The Dark

by Claire Mulligan

  “Won’t this be a smacking surprise?” Lemira whispers to Maggie.

  “Well, yes, I’d say so,” Maggie whispers back, and gathers her defiance, squelches her fear. Fear of what? She is near grown, can make her own decisions. Hasn’t Lemira said so? Hasn’t Lemira said women are as capable as some men?

  “Dear people,” Leah calls out, from where she holds court on the settee. “Before the spirits come forth I would like my dear associate Calvin Brown to read the latest edition of our learned Mr. Gray’s illustrious newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer.”

  Maggie shifts for a better view of Calvin as he stands and clears his throat and holds up the newspaper. Reads:

  “A source employed at the hotel where the Messr Burrs are residing has told us that Burr and his brother use copious poultices and salt baths for their swollen, bloodied toes, and that they oft speak with bewilderment over how the Fox sisters could make loud raps and knocks so continuously and with no apparent effort. This is of no surprise to we who have witnessed the skirmishing between Mr. Burr and the gracious Mrs. Fish, the eldest of the spirit rapping trio, for notwithstanding the burlesques of the Burrs, and the scoffs of the prejudiced and ignorant of our town against the Fox sisters’ rappings, the spirit cause is gaining ground on every side. One month ago, there were not fifty believers in the city; now there are hundreds, including some of the best minds.”

  Calvin finishes reading to claps, faint cheers. Only now does Leah begin her séance, shutting her eyes and tap-tapping her fingers, as if to heavenly music. The drapes are drawn, the lamps and candles doused.

  Rap. Knock. The sounds are faint. Even pitiful. Leah’s cheek twitches. She grimaces. Maggie grimaces herself, albeit inwardly. Fortunately no one else in the murky room has Maggie’s high standards for knocks. Instead the callers listen with awed concentration while Calvin works the alphabet board. Seems the spirit holding forth is Benjamin Franklin, that old standby.

  Calvin calls out the letters and words. As he does, a man dressed all in black, like some ambulant obelisk, copies them onto a slate.

  “Did you get that, Mr. Gray?” Calvin asks.

  “I have, blessed be the spirits,” Mr. Gray replies, then reads from the slate: “Ruth. Lies. Led by Burr.”

  “By Spirit Land!” Leah cries. “Does Mr. Franklin have more to say?”

  The taps laboriously spell out: Burr. Fraud. Court. Sander.

  “Sander? Who is—” Leah asks.

  “Perhaps Mr. Franklin meant ‘slander’?” Calvin suggests, and pats his mouth with a handkerchief. “As in, he is slandering Leah and should pay for it.”

  Katie pinches Maggie’s wrist. Maggie stifles her giggle. They are both excellent nowadays at stifling and so the giggle is the barest sound, alike the rustle of a crinoline.

  Leah’s head swivels. “Girls? Margaretta? Katherina? Is that you, dear children?”

  Lemira ushers them forth. Someone draws the drapes and the afternoon spills into the room. The sitters make a commotion.

  “Here are the famous little girls themselves!”

  “Now the spiritual battery will be boosted.”

  “Greetings, sweet girls.”

  Sweet girls? Little girls? Katie, though close on fifteen, might still be called a girl. But Maggie? She is nearly eighteen. Beaus will soon be dropping at her feet like so many apples. In fact, she and Katie talk of little else but beaus these days.

  “And you, Lemira, what a pleasant surprise,” Leah declares, though it is not surprise at all that registers in her voice. “And where is my dearest mother?”

  Lemira says, “Mrs. Fox was utterly exhausted after her sojourn at the Greeleys’ and so we, that is Amy and Isaac and I, thought it the very best if she rested in Rochester for a time, and that I accompany the girls instead.”

  “You thought? My spirits, how considerate of you all.”

  Once the sitters have left, Leah, in a sparking fury, paces round and round. A card holder catches her sleeve and tumbles to the rug. Calvin gathers up the calling cards. Offers a nervous smile that Leah ignores. Maggie holds tight to Katie’s hand. Maria and little Charlie hasten out with the sitters. Calvin now excuses himself, claiming exhaustion. And Lemira? She nods and nods as if Leah is being entirely reasonable and not shouting:.

