The Dark

by Claire Mulligan

  “An easy utterance, dear, but can thou fathom how ill-paid seamstresses are? How as like they go blind for our vanity?” She indicates the shirring and embroidery on Katie’s sleeve.

  Our vanity? Leah doubts that Amy, being plain as a hobnail, has ever been afflicted with vanity. Would I have been better off plain? Leah wonders. Is plainness one of those blessings in disguise? It is a consideration. For if one has never possessed beauty, how can one mourn its loss? Perhaps Pettifew should arrive, like that malignant fairy in the old story, the uninvited one who cursed the castle and sent all into the deepest slumber for a century. Leah would not mind being stilled in her autumn beauty, at this promising moment of security, even happiness. Oh, she knows “Her Fatness” is Maggie’s and Katie’s latest nickname for her. Likely they have snickered that her well-embellished gown would better suit a younger woman. But Leah’s attractions are still considerable. Has not Daniel insisted so? Has not he insisted he was smitten the instant he beheld her on her knees, her wounded hands held up, there in the Simeons’ rain-wet garden, the earth tendrilling smoke, her expression beseeching yet bold. She reminded him of some heroine, he said, possibly a Greek one.

  Amy takes her leave from Maggie and Katie. Likely she feels as Leah often does in their company—as if toe-clutching the edge of a precipice.

  “Pa’s playing scout, Mag,” Katie says, as their father hoves by with a tray. He hawk-eyes the three of them. The tumblers in Maggie’s and Katie’s hands vanish. Once their father shifts off the tumblers reappear, as if the girls have plucked them from the ether.

  “Girls,” Leah says. “You should respect our father.”

  Maggie says, “Oh, the good grief, Leah, he treats us like we’re children still. As you do. I mean, we’re hardly ‘girls.’ ” She looks archly at the pink roseates on Leah’s hem, then drifts off with Katie in tow, both all-agiggle.

  So they are still gigglers, Leah thinks. Not something I have ever been.

  “Come, dovey,” Daniel says. “We must arrange ourselves for the ceremony.”

  He helps Leah to rise, escorts her past several of his relations—relations who listen with satisfying attention to George Willets: “… and it was a bible box, pretty carved with lilies of the valley, but otherwise simple as they come. We packed it with earth then bid our Leah plunge in her hands. After she withdrew them we found granules of phosphorous, burning hot. Just as Leah predicted. Don’t the spirits act in the most mysterious ways?”

  The spirits surely do, on this the relations agree. Daniel squeezes Leah’s elbow. He, too, witnessed Leah’s “proving” ceremony. Witnessed Leah’s honesty with his own eyes.

  They continue their way through their guests. Maggie, to Leah’s dismay, is berating Horace Greeley: “And why should I give Elisha’s love letters to his conniving brother? Why, Horace? Why? Do you reckon I’ll publish them? It’s not your business anywise. Why in tunket do you meddle so? I saw your letter to Thomas. You wrote he may direct you in the matter of Maggie Fox as he sees fit.”

  “Saw it?” Horace cried. “You more than saw it. You scrawled all over it. My private papers. Like a child of three might do. I’ve been gracious in allowing you to stay at my home and—”

  “Stop this!” Mary Greeley cries. “It distresses little Gabrielle. Our little baby Mumpkee.” She nuzzles the baby’s cheek. The baby, a toddler really, yanks Mary’s hair and chortles. Thin-faced Ida Greeley looks on with childish jealousy. Leah guesses she is, what? Ten? Katherina, Leah realizes with a shock, was not much older when the spirits first arrived.

  Now there is singing and announcements. Now the bride and bridegroom take their places before the flower-decked window and the black-garbed minister. After the ceremony, which everyone agrees was short and charming, the company seat themselves in the dining room for a feast. Men servants brings in separate arranged plates of duck comfit and fiddleheads, the portions exactly the same for each guest. No more platters on sideboards as country folk might do. Champagne bottles pop. The talk grows louder, almost masks the rap at the door. Leah stiffens in her corset. Strains to hear Susie-the-maid’s muffled talk. She is about to excuse herself when Susie brings in a blue-wrapped parcel. Leah takes the proffered card, reads: Greatest Felicitations on your joyful day. I look forward to our continuing friendship and association. For your wedding, I’m gifting you a copy of the Blue Book. Come by and add to the original anytime at your convenience. Yours truly best, Mr. L. Pettifew.

