Fitcher's Brides

by Gregory Frost

  “Is there religion and is there medicine? Yes, of course, to both. I would never advocate you quit your church. You pastors shift uneasily without cause, I assure you. Today, right here, I shall present you with a singular demonstration of a phenomenon which encompasses, I think, both elements—faith and science—and I’ll leave it to you to decide what interpretation you render. To accomplish my task, I must first ask for some assistance from you. I should like a dozen of you, men and women, to come forward.”

  The audience shifted again, looking at one another. A few people stood. Amy said, “Oh, Kate, you ought to go,” but Kate shook her head.

  The family that had preceded the girls up the driveway—the mother and her children—moved to the front of the room as a group. One of them, a young boy, was coughing into a handkerchief, and looked deathly pale, Vern noticed. The handkerchief appeared to be spotted, and she tensed with recognition. The child was coughing blood. His sunken eyes made contact with hers and she looked away.

  Castleman paid the woman no mind. He was engaged in conversation with two men who had come forward immediately. The mother called out over the noise of the crowd, “Sir.”

  One of the men speaking with the mesmerist directed his attention to her.

  “Madam, how may I assist you?” asked Castleman. The crowd fell silent. Those standing remained on their feet, waiting to see what would happen.

  “Sir, my husband brought us all this way from Norwich to hear you today. We come because of our Timmy here, who’s very ill, and the doctors don’t expect him to live long.”

  “I see. And you’d like me to use my—or rather, his—powers on him?” He smiled benevolently and gestured for the boy to come forward. The child shuffled past his brothers and sisters. Castleman knelt before him. He spoke gently to the boy. So soft were his words that Vern couldn’t make them out. He moved his fingers in front of the child’s eyes as he spoke, and she thought she saw the dark eyelids flutter. Castleman stood up. “I have to tell you in all fairness, madam,” he said to the mother, “that he is deathly ill, and that there are some things neither hope nor skill can salvage once they’ve passed a critical point. He is, however, a positive subject and I will apply myself to the task.” When she remained there, he said, “You may leave him. We’ll give him a chair to sit in so as not to tire him, and I’ll work with him first.”

  “Thank you,” she replied. Her eyes brimmed with tears. Vern’s heart went out to her.

  Castleman renewed his call for subjects. When he had a dozen, he lined them up and walked down the row of them. He had them grab his finger or squeeze their hands together. To each, he spoke solemnly and softly as he had done with the boy. Then he either directed them to stay or return to their seat. In the end, he kept four adults—two women and two men—and the boy. The four stood calmly, their eyes closed as if listening intently.

  “Now, as I promised, I will work with young Timmy. But first, let us make sure our new friends don’t wander off.” And he walked down the row of the foursome once again. This time, he stayed with each of them a little longer. Castleman then returned to the boy. He spoke with him, and this time Vern made out the words “sleep” and “fluid.” The child coughed into his handkerchief again. The mesmerist seemed to have a different voice for this quiet speech, much deeper and less animated than when he spoke to his audience. She wished she had gone up there.

  After a few moments he stepped back. The child now sat, like the adults, with his eyes closed. His hand clutching the kerchief lay limp in his lap. Castleman turned back to the audience. “When the French Doctor Mesmer in the last century first made his discovery of this power, he posited the notion of magical fluid floating through the air, surrounding us. He had no idea of what he was contacting, and so made up the best theory he could under the circumstances. In fact, what you perceive here before you is an altered state of mind. Of being. Of spirit. You are looking upon the souls of saints, of those we know from our Bibles, who were guided by voices and forces that others around them could not hear or see. The ‘magnetic state’ as it’s called frees the mind from the physical world and lets it visit the higher planes. As you shall see.”

  He turned back to the child, and Vern realized that while he’d spoken the boy hadn’t coughed once. Others in the audience must have recognized this, too; people were pointing at him and whispering to each other.

  “Lad,” said Castleman. “Where are you now?”

  A moment went by, and then the boy said, “Floating.”

  “Good. Do you see anything?”

  “I see sun. Sunlight. I’m up in the air and I can see sun below me on green fields. I’m so close to it. It’s very hot.” The excitement was clear in his voice. His hands moved from his lap, to his sides, as if to steady himself.

  “Hot, yes. Green fields now—do you see your house there?”

  “No—I’m not sure. I don’t know where it is.”

  “Oh, well, I tell you, it’s very near and you can fly right to it. Do you see it now?”

  “Yes, there ’tis. I see it.”

  “Now, Timmy, when I count to four I want you to fly to your own room inside your own house. But before that, I want you to leave all that heat behind you. You’re going to fly down to your house and when you arrive in your bed, your fever will be gone and your lungs will be full of this sweet air that you’re breathing right now, this sweet, sweet air up so high.

