No Quiet among the Shadows

by Nancy Herriman

  Over-egging the pudding, Miss Adler? To make use of one of Celia’s aunt’s favorite sayings.

  Mrs. Loveland finished and returned the notebook to the writing desk.

  “Are we ready, Mrs. Loveland?” asked Vivi, taking the chair nearest the writing desk.

  “Please do take a seat, ladies,” she said.

  Celia sat next to Vivi Adler.

  “What now?” asked Jane, lowering onto the chair directly opposite Celia.

  “If you are hoping I might fly into the air or levitate the table or one of the chairs, Mrs. Hutchinson, you will be disappointed,” said Mrs. Loveland. “I do not lower myself to cheap theatrics.”

  Jane blushed. “That’s not what I meant at all. I just don’t know what to do. I’ve never been to a séance before.”

  “I apologize for my outburst, Mrs. Hutchinson, but I have had so many people visit here intending to prove that I’m a fraud . . . or other things.” Her gaze slid to Celia’s face for a second before returning to Jane’s. “Certainly there are people professing to be mediums who are frauds. They damage the reputation of spiritualism with their schemes.”

  “Terrible people,” said Vivi. “Don’t you agree, Mrs. Davies? I hope that’s not why you’re here.” She giggled to blunt the sharpness of her comment.

  “I hope to contact my husband, Miss Adler,” she replied. “If Mrs. Loveland can reach him, I will be most grateful.”

  “I serve as a conduit of the voices from the beyond, Mrs. Davies,” the woman said. “Should they choose to speak.”

  I can call spirits from the vasty deep, as Mr. Shakespeare had once written.

  “Do any of you wish for a drink of water before we begin?” inquired Mrs. Loveland. “Our efforts this evening can be most draining.”

  “We’re ready,” said Vivi, speaking for them all.

  Mrs. Loveland lowered the wick on the lantern, reducing its light to a pool of illumination that extended no farther than the three of them seated around the table. It cast a soft golden glow upon their faces. The darkness at Celia’s back became palpable, thick as the air on a damp English morning.

  Mrs. Loveland’s skirts rustled, as faintly as leaves in a breeze, as she took the empty chair between Jane and Vivi. “Now we wait.” She shut her eyes and lowered her head.

  Oddly, the bird ceased its song as soon as the woman’s chin touched the lace of her collar. A profound silence as heavy as the darkness descended. Even the sounds of the street below faded away.

  Should I grab the notebook now, while her eyes are closed? Celia’s least movement, though, would disturb the quiet. It would be impossible to seize the diary without drawing Mrs. Loveland’s attention. The time would come; she merely had to be patient.

  She settled against the back of her chair. The sharp aroma of incense wafted into the room, though she previously hadn’t noticed any burning. A cool breeze stirred the hairs upon the back of her neck, prickling her skin. Vivi shifted in her seat, restlessly. A faint scratching sound interrupted the silence, and Celia attempted to locate its source. It seemed to come from above or perhaps behind. At the door? From the bird upon its perch? Jane sat stock-still.

  Abruptly, Mrs. Loveland raised her head to stare at the empty chair between Celia and Jane. “Yes.”

  “Yes?” asked Celia.

  “The spirits are here with us,” she said. “They wish you well, Mrs. Hutchinson.”

  Jane startled. “Me?”

  “They say to not worry about your child.”

  “My . . .” She blushed again, a pink visible even in the dim lantern light. “But I don’t have a child. Unless they mean Grace, but . . .”

  “You are aware of what the spirits mean,” said Mrs. Loveland. “The time will come. Soon.”

  Jane glanced over at Celia. Tears collected in her friend’s eyes, tears of hopefulness that her waiting for a baby might be nearing an end. Was this one way that the woman extracted money from the desperate people who came to see her? Tell them what they wished to hear, hope they showered money upon her in gratitude?

  Celia smiled at her friend, though the expression ached. She’d always wanted a child, too. As much as Jane did now.

  “I can’t thank you enough for your kind and encouraging words, Mrs. Loveland,” said Jane, swiping a tear off her cheek.

  “Do not thank me, Mrs. Hutchinson. I only speak what the spirits tell me.”

  “Do you hear my mother’s voice?” asked Vivi, leaning forward.

