The Dark (60 page)

“Do not trouble your mind, Mr. Underhill. I am gifted with joy. I simply overfloweth with it,” Leah says, and looks over the crowded parlour of the Greeleys’ town-home. The scene
is
boding well: the Willets are not casting suspicious eyes her way. Amy and Isaac Post are not casting disapproving eyes at the lavish food, the masses of flowers, the oceans of punch, perhaps because a number of Daniel’s family are fellow Hicksite Quakers, and with their own mountains of good causes. The Greeleys—who have come from their Turtle Bay home with daughter Ida and baby Gabriella—are not bickering for once. Certainly Leah’s mother and father are as congenial together as Leah has ever seen. Lately they have taken to holding hands, of all things, and at this instance her father is helping her mother arrange the punch glasses, as if he were a servant, or a wife himself. As for Maggie and Katie, they seem to be attending out of affection, not just duty. Are perhaps even sober. Indeed, the years might be wound back on the Fox family and their intimates, so convivial, co-operative and optimistic is the scene. The only thing missing is her daughter, Lizzie, but she is now Mrs. George Blauvet and is abroad at the moment, though exactly where “abroad” Lizzie has neglected to tell her.

Daniel now whispers to Leah’s cheek, “Are they all here and accounted for, our guests?”

“Yes, the guests are all here, all the invited ones.”

“Are there other varieties?” He is not being sarcastic. She has yet to see that in him. Thus she does not enlighten him that, of course, there are always uninvited guests. People who take umbrage at their exclusion. People like Mr. Pettifew, whose note she tore up as soon
as she read it:
And I heard it will be an affair of small grandeur. I admit I thought an invitation would not be unwarranted as we have been acquainted these many year and our Fates are knit up
.

Such a distressing little man, Leah thinks, what with his distinct ugliness, that twist to his back so that he must look up, up at one with a pained expression, as if he prefers the dirt at his boots. And what is that blather:
Fates knit up
? Is her fate knit up with her butcher’s? Her dressmaker’s?

Amy Post passes Leah’s view. Even for a joyous wedding Amy wears her usual austere garb. Wears, too, her usual look of restrained concern, which, at the moment, is be directed at Maggie. Understandable given Maggie’s fixed smile, her gaunt frame, her intent eyes, which are darker than before, as if the pupils, like ink blots, have stained the irises. And whatever does Amy make of Maggie’s dress of light-sucking black bombast? Of her fingers twisting round her crucifix like blind worms? Leah, for one, still cannot believe that Maggie converted to Catholicism and all because of Elisha-the-dead. The baptism was officiated by that Father Quinn. Katie was the only member of their family who attended.

And where is Katherina? Leah wonders. She spies her out easily as Katie’s gown is a startling aniline yellow. Leah approves—and highly—of these new aniline dyes: mauvine, magenta, fuchine, methyl violet. These inverted colours are much alike the colours that music once revealed to her, and does no longer. Perhaps the anilines are in compensation. Perhaps the brighter and brighter man-made lights are as well. Certainly gas lights are nothing remarkable now inside city houses, and the night streets are so lit that the stars and moon are no longer required as guidance. As for rushies and candles? They and their meek light will soon be found only in the countryside, which is where the dark belongs.

“… but I do believe in justice and truth and all that, really,” Katie says to Amy, her voice twanging loud, as it still unfortunately does when she is rattled.

“An easy utterance, dear, but can thou fathom how ill-paid seamstresses are? How as like they go blind for our vanity?” She indicates the shirring and embroidery on Katie’s sleeve.

Our vanity? Leah doubts that Amy, being plain as a hobnail, has ever been afflicted with vanity. Would I have been better off plain? Leah wonders. Is plainness one of those blessings in disguise? It is a consideration. For if one has never possessed beauty, how can one mourn its loss? Perhaps Pettifew
should
arrive, like that malignant fairy in the old story, the uninvited one who cursed the castle and sent all into the deepest slumber for a century. Leah would not mind being stilled in her autumn beauty, at this promising moment of security, even happiness. Oh, she knows “Her Fatness” is Maggie’s and Katie’s latest nickname for her. Likely they have snickered that her well-embellished gown would better suit a younger woman. But Leah’s attractions are still considerable. Has not Daniel insisted so? Has not he insisted he was smitten the instant he beheld her on her knees, her wounded hands held up, there in the Simeons’ rain-wet garden, the earth tendrilling smoke, her expression beseeching yet bold. She reminded him of some heroine, he said, possibly a Greek one.

Amy takes her leave from Maggie and Katie. Likely she feels as Leah often does in their company—as if toe-clutching the edge of a precipice.

“Pa’s playing scout, Mag,” Katie says, as their father hoves by with a tray. He hawk-eyes the three of them. The tumblers in Maggie’s and Katie’s hands vanish. Once their father shifts off the tumblers reappear, as if the girls have plucked them from the ether.

“Girls,” Leah says. “You should respect our father.”

Maggie says, “Oh, the good grief, Leah, he treats us like we’re children still. As you do. I mean, we’re hardly ‘girls.’ ” She looks archly at the pink roseates on Leah’s hem, then drifts off with Katie in tow, both all-agiggle.

So they are still gigglers, Leah thinks. Not something I have ever been.

“Come, dovey,” Daniel says. “We must arrange ourselves for the ceremony.”

He helps Leah to rise, escorts her past several of his relations—relations who listen with satisfying attention to George Willets: “… and
it was a bible box, pretty carved with lilies of the valley, but otherwise simple as they come. We packed it with earth then bid our Leah plunge in her hands. After she withdrew them we found granules of phosphorous, burning hot. Just as Leah predicted. Don’t the spirits act in the most mysterious ways?”

