The Dark (11 page)

Ruth sidles up to Maggie. “Our Katie’s hooked an admirer. Well, that’s my opinion.”

Maggie glances over at Katie, who has found out the cider and is talking closely with Mr. John Robinson, a lawyer friend of them all. He is handsome for a man of years. Has all his teeth and all his hair and wears a natty silk waistcoat. “He’s just being polite,” Maggie tells Ruth, as anyone can see by his automaton nod. “Besides, he’s ancient. Thirty at the least.”

Ruth—well past thirty herself—sniffs and trundles off. Which is the better gift, Maggie ponders: a knack for raising the blessed of the dead? Or for avoiding the irksome of the quick?

“Come, Henry, John,” Isaac says. “Thou must see my invention.” He ushers Henry Bush and John Robinson past Maggie, then past Lizzie, who has posted herself by a window. She is watching the sundial in the garden. Has made a paper fan and is fanning herself like the Duchess-of-Where-ever. Since Ella’s burial, Lizzie has been cool with Maggie and Katie, with Leah even. Has been reluctant to join in any kind of game. Would rather occupy herself with French books and sewing notions and with sketching. Still-lifes are what she favours—fruit bowls, flowers, doorways. Indeed, she has declared anything fanciful or fabricated a ridiculous waste of time, an idea Maggie can’t wholly disabuse.

The grandfather clock strikes four. Isaac and Henry and John return from Isaac’s study. Isaac carries a rectangular board the size of a serving tray. The top of the board is scripted with the alphabet; underneath are the numbers one through twenty; and underneath those are simple words:
and, thus, you, her, him, us, them
and so on.

“Invention may be too grand a term,” Isaac tells the men, and with his usual modesty. “This board merely assists the spirits with communication, and allows them to speak for a lengthy time without strain or worry. They knock, you see, when the correct letter, word or number is pointed to. It is a far more expeditious than our previous method of spelling words by reciting the alphabet and waiting for a knock when each letter is attained.”

“Can we expect greater clarity?” John Robinson asks. “Their wording is often vague.”

“Oh, I am most hopeful the spirits will now give us a complete description of the after-life and of the nature of God and the Heavens,” Isaac says.

“It is monumental, this dead returning business,” Henry Bush puts in, his liverish face rapt. “A turn-point in history.”

Listening to this conversation, Maggie’s heart drops heavy as a plumb-bob. The air grows hotter yet. “Forfeits, anyone?” she asks. “Or, or lookabout?”

No one takes up Maggie’s offer. Not her mother, who is always the first to spot the knick-knack in lookabout. Not Leah, who cannot be beat at forfeits.

“Charades?” Maggie asks, looking at Katie, because charades is Katie’s favourite. Katie shrugs. Maggie suggests get-a-smile next, thinking of Ruth Culver, who generally wins, having never smiled in all her born days.

“Be patient, dear,” Amy says in her kind, firm way. “A game may steal our minds from our purpose.”

Machteld appears. “I pour tea now,” she declares, and does so for everyone but Maggie.

When Machteld leaves, Maggie follows her to the pantry. She smiles. Machteld scowls in return.

“You’re not going to … Are you?” Maggie hesitates.

Machteld smacks down the tea tin.

A week ago, Machteld had accompanied Amy and Isaac to a spirit-sitting at Leah’s row-home in Mechanics Square. Maggie was in the keeping room below with Katie when Machteld appeared in the doorway.

Maggie lowered the broom she had raised over her head. “I was … we, I mean, the ceilings get
so
dirty. And I thought, thought you were above-stairs with Amy and Isaac and … and Leah.”

Machteld clenched her pudgy hands and glared. “I was above-stairs, and the ghosts, they make knock sounds.”

“It’s what girls here do, that’s all,” Katie said desperately.

“She’s right, Machy,” Maggie quickly added. “We make a game out of the cleaning. Better than blindman’s bluff. It’s a lark. Here. Here!” She thrust the broom at Machteld.

Just then, Lizzie had traipsed in. She surveyed the situation, said archly, “Well,
tant mieux
. That is to say, so much the better.”

No, it’s not, Maggie thought. Not “better” in any language. She forced a smile, said, “Machy, we’re going tomorrow to watch Calvin in the militia parade. We’re going to make a banner and everything. Leah said we need to cheer ourselves up after Ella. Come with us. Amy will give you some time free. I know it.”

