When The Spirit Moves You

by Thomas DePrima

  "Yes, thank you."

  "I'll make sure that Cook knows there will be four for lunch," she said as she turned to leave the foyer, then stopped and turned again. "Amelia, don't keep Jeremy standing in the foyer. Show him into the parlor."

  "Yes, Mummy."

  When they were seated, Jeremy asked, "Do both your parents know about your real identity?"

  Amelia looked at him in horror, then whispered intensely, "No! And they must never know! I thought you understood that it's imperative everyone believe me to be the original Amelia. Even the spirit of Amelia wants it that way. She doesn't want her parents to know she died, even if they do have a surrogate here now. Please, never disclose the secret I've entrusted to you."

  "I understand, dearest," he said quietly. "They won't learn it from me."

  On the first Monday in October, Martha arrived at Amelia's house, excited and out of breath, and as happy as Amelia had ever seen her.

  "What's happened, dear?" Amelia asked anxiously as Michelle took Martha's coat in the foyer.

  "Amelia," Martha said excitedly, "Tad came for a visit Saturday. He asked me to marry him, than asked my father for my hand. Look," she said, holding out her left hand to display the engagement ring.

  "Oh, Martha, it's beautiful," Amelia said, looking at the gold band with an enormous diamond before pulling her close to hug her. "I'm so happy for you." Pulling back slightly so they could talk, she asked, "When's your engagement party going to be?"

  "In January, and we'll be wed in August."

  "That's wonderful. Where? Here or Boston?"

  "The engagement party will be here in Hartford. We haven't decided on a place for the wedding yet."

  "We have to get started planning everything right away. There will be so much to do. Let's go tell Mummy right away," Amelia said, excitedly pulling Martha by the hand.

  The rest of the day was spent discussing the engagement party. Martha, a happy person by nature, positively glowed as the girls giggled their way through the afternoon making lists and plans.

  * * *

  Margaret Stemple sat alone, sullenly sipping her tea while she stared morosely out into the busy street from a table next to the front window of the small restaurant. Waitresses in starched black uniforms with pristine white aprons hurried to serve patrons around her. The lunch business normally slowed after two o'clock, but there was always a steady flow of customers looking for a beverage and a place to relax after hours of shopping. A few people ordered meals, but most were looking for tea or coffee, and perhaps a sweet desert, so waitresses threaded their way carefully through the maze of small circular tables dispensing the beverages and taking food orders. An odd mixture of smells from recently baked bread, cooking foods, grease, and the powerful aroma of freshly ground coffee filled the air. The chatter of other customers, the clatter of tableware, and the din from the very rear of the restaurant where the kitchen staff was working hard to keep up with the demand for clean cups and plates, grated on Margaret's already raw nerves.

  Opening each day while it was still dark, the small restaurant served breakfast to the local merchants and trades people, and then began preparing for the influx of shoppers that filled the area stores. Margaret had appeared each day at nine a.m. since the beginning of the week, and stayed until three p.m., staring intently out the window the whole time, as if waiting for someone to join her in the restaurant. It was now Friday, and the owner was trying hard not to let his face show his displeasure over having the young woman occupy a desirable table while only ordering a cup of tea every couple of hours. The quality of her clothing established that she was wealthy, so the owner stewed in silence because he couldn't afford to have his store boycotted for being impolite or discourteous to someone of importance.

  The very detailed reports from the private detectives Miss Stemple had hired, lay creased and dog-eared on the table in front of her. She had spent long hours reading and rereading them as she formulated a plan of action for when she at last confronted the witch that had beguiled her husband. The reports about Miss Turner clearly stated that she normally shopped in this area about twice a week, usually in early afternoon, but Margaret had been there for days and hadn't yet caught sight of her quarry. It was approaching three p.m. now, and if Miss Turner didn't show soon, Margaret would have to hurry to catch her train to New York without having accomplished her mission. She had already checked out of the small hotel where she had been staying under an assumed name, sending her bags on ahead to the train station.

