This was not all. No sooner had I mastered the cupboard than I had to acquire other strange skills: the manipulation of certain fine strings and cords that ran who knows where and were attached to who knows what. There was even a little bellows which had to be filled with smoke from the balky kitchen fire, carried in complete darkness to the cupboard, and discharged through a small hole in one of the doors.
Once I met Aurelius, all became clear. Madame was a medium and “spiritual advisor,” who, with Aurelius, gave counsel on everything from matters of the heart to stocks on the Street. Her clientele was rich and ambitious, the brokers and traders, or wealthy and grieving, the war widows; between the two, Madame made a very nice living.
Not that we didn't work for it. Besides my gymnastic efforts—kept up to snuff with daily practice—Madame spent mornings with the news-papers and stock reports and afternoons, when not conducting her séances and advising her clients, doing research of one sort or another.
When I turned out to be “a likely boy,” I was enlisted to run errands to the papers, the town hall, her broker's, or even to various cemeteries where I was instructed to find stones and dates and such useful details as confirmed Madame Selina's special powers.
One day I asked why she didn't just ask Aurelius about some detail or other.
Madame was indignant. “What would Aurelius know about railroad stocks? He's never even seen a train. No, no, we can't overburden him. And you know,” dropping her voice as if the late emperor might be listening in, “he's a bit lazy. He can't always be relied on."
Had I thought about it, I would have figured out that running psychic errands for even a lady of Madame Selina's talents was a comedown for the Emperor of the Romans, but I was more troubled by another possibility. “But isn't he real?” I asked. It was important that he be real, that Madame, whom I'd come to like, be genuine.
"Certainly! He's as real as you and me, boy, but like us he has his days."
Not being acquainted with the finer points of the afterlife, I put aside my doubts. Madame was a cheerful woman who made her clients happy—or, at least, happier—and as her unimaginative apprentice, I was a lot better off than I'd been at the orphanage, or even, if I was honest, on the farm. I only became uneasy again with the arrival of Lydia Fuller, our favorite client. My favorite, anyway, and perhaps Madame's, too, because she worked hard on the case.
Mrs. Fuller arrived one dreary afternoon, rain streaming off her black umbrella and spotting her black cloak and her rustling black skirt, for she was in deepest mourning for her husband, a young lieutenant missing since Gettysburg. I was used to widows; we had at least two a week and usually more, but rarely were they as lovely as Mrs. Fuller. She was tall and very pale and blonde with clean, even features, large gray eyes, and a finely shaped mouth. She looked like one of Madame's marble statues come to life, or almost to life, because her expression was unchanging, her perfect oval face a blank with all its thoughts and secrets hidden. Just the same I loved her from the instant she handed me her umbrella in Madame's ornate foyer.
Most of our ladies only came for the session or two needed for Aurelius to make contact with the spirits of those who'd passed. A few returned occasionally—or even more than occasionally—seeking advice or solace from the ghostly remains of their loved ones. I found that peculiar; I hardly remembered Ma, and I was not sure what I would have asked Pa. I don't think anything in his experience could have helped me in my new employment, though, of course, translated as he was—Madame always referred to the departed as “translated"—it was conceivable that he was already on speaking terms with Aurelius.
Mrs. Fuller, however, had another, more worldly, request: She wanted Aurelius to find her husband's body. This was after Madame and I had exerted ourselves to the utmost to make contact with the lieutenant. I'd nearly been choked with smoke creating the “ectoplasm” that drifted eerily in the faint candlelight, and Madame had collapsed and gone into a full trance. Aurelius spoke in his hollow baritone, then very soft and far away, Timothy Fuller called, “Lyddie, Lyddie is that you?"
Mrs. Fuller fainted dead away and toppled off the sofa; Maddie hustled in with smelling salts, and I squirmed out of the cabinet and ran to get water.
No one could say we hadn't done our best, but contact with the departed via a bona fide Roman emperor was not enough; Lydia Fuller wanted the lieutenant's body returned. The family had a mausoleum in the best cemetery in Brooklyn, and Mrs. Fuller said that she'd never rest until he was laid there.
