Uneasy Spirits: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery

by M. Louisa Locke

  “Why those clever bastards. Annie, pardon me. But come look what they have done.” As Annie came closer, Nate pulled at a small ring that she now saw was bolted to the plate. As he did so, the plate and a chunk of flooring that was attached to it pulled free, exposing a opening about four inches square that looked right down into the room with the cabinet. As she leaned forward, he touched his candle flame to her wick. With both candles producing light, they could look down and actually see the pattern of the carpet on the floor below.

  Annie pointed. “See, there is the edge of the top of the cabinet. This is why it was so easy to see Evie May when she stands in front of the cabinet, which she usually does at the beginning of a session.” She took the plate and chunk of wood Nate had removed and turned it over. “the wood is the same as the paneled wood of the room’s ceiling. I bet if you glanced up, given all the carving, you wouldn’t even see the slight line where the block and the ceiling joined. Where do you suppose the light I saw shining through the back of the cabinet came from?”

  Annie put the chunk of wood down and walked over to the side of the bed, noticing that there was another small rug over the floor here. When she kicked it back, she wasn’t in the least surprised to see another plate. She said, “This one must be open throughout most of the séance since there was always a glow emanating from the back of the room. When they want to feature Evie May, or cast more light into the front room, they just have to open up more of the plates.” Annie saw that Nate was looking in the drawer of the table that was placed next to the head of the bed, and she asked him what he was looking for.

  “I wondered about the odd shape of this table, with this narrow drawer. Didn’t seem right for a bedside table. And what do you know, I found these.” Nate held up what appeared to Annie to be several pieces of stiff colored paper. When he brought them closer, she saw they were actually several pieces of thick glass, each of a different color. He bent down and put one over the hole they had opened in the floor.

  “How clever, Nate. No wonder I thought the lights felt ‘otherworldly.’ I can’t wait to see what it looks like from below.” Annie went to the door to the hallway and opened it, calling for Biddy to come.

  When Biddy entered the room, Annie told her to watch her step and pointed out the plates and the open hole with the pane of glass over it.

  “Sakes alive. What’s that? Oooh. You can see right down to the room below, like a nasty spy hole. Do you think they have these all over the house? It makes me feel so odd, just to think of that Albert’s eyes on me while I do my work. I will be glad to be shut of this place.”

  “Yes, Bridget, I think it’s an excellent idea for you to move on. But what I would like is for you to take the lamp and shine it over this hole. Mr. Dawson and I will go downstairs and see what it looks like from below. We will be just a moment. Then when we give a shout, I think you had better put everything back as we found it and come down stairs. This glass plate goes into that drawer there with the others and the metal plate and chunk of wood fit back into the hole. Then you can smooth down the rugs and take the lamp back to the sitting room. The rug in that room also needs to be put right.

  When all this is done, lock the doors to both of these rooms as you leave. Can you do that for us, please?”

  Biddy assured them she would do all that was asked, looking excited to have a little time to explore a room that had been forbidden to her. Annie and Nate took up their candles and made their way carefully downstairs. Annie whispered to Nate as they descended, “Can you tell what time it is? I worry that Kathleen is going to get impatient and come searching for us. Do I have time to go and assure her everything is all right?”

  Nate took out his pocket watch, opened it up, and held it up to the candle. “Good lord, its already eight-thirty. We need to finish up. Better that we look at the lights and then be on our way. I don’t think we will have time to go down to the cellars, but I think we have discovered enough of their tricks.”

  Annie led the way into the back room with the cabinet. As soon as she walked in, she noticed a difference. She blew out her candle and asked Nate to do so as well. Then she closed the hallway door to block out the light, taking off the sticky plaster so she wouldn’t forget when it was time to leave.

  “Nate, see how eerie the glow is with that red glass over the hole. I have this image of Albert and his wife scurrying back and forth, playing instruments, opening up the holes and then closing them, putting different colored glass in at different times. It must be exhausting.”