  The woman drew in a long breath and stretched her hands out across the cloth covering the table. She tilted her head as though trying to hear distant voices. “No voice comes to me, Miss Adler.”

  “But she has to talk to me,” she insisted. “She has to be happy about my wedding. She has to reassure me Arthur’s safe. I mean, those dreadful letters he’s been getting . . .”

  Clever, Miss Adler.

  Mrs. Loveland’s rapid intake of breath whistled through her nose. “Why are you here, Miss Adler?”

  Vivi perked her chin. “To talk to my mother,” she said. “I want her to reassure me that Arthur will be safe. Isn’t that what sprits can do, Mrs. Loveland? After all, you just told Jane she’s going to have a child.”

  Mrs. Loveland’s expression was cold. “Our evening is concluded.”

  “No!” said Vivi. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Loveland. I can be so stupid. I didn’t mean to upset you. Please, forgive me. And I’m positive Mrs. Hutchinson and Mrs. Davies would be so angry with me if we don’t continue.”

  Mrs. Loveland’s gaze swept the women. “As you wish.”

  She again stretched her hands across the table and tilted her head. Her breathing became slow and even.

  “Ah, a voice comes to me.” She looked at Celia. “Those who speak feel your sorrow, Mrs. Davies.”

  “Yes, my poor, dear husband,” she said, exchanging glances with Jane. “Has he found contentment in the next world?”

  The woman closed her eyes, and the lines of her face hardened. “Celia. Celia,” she said in a hoarse, deep voice.

  “Patrick?” asked Celia. The soft air that had cooled her neck turned warm and moist, like a human breath, and invisible fingers touched her hair. She sat as still as Jane had moments earlier, afraid to move. No. No. This cannot be real.

  “Don’t be sad,” said the spiritualist. “Don’t mourn me, goose.”

  Patrick had never called her “goose.” But someone else had. Long ago. Before he was lost in the Crimea. Before he had left home to be a brave soldier. Before their sweet, protected childhoods had been crushed by the wheel of life.

  “Harry?” Celia asked, her voice quavering.

  Jane gripped the edge of the table. “Your brother, Celia?”

  “Live on, goose,” said Mrs. Loveland. “Live on well.”

  “Her brother talks to her, but my mother won’t speak to me?” cried Vivi. “You’re a fraud, Mrs. Loveland. Arthur was right about you!”

  She leapt to her feet, knocking against the table. It rocked and upended the pitcher of water, which spilled everywhere. Jane thrust back her chair, catching herself before she tipped over. Mrs. Loveland stood and tried to sop up the liquid with the hem of her dress.

  “I’m leaving.” Vivi shoved Celia aside in her haste to depart, knocking Celia off-balance.

  The songbird flapped about in its cage. Mrs. Loveland rushed over to calm it. Vivi charged from the parlor, grabbing her hat and bolting out the door.

  Celia looked over at the writing desk; the diary was gone. Gad.

  She chased after Vivi. “Miss Adler!”

  Jane seized their bonnets and hurried out onto the landing. “Celia, slow down, please.”

  “She has the notebook!”

  “Wait. Honestly!” shouted Jane, as Celia burst out onto the street and into the night air, still aglow with twilight.

  She was halfway to the Hutchinsons’ waiting carriage when Jane caught her up.

  “We learned nothing, and Vivi Adler got away w
ith that diary,” said Celia.

  “No, she didn’t.” Jane pulled a leather-bound notebook from the depths of her skirt. “Voilà!”

  • • •

  “You are so clever, Jane, to have taken the correct notebook,” said Celia. “But how did you know?”

  They’d rushed home to Celia’s and placed the item in question upon the dining room table, where it now rested, almost guilty-looking.

  “Didn’t you notice me watching Mrs. Loveland when she was taking notes?” asked Jane, taking a seat across from Celia. “I saw that the one she was writing in was a new one, barely used. Not so clever. Just lucky.”

  “The word is observant, Jane. Not lucky.”

  “I’d love to see Vivi’s face when she realizes she grabbed the wrong book!” said Jane. “What an amazing amount of histrionics on her part to try to get it, though.”

  “Quite the charade indeed.”