"Difficulties, you know, my dear,” said Madame. This was on a subsequent visit, for Madame was incapable of speaking immediately after a full trance and was usually served supper in bed. “And, of course, after this considerable time.” She didn't need to say more; we didn't need Aurelius to tell us the state of ill-buried—or unburied—corpses after a year or so in the fields at Gettysburg.
Lydia Fuller's expression did not change. One of her brothers had been in a big army hospital in Washington, and she had gone down to nurse him. She had seen the worst, I suppose, but it didn't change her mind.
Madame asked if she had checked with the Sanitary Commission and with Quartermaster Whitman, who was doing such good work locating the Union dead.
"Quartermaster Whitman says the battlefield was complete chaos; some of the fallen were buried by their companions, and few of those graves are marked. Knowing now that Timothy really is dead—” She put emphasis on that with a nod toward Madame. “—I've come to you, Madame Selina, because all other attempts to find him have failed."
"Very well,” said Madame, but after Mrs. Fuller left, I could see that she was not happy, and this raised my sleeping doubts, as well as my anxiety for Lydia Fuller.
"Aurelius can find it,” I said, not because I really believed this, but because, besotted with Mrs. Fuller and again doubtful of our enterprise, I wanted to put Madame on the spot.
To my regret, I soon discovered that this was a case where Aurelius would need, as Madame put it, “terrestrial assistance.” Madame had a network of valuable men with invaluable contacts. But though I was sent hither and yon with messages, after a week we were no closer to the lieutenant's bones.
Then, quite by accident, I turned our work in a different direction altogether. I was returning from an address near Washington Square, when I saw Mrs. Fuller arm in arm with a top-hatted gent. He had a fine set of whiskers and an upright, almost military air, enhanced by his stiff right leg, but there was something about him I did not like. I especially didn't care for the way he leaned toward Mrs. Fuller, nor the confidential way he patted the hand that was linked through his arm.
I couldn't see her face, so I did not know if her impassive features had changed, but as the presence of such a man was exactly the sort of information Madame cherished, I fell in behind them on their stroll up Broadway.
When I returned home, Madame made me repeat his description half a dozen times until she was sure I had forgotten no detail.
"And his name,” asked Madame. “Did you hear his name?"
"She called him Colonel Parsons,” I said.
"A colonel, no less! We should be able to find him."
Madame dispatched me to visit a florid-faced reporter named Jim Kaynes. I sat on the edge of his desk in the smoky, chaotic, ink-stained newsroom, while he finished scribbling his latest story, cursing everything from the town hall to a missing semicolon. Then he pulled a flask out of his desk, took a long drink, and asked what “the Old Girl” wanted this time.
"She wants a Colonel Parsons,” I said, and I gave my by now oft repeated description.
"What did he sound like? Is he a New York City man?"
I thought a moment. “Not city,” I said.
"One of those who talks through his nose, eh, like a Dutchman in a windstorm?” and he mimicked my own Northern twang.
I nodded, too timid to add more. Kaynes made a face and pursed his leathery cheeks, which were embroidered with an astonishing network of purple veins.
“Maybe something in this, maybe not,” he said. “Tell the old girl to hold her horses, and I'll see what I can do."
While we awaited his intelligence, Mrs. Fuller arrived for a séance. Madame once again went into a full trance—"An exhausting business,” she remarked to me later—but Aurelius was not on form. All we got from him was that he saw the Lieutenant struck down. "His arm is bleeding, oh, his poor arm is bleeding," the emperor intoned before disappearing into the ether and my cloud of smoke.
I'd figured a Roman Emperor would be less flustered by blood, but a wounded arm did not sound lethal. Which only meant, I supposed, that poor Fuller had bled to death on the way to the field hospital or been ruined there by dysentery or infection.
Shortly after this inconclusive session, Mrs. Fuller sent a note thanking Madame and informing us that she had good hopes of recovering the lieutenant elsewhere.
This did not sit well with Madame Selina, who prided herself that she rarely lost a customer, and certainly never after two full trance sessions. “That rascal Parsons has turned her head."