  “Yes, but if they are theater folks, this all must be just like any nightly performance. Since the séances don’t last but an hour, it’s not a particularly difficult performance at that. Probably pays a lot better,” Nate replied. As he talked, he opened up the curtain to the cabinet and stepped in and sat down. “Annie, this is really quite substantial. And I see what you mean about the back being made of burlap. This certainly would let in a lot of light, if the hole were open.”

  Without warning, Nate grabbed Annie and pulled her into the cabinet with him. Putting his hand over her mouth, he whispered in her ear to please be quiet. When she stilled, she heard the voice of Arabella Frampton, raised in anger. Simultaneously the reddish light in the room disappeared, plunging them into complete darkness.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Sunday evening, October 26, 1879

  “The Rev. Dr. Graves lectured to a fair audience…on the “Mental and Physical Phenomenon of Modern Spiritualism,” beginning by saying that he should not notice the cabinet séance and other legerdemain tricks which had so often imposed upon the credulity of the people.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle, 1879

  Nate was acutely aware that Annie sat snugly on his lap, a distraction he couldn’t afford, and, as a gentleman, shouldn’t permit. Reassured by Annie’s silence, he again put his mouth up to her ear, trying to ignore her intoxicating fragrance, and whispered, “I’m going to shift you. Can you lean forward as I do so and close the curtain?” He felt her nod. As she reached out to pull the curtain, he put his hands at her waist and lifted her, twisting to place her on the bench beside him. He then heard her put something down on the floor. Ah, her candle. Where the devil is mine? Nate wondered, until he remembered placing it on the bench next to him before grabbing Annie.

  As Annie straightened, Nate slid his left arm tightly around her, noticing her stiff stays and the quick rise and fall of her breath. Anchored by her warm body, he began to try and distinguish who was speaking out in the hallway. Shockingly, the voices became much louder, and Nate concluded they must have entered the larger parlor.

  “ . . . saw a light, I swear to you. From this room,” said a female.

  “Look Arabella, there is no one here and the door was locked. Who do you think it was, one of your spirits?” The man, clearly Simon Frampton, laughed softly.

  A thin bar of light appeared at the bottom of the curtain. Either Simon or Arabella must have turned on one of the lamps in the next room. Nate wondered if this light was enough to expose their own presence in the cabinet.

  “What I thought,” said Arabella, “is that Evie May was in here playing one of her stupid tricks. She is going to be the ruin of us, slipping off as she does when she is needed and messing up her lines when she is working. I tell you, clients like Judge Babcock aren’t going to put up with it, not at the rate they’ve been paying.”

  “Old Judge Babcock would continue to contribute to our coffers if we put a wooden doll on his lap and told him it was his darling daughter, my love,” Simon replied, with a nasty laugh.

  Nate had a strong desire to wipe what he was sure was a sneer off Frampton’s lips. It made him sick to think that the former Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice his uncle had so admired was the object of ridicule by a confidence man like Simon Frampton.

  Arabella responded, “Don’t be so sure. He was pretty upset when she didn’t show Friday at the séance, and you said it took you forever to get her into the tran
ce state so she could give him his private sitting.”

  “You let me worry about Evie May, Arabella. Just stay away from her. Don’t think I don’t know it was you who got her all upset Friday afternoon. She told me what you said. No wonder she slipped away.”

  “What I said! The little bitch. She’d snuck into my room while Delia was cleaning the sitting room, and she’d put on my new, blue silk wrapper and played around with my cosmetics. When I told her to take it all off and never put her filthy paws on my stuff again, she told me the blue made me look old. So I told her it made her look like a tart.”

  Arabella sounded to Nate as if she found the memory satisfying.

  “Don’t be so petty, Arabella. The girl was just playing dress-up. Perfectly natural, she is, after all, only thirteen.”

  “So her mother says and you want to believe. But then, that is just about the age I was when you first saw me, wasn’t it, Simon, dear?”

