The Spirit Room
Page 47
All week, Mrs. Fielding and Anna had been in a twitter, reminiscing and chatting incessantly about previous Grand Circles. The grand spiritual circles were gatherings of some of the most renowned mediums from the Northeast—Boston, Hartford, Bridgeport, Philadelphia, Albany, and of course, New York City. For days they’d been talking about circles they’d been part of, or witnessed, with some of the mediums who would be there today—Mrs. Pettis, Mrs. Guile, Miss Jordan, Miss Cole, George Redman, and Katy Fox, one of the famous Fox sisters. Katy Fox was a young woman of twenty-three now, no longer the young girl who, with her sister, made spirit rapping into a national sensation. There were to be all types of mediums at this event—rapping, singing, testing, healing, writing, tipping, manifesting, and even a painting medium.
The more Izzie listened to all the stories of songs and tables tipping and visions, the more nervous and thrilled she became. She would certainly get the information about her sisters from talents like these. She hadn’t slept one wink this past night.
“Remember what I told you, Isabelle,” Mrs. Fielding, sitting across from her, looked deadly serious. “Communications are rarely as complete as people want them to be. Also, you may not get a turn to ask for a communication. There will be forty or fifty people there. You must be patient and gracious.”
Izzie nodded at Mrs. Fielding and looked out at a sea of black umbrellas along Fifth Avenue. Always on the lookout for Clara or Euphora, she rarely took her eyes off the pedestrians on the street when riding an omnibus or carriage. Since they hid everyone from her, the umbrellas were a terrible nuisance. Izzie scratched at the crook of her elbow through her dress sleeve. She would have to find a way to take a turn with the circle. She had to, no matter how many seekers there were.
“The color is lovely on you. It’s bringing out the green in your eyes.” Mrs. Fielding reached out and patted the green taffeta of Izzie’s new dress, a gift from the Fieldings especially for the Grand Circle.
“Someday you’ll sit in the inner circle, Isabelle. It won’t be long.” Mrs. Fielding smiled, then beamed at Anna. “This is only Anna’s second time at a grand inner circle.”
Sitting in the center circle didn’t mean half as much to Izzie as speaking to a spirit who could help her. Izzie felt Anna’s weight against her shoulder. Anna was silent and serene, breathing evenly and deeply. She was already preparing for trance, thought Izzie.
When they arrived at Ada Coan’s parlor, the expansive room was half full already. There weren’t very many men. Mostly there were women everywhere, in hoops and colorful dresses, with hair in ringlets and curls. There were no furnishings except a piano, a very large round mahogany table with at least a dozen chairs around it, and then two more rings of chairs around those. The special mediums were to sit at the table and the seekers in the outer circles, but other mediums, like Mrs. Fielding, would sit in the outer circles as well. Izzie’s heart fluttered with anticipation.
Mrs. Fielding and Roland introduced Izzie to at least twenty women, including the famous Katy Fox, while Anna quietly slipped away and took a chair at the table. Izzie kept glancing over at Anna’s shining, jet-black hair parted perfectly in the middle, her burgundy and black dress, her smooth olive skin, her scant mustache. Anna spoke to no one, but smiled radiantly at all who sat at the mahogany table. The women Izzie met were all ages, some young like her, but some older, with lined faces and wizened brows. Some had soft, feathery voices, some squeaky voices, some had fixed, sharp eyes, others, luminous vacant eyes. They all exuded warmth and cheer. The men wore beards and had a gentle, educated air about them. Everyone asked Izzie what kind of a medium she was. She’d say, “I’m only in training.” But, then, rather loudly, Mrs. Fielding would go on about Izzie’s marvelous gifts and how she could hear the spirits as well as write in trance with both hands. She’d say, “By this time next year, she’ll be in the Grand Circle.” And Roland would chirp in, “Yes. Yes. She’s completely remarkable. She’s my Adele’s second protégé. Anna, over there at the table, is her first, you know.”
By now, in the month or so since her first trance, Izzie had heard these claims so many times that she had started to accept them in an odd way. They didn’t seem to be her own desires. It was as though she had read the same page in a book over and over until she had memorized it and it was part of her, like her skin or hair. Their claims were just facts that she had learned.
Izzie wondered what her mother would have thought of this gathering. If Mamma had decided to be a Spiritualist and had teachers, would she be sitting at the grand table of mediums? Or would she still have been at the mercy of her voices and ended up dead too soon because of them?
After what seemed like hours, the doors were closed and everyone settled into their seats. A dozen or so women and one man, Mr. George Redman, sat around the table. Mrs. Fielding had chosen seats positioned so that they could see Anna’s face. The curtains were partially drawn, leaving the room cloaked in dull light. Everyone grew silent. Rain pelted against the glass windows and distant thunder rumbled out over the Hudson River somewhere. After a few moments of stillness, a woman with a profusion of auburn ringlets cascading onto her shoulders rose from the second circle and stepped over to a piano. She took a seat and began to play. Everyone sang with her, their voices strong, carrying the melody vigorously.
