The Spiritualist

by Megan Chance

  “Then when?” he asked grimly. “When you disappear as well?”

  “I’m not going to disappear. Dorothy wants me here, remember? He won’t risk her disapproval.”

  “I don’t want you taking the chance.”

  “I won’t. Not if you can tell me that what I’ve told you is enough. If you think we can go to the police now with evidence of a motive, and they’ll listen, then I’ll leave Dorothy’s.”

  He hesitated, and then grimaced. “It’s hearsay, unless Dorothy testifies against him.”

  “She won’t.”

  He sighed. “Your word isn’t enough. Not when you have motive yourself.”

  “Then I’ve no choice but to stay.”

  He took my arm, drawing me close again, close enough that I caught a whiff of the macassar oil on his hair. “Does he frighten you, Evie?”

  I looked away. “Of course he does. He means to. But that’s only emotion, not reason.”

  “Sometimes emotion can be a shrewder judge.”

  “No. Logic tells me he won’t hurt me. At least not yet.”

  Ben glanced at the police watchman across the street. “What makes you think so?”

  “He seems more interested in making me uncomfortable. I think he hopes I’ll leave of my own accord.”

  “I don’t like this, Evie. Not at all.” Ben’s eyes had gone nearly black in distress.

  “Tell me what I must find for the court to consider him a suspect.”

  He considered for a moment. “The adoption papers themselves. That would be evidence powerful enough to sway them. You must discover if the papers were drawn up, and if they were, where they are now.”

  “I could find if they were drawn up easily enough. But to actually find them…”

  “You may have to go through Dorothy’s things. Or”—he glanced at me—“or even Michel’s.”

  The thought of going through Dorothy’s things, or of going into Michel’s room at all, was anathema to me, but I nodded. “I’ll search his room, and I’ll see what I can do about searching Dorothy’s, though she’s nearly always in it.”

  Ben said, “The sooner the better. The Athertons have wasted no time in helping the city build a case against you. Irene Cushing has met three times with John Burden and the prosecutor.”

  “Three times? What more can she find to say about me?”

  “That’s what I must ask you, my dear. I know it’s difficult, but any conversation you can remember having with her could be important. What have you told her?”

  “She was my closest friend,” I said bitterly. “I trusted her. What didn’t I tell her?”

  “Perhaps you trust too easily. Did you say you thought Peter was avoiding you?”

  “I—I may have. I don’t remember. I suppose I did. It was very difficult, you know. He was so busy, and he seemed to grow busier with every month, and well, he was never home. I did wonder, sometimes… .”

  “I must—” Benjamin cleared his throat. A carriage went by, splashing dirty slush upon the walk. When it passed, he glanced about, as if searching for eavesdroppers on the empty sidewalk. “I must ask you some deeply intimate questions, Evelyn.”

  “I understand.”

  “Were you… were you and Peter sharing a bed?”

  My face went hot; I looked down at my mud-spattered boots. “Not often.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “I—I don’t remember. Is it important?”

  “It could be.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Months, I suppose.”

  “Did you confide this to Mrs. Cushing?”

  “I was unhappy. I felt alone.” I laughed ruefully. “How silly it seems now.”

  His face went soft with compassion. “It’s not silly, my dear. Peter was gone a great deal of the time. I don’t wonder you felt lonely. Is that what you told Mrs. Cushing?”

  “I’m sure it was.”

  “Did you also tell her that you were angry with Peter for not being around long enough to produce a child?”

  I flushed again. “I suppose I must have. It was true.”

  “When she suggested that you take a lover, did you tell her that you would start looking—and that she must help you find someone with dark hair and brown eyes so that whatever child you had would obviously not be Peter’s?”

  “But I was teasing—”

  “Did you also say that this was because you wanted to torment him with the knowledge that you’d been unfaithful?”

  I pulled away from him and stopped abruptly. “Oh dear God.”

  “Did you say those things, Evelyn?”