  Arabella’s question sent a chill down Nate’s back. Pierce had said that Simon had met Arabella when she was in her early teens and married her at sixteen. From Annie’s description, the girl, Evie May, could act a lot older than her years and did so routinely when she sat in the cabinet. Perhaps Arabella had a reason to be jealous.

  It’s beyond me why any man would look at a skinny girl, when he was married to a gorgeous woman like Arabella, he thought, but there is no accounting for taste. Nate felt Annie draw in her breath and realized he had unconsciously tightened his arm, pressing her even more closely to his side. He relaxed his grip, but he was gratified when she moved closer of her own volition. He then felt the weight of her hand on his leg. For a moment Arabella and Simon’s voices faded away, and all he could hear was the thrumming of his blood in his ears.

  Arabella’s voice rose to a higher pitch, bringing Nate back to his senses.

  “We have had a good thing going here in San Francisco, Simon, if you don’t ruin it. You heard him. If we don’t start to be more careful, he might not be able to keep helping us, and the information he’s given us so far is worth it’s weight in gold.”

  Simon replied, “He worries too much. So what if the man who came to escort Mrs. Fuller home on Monday happens to be a lawyer. I expect that half of our clients know lawyers; that doesn’t mean that they are all out to expose us.”

  Annie turned her head towards his, and he swiftly touched his finger to her lips to ensure her continued silence.

  Arabella spoke next, sounding exasperated. “Don’t pretend to be stupid. The problem is you should never have accepted her into the circle without checking with him first. Then, when he told you of her connection with the fortuneteller, you should have come up with an excuse to keep her from returning. He told you explicitly to get rid of her, and you didn’t.

  “Even if all she is doing is trying to gather information for the competition, she is a threat. I really wonder if that is all that is going on. I left her a few little presents this week, and, by rights, she should have decided that our séances aren’t for her. I think there is a lot more to this poor, little widow woman than meets the eye. But then you never could see past a pretty face. No wonder he was so angry tonight. If you don’t take care of her, I promise you, I will.”

  “You leave Mrs. Fuller to me. He was angry because your last séance didn’t produce the effect he wanted, despite your special coaching session on Wednesday. That’s why he now wants us to use Evie May for this job.”

  “Evie May, she’s always the solution for you. I have half a mind to leave you to her and that harridan of a mother. What a sweet little family you would be.”

  Arabella’s voice then became so soft that Nate couldn’t hear her words, but Simon’s voice rose and he said, “Arabella, don’t be a little fool.” Nate heard a sharp intake of breath, and then all was silent, except the rustle of a woman’s skirts.

  He’d begun to wonder what was happening when Simon spoke again and said, “Let’s go upstairs; Delia should be done. You go on ahead. I need a last word with Albert about our schedule tomorrow.”

  There was a soft murmur from Arabella, and Simon replied, “No, the girl said she would wait up for Mrs. Nickerson and Evie May. I’ll lock up here, be up in a moment.”

  The bar of light under the curtain disappeared, and Nate thought he heard a door close. A second later he heard the door to the room they were in rattle. Then silence.

  Annie whispered, “Nate what are we going to do?”

  “Let’s sit tight. Biddy should have made it down to the kitchen by now. You heard Simon. They expect her to wait for Mrs. Nickerson. She’ll come and get us when the coast is clear. But we should keep quiet, in case Albert or his wife should pass by.”

  Nate felt rather than saw Annie nod in agreement, because they were again sitting in complete darkness. He closed his eyes against the blackness and concentrated on his other senses. Their mingled sounds of breathing filled his ears. He inhaled deeply, registering Annie’s scent: a combination of sunshine, roses, and the faint whiff of cedar. She wasn’t wearing a hat, thank goodness, so he could feel the tickle of her fine hair when she turned her head. The material of her dress was soft and silky, sliding under the arm he had clasped around her waist each time she took a breath. With his free hand he reached out to her face, finding first her left ear, the shape of a small, delicate seashell. Then he slowly ran his hand along her jaw, drew his thumb along the small dimple in her chin, and touched the edge of her lips.