  “Bringing the girls to Cincinnati, Lemira? You alone? Honest to … I cannot believe that you would do this, a friend. Are you not a friend?”

  “I am. I am a most excellent friend, Leah. That’s not the point—”

  “It is the point. It is! I am betrayed.” Leah stands in front of Maggie and Katie. “By you, Margaretta, but mostly by you, Katherina.”

  “I didn’t tell old Ruth. I didn’t! I’d remember!” Katie shouts. “How many times have I got to say that?”

  Leah wrings her hands at Maggie and Katie—not pathetically, Maggie notes, but as if to hold back from swatting them both.

  “I shall telegraph Mother.” Leah declares. “Yes. I shall. You two left without her permission and with this, this woman!”

  “Lemira,” Lemira reminds her.

  Leah scowls at Katie and Maggie. “Mother shall come and put you to rights.”

  “Ma will?” Maggie asks.

  Leah takes several deep breaths, then forces out a smile. “Oh, you two do these things and then throw it all on my shoulders. Come now, this woman cannot ‘manage’ the two of you. Not in any sense of the word. She does not know you as I do.”

  Maggie looks over at Katie. The understanding floats between them that perhaps this was not such a swell idea after all. Lemira called on them in Rochester shortly after they arrived there from the Greeleys’. She offered to be their new manager and explained how she had easily gleaned that the spirits often needed a helping hand or two; that they could not always manifest on their own. “But why should clients be disappointed because of that?”

  Why indeed? Maggie thought. And why argue with Lemira? She is woman known for piety, devotion, honesty. Is a determined abolitionist and suffragette, just like their beloved Amy Post. And Lemira has none of Leah’s temper. She has even promised that the money will be more equitably divided. Promised them the freedom to attend dances and parties, drink champagne for breakfast if they like, a habit that Leah has been quick to criticize. “And not to worry,” Lemira said. “I’ll wholly convince your sister.”

  But she hasn’t. Not yet. The two of them, Leah and Lemira, have been at it hammer and tongs for a good half-hour now. They ignore the girls. What in tunket do they take us for? Maggie wonders, as she and Katie perch on the settee. Part of the upholstery pattern? Pretty, flat-drawn flowers for everyone to sit upon? Good grieving Christ, but she could use a refreshment. The only thing about, however, is a mug of leftover brandied coffee. It is tepid, but better than nothing. She and Katie pass it silently between them.

  A few moments later Leah stands over them, Lemira close behind. “Lemira and I have agreed to hear your opinions in this matter.”

  “Our opinions?” Maggie and Katie query in unison.

  “Yes. Lemira says that you are eager to tour Cincinnati with her. She says that you have no compunctions about leaving me as the solo force against our greatest, most diabolical enemy, that addle-wit Chauncey Burr.”

  “I didn’t say that, I—” Lemira begins.

  “You are both welcome to go with her, of course. I have no other claim on you except sisterly love and devoted affection. And in all truth, Cincinnati will be a great triumph. It is already chock with followers and boasts more mediums of its own than any other city. They will welcome the famous Fox sisters—well, the two of them.” Leah looks now to Maggie. “But recall that where many believers reside, an equal number of enemies also reside, those who would like to see us tarred and feathered, or trussed up like a Yuletide goose for slow roasting. And Cincinnati is poorly stocked with police and famous for its mobs. And Margaretta, you know you cannot abide a mob, not after I rescued you from that business in Troy.”

  Maggie
sips the brandied coffee that is really quite cold, really quite awful.

  “I am sorry, Margaretta,” Leah continues. “My spirits, I am. I should not have mentioned a mob. It is just that bad luck follows us when we are discordant. Have you not noted this?”

  Eventually it is decided. Katie, who is the most accustomed to giving spirit sittings on her own, will go with Lemira to Cincinnati. Maria and Charlie will accompany them. Maggie will remain in Cleveland with Calvin and Leah, who, as Maggie discovers over the following week, is more interested in consultations with the lawyer Joel Tiffany than in consultations with any ghost.

