The Dark (65 page)

“I have not heard from dear Horace at all since his campaign began,” Leah says. “I suppose he is too busy for us now. And yet I was the one who advised him that if he so wanted reform he should run for president himself.”

Daniel glances at the caricature. “Ah, you’re speaking of Horace … Did you say that to him? When?”

“Or words to that effect. In any event, you must vote for him. He is our friend. And it would be nice to have a friend as president.”

“He hasn’t a dog’s chance against Grant,” Daniel says mildly and returns to his study of the stock market. He is retired but keeps a hand in things, Leah having allowed him a stipend to invest here and there.

“No, but one must be hopeful, Mr. Underhill.”

“Ah, you don’t say.”

“I do. Indeed, I just did.”

An assortment of children tiptoe past the dining room to the courtyard. Nieces, nephews, cousins, but no grandchildren. Do Lizzie’s children even know of Leah’s existence? Of course they do, Leah tells herself, and if not through ungrateful Lizzie then through chatter and print. People may mock celebrity all they please, but the more you are known, the more you exist. It is a simple equation that anyone can calculate.

Leah adds three sugar chips to her coffee, continues: “Yes, and I am so hopeful that I intend to call upon Katherina and Margaretta … today.”

Daniel puts the paper down. “Truly? That would be splendid, a hundred times splendid. You must all make up, you know. But why now?”

“I have reports they have sworn off the spirits and for many months now.”

“Spirits? That’s unfortunate. I miss the—”

“Not
those
spirits. Off of wine and brandy and those endless cocktail concoctions. Indeed, it seems they may at last be cured.”

“I see. Well, wouldn’t that be tops.”

“And as we are paying for their latest apartment let, one of us, at least, should see what they are up to with our money.”

“Ah, how is it you know all this?”

“Really, Mr. Underhill, you should have told me.”

“You would have insisted we not help them any longer.”

“That is because Margaretta is a terrible influence on our Katherina. But if I had known a change of location would be of assistance in their recovery, I would certainly have agreed.”

Daniel rubs his brow. “I’m glad, many times glad, that you’re not angry. I only wish to do what is best by them. What time do they expect you?”

“They are not
expecting
me. But I shall arrive during the normal calling hours.”

“I see. That’s capital. Top. Perhaps we should invite them here. It has been two years, my dovely, and—” Daniel looks up at a soft thud. “A spirit?” he whispers hopefully—manifestations rarely happen these days unless privileged guests are about.

“Since when do the spirits sound so?” Leah says, and hurries to the aviary. It is the pride of her house, this aviary, with its array of palms and ferns and rare orchids, with its paths and benches and its hundred-odd birds flitting and roosting and preening and seeming joyful, withal.

She opens the aviary’s glass door and nearly treads on the indigo bunting. It lies on the paving stones, its small talons clutching the air. She kneels and holds the bird in her cupped hands.

“Poor mite,” says Daniel from behind her.

“He is not dead. He is merely stunned.”

“Ah, twice good, then.”

“Well, yes, though he should know by now the glass is there.”

“Odds are we shan’t be back when you return, my dovely,” Daniel says that afternoon. He wears a white linen suit on his round frame and a hat of straw. It is just the attire, apparently, for one of these baseball games. He is taking all the children as well as Susie-the-maid and Cook-the-cook, both who got in a huff when Leah resisted their going. She was not being unkind. She just could not imagine why anyone would pay to watch grown men play baseball. She is not alone in this thought. Many reputable people also think it ridiculous, that you might as well pay to watch grown men play tiddlywinks or mumblety-peg.

She calls for Gatherford, then pauses at the curio cabinet. The lily box—stuffed with its select letters and clippings—is safely locked there behind the glass. From there it can easily be viewed by those guests who recall how it saved her reputation after the phosphorous debacle. The lily box is displayed alongside pygmy skulls and giant seashells and two stuffed passenger pigeons, a male and a female. Leah bought the pigeons for her aviary in hopes they would breed. They did not. Worse, they died soon after their arrival. Neither lingered. They simply ceased. No matter. The two did seem drab, a least compared to talking parrots and such. In their flocks of millions, however, the passenger pigeons are the sublime itself. They are a glimpse of the eternal grandeur of existence. Leah has no patience with the claim—put forth by those naturalist sorts—that the pigeons will soon be slaughtered to extinction.
Extinction
. Such an outrageous word, and made common thanks to that Darwin fellow and his incredible theories. The word has the connotation of chances irrevocably gone. But the utter demise of the pigeons is an impossibility. Not even man could destroy such a quantity. Nothing has an utter end—not the pigeons, and certainly not the human soul, which continues on and ever on. It does not cease with the mortal breath, as Chauncey Burr intimated. There is more to existence than the flesh and heart.