  Annie pulled away, and Nate froze, fearing he had gone too far. With a rush she slipped her right arm around his waist and with her left hand began to trace a similar path on his face. First, he felt her fingers run along the hair at the nape of his neck, then up to his ear. Next, she ran her thumb along the upper curve of his ear, then down along his jaw, rubbing back and forth along the beginning of stubble that was always there by this time of night. Finally, she cupped the side of his face and drew it to hers.

  They had kissed before, but never like this.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Monday morning, October 27, 1879

  “Mrs. Babbit, Medium. 104 Powell. Circles Sun. Wed evenings, Thursday night.”

  — San Francisco Chronicle, 1879

  A soft knock on the door woke Annie. As she pulled herself upright in the old mahogany bed and rubbed her eyes, she saw Kathleen enter the room. After placing a pitcher of hot water under the washstand, the young maid lit the oil lamp sitting on the round table by the window since, at half past five, sunrise was at least an hour away.

  As quickly and silently as she had come, Kathleen left, and Annie knew she had gone to get the breakfast tray. This left her a few minutes of solitude to remember last evening, and her mind went immediately to the time she and Nate had sat in the cabinet and waited to be rescued by Biddy. The complete absence of light in the cabinet had created a feeling of such intimacy that Annie had felt all rules of proper conduct just slip away. As she had turned into Nate’s arms, their bodies became so entwined she hadn’t been able to distinguish between the beat of his heart and her own. The kiss that had started out so softly, so sweetly, became so intense it awakened a hunger she had never experienced before, not even in the brief few weeks of her marriage when she had thought she had loved John.

  The door to her room opened again, and she wrenched her thoughts away from this disconcerting memory. Kathleen entered the room, saying cheerfully, “Did you sleep well, ma’am?” Then she began to remove from the tray the tea pot, cup and saucer, and a covered dish, which would hold scrambled eggs, a freshly baked biscuit, and a sliced orange.

  Annie had tasted her first orange on the Los Angeles ranch where she had spent her childhood. To her mind, the accessibility of fresh, inexpensive oranges was one of the many advantages of returning to live in California. She took the robe draped over the end of her bed and put it on, tying the belt tightly while her feet sought out her slippers. “Yes, thank you. I am surprised after all our excitement last night that I slept a wink. But I d
on’t remember a thing after my head hit the pillow. And you?”

  Kathleen, who was moving swiftly through the room and pulling out the clothes Annie would wear as Madam Sibyl, said, “Me too! Mrs. O’Rourke said she could hear me snoring before she went upstairs to bed. Ma’am, she’s joshing isn’t she? I don’t snore!”

  Annie laughed. “I’m quite sure you don’t. But I am glad you got some sleep. I know how long and hard wash day can be.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Fuller, with Mrs. Kantor doing most of the heavy white wash and you hiring Biddy’s cousin, Tilly, to help out with the noon and evening meals, my day’s going to be a breeze!”

  Annie knew from personal experience that, even with a laundress and a second maid, Kathleen’s day was going to be one of unremitting, hard physical labor. However, if the recent additions Annie had made to the boarding house staff had relieved Kathleen of some of her burdens, she was glad.

  As Kathleen left to bring water and wake-up calls to several of the other early risers in the house, Annie’s thoughts returned to the night before. As she sat down at the table and began to pour out her tea, she imagined a future morning, just like this one, with Nate across the table from her discussing his plans for the day or the news in the Morning Call. With his income from the law firm combined with the continued income from the boarding house, they might even be able to afford to hire someone like Tilly full time to help Beatrice and Kathleen. Maybe Annie could cut back on the number of clients she saw as Madam Sibyl so that, when Nate came home in the evening, they could have dinner together, right at this table.

  I might even be able to risk dropping the fiction of Madam Sibyl altogether and try to build a business as Annie Fuller, financial and domestic advisor, she thought, smiling happily as she slathered butter and jam on her biscuit. No, I’d be Mrs. Nate Dawson, came the unexpected realization.