  “One. Two. You begin to glide down now. Three. Right through the window. And four. In your bed, and asleep.” He stepped forward and caught the boy as he tipped sideways. Castleman sat him back in his chair. “Now you’re going to sleep deeply until I wake you. Until I address you again. You’ll hear nothing and see nothing. Just sleep.”

  He turned away from the boy. “Let us see how our other four subjects are doing, shall we?” He approached the first in line—a towheaded man wearing a high-fastening tweed coat. He sported a stiff mustache nearly as pale as the greased hair on his head. Castleman said, “Tell me your name, young man.”

  “Nathan Trippet,” replied the man without opening his eyes.

  “Mr. Trippet. Are you suffering at this time from any ills?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And why did you attend this lecture today?”

  “I wanted to see if this mesmerizin’ stuff was all flap-sauce.”

  “And is it?”

  Trippet’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know yet. I haven’t seen nothin’.”

  Castleman laughed, and the audience joined with him. “No,” he told his subject, “from here you can’t see very much at all. Now, Mr. Trippet, have you ever exhibited any extraordinary mental faculties?”

  “You mean, am I smart?”

  “Ah, well, not exactly. But I shall take that as a ‘no.’ Mr. Trippet, you are currently standing before an audience. Can you sense them?”

  Trippet, though his eyes didn’t open, turned his face toward the audience as if looking them over. “Yes, I see them.”

  “Do you see anyone in the audience who is ill today?”

  “There’s a—there’s a man with gout in his right foot. He’s near the back, wearing a yeller coat.”

  People craned their necks, stood up and looked, or pointed. Amy knelt on her chair. “I see him. He’s got gray hair and a big beard,” she whispered.

  “I saw him when we came in,” Kate remarked without looking. “He’s got a big walking stick laid across his lap.”

  The identified man did not stand, but he waved his stick to show that he was there.

  “Can you advise him on a cure?”

  “Celery. Especially the seed. That will cure the gout, sure.”

  “Remarkable, sir,” Castleman commented. “Do you have some association with medicine?”

  “I took laudanum a couple times.”

  “You were sick?”

  “Naw, I just liked it.”

  The audience chuckled. Castleman said, “Thank you, Mr. Trippet. You may sleep awhile no
w.”

  Trippet fell silent and his face went slack. Castleman moved to the next man in line, a thin, red-haired fellow in a seedy suit. “You are John Drench?” he asked.

  “I am.”

  “And you live hereabouts?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What prompted you to visit this lecture today?”

  “The handbills.”

  Castleman nodded. “So, you can read.”

  “Well enough to get by, sir.”

  “Excellent. Now, Mr. Drench, I’m going to attach your left foot to the floor so that you can’t move it. We have a big iron band here and we’re going to screw it down over your foot so you can’t move it. Do you feel that now?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It shouldn’t hurt.”

  “No, sir.”

  “That’s fine. Mr. Drench, when I count to three you will wake up, and I will tell you to return to your seat. But that band will still be there until I tell you to sleep again. All right?”

  “Fine,” said Drench.

  “All right. Mr. Drench, one, two, three. Wide awake.”

  John Drench opened his eyes. He blinked at Castleman, at the audience, looking somewhat sheepish, as if unable to recall how he’d gotten there.

  “Thank you for your participation, Mr. Drench. You may return to your seat now.”

  Drench took one step and stopped. He glanced back at his left foot, which was still in place. He pulled at it with increasing energy but the foot, as if a spike had been pounded through it, remained in position.

  Dr. Castleman asked, “Is there anything wrong?”

  “Someone’s put that big old steel bear trap thing on my leg. When’d that happen? Did you do that to me?”

  “Why, I didn’t see a thing.”

  People in the back had stood up, some upon their chairs, to see John Drench’s feet. Nothing held him in place, but he could not make the one foot budge.

  “I’m sorry that I don’t have any hardware here to help you take it off, either. I didn’t come prepared for bear traps.”

  “Well, someone, did. They put it on me!” he answered angrily.

  “Yes, it’s a problem. I have a solution, though. Why don’t you go to sleep now?” And John Drench’s head drooped, and his body relaxed.

  Castleman walked back to the podium. “Parlor tricks,” he confessed. “Very simple things, but they plainly show the nature and power of mesmerism. The mind can be made to see things that are not there, and to feel what isn’t present. Did Mr. Trippet notice the man with gout as he came in? It’s possible. That really proves very little. And as for his curative, I’ve no idea if celery has any effect upon gout or not. But I would recommend it, nevertheless. It’s odd how correct such diagnoses turn out to be.”