  “Yes. Yes, I did, but I didn’t mean them! I was angry with him. I thought… he was so busy; he didn’t even look at me, and I told her it might take something like that to get his attention. But I didn’t mean it.”

  I felt Benjamin’s hand on my shoulder. “Ssshhh. My dear, my dear…”

  I looked up at him. His expression was stricken, and I longed for him to understand. “I’m not a terrible woman. I’m not. I never… I was faithful to Peter. But I didn’t realize… .”

  I couldn’t say the words. I felt disloyal to even think them. I had admitted those things to no one but Irene—not even my father knew them, though he had suspected. In those last months before he died, he had taken to watching me carefully whenever I visited, as if he could somehow discern the truth of my marriage from my movements.

  I remembered the last time I’d seen him before he contracted the cholera. It had been after my mother died, and I’d gone to visit him, and he’d prepared supper for me, slicing ham with such careful precision, buttering my bread as if I were still a child, urging me to try the pickles—the last that my mother had put up. He’d seemed so old suddenly, and though I’d always thought of Mama as little more than an adjunct to him, even an impediment, I could not fail to miss his loneliness now that she was gone. He was restless with it, like an old dog who padded about constantly looking for a dead companion, unable to figure out where she’d gone, or why, inspecting every turn of the corner, as if it might hold the mystery of her disappearance, or as if she might suddenly appear… .

  “The jam is here somewhere,” he told me as he rose from the table for the tenth time to go to the pantry. “Strawberry preserves. Can’t abide them myself, but she knew you loved them.” He leaned into the cupboard, rooting around.

  “You should bring in someone to help you, Papa,” I said.

  He rummaged a bit more, emerging with an “Aha! Here they are,” and a jar of jam. He set it down on the table and eased slowly into his chair. “Now why should I get someone, Evie? Look around you—does it look as if I need some busybody housekeeper?”

  It didn’t; Papa had always had a genius for organization and a need for cleanliness. The house was as spotless now as it had been when Mama was alive.

  “It’s not that,” I said, biting into my bread. “It’s—”

  “For God’s sake, eat the jam. I went to all that trouble to find it.”

  Obediently, I put down the bread and reached for the preserves. The lid was stiff; I couldn’t pry it open. “It’s not the house-keeping. I hate to see you alone so much.”

  “How is that different from your own life, Evie?”

  I was taken aback. “Why, I’m busy nearly every moment. You’ve no idea what it requires to be an Atherton.”

  “Doing’s not the same,” he said quietly. He took the jar from my hands and opened it with little effort. “I read the papers. Atherton’s got case after case. Half the time you show up in the society page ‘sans husband.’ Your mama and I wondered from the start—”

  “Wondered what?” I asked.

  But he only looked at me. “Does he still listen to you the way you said he did? Does he value your thoughts? Is he really the true companion you thought him to be?”

  “He’s very busy—”

  “Ah.” The sound was knowing and sad. “Your mama always said he was hiding something. She said she felt it—�
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  “Or did her dreams tell her?” I asked sarcastically.

  My father gave me a chiding look that shamed me. “Your mama was afraid for you. I told her you were a smart girl, that you knew what you wanted. But now I wonder if maybe she wasn’t right to be afraid.”

  I looked down at my plate. His words made me want to cry. “It’s all right,” I said—as much for myself as him.

  “It’s not,” he disagreed. “It never was. I don’t know what he really wanted from you, but it wasn’t companionship, and now I see: two years and no grandchildren—not even a false hope.”

  “I think children would be a burden—”

  He silenced me with a look. “I’ll let it all go. I won’t say another word about how strange it is if you just tell me: are you happy?”

  I didn’t know what he would do if I told him no, if I told him all the things I suspected, that Peter didn’t truly love me. That his mother had insisted he take a wife, and I always thought Peter had chosen me because he thought I wouldn’t complain, and I didn’t, at least not to him. But what could my father do? What could anyone do?

