The Ghost of the Mary Celeste

by Valerie Martin

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, spreading the napkin in his lap with feigned solemnity.

  “I don’t see what’s funny about it,” she protested, but amiably, willing, with his assistance, to discover the lighter side of her own discourse.

  “It’s just that you are so charming, my dear,” he said.

  “Ah,” she replied.

  Their waitress arrived with two plates of meat swimming in pale gravy. “Here’s your dinner,” the man said.

  A crush of guests gathered at the opening of the tent filtered into the room, joyful and cacophonous, swooping down upon the tables like an invasion of crows on a calm summer evening. The waitresses went among them, taking orders, filling water pitchers and glasses, lighting the lanterns with long tapers, and in a few moments the scene was transformed and what had seemed a triste, tacked-together affair became a lively, glittering hall. My fish arrived, its flat dead eye gazing solemnly up at me. The flesh looked a little dry, I thought, though the waitress assured me it had been pulled from the lake only hours earlier. As I consumed my former fellow lake resident, I allowed myself the pleasure of anonymity in a place where strangers are few. I guessed at the relationships between various couples, wondering as I watched them which were the mediums and which their patrons. Or were they called clients? Sitters, perhaps, as séances involved sitting. Or seekers. It would be useful to know the agreed upon euphemisms of the Spiritualist trade.

  I could no longer hear the conversation between the couple nearest my table, but my wandering eye returned to the fetching young woman, who had finished her dinner and was now tucking into a large slice of pie. As her jaws worked, the feathers in her hair shifted lightly from side to side. I couldn’t see the face of her companion, whose hands moved among the tea service, pouring out a cup for each of them, pinching sugar cubes from the bowl with the silver tongs—two for her, I noted. I thought he must be amused to see the relish with which his companion—was she his daughter?—devoured her dessert. She scraped the fork across the plate, gathering up the last crumbs, her free hand moving out to pull in the cup of tea.

  There was something familiar about her, but I couldn’t place her. She was an intriguing combination of a child and an adult. Her back was perfectly straight and strong; there was nothing gangly about the long pale neck that rose above the artfully arranged folds of her gown, or in the muscular forearms visible beneath the gauzy sleeves. The top-heavy mass of luxuriant hair gleamed with health. She looked strong enough to climb a tree, yet she was so slender, her movements so graceful, her hands small, manicured, the fingers tapered; all this gave the impression of delicacy and fragility. With her jaunty top feathers, she was like a hummingbird that hovers over the lily, whirring gently, its feathers smooth and sleek, its bony chest quivering over a heart the size of a grain of rice, giving no sign of the power and tenacity that allow it to fly the length of a continent. Her napkin slipped from her lap, and as she leaned down to retrieve it she felt my eyes upon her and glanced up at me. She smiled affably, as one safely smiles at a stranger in a sociable setting. I felt my own lips compressing at the corners, returning the courtesy. Still, her wide gray eyes lingered a moment beyond the smile, and I was conscious of a change in every detail of her expression, an alarming, speaking change, best described as a shift from “Have we met?” to “Save me.” Then she fished up the napkin and, straightening effortlessly, returned her attention to her table companion.

  And that was when it came to me who she was: Violet Petra. That simple girl I’d seen in a rich man’s parlor so many years ago. She was much altered, thinner, paler, lovelier, a woman with a style all her own, and evidently a new patron, for Mr. Wilbur had been a round, balding man who by no feat of nature could have transformed himself into the impressive and well-coiffed individual who rose from his seat, extending his arm, and his protection, to the youthful Miss Petra. As they passed through the summer dining room, heads came up; greetings and hand flutterings were exchanged. And then the handsome couple passed out into the firefly-lit night.

  On my return to the hotel, I learned that Miss Petra neither lectured nor advertised as a “test medium.” “She’s a reclusive lady, and much sought after. She only does private sittings,” my loquacious clerk informed me. “Folks make their appointments months ahead of time. She’s that much in demand.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Well, they say it’s because she is such a powerful clairvoyant and there’s no showmanship about her. She just asks you a few questions and then she knows all about you and your loved ones.”

  “Dead and alive?” I said.

  “Mostly the former, I’d say. You can find out about your living relatives fast enough with the telegraph these days.”

  “That’s true,” I agreed, taking up my heavy room key. “We live in marvelous times.”

  A MESSAGE UNDER THE DOOR

  Dear Miss Grant,

  As we are neighbors (I’m across the hall in 204), I thought you might not mind if I took the liberty of inviting you to join me for hot chocolate and some excellent doughnuts in my sitting room tomorrow morning. I generally rise at seven and the restaurant sends up the breakfast at eight. Please forgive the drama of a note beneath the door, but I didn’t want to disturb you by knocking—yet I am eager to make your acquaintance and to welcome you to our blessed idyllic community. The weather promises fair and the room opens to a charming balcony.

  And the doughnuts really are delicious.

  Can I tempt you?