Leah has her Phaeton brought round. Gets in stiffly. It is not so much her fifty-seven years, but the new corsets. They thrust a woman forward into action. No more drooping like some hothouse rose in need of rescue. The fashion is all flared-out shoulders and dapper hats and bustles the size of pork barrels. Leah does not favour these trends at all, though she supposes she must stay in fashion.

Trends, yes, and what of these “planchette” boards, as the alphabet boards are now called. They are being machine-made in France and come complete with a triangular token of ivory to glide over the ornate letters and numbers. And books such as
How to Be a Medium
and
How to Raise the Dead
can be purchased at any hawker’s stall, as if people have forgotten that spirit raising is a gift from the divine, that it cannot be bought and sold in some manifestation marketplace. Pettifew himself will be advertising to the public next. This is a sardonic thought, though accompanied by a hollow, sinking sensation that Leah cannot quite identify. Would that emotions were alike musical notes, she thinks, as those, of course, she can identify precisely, and in a snap.

The girls live on 44th, twenty-odd blocks from Leah’s, but fairly close to Dr. Taylor’s Swedish Movement Cure Hospital on 38th. The doctor’s wife, Sarah Taylor, has become completely reliant on Katie, and sees her as her only link to their two dead children: Leila and Franklin. It was Sarah Taylor who informed Leah that Daniel was paying for Maggie and Katie’s rent, and that both girls have been abstaining for months now. Sarah was particularly delighted at their abstinence. When drunk Katie makes for an unsatisfactory conduit. And when on spree she makes for an absent one. Leah can sympathize. The girls are a trial, but Leah is hopeful there has been a sea change. She is perhaps too hopeful, she knows, and about many things. But what is she to do? Give up? Step back? Allow the Fox sisters a finale without her direction?

The Phaeton halts with spidery elegance. Gatherford never curses his horses nor whips them, which is distasteful and low. He never complains, certainly, when he has to wait. For all this Leah is grateful. She is ever grateful for her wealth and good fortune. Nothing irks her more, in fact, than those who take their good fortune for granted. Or worse, those who toss it on the midden-heap.

“We’ve arrived, ma’am,” Gatherford announces, and settles himself for a nap.

The apartment building is of the new design. The long, windowless corridor is lined with identical doors and identical brass knockers and smells of trapped gas from the wall sconces. In all, the building reminds Leah of a bee’s nest, what with its multiple little dwellings, or else a Roman catacomb. How can the girls live like this? she ponders, and checks the number plate on the door. Perhaps she will find them somewhere better to live, an actual house.

She knocks hard. Then harder yet. Hears singing, a discordant organ tune. She checks her pocket watch. Yes, it is the appropriate time for ladies to be home, dressed and waiting should anyone call.

The door flies open. Maggie is without undersleeves or corset. Her dress of bishop’s blue, years out of fashion, is patterned with stains. Her hair is dishevelled. Her cheeks flushed apple-red. She gives a staggered, mock curtsy. “The good-goddamn-grief. If it isn’t Her Highness, the Tigress, her damned self!”

Leah stares aghast, then sweeps past her. Maggie grabs at the bow on Leah’s bustle. “Look at you,” Maggie rants. “Rigged out like a ship in a high wind. Flying all the flags in all the damned colours.”

“Katherine. Katherina Fox!” Leah calls, frantic. “Where are you? I hope to Providence you are not …”

But Katie is. She is drunk as a sailor. Drunk as a fiend. She sways towards Leah and smacks a kiss at her ample cheek, missing completely.

The apartment reeks of brandy and stale wine, of vendor food mouldering in waxed paper. Leah rails at her sisters, scarcely aware of what she is saying. Certainly she scolds them for drinking again. And she may be calling them ungrateful. Or degenerates. Or drunken whores. She throws open the window. “… and it stinks like a cesspit in here.”