The spirits surely do, on this the relations agree. Daniel squeezes Leah’s elbow. He, too, witnessed Leah’s “proving” ceremony. Witnessed Leah’s honesty with his own eyes.

They continue their way through their guests. Maggie, to Leah’s dismay, is berating Horace Greeley: “And why should I give Elisha’s love letters to his conniving brother? Why, Horace? Why? Do you reckon I’ll publish them? It’s not your business anywise. Why in tunket do you meddle so? I saw your letter to Thomas. You wrote he may direct you in the matter of Maggie Fox as he sees fit.”

“Saw it?” Horace cried. “You more than saw it. You scrawled all over it. My private papers. Like a child of three might do. I’ve been gracious in allowing you to stay at my home and—”

“Stop this!” Mary Greeley cries. “It distresses little Gabrielle. Our little baby Mumpkee.” She nuzzles the baby’s cheek. The baby, a toddler really, yanks Mary’s hair and chortles. Thin-faced Ida Greeley looks on with childish jealousy. Leah guesses she is, what? Ten? Katherina, Leah realizes with a shock, was not much older when the spirits first arrived.

Now there is singing and announcements. Now the bride and bridegroom take their places before the flower-decked window and the black-garbed minister. After the ceremony, which everyone agrees was short and charming, the company seat themselves in the dining room for a feast. Men servants brings in separate arranged plates of duck comfit and fiddleheads, the portions exactly the same for each guest. No more platters on sideboards as country folk might do. Champagne bottles pop. The talk grows louder, almost masks the rap at the door. Leah stiffens in her corset. Strains to hear Susie-the-maid’s muffled talk. She is about to excuse herself when Susie brings in a blue-wrapped parcel. Leah takes the proffered card, reads:
Greatest Felicitations on your joyful day. I look forward to our continuing friendship and association. For your wedding, I’m gifting you
a copy of the Blue Book. Come by and add to the original anytime at your convenience. Yours truly best, Mr. L. Pettifew
.

“Leave the package there in my sight, Susie,” Leah whispers, and indicates the sideboard.

Daniel is about to make an announcement, when the new Mrs. Underhill puts her hand on his arm. He sits with a genial nod. Leah stands and thanks the assembled for their presence.

“Some have said that I must continue to be the guiding light of Spiritualism, that I and my sisters have been gifted by God and that it is our duty. However, I also now have a duty to my beloved husband, and it is my foremost duty.”

She glances at her sisters, who seem to be counting the fork tines, at her father who is watching her. Glances, lastly, at the blue-wrapped package on the sideboard. She clears her throat. “Dear people, I shall hold no more public séances. My career as a medium is finished.”

There are exclamations of surprise, even from Daniel. It is not really surprising to Leah, though it came to her mind just then. She rarely surprises herself anymore, though she used to, heaven knows. As do the spirits.

I
tripped outside the garret vestibule and fell down square on the squalid floor. I should dust and clean, I thought as the vestibule’s damned Edison bulb waned. The landlord, I realized, must have promptly replaced the bulb I broke during my first lapse. My, what alacrity. What dutiful attention. But really—does he assume we can no longer find our way without such contrived light? Does he think us childish in our fears? Craven in our souls?

I rose to my feet with the assist of the wall, then patted the side pocket of my satchel where August’s letter was safely tucked. I took the letter out, even though I knew it off by heart.

I gathered myself and went in to do my duty.

“You look as if you’ve lost something,” Maggie Kane said, to which I had no reply.

W
INTER OF
’62
AND
M
AGGIE STOMPS
up the stairs of her Barclay Street let. She kicks the risers, loosening the snow on her overshoes and shawl. She rubs her bare hands warm.
What! Lost your mittens, you naughty kittens? Then you shall have no … pie
was it? Not wine, surely.

Maggie moved to this let from the Greeleys’ town-home just after Leah’s wedding. She had no choise, given her rift with Horace over her court case against the Kanes. Given Mother’s fretting over any refreshment Maggie takes. And this let is reasonably close to St. Anne’s church, where Maggie often goes to confess to Father Quinn; and reasonably distant from the resplendent home on 37th that Leah and Daniel moved to after their marriage, and where Mrs. Leah Fox Fish Brown Underhill now holds court.

Maggie attains the upper landing, then halts. Her door is ajar. She must have neglected to lock it, leaving as she did in such a frantic rush.

She slides inside, feels the wall for the stop-cock, then flips the toggle for the gas light. The wall sconce flares blue, then burns steady. The science of such instantaneous light never fails to amaze her. “Magic,” she murmurs, “why it just pales in comparison.” She tosses her shawl on a horsehair chair. Her let is crammed with disparate furniture in nubby upholstery, the worn rugs strewn with calling cards and hairpins and newspapers. The War of Secession is, of course, the only news of note.

She hurries to the bedroom, intent on viewing her shrine to Elisha. The shrine takes up the north wall and is the only tidy area in the let. Six years since Elisha’s death and his white gifts—the Honiton-lace undersleeves, the white handkerchief he gave her in Washington, the white fox stole—are yellowing, but Elisha is exact as he was, glassed into his frame.

Maggie halts in the doorway. A cloaked thief pokes at the Tiffany bracelet.

“Leave that!” Maggie screams.

The figure whirls, drops its cloak hood.

“Christ-in-all, Kat!”

“Sorry, sorry, the door was open and I—”

“I thought you were a thief after Elisha’s love letters and sent by damn Tom Kane. Well, I’ve hidden them. He won’t never find them. What are you doing here, anywise?”