  “Leave the package there in my sight, Susie,” Leah whispers, and indicates the sideboard.

  Daniel is about to make an announcement, when the new Mrs. Underhill puts her hand on his arm. He sits with a genial nod. Leah stands and thanks the assembled for their presence.

  “Some have said that I must continue to be the guiding light of Spiritualism, that I and my sisters have been gifted by God and that it is our duty. However, I also now have a duty to my beloved husband, and it is my foremost duty.”

  She glances at her sisters, who seem to be counting the fork tines, at her father who is watching her. Glances, lastly, at the blue-wrapped package on the sideboard. She clears her throat. “Dear people, I shall hold no more public séances. My career as a medium is finished.”

  There are exclamations of surprise, even from Daniel. It is not really surprising to Leah, though it came to her mind just then. She rarely surprises herself anymore, though she used to, heaven knows. As do the spirits.

  CHAPTER 35.

  I tripped outside the garret vestibule and fell down square on the squalid floor. I should dust and clean, I thought as the vestibule’s damned Edison bulb waned. The landlord, I realized, must have promptly replaced the bulb I broke during my first lapse. My, what alacrity. What dutiful attention. But really—does he assume we can no longer find our way without such contrived light? Does he think us childish in our fears? Craven in our souls?

  I rose to my feet with the assist of the wall, then patted the side pocket of my satchel where August’s letter was safely tucked. I took the letter out, even though I knew it off by heart.

  Dearest Mother,

  I hope this letter reaches you in good health. I have a haversack and forage cap and dandy blue jacket with buttons of brass. We’ve been drilling every day and I can now stick a bayonet and load a rifled gun in a clap. When I talked to you of joining you recalled to me that I could never even stick a pig nor break a hen’s neck, but I suspect I only balked because they were innocent creatures. Now I can’t help but wonder if the Rebs have a portion of innocence, too, and mayhap there’s a better way to convince them of slavery’s evils than the cannon and the gun. I allow I’m amazed how there’s so many who joined up for the excitement and the four squares and not from any loathing of injustice and cruelty. And I admit I’m afraid of killing a man. Do you believe it’s true that compassion takes the greatest courage? If so, I’ll need all the courage I ever had. I must go now. We’re set to march. We join with the Rebs at Bull Run tomorrow.

  Your loving son, August

  I gathered myself and went in to do my duty.

  “You look as if you’ve lost something,” Maggie Kane said, to which I had no reply.

  WINTER OF’62 AND MAGGIE STOMPS up the stairs of her Barclay Street let. She kicks the risers, loosening the snow on her overshoes and shawl. She rubs her bare hands warm. What! Lost your mittens, you naughty kittens? Then you shall have no … pie was it? Not wine, surely.

  Maggie moved to this let from the Greeleys’ town-home just after Leah’s wedding. She had no choise, given her rift with Horace over her court case against the Kanes. Given Mother’s fretting over any refreshment Maggie takes. And this let is reasonably close to St. Anne’s church, where Maggie often goes to confess to Father Quinn; and reasonably distant from the resplendent home on 37th that Leah and Daniel moved to after their marriage, and where Mrs. Leah Fox Fish Brown Underhill now holds court.

  Maggie attains the upper landing, then halts. Her door is ajar. She must have neglected
to lock it, leaving as she did in such a frantic rush.

  She slides inside, feels the wall for the stop-cock, then flips the toggle for the gas light. The wall sconce flares blue, then burns steady. The science of such instantaneous light never fails to amaze her. “Magic,” she murmurs, “why it just pales in comparison.” She tosses her shawl on a horsehair chair. Her let is crammed with disparate furniture in nubby upholstery, the worn rugs strewn with calling cards and hairpins and newspapers. The War of Secession is, of course, the only news of note.

  She hurries to the bedroom, intent on viewing her shrine to Elisha. The shrine takes up the north wall and is the only tidy area in the let. Six years since Elisha’s death and his white gifts—the Honiton-lace undersleeves, the white handkerchief he gave her in Washington, the white fox stole—are yellowing, but Elisha is exact as he was, glassed into his frame.

  Maggie halts in the doorway. A cloaked thief pokes at the Tiffany bracelet.

