Uneasy Spirits: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery

by M. Louisa Locke

  Annie had never played the game, familiar to most girls, of thinking about what her new name would be when she married. Yet, when she had married John, a prince charming who had rapidly turned into an evil prince, she had begun to associate her new name, Mrs. John Fuller, with the complete loss of her own identity. On their honeymoon, a two-month trip to Italy they took with her new in-laws, John had begun the irritating habit of calling her “the wife” in public, and in private she had rapidly gone from “darling” to just “you.” She remembered bursting into tears the day they finally arrived back in the States, and her father met them at the boat and called her Annie. She had felt he had given her a piece of herself back.

  Annie wondered how Nate would react if she used her maiden name, Annie Edwards, just for business purposes. Would he see it as an insult, or would he be relieved not to have his name associated with a woman working in such an unusual occupation?

  Sitting for a moment, thinking about past arguments with Nate, Annie suddenly chuckled to herself. It would be a lively discussion, no doubt about that! She then chided herself for letting her past mar her present. Which isn’t fair to Nate or myself. Besides, why do I assume he even wants to marry me?

  She resolutely pushed away both speculation about her future and anger at her past and thought about what she should do with the information she and Nate had gained from their search of the Framptons’ house. Their romantic interlude last night had been rudely interrupted when Biddy scratched on the door to the small parlor and called their names. When they opened the door and met her in the hallway, she put her finger to her lips and pulled them rapidly through the empty kitchen to the back door, whispering that Kathleen was out in the alley waiting for them.

  They handed over their candles, picked up their coats, and slipped out to the alley. Kathleen later told them Biddy had been able to do everything they had asked her to do. She had wiped away any sign of intrusion and nipped down the back stairs to the kitchen just before Albert and Delia had come in the back door. Kathleen, having heard voices, had the presence of mind to gather up their coats and Nate’s top hat and hide in the pantry until Albert and his wife had gone upstairs. Then she had scared Biddy half to death when she re-emerged in the kitchen.

  Once Annie and Nate had reunited with Kathleen, they went down the alley, glad there was enough moonlight to make their way. The cabbie was waiting, as promised, but this also meant they really didn’t have time to talk about the night’s events before the ride home. When they got to the boarding house, Annie had insisted that Nate have the cab drive him on home. She told Beatrice and Esther, who were in the kitchen anxiously waiting for their return, that she would give them a full accounting the next day and sent Kathleen off to bed.

  But now, before she had to get dressed and prepare for Madam Sibyl’s morning clients, she wanted to think about what the conversation she had overheard between Arabella and Simon meant. For one thing, given how upset Arabella was with Simon’s refusal to deny Annie access to the séances, she felt it was even more likely that Arabella had been the author of the two threatening notes, the so-called “little presents,” She also wondered if there was any truth to Arabella’s accusations about Simon’s intentions with Evie May. The truth, or the ravings of a jealous wife, either way, Annie believed it was imperative to find a way to remove the young medium from the Framptons’ pernicious influence.

  She speculated on the identity of the man Simon and Arabella kept talking about. The man who told them about the connection between her and Nate and that she lived at the same address as Madam Sibyl. He certainly sounded like someone who had been giving the Framptons information that helped them bilk their clients. Any of the men who had attended Monday’s séance and seen Nate might have recognized him. She had trouble, however, seeing Judge Babcock or the banker, Mr. Ruckner, or even the hapless Mr. Hapgood, as masterminds behind the Framptons’ success. They seemed so much like victims rather than conspirators.

  But Mr. Sweeter, that was a very different matter. Simon had said something about a coaching session on Wednesday, which was when Kathleen had seen Mr. Sweeter and Arabella together. Sweeter could have run some sort of confidence racket back in his hometown. Maybe when he moved to San Francisco he had joined in partnership with the Framptons, using his cousin’s society connections to gather information and steer clients to the séances. Annie really needed to talk to Esther after dinner and find out if she learned anything more about Sweeter and the Larksons from her daughter yesterday. If she skipped tonight’s séance, she could also catch Hilda Hapgood alone at their store and try to find out if it was her who sent the police that anonymous letter accusing the Framptons of “driving her husband to drink.”