‘Twas a calm, still night,
And the moon’s pale light
Shone soft o’er hill and vale;
When friends mute with grief
Stood around the deathbed
Of my poor lost Lily Dale...
Izzie’s throat tightened. She edged forward in her chair. She’d only heard the song once before and struggled to keep up with the fifty or so singers. When they went on to the third verse, she nearly sprang up and screamed, “Start the circle now. Now!”
Finally the song ended and silence befell the room. After a short quiet moment, one of the older mediums at the grand table said, “Is any spirit here who will communicate with me?”
The room was somber. No one responded. No raps. No cedar pencils scratching on paper. No song. The next medium asked the same question. Again, nothing. The mediums at the table began to dart glances at each other and stirred in their chairs. Next was Anna. She asked for a spirit. Mrs. Fielding twisted her hands in her lap. Roland cleared his throat. Please, thought Izzie. Please talk to us, spirits. Nothing from Anna. Muffled whispers erupted among the observers in the outer circles. The mediums fidgeted. One after another, each of the mediums asked for a spirit and nothing happened, nothing whatsoever, except the pounding of rain on the windows and the cobblestones outside on the street. Hair ringlets bobbing, the women at the grand table blinked, fussed, cringed, and sighed, looking from one to the other. Mr. Redman was restless as well.
“We must join hands,” said a round, pale-faced woman.
“Yes, and we are in the wrong order. Let’s all stand, and then settle again where it feels harmonious,” said one with thin lips and huge eyes.
Getting up and bumping into one another as they shifted right or left or stayed in place, the mediums appeared to be playing a confused game of musical chairs. Lawk-a-mercy. Weren’t these the most gifted mediums in the country? And there wasn’t one spirit who could communicate or rap a single yes or no?
The pianist with auburn hair got up and went back to the piano and started the same song all over again. Izzie let out a huge sigh. She had been holding her breath for some time. When the first verse was over, the pianist looked over at the table. The mediums were organized now, their hands joined on the table. The pianist stopped and, just as the room fell back to silence, there was a rap on the table, then under the table, then two on a wall.
Smiles broke out. Mrs. Fielding nudged Izzie and whispered, “Here we go.”
Eyes closed, Anna shot up out of her chair like a rocket. Shaking all over, she vibrated and swayed, arms stiff and jerking about. She kept this up for a few moments, then simmered to a sort of rigid jiggle.
Mrs. Fielding took Izzie’s hand in one of hers and one of Roland’s in the other. With eyes closed, Anna swayed away from the table, nearly careening into a man’s lap behind her. People nearby gasped and thrusted out their arms to break her fall but she recovered her balance. Then, wandering blind around the mediums at the table, she touched a head or shoulder, then gently groped for the next. When she had touched everyone at the table, she drifted, eyes still shut, from person to person in the first outer circle, touching a forehead, an ear, or a neck on each person. Teeth clamped tight, Izzie impatiently waited for her to come around to her. Pick no one but me, no one but me, she thought.
Anna left her palm on Roland’s forehead a long moment, then standing in front of him, set both hands on his temples. She stayed there longer than she had with anyone else. It was Roland. Roland? Suddenly, Anna’s hands came off his head like he was on fire. Roland snickered quietly and looked relieved. Anna barely grazed the top of Mrs. Fielding’s reddish hair, then stepped in front of Izzie. Izzie swallowed and grasped the edges of her chair. Anna was less jittery now. Placing a palm over Izzie’s forehead, the way she had with Roland, she leaned back a little, stretching away as far as her arm would let her.
“Is this the one?” Her voice trilled again.
A rain-filled wind gust slapped at the windows. Izzie’s heart raced. It is me, she thought. Me. Lawks. Anna couldn’t play-act that wind beating on the windows. Clutching Izzie’s upper arms, Anna coaxed her up, then took her hand and led her, with eyes closed, slowly through the outer circles back to the grand table. They strolled around the backs of the mediums once, then twice, then a third time. Why was Anna doing this circling? Why wouldn’t she start speaking for a spirit as she had done so many times before?
When they started around the fourth time without any rapping or singing or movement of any kind, Izzie’s heart began to deflate. Not even the Grand Circle could bring her a communication. She followed Anna round and round past the heads full of coils and ribbons. The mediums across the table watched her and Anna closely. On the fifth circuit around the table, just before they reached the painting medium, another huge rain-filled gust of wind slammed against the windows. The painting medium snatched up a piece of charcoal. Izzie halted and forced Anna to stop with her. The medium’s hand holding the charcoal floated over the paper in front of her. It swirled and swept in the air. The medium next to her, a young woman with a pink silk shawl, got up and left her seat. Anna, now with eyes open, directed Izzie to sit next to the painting medium, then took her own chair a few seats away.
The room was as silent as three in the morning. Izzie was about to burst. The painting medium was one of the older women. She had a long narrow face, long slender nose, big round hazel eyes and thin, skin-pocked, wrinkled hands.
“Place your fingertips on the corner of the paper,” she said without looking up at Izzie.