"Maybe he was at Gettysburg,” I said. “Maybe they served together."
"Never. He was never a colonel, either,” said Madame, whose contacts had evidently been busy. “He bought his way out. But he'll find her a body, you see if I'm not right, and he'll pass it off as Timothy Fuller."
"Why ever would he do that?"
Madame raised an eyebrow as if my lack of imagination continued to amaze her. “Because Lydia Fuller is very rich—or will be—once it is certain that her husband is dead."
"He fell at Gettysburg!” I exclaimed. “How can it be in doubt? And Aurelius spoke with . . ."
"The soul can wander before death as well as after,” said Madame Selina, making me think with a shudder of the poor cripples and drunkards and laudanum addicts who wandered the Bowery. Half of them were still wearing the rags of their old uniforms, a battle blouse, cracked cavalry boots, a forage cap.
"Can't Aurelius tell?” I asked. A ghost, and an emperor's ghost at that, should manage to tell the dead from the living.
"Like as not he can,” she said. “I don't know whether he will enlighten us, but as for Parsons, I'm guessing that he means to marry Lydia Fuller and make himself rich."
"We must save her,” I cried. “She must come and you must tell her! Maybe Aurelius will find the grave. He can, can't he?"
"I think Fuller's grave will be far from Gettysburg,” Madame Selina said mysteriously, before setting me to watch a certain doss-house in the Bowery. I was to tell her immediately if I saw “Colonel” Parsons arrive, and I spent most of a rainy week crouched behind a rain barrel in the alley or sharing a pipe with one of the street boys. At last, when Madame Selina had begun to doubt my alertness and to despair of success, I saw the colonel appear in the doorway, talking to the evil looking manager.
I took this news home to Madame, who immediately dispatched me to her newspaper friend, who, in turn, grabbed his hat and his stick and set off at surprising speed for the police station. I was desperate to go with him, but he insisted I return to Madame. She ordered me into the dark clothes I wore during her consultations and bustled around preparing the salon. Finally, a knock at the door; a boy handed in a note. Madame read it, nodded, and sent me off with a message to Lydia Fuller.
My fantasies come to life! I had often dreamed of running an errand to Mrs. Fuller's, and now I tore along the street to the horse cars with one of Madame's big stiff envelopes clutched in my hand. I rode in style down Broadway then walked to Mrs. Fuller's town house off Washington Square.
There was a tiny garden in front and an entry with gleaming brass fittings. A pert, beribboned maid, wearing a pretty ruffled apron over her dove gray dress, took the letter and disappeared. I waited in the hall that was tiled like Madame Selina's in a complex pattern of blue, brown, and white, and craned my neck to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Fuller.
Voices in one of the rooms beyond. “What does this mean?” A low response—"Something, something . . . very soon.” Male? My heart jumped. Surely not, surely not! Surely nothing more than the butler. A minute more, then Lydia Fuller herself stepped out into the hall. “Is she certain?” she asked me without preliminary. “Is Madame Selina certain?"
Madame Selina had not confided in me, but I said confidently that I was sure she was.
Mrs. Fuller bit her lip and seemed as close to vexed as her placid features would allow.
"What am I to tell Madame Selina?” I asked.
"We will be there,” said Lydia Fuller.
You can be sure that I puzzled that “we” all the way back and arrived in an uneasy mood.
Madame Selina declined to enlighten me; instead she gave me strict instructions and sent me to the back of the house, where I found Mr. Jim Kaynes, a copper nearly as red faced as the reporter, and, most extraordinarily, a thin, gray-faced man of indeterminate age reclining on a chaise under a thick wool blanket. As we waited, he periodically asked for some “medicine.” Depending on his mood, Kaynes either denied him with the admonition that he must “keep his wits about him” or poured him a small ration of opium and whiskey. Beyond his dosage, the man, who was trembling with cold even in the warm parlor, seemed quite indifferent to anything but his blankets, which he kept plucking up under his chin.
After what seemed a long time, there was a bustle in the hall: arriving clients. I cracked open the door and waited until they were all settled in the salon, then as directed, I crept away—not to my usual hiding place in the cupboard—but to a position near the door where I could hear what was going on.