  “Leave that!” Maggie screams.

  The figure whirls, drops its cloak hood.

  “Christ-in-all, Kat!”

  “Sorry, sorry, the door was open and I—”

  “I thought you were a thief after Elisha’s love letters and sent by damn Tom Kane. Well, I’ve hidden them. He won’t never find them. What are you doing here, anywise?”

  Katie takes Maggie’s arm. Steers her back into the front room. “I was giving a sitting at Mr. Livermore’s and I saw the storm coming on. I was really worried. You nearly froze to death the last time.”

  “I was … down the hall. There’s a woman whose baby died.”

  “There always is.” Katie sighs. “Leastaways they’re easy to roust up. Babies don’t have much to say, seeing as they didn’t talk much in life.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “I’m glad you weren’t out in the storm, then, Mag. I don’t know why you think you’ll spy Lish when there’s a storm raging. I’ve never seen a spirit out in ugly weather. They like nice warm parlours.”

  “And how is the nice warm parlour of your Mr. Livermore?” Maggie asks, changing the subject. “Or should I say your Charles?”

  “Handsome and gladsome and rich as ever,” Katie replies. Katie’s reputation is such that she no longer has to offer sittings for the general public. Instead she lives comfortably thanks to a few select clients. And Charles Livermore is one of these. His wife, the lovely Estelle, died in 1860. Two years on, and Maggie would bet that Katie has raised Estelle perhaps a hundred times.

  Katie pours them both a claret. “The trouble with Charles is that he’s always wanting more and more again.”

  “More will always be required,” Maggie says. This being something she realized a long, long time back.

  “That’s the thing. More and more for Mr. Livermore. He’s tired of the simple old rappings, and even of mirror writing and trancing talk and sparking lights. Hell, I even manifested up a glimpse of Estelle’s face in a luminous orb. But, no, he wants her full form to materialize. I warned him that’s unlikely. They’re not called the Invisibles for nothing, I said.”

  “That’s what Leah always says.”

  “So she does. Here’s to that.” Katie raises her glass.

  “And here’s to Her Fatness. And so, are you going to give it to him? The full-form?”

  Katie bites her palm, an odd habit she has taken up of late. “I’d like to. I think it can be done. I just have to write to Pettifew. He’ll send advice and all the magic tools.”

  “Have you ever met him? Pettifew? You know, in-the-flesh met him?”

  “What’s that? No. I’d have told you. But he does send me round the Blue Book from time to time. Handy item that … Did she know it, I wonder?”

  “Who?”

  “Estelle.”

  “About the Blue Book?”

  “No, silly. How fortunate she was to be loved so much after death and forever. Not that … oh, give me another.”

  Maggie pours Katie’s glass full. They discuss love, or rather other people’s experiences of it: Leah and Daniel with their separate sleeping chambers, their chummy habits.. Amy and Isaac with their shared love of good causes, their austere affection. Their own parents, who have become embarrassingly intimate.

  Poor Kat, Maggie thinks now. Her sister often wants to talk about love these days, but though she is still slender and lovely and still possessed, of course, of those curious eyes—heavy lidded, violet-grey—her clients only ever look upon her as a device, nothing more.

  Katie is talking now about her other select clients: Dr. George Taylor and his wife, Sarah. Katie raises their two dead children, Leila and Frankie, nearly every week. In return Katie makes use not only of their grand house, but also of Dr. Taylor’s Swedish Movement Cure Hospital. He specializes in the female complaints, this Dr. Taylor. His hospital boasts hydrotherapy baths, a back massager and a former wrestler who can realign bones. It is the pelvic table Katie likes best, however.

  “He calls it the ‘vibratory cure.’ You’ve got to try it, Mag. You lie face down, and then there’s this steam-powered sphere and then … Anywise, afterwards you feel like a straw doll. It’s even better, maybe, than a rum flip. I mean, for a time.”

  “They don’t want my acquaintance, you know that. Not the Taylors. Not your Charles Livermore. They think I’m a terrible influence on you. And I don’t want to meet them. Why would I? Christ-in-all, they treat you like a house pet.”

  Katie shrugs, and peers out the window. “The storm is abating.”