Izzie reached for the paper with a shaky hand and let her fingers rest on a corner. Then the painting medium’s hand rose up a foot or so, then dropped down to the paper. She stroked rapidly with the charcoal creating little scratching lines, lengthy swooping lines, then swathes of shadow. Izzie was breathless. It was the sea. A ship with great swollen masts appeared, then storm clouds, then violent waves crashing against the bow. The ship wasn’t sinking, but it was endangered.
It was astounding, exhilarating, horrifying. But what did it mean? What did it have to do with her or her sisters? She hoped it wasn’t the Hungarian again.
After some time passed, and the details of the drawing had been filled in, the painting medium put down the charcoal and leaned back in her chair.
“What is it? What does it mean?” Izzie asked her.
“You must find the meaning. I saw it in brilliant color, a deep blue and green ocean, and iridescent white caps on the waves. The ship was brown, but glowing like a silver light.”
But this wasn’t enough, thought Izzie. Izzie looked around at the faces, their blue, gray, hazel, and brown eyes all on her. Taking a deep breath, she grasped the hand of the medium one side of her and also the hand of the medium on the other side of her, completing the Grand Circle.
“Is there a spirit who will communicate with me?” Izzie asked.
She waited. She would probably feel the urge to take up a pencil in a moment. The others waited. Thunder rumbled. Someone in the room hacked a sickly cough. A long moment went by. She knew she couldn’t trance write herself. She wasn’t relaxed enough. Her mind was in chaos. Her shoulders were pinched tight. She could barely breathe. She had enough experience with Mrs. Fielding and Anna to know this was not welcoming to the spirits.
“An old woman is here.”
Izzie swung around. The voice came from the first outer ring. It was Ada Coan, their hostess, standing at her chair. Her face was empty, eyes open and raised blankly up toward the ceiling.
“What old woman?”
She was quiet a second. “Friend.”
Izzie shot up out of her chair and scrambled over to Ada, knocking into knees, stepping on feet. There were yelps and grunts as she made her way. When she reached Ada, she stared at her, trying to collect her thoughts. She glanced over at Mrs. Fielding who was sitting about seven people away. Raising her brow, Mrs. Fielding mouthed the word “test” and nodded. She was right. Whatever Izzie was about to learn would be more meaningful if she tested first.
“What is her name?” Izzie asked.
“Emily.”
Izzie thought for a moment. “Emma?”
“Yes.”
“How did she pass over?”
“Slipped…on ice.”
Izzie clutched at her throat, remembering the slick stairs at Emma Purcell’s house in Geneva. That was evidence enough. It was Mrs. Purcell.
“What is the drawing of the ship for?”
Silence. Then, “Clara’s house.”
“Clara lives on a ship?”
“No.”
“Clara travels on a ship?”
“No. Mary.”
“Who is Mary?”
“Friend.”
“Where is Clara?”
“Mary.”
“Who is Mary?”
Silence. The longer Ada didn’t answer, the more Izzie wanted to shake her, shake all of them. A ship. Someone named Mary. How on earth was any of this supposed to lead her to Clara and Euphora?
Finally, she yelled. “Who is Mary?”
Ada’s eyes lowered. Her shoulders fell and she appeared to be out of the trance. She looked at Izzie. “She’s gone. I saw Emma.”
Izzie nodded. She began to shiver all over. “Emma, speak to me through someone else. Tell me more.” She gestured toward the mahogany table. “Speak through any of them. Please. I beg you.” Tears flowed from her eyes. The mediums stared at her, but no one moved. “What use are you? What use are your gifts? What is everyone here for?” She surveyed the guests. “You can’t even tell me where my sisters are.”
Anna and Mrs. Fielding were suddenly on either side of her. They took her arms and led her toward the door. Thunder boomed overhead. She cringed, then twisted around. “What use are you? You’re all hoaxes!”
Roland blocked her as she tried to free herself and plow back into the room.
“What good are any of you?” Writhing, she tried to break free of Anna and Mrs. Fielding. They held her wrists, tugging and coercing her out of the room.
It took all three of them to get her out into the foyer and get the doors closed. When Izzie faced the doors blocking her out, she pounded them.
“Izzie. Izzie.” The voices of Roland, Anna, and Mrs. Fielding scolded and beckoned her.
Slowly, Izzie caught her breath and looked up at her friends. Roland’s mouth was hanging open. Anna had tears in her eyes, but Mrs. Fielding had fire in hers.
“You have humiliated me.” Mrs. Fielding’s head was tilted back, her face quivering. “Tho
se are the most revered mediums in the country. You will never, ever, sit at one of my spirit circles again. Do you hear me?”
“Come now, let’s get a hack. We’ll discuss this later. Come. Come.” Roland nudged and poked them all as though he was herding them like sheep out the front door, through a blast of soaking rain, and into their hack.
No one spoke on the way back to Twenty-Fifth Street. Izzie pressed her forehead against the cold damp window, trying to see under the umbrellas that marched along the sidewalk.
Forty-Four
AS THE ORCHESTRA TUNED THEIR INSTRUMENTS, Clara worried about whether the dance lessons she’d had from the girls at the parlor house the past four days were enough. It was her first dress-ball and it was by far the grandest of the season, or of many seasons, according to Mary Johnson.