The Spiritualist

by Megan Chance

  “I can’t believe that works.”

  “Well, I’ve seen it happen in court—or under police questioning. I’ve seen people confess to crimes they didn’t commit simply because they’d been made to believe they must have done it.”

  I thought uncomfortably of the spirit writing hidden in my room. “You believe it’s all fakery?”

  He sighed. “Don’t you? I’ve never yet seen a medium who changed my mind. Do you think the spirits truly deign to speak with us once they’re gone? I tend to think they have bigger tasks than communicating with those left behind.”

  I looked down at our hands, clasped together, and I could not resist asking him, “How do you explain spirit writing, then?”

  “Oh, the ways we delude ourselves! I suppose, if one sits long enough staring at a blank piece of paper, one is likely to write anything and believe it came from outside of oneself.”

  “It’s a hallucination, then? Or could it be made to happen by some… some drug?”

  “Probably. Many hallucinations are the product of such habits. I confess I haven’t seen enough of it to wonder. Or to care.” He took a deep breath and released my hand. “It’s getting late. I suppose they’ll wonder where you got to.”

  “Forgive me for interrupting your work.”

  “You are my work, my dear,” he said, smiling. “Shall I call you a carriage?”

  “I’ve Dorothy’s waiting outside.” I started to the door and he followed me; when I got there, I paused, turning to face him. “These people have attended many circles. I hope I can fool them.”

  “Where’s the confidence you had the other night?”

  “A bit shaken, I suppose,” I confessed.

  He stepped close, and his eyes were deep with an admiration that left me breathless. “Then I shall have enough for the both of us. I know you can do this.”

  I looked down, feeling myself flush with embarrassed pleasure. “I shall trust in your judgment, then.”

  “I think you’ll find I’m right. And, Evelyn, remember that Jourdain’s goal is to discomfort you. If you let him succeed, we will have lost.”

  “Thank you, Benjamin. You’ve greatly reassured me.”

  “As I hoped.” He smiled. “I’ll see you at the circle, my dear.”

  I stepped outside. The late afternoon had slid to twilight in the time I’d spent with Benjamin. The lamplighters were making their rounds, their torches blazing, and I felt like any woman might who was leaving a prospective suitor.

  Then I saw Dorothy’s driver waiting in the street, hurrying toward me. Beyond him, there was a movement—another man mounting a horse—and I went cold at the sight of him. It was my watchman, sent to make certain I did not leave the city.

  I wasn’t just a simple woman leaving a suitor.

  I would never be that woman again.

  17

  __

  THE WOLF OR THE RABBIT

  AFTER FINDING PETER’S WATCH CHAIN

  It was two days later that Lambert appeared in the doorway of the dining room to announce, “The master asks that you join him in the library when you’ve finished your breakfast, ma’am. He would like to start your lessons.”

  I glanced up from my eggs and toast. “My lessons?”

  “At Mrs. Bennett’s request,” Lambert said.

  The breakfast I’d just eaten seemed to curdle in my stomach. I pushed aside my plate. “Thank you, Lambert,” I managed. The very last thing I wanted was to be alone with Michel, but I knew I had to play this charade out to the end. I tried to gather my composure, to tell myself this was the opportunity I needed to discover what Michel knew of my husband. I thought also of the spirit writing, and I was determined to find out how he had engineered it. Those convictions restored my courage. Still, my steps were slow as I made my way up the stairs to the third floor. I had not yet been inside the library in my time here, and now, as I looked upon the giant open double doors and the bookshelves laden with books within, it seemed absurd that I had not. My father’s passion had been books, and they had cluttered nearly every surface of our small house and cost enough that he was often sheepish about their purchase—especially on those nights when we could afford nothing for supper but bean soup and bread. I hadn’t realized Dorothy shared his affection for reading.

