Fine Spirits [Spirits 02]

by Alice Duncan

  “Of course, Daisy dear. I shouldn't have asked. You have such burdens to bear for such a young thing.”

  Darned right, I did. Heck, I'd only turned twenty the day before, yet I was supporting a whole family. Well, with the help of my mother and my aunt, but gosh, you'd think Billy would respect my situation at least as much as silly Mrs. Bissel.

  I knew better than to expect it. After I'd made an appointment for a first visit that afternoon and hung up the telephone receiver (leaving Mrs. Barrow free to talk all afternoon with whomever she chose), I returned to our living room. Sure enough, Billy sat in his wheelchair, glowering, looking as if he was spoiling for a fight. I tilted my head a little and gazed at him, wondering if I looked as hopeless and helpless as I felt.

  “Who was that?” he demanded.

  “Mrs. Bissel. She's the one with the frankfurter dogs.”

  “What did she want? A séance?” He sneered.

  I was used to it. “Not this time. She wants me to rid her basement of a spirit. Unless it's a ghost.”

  “She what?”

  Every now and then, when my life and job got truly bizarre, Billy's anger evaporated into surprise. That's what happened this time. I hoped it would last.

  I sighed and sat on our comfy old sofa and put my elbows on my knees and my chin in my hands. I was wearing one of my most comfortable wrappers, a pink-and-white checked one that probably clashed with my dark red hair, but I didn't care. I dressed up for my work; at home I relaxed--except when clients came over for a palm-reading or to consult the Ouija board or to participate in a session of table-turning. “She claims a spirit or ghost has taken up residence in her basement, and she wants me to get rid of it for her.”

  “You've suddenly turned into a--what do they call it? A minister who gets rid of ghosts?”

  “An exorcist. Yeah, I guess so. Mrs. Bissel claims she doesn't want a priest. She wants me.”

  “Good God, Daisy, your business is crazy. And you're crazy to take a job like that. It's bad enough that you pretend to raise dead people's ghosts and gab at them for money. This is going too damned far.”

  I gazed at my husband and felt like crying. We Gumms are made of sturdy stuff, though, and I didn't. “You tell her that, then. I told her, and she chose not to believe me. I told her I wasn't qualified to do the job and almost certainly wouldn't succeed. She wants me to try it anyway.”

  Billy shook his head in amazement. I knew exactly how he felt, because I'd been feeling the same way ever since Mrs. Bissel ignored everything I'd tried to tell her and begged me to take a job for which I was totally and admittedly unqualified.

  “Rich people are strange, Billy.”

  “You're telling me.”

  “Do you want to fight with me some more, or can I change clothes and go up to Mrs. Bissel's house and study her basement?”

  His lips straightened into a flat line, and he glared at me for several seconds before he gave it up. “Aw, Daisy, you know I don't want to fight with you.” He'd have sighed, but his lungs wouldn't let him.

  Sometimes I hurt for my poor husband so much it was all I could do to keep from screaming at God for letting something like this happen to so good a man as my Billy. I still felt like crying--and still didn't. “I don't want to fight with you, either, Billy. I love you.”

  His smile went lopsided. “Do you?”

  I moved from the couch to his chair and threw my arms around him. “I love you more than anything, Billy Majesty, and you know it.”

  His arms went around my waist and I sank down onto his lap, wishing we could have a real marriage. I knew Billy would have made a wonderful father, had the Germans allowed him to come home to me a whole man. Too late for that now. As much as I tried not to, and as much as I knew the feeling to be irrational, I hated the Germans.

  “I just wish you didn't have to do what you do, Daisy. That's all.”

  Darn it, he was so unfair about my job! I didn't want to spoil the mood, so I murmured, “I know it, Billy. I'm sorry.”

  And, after a short round of smooches, which was as much love-making as we were able to accomplish thanks to the damned Germans, I went off, drooping, to change into my spiritualist costume and catch a red car up to Altadena so I could pretend to exorcize a spirit (or ghost) from an addle-pated rich lady's basement.

  Merciful heavens, but my life seemed strange sometimes.