  Margaret had just sipped the last of the liquid from her teacup and glumly reached for her purse to pay the bill when she spotted Amelia coming down the street with one of the other girls from the party at the Westfield estate. Margaret hurried to pay her bill and leave the establishment, turning right as she exited the restaurant so that her back was always towards the two approaching women.

  She walked slowly, allowing the two women to close the distance between them, while measuring their progress by watching the reflections in the shop windows. When she judged that they were just twenty to thirty feet behind her, she wheeled, and rushed at Amelia as fast as her legs could carry her. She would be upon her in less than a dozen steps. Margaret, her face contorted with rage, began to wail like a banshee as she closed the gap to the women.

  * * *

  Amelia, closer to the curb, was preoccupied with looking at the display window of a dress shop on the other side of the street and never saw Margaret's charge. Martha, not recognizing Margaret Stemple, instinctively pushed Amelia towards the street, so that they could both get out of the path of an obviously distraught woman. Martha's quick response caught Margaret unprepared, and instead of colliding with Amelia, she ran headlong into Martha. Both women went crashing to the ground in a tangle of legs and petticoats as surprised onlookers froze where they were for just an instant.

  Two men, who had been unloading crates from a horse-drawn wagon, immediately rushed to their assistance and took hold of Margaret's arms to lift the still wailing woman off Martha. Her screams had changed pitch now, and seemed more to reflect aggravation than soulful mourning. As she was lifted to her feet, she looked at a wide-eyed Amelia, screamed loudly in frustration, and ran down the block.

  Meanwhile, the two men that had lifted Margaret up, turned their attention to Martha, but as they took hold of her arms, they both froze. One of the men said, "Somebody get an ambulance! This woman's been injured!"

  The other yelled, "Somebody get the police! She's been attacked by that woman!"

  With that, Amelia, who hadn't been able to stop her forward movement until she was several steps into the street, pushed her way back to Martha through the growing circle of onlookers. Horrified, she gasped when she reached her. A growing circle of bright crimson was staining the front of Martha's white bodice, and what looked like one handle from a pair of large shears was protruding from the left side of her chest. Shrugging off her coat, Amelia immediately dropped to her knees near Martha's head, lifting it so she could place the garment beneath it.

  * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  "Martha, can you hear me?" Amelia said softly, caressing Martha's forehead gently with her right hand while her left hand held Martha's left hand.

  Martha coughed once and several bubbles of blood appeared at her mouth, burst, and then trickled down her cheek. "Amelia? Is that you?"

  "Yes, dear. Just lie quietly. Help is on the way."

  "I'm cold, Amelia. What's happened?"

  As Amelia dabbed at the blood with her handkerchief, she said, "It was Margaret Stemple, dear. She's stabbed you with something."

  "Why would she do that?" Martha asked.

  "I don't know. Don't talk, dear. Save your strength."

  "I'm very cold."

  A gentleman standing nearby removed his greatcoat and gently laid it over Martha, saying, "Help is coming, young lady. Just hold on."

  "Amelia?"

  "Yes, dear, I'm here."

  "Tell Ta
d— I love him with all my heart…"

  "You'll tell him yourself, dear, the next time he comes to visit."

  Martha's eyes stopped blinking then and sort of glazed over, and her chest stopped rising and falling. Her face softened as the muscles, formerly tense from pain, relaxed.

  "Martha?" Amelia said softly. Then louder, and with more urgency, she called again, "Martha?"

  The man who had laid his greatcoat over Martha's form said, "I'm sorry, Miss. I think she's gone."

  "She can't be," Amelia said in disbelief. "She just can't be." Unable to hold back the emotion, tears streamed down her cheeks and she began to sob loudly. A few people tried to gently coax her away but she refused to budge, holding tightly to Martha's head. She sat coatless on the cold sidewalk, crying and gently caressing Martha's cheeks and forehead until an ambulance finally arrived.

  After that, everything was a blur for Amelia until her mother and father arrived at the hospital. The police found her name and address in her purse and sent someone to the house, then to her father's office. She hadn't been able to tell them anything because her throat constricted every time she tried to talk. All she had been able to do was cry.

