by Alice Duncan
I took a deep breath and then went farther than I’d ever before gone when dealing with a client. “I don’t want to worry you unduly, but I must say this. Rolly has spoken to me. Other spirits have spoken to me. If Stacy doesn’t stop mingling with those people, something terrible will happen to her.”
Madeline Kincaid’s scream nearly ruptured my eardrums. I know I winced, which is very unspiritualist-like behavior, but I doubt that Mrs. Kincaid noticed, being involved in her own problems at the moment. “I knew it!” she wailed. “I knew it! I told her! Oh, Daisy, please, please say that you’ll help us avoid this catastrophe!”
And here I’d been hoping she’d call on somebody else—say Father Frederick or even an alienist—to help her out with Stacy. I should have known better. Mrs. Kincaid didn’t trust alienists, and Father Frederick always told the truth, which she didn’t want to hear. She preferred to deal with me, a phony spiritualist. You figure it out; it’s beyond me.
I started feeling guilty. I’d browbeaten, in my own gentle way, a woman who was extremely kind, if stupid. She’d always been nice to me, and she’d paid me heaps of money over the years. She didn’t deserve having her legitimate problems added to by me, someone who was only miffed. Or maybe she did, although her heart was in the right place. All I knew for sure was that I felt awful for having upset her so badly. I put my arms around her, but she kept weeping.
“Oh! Oh! Oh! I knew it!” she cried. “It’s all my fault! Oh, Daisy! Oh, Stacy! I should have been firmer with her! I should have left Eustace years earlier!” Eustace was her no-good crook of a husband and Stacy’s father. “I should have made her go to college! I should have done so many things differently! What’s going to happen to her?”
Beats me. I clucked soothingly. Far from being comforted by my presence, Mrs. Kincaid seemed to be getting more hysterical. Increasingly desperate, I looked toward the door, praying that a maid or a friend would pop in and offer a suggestion. It didn’t happen. I’d heard that one was supposed to slap the faces of sufferers from hysteria when they were in the throes of an attack, but if you think I was about to slap Mrs. Kincaid, the mainstay of my professional career, you’re crazy.
At last someone showed up: Featherstone, who appeared at the door sort of like my own spirits never do. He must have been lured by the sounds of distress. I beckoned to him, and he walked over to the sofa, his nose in the air, as stiff as ever.
I stood up, hauling Mrs. Kincaid with me. And then I did something I’m sure Featherstone will never forgive me for if we both live to be a hundred years old. Thrusting Mrs. Kincaid at him, thereby forcing him to lift his arms and catch her or let her fall to the floor, I said, “Hold on to her! I’m going to get a posset!”
Whatever a posset is. But even if I didn’t know a posset from a peacock, I knew my aunt Vi. She’d be able to give me something for her boss’s frenzy. Forsaking dignity, I raced down the hall, ignoring a startled housemaid along the way.
Bursting into the kitchen, I slammed a hand over my heart and stood there, panting. Aunt Vi whirled around. She’d been doing something with flour, and it puffed up around her. “Daisy Majesty! What in the name of Glory are you doing, barging in here like that? And what’s that dreadful noise? It sounds like someone let a banshee in.”
“I’m sorry, Vi.”
Vi lifted her chin, squinted, and aimed her gaze at the pantry door, through which I had just erupted. Muffled wails and sobs emanated from the drawing room. I pictured Featherstone, stoic in his butler suit, holding Mrs. Kincaid up by the armpits and gazing off into some middle distance, emotionally apart from the chaos surrounding him.
“What’s going on in there?” Vi’s face took on a worried expression. “Has something happened to Mrs. Kincaid?” She made a lunge toward the door.
“No!” I held out my hands and made patting motions to calm her down. “She’s not sick or anything.”
“Has that dreadful daughter of hers finally gotten herself killed, Daisy? If that child—”
“No!” Oh, Lord. “Please, Vi, it’s all right. Mrs. Kincaid just got a little ... upset, is all.”
“Upset?” Vi’s eyes narrowed and she put her floury fists on her hips. “Daisy Majesty, if you’ve said anything to distress that poor woman, I’ll ... I’ll ... well, I don’t know what I’ll do, but you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“I am,” I said miserably.
