The Dark

by Claire Mulligan

  And Maggie said she didn’t know.

  His wife returns to their bed. Her hands smell of rose-water from the privy’s wash basin. When he arrived in New York seven years ago, his Arcadian house still a smoking ruin, his wife admitted she had been making him pay by not returning. He abandoned her; she was determined to do the same. But such stubbornness seems ridiculous, she owned, now that they are both close-waltzing to the grave.

  She slides in aside him and he throws his arm over her, as if she were a raft and he adrift in deep water.

  The next morning John goes to the library, and sits at Horace’s oaken roll-top desk. He uncorks a pot of new-mixed ink. Takes out a blotter. A sheet of fine, thick paper. He practises a flowery hand then writes the letter. Then he slides it into an envelope with a gummed seal; as an afterthought he adds an old-style wax seal. He addresses the envelope to Mr. Thomas Kane, Lawyer, then sets it out for the post. The letter may not be much, but it is all he can do for Maggie now.

  John now digs out his narrative for Leah. He rereads his cramped, square hand. The canals. Brother Able. It seems mortal distant now. He folds the papers and slides them into another envelope, one more workaday. On this envelope he writes, For Leah Fox. Your Father, John Fox. He does not write, Mrs. Underhill née Fish née Brown. The names she has acquired do not signify. She is his daughter most of all. And she will understand him now, and forgive him for his wrong-doings and neglect.

  He settles into his rocking chair. The chair is the one thing he salvaged from the fire, the one thing of his own in the house lent on sufferance. Yet even the idea of sufferance no longer troubles him. Indeed, John often sits for hours in this rocking chair, in front of these bay windows, inwardly praying, entirely happy. Best is when he can hear his wife pottering about, querying the day-maid, humming lullabies. He does not long for whisky. He never thinks of whisky now. The thirst is finally gone, the dropping away so incremental he has barely noticed its vanishing.

  John creaks forward. Back. The front parlour smells enticingly of linseed polish, of damp hanging ferns. His worn bible rests unopened on his lap. He has no interest in reading it. Not today. Perhaps because today, at least, John understands that his God is merciful. That He would forgive John’s determination to keep his women safe.

  John chills at a sudden thought. His breath grows short. His fingers tingle.

  What if Maggie tells the public what she has told her parents?

  No, he assures himself, she won’t. She would lose her reputation, which, for a woman, is akin to losing her soul. He shifts in the rocker. There is only one instant each morning when the sun infiltrates the towering labyrinth of the city and shines through the bay windows of the parlour. It is then as if John is on a veranda, on a hilltop, with the green stretching all about. But even though he is expectant, even though he is ready, when the light of this particular day comes it is so fierce and so bright that John Fox gasps aloud.

  CHAPTER 37.

  “Not long after Pa died I had a meeting with Elisha’s brother Thomas, and with their mother, the Mrs. Jane Kane. She must have suffered a syncope, because she did not make entire sense. And she saw threats and conspiracies where there were none.”

  “Paranoid, that’s the parlance these days, Maggie-duck. The learned doctors are saying the brain can be afflicted like any other organ. Hah, and that the lust for liquor is an affliction too. To which I will drink.” And I did.

  “Well, I would not wish that paranoia on anyone. The Kanes received an anonymous letter, you see. They showed it to me at the meeting: “Is not this withholding of money from Margaret Kane a robbery? I have read the letters and solemnly assure you that their publication will bring a cloud of reproach upon the memory of your illustrious son. As for the pittance, it was offered in such a way that Mrs. Kane could be wronged out of it.”

  I set down my bottle of gin. “You recall the whole letter, duck, word for word, after hearing it the once.”

  “Is that so remarkable? There are men who’ve got all the scriptures scribed in their brains. And surely there are things you can recite even now.”

  I thought of August’s letter, and touched the side pocket of my satchel where it was kept, then changed tack. “I should hope you gave up onog my satchal all that wrangling about Elisha’s desires and intentions. At times it is best to give up, duck. I’ve had to tell many of my patients just that.”

