Strong Spirits (1)

by Alice Duncan

  “How come you named this horse Brownie?” Quincy asked, grinning, hands shoved into his pockets, looking like a cowboy. He really was a cutie-pie, but I was sure glad he’d dropped the Edie subject.

  The question was a valid one, too, since Brownie was sort of a dirty white color. I shrugged. “Not sure. When Pa brought him home, he said his name was Brownie, and that’s what we’ve always called him.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Quincy appeared as stumped as the rest of us over why anyone would name a white horse Brownie. It had occurred to me on occasion that Brownie’s name might be one of the reasons he was such a grump all the time, but that was certainly mere fancy on my part. I mean, what would a horse know about colors?

  Billy was waiting up for me when I got home. Fortunately, he seemed to have overcome his nasty mood, and we laughed a lot about the séance and Stacy Kincaid. I didn’t tell him Harold wanted me to do a séance for him.

  As the Good Book says, “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” I’ve never been quite sure what that meant, but it seemed to fit this occasion.

  Chapter Five

  Our house on Marengo Avenue was what they called a “bungalow.” Bungalows are popular in Pasadena. A couple of brothers, Greene and Greene, are building them all over the place, and other architects copied them. Ours had three bedrooms downstairs, one of which we used as a back parlor and for sewing, a large kitchen, a dining room, and a living room. There were two rooms upstairs, too, that would have been perfect for a young married couple, provided they could both climb stairs.

  Only one of us could do that. Therefore, Billy and I shared a back bedroom, the one off the kitchen. It was large, and had a door to the back yard. God bless Pa, who was a truly wonderful man, he built us a little screened-in sun porch right outside our bedroom door. He and Ma gave us a small but pretty wrought iron table and two chairs for furniture.

  Thanks to Pa’s thoughtfulness, Billy and I could sit out there and be private sometimes, smelling the orange blossoms and roses and looking at the San Gabriel mountains. The sun porch wasn’t a whole lot of privacy, but it was the best we could do, and we both liked to take advantage of it.

  When I woke up the morning after the séance, Billy was already awake and dressed. I saw him sitting on the sun porch, reading the Pasadena Star News. Every new day brought with it a certain degree of edginess in my soul until I gauged Billy’s mood. Today he seemed perfectly happy, or as happy as a man his age who’s in constant pain and confined to a wheelchair can be.

  After throwing on a robe, I went out and kissed his glossy black hair. “Morning, Billy.”

  “Morning, love. Beautiful day.”

  It was, and my heart leaped in my chest to hear him acknowledge it. Poor Billy no longer had the capacity to enjoy the weather very often. “Be right back.” I went back through our bedroom to the kitchen, kissed Ma on the cheek, and poured Billy and me each a cup of coffee. I could tell by Ma’s worried eyes that she, too, wondered how Billy felt this morning, so I gave her a thumb’s-up sign. The expression of relief on her face made my heart ache. Damn the Kaiser, anyhow.

  I tried always to show only a pleasant demeanor to Billy, so I braced myself as I walked back to the sun porch. When I set Billy’s coffee cup down in front of him and plopped myself into the wrought-iron chair across from him, I asked, “So what’s new in the world?”

  Women had finally, after decades and decades of struggle, been given the vote. It burned me up that I wasn’t old enough to take advantage of the new law. I liked to keep up with the candidates, though, in spite of the fact that I wouldn’t be allowed a voice in choosing one. Not this time. In four years, the whole country’d better watch out. Daisy Majesty would darned well flex her political muscles and exercise her right to vote.

  Billy glanced up at me, his old twinkle back. Broke my heart to see it, since it happened so seldom nowadays. “Say, Daisy, you’re good with words. Is normalcy a word?”

  Furrowing my brow in mock concentration, I pondered the question. “I don’t think so. What’s it mean? The same as normality?”

  “I don’t know, but according to Harding, we all want a return to it.”

  “Normalcy?”

  “Yup.”

  “Interesting.” Sometimes, like this morning, all of the old feelings rushed back and fairly swamped me, and I loved Billy so much I ached with it. “Didn’t he want to give somebody a generalcy the other day?”