“What did you say to her?”
“I only said that if Stacy doesn’t straighten up, something awful will happen to her.” Defensively, I added, “It’s the truth! You don’t have to be a spiritualist to figure that one out.”
“It was a cruel thing to say to a fond mother, Daisy Gumm Majesty.” Vi’s voice was severe. She walked over to the sink and washed her hands. “How could you? I’m ashamed of you.”
“I’m sorry.” And I was. It wasn’t Mrs. Kincaid’s state of upset that I was sorriest about; it was Aunt Vi’s displeasure. She’d never said she was ashamed of me before. I can’t remember very many times when I’ve felt so low-down and worthless. “But I can’t take back what I said, Vi. And now I need a posset. Something to calm her.”
Vi glared at me over her shoulder from the kitchen sink. “You wouldn’t know a posset if you tripped over one.”
“I know it.” Humbled and abashed and completely cowed, I grasped my hands behind my back and stared at the floor. “Please, Aunt Vi? You know everything about food. Surely you know something to feed someone who’s hysterical.”
“Hmph. And whose fault is that, I want to know.”
“Mine.” My own eyes began to drip.
“I’ll fix something,” Vi said with a longsuffering sigh. “Just a minute.” And she put the kettle on, Probably for chamomile tea or some other soothing beverage that I, being myself and a nincompoop, knew nothing about.
So I waited in the kitchen, thoroughly ashamed of myself and feeling miserable, as yowls and moans continued to come to us from the drawing room. I pictured Featherstone in my mind’s eye. He’d never forgive me for this. Probably Vi wouldn’t, either. And they’d both be right not to do so.
Redemption for Daisy Gumm Majesty seemed a long way off at that moment.
* * * * *
By the time I finally walked into the reading room at the Pasadena Public Library to fetch Flossie Mosser and attempt to rescue her from the toils of Jinx, I felt about as low down as a person could get. My spirits didn’t rise appreciably when I couldn’t find her in the reading room.
Mentally wiping my brow in relief, I turned to leave the library, Flossie, and her problems behind. I longed to crawl home and hide under the covers. I told myself that Flossie, who obviously wasn’t a big reader, had become bored and left the library, deciding not to wait for me. It was such a good excuse, and it would have been such a relief not to have to deal with Flossie’s problems.
But I couldn’t make myself do it. Not after observing her unhappiness—and her injuries—that morning. Besides, I’d promised. A Gumm keeps her promises. My mother would have told me that this was exactly what principles were for: to make sure you do the right thing even when you don’t want to.
Boy, I tell you, a strict Methodist upbringing can create problems that last a lifetime.
So I searched for Flossie. Everywhere. Upstairs and downstairs. Into the fiction stacks and through the non-fiction stacks. (I got stalled in the 92s, when I remembered I wanted to read a biography of the Fox sisters, but I couldn’t find one). Through the children’s room, where I admired some of the lovely prints hanging on the wall. No Flossie.
I finally found her in the restroom, applying makeup to her purple eyes. I regret to say that I wanted to screech at the woman for making me search for her.
However, since I knew my bad mood was my own fault and not Flossie’s, I braced myself and smiled at her reflection in the mirror. “I’m back.”
She must have jumped a foot, and she spun around so fast, she dropped her powder, which was compressed int
o a small, newfangled, purse-sized compact. “Oh! Oh, Lord, Mrs. Majesty, I thought you was Jinx!”
“In the ladies’ restroom at the public library?”
Her terror was unfeigned, and I regretted my sarcasm. Poor Flossie was spooked, and obviously for good reason.
“He ... he has his ways,” she whispered. She started to bend over to pick up her compact, but I beat her to it, recalling her painful condition.
“I’m sorry, Flossie. I didn’t mean to sound so snotty. It’s been a rough couple of days.” It was a gold compact, beautifully crafted, and probably cost somebody (Jinx?) a pretty penny. “Here. I hope nothing’s broken.”
She shook her head and jammed the compact into her handbag without looking inside to check it for damage. “It don’t matter. It’s just a compact.”
I softened my voice. “How do you feel, Flossie?”