  The library ran the entire width of the house; on the opposite wall was a mullioned window as tall as a man and at least that wide overlooking the backyard, banked by a seat cushioned in a moss green velvet that matched the wallpaper gilded with fleurs-de-lis. At one end of the room was a fireplace framed in elaborately carved mahogany, flanked by two wingback chairs and a settee. At the other end was a desk—also mahogany, and near it stood a small round table that held a book too small to be a dictionary, but one that was obviously treasured, set as it was under glass.

  “Ah, there you are.”

  I turned to see Michel leaning around the edge of one of the wingback chairs before the fire. He said, “I trust you had a pleasant breakfast?”

  “Lambert said you wished to see me.”

  He rose, coming smoothly toward me. “I thought perhaps we could start developing you today. I’m quite at liberty, so you have me all to yourself.” He smiled intimately as he said it.

  I chose not to acknowledge the smile or the insinuation. “How shall we begin?”

  He motioned to the settee, near the fire. “Please. Take a seat.”

  I went to the settee, and Michel sat beside me. He leaned back against the arm of the settee, twisting to look at me, and I was uncomfortable at his half smile and the frankness of his gaze.

  I looked away, toward the fire. Don’t let him disconcert you. “Please. Could we proceed?”

  He straightened and his voice became businesslike. “To call the spirits requires a passive mind. Our first task will be to teach you how to cultivate it.”

  Warily, I said, “A passive mind? What does that mean?”

  “A term of art,” he explained. “A good medium is like an instrument that can be played by any hand.”

  How indecent he made the words sound. The images he conjured… I felt myself flush.

  He continued as if he hadn’t seen, which was odd—he’d never before missed an opportunity to needle me. “There’re many who believe strong-minded people don’t make good mediums. Too unwilling to be played, eh? Some feel only women and children have the skill.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Because their minds aren’t as developed. They’re easily influenced.”

  I felt a twinge of irritation. “Is that what you believe?”

  “How could I? I’m a medium—do I appear weak willed to you, Madame?”

  “I’m not sure I could say. Are you immoral, Mr. Jourdain? Or a sinner?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I was taught that immorality and sin were indications of a weak will.”

  He steepled his hands, pressing his fingers against his lips, as if to suppress the smile that teased them. “I’ve never felt a woman’s mind was inferior, but I may have to rethink that now—at least about yours. How easily influenced you must be to allow the church to lead your thinking.”

  Again, I was irritated. “What else can show us the path to righteousness?”

  “How about one’s own conscience?”

  “Not everyone follows his conscience. Not everyone would choose to be righteous.”

  “True, but I’d rather trust each man’s conscience than church dictates, eh? Especially when it isn’t God who gains by our obedience.”

  I scowled at him. “What do you mean?”

  “What was the rent you paid on your pew this year, Madame Atherton? Did you tithe?”

  “That money’s given to the poor and needy.”

  “Ah, oui. But who decides who’s poor and needy? I think it’d take an unusual reverend indeed not to find God’s will in his purchase of new velvet drapes when his old ones are out of fashion.”

  “How cynical you are.”r />
  He shook his head. “Non. It’s only that I don’t believe any man has the right to decide who deserves salvation and who doesn’t.”

  “Who else should do so?” I asked.

  “When a wolf kills a rabbit, don’t you think the rabbit believes the wolf is evil? Should the rabbit be allowed to decide the wolf must be condemned?”

  “A rabbit is an animal, not a man. A rabbit can’t reason, nor has it the faculties for higher thinking.”

  “Non, but would you agree it’s a natural creature, put on earth by God? Or that the wolf was only doing what it was meant to do when it killed the rabbit?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Would you question God’s wisdom in giving the wolf the things that make him a wolf? Sharp teeth? Claws? The sense of smell that tells him where the rabbit hides? Or do you think the wolf is evil, as the rabbit does?”

  “Evil? No. I would say the wolf is perfectly made to be a wolf—as God intends.”

  “So then you wouldn’t deny that each of us is perfectly made as well—to be what we are?”