  Billy laughed. “I think so.”

  I sighed as I took in the full glory of my husband. Only the evening before, I’d decided Lieutenant Delroy Farrington was the most splendid-looking man I’d ever seen. Looking at my husband this morning, I had to alter my opinion. Billy had always been a looker. Nowadays, even though his black hair contained a few premature silver streaks—and why not, given the circumstances?—and even though his legs had lost their muscular tone and he tended to slump, he looked like heaven to me.

  He’d dressed in tan slacks, a soft-collared white outing shirt, a blue-striped tie, and a smart and casual smoking jacket, although Billy didn’t smoke. Couldn’t. Not with his lungs in the shape they were. Except for the lungs part, I was glad he didn’t smoke, since I didn’t like the smell.

  “Who do you favor, Billy? Harding or Cox?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. Harding tends to make up words, and I’m not sure if he has a brain. Then again, maybe a president with a brain is a bad idea. We already had one of those, and look where it got us.”

  I didn’t have to look. I knew. I’d probably feel sorrier for President Wilson, whose health had been permanently ruined by the war and its aftermath, if I weren’t married to Billy. I mean, Wilson was an old man and his infirmity hadn’t been visited upon him until after he’d fulfilled his life’s goals. Most of them, anyhow. Nobody but him seemed enthralled with his League of Nations idea, but at least he’d been president. My Billy’d been a boy and a soldier, and now he was a cripple. Didn’t seem fair to me.

  “I think I like Harding,” I decided, “even if he’s a chucklehead and has trouble with his suffixes.”

  “Yeah,” said Billy. “Me, too. At least he looks the part.”

  “True.”

  After I’d drunk half my coffee, I went back into the bedroom and pulled on a pretty pink plaid gingham house dress, again made by yours truly’s own ten talented fingers, and trimmed with organdy lace. No corset. Thank God corsets were no longer considered a necessity of a lady’s toilette, because I hated them.

  I wandered back out to the sun porch and sat down across from Billy again. “Have you had breakfast yet, Billy?”

  “No, I waited for you.”

  “Want some eggs and bacon? Pancakes? Waffles?” I’d wound my hair in a bun, stabbed pins into it as I talked to my husband, and recalled with longing Stacy Kincaid’s simple bob. Darn, I wished I could get a bob.

  He grinned over his newspaper at me. “Feeling domestic this morning, Daisy?”

  I grinned back. “You bet.”

  “Eggs and toast would be nice. Maybe a little ham, if there’s any left.”

  There was always ham. Thanks to Aunt Vi, we ate really well. Outside of Delmonico’s in San Francisco, she was possibly the best cook in California. She was assuredly the best cook in Pasadena.

  I got up again. Billy grabbed my hand and pulled me into his lap. I loved it when we got along like this. Every time we had a good time together, I hated the Kaiser more, damn his eyes.

  We smooched for a while, and I’m sure we both wished Billy was the man he once was. It might be nice to have a real marriage. And kids. I know Billy would have been a good father if he’d had the chance.

  The blasted phone rang just when things were getting interesting. I sighed. Billy said, “Damn.”

  You could never be quite sure in those days if the call was for you, since there were so many other people sharing the line. Even though every family was supposed to have a distinctive number and length of rings, a person w
asn’t always paying attention. When I hiked over to the phone on the wall in the kitchen and lifted the receiver, I heard a duet of “Hello’s” before I added mine and made it a trio.

  “Mrs. Majesty, please,” came a masculine voice over the wire.

  “This is Mrs. Majesty,” said I.

  I heard one of the party line members hang up her receiver. I knew who was left. “Mrs. Barrow?” I said it sweetly, although there were times I wanted to holler at our snoopy neighbor. She was from New York City, a place called the Bronx, and she talked like nobody I’d ever heard before. “This call is for me. Will you please hang up your wire?”

  “Oh,” she said, clearly disappointed. “Sure.” The receiver on her end landed in the cradle with a sharp smack. I sighed.

  “Mrs. Majesty?” the masculine voice said once more.

  “Yes, this is she.”