  “Oh, I did. For there was Jane Kane declaring away that Elisha chose ‘this creature,’ meaning me, just to humiliate the family. She demanded my annuity be cut off. The way she said it, you might have thought she wanted my head cut off. I said I’d have Elisha’s love letters published. Mrs. Kane burned my letters to Elisha, if you recall, so any love-letter book would seem a one-sided affair. Not that I cared at that juncture. Thomas Kane and I looked at each other over his desk, just like two petulant children over a teeter-totter. I stood up abruptly. ‘Elisha’s letters will be published,’ I announced. And damned if Thomas didn’t look nearly relieved, as if Elisha’s reputation had become a great burden.” She smiled, rueful. “Leah was delighted by my decision. By this time she had come to despise the Kanes, though not in public, of course. She, too, had her paranoia and saw plots against her in the most mundane faces and events.”

  LEAH ORDERS GATHERFORD, her carriage driver, to wait and says that if she does not reappear in half an hour he must come up and retrieve her.

  She finds her way down the little alley, up the several stairways. The location has changed yet again and the sign “Pettifew’s Ingenuities,” though small and discreet, is now of solid brass.

  “It was some parade up in Boston, I heard, Mrs. Miller. Or should I say Underhill?” Pettifew queries a short time later.

  “Underhill will suffice.”

  “Yeah, some parade. Thousands strong with marching bands and sky-poppers and a fat lot of children stramming along and dressed in white and singing out their little lungs like some cherubic army. I heard the banners for this spirit organization and that were big enough to read from Heaven’s armchairs and that police were needed to keep the scoffers from doing grievous harm.”

  Leah manages a nod. She did not come to hear Mr. Pettifew’s version of Spiritualism’s twentieth-anniversary celebrations. She came because Pettifew had written he knew a way to save Spiritualism from gross discredit, and the Fox sisters, too, as follows. She doubts this, but she is hopeful, as always.

  “ ’68 will be my best year yet,” Pettifew says. “I’ll bet my soul on it.” He is perched on a work bench. Time has not bettered the man, though a groomed beard hides his twisted mouth. He wears no visor nor hat, and his head proves a glabrous dome fringed with grey and arrayed with liver spots and crowned with a thin scar.

  “Shame about Barnum going on and calling you frauds in that new tell-all book of his, Mrs. Underhill. As if he weren’t a raging fraud himself, eh? And your old friend Greeley, well, he hasn’t one good item to say about it all these days. He blames Spiritualism for all kinds of ills, like suicide and insanity and dipsomania. And how are your sisters, anyhow?”

  He sips noisily at a sarsaparilla. Leah refused the offering of one. Now she is parched. The room is hot and close. These crammed high rooms may not have been aired in years. “My sisters are of no concern to you, sir.”

  He snickers. “Darned shame Miss Maggie didn’t partake of all the celebratory hoopla in Manhattan, though I heard Miss Katie did, and looked as pretty and fey as ever.”

  “Your point, sir.”

  “I wasn’t invited, mind,” he continues, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Nope, for all my service the NOS won’t even mention my existence. Guess I wouldn’t have been fancy-pants enough for the Everett rooms with their gas chandeliers and violins and velvet doodads. Not that I mind. I wasn’t invited to your wedding neither, come to think of it, and I don’t hold a grudge for that. Such is my lot to be ignored. And I’ve done well by it all, like you … Sure you don’t want a sarsaparilla? You’re looking as if
you need one.”

  “No, I want for nothing. I am pitch-perfect.” Leah notices then that Maggie’s book, The Love Life of Dr. Kane, is displayed on the bookshelf. No doubt Pettifew has touched her sister’s name with his perverse, disgusting fingers. Leah shuts her eyes to quell her fury.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Pettifew says, following her gaze. “Who cares about the love letters of some hero nobody can recollect? The public surely didn’t. Not with the war and all them dead and then Lincoln dying. Now that was a grand funeral, put Kane’s in the pale … Sure you’re not wanting a refreshment?”

  “Let us not waste our beloved time upon this earth,” she says. Where had she heard that phrase? From Chauncey Burr. Yes. And on the last occasion they met.