  “I wouldn’t deny it, no,” I said. “God has made us what we are for a reason.”

  “Then why question God’s intentions by trying to diminish what we don’t like? Why not just accept that each man is here to do as he must? That we were each given certain gifts to take advantage of?”

  Intrigued despite myself, I said, “I don’t think God would consider immorality—or evil—a gift to be taken advantage of.”

  Michel leaned forward, his eyes mesmerizing in their intensity. “How would you know? How would any of us?”

  “The Bible tells us—”

  “The Bible was written by man to serve his own ends. The idea of immorality is an artificial construct. Like society. Like the church. We use such things to control one another, but what right have we to do so? Wasn’t your intelligence God given? Weren’t you meant to do something with it? Why then should I—or anyone else—have control of it or say you can’t use it because you’re a woman? It’s yours, isn’t it? To do with as you will. To be the wolf ”—he grinned—“or the rabbit.”

  I stared at him, speechless. His ideas were stirring, and I found myself leaning toward him, wanting to spin those ideas out, to search for the flaws I knew must exist in his logic.

  “Now then, shall we try?” he asked.

  I blinked. I had been so caught up in his words that I had forgotten entirely why I was there. “Try what?”

  “To cultivate a passive mind,” he said. “The idea’s simple enough. You must close your eyes and think of nothing. Don’t resist when you feel another consciousness enter yours.”

  Reluctantly, but obediently, I closed my eyes. “Do all lecturers and mediums begin this way?”

  “All the ones I’ve seen.”

  “What of spirit writers?”

  “The same. They allow the spirits to enter their mind, to guide their hand.”

  His voice was his greatest tool—smooth, seductive, changeable, it seemed to wind through me.

  “Are you a mesmerist, Mr. Jourdain?”

  “I know something of animal magnetism, oui. It’s what allows the spirits to come to us.”

  “Mr. Dudley said it was like electricity.”

  “Oui. Think of it as a fluid, eh? It moves through us and around us and animates the spirits as well. It informs the universe, both our world and the unseen one.”

  “Could such fluid be used to control another person, the way mesmerists do? To make them do spirit writing?”

  “What would be the point?”

  I opened my eyes and looked directly at him. “That’s what I’d like to know. What would be the point?”

  His gaze was considering, and I forced myself to hold it, determined not to be the first to look away.

  But neither was he. He said, “Imagine you come upon a house painted brown. What color would you say the house was?”

  “Why brown, of course.”

  “But what if I came upon it from the other side, and found it to be white?”

  “That would be absurd. Who would paint a house two colors?”

  He ignored my question. “You say it’s brown, and I say it’s white. Who’s right?”

  “We’re both right.”

  “Non,” he said. “We’re both wrong. The house isn’t brown or white. It’s both. You and I only see one side. But that doesn’t mean the other side doesn’t exist. To not see the whole is to not see the truth.”

  “And what is the whole in your spiritualism, Mr. Jourdain? Invisible levers? Silver paint? Stagecraft?”

  He smiled. “It seems all spirits need theatrics, eh? Even Christ himself requires incense and holy water. We’re a skeptical people. We need convincing.”

  “What if I said you’ve simply found a clever way to explain what’s nothing more than trickery?”

  He shrugged elegantly. “All of life’s a trick. Nothing can be believed.”

  “Some things can be. What one sees with one’s own eyes—”

  “Sight is one of the most easily deceived senses. I could make a coin disappear and your eyes would believe it gone, even if it were merely up my sleeve.”

  “You’re speaking of illusion, Mr. Jourdain, but not everything is that. Most of the time life is exactly what we see before us.”

  Michel laughed. “Is that so? Like the brown house you come upon?”

  “In the absence of any other information, I would have to believe what I saw.”

  “Even if it weren’t the truth? If we believe only what we see—”

  “—we’ll never know that the house is brown and white,” I finished. “And I would say we can never know the whole truth, and perhaps we aren’t meant to. This is the world we must live in, whether it’s an illusion or no. To make our peace with partial truths is the only possibility for happiness.”