  “This is Harold Kincaid, Mrs. Majesty, and I wanted to talk to you about what we discussed last night.”

  Crumb, what had we discussed last night? “Oh! A séance. Of course, I remember.”

  “Can we talk about it?”

  “Um, sure.” I glanced out at Billy, who appeared to be absorbed in the newspaper. “Absolutely.”

  “Would you like me to come to your house so that we can discuss arrangements?”

  Brother, wouldn’t Billy just love that? “No, no. I’d probably better meet you at your house, if you don’t mind. Or somewhere else.”

  “If that’s what you’d prefer.” Harold clearly didn’t understand. I’d have told him, but the circumstances didn’t lend themselves to explanations. I could just imagine Billy’s reaction if I told Harold Kincaid that my husband might be jealous if a strange man came to the house, even to talk about business.

  “Yes,” I said, “I’d prefer that.” For the same reason as the aforementioned, I hoped like heck Harold would suggest a meeting place so I wouldn’t have to. Even though Billy seemed to be immersed in the local news, I didn’t want to chance ruining his perky mood. Since he’d come home from France, he’d been sensitive to what he perceived as my longing to escape a hopeless marriage. I guess our marriage was pretty hopeless, but I’d never desert Billy.

  “Why don’t I pick you up,” Harold suggested, although not as helpfully as I’d hoped. “I can take you to lunch at the club.”

  Bad idea, Harold. “Um, I don’t think I can do that, but I’ll be happy to meet you at Mrs. Kincaid’s.”

  Sure enough, Billy’s paper lowered, and he squinted at me. Darn it. I smiled, hoping he’d think it was one of Mrs. Kincaid’s friends on the wire.

  “Mother’s house?” Harold paused. “Um, I don’t think that’s a good idea. If you don’t want me to pick you up, can you get to Kress’s on Colorado?”

  Kress’s was a drug store. It also had a soda fountain, which Billy and I used to visit all the time before the war, when he could still walk. Meeting another man there felt like a betrayal, although I knew that was silly. “Certainly. That would be fine.” And even though I didn’t like the notion of meeting a man other than Billy there, it was also a relief, since I didn’t have to suggest another meeting place with my husband listening.

  “Good. Can we meet in an hour? I have to drive to the set in Mojave this afternoon.”

  Mojave? Good heavens. “An hour would be fine.”

  “Great. See you then.”

  “Good. Good-bye.”

  Harold hung up, and I was rather more pleased than not with the conversation. In all probability it meant another séance, which meant more money, which was a good thing. I went to the ice box and removed the eggs and ham. “I’ll have breakfast fixed in a jiff, Billy.”

  “What was that all about?”

  I knew he’d ask, although I wished he hadn’t. “I think it’s going to be another séance at the Kincaids’.” It was only a little fib, and one that was spoken out of kindness. Oh, very well, it was also spoken out of a disinclination to argue.

  Billy grunted, not noticeably gratified by the prospect of money. I didn’t understand why he was so opposed to my job. It was a good job, as jobs went, and helped the family enormously. He said no more on the subject, though, and went back to his paper, so I breathed more easily.

  After breakfast, I told Billy I had to dash out to talk to a Kincaid about séances. This was true. The fact that it was Harold with whom I planned to discuss séances was neither here nor there. At least, that’s what I told myself.

  “I’d hoped we could take a walk after breakfast,” Billy said. “It’s a pretty spring day, and we hardly ever get to be together anymore.”

  He sounded sulky, but I didn’t really blame him. “I’d like that, Billy. Can we do it after I get home?”

  “I suppose so.” He didn’t want to do it after I got home; he wanted to do it now.

  I didn’t blame him for that, either. I’d much rather stay home and be a wife to Billy than have to hoof it all over creation pretending to talk to dead people.

  Such was my lot in life, however, so I changed out of my pretty pink house dress and put on a day suit. I hadn’t sewn this one by myself, but had bought it at J. C. Penney’s Department Store. More and more ready-made goods were being sold since the war, and some of them were even worth buying.