After few minutes of whispering, I heard Madame give the curious little groan that signaled a trance. For not so serious cases, she went into a half trance, where she was lucid but remote, as if dreaming with her eyes open; but for Mrs. Fuller's case, which I had begun to realize was more complex than I had imagined, only the full trance would do. There was a sort of soft thump: that was Madame collapsing back against her deep arm chair. Then a silence. Normally this would be the time for my “ectoplasm,” but I understood that we had other helps for Aurelius this time, and sure enough, he appeared.
"Are you there?” Madame asked, her voice was weak and strange.
"I am.” A full octave lower, maybe two.
"We have one here seeking knowledge.” This was Madame's standard opening.
"I am on a different errand,” said Aurelius. “There is one here in danger."
I could feel the hair rising on my neck. When I was in the special cupboard, I was too busy working the effects and too frightened of making any noise to pay attention. Standing in the hallway with the lamp turned low and the curtains twitching in the draft was another thing altogether.
"Who is in danger?” Madame's voice, though no louder than a breath, carried out into the hall.
"He is near,” said Aurelius. “He is a prisoner, near home but a prisoner."
I waved my hand to signal Kaynes as I had been instructed.
"This is rubbish,” said a man's voice. Parsons, I was sure.
"His grave is ready for him,” said Aurelius. “His death is awaited. His murderers are before me."
Mrs. Fuller gave a cry, then there was a shout and the sound of a chair toppling.
"Do you deny it?” asked Aurelius, his voice hollow yet loud.
I opened the door, holding the candle aloft as Madame had instructed me, and Kaynes half pushed the sick man through it. “Do you deny it now?” the emperor asked.
A scream and the colonel shouted, “Lights! Bring us lights!” He leapt to his feet and found the gas lamp, filling the salon with dazzling light.
Madame was slumped, her eyes rolled up in her head. Lydia Fuller was clutching the arms of her chair and screaming, her perfect features distorted—with fear, with surprise, with rage?
"It's all up, Colonel," said the copper, stepping into the room. Parsons made a lunge. Despite his game leg, he was a big, strong fellow, surprisingly quick. He got past the officer,
and as neither me nor Kaynes was about to stop him, he had a clear shot at the door until the sick man stumbled into his path and, overbalanced, they both fell to the floor. The copper took the opportunity to lay his nightstick against the “colonel's” head. For a moment there was only the sound of Madame gasping and of Mrs. Fuller's sobbing, before a police whistle shrilled, summoning heavy boots to the foyer.
Madame's trance had been dangerously interrupted. I brought her some water, while Maddie saw to Mrs. Fuller. Then Kaynes and I helped the sick man to a seat by the fire. He looked older than Mrs. Fuller by many years and terribly feeble, but after Kaynes applied another dose of his “medicine” he was able to speak. “Don't you know me, Lyddie?"
Lydia Fuller had regained control of herself by this time. She knelt down beside him and took his hand. “We believed you died at Gettysburg."
"Left a piece of me there,” he said, gesturing with the six inches or so that remained of his left arm.
"You did not come back; you did not write. What were we to think?” There was a sharp note in her voice that I had not heard before.
"A bad time, Lyddie. I was having a bad time when Parsons found me.” His large, feverish eyes were immense in his wasted face. “Don't trust him, Lyddie."
"He has been most kind,” she murmured, and something in her voice made me uneasy.
"He kept me a prisoner,” Timothy Fuller said, “of my weaknesses, Lyddie.” He closed his eyes and fell back into a drugged sleep.
"What am I to do?” cried Mrs. Fuller.
"Take him home, my dear, and see he gets well. You have had a narrow escape. Parsons is notorious for preying on widows, as Mr. Kaynes here can tell you."
Mrs. Fuller shook her head frantically and looked with horror at the wreckage of her husband. She seemed incapable of action, and in the end, Madame, shaky as she was, had to call for her carriage and send Maddie home with them.
"We saved his life and her money,” said Madame later, “though neither seems very happy."
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