  Chapter Two

  Even though my mood was as gloomy as the weather, I looked swell when I was through transforming myself from a simple, everyday, housewife into a spiritualist medium. I'd recently had my hair bobbed at the barber shop Billy and Pa frequented, and the new hair-do suited me fine. I'd resisted cutting my hair for a long time because I was afraid people wouldn't accept a spiritualist with short hair. However, since I almost always wore hats when I worked, it probably didn't matter much.

  So far, nobody seemed to be appalled by my short hair. Only a couple of years earlier, if a woman cut her hair short, the whole world thought she was a lady of the night or a Bolshevist or something else equally awful. Not anymore. Nowadays, even prim and proper ladies were getting their hair shingled--and not at hair salons, either. Rich and snooty ladies went to barbershops, just as I'd done.

  As an added bonus, the bob was easy to care for. All I had to do was wet my hair, comb it out, make finger waves that lay flat against my cheeks, and my hair was “done” for the day. Not only was it easy to care for, but I have thick, heavy hair, and when the barber cut most of it off, I felt at first as if I was going to float up into the sky, I was so lightheaded.

  I kissed Billy as I walked to the front door. “I'll be back as soon as I can be.”

  He looked up at me and gave a half-hearted smile. “You look beautiful, Daisy.”

  “Thanks, sweetheart.” I was wearing a black wool dress that I'd sewn on Ma's White side-pedal rotary sewing machine. The dress had a long waist that tied with a sash on the side of my hip. I also wore black stockings and pretty black leather short-heeled shoes that tied over my arches, and I carried a black handbag. I topped it all off with a black cloche hat I'd remade from last year's model. When I threw on my black wool coat (which I'd also made myself), I looked as if I was going to a funeral. That suited me fine, because it worked both for the job I was headed toward, as well as my mood. “Wish me luck.”

  As I might have expected, that was the wrong thing to say. Some days, everything I said was wrong, and if I kept my mouth shut that was wrong, too.

  Billy frowned. “I can't do that, Daisy. You're lying to people, and I can't wish you luck doing it. Not with a clear conscience.”

  “I didn't lie to Mrs. Bissel,” I protested, stung. “I told her I couldn't do this job. She wants me to try anyway.”

  He shook his head in disgust. “That's ridiculous.”

  “Maybe to you,” I said, my voice hard.

  Before we could tangle further, I left the house. I had to stand on the front porch and take several deep breaths to make sure I wouldn't cry. The day was as gray outside as I felt inside, and I wondered if I should have taken an umbrella with me. Because I couldn't bear going back into the house and facing Billy again, I decided to heck with an umbrella, and began walking the few short blocks to Colorado Street where I could catch a red car.

  It didn't take more than forty-five minutes for the red car to get to Foothill Boulevard and Lake Avenue. There was still no hint of rain--and no hint of sunshine. The orange groves that still took up a lot of Pasadena land looked as if they didn't enjoy the gray weather any more than I did, and every time the red car chugged its passengers past a weeping willow, I felt as though it was weeping for me. The air was thick and cold, and I hugged my coat around me in the car, feeling miserable and oppressed and generally lousy. Not even the appreciative glances I got from the conductor and several of my fellow passengers cheered me. I wanted my husband to value me, not a bunch of strangers.

  When we came to the end of the line and I got off the car, I noticed the con
ductor staring at me as if he was worried about me. “Is anything the matter, Miss?”

  “Not a thing,” I lied. “But thanks for asking.” I gave him a quick smile to let him know I was fine, even though I wasn't, and commenced walking briskly to Mrs. Bissel's mansion.

  As mansions go, Mrs. Bissel's was kind of small. I mean, Mrs. Kincaid's mansion on Orange Grove Boulevard had a huge iron fence around it, an electrically operated gate, and a man to guard it. I don't know how many acres of prime Pasadena property Mrs. Kincaid owned, but she had an entire orange grove in her back yard.

  In contrast, you could walk right up to Mrs. Bissel's front door from the street. Of course, it was a long walk. She owned all the property from her house on the corner of Maiden Lane and Foothill to Lake Avenue, and everything behind her house as far as a street called Las Flores. She owned a hunk of land. I guess it didn't look as impressive as Mrs. Kincaid's property because there was no iron fence surrounding it.

