Mary Johnson glanced at her. “Why don’t you both go in the rear parlor then? I’ll have Lettie make tea and I’ll stay but a few minutes then let you two jabber to your hearts’ content. I would like to speak to your sister briefly, Lizette.”
Before Clara could say a word, Mary Johnson darted off for the kitchen. Damn. A few minutes between Mary Johnson and Izzie could be enough to ruin her life. Clara led Izzie through the front parlor past the piano and into the rear room. In the big gilt frame mirror that hung over the fireplace, she glimpsed Izzie whose brow was furrowed and mouth slightly open. Was she shocked? Was it the nude woman in the painting or was it that everything was so fancy?
“Does your madam know I want you to come home with me?” Izzie asked.
“Probably. You won’t try to convince her to boot me out, will you? I want to make my own decision.”
Izzie looked away, then began to pace about the room, winding her way through the sofas and chaise lounges.
“I told you I’ll visit,” Clara said. “I want to see you and Euphora whenever I can.”
“Clara.” Izzie approached her. “You know I’m the closest thing you have to a parent now that Papa is gone. You’re only fifteen.”
“All right, girls. Lettie will have tea for us in a minute.” Mary Johnson strode over to them and stood near Izzie. Even Izzie seemed short next to the madam. “Now, Izzie, what are your plans?”
Izzie blinked just once. “I want Clara to come home to Rochester with me. I have work for her at my husband’s Water-Cure Institute.”
“Well, that’s plain enough. You know I’m fond of Clara and proud of her. She’s been through a great deal and she is a strong young woman. She stood up to your father. She told you that? She’s proved she can fend for herself in this world.”
Clara calmed as she felt Mary Johnson fold an arm over her shoulders.
“I was telling Clara I feel I am her guardian now with our father gone,” Izzie said.
“She needed that sort of thing from you long ago. I doubt Clara would be here if you had tended to her sooner.”
Izzie blinked. “I know. For that, I hope someday she’ll forgive me.”
With the two of them starting a debate for themselves, Clara was starting to feel small. Maybe she should go outside for a walk and see what they decided when she came back. Here was Izzie, her older sister, standing with Mary Johnson, her madam. They were looming over her. Her collywobbles were coming back.
Lettie arrived with a tray and set it on a marble table. She poured tea from a blue ceramic pot into three cups.
When the third cup was full, Clara looked straight at Izzie. “I’m not leaving.”
Izzie and Mary Johnson stopped talking and both looked as though they suddenly realized someone else was in the room.
“I’m not leaving.”
Lettie scurried away.
“Clara, you can’t stay here. I won’t allow you to do this with your life. You’ll regret it.”
The tone was familiar. Izzie was getting riled. Even though Clara had missed Izzie’s brass for such a long time, she wished she didn’t have to stand up to it now.
“Izzie, I believe Clara has already made her own choice. I will say it again. Any girl who can get up the nerve to get herself and her sister away from a man like your father and come all the way to New York City on her own and find her way, even if you don’t approve of that way, can make her own decisions.” Mary Johnson crossed her arms over her waist. “If she says she wants to leave, I’ll help her pack her things up and I’ll escort all of you to the depot. If she says she wants to stay, she stays.”
Izzie’s face went hard like a big, flat rock. “I’m her sister, Miss Johnson. I am responsible now.”
“I don’t think you are responsible,” Clara said. “I can take care of myself.”
“You want to … you actually want to be a prostitute?”
The word came at Clara like a sharp, bitter arrow. She couldn’t speak or move.
“I take care of my girls. As long as she stays here with me, I will take care of her.” Mary Johnson stared straight at Izzie like she could see right through to her other side.
“How can you take care of her? Look what she does every night? What about syphilis and gonorrhea? What about abortion? Is that how you’ll take care of her?”
“I can’t listen to you say these things,” Clara said. She turned and headed for the double doors.
“Clara, wait. You must come with me. Please.” Izzie stretched a hand in her direction.
“I can’t. This is my home now, Izzie. I’m sorry.”
“Clara, you must. I insist.”
Mary Johnson nodded solemnly at Clara.
“What time will you collect Euphora at Mrs. Hogarth’s? I’ll come and say goodbye.” Clara felt the tears flood up, but she held them back.
Izzie’s face grew cold. It was an awful face. Clara was thoroughly nauseous now.
“Six-thirty in the morning. What about today? What about the American Museum this afternoon?”
“Tell Euphora I have a fever. Tell her you couldn’t make me change my mind, but I’ll visit in a month or two.”
Her stomach jumping up and down like a leather ball, Clara left Izzie there by the big mirror with her madam. As she climbed the stairs, she heard Izzie and Mary Johnson quarreling. They could argue all they liked, all morning and afternoon. She belonged here and she was going to stay.