  Yours truly,

  Violet Petra

  This is the text of the remarkable document that appeared with scarcely a whisper on the bare wooden floor inside my door. I was standing in my chemise at the washstand, patting my neck and shoulders with the hand towel, and I was momentarily startled by the manifestation of the envelope. My first thought was that it must be a message from the management. I listened for the sound of departing footsteps, but there was nothing save the rustle of the curtains in the evening breeze, carrying the muted voices of a few late-night guests returning from the lake. I hung up my towel, and, crossing the room, took up the envelope. The note was written on hotel stationery in an open, leftward-slanting script. I read it over twice, noting that the word “blessed” had been struck out and replaced by the word “idyllic.” A telling revision, though what it told, I couldn’t say. Taking the curious page to the writing table, I seated myself and read it over a third time. I thought it playful and daring, yet studied and designed to disarm. The careful dissembling of the author’s true intentions in the formulas of acquaintance-making and welcome, the puerile enthusiasm for sweets, the consciousness of possessing an element of drama and urgency in the manner of delivery, the final titillating, seductive wink (“Can I tempt you?” said the serpent, proffering the … doughnut), and the schoolgirlish closing, all fascinated me. No expectation of a negative reply was alluded to, no precise time was set, though presumably, I had best arrive in time for the doughnuts. Chocolate and doughnuts, I thought, a child’s breakfast. I wondered if the gentleman of the night before would be in attendance.

  And I wondered who was paying for the suite with the charming balcony.

  And why the “powerful clairvoyant” so seriously in demand was eager to make my acquaintance. What did she know about me?

  I put the missive aside and climbed into my narrow bed, where I slept tolerably well, rising at six, as is my habit. Once dressed, I found I had time for a stroll to the lake. Wanting to be alert for my meeting with the clairvoyant, I stopped in at the dining tent for a cup of coffee, which I drank at my ease, gazing out at the amusing miniature steamboat drifting on its anchor chain above its rippled reflection in the calm water.

  At a quarter past eight, I presented myself at the door of Room 204. Before I could raise my hand, the door flew open, and Violet Petra, dressed in a filmy white muslin gown heavily embroidered with tiny violets and embellished by a gold satin sash at the waist and a froth of old lace at the sleev
es, her masses of dark hair loose and curling over her shoulders, her full lips rouged and parted, her clear gray eyes fixing tightly on my face, greeted me with the breathless affirmation of her own psychic powers. “I knew you would come,” she declared.

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  She ignored my question, her eyes flickering over my plain blouse and dirndl skirt, as she stepped back into the room, inviting me to follow with a wave of her hand.

  Near the open doors to the balcony, a round table with a good linen cloth was laid for two. Between the plates an ornate china pot crouched above a plate of doughnuts covered by a screen cage. On a side table, next to a beige silk upholstered chaise longue, I noticed a copy of Godey’s and the daily camp news bulletin. The Boston paper, much rummaged, was scattered across the carpet. So our clairvoyant kept up with fashions and current events. Violet pulled a chair from the table and bid me take it. “We have much to talk about, I think,” she said.

  I let her stand a moment as I appraised her offer with a purposefully mystified eye. I wasn’t willing to play the game of instant intimacy, which she evidently had in mind. As she apprehended my reluctance, for she was an adept at reading the subtlest changes of mood in her audience, her brows drew together thoughtfully. “You must think me very forward,” she said.

  I advanced to the chair, maintaining my puzzled air as she took her seat across from me. “I admit,” I said, “I wonder how you came to know my name.”

  She fussed over the pot, which had a candle beneath it to keep the contents warm, and poured the fragrant beverage into the cups. “Oh,” she said lightly, as if my naïveté was amusing, “everyone knows your name. Or everyone who reads the register, and many do. We’re a close community here, you’ll find, and you are a newcomer. There’s a great curiosity about you.”

  “I see,” I said, lifting the cup and sipping the chocolate while she served us each a doughnut. She smiled at me so candidly that, as I set the cup back in its saucer, I decided to drop my defensive manner. “It’s very good,” I said, nodding at the chocolate.

  “It is,” she agreed. “I never drink it at home, but when we’re here, I want it every morning.”

  I remarked the plural pronoun, presumably not the royal “We.” “Are you here with your family?”

  She lowered her eyes to the plate and said, with just the right vibration of regret, “I have no family. They’ve all passed away, some years ago now.”

  “Then the gentleman you were dining with last night was not your relative.”

  “Mr. Babin is my sponsor.”

  “Which means?”

  “He arranges things for me, introductions, appointments, things of that sort. Sometimes I have speaking engagements, but only for small invited groups. He sees to all that.”

  “He’s your manager.”

  Her spine stiffened; she fixed me in an icy glare. “I’m not an actress, Miss Grant.”

  Her hauteur made me smile.

  She looked down, picked at her skirt, failing to entirely suppress an answering smile flickering at the corners of her mouth. “Really,” she said. “You are a most exasperating person.” Then she helped herself to an unladylike big bite of her doughnut.

  “I haven’t had chocolate since I was a girl,” I said.

  She managed to smile through her zesty chewing, then swallowed hard. “Of course,” she said. “You drink coffee, and lots of it.”