  Amelia's father provided all the information that he could to the police officers, including a statement that his daughter had been threatened in a letter from a Miss Margaret Stemple of Philadelphia. Then he took his wife and daughter home.

  * * *

  Jeremy Westfield arrived at the Turner home the next day. After speaking with Amelia's father, he was permitted to go up to her bedroom. Amelia hadn't left the room since coming from the hospital, and had refused to eat or drink anything that was brought to her. When he knocked gently on the door, Amelia's mother answered. She opened the door wide to admit him, and then stepped outside, allowing him an un-chaperoned visit.

  Jeremy walked to the bed, where Amelia was lying with her face buried in a pillow. Putting his hand on her shoulder, he said, "Darling?"

  Amelia raised her head and looked at him with bloodshot eyes and a puffy, wet face. "Martha…" was all she could say before her throat constricted again.

  "I know, dearest. I've heard the entire story. I'm so sorry."

  Amelia rolled onto her side and then swung her legs around to get up from the bed. As soon as she was standing she wrapped her arms tightly around Jeremy. As happy as she was to see him, the thoughts of the previous day crowded everything else from her mind and she began to cry again. They stood there like that for some time; her crying and him trying to comfort her.

  Hours later Jeremy came downstairs and entered the parlor where Amelia's mother and father were sitting. "She's sleeping," he said.

  Her father nodded. "She needs it. She cried all night. I haven't told her yet that they caught the woman who did it. They got a description from the eye witnesses and found her at the train station. She had reports from private investigators in her purse that listed all of Amelia's movements outside the house for a full month."

  "Margaret Stemple?"

  Mr. Turner nodded. "When she was arrested she kept screaming at the officers that she was merely on her way home, and knew nothing about any murder. She said that she was going to have their badges for their insolence. But the front of her dress was splattered with Martha's blood, and she was later positively identified by over a dozen witnesses to the crime. A restaurant owner identified her and gave a statement that she had been sitting in his place every day, all day, staring out the window as if waiting for someone. This was definitely a premeditated crime."

  "I never thought that she'd go this far," Jeremy said sadly.

  "I doubt that the case will even go to trial. She'll probably be remanded to an asylum for the criminally insane until such time as she's fit to stand trial. If that ever happens, the trial should be open and shut with a verdict of murder."

  "I should feel sorry for her, but I can never forgive her for killing poor Martha," Jeremy said.

  "Martha saved Amelia's life by pushing her out of the way, but sacrificed her own in doing it."

  "I'll be forever grateful; yet forever sad when I think of her."

  * * *

  Amelia came down for breakfast the next morning. She knew that she couldn't stay in bed any longer. She knew that Martha wouldn't want her to. She still had no appetite. She picked at her food and ate little.

  Jeremy had been offered the use of a guestroom in the Turner house, rather than going to a hotel, and he and Amelia spent the early part of the day in the parlor, quietly talking and holding hands. Jeremy had sent telegrams to Elizabeth and Roberta as soon as he heard the news and both arrived at the house in the afternoon, their eyes puffy and red from crying. Jeremy gave the women the privacy they needed to grieve, spending the hours until dinner in Mr. Turner's study.

  Martha's body was laid out in the drawing room of her parent's home the next day. Mourners began arriving at noon for the wake, the time having been announced in the paper. As they entered the house, each mourner was given a white silk remembrance bookmark, on which was printed in black ink, Martha's name, dates of birth and death, and a silhouette image of her that had been reproduced from a large image made a couple of years earlier at a local fair.

  Amelia, Elizabeth, and Roberta were naturally the first to arrive, and the last to leave. Tad was there for the entire time also, as were Jeremy, Charles, and Donald. Anne and Gerald arrived in mid-afternoon. The large home was soon crowded, and it seemed that everyone in Hartford, and certainly every one of Martha's relatives, stopped by at some time during the day. By the end of the wake, Amelia felt like she had again cried her weight in tears. She waited until almost everyone had gone before she passed Martha's final words on to Tad. He had done his best to appear strong and stoic throughout the day, but his red-rimmed eyes told the story of his grief. Listening to Amelia tearfully tell him of Martha's final moments cracked the façade he had erected to the world. He buried his face in his hands and wept uncontrollably.