She started to cry, although I sensed she didn’t want to. “Lousy.” After digging in her handbag for a couple of seconds, she drew out what must have been the same handkerchief she’d used since that morning because it was crumpled and stained with makeup. “I’m sorry. I’m so stupid.”
“Nuts. If anyone had beaten me like that, I’d be crying too. Have you taken a powder or anything?” In those days, aspirin didn’t come in pill form. You had to stir powder into a glass of water and drink it that way. It tasted awful, but it helped when you had aches and pains.
Shaking her head, she murmured, “I didn’t want to walk to the drug store and miss you.”
That made me feel even guiltier, if such a thing was possible. Here the poor girl had suffered through an entire two-hour period of waiting for me, of all worthless specimens, without even taking some salicylic powders or even a cup of tea to ease the pain of her injuries. Thoroughly remorseful for a whole day’s worth of bad behavior, I took her arm gently. “Come on, Flossie. Let’s get you a powder and some lunch and a cup of tea, and have a girl-to-girl talk.”
“You’re too nice to me,” she whispered, allowing me to lead her out the restroom door.
I only wished that were true. I wouldn’t have felt so rotten. “I hope you weren’t bored. Did you find anything to read?”
“Oh, yeah. Tons. My eyes was hurting a little, though, so mainly I just sat there.”
I should have taken her inside our house, to heck with Billy and Pa, given her some medicine for her pain, and made her lie down and rest with a damp cloth across her forehead. Guilt gnawed at me like mice at a sack of meal. “Well, are you hungry at all?”
“Oh, sure. I haven’t eaten nothing today.”
Egad. I wondered if it were possible for a person to die of guilt poisoning. “I’m so sorry, Flossie. I should have made sure that you ate something before I left you by yourself.”
We were walking through the main reading room of the library, and a man seated at a table glanced up and glared at us. I glared back, figuring helping Flossie was more important than whispering. Nevertheless, I gestured to Flossie that we shouldn’t talk anymore until we were outside in the pretty garden in front of the library’s arched doorway. “It was unforgivable of me to whisk you off the way I did and then abandon you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. I coulda eat something while you was gone. I just didn’t want to miss you.” She sniffled wretchedly. “Nobody’s ever told me I was worth anything before you.”
Oh, boy. I was stuck for good and all now. I couldn’t abandon the poor thing after a declaration like that. With a sigh, I opened the door to the Chevrolet and gestured for Flossie to get in. I stopped by a pharmacy to buy some powders before driving us both to the Tea Cup Inn.
* * * * *
Mrs. Geraldine McKenna, a childhood friend of my mother’s, managed the Tea Cup Inn. She and her sister, Susan Fincher, had opened the shop about five years earlier, when Mrs. McKenna’s husband passed away and Mrs. Fincher’s husband ran off with another woman (“Which was the nicest thing he ever did for me, and I feel sorry for her,” according to Mrs. F).
It was a tidy, genteel place, where a lady could eat a small meal without feeling uncomfortable. In those days, women weren’t encouraged to be independent.
I parked across the street and Flossie and I waited for a couple of cars and a doctor’s buggy to pass before we could cross the roadway. I noticed Flossie looking doubtfully at the small, neat teashop.
“What’s the matter, Flossie?”
“Nothing.” But she hung back when I stepped off the curb to cross the street.
I turned back to her. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“Yeah.” She slowly stepped down to catch up with me, but I drew her back onto the sidewalk.
“Listen, Flossie, if you want to eat somewhere else, just tell me. We don’t have to eat here. It’s just that it’s so close to home.” For me. It wasn’t for Flossie. At least I assumed it wasn’t.
“It’s not that.” She drew in a big breath, straightened her shoulders, and took a strong step forward. She looked as if she were heading out to face a battalion of armed enemy soldiers, or a pack of rabid hounds.
Odd. I didn’t say anything until after Mrs. McKenna greeted me, nodded happily to Flossie without appearing too startled or appalled when she noticed her bright orange costume or her veil-covered bruises, and led us to a quiet table in a back corner.
“We have a lovely cream of mushroom soup today, Daisy. It’s very good with our special cheese sandwich and tomato aspic.”