  “Why do you say so?”

  “Don’t all journalists drink lots of coffee?”

  “What makes you think I’m a journalist?”

  “I don’t think you are a journalist. I know you are.”

  “Really?” I felt rattled to have been unmasked so early in my investigations. “And how do you know that?”

  She dropped the uneaten fragment of her doughnut onto the plate and patted her lips with a napkin, her eyes mischievous, almost gleeful at my discomfiture. Carefully she opened the square of cloth and laid it across her skirt, lowering her eyes to her preoccupied hands. “Oh, I know things,” she said. “Haven’t you heard?”

  “What? People’s professions? Is that clairvoyance?”

  As she lifted her cup, her eyes still lowered, the martial strains of a band striking up near the lake jauntified the quiet atmosphere of the room, but when Violet looked up again, her expression was mirthless, even sullen. “No,” she said. “It didn’t require clairvoyance to know who you are. I read the Philadelphia papers, and I’ve a good memory for names.”

  “I see,” I said, which was true. I did see quite a long way, but not far enough, as it turned out. I saw only what she wanted me to see: that she was a very pretty, frank, ambitious little woman. Nothing she said or did would be of any importance to me personally; she would not, she could not make a difference to me, yet I believed there was more to her than met the eye. Above all, I believed she was a charlatan, and as such, no matter how she might admire me, no matter that she might actually feel affection for me, someday she would be driven to deceive me and then to despise me for having failed her, for having been deceived by her. I determined to interest myself in her because I wanted to expose her. To do that I would have to catch her off her guard, and what I most clearly observed at this first interview was that her guard was very high, remote, and impressively fortified. She was innately cautious, perversely noncommittal. She presented what she knew was presentable. What was not, she kept to herself.

  I also observed that she wasn’t suspicious of me. Her desire to know me was entirely a product of her self-interest. She thought I might be in a position to advance what she would have called her “cause.”

  Her defensive mood had veered abruptly back to gaiety. “Are you disappointed?” she teased. “Is it just too ordinary of me to take note of a byline?”

  “Not ordinary at all, in my experience,” I replied. “Most people don’t notice the names of journalists, unless they happen to be famous, which I decidedly am not.”

  “Not yet,” she agreed. “But you might be. I thought your articles about that murder trial in Uniontown were first rate.”

  I sipped my chocolate, raising my eyebrows over the rim of my cup, stupidly flattered and knowing I was stupid, but unable to help myself. I was particularly proud of the series she named.

  The accused in the Uniontown trial was a young, handsome, charming, and promising lawyer named Nicholas L. Dukes, who was engaged to marry a wealthy young woman named Lizzie Nutt. For reasons no one could explain, including Dukes himself, shortly before the wedding day the future husband sent several outraged letters to his fiancée’s father, Captain A. C. Nutt, alleging that Lizzie was known to have been “criminally intimate” with a number of men and that he must therefore withdraw his proposal of marriage. Captain Nutt, mystified and incensed at the offense to his daughter’s honor, arranged a meeting with her accuser. During that confrontation, Dukes produced a pistol, and shot his future father-in-law to death. Dukes claimed to have acted in self-defense, as the older gentleman had threatened to strike him with his walking stick.

  Captain Nutt was a prominent citizen and the community was much agitated by the trial, which was a long one. At last the fatherless Lizzie appeared to testify against her suitor. There was a hush when she entered the courtroom, for Lizzie was a woman of great beauty, poise, and distinction. She expressed her bemusement at her fiancé’s bizarre letters to her father. “If he didn’t want to marry me,” she explained calmly to the prosecutor, “he had only to say so. Why send slanderous messages to my father? I don’t understand it.”

  I couldn’t understand it either. Surely this elegant, lovely, and wealthy young woman would have no difficulty finding another suitor, and it was equally clear that she was unlikely to be showering her favors upon the butcher or the postman. But Dukes was not on trial for slander, and in the end, to the fury of the mob in the street outside the court, he was acquitted of all charges.

  Violet leaned back in her chair, pressing her fingertips to her lips,
her eyes searching my face intently with an unwavering solicitude that unnerved me. “You drew those characters so clearly,” she said. “You must see all manner of cruelty and violence in your work.”

  What was she imagining? That I followed murderers down dark alleys? That I frequented squalid tenements? “Not really,” I said. “I tend to see the consequences of cruelty and violence.”

  “Those articles were so well written; it was like reading a story.”

  “Thank you,” I said, taking up a doughnut. In the hopes of closing the subject of my profession I asked, “Do you live in Philadelphia? When you’re not here?”

  “When I’m in Philadelphia, I stay with Mr. and Mrs. Babin,” she said.

  “And where is your home?”

  “I don’t, strictly speaking, have a home,” she said mysteriously. Outside the band, audibly on the move in the direction of the hotel, broke into the refrain of “Oh, My Darling Clementine.” Violet smiled, gazing at the balcony. “You are lost and gone forever,” she sang in a clear, high voice. “I like that song.” Turning back to me, she said, “Do you?”