Machteld considered this for a long moment, then took the broom from Maggie’s hands. “Here, I show how you clean.”

Now, in the Posts’ pantry, Machteld says, “After the parade you say, tomorrow we go for a ride in canal boat, and so I come to the canal in my new dress. It is white. Never do I wear white dress. But that day I wear white because I go out with my ‘friends.’ Yes? But my friends not there. I wait at the dock and wait and wait. And the horns make racket. And then I leave.”

“I confess, Machy, we plain forgot. I’m sorry, I surely am.”

Machteld mutters something in Dutch and brushes past Maggie with a platter of teacakes. Maggie doesn’t try to stop her.

Back in the Posts’ keeping room, Maggie nibbles at an apple tart that tastes, of a sudden, like ash. Dandy-fine, she thinks, this will be the way it all ends. Her dread is entwined with relief, a curious dual feeling.

Behind Maggie, Amy exclaims to Leah, “I am in such joy to learn from the spirits that Hell does not exist. Oh, I had my doubts. Why would a just God damn innocent children merely because they are not baptized? How is this their fault? And why should pagans be tormented by eternal fire for ignorance of the Gospel? Why should
the chance for redemption cease with the breath? Why should not the Glory await us, one and all?”

“Why not, indeed,” Leah says. Then, “Should we try the parlour, dear Amy? The air is much cooler there. Perhaps the spirits shall find that more inviting.”

“A sensible idea,” Amy says. “Machy, dear, lemonade, please. Unless thou care to join us.”

Machteld scowls at Maggie and shakes her head.

The parlour is indeed cooler, and more dim besides. The windows are draped with plain brown velveteen. The oval table is set with a simple candelabra.

The Bushes sit, followed by John Robinson. Katie takes a seat beside him. Lizzie mutters “
Merde
” and places herself opposite Katie. Ruth Culver orders her Norman to “sit,” then sits herself. Maggie slides into place between Leah and George Willets. Now they are all around the table and holding hands. One of the Quakers must have suggested the hand-holding because it is becoming, Maggie realizes, like one of their queer services where they wait and wait until the Holy Spirit moves one to speak. Amy says a kind of prayer: “… or the world is God and the Glory is God and everything of flesh and everything of green and God is not one thing, but everything holds its portion.”

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Machteld enters with the lemonade. Sets it down on a sideboard. Looks at Maggie. At Amy.

“Dost thou wish to join us, dear?” Amy asks. “Dost thou need to give voice? Please do so.”

Damn you, Machteld, not now, Maggie thinks. No voicing. Not with everyone here. Please. Please. Maggie visions the looks of aghast disappointment, betrayal, hatred even, on the faces of these people she cares about. Why-ever had she thought she would know relief of any kind?

Machteld glances sidelong at Maggie, then tells Amy, “I know … I know I need go to market.”

“Certainly, dearest,” Amy says, perplexed.

“Spirits, please join us now,” Leah says as Machteld leaves. They
wait in silence until Maggie’s hand—held fast by Leah on the one side, George Willets on the other—becomes hot as a flatiron. Finally, when Maggie can bear it no longer—the expectation and longing, the daggering eyes from Leah—the first faint knock comes and then a faint cheer from around the parlour table.

“It’s the peddler in my opinion,” Ruth says.

A strong, single knock. No.

“Is it someone we know?” Leah asks.

Two knocks. Yes.

“A child?”

Another two knocks. The Posts give joyous gasps.

Several other names are tried before the correct one is arrived upon: Matilda, the Posts’ daughter. She is all of four, the same age as Ella. Matilda has been dead for three years, yet the Posts sob as if their hearts were freshly broken.

“A
fter the first sitting at the Posts’,” my patient said, “we began our Sunday strolls at the Mount Hope Cemetery. The place was ever chock full on Sundays with folks taking the air and picnicking and children playing leap-the-grave. You recall when cemeteries came into fashion?”

“Certainly, duck, do you wish to be buried in one? They are costly, but fine indeed.” I smiled, pleased that I might get some direction in my duty towards her.

“Now, now, don’t try to fish out my wants, Mrs. Mellon,” she said. She was button-bright that day, I should add. Indeed, I was amazed at how she had improved since I began tending her six days past.