“Sounds good to me.” I didn’t like mushrooms but decided they were better than a fuss. I lifted an eyebrow or two at Flossie, who sat with her hands in her lap, staring at the table as if she were two years old and being punished. “Flossie? Is soup and a sandwich all right with you?”
“Fine.” Her voice was small and tinny, more of a squeak, really.
“And would you care for tea with your luncheon?”
“Yes, thank you.” I didn’t bother checking with Flossie since I knew it was tea or water, and I thought a good strong cup of tea might boost her morale some. Although we did need water, come to think of it. “And would you bring a glass of water, please?”
“Right away.”
I smiled at Mrs. McKenna, who was ever so nice. “Thanks.”
“I’ll have your luncheon up in a snap,” she said. Casting a puzzled glance at Flossie, she trotted off to fetch our water, which she deposited before me.
I pushed it over to Flossie. “Dump those powders in here and stir it up, Flossie. I know it’ll taste bad, but maybe it’ll help make you not feel so bad.”
Obediently, she withdrew the powder packet from her handbag, tore it open, dumped the contents in the water glass, and stirred. When she drank it down, she grimaced but didn’t say a word. Her silence was beginning to worry me a little.
“Do you want to eat something else for lunch, Flossie?” I asked softly. “You don’t have to have the special. Maybe the tomato aspic will hurt your lip.” Another thing I ought to have thought of before ordering for the both of us. What was the matter with me, anyhow?
Flossie gave a quick shake of her head. A teardrop landed with a tiny splashlet on the back of her hand. “No. It’s fine.” Lifting her head, she leaned over the table, looked at me in what I can only describe as mortification, and whispered, “I don’t belong here, Mrs. Majesty. This place ain’t no joint.”
It ain’t no joint? Whatever in the world did that mean? I glanced around, observing our surroundings, trying to figure out Flossie’s enigmatic comment.
She was right. It wasn’t a joint. It was a trim, tasteful luncheon room operated by a couple of gentlewomen who’d lost their spouses and were trying to make a living for themselves.
I decided to clue Flossie in. “It’s only a lunchroom, Flossie. I know the two ladies who run it. They’ve both lost their husbands and are trying to make ends meet the best way they know how. Kind of like us,” I added in an effort to make a connection somehow.
And then understanding struck me like a slap upsi
de the head, which is what I deserved. Flossie didn’t think she was good enough to eat at the Tea Cup Inn. The Tea Cup Inn, for Pete’s sake!
I sat up straight. “Sweet Lord have mercy, Flossie Mosser! If you’re going to tell me the Tea Cup Inn is too good for you, I might just have to speak to you by hand!” My father used say that to my siblings and me when we were acting up. I thought it was cute, and hoped it might make Flossie smile.
Fat chance. She blinked her purple, swollen eyelids at me and said, “Huh?”
Leaning over the table in my turn, I reached for her hand, whispering hard. “Listen, Flossie, you’ve got to get over this belief that you don’t deserve the decent things in life. This place is just a little tearoom. You’re as welcome in it as I am. You deserve for people to be polite to you, to treat you well. Heck, Mrs. McKenna and Mrs. Fincher only—”
“Who?”
“The two ladies who own the Tea Cup Inn. They only want to take your money in return for the food they prepare. Believe me, they don’t care who you are. I’m sure that if they knew how awful Jinx was to you, they’d recommend you kick the bum out, but they aren’t going to pass judgment on you or anything. They don’t even know you!” I didn’t, either, for that matter, but I didn’t say so. I’d also fibbed. If the two Tea Cup ladies knew about Flossie’s relationship with Jinx, they’d have been so shocked and outraged, they’d never have allowed her to pass through their portals again. But that was only because of the illicit nature of Flossie and Jinx’s relationship.
Which brings up another point. That sort of thing has never made sense to me. Sure, I know that if Flossie’s character had been stronger, she’d never have become involved with the lousy Jinx Jenkins in the first place, but I didn’t think the world should hold her accountable forever for one piece of bad judgment. Providing, of course, that she straightened up and eschewed her unsavory associates from now on. Whether she had the strength of character to do that remained to be seen.