzie couldn’t bear any of it. She dashed after Mac up to Anna’s room.
Shoving his things into his carpetbag, he gazed up at her as she arrived in the doorway, but he said nothing. She came into the room and fell into the Windsor chair by the window where they had started the day.
“Where will you stay tonight?” she asked.
“What does it matter to you?”
“Mac, I love you. I will come home to you when I have found the girls.”
“I don’t think you will.” He bunched up a shirt and stuffed it into the bag. “You are either going to become a celebrity medium or find yourself in an asylum. Neither one includes a life with your husband.”
“I want to be your wife.”
“Wives don’t do what you are doing.” He pressed the bag closed and latched it, then picked it up along with his medical bag. He stared at her a silent moment, then walked out.
This time, she didn’t follow. She listened to his footsteps vanish down the stairs and then, the front door close. At the window, she watched him go, a tall, narrow figure in stovepipe hat and black coat, a bag in each hand. He gradually disappeared in the eerie lamp-lighted snow.
Forty-One
CLARA SAT ON THE EDGE OF HER BED going over her list of factories. After three more weeks of inquiring and three more weeks of loaning Hannah the money for boarding, all but two factories were crossed off.
“You still haven’t seen Stewart’s, The Marble Palace, yet. Let’s go today.” Her long straw-blond hair hanging nearly to her waist, Hannah stood smiling at the open armoire. She grasped her fine silver dress hanging inside and drew it out.
“But we don’t have employment yet, Hannah. Shouldn’t we go out looking again?”
“We need to think about something else besides all those beastly foremen. It’s just for one day.” Hannah raised the shimmery fabric up to her face and covered all but her blue eyes.
Clara looked out their window. It was a sunny, blue-sky morning. Broadway would be bustling. It would be like a holiday. Clara nodded at her friend and Hannah let out a little chirp.
Clara had already decided to look for more outwork and give up on the factories, for now anyway. She was going to tell Hannah today, but she also had to tell her something much worse—that she couldn’t loan her any more money. Just thinking about how to tell her the loans were done made her stomach feel like a bucket of mud, but she had to be sparing with the rest of her savings. She had no choice. The two of them going to Broadway would soften her news. She jammed a thumbnail between her teeth and chewed at it.
They dressed up for Broadway and then bustled down the stairs and out. It was one of those March days that promised spring would come soon. It had rained the night before, not snowed, and melted the last frozen patches on the streets. Hannah suggested taking the omnibus all the way downtown so that they wouldn’t get distracted or tired this time.
“That’s two more nickels. We can’t,” Clara said.
“All right, but let’s get there straight away.”
They made their way over to Broadway and strode along the stone walk. She and Hannah were rushing, determined, just like all the other New Yorkers. It hadn’t taken very long to get used to the city—the noise, the commotion, the haste, the smells.
As they walked, Hannah described the one time she had gone to the Bowery Theater with some of the older girls from the boardinghouse. The songs were lewd. The comedy was lewd. The acting was silly. The men and women jeered and shouted from every seat. They threw things at the stage. She adored it and hoped to go back someday, maybe with Clara. With half an ear, Clara listened but she also had her mind on how Hannah would react to her news about the money. Would Hannah be her friend by the end of this day? Would she cry or yell or call her by some of the names they used for the factory foremen? Rat, swine, sod.
As soon as Clara saw the tall trees and wide open acreage of The Park where City Hall was in the distance, she knew they were close to The Marble Palace.
“I want to show you the shawl room,” Hannah said.
“A room just for shawls?”
Clara’s pulse kicked up. When they reached A.T. Stewart’s, the women pouring in and out of the front doors looked like a fashion parade, like they were stepping out of the pages of Godey’s Lady’s Book. Wide skirts flared—blue, green, orange—sashes swept, shiny boots and delicate shoes danced. Parasols swung and tapped. Hats of silk floated.
“I wish my sisters could be here to see this.”
Hannah smiled and linked her arm through Clara’s.
“Act like you have what they have, know what they know.”
Clara laughed. “How do we do that?”
“Watch the ladies and the girls. You pretend all this is just here for you and no one else.” Hannah lifted her small chin up and started up the stairs.
Inside it was even bigger than the St. Nicholas Hotel.
“Jo-fire,” Clara gasped.
“See?”
Clara thought nothing could be bigger than the St. Nicholas Hotel, but this was. It was truly a palace. She gazed up and down. Five stories high. More finely dressed people than she could ever count, maybe a thousand, maybe more, milled about, hovering over goods, climbing and descending a grand staircase, carrying packages, chatting. Young men darted about or stood with customers displaying wares. Two men carrying a rolled-up carpet bustled after a woman dressed in blue plaid taffeta and a paisley silk shawl swooping nearly to the floor.
“Lawks.” Clara spun slowly around. “Lawks.”
There were miles of counters and tables filled to the brim with delicious objects of every sort—lace, embroidery, cloaks, blankets, towels, bed linen, damask, silks. Daylight streamed in through fifteen enormous plate glass windows and a dome high above. Ornate chandeliers were lit with gas even though plenty of sunlight was streaming in. Not only were there landscape paintings in frames hung all over the walls, but the ceiling itself was painted with pictures just like at the St. Nicholas Hotel. Gorgeous brocades drifted in the air, suspended from the rotunda like giant flags.
With Hannah still on her arm, Clara began to wander. They entered a room with nothing but hosiery and gloves laid out on mahogany counters.
“Look at these.” Clara picked up a pair of leather gloves lined with fur, slipped a hand into one of them. “Splendiferous.”
Hannah took another pair and tried one on as well. Grinning brightly with her crooked teeth, she held out her left hand. Clara extended her gloved right hand next to it.
“A pair,” Hannah said.
The back of a man just outside the room caught Clara’s eye. His shoulders hung low like Papa’s. The brown hair was his, too. Was it Papa? She couldn’t see his face, but she could tell he was wearing spectacles. It did look like him. Heart banging, Clara tore off the fur glove and threw it down on the table. Then she grabbed the tips of Hannah’s glove, ripped it off her, and threw it down as well.
“Let’s go over here.” Clara steered her friend over to two mannequins in fancy chemises by a marble table piled neatly with stockings. Picking up a pair of ladies silk, she pretended to examine them.
“I think my father is out there,” she whispered.
“Your father is dead, isn’t he? You mean a spirit?” Hannah sounded alarmed.
“Shhh. No. No. My father is alive. I ran away from him.”
Hannah craned her head around to look toward the door.
“I have to leave,” Clara said. “He can’t see me.”
“Are you sure it’s him?”
“I think so.”
“I swan, Clara. Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“Never mind right now. I have to leave. Walk over there and tell me if there’s a man in a black greatcoat, brown hair, no hat, spectacles, dusty boots.”
Hannah slipped her arm out of Clara’s and snuck away. In a moment, she was back.
; “There’s a man like that walking away just now with two others.” She pointed toward the interior of the store.
“Let’s go.” Clara took Hannah’s hand and scurried with her to the hallway. She wanted to steal a rapid glance at the man, but couldn’t risk being seen, so she turned her face down and away as they left the store.
When they had descended the front stairs, Clara led them south along Broadway. She needed to get as much distance from this man who might be Papa as she could and as fast as she could. Hannah followed willingly, weaving and sprinting ahead of men in pairs, around crates, in front of moving carriages at the cross streets. A driver near Trinity Church had to dodge them and screamed out, “Idiots. Get out of my way!”
The Spirit Room Page 43