  Maggie looks over Katie’s shoulder. Barclay Street is sheathed in white. The wrought-iron fences turned to lace. The single gas lamp jaunty-capped. The pedestrians who push through the snow are mostly women but for an old man or two, a few boys. The young men are piling up in fields, their last words unheard, their graves often unmarked. Maggie could be busy at sittings every hour of every day. But a promise is a promise is a promise, Maggie reminds herself. And she promised Elisha she would relinquish her rapping career. Thus Maggie lives on the pitiful annuity Elisha’s brother Thomas Kane has finally granted her, as well as on money that Katie surreptitiously leaves behind when she visits. And though Leah also attempts to give Maggie money from time to time, Maggie always refuses, seeing the marionette strings behind Leah’s every offer.

  Maggie opens another bottle and she and Katie pass it back and forth in companionable silence. By the advanced hours of the night, they are singing and dancing, are tipping tables, lamps, are speaking in that garbled nonsense language they invented ages ago to perplex their mother.

  Maggie drops in a chair. She admits that she lied. She was not out consoling some neighbour lady about her dead babe when Katie arrived. No. She had, indeed, been roaming the New York streets, calling for Elisha, just as Katie feared. “Where else would he be found, Kat, but in such Arctic weather, in a such an adventurously, icy storm?”

  Katie chants, “And did you find him? Or something akin?”

  “Nope. No. Nothing.” Although Maggie had seen something “akin”—a small, ageless man with a limping gait. He wore a tophat and swank Chesterfield coat. Still, Maggie knew him. Would have known him anywhere—the peddler, surely, come to make good his curse. She glimpsed a manicured beard over a twisted mouth before the snowy night obscured him.

  Katie rummages up yet another bottle, and presently Maggie and Katie are giggling as if they are children again and afraid of nothing in each others’ company.

  CHAPTER 36.

  “I’m off,” I said, and shoved my knitting, the vestiges of lunch, the clanking bottles, all of it, into my satchel.

  “Where-ever to, Alvah?” Maggie Kane asked, all concerned.

  “I have a duty towards my other patients, if you must know. Are there no other dying ones in all creation? Are you the only person who is giving up the ghost?”

  “Some days it seems so.”

  I needed more to drink, I admit, what with this talk of apparitions, of the war. And yet even as I walked out of the garret I thoug
ht of the defeat at Bull Run, the moment I heard of it, the moment I knocked Mr. Mellon flat with the cook pan for withholding August’s letter.

  As an impediment, Mr. Mellon was of no consequence. The quartermaster was a different matter. He thought me a looter. (I was as bedraggled as one by then.) Mass graves had been dug, but with a combined dead of near a thousand, well, it wasn’t a sight one would soon forget. God sees even the fall of a sparrow, as I’ve said, but not, apparently, the fall of a thousand boys in a green field. It was hot, too, the late July heat of Virginia.

  “Leave off here,” the quartermaster ordered.

  I told him my story and he shrugged and suggested I search for my August in Washington, which was where the wounded had all been carted. “And a good thousand had been taken prisoner, ma’am. You could be searching till doomsday, not to discourage you.”

  No amount of hand wringing and begging would convince him to let me look among the battlefield. So I returned at dawn and scuttled past the sentries. Light edged the world and silhouetted the unburied, their stiffening arms reaching up. I searched, too, all the hospitals near to Washington and far. I set out notices on storefronts, in newspapers (there were thousands of similar notices). My sole hope was that August had been taken prisoner and that he would survive the war in one of the horrid Confederate jails. The only thing I could do, then, was to wait for the war to end, wait for him to return, which of course he never did.

  “Stay, Alvah. Please,” Maggie said, for I stood transfixed in the vestibule still. She shook her laudanum bottle. “Share this with me.”

  MAGGIE PEERS UNDER HER SOFA. She smiles in relief. A half-full bottle lolls there. The frigid winter of’62 has melted into the sweatshop summer of’63 and the air in Maggie’s latest let is so moribund, the sitting room so small, that she might as well be stuffed in a bottle herself. There is no separate bedroom. No true kitchen. Barely space for Elisha’s shrine. But the address is still good. True, she is even farther from St. Anne’s than before, but arriving in time for mass or confession has become impossible anywise, what with her mantel clock stilled at two from a fall to the tiles one evening. And what more can she confess? How many Hail Marys can a body utter in one day?