  At the funeral the next day, Jeremy delivered the eulogy. Tad, Martha's parents, and her four best girlfriends were too choked with grief over their loss and the senseless death of such a sweet and innocent person who was looking for nothing more than to marry the love of her life and become a wife and mother. As the casket was lowered into the ground, the mourners said their final goodbyes and silently walked away from the gravesite, leaving the family and closest friends to linger briefly with their thoughts.

  Life slowly returned to normal in the Turner home in the months following the funeral, but thoughts of Martha were never far from Amelia's mind. During the tarot reading at the Westfield mansion, the cards had told her that Martha would die young, never having married or borne children, and Amelia had deliberately lied to her best friend because she couldn't bear to tell her the truth. When Tad proposed, Martha was as happy as she had ever been, and Amelia was grateful that she had known that happiness, if only for a short time. But though she told herself that knowing the truth wouldn't have saved Martha, and might only have lessened her chances for happiness in the time she had left, she felt a burden of guilt that weighed heavily upon her.

  In an effort to avoid thinking so much about Martha's tragic death, Amelia buried herself in the work of planning for her wedding, but it seemed that everything she touched reminded her in some way of her best friend. The loss of a loved one leaves an enormous hole in one's life, but life goes on and the hole slowly mends, for the most part.

  As the date of the wedding grew closer, there never seemed to be enough hours in the day to get all the things accomplished that Amelia wished to do, yet at night she wished for the weeks to pass more quickly so that she might be with Jeremy all the time, instead of just every other weekend, weather permitting. They corresponded every day, and if it hadn't been almost a hundred miles by rail, he would have been there every weekend. On the few weekends that he couldn't make it, because of severe weather, Amelia missed him terribly. He would always send a telegram when the weather forced
his absence, and she came to dread seeing the messenger arrive on a Friday evening.

  Anne came to Hartford from her new home in Boston several times, for bridesmaid gown fittings, or to help out when Gerald was away on business, but always hurried back when he was expected home. And Elizabeth and Roberta spent many days at the Turner home during the winter, but when they left at the end of their visits, Amelia again experienced the terrible loneliness of not having her best friend nearby. She visited Martha's grave each week, always placing a bouquet on the headstone of whatever fresh flowers she had been able to find available in the city.

  A week before the wedding ceremony, Amelia and her parents traveled to the Westfield estate. A carriage and wagon, sent to transport the Turners and their luggage to the estate, were waiting at the train station when they arrived.

  As the day of the wedding grew closer, the mansion filled with invited guests. Amelia was kept busy greeting and entertaining. Always the convivial and generous host, Mr. Westfield provided a prenuptial banquet that would have put many a royal party to shame.

  Blue skies and light wispy clouds canopied the estate's majestic gardens on the day of the wedding. Teams of gardeners and groundskeepers had slaved feverishly until the last hours to ensure that everything was perfect. The lawns had been manicured, bushes trimmed, fountains scrubbed, and walkways broomed repeatedly. Four hundred guests were expected for the outdoor ceremony, and chairs were arranged in semi-circular rows around a white trellised archway lavishly decorated with red and yellow roses.

  Martha was to have been Amelia's maid of honor, but that role fell to Anne now, with Elizabeth, Roberta, and Beverly serving as her bridesmaids. Jeremy had originally selected Tad Stevens for his best man, but following the tragedy, Donald agreed to fill in. Tad felt that he wouldn't be able to participate in the wedding party because it would be too painful a reminder of what he had just lost. He later decided not to attend the ceremony at all because he couldn't bear to see all of Martha's friends together without her. Charles, Gerald, and Harry Millar were selected to serve as ushers for the groom.