  Addie came into the dining room from the kitchen and peered over Celia’s shoulder. “A diary of all the séances Mrs. Loveland has held? How could such an item be of interest to Miss Adler?”

  “All I can presume is that she was desperate to learn what Mrs. Loveland had recorded for the particular séance she’d attended with Dr. Brown and his sister,” said Celia. “Miss Kimball said none of them were pleased to observe the woman taking notes.”

  “But Vivi picked up the wrong one of the two notebooks on Mrs. Loveland’s writing desk,” said Jane. “She grabbed her newest one, which doesn’t cover the date of the séance she attended with the Browns.”

  “Mrs. Loveland will nae be happy when she realizes both her diaries are gone,” said Addie.

  “This one is evidence in a murder investigation,” Celia pointed out. “She should have handed it over to Detective Greaves straightaway.”

  “She’s hiding something, ma’am. Maybe she is a cheat and a scoundrel.”

  “It is possible,” said Celia. “Especially considering that she favors the company of Mr. Griffin. Who, regrettably, was not in attendance, Addie. So you needn’t have worried about me.”

  “I always fret about you, ma’am,” she said. “So what does the book say about the séance Miss Adler and the others attended?”

  The most recent entry the spiritualist had scribed in her tidy hand was for a séance that had taken place a week earlier. The names of those in attendance—which included Mr. Emery, this time listed as A. J. Emery—had been carefully recorded along with what they’d sought to learn or who they had wished to speak with in the beyond. Some entries also contained the spiritualist’s commentary—whether or not she felt she had helped the person, if she believed the visitor was insincere in their beliefs, an occasional note to never allow the individual to return. Nothing particularly earth-shattering or scandalous.

  Celia thumbed through the pages until she found the date of interest. “Frankly, there is not much here.”

  As with the other entries, Mrs. Loveland had listed their names, why they’d come—with a short comment on the skepticism of Miss Justina Brown—and whether Mrs. Loveland had felt the evening had been a success.

  She scanned a few more of Mrs. Loveland’s entries, noticing that Miss Kimball had visited two days prior. “Miss Kimball attended twice that week. That is intriguing.”

  “Wait, Celia. Go back to the evening of the séance. There’s something written beneath Vivi’s name.” Jane pointed at the note. “I can’t read it from here.”

  Celia squinted at the handwriting, which was not as crisp as the other entries Mrs. Loveland had written. She lifted it to the flare of the gas lamp burning overhead. “‘Owe money.’ But the entry looks to be in a different hand.”

  “Mr. Griffin’s,” declared Addie. “Whose else could it be?”

  “Vivi owes Mr. Griffin money?” asked Jane. “Is that possible, Celia?”

  “We have to consider it, Jane.”

  “And Miss Adler in her fine clothes and fancy airs . . .” Addie gave a sniff of disapproval. “Weel, I’m not surprised. I didna care for her.”

  The gilt edge of Mrs. Loveland’s notebook glinted in the gaslight, and Celia recalled another notebook. “Justina Brown had made an appointment with Mr. Smith several weeks before the séance. I wonder if the private matter she did not wish to discuss with us had to do with suspicions about Vivi Adler.”

  “If Vivi is in any way associated with Mr. Griffin, Arthur will call off the wedding,” said Jane. “She and her father will be ruined, chased from the city.”

  “Worse than ruined, Jane, if Vivi killed Mr. Smith to keep that association a secret.”

  Vivi Adler might be petite, adorned in elegant and pristine fabrics, but she was no fragile, porcelain doll. And Celia had learned to never underestimate another human being, no matter how delicate they appeared on the outside.

  For they are actions that a man might play.

  Or a woman, if Mr. Shakespeare would permit the change to his words.

  Chapter 20

  Nick stretched his back, but the crick stuck between his shoulder blades didn’t let up. Last night, he’d found a spot among the sacks of mail on the Stockton-bound overnight steamer. He’d had worse accommodations during the war—rain-soaked blankets, hard ground where rocks and tree roots pushed into your hips or back, marsh bottom infested with insects that chewed on a man like he was the only meal they’d had in days. The chug of the boat’s steam engine and the rhythmic swish of the blades in the water should’ve lulled him to sleep. But he’d hardly slept a wink, and now he was stiff and irritated.