  If she didn’t go to the séance, this would at least postpone the inevitable argument she was going to have with Nate. The minute she heard Arabella Frampton tell her husband about how he had better stop Annie from coming, or she would, Annie knew what Nate was going to say. Sure enough, just as she was about to get out of the carriage last night he’d detained her for a moment, saying, “Annie, you will not be attending any more séances or private sittings at the Framptons. It is clearly too dangerous.”

  She had smiled and nodded. But she hadn’t agreed.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Monday evening, October 27, 1879

  “Robbed of $25 by Insidious Confidence men. Charles Hilton, the complainant, and a person evidently not at all familiar with the tricks of confidence swindlers, told his story on the stand with apparent great relish.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle, 1879

  “My dear, I must say from your description of events you and Mr. Dawson certainly had an exciting time of it last night,” said Esther Stein, tartly. “However, when Mrs. O’Rourke confided to me about your scheme, I was quite upset. The scandal if you had been discovered! The Framptons could have called in the police, charged you both with breaking and entering.” Mrs. Stein put down her crocheting and waved a finger. “No, Annie, not a word until I’ve finished having my say.”

  Annie swallowed the defensive retort she had been about to make. She owed Esther Stein and her husband Herman so much that the least she could do is hear her out. Without the Steins, her Uncle Timothy and Aunt Agatha’s oldest friends, Annie would probably still be living back east off the reluctant charity of her husband’s relatives. Herman Stein, as the executor of her aunt’s will, had tracked her down in Boston and sent her the money she needed to make her way to San Francisco by train. He had also authorized her use of the small amount of capital she had inherited to outfit the O’Farrell Street house as a boarding house. He had then moved, with his wife, into the second floor two-room suite, becoming Annie’s best paying boarders.

  Along the way, the Steins had become like parents to her, and she shouldn’t have been surprised to discover that Mrs. Stein wasn’t happy about the turn her investigation into the Framptons had taken. She knew something was up when Kathleen had given her the message this afternoon that Mrs. Stein would like Annie to come to her sitting room when she was done with her last client. Most evenings, when her husband Herman was away on business, Mrs. Stein joined Annie downstairs in the kitchen for the pleasant end-of-the-day conversations she had with Beatrice and Kathleen. Tonight, she had clearly wanted to spare Annie the embarrassment of being dressed down in front of the other two women.

  Mrs. Stein continued. “I know that I tacitly gave my agreement to your plans on behalf of Miss Pinehurst when I said I would ask my daughter about Mrs. Larkson and her cousin, Mr. Sweeter. But that was when I thought your goal was to attend the séances, using your powers of observation to discover how they carried out their fraudulent practices and turn that information over to Miss Pinehurst. But, I would never have condoned your decision to enter that house, at night, when the occupants were out. Let me tell you, Mrs. O’Rourke and I were worried sick, waiting for your safe return.”

  Feeling guilty that she had caused her friend unnecessary worry,
Annie said, “Dear Mrs. Stein, I am sorry. I had no idea you would be so upset. I had quite determined that if we were discovered I would pretend that I had come to see the Framptons because I had had a communication with the spirit of my father and that Biddy had kindly let me in to wait for their arrival. Even if the Framptons didn’t believe me, they wouldn’t have dared to take the matter up with the police. The most that would have happened is that I would suffer a little embarrassment, and I might have lost any chance of returning to the séances for further observation.”

  Mrs. Stein shook her head sharply, her features rearranged in what Annie recognized as her “stern grandmother” expression. “A little embarrassment? Annie, just because your investigation this summer had a positive outcome, don’t be so sure that meddling with someone like Simon Frampton and threatening his livelihood can’t have very dangerous consequences.”