  The house itself was smaller than the Kincaid mansion, too, although it was still huge. It was a three-storied, stucco, beige-colored house with brown trim. A balcony on the second floor looked out over the big, rolling lawn in front. Mrs. Bissel's back yard featured a circular drive surrounding a monkey-puzzle tree she'd imported from Australia.

  Behind the tree, on the other side of the circular drive from the house, Mrs. Bissel had a rose garden that looked and smelled wonderful during the summertime. Some stairs led from the rose garden up to a little picnic area where Mrs. Bissel entertained friends during the warm months.

  That day I was glad I didn't have to go through the back door, because I'm sure looking at the bare, brown rose garden and the empty picnic area would only make me feel worse, if such a thing was possible.

  Mrs. Bissel also owned a couple of horses, both of which were grazing in the field between her house and Lake Avenue that day. I blessed her for those horses. They looked so pretty, and I desperately needed something pleasant in my life just then. One of them was brown and the other had brown-and-white spots, and I could imagine red Indians riding them across the plains in a Zane Grey novel. I didn't know what variety of horse they were, although I knew they must have had better pedigrees than our own old horse, Brownie, who lived in back of our house, and who was getting lazier and more cantankerous with each passing day.

  Heck, they had better pedigrees than Billy and me, if anybody cared to check. Whatever their ancestry, those horses looked swell, and watching them made me feel a tiny bit better, although not much.

  The lawn in front of the Bissel place had three sloping hills on it. Her front porch ran the entire width of the house. The grass was green and well tended, although it was getting a little yellow because it was that time of year. A row of bird of paradise had been planted in a garden running the length of the porch, and there were a bunch of rosebushes in front of the bird of paradise.

  Nothing was blooming on that depressing fall day, but the rolling lawn still looked pretty. Fortunately for my shoes, there was a concrete walkway running from the street to the porch, so my heels didn't get stuck in the dirt on my way to the house.

  As soon as I neared the doorbell and even before I pressed it, I heard Mrs. Bissel's herd of wild dachshunds indoors go into their announcement act. They cheered me up even more than the sight of the gorgeous horses in the field had.

  I don't know what it is about dachshunds. They're so short and funny looking, yet they think they're such tough cookies. Perhaps I identified with them because I felt so puny and yet acted so tough myself. Who knows? Probably Dr. Freud could tell me, but I don't speak German and never want to, so his diagnosis wouldn't help me much.

  Mrs. Bissel didn't have a butler, as did Mrs. Kincaid. She did, however, have a live-in housekeeper and a couple of housemaids. It was one of the maids, Ginger Sullivan, who opened the door to me. I knew Ginger from school.

  I grinned at her, but she didn't grin back. I considered this reaction strange, since Ginger and I had always been friendly. “Hi, Ginger. How are you?” I could hardly hear myself for all the barking.

  Evidently Ginger was accustomed to the dogs, because she didn't seem fazed in the slightest. “Scared to death,” she said flatly, opening the door and allowing me entry and several of the dogs outlet. “This place is haunted. I hope you can get rid of it, Daisy, because I'm about to quit.”

  “Golly, Ginger, I didn't know it was so bad.”

  She shivered. I knew she wasn't faking it, either, because I saw the gooseflesh on her arms when she rubbed them. “I've never been so scared in my life.”

  Now, this was an ominous declaration, for certain. It wasn't good for anyone, including Ginger and me. Jobs weren't as easy to come by as they had been before the war, and the whole country had sunk into a depression. Ginger wouldn't be talking about quitting her job for no good reason, because there was no guarantee that she'd be able to find another one.

  As for me, I could almost imagine Mrs. Bissel being frightened about nothing, but if Ginger confirmed her employer's estimation of the basement situation, it meant there truly was something down there. And I was expected to get rid of it. I wondered if Pa or Billy had a gun somewhere. Not that I knew how to shoot a gun, but still . . .

  I'd have liked to ask Ginger some questions, but Mrs. Bissel emerged into the huge entry hall from the front room, her arms outstretched, managing somehow to avoid stepping on any of the dogs frolicking at her feet and mine. She was clad in a shocking maroon day dress (shocking because it was such a vibrant color for so large a woman). She looked like an ambulatory purple whale. If I ever get fat, I'm sticking to basic black.