  “What do you say, Margaretta,” Leah asks one sunny afternoon. “Does ten thousand dollars sound a sufficient amount to demand as compensation for Burr’s disgraceful attacks upon our honour? That is the amount dear Joel has suggested.”

  Maggie nearly spits out her claret. “Sufficient? Leah, that’s a staggering lot. A fortune. How can you even conjure up that much?”

  “In a snap.”

  “Or, or, well, spend it?”

  Leah now gives her rare, genuine laugh. “That shall be even easier, I need not consult anyone or anything on that score.”

  Maggie is mulling over the possibility that, yes, she, too, might easily spend that money on clothes, shoes and lace, when the telegram arrives from Cincinnati. Her hopes for riches are quickly forgotten. Little Charlie has fallen deathly ill.

  At this news, Leah takes to her bed. Maggie finds her muttering and groaning, Calvin hovering near.

  “Fetch cold water, Cal, a cloth,” Maggie orders. She pats Leah’s shoulder. “Poor sis. You were right. Bad luck happens when we’re at odds. I’m sorry.”

  Leah’s eyes spring open. “Charlie must return here. The spirits have said so.”

  “Leah, it’s me, Maggie. Margaretta.”

  “The spirits cannot be ignored.”

  “But that’d be perilous. He can’t travel when he’s grevious sick. It’s not—”

  Leah throws off the bedclothes and stands. “Only I can save him.”

  Katie, Lemira and Maria rush Charlie back from Cincinnati as Leah orders. Leah bundles Charlie into bed, sends for Cleveland’s finest doctors. “Death is imminent,” these doctors pronounce. Maggie watches aghast as placid, pious Maria tears her hair and screams, “Not again! No! God’s got my Ella. Damn him. Ain’t He satisfied? Leah, don’t you let this happen.”

  Let? Maggie thinks, as Leah vows again that she will save little Charlie. She plies the boy with some willow bark concoction sent by Isaac, refuses to allow even the forlorn hope of bloodletting and hot-cupping. “Benjamin Franklin advises against such antiquated means,” Leah tells Maria. “He considers them poppycock. Mortals require their life fluids. It is something he has discovered in the other realm. Do you not agree, Margaretta? Katherina?”

  Maggie dumbly nods, as does Katie.

  Days pass and Charlie, to everyone’s astonishment, recovers and becomes his hale little self again.

  Leah refuses credit. She tells her family that it was only the spirits working through her. “I am a woman of modest background and little educated. I do not have tremendous intelligence. But the spirits have granted me tremendous gifts, and I promise I shall use these gifts only for the greater good.”

  What a peculiar thing to say to her intimates, Maggie thinks. It’s as if we’re just another audience, as if we don’t know her at all.

  “CHARLIE LIVED, THEN?” I asked.

  “Indeed, yes. He lives even yet, though far out West.”

  “I am amazed. And gladdened,” I said, and in some surprise. For I was glad and amazed, and delighted, to boot. For not long past I had only known jealousy at stories of children who survive terrible odds. Not jealousy, perhaps. No. But resentment, I suppose. Why should theirs survive and not mine?

  “I am, yes, very glad,” I repeated, but my patient had eased to sleep.

  I knitted on for a time. Presently, there came a thud—soft but definite. I suspended my knitting (my patient was still sleeping fast) and rose and looked about until I saw the tiny, cinder-coloured creature on the ledge outside the centre window. The bird was stunned and looked astonished, too, that he could not merely fly on through empty space. That window was the centre fixed one, as I have said, and so I tapped the panes hoping he would rouse himself before a hawk swooped down.

  I thought then of my son. When he was five he found a hatchling in the switchgrass. The hatchling was of hideous aspect, bulge-eyed and skinned-looking, as they ever are, and yet my son lifted it up and warmed it by the stove and fed it crushed worms and prayed for its recovery and loved it, in all, as if it were a thing of beauty. When the bird vanished, Mr. Mellon boasted he had eaten it. He made ogre faces and laughed until I threw his supper in his face. A beef dodger, if I recall.

  I tapped at the window again. At last the bird shuffled off the ledge and dropped away. I turned at a rustling and saw that my patient was quite awake.

  “I’m sorry if I woke you, duck.”

  “The hawks are worrisome,” she said, as if I had spoken my thoughts.