“Do as you please. Is that it?” Maggie screams. “Damn you to hell, Leah! Why do you domineer us so? You’ve ruined our lives. You knew. We told you everything. And yet you said, ‘Oh, but it’s true, true, true. The spirits are true. Just don’t talk about the practicalities, oh, and for the spirits’ sake, don’t think!’ ” Maggie puffs out her cheeks,
simpers, “ ‘Oh, he deserved it, my sweetings. I would have done far worse to that heinous peddler. You did not go too far, indeed perhaps you did not go far enough. Such clever, girls! Such improvisation.’ ”

“Mag,” Katie pleads.

“I did not say that,” Leah cries, though she had, she realizes, and in those exact words.

Maggie continues her outrageous rants and accusations. “You made us go along, Leah. You horrid awful bitch.”

Katie is near hysteria. Leah’s mouth is agape.

Maggie wallops it shut. Leah stumbles into a card table, then sprawls on the floor.

Back in her Phaeton, Leah cries torrents, surprising Gatherford, surprising her own self with the force of her tears. Once home she shouts for Daniel, for Susie, for Cook. No answer. The house is empty. She has forgotten about that wretched baseball.

The lily box. It is the one thing that can soothe her. She gropes on top of the curio cabinet for the key, is soon stroking the entwined lilies her dear father carved those years ago. She might even buy a bible for the box one day, and just to please her father, who is surely watching her from Spirit Land or one of its environs.

The sight of the letters is consoling. Many are yellowed with age. At least the medallions are as bright as ever.

Leah is a lady of such admirable qualities
 …

The Fox women are beyond any criticism
 …

I cannot thank Mrs. Fish enough for the solace she has wrought
 …

She pressures the lilies atop the lid just so, opening up the hidden compartment on the lid’s thuck underside. Her father’s letter is concealed there—which is fitting, seeing as her father was the one who added the hidden compartment for the phosphorous experiment.

Dear Leah, this is an account of my ten years gone
 … The reading eases her sorrow. If only Maggie knew of their father’s past, then she would understand. She would forgive all. Or not. Leah stuffs the letter back under the lid.

She trudges upstairs to her private bedroom. Shutters the windows against the sharp June light. Struggles with her dress clasps. Pulls on
a lacy bed jacket and ribboned bed cap. Her skin smells of her sisters’ alcohol. Her side tooth is loose, surely from Margaretta’s wallop. At least she understands why Margaretta takes to her bed after any trial. It is a raft of safety. One can even imagine the bed a cloud, providing the linens are white enough.

Leah is abed for two weeks. She is not always sobbing or sleeping, however. Not always having to look upon Daniel’s worried face. She writes letters on a tray. Holds bedside meetings with Charles Livermore—who still bears Katie immense gratitude for raising his wife, Estelle—and with the Taylors. Dr. Taylor agrees with Leah, as does Charles Livermore, as does Horace Greeley, who has graciously takes time off from his presidential campaign to write and advise:
Katherina must be sent to England. In England she will be far from all pernicious influence
. Leah guesses that Maggie is this pernicious influence, not Spiritualism itself, surely. Horace still cares about them, Leah knows, even if he has become chary of their skills as mediums.

“An excellent proposal,” Charles Livermore exclaims. “In England our Spiritualists friends will host Katie as the high priestess of the movement that she is. I shall write them straightaway.”

“But will she agree?” Dr. Taylor ponders. “She can’t abide being parted from Maggie for long.”

“We must be persistent,” Leah says. “Katherina does not like to make decisions for herself, thus it is important we assist her in that regard. She shall thank us in good time.”

The men nod, satisfied. But Sarah Taylor is enraged. “Thank us? Hah! Katie is such an unconscious, thoughtless child that she’ll little realize the deprivations her best friends are imposing upon themselves, voluntarily for her sake. She’s our sole device of communication, our key to our loved ones in the Other World.”

Leah adjusts her ribboned cap, gives her best, most dimpled smile. “Bless the spirits, she is all that, but, Sarah, my dear, I should remind you: Katherina is also
my sister
.”