The Spirit Room (12 page)

Izzie smoothed the skirt of her dress and stepped inside the tall doors. Along the walls, gas light sconces illuminated a huge hallway. At the far end of it two women in identical long white robes were talking.

Izzie went in the first door on the left marked “reception” just as Mrs. Purcell had explained. A young, fair, clean-shaven man, neatly dressed in a white shirt, fitted light trousers and a shiny black waistcoat stood near the door. He was putting on a wool coat.

“
Good day, miss. I’m just going for supplies. May I help you?”

“
Yes. I am here to see the physician MacAdams.”

“
For hydrotherapy?”

“
I have a fee for him.”

“
I am in a hurry. You may see him yourself.” He quickly turned and led Izzie past a high counter on the left, then through an empty waiting room. They approached a door with translucent glass and black painted letters reading “Dr. A.B. Smith, Director.” The young man knocked.

“
Come in.”

The fellow opened the door and leaned into the opening.

“
You have a visitor, sir, a young woman says it’s about a fee.”

“
I’ll see her.” The voice lilted in a welcoming way.

The clean-shaven man pushed open the door, let Izzie in, then vanished.

Doctor MacAdams stood up from behind a spacious oak desk at one end of the room and smiled broadly. He was lanky and rather towering in his black greatcoat.

“
You’re well. I’m very pleased. And your sister, Euphora?”

He swung around the desk and strode toward her. His excitement seemed odd, as though there was some mistake, as though he thought she was someone else.

“
Euphora is herself again.” Izzie pointed at the door. “It says Dr. Smith on the door?”

“
Smith. He’s the director here. Gone for two months. I’m keeping the ship afloat while he’s away. Please sit.” He gestured eagerly toward one of two curved-back Windsor chairs.

She sat and browsed the room. Shelves, interrupted by two tall windows, lined one entire wall of the office. They were crammed with small, labeled bottles of either clear or blue glass. Along the opposite wall, bookcases supported rows and rows of thick medical books and stacks of journals. Behind the desk was an open door revealing the end of a high table covered by a pristine white sheet.

MacAdams returned to his desk chair, the noontime sun washing over his papers.

“
Well, Miss Benton, tell me how I may be of assistance. You are feeling well?”

“
Yes. I brought you the fee.” She placed the gold coin on the desk and slid it across the smooth oak.

He left it sitting there without reaching for it. “Tell me about your recovery. Did you have any setbacks?”

“
I was very tired. My father wanted me to conduct séances with my sister before my throat felt entirely well.”

“
Ah, yes. The Benton Sisters. You’re the talk of the town. Do you really hear spirits?” MacAdams tapped two fingertips on the purple scar on his chin.

“
May I ask you something?” Izzie said.

“
Of course.”

“
When one is feverish, is it common to have delusions?”

“
Delusions?”

“
Voices. To hear voices.”

“
Fevers can create dream-like states. This happened to you?”

Izzie nodded. “I heard a woman’s voice just as I was falling ill at our spirit circle.”

“
But not a spirit the way you usually do?” His mouth curled into a skeptical smirk.

Izzie squinted toward the sunny windows. Papa had made her and her sisters and brother swear they would never tell anyone the truth about the Benton Sisters. They were genuine mediums and that was that. Blast Papa. She’d had enough.

“
We only play at being mediums. For the money. It’s my father’s idea, but you mustn’t tell anyone.”

He smiled, leaned over his desk. “We’ll have a secret then.” Putting his elbows on the desk, he pressed his hands together in prayer position. “People do hear and see things when they have fevers. It can be quite extreme, delirium sometimes.”

“
My mother heard voices all the time.”

He leaned back and took a moment. “Did she ever have hysterical fits?”

“
What do you mean by fits?”

“
Screaming, fainting, thrashing about.”

“
No, not like that.”

“
Like what, then?”

Izzie’s jaw began to quiver. Hoping the doctor wouldn’t notice, she clenched her teeth a moment and grasped the two ends of her shawl. Then she sighed.

“
Since I can remember, she told us she saw spirits and they talked to her.”

He arched a curly brow. “Did you witness this?”

If he was shocked, he was hiding it well.

“
She’d start out praying, usually holding her Bible, then sometimes—not every time—she would mumble, or sound like she was speaking with someone, but it only lasted a few minutes. She had a rocking chair and she’d rock back and forth with her eyes closed.” Izzie criss-crossed her shawl over her dress bodice. “She didn’t thrash or scream.”

“
Mrs. Purcell told me she died a few months ago. May I ask what caused her passing?”

Opening the shawl again and grasping the corners, Izzie pulled at the wool. “She drowned…in a sailing accident. It appeared that she stole a boat from the north end of the lake one night. My brother and I found her in the water at Kashong Point.” She felt tears form at the corners of her eyes, but took a deep breath and stared at the bright windows to keep from crying. “I believe the voices led her to her death.”

Doctor MacAdams rose from his desk, went to the window, and looked out. “And you are afraid if you hear voices you will die like she did,” he said.

“
Yes.”

He turned toward her, his face grave, his wavy dark hair shining in the sun.

“
I’ll be honest with you, Miss Benton. I am not an expert in nervous maladies, though some of our water-cure patients come to us with nervous exhaustion and other mental difficulties.” He stepped toward her. “But I am a man of science. I don’t believe in mediums or the tricks of Spiritualists. In all likelihood, your mother probably needed some medical care that she never got.” Touching his purple chin scar, he paused for a moment.