  Pettifew lurches to the bookcase and seizes a faded pamphlet. Shows her the title: A Report of the Mysterious Noises Heard in the House of Mr. John D. Fox, in Hydesville, Arcadia, Wayne, Authenticated by the Certificates, and Confirmed by the Statements of the Citizens of That Place and Vicinity, by E.E. Lewis. “One can’t find it nowadays,” Pettifew says. “Folks have forgotten about the peddler what started it all. Him that had his throat slashed and is buried in the cellar floor.”

  When he says this, Leah realizes something peculiar: she is afraid. Not merely anxious or startled. When was the last time she felt so? When the pigeons lifted her up? When her father abandoned her? When she realized who Pettifew was? And when was that? The first time she met the man, she must admit, but she left that unpleasant information unacknowledged and sealed in a back drawer of her mind, where she leaves so many things.

  Pettifew continues, “They never found him, did they. The peddler? In the cellar?” He thumbs Lewis’s pamphlet. “I’ve read it over and under. All they found was rabbit bones and crockery. No human bones. No corpse in any state of rot. So, what was he about, then? ‘I’m buried in the cellar. Poor murdered me.’ Maybe he was playing his own practical jape—the ghost, I mean.” He scratches at his neck.

  Leah’s stomach coils up. Her temple begins its staccato throb. Easy to imagine this man, this Pettifew, clawing out of a cellar grave, his slashed throat gaping.

  “You ghoul,” she whispers.

  “Ghoul? ’Cus I make my living from folks having parlour games with the dead? What’s that make you, Mrs. Underhill? A ghouless? Hah!”

  Leah smoothes the sateen ridges of her dress. Her throat is so dry she is actually tempted by his offering of the sarsaparilla. But no, no. Recall Persephone. The pomegranate seeds. Do not partake, she orders herself, then stands.

  But does Mr. Pettifew stand? No. The ill-bred horror sits there and keeps talking. “I was a peddler once, too, though I’ll bet you suspect that. I traipsed all through New England, and Arcadia, where your kin still live, ain’t that right? I sold infants’ toys and patch cloths and silver thimbles and this one special thread. I said it were woven by moon spiders because it were strong as wire and couldn’t be seen ’cepting by close scrutiny. The moon spider part was twaddle, sure, but I offer even now, and it sells hot as Hell’s pancakes to my privileged clients.”

  “Your point, sir, or—no, no, I need not hear it. I—”

  “And like any peddler what treads the roads I knew damn well what it was like to be accused of all manner of sins and wrong-dealings. Children, they was the worst. And girls, hah. You don’t reckon girls can be cruel, but they surely can be, the hoyden bitches.”

  “Sir! Your language.”

  “Sorry for that. Sure you ain’t thirsty? I’s got more than sarsaparilla. I’s got Scotch whisky and French claret. I’s got the Russian vodka and Barbary rum, the best you can find. What I ain’t got is apple cider. I could never abide the taste nor smell of it. As like ’cus children thought apple-chucking at some poor peddler was all swell fun. Happened plenty. I never doubted they woulda stoned me given the chance.”

  “I fail utterly in seeing how this … information is of any assistance to me,” Leah says, and grips her reticule. Makes ready, if need be, to use the scissors in the near pocket.

  “You will see, Mrs. Underhill. But I’s got to tell you that when I first heard about him, that peddler what got murdered and buried, like I said, in your kin’s cellar floor, why I groped my throat for a wound in some kind of sympathy. Then I started appreciating the thought of my kind haunting the settled peoples. And when I came back through Arcadia, your business of raising the dead, why it had already become just that, a good business. That’s when I saw a niche. Our Fates are knit up, just like I wrote to you at your wedding, recall? I’s started small, just like you and your sisters, and I’s got competitors now, just like you. But I’m still the best and the richest. I’m the originator. The creator—small c, course—much like yourself.”

  “Creator? You are a blaspheming, hideous cretin, taking advantage of a modest woman who—”

  “Modest? Hah! Now, don’t get in a lather. I just want to thank you ’cus I’m a grateful sort and I know what happens to those who ain’t. And I want to give you a proper thank you. You sent back the copy of the Blue Book that I gave you for your wedding so I’m guessing it weren’t good enough—”

  “I was finished with public séances.”

  “Weren’t good enough to have those hard-won listings of séance lovers and their tragedies and habits and heart’s-desires. Nor to own intelligence on the dead. But if I could put Spiritualism on the straight path, shut the traps of the naysayers, would that suffice?”