  She paused, continuing to frown. “I know that you think that the unfortunate circumstances of your past, and the necessity of maintaining the pretense of Madam Sibyl, has already put you beyond the confines of normal societal rules. But that isn’t true. To the eyes of the world, you are a beautiful, young widow who runs a respectable boarding house. Don’t throw that reputation away lightly. And, my dear, if you aren’t concerned about your own reputation, think of the damage to poor Mr. Dawson’s future prospects if you had been caught and the Framptons had decided to make an issue of it. You know he would never have done such a foolish thing if he wasn’t so besotted with you.”

  Annie opened her mouth, ready to explain that what Nate Dawson did was his own business, not hers, when she stopped, realizing that this wasn’t completely true. All last night she’d been thinking how comforting it had been to have him with her as she snooped around the Frampton house, how wonderful to have met a man who respected her enough to be her partner in what was, she had to admit, a risky enterprise. Then, this morning, she had even gone on to imagine how agreeable it would be to be married to such a man.

  Yet she had stubbornly refused to consider how a relationship with someone who truly cared about her entailed responsibilities on her part in turn. She remembered the reporter, Pierce, had even warned Nate that the Framptons had influential friends and it might be dangerous if it came out that he was investigating them. Unbidden, came an image of Judge Babcock using his legal connections to punish Nate for daring to threaten his contact with his daughter’s spirit.

  “Mrs. Stein, I hadn’t realized . . .”

  “That he is in love with you?”

  “No, I didn’t mean . . . of course I know he cares about me. But he hasn’t said anything to me . . . about the future. I don’t really know his intentions.”

  “Well, my dear, he is probably waiting until he feels he is financially secure enough to offer you a future. Or he is simply unsure about your feelings towards him.”

  It’s hard to believe after last night that he has any doubts, Annie found herself thinking.

  Mrs. Stein continued. “And, are you unsure about your feelings for Mr. Dawson?”

  “No, I mean, yes. Oh, Esther, before I met Mr. Dawson this summer, I would have sworn to you that I would never remarry. I promised myself that I would never again become dependent on a man, who by law could do as he wished with my property or my person. But Nate is so different from John. I just don’t know. Do I care about him? Absolutely, and you are quite right, I need to be more careful. But do I trust him enough to marry him? I don’t know. I don’t know if I will ever trust any man that much again.”

  “Annie, dear. Don’t say that. To think that you would deny yourself a future as a wife, a mother.”

  Annie’s heart constricted. She thought of the daughter who had been born too soon, a victim of her loveless marriage to a man who had betrayed her trust, over and over. Would she ever risk that kind of pain again? Yet, when Evie May had wrapped her arms about her and Annie had believed, even for a short time, that Maybelle was that lost daughter, she had recognized she wasn’t ready to give up the sweet promise of children forever. A tear, unexpectedly, slid down her cheek.

  Mrs. Stein gave a little cry and leaned forward in her chair, taking Annie’s hands in hers. “My darling girl. Please forgive me. I should never have said a thing. Now you know why my children get so furious with me and my meddling. But you are like a daughter to me, and I let my affection take me too far.”

  “Mrs. Stein, you have no need to apologize, and your daughters, who adore you, would be quite as sad as I would be if you stopped caring enough to meddle. Oh, I meant to say, stopped giving us the benefit of your wisdom!”

  Annie saw her last statement had returned a smile to the older woman’s face, as she knew it would, and she continued. “And you are quite right. I shouldn’t let my past experience with John ruin my faith in all men. Good heavens, I have the daily reminder of what a good marriage looks like when I see you and Mr. Stein together, so I shouldn’t despair.”

  Mrs. Stein laughed again, and, then giving Annie’s hands one more quick squeeze, she leaned back and picked up her crocheting. “Speaking of marriages, if you are still interested, I have a strange tale to tell about the marriage of Isobel and William Larkson, and the mysterious Mr. Sweeter.”

  An hour later, Annie thought about what Mrs. Stein had told her as she walked with Kathleen up Hyde towards Hapgood’s Grocery Store. The evening was mild, although a light mist haloed the gas lamps along their way. It was a little after eight, and Annie’s plan was to visit Harold Hapgood’s wife at their store during the hour he would be attending the Monday night séance. She had sent a letter by the morning post to Simon Frampton, telling him that she would not be able to make the séance that night, but hoped for another private sitting with Evie May on Wednesday.