  “The midnight sun came out over the northern crest of the great berg, kindling varioulsy coloured fires on every part of its surface, and making the ice around us one great resplendency of gemwork, blazing carbuncles, and rubes ad molten gold … In this we beat backward and forward, like China fish seeking an outlet from a glass jar, till the fog caught us again; and so the day ended.”

  Elisha Kent Kane,

  ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS IN SEARCH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN

  “A brawl between rival crews that began at the basin and spilled into the Four Corners in 1829 was certainly seen if not heard by the citizens of South Fitzburgh. So were the transgressions of one Erastus Bearcup, a steersman arrested for shouting obscenities at ladies on a passing boat.”

  Paul E. Johnson,

  A SHOPKEEPER’S MILLENNIUM:

  SOCIETY AND REVIVALS IN ROCHESTER,

  NEW YORK, 1825-1837

  CHAPTER 20.

  “Why-ever so disgruntled, Mrs. Mellon?” my patient asked the instant I arrived this day.

  I did not think my moods were so well-writ on my countenance, and told her this fact.

  “They are. Now, where-ever have you been?”

  “Why do you ask? Am I a dawdler? A laggard? A johnny-come-lately?”

  She replied no, I was as punctual as ever (a queer thing to say considering she had no timepiece). “But your hem, Mrs. Mellon, it’s sopped with wet, and you have a tired gait, thus you must have been walking longer than usual, and you look, as I said, disgruntled, as one does when an errand is thwarted or goes awry.”

  I reminded myself to compose my features better before arrival. “I’m not disgruntled. I’m rag and bone tired. I have trooped up and up these tenement stairs twenty-odd times now. And I am amazed, to be frank, that I have not yet keeled over from exhaustion. And if you must know, I’ve been to the Spiritualist Society.”

  “The Spiritualist Society? Why in tunket did you do that, you busy-bird? I asked you not to. I did!” She thumped her fists as she was wont to do when in a temper.

  “Oh, don’t get all-afret, they refused to lend any help. Not a name. Not a nickel for your funeral, not even advice on the rites of you Spiritualist sorts.” I should add that I usually abide closely by my patients’ requests, but her tellings had given me a scattered sense, an uncertainty even, of the specifics of my duty. And then I could not get that sorry bird of yesterday out of my head. Indeed I had slept not a jot from hearing over and over (in my imaginings) the soft thud as the little creature hit the window, and from visioning the benumbed and helpless fashion the bird hunched on the ledge over vasty space.

  She looked over, her expression rueful, even contrite. “I’m not terribly surprised they refused to help, given all my confessions and accusations and all my tell-alls. And then, of course, there was the recanting, which confused all and sundry even further. And so, what did the Society’s gatekee
pers have to say of me?”

  I busied myself with portioning her medicine. “This, that and the other.”

  “Come now, I am past concerns, tell me ‘the other,’ at the least.”

  I banged down her medicine bottle. “Ah, so now you want to hear from me, the busy-bird?”

  “Yes, and I apologize, I do, for calling you that.”

  “Then, then, if you must know, they said that you lie. They warned me not to believe a syllable you utter. A beet-faced man, he called you a sot and said you would do anything for a drop of laudanum. What gentleman would say such a thing? Then this woman, oh, she was homely as a stone fence, she sneered that you were vengeful and that ‘dear’ Leah had only been trying to help her wretched sisters. And this woman, she insisted, too, that your marriage to Dr. Kane was ever in question and that you only wanted to wallow in his grand fame and be celebrated alike to him.”

  “Damn-it-all, my marriage to Elisha was true and legal. We were—”

  “And I said it was a nonsense religion, your Spiritualism. All-up superstition. One may as well believe in fairies or hobgoblins.”

  “I see and—”

  “And then I said good-day cool as an icebox, and told them that Mrs. Elisha Kent Kane and I would manage cracking-fine on our own.”

  My patient looked past me to the garret vestibule, at the Edison bulb crackling there. “Elisha,” she said, as if the man himself had strolled in, and at an expected hour.

  From Mrs. Leah Fox Fish

  78th West 26th, New York

  To Miss Margaretta Fox