“
How will I ever know the truth about her?” Izzie asked.

“
We could talk to an expert in these matters. There’s a physician, Dr. George Cook, in Canandaigua. He manages Brigham Hall. It’s a small hospital for the insane. Perhaps you and I could pay him a visit and you could tell him your mother’s history.”

“
But how could he truly know about her? She’s gone.” Izzie stood. “Excuse me, I really must go now.”

“
No, please, Miss Benton, forgive me.” He came close to her. “I did not mean to imply your mother was insane, merely that Dr. Cook is nearby and has a special knowledge of the human mind and might provide you with some insight or solace.” He was so tall that she had to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. And there was the fragrance she remembered from her sick bed—lemon, mint, and that medicinal smell. “I apologize if I have offended you.” His brown eyes were insistent.

“
I must go. I have to prepare for a séance. My father and sister will be waiting.”

He walked with her out to the front door of the Hygienic Institute and they stood looking out at Pulteney Park with its walkways and teeming water fountain in the center.

“
I will keep your secret, Miss Benton, and I don’t want you to worry about any voices you’ve heard. I am sure it was your fever.”

She thanked him again and started off for the Spirit Room. He had to be right about the voice she had heard and the fever. He was an educated physician, a man of experience. He just had to be. And that time she thought she heard someone say “Susan,” at Mrs. Fielding’s circle, someone in the room had probably spoken it even though Clara and Papa hadn’t heard it. There were so many people there at that circle and so much commotion. She wouldn’t think any more about it now.

Eleven

A MONTH LATER THE SPRING RAINS BEGAN. Pelted by a relentless downpour, Izzie sloshed down Seneca Street. Her boots soaking up the thin sheets of water on the wooden sidewalk and her gray-and-blue plaid dress wet up to her knees, she tilted her umbrella back slightly and glanced up at the Spirit Room windows above Mrs. Beattie’s Millinery. Papa’s new sign was large and impressive. The Benton Sisters. Public & Private Séances.

Clara’s dramatic trances were continuing to gain popularity. Papa had been home for ten days straight and in that time had only been out in the evening once and then only for a few hours. Not only had he remained sober, but he had come home with fresh information every day for their séances. If things continued like this, perhaps it wouldn’t be long before Papa and Clara wouldn’t need her.

A burst of wind shoved at the umbrella. Izzie tugged it back down close over her head and ventured on. If Clara was to be the shining star of the Benton Sisters, perhaps Izzie didn’t have to assist her. Euphora could do it. After all, Clara did enjoy doing the trances and getting the attention. She really was a fine little actress and she seemed to have a remarkable sense of intuition about the seekers.

At Smith & Crane Bookstore and Bindery at 33 Seneca Street, Izzie paused under the awning to shake water from her umbrella. As she entered the shop, the bell above the door jingled its welcome. She inserted her dripping umbrella into the stand and breathed in the delicious smell of ink and paper, leather and dust.

Izzie browsed at Smith & Crane whenever she could. Mr. Smith generally smiled at her and didn’t seem to mind that she didn’t purchase the books she read while standing sometimes for an hour in front of the bookshelves. Every once in a while, like today, she delivered or retrieved one of Mrs. Purcell’s books for binding repair.

Today, on her errand for Mrs. Purcell, she was eager to finish
Madame Bovary
, a novel she had started reading in the shop when Papa had leased the Spirit Room in December. Emma Bovary had been sinking into an ugly despair and Izzie wanted to finish the book and get the anguish over with. On Izzie’s last visit to Smith & Crane, Emma had begged Rodolphe for three thousand francs to help with her debts, but he had refused her. The story couldn’t end well. Rodolphe, the bastard, had ruined Emma, stolen her soul.

Mr. Smith was busy with a customer, so Izzie headed along the left wall of floor-to-ceiling books, her path to the literature section. She passed religion, philosophy, history.

“
Oh, Miss Benton.” Mr. Smith, behind his glass counter, was looking around the shoulder of a stout man in a tan canvas coat.

“
Yes.”

“
I am very sorry. We sold both copies of Flaubert. I have ordered it, though. I’ll have it in a week or two.”

Drat
. Now she’d have to wait all that time. She had guessed earlier that Mr. Smith knew precisely what she was reading and now she knew for certain that he did. Thank goodness he didn’t mention the scandalous title out loud.

“
Thank you. Is Mrs. Purcell’s book ready?”

Mr. Smith held up a finger and nodded, then returned his attention to his customer.

“
Miss Benton. What luck.” A man’s voice came from behind her.

Doctor MacAdams, two large volumes tucked under an arm, stepped out from a break in the bookcase that ran down the center of the store and walked toward her smiling. His stovepipe hat and shoulders were rain soaked.

“
Hello, Doctor MacAdams.”

He took off the wet hat and smoothed back his black wavy hair. “I had been hoping to run into you. I’ve heard that you and your sister are still dazzling the town with your talents as mediums.”

As talented hoaxes, she wanted to say, but only smiled.

“
Well, you must come to a séance some time. We always welcome skeptics.”

“
Too much scientific training for me, I suppose.” He lifted the books under his arm in her direction as though to say, “here is the wisdom of life, the real truth of existence.”

She hoped he wouldn’t come to a spirit circle, though. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t want him witnessing their Spiritualism game.

“
I am famished. I had a small emergency at the Hygienic Institute and worked straight through supper this afternoon. Do you have time to join me over at the Gem Inn for tea?”