We spoke about cemeteries then, how blessed we were in America to have space aplenty, even for the dead. How there was no need to cram one’s beloveds into a church graveyard where the headstones lean against each other like crooked teeth in an old man’s head. How
cemetery
meant “sleeping place” in some foreign language, and how that made one think the dead were merely napping. How nice it would be to be buried in a place that looked the picture of Heaven, with sweeping views and winding paths, with scrolled benches and stately trees and with grass, lawned and tended all around.

I took up my knitting and began work on a decorative selvedge.

“Katie and I loved to play among the tombs and angel statues and obelisks,” my patient said. “We’d challenge each other to memorize
the most names and epithets and dates of death and such.” As if to prove her stellar memory she quoted some of these names:
Jehu Phineas. Absolamon Good. Elijah Smithe. Robert. Frederick. James. Robert. William. Hank
. And so on. She quoted also the years of their births and deaths, even, yes, their epithets.

I tended to my knitting as she spoke, the needles clacking a steadfast rhythm. Then sighed. I gave my son a rare and lovely name. I should like to have seen it carved in marble.

“Have you decided what it will become?” my patient asked at length (she had finished with her recitation).

“A hat,” I said after a moment. “And now you might as well tell me more. I have nothing better to occupy my time.”

N
O STROLL THIS
S
UNDAY
. Outside Leah’s Mechanics Square walk-up a late-autumn rain squalls. Inside, Maggie is bored, bored, bored. The dirty weather has kept away guests, denied invitations out. There is only Katie, Mother, Leah, Lizzie and Calvin to help fill the hours.

“Fiddle-it,” Katie mutters.

“Fiddle what?” Maggie asks.

“Can’t you sense it? It’s all sour. A tiff. It’s brew-brewing away.”

“A tiff? My, that’s spandy-new.”

A fire draws in the grate. The mantel clock tocks to five. They have just finished guess-the-name. Maggie easily won, as she always does. Now each has retired to a separate occupation. At the organ, Leah puzzles out some sheet music. Mother sweeps the rug. Katie pokes at her sampler. Maggie reads
The Secret of the Vicar’s Daughter
, and for the third time. She loves how the secret restores the girl’s honour, and not the reverse.

Katie yawns, her mouth tiger-wide.

Mother stops sweeping. “Laws, Katherine! Cover your mouth. Do you want a Nasty Little getting in? Do you?”

“Gosh-it-all, Ma,” Maggie says. “You surely don’t believe that old-fashioned balderdash about your Nasty Littles.”

“I might half believe it, what of it?”

“Which half do you believe?” Maggie asks, her face solemn. Katie tries not to smile.

“Oh, you young people don’t know everything, do you? No, you don’t.” Mother swats at the drapes with her broom. Eyes the corners of the room. The Nasty Littles is her term for a variety of mischief-makers: Hobgoblins. Sprites. Mommarts. Bogarts. Bobs. Rumplegeists. They dwell wherever people do. They are not lost souls, nor invisible spirits, nor vaporous ghosts. Though only the size of teacups, they are of solid substance, with pliant bones and shadow-grey skin, all the better to hide in cupboards, drapery folds, dark doorways. One need look askance to spy them, and then the sighting lasts only for a clock-tick. And, ah, the stories Mother loves to tell about these dreaded Nasty Littles. How they steal small household items: buttons, stockings, pegs. How they shape-shift into mice and voles or curious stones if caught in the hand. And how they can reach into a child’s yawning mouth and steal out a smidgen of their soul.

“Ghosts can’t be the sole agents of all this ruckus, can they? No.” Such was what Mother said to Maggie just yesterday. Some secondary mischief is clearly at work, she meant, and Maggie could only agree.

Maggie watches as Lizzie returns to the parlour. Calvin follows her. Apparently Lizzie needed him to get a notions box off a high shelf. Now she bids him sit in a wing chair and hold out his arms. He does so, doll-stiff, while Lizzie winds yarn skeins round his hands. Once done, Lizzie slides the yarn off and eyes Calvin through its oval. He is without a waistcoat and his shirt sleeves are rolled to his elbows. He picks up his cake plate, looking almost comical now. With those arms he could crush the plate as easily as he crushes his nut brittle. Maggie recalls how Calvin would play wedding with her and Katie when they were younger, how one of them would be the minister, the other the bride. They took equal turns. But when Lizzie joined them it wasn’t as much fun. She always wanted to be Calvin’s bride. Would close her eyes and look the silly goose when Calvin, chuckling, obliged her with a kiss.