  He crossed to the next subject, a woman with flaming red hair, who looked to Vern to be overly dressed and made-up for this event. “Now, tell me, good lady, your name would be—”

  “Louisa Hopkinson, but nobody knows me by it here.”

  “You changed your name in marriage?”

  “Because of a marriage. I don’t want him to find me.”

  “Louisa, you mean to say that you’re still married to someone and don’t wish him to learn your whereabouts?”

  “He beat me before. With a strap. If I went out. When I drank.” She was strangely calm in describing this. As if it mattered hardly at all.

  “Where was this?” asked the mesmerist. His humor with his first subjects had evaporated.

  “In Buffalo.”

  “You fled this Hopkinson fellow?”

  “I packed what I could when he wasn’t there and ran away in the middle of the night.”

  “What name do you go by now?”

  “Ann Sawyer.”

  A man standing at the side of the room suddenly threw down a woman’s coat and hat he was holding. “Strumpet!” he shouted at the front of the room, and shoved his way out the door. Ann Sawyer didn’t move, didn’t seem to be aware of what had happened.

  “I am very sorry we’ve had to learn this, Miss Sawyer. I fear your waking will be less than joyful. Please, for now, sleep.” The look of awareness drained from her face.

  Amy leaned to Vern and said, “People are nothing but wax to him, aren’t they?”

  “That poor lady’s going to have an awful time after.”

  “You think her beau didn’t know about her past?” asked Amy.

  Vern and Kate exchanged glances that said the matter was obvious. Amy folded her arms and said nothing further.

  Again Castleman returned to the podium. “The unfortunate Miss Sawyer is an excellent example of the nature of mesmerism. People reveal things that they would otherwise never tell, even when disadvantageous to them. The barriers we erect to protect ourselves have melted away and we communicate with the pure and honest spirit of true Christians. We are moved nearer to God, to the essence of ourselves. Let us try one more, and see if we can get closer still.”

  He walked to the last woman. She was older than the sleeping Ann Sawyer, with auburn hair shot through with gray, very much like their hostess, Mrs. Shacabac. She was taller and looked as if she might not have all of her teeth.

  “You are our other Anna,” he told her.

  “Anna Maria,” she replied.

  “And, ah, that would be your real name?” Castleman asked, as if he feared she would turn out to have a secret much like the woman beside her.

  “It would.”

  “Thank goodness for that. Now, Anna, I want you to look upon this audience, cast your second sight over them, and tell me what you sense.”

  Her eyes opened, large and dark, and she slowly, unblinkingly, looked them over, back and forth like a lighthouse light.

  “Someone here is getting married,” she said.

  Amy and Kate stared at their sister.

  “She’s getting married hastily,” the entranced woman continued with sibylline assurance, “for the groom has urgent need of her. The groom…” And here her voice failed her. She was staring now, straight at Vern with such intensity that other members of the audience were turning in their seats to look at her, too.

  “What of the groom?” Castleman prodded.

  “I can’t—He’s in shadow, but he can see. He’s—Mastema!” She yelled the word as if reacting to pain, and squeezed her eyes shut.

  “What is that?”

  She shook her head. She couldn’t explain it.

  “Is it something this bride should know, Anna Maria? Is there something you can say to her, advice you can give?”

  The woman opened her eyes again upon Vern. “Your veil is very thin,” she said. “Don’t stray from the path. Take care of his egg.”

  “His egg?” the mesmerist asked, but she didn’t seem to hear him.

  “Obey his requests in all matters. Your purity—never risk it.”

  “Now, that’s sound advice for any new bride, isn’t it?” he added, attempting to lighten the tone again. He whispered something to the woman and her eyes closed. He turned and addressed Vern then. “Is she correct, miss, are you about to marry?”

  She glanced uncertainly at her sisters. Finally, with everyone in the room hanging on, she answered, “I am. In a day’s time.”

  “Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. This woman”—he gestured at Anna Maria as he returned to the podium—“has discovered a hidden truth through what we can only call clairvoyance.”

  Mild applause followed and members of the audience spoke to each other. A few in the rows near her congratulated Vern on her impending wedding.

  “And tell me, miss, where’s this fortunate young man of shadow?”

  “He isn’t here.”

  “Ah, that explains it. He’s not in the room, hence she couldn’t make him out. Was that some variant on his name that she, ah, called?”

  Vern shook her head. “No, it’s not. His name’s Elias. Elias Fitcher.”

  Nearby conversation ceased. In the front rows, people
craned their heads to look at her. She could feel the pressure of eyes behind and beside her, staring, squinting, sizing her up. It was the same as it had been in the Hall of Worship.