  Leah steps back, nearly trips on his brass cane. It is topped with a hound’s head she notices, a vulgar embellishment.

  Pettifew’s manner turns beseeching. “Please, Mrs. Underhill, please, ma’am. Just listen here.”

  “Why-ever would I listen to you? You, sir, are madder than a March hare.”

  “I know a resurrection man. We give him his fee and he’ll be hush and quick. All’s we need is a body. Don’t matter who. Any battlefield will yield one up, any old churchyard. Then you put out word that the peddler’s ghost is talking again. Says he wants his bones buried proper, with prayers and all that. Folks will dig up the cellar again. And they’ll find the bones this time. And then you can say, that it were always true. And then your detractors, your enemies, them naysayers, they’ll be sure silenced up. It’ll credit Spiritualism. Give it heft again. Make believers. Make my buyers come banging on my door, and heap me with dollars. You too. It’d be of benefit to us both, Mrs. Underhill. What a team we could be, you and me.”

  “Team? Team? The only man worth being a team with was …” She doesn’t say his name, Chauncey, but the thought of him, oddly, gives her courage. She backs away. Turns just as Pettifew thrusts his card in her gloved hand.

  “That’s his address on the flip side of my card. Those letters. ‘R.M.’ They stand for resurrection man, ’course. Contact him up when you’re ready.”

  “I could never carry out a deceit of that order,” Leah says. She is using her coldest voice, but Pettifew doesn’t shiver, as some have been known to do.

  “Oh, I doubt that, Mrs. Underhill.”

  “You, sir, are fortunate my pa is no longer alive. He’d cut your throat for true.”

  “All right, all right. Just think on it, my proposal.”

  She can sense him watching her as she threads her way out, her heart athud. Pettifew must live in these wretched rooms, she realizes, because clothing is strewn here and there, as well as crockery and tumblers. Mostly, however, there are the wares of his trade: reaching rods thin as a child’s finger and of that metal called aluminum, lead weights to sew into the hems of dresses, shoes with interior tappers and loose shanks, hollow rods to play trumpets from a distance, and gyroscopes to help any item spin. There are magnets of all sizes, phosphorous kept high up in glass jars, reams of tissue paper and pencils of clear wax. There are pots of luminous paint, vials of sympathetic ink, and bolts upon bolts of white shrouding. There are five lanterns with cutaways of faces and human forms, and these hang alongside seven false hands th
at are coated in silk to approximate the skin’s softness in the dark.

  Leah reaches the hall by squeezing past two spirit cabinets. They are still being constructed and the tubes and wires snag on her dress.

  At last, the door. Leah doesn’t turn, but she is certain she can hear Pettifew’s dragging gait, his raspy muttery pleas.

  Leah clambers into her carriage.

  “I was about to come and retrieve you, Mrs. Underhill,” Gatherford assures her, and in such a way that he recalls to her that cowardly, gossip-mongering driver who took her out to see the Hydesville house twenty years ago. She looks at him closely. “Gatherford?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Drive, if you please. To Mother’s.” She settles back. Soon she will be telling her mother all about Pettifew, his establishment, his horrid proposal. Leah has been confiding completely in Mother these past few years and this confiding always calms her.

  Their greater confidence began five years ago, just after the draft riots of’63 when Mother called upon her and, with arms akimbo, said, “Leah. The girls have accused you of directing them like the dancers in one of those tawdry burlesque shows. They have spoken of … fraud and—”

  “My word, Mother, they were most certainly imbibing,” Leah said, and steered the conversation to a Brazilian parrot she had just acquired for her aviary, and who could sing in four languages, including Latin. “And look upon this Chittering grand, Mother. Finer than the Littles of Rochester ever had. It plays in perfect tune, as if delivered from Heaven and not just from England. Do you not sometimes think it miraculous how far we have come from our former poverty and station?”

  Her mother claimed that was not the point. The point was deceit and lies. Chicanery. Legerdemain. “They confessed to me, Leah. Yes, they did. Apples. Apples on strings, it was, and then toes snapping on the headboards, and fingers and … but you told them it was a lark. Fun. And that money could be made.”