  Some of the dogs jumped up on me, digging their sharp little doggie claws into the skirt of my beautiful black dress, but I only bent down, spoke softly, and gently disengaged the claws. Not even for a lovely hand-made black wool frock would I alienate a client by hollering at her dogs.

  Fortunately, Mrs. Bissel hollered at them for me, so my skirt was spared except for one tiny snag that I knew I could fix in a jiffy. She also clapped her hands, which seemed to affect the dogs. They all stood back, sat down (it was difficult to tell whether they were standing or sitting because their legs were so short) gazed up at me, and a chorus of tails swept the floor. Gee, those dogs were cunning! I really wanted one.

  “Daisy's here, Mrs. B.,” Ginger announced informally (and unnecessarily). At Mrs. Kincaid's house, nothing was informal. Mrs. Kincaid's butler, Featherstone, probably wore his butler suit to bed at night. I preferred Mrs. Bissel's more relaxed standards.

  “I'm so glad you could come, Daisy!” Mrs. Bissel beamed at me and gave me a small hug. “Sorry about the welcoming committee.”

  “I don't mind,” I told her honestly. “I love your dogs.” I glanced at the floor and tried to count, but the dogs kept moving around. “How many do you have now? It seems there are more than there were the last time I was here.”

  Mrs. Bissel loved anyone who loved her dogs. “I have a grand total of ten glorious dachshunds at this minute, Daisy, dear. Of course, I'm counting Lucille and Lancelot's pups in the grand total.”

  “Ah.” Ten dogs. The mind boggled. At least these dogs were small. Can you imagine if they were great Danes? “I see you have some brown ones along with the black-and-tan ones, too.”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Bissel sighed happily. “I bought two red dachshunds from a gentleman in Arizona and plan to breed them.” She took me by the arm and started leading me kitchenwards. “I'm hoping that one of these days, I'll have a Westminster winner.”

  Okay, here's the thing about rich people and their dogs. Most people like dogs. I like dogs. But people who have a lot of time on their hands, and most of them are the rich ones because the rest of us have to work all the time, like to enter their dogs in dog shows. There's a big dog show at Tournament Park in Pasadena every year, and I know Mrs. Bissel “showed” her dogs there.

  I'd learned from various clients over the years that the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, h
eld annually in New York City, was the be-all and end-all of dog shows, and the one everyone wanted to be entered into and win. If your dog earned enough points at other dog shows during the year, the dog could go to Westminster. More than one Pasadena dog owner has told me it's an honor for dogs even to be entered into the Westminster Dog Show. I say, more power to them, especially if they're dachshunds.

  Another rich lady of my acquaintance, Mrs. Frasier, bred feisty, frenetic little dogs she called miniature pinschers. Her main goal in life was to get these miniature pinschers recognized as a legitimate breed at the Westminster Kennel Club. I'm not sure what that entailed, but it sounded strange to me. I mean, since I'd met Mrs. Frasier, I could identify a miniature pinscher when I saw one. I didn't understand why the Westminster folks had trouble recognizing them. I could conceive of someone mistaking a miniature pinscher for a Chihuahua, but only until you looked at him more closely. Then you realized the pinscher had longer legs, less bulgy eyes, and a short, stubby tail. Both breeds were small and noisy, but they didn't really look that much alike.

  But I digress.

  “Would you like a cup of tea or anything before you confront our phantom?” Mrs. Bissel asked.

  “No, thank you. I'd best get to work at once.”

  “Good.” This short, pithy comment came from Ginger. “The sooner the better.”

  “Yes, that's probably the best thing. But do take Daisy's coat, Ginger. She won't need it, I'm sure.”

  “Sure thing, Mrs. B.” Ginger took my coat. The house was warm enough. “I'll hang it in the hall closet.”

  “Thank you, Ginger.” Mrs. Bissel gestured for me to follow her as Ginger went to hang up my coat. “There's a door to the basement from the kitchen,” she told me as we walked through the huge dining room and into the pantry. The kitchen lay straight ahead. “I'll take you downstairs from the kitchen.”

  “That's fine, Mrs. Bissel.”