<><><>
CLARA WOKE WITH THE FIRST LIGHT. Foggy-headed from the night’s champagne, she felt like she had hardly slept at all. Beside her, a young sporting gentleman was snoring quietly through his long brown mustache. The young ones who didn’t have wives and children to return to often stayed the night, especially if they were pickled like this Russell something or other from Georgia. He said he hated everything about the north, but not the women. He loved northern women. He told her she was like a cool deep well he could drink from.
Clara’s night had been easy. He was not one of the imaginative ones and he didn’t smell much. She got up from bed, combed her hair, and tied and pinned it up on her head. It was a mess, but no one would see it under her summer bonnet. Slipping into a light blue day dress, she decided to walk to the Hogarth’s on Nineteenth Street. It was too early for anyone to heckle her. At this hour, she’d be left alone to walk in peace.
The sky was gloomy, but it was the kind of sky that only teased at rain. It wouldn’t really rain. It would just feel sticky and hot all day and once in a while there would be thunder far off.
While she walked across Washington Square Park, she thought about her sisters leaving without her. Maybe she should change her mind. Maybe she should go with them. She slowed her pace. What would happen if she never became an actress? What would happen if Hannah married one of the sporting gents and left her? She couldn’t think of these things. Anything could happen. She only wanted to think about today.
Later on she would join Hannah, Abbie and Carlotta on a two-hour steamer ride to Coney Island, to wade in the blue rolling waves of the Atlantic Ocean. She was excited to see the ocean for the first time. “If your name is LaMer, you must know the ocean,” Carlotta had said.
When Clara arrived at the Hogarth’s, Izzie and Euphora were already waiting on the sidewalk with their bags. Mrs. Hogarth was with them. Her red hair down below her shoulders, Euphora saw Clara first and ran toward her.
“You have to come with us, Clara. I don’t understand.”
“I told Izzie I’d visit. I will.”
“Are you sure, dear?” With worried eyes, Mrs. Hogarth arrived at her side. “You’re so young. I don’t think my cousin Emma or your mother would have approved.” Mrs. Hogarth’s hand with the missing fingers twitched at her side.
“I’m going to stay,” Clara said.
“You’ll visit me even with Euphora gone, I trust.” Mrs. Hogarth embraced Clara. “Tell me if you need help with anything, anything at all,” she whispered into Clara’s ear.
<
br /> “We’re going to walk to the depot. Will you come along?” Izzie asked.
Euphora took Clara’s hand and dragged her over to Izzie.
They said their good-byes to Mrs. Hogarth and set off to the west for Tenth Avenue. As they walked, Euphora clutched Clara’s hand so tightly that Clara nearly yelped with pain more than once. Euphora asked about how often Clara could visit and told her how much she would miss her and then told her again, and then again, until they were saying the same things over and over. Izzie was mostly quiet, except to direct them when to cross the streets and which direction to take. Surely she must have more to say than “right here, left here, straight now,” thought Clara. Perhaps Izzie was so ashamed of her that she didn’t want to speak to her. Perhaps the last few days of seeing Clara and her life at Mary Johnson’s had sunk in.
At the depot, Izzie purchased two tickets on the train bound for Albany where they would change to another train for Rochester.
Then the three of them stood with a small crowd of people and their cargo at the door of a rail car. Tears streamed down Euphora’s face and Izzie’s eyes were watery too.
“All aboard the Hudson River line for Albany.” A man paced along the platform repeating his instruction.
She could get on the train with them right now. She didn’t need her things. Someone at the parlor house could ship her dresses to her. Would it be so terrible being a lady’s aide at the Upper Falls Water-Cure? She could be with her sisters. She could leave all the men and their strange, complicated needs behind.
“I’m sorry for those things I said to you yesterday.” Izzie squinted as though feeling a burn. “I’m sorry, Clara. You are my dear sister and I love you. I will love you always no matter what you choose to do with your life.”
Even though Clara had managed not to cry until now, this broke her and tears flooded out.
“Change your mind and come with us. Please,” Izzie said.
Clara took Billy’s red bandana from her pocket and held it over her mouth. She couldn’t go. She shook her head.
“You can change your mind later. You are welcome anytime. Euphora and I will keep a place for you and Billy too, if he comes back.”
“And Hannah,” Euphora said.
Clara embraced Izzie and held her a long moment, then Euphora. Her two sisters turned together and climbed onto the train, then looked back at Clara with tear-soaked faces and waved. It was as though the three of them had one heart, one big broken heart. Finally they disappeared into the rail car.
She decided to stay there on the platform by the rails to see if she could see her sisters through the window. In a moment or two, the train would hiss and whistle and clang away along the tracks. It was more than she could bear. She spun and ran away. Heart beating hard, she shoved and dodged her way through the throngs of passengers and well-wishers until she was out on the street. She ran to Twenty-Eighth, Twenty-Seventh, Twenty-Sixth, then slowed to a walk. The sky was gray and sullen. Breathing in the smell of the river, she decided to walk south along Tenth Avenue and then West Street.