  He looked surprised, and I could not help but smile. Our conversation reminded me of the many I’d had with my father, the twists, the rapid turns. How often had we sat before the fire, debating philosophy and literature for hours, so caught in the words that whole pots of tea disappeared without our being aware we’d drunk it?

  In that moment, my mind felt cleaner and brighter than it had since my father had died. Those times with him had been the best of my life, and I had not expected to find their echo here, in this library, with this man.

  I looked at Michel in astonishment, and he smiled, and I realized what this was, what he had meant to do.

  He had known what I most wanted—a listening ear, a balm for loneliness, a mental challenge—and he had fulfilled it. He was manipulating me, and I had let him.

  I rose quickly, angry and humiliated at the disappointment I felt. “I think that’s enough for today, Mr. Jourdain.”

  He rose as well. “As you wish, Madame.”

  “I’M SO EXCITED!” Sarah said as she came inside the next evening, her eyes sparkling. She took both my hands in her gloved ones. “I’ve never helped develop anyone before.”

  “I’ve done some reading on it since we last met,” Dudley announced. He unwound the scarf from his neck and took off his top hat, handing them both to a waiting Lambert. “The Spiritual Telegraph, you know, has been most helpful. And I spoke to Mrs. Hardinge. In her time at the Conference, she’s helped develop several new mediums. Thankfully, we have a stable company from which to embark. Mrs. Hardinge says it requires careful preparation under a skilled and benevolent eye.”

  “We’ve Michel for that,” his wife said.

  Dudley looked at me. “One must discipline the mind to harness the spirits without enslaving them—or allowing oneself to be enslaved.”

  I nodded sympathetically, but I was perspiring, and it had nothing to do with the warmth of the rooms. I cast a glance at Benjamin. He had come in only moments before the others, and there had been no time for anything more than his hasty and whispered “You can do this, Evelyn.”

  When Wilson Maull and Jacob Colville
arrived, we adjourned to the upstairs parlor where Dorothy waited—already seated at the table. Again, they passed around the liqueur, but this time I drank none. I was too suspicious of it now.

  “You look lovely, my dear,” Ben said, drawing near. He touched my shoulder reassuringly and said in a low voice, “Remember what I told you: the key is in listening.”

  “Yes, ” I said, then leaned close to his ear to say, “I had a ‘lesson’ with Michel yesterday.”

  His eyes flared in interest. “Oh? And how was it?”

  “He’s very good.”

  “Yes, he is,” he agreed. “But you aren’t fooled by him. And you’ve a weapon he knows nothing of.”

  “A weapon?”

  “Me.” He smiled. “I am on your side, remember. Your confederate.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  “Just hold to your purpose. Dorothy’s the one you must impress.”

  I felt better at his words and the warmth in his eyes, but then Dorothy called me, and when I went over to her, she took my arm, pulling me down to hear. “Michel said your lesson went well, child. You’re a good girl. You let him lead you.”

  She looked across the room to him, and despite myself I followed her gaze and saw Michel was watching us. His expression was closely veiled, and my nervousness returned as Dorothy called for us to begin, and everyone made their way to the table. I sat in my accustomed place beside him.

  Michel took my hand. “You look pale.”

  I swallowed—agitated already—and looked away. “Shall we begin?”

  Robert Dudley took my other hand. The lights were lowered.

  Michel said, “Tonight we’ll attempt to see if the spirits truly do speak through Madame Atherton, and to that end, Madame, you must empty your mind.”

  “A passive mind, remember, Evelyn,” Dudley said.

  “Just so,” Michel agreed. “I’ll call them. When they’ve arrived, Madame might take over.”

  I looked to Benjamin. His gaze was intent, reassuring.

  I closed my eyes and the prayers began, the singing, the invocations. Michel finally spoke to call the spirits. His hand opened slightly; the tips of his fingers caressed mine.