  So I looked my father in the eye and lied. “Yes. Yes, I’m happy.”

  Now, I looked at Benjamin, with his compassionate eyes, and I wanted to tell him everything. But the habit of the last three years was hard to break, and I’d burdened him enough since I’d met him, in spite of the etiquette dictating that one not tax friends with the details of one’s situation. What appeared to be the truth was the truth, and to reveal it as anything else was simply a lack of courtesy. Had I not learned that well enough before now, my experience with Irene assured I would remember.

  I glanced away from Benjamin, focusing instead on the pattern of vines and leaves on the cast-iron fence bordering a yard. “I was the wife I thought Peter wanted. I was not unfaithful.”

  “But you were lonely,” he said.

  I turned back to him. “Yes. You knew that already. But it was my fault, I know. I could not quite… I couldn’t quite change enough for him.” I tried to laugh it away. The sound fell flat. “Well, perhaps you couldn’t know. You’re a man, after all. I don’t imagine you’ve ever felt that way.”

  His voice was very soft as he said, “I wouldn’t be so certain of that.”

  The admission arrested me. Ben had always seemed so sure of himself; I didn’t know whether to believe him, or whether he was merely trying to sympathize with me. But before I could say anything, he took my hand again, curling his fingers over mine.

  “Forgive me,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For doing nothing about your unhappiness.”

  “Oh, Ben, what could you have done? You knew how dedicated Peter was to his work. Could anything have changed that?”

  He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Things were complicated. Men live in a different world, Evie. The things we must do… there are many you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Perhaps not,” I said, but my bitterness seemed larger than ever. “But would it have been so difficult for Peter to spend a single evening a week with me? Or was I so unimportant that even that was too much?”

  “I know he thought about your happiness.”

  “Did he? How often? An hour a day? Once a week? Or whenever he happened to drive past his home and remember I was there?”

  Benjamin sighed. “This will not help your case, Evelyn.”

  I drew my hand gently from his, immediately contrite.

  Ben said, “You told these things to Mrs. Cushing. Did you ever speak so to any of the Athertons?”

  I looked up in horror. “Heavens, no! Peter’s brothers and sisters are very close. They wouldn’t hear of any flaw of Peter’s.”

  “That’s one less thing to worry about then. But your in-laws are working tirelessly. They’ve filed a motion challenging Peter’s will, and they’ve gathered several witnesses against you. Not just Mrs. Cushing, but Rose Reid and her husband, and Captain Post, who says you seemed preoccupied and short-tempered in the days before Peter disappeared. He also says you spoke to him often of free love, which he found distasteful, as he felt you were asking him to partake of it with you—”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I snapped. “Thomas Post is a flirt and an idiot. I danced with him, and he was the one who brought up free love!”

  “It’s all most damning, Evie.”

  “But none of it’s true.”

  “Nonetheless, the furor against you grows. People liked Peter, and you’re an outsider.”

  “There are witnesses you can call on my behalf,” I said. “Everyone at the circle would speak for me. Not just Dorothy, but the Dudleys, and Jacob Colville is very respected. Wilson Maull, do you think he could help? Or would his Fourierist beliefs offend? He’s spent time at Brook Farm, but I think—”

  “What about Jourdain?”

  I frowned in confusion. “You think it would help to have him speak for me?”

  Benjamin shook his head. He glanced around again, waiting until a shivering and silent couple hurried by, and lowered his voice. “No. There’s only one thing that will help you, and that’s finding the evidence against him. Don’t let him distract you with his ‘tutoring.’ Please. I confess I had other hopes for your future than the Tombs.”

  I heard something in his words, some faint promise, and when I looked at him, his expression was so sincere and sympathetic that I realized our relationship had changed in the last days—perhaps it had started even before then, during those weeks of Peter’s all-consuming grief and distraction, when it fell to Ben and me to fill the silences during our companionable suppers for three, when the two of us had challenged each other so ruthlessly during our chess games after.