Ships lined the docks and slips as far as she could see. She started to count sails. Three on one ship, five on the next. Eight total, then eleven total, then fifteen. At four hundred and ninety-four, she ran out of ships. She looked around her. Where had she been? Where was she now? That was Brooklyn across the East River. Without realizing, she had followed the ships all the way down the Hudson River to the Battery then along South Street to the East River. Lawks. How had she done that?
Izzie and Euphora were on their way to Rochester, she thought. They were sitting close together on the train, leaning into each other and telling each other about the past year. Clara felt like someone was squeezing her heart in a double-handed grip. She coughed.
A small sailboat slowly rowed out of its slip and drifted by her sailing into the East River. She watched it until it was out of sight. She thought about Billy on his ship to China. Was he safe? Would she ever see him again?
Then it seemed it must be time to walk back to the parlor house and see Hannah. Hannah would just be waking up with the rest of the girls. She’d sit with Hannah in her room and tell her everything that had happened since Izzie had arrived. She’d tell her that she was staying. Then in the afternoon, they’d go to the Atlantic Ocean.
Forty-Nine
“THE CHANGE CAME WHEN I DECIDED not to be afraid of the voices. Once I let them talk through me, my own soul calmed down and I was able to listen to them in an orderly way. Usually orderly.” Izzie laughed.
“You must at least write an article, perhaps a book. Have you read mine?” Isaac Post asked.
“I have.”
“What did you think of it?”
“I am interested that all the spirit voices that you transcribed were of famous men, like Benjamin Franklin. All the spirit voices I hear are simple, ordinary people in the other spheres.”
“I invited those men to speak through me. I selected them.”
“My voices select me, I think.”
Post rose from his chair and took his straw hat from the rack near Izzie’s office door. “The editor of the Banner of Light is a dear friend. He’s visiting in two weeks. I’ll bring him by. Perhaps we can hold a special circle when he is here, a Grand Circle.” Post grinned. “I’ll bring my wife, Amy, and invite Mr. Stebbins and Mrs. Edgeworth.”
The term “Grand Circle” reminded Izzie of the terrible moment at Ada Coan’s when she broke down into a blithering, screaming idiot. She silently cringed with embarrassment.
“Wouldn’t a Grand Circle be superb? And perhaps we could even bring in a few of the other really well-known mediums from Boston or New York,” Post said.
She nodded. Perhaps it would be different than her last Grand Circle. Perhaps if she wasn’t obsessed with finding her sisters, it would be interesting, even exciting.
“Good. I’ll write to a few of our medium friends. And you must start writing now about your experience with hearing voices. Include the story of your mother, too. When my friend comes, we’ll show him what you are working on.”
“You really think people would be interested?”
“That’s precisely what I am telling you.”
After their chat, Izzie walked Isaac Post out to the front door and waved to him as he departed in his carriage. She stood a moment in the driveway and watched him ride away. The September sun was already low in the sky, but the sunlight was crystal clear and strong and it shimmered on red and orange leaves along the street. She breathed in the cool air.
It wouldn’t be long before the ground froze. Her tulip bulbs were bundled by color in burlap sacks near the new side garden, the one visible from Mac’s office. How lovely it would be for those staying at the Upper Falls Water-Cure to stroll among red, white, and purple flowerbeds in the spring. The sun wouldn’t set for another hour or so. She had time to do a little planting.
She rushed upstairs to change into her homespun gardening dress, apron and shawl. Once outside at the garden beds, she pulled on her heavy cotton gloves and opened the sack labeled “white.” She reached inside and grabbed a handful of bulbs. Mac’s aides had helped her with the beds, a circle divided into quarters with paths cutting across. In the center of the larger circle was another smaller one where a wood bench would rest.
She studied the design. Should she plant each quarter section all one color or blend them? It would be too mundane to make them all the same by quarter, she thought. It should be more random than that, and something with curves, and she wouldn’t count the bulbs out in tidy rows like Clara or Billy would. She stepped into the loose soil in one of the sections and bent down. Then she began to set the white bulbs in the shape of a droplet. After the droplet was done, she took purple bulbs from their sack and set them on the ground in another droplet shape cradling half the white. On the other side of the white she laid out red.
As she picked up her trowel from her wooden toolbox, she glanced up at Mac’s expansive office wind
ows. He was there watching her. He waved and smiled. She returned the gesture, then he vanished into the dim of his office.
Izzie knelt down and jammed the trowel into the ground. She lifted the earth out in several clumps, placed a bulb in and covered it over. The work was easy and fast since the soil had already been turned. Even so, by the time the first droplet was planted, the sky was just beginning to glow with pinks and reds. Soon it would be dark. She had promised Euphora she’d help her with a dozen apple pies for tomorrow’s supper so she clapped the soil off her gloves and trowel and closed the sacks up.
As she collected her things, the rumble and clatter of a carriage on the stone drive drew her attention away from her garden. Drawn by two black horses, a closed carriage approached the Water-Cure Institute entrance. Mac or his aide would greet the new arrivals, she thought. No need to run over there a dirty mess to welcome arriving patients.
The Spirit Room Page 54