  And hungry.

  The sun was just up, and the narrow wharf area of the San Joaquin River was awakening as reluctantly as Nick’s spine wanted to move. Compared to San Francisco, there wasn’t much to see—an ironworks belching smoke, a multistory flour mill, several warehouses, stacks of lumber and crates of produce alongside the landing, another steamer tied up behind the spot the mail ship had chosen, a city of wood structures sprawled a few miles across the paper-flat landscape, mountains rising in the distance. The stink of a tannery drifted on the air. Though the early-morning temperature was bearable, the day promised to be hot, out here where the breezes from the ocean didn’t reach.

  Dragging his hat from his head, Nick ran his fingers through his hair. He squinted into the sunlight shimmering off the roads and wondered where he could get a decent meal. No point in heading to the state hospital at this hour; it was too early to expect anybody would be in their office to answer questions.

  “You need a ride someplace?” A burly fellow in a rough coat hailed Nick from the seat of his wagon. His dappled gray horse restlessly stomped a hoof, raising a cloud of dust. “Noticed you standing there, looking lost. I’ve got business downtown, if that’s where you’re going.”

  “Thanks. I can hire a cab,” said Nick, restoring his hat to his head.

  The fellow chuckled and pulled the cigar he’d been puffing from his mouth. “You see one around here? This ain’t San Francisco.”

  “Does this town have anyplace I can get a bite of breakfast?”

  The man looked insulted. “’Course we do,” he said. “It should start serving in about ten minutes or so. Won’t take but a couple to get there.”

  “Much obliged,” said Nick, climbing onto the seat, the wagon springs squeaking. The man and his wagon smelled of straw and hay and earth. The smells of home. But Nick didn’t have time for nostalgia right now.

  “G’yup,” the fellow said to his horse. Tucking his cigar into the corner of his mouth, he steered the wagon up the road and glanced over at Nick. “If you don’t mind my askin’, what’s brought you to Stockton?”

  The driver nodded to folks they passed on the road, who squinted at Nick with suspicion. Every one of them would likely clamor for the new arrival’s full story once the driver dropped Nick off at the promised restaurant. Maybe that was the fellow’s occupation—interrogating newcomers.

  “I’m looking for some information on a doctor who I believe u
sed to work at the hospital,” Nick answered.

  “You a cop?”

  “Just doing some asking for a friend.”

  “A friend, eh?”

  “A friend,” said Nick.

  The wagon jolted over a rut in the road, and Nick grabbed the edge of the seat to keep from falling off.

  “So, what’s the doctor’s name? The one you’re asking about,” said the driver. “I’ve lived here since fifty-nine. I might know the fellow.”

  “Dr. Arthur Brown.”

  “Oh. Brown.”

  “Do you know him?” Nick asked.

  “I’ve heard of him,” the other man replied, his voice tight, his easy manner gone. Interesting. “Can’t say I had the pleasure of ever meeting him, though. He’s been gone a few years. Left sometime during the war, is my recollection. Didn’t go off to serve, though.” A comment followed by a thorough flicking of ash off the end of his cigar and onto the road.

  “What do folks around here have to say about him?” asked Nick.

  “The usual. I don’t listen to gossip, though.”

  You don’t? “Since you’ve been in Stockton for a while, do you also know the Stevensons?”

  “Yep, I know ’em. Used to know ’em,” the driver said.

  “Do they still live around here?” asked Nick. “I was wondering, because my sister was a friend of theirs when they lived in Sacramento, but she’s lost track of them since they moved away. She thought they might be here.”

  “They’re long gone,” he said. “They left Stockton in . . . let’s see . . . in sixty-two? sixty-three? Went someplace east.”

  “Well, that’s a shame. Hold on a second.” Nick pulled out the carte de visite photograph he’d brought with him and showed it to the man. “I’ve been told this is Miss Arvilla Stevenson. Handsome woman, if I may say so myself.”

  The man glanced over. “That’s not Miss Stevenson. That woman’s a whole lot smaller than I recall Miss Stevenson being.”

  “Ah.” Nick tutted over the photograph. “Do you know who she is?”

  “Here’s the restaurant.” The driver reined in the horse, bringing the wagon to a lurching halt. “Good luck.”