  Nate had sent a note to her at lunchtime by one of the scores of errand boys that trolled the financial district for work, asking if he could come by this evening. She had sent an answer back with the same boy, saying that she would not be attending the séance this evening, but was otherwise engaged. She asked if they could meet on Wednesday evening instead. She knew it was cowardly to put off seeing him until after she saw Evie May because she was sure he would interpret the fact that she was skipping tonight’s séance to mean she would stop going to the Framptons’ altogether. But she would rather have that fight after the fact.

  “So, ma’am,” said Kathleen, interrupting this thought, “what exactly did Mrs. Stein tell you?”

  “She had dinner with her daughter, Hetty, yesterday and it turns out Hetty had done a little investigating herself,” Annie replied. “She invited an acquaintance over to lunch this week, a Mrs. Frankle, who had gone to school with Isobel Larkson back in Portland and was quite willing to talk about her. Hetty told her mother she was actually a little shocked at how much this woman revealed, but the woman’s excuse was how worried she was about their friend.”

  Annie then went on to recount what Hetty had learned. Isobel Larkson had been raised primarily by her maternal grandparents in Portland, Oregon, her father having died at Gettysburg, and her mother dying shortly after, of the usual cause of heartbreak. Her grandfather eventually died as well, as old men do, leaving his wife a substantial fortune, which kept Isobel in private schools, dancing lessons, and silk frocks.

  Life, however, was not a complete bed of roses for Isobel since by the time she was in her late teens her grandmother was completely bedridden with arthritis, and Isobel was the only one of her descendants (she had five living children and fourteen grandchildren) who could successfully alleviate her pain, which she did by brewing special teas and reading and rereading the entire works of Charles Dickens out loud to her.

  Then, when she was twenty-three, Isobel met William Larkson, a man thirty years her senior, who was in Portland for a week on business. At the end of that week, she and Mr. Larkson were married and off on a honeymoon. While they were away, Isobel’s grandmother, who by this time was paralyzed by a stroke, died, leaving all her money to Isobel.


  “Mrs. Fuller, what about all the other relatives? Didn’t they get anything from the old lady?” interjected Kathleen at this point, as the two of them stood at the corner of Hyde and Geary, waiting for a heavily laden wagon to pass by. “I mean, isn’t Mr. Sweeter one of those other fourteen grandchildren, and mightn’t he be upset that Isobel ended up with it all?”

  Annie smiled broadly. “Kathleen Hennessey, you are a clever girl. Hetty said Mrs. Frankle specifically mentioned a rumor that the rest of the family was going to challenge the grandmother’s will. Evidently, nothing ever came of it. However, according to Mrs. Frankle, Isobel had a rude awakening when she arrived in San Francisco from that honeymoon. Turns out it wasn’t just her pretty face and possible inheritance that had attracted Mr. Larkson. His mother, in her eighties and crippled with rheumatism, lived with him, and he believed that Isobel’s experience with her grandmother would make her the perfect daughter-in-law to look after his mother.”

  “Oh, my,” said Kathleen. “Mrs. Larkson must’ve thought she had jumped from the frying pan into the fire.”

  “Exactly. Hetty told her mother that Isobel’s friends all agreed she had a hard time of it in her marriage, adjusting to an older man who was set in his ways and catering to his cranky mother. That’s why they were all happy for her when Jack Sweeter came to town, which happened just a few weeks after her mother-in-law finally passed on. Everyone thought it would make a nice change for her to spend some time with someone more her own age, everyone but Mrs. Frankle. Having grown up in Portland, she actually knew Jack Sweeter. In fact, her older sister had been courted by him at one time.”

  Annie paused to catch her breath. The last two blocks up Hyde to where the Hapgood’s store sat on the corner of Hyde and Sutter were fairly steep, and she wanted to finish her story before they got to their destination.