  I could love him, I thought. Benjamin Rampling would make a good husband, and one more appropriate for me than Peter had been. With him, I could have a stable, solid existence like that of my parents. I wished suddenly that I had met Benjamin before Peter.

  But then I realized that Benjamin would not have considered me then—and would not in the future if the Athertons had their way. Even should I be acquitted, there was the matter of Peter’s will. Men like Benjamin Rampling could not both support a wife and move in the circles he required to make a living. He must marry a woman with an allowance of her own. I would have been a woman like that, had all gone as I expected, with the Athertons providing the allowance they’d promised. Without it, my fate would be no better than Judith Duncan’s, making hats or tatting lace until my fingers were stiff with rheumatism—or worse: living penniless in a city as unforgiving as this one. The uncertainty of living as a woman without prospects, without money, was terrifying. To always be alone, to know that despair might lead one to a life of degradation and shame, where each day one only wished for the strength to end it—

  “Evelyn?”

  Benjamin’s voice brought me to myself. I realized he was peering at me with concern. I looked past him, to the police watchman who now stood across the street.

  “It will all work out,” I whispered, as much for myself as for him.

  15

  __

  THROUGH A CLOUDY GLASS

  MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1857

  The task Benjamin had set for me loomed impossibly. To go through Dorothy’s private effects meant gaining access to her room when she or her nurses weren’t there—such a rare occurrence I could not imagine how I might accomplish it. And though there was no such impediment to any search of Michel’s room, there was my own reticence to master.

  The pressure of Ben’s expectation pressed heavily, and I dreamed of Peter every night now. The little sleep I managed was haunted by visions of him, eyeless and dripping wet, touching me with that chill hand. Don’t believe him, Evie. You must not believe him. I knew who he meant, and I knew I could not afford to be idle. But I could not bring myself to search Michel’s room. I was afraid to try.

  Then, three days after my meeting with Ben, I woke at three-thirty, terrified, from my dream
of Peter. As always, I could not go back to sleep, but this time I did not just lie in bed, staring at the ceiling. I drew on my dressing gown and lit a candle and went to the fireplace, where I started a fire and sat in a chair before it, afraid to move beyond the nimbus of its glow, the comforting flames. But the minutes dragged and the thought that I might sit there and stare at every passing minute until I went mad seemed so possible that I decided I must find something to read. I thought to go to the library, but I didn’t want to leave the safety of my room. Instead, I went to the desk. The mess I’d created had long since been cleaned up by Kitty. Everything was back in its proper drawer, the pen nibs, the papers, the gold-chased penknife. The decanter with its liqueur glowed green and tempting, and I remembered how it had relaxed me, and poured myself a glass. Then I took one of the notebooks and the nubbin of a pencil from a drawer, though I wasn’t sure what I meant to do with it. Write down my thoughts, perhaps, or draw—something to pass the time. I took the drink and the notebook back to the chair before the fire, and as I sipped the comforting liqueur, I flipped through the pages.

  There were scrawlings within, the beginnings of a letter to someone named Percy, what looked like the times for the train. I finished the drink and set the glass aside, reading without interest until I came to the first blank page, and then I paused, staring down at the white paper that glowed dimly in the firelight. The blankness seemed to mock me, as if the paper itself existed solely to be infinite, and had only disdain for the limits my writing would impose upon it, the littleness of my efforts, the very humanness of them. I could not possibly write words profound enough to do justice to it, just as I could never understand the world beyond my own, the one Peter’s spirit now supposedly inhabited. Whether it was heaven or hell or one of spiritualism’s spheres didn’t matter. One could sit in church every Sunday or a circle every Tuesday and Thursday and ask God—or the spirits—for guidance, but in the end it was like viewing something through a cloudy glass—every attempt to see more clearly only narrowed one’s vision, until what was understood was only a moment in a vast and unknowable universe, in which the only absolute was how much was unknown.