  I liked this suit, which was a springy number in a gray-checked cotton-and-wool blend with black trim. The skirt ended a discreet six inches from my ankles, which was considered proper. The Stacy Kincaids of this world might think they were being bold and dashing by raising their skirts almost to knee length, but some of us preferred good old American modesty.

  Besides, modesty and mystery were closely linked, and I needed both for my job. This suit filled the bill perfectly. I still felt as if I were exuding spiritualist vibrations, but it wasn’t a stuffy outfit, especially when I put on my wide-brimmed black straw hat. It was a simple hat, with only a band of gray encircling the brim. I considered the ensemble rather elegant, actually.

  When Pudge Wilson wasn’t in school, he generally turned the crank on the Model T for me. That way I didn’t have to hurtle from the crank into the car to press the pedals before it could stall out. At present Pudge was under the jurisdiction of Miss West, so I had to set the spark and throttle levers, turn the crank myself, reach inside to adjust pull the spark lever down, then leap inside the too-tall-for-me car, and press the low-speed pedal. I got it right eventually, eased out of the driveway, and started on my way up Marengo to Colorado Boulevard, the main east-west street in Pasadena.

  The little old Model T chugged gallantly to Colorado. Like most automobiles of the day, the Model T was open. My hat brim got caught in the wind generated by a speed of almost twenty miles per hour, and I had to pull over and remove the hat, which put me into a peevish mood. I was sure I could never replace it on my head at the same perfect angle at which it had sat originally. I also knew the wind would mess up my hair. I’d wanted to look so professional, too. Stupid car.

  If my business remained good, I aimed to by a closed car one of these days. Maybe a Hudson or a Buick. Something not too expensive, but less open to the wind and weather. The Kincaids and people of their ilk drove around in chauffeur-driven Daimlers and Pierce Arrows and so forth, but I’d be happy with a Chevrolet or a Hudson.

  As I approached Kress’s, I saw a long, low-slung, sleek and sporty, not to mention bright red, Stutz Bearcat residing at the curb. I had a hunch it belonged to Harold. It just looked like the kind of car he’d drive. A spiritualist could never get away with owning a machine like that; nobody’d ever take her seriously. But a man who worked in the pictures . . . Well, that Bearcat was definitely a picture-person’s automobile.

  It took me a minute to get my hair under control and to replace my hat, and I wasn’t sure I’d done a good job of either. In an attempt to see what I was doing, I squinted at the store window (in those days most cars didn’t have rear-view mirrors). But my reflection wasn’t clear enough for me to judge very well. Anyhow, I didn’t want to lo
ok as though I were preening if Harold was watching from inside the store, because I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea, if you know what I mean. With a sigh, I decided I’d done the best I could under the circumstances and exited the Model T.

  I’d no more than approached Kress’s door when it was pushed open, hard, from inside, and I saw Harold standing there, holding the door and smiling at me like an elf out of a fairy tale. There was something so likable about Harold; it was difficult to feature him and Stacy coming from the same parents, although I’m sure stranger things have happened.

  He looked as dapper this morning as he had the evening before. Today he wore a springy seersucker suit and a pink shirt. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a man in a pink shirt, but it suited Harold somehow. On my Billy it would have looked ridiculous.

  “Good morning, good morning,” he cried, evidently enraptured that I should have come all this way (approximately five short blocks) just to see him. Obviously, Harold had never been poor. We poor folk will do just about anything if someone intends to pay us.

  “Good morning, Mr. Kincaid.” I spoke in a much more formal tone of voice than he had, since I was supposed to be a medium and spiritualism was supposed to be a serious business.

  “For God’s sake, call me Harold!” he exclaimed, laughing as if I were the most adorable thing he’d seen in a month of Sundays. He led me to a stool at the lunch counter and gestured for me to sit.

  I sat. “Thank you. Please call me Daisy.” I spoke stiffly. I also didn’t mean it. I would have preferred that he call me Mrs. Majesty. I preferred that everyone call me Mrs. Majesty, in point of fact, because the formality put a degree of distance between my clients and me. That distance worked to my advantage because it made my work seem more important, it made me seem older, and it added a soupcon of mystery even to my every-day dealings with people.