The Spirit Room (31 page)

One late Friday afternoon in November, Weston came into the Spirit Room, wide brim hat in hand and bundled up in his black double-breasted greatcoat and a black woolen scarf around his neck. But there was nothing tucked under his arm or clutched in his hand. There was no gift.

Her heart sank. Was that the end of the special treats? Was it to be just the money now? Would she have to listen to him moaning and panting while he pumped his prick up hard and not get the gift? She jammed a fingernail between her teeth and started to chew on it.

Without stopping as usual at the coat tree to neatly hang his hat and coat, Weston strode right to her at the table where she sat. His mouth in a frown, the skin under his eyes sagging, he coughed at the back of his fist.

“
Are you ill?” she asked.

“
I’m fatigued.” Drawing out the straight back chair near her, he tossed his hat on the table and sat.

Clara glanced toward the fireplace. “I got the coals burning a couple of hours ago, so the room is warm, the way you like it.”

“
Miss Clara, I’m afraid our dear meetings must end. What we have been doing is no longer pleasurable for me, at least not the way it was.” He cleared his throat. “It’s not because of you. You are more lovely than ever. It’s because my desire for you is even greater now than before. Even though I doubt you could understand me, I hope you might.” He reached under the table, took her hand from her lap, brought it up, and held it. “I long to embrace you as a husband embraces a wife.”

Chest tightening, she swallowed hard. “Do you mean you wish to marry me?”

“
No, my sweet, I have something more romantic in mind.”

“
But you’re not married.”

“
No, no, you must trust that I’d be an abysmal husband. You deserve better in a marriage, much better, someone young and handsome.”

As he spoke, his hand on hers grew hot and damp. She believed him. He’d be a skunk of a husband, the kind of husband who did old goat nasty things to girls. Now he was asking to bed her. She drew her hand away from his.
Jo-fire
. Papa couldn’t know about this proposal. He couldn’t agree to this, could he?

She braced herself. “And Papa?”

“
He says you must decide for yourself. If you agree, there will be more money and I promise I will not hurt you. I never would. You know that.”

Papa not only knew about this then, but there was an understanding about money. How much money was Weston proposing? She bit down on the inside of her mouth. No, she didn’t want to know.

“
No, sir.” She shook her head. “No, sir.”

“
Please, Clara, I beg you. I will shrivel into a wrinkled ogre without you.”

She returned her hand to her lap under the table. Let him shrivel then, she thought. Let him take his ideas of romance and good and bad husbands and go off to a dark cave in the forest and shrivel into an old ogre and let huge boulders fall in front of the cave door and seal him in forever. Weston stood, walked over to the coal fire and stared down into it. After a moment he tapped the clock affectionately, then smiled at her.

“
Do you remember the day the clock started ticking during the séance? The spirit knocking was so loud that the clock started up?” He chuckled and held up a fist as though grasping something. “You were stunning that day. You had Isaac Camp under your spell, in the palm of your hand.”

It had been a shining moment, a glorious moment, tricking Camp so perfectly.

“
You are an enchanting girl, Clara.” He coughed toward his coat sleeve.

“
Camp is gone and so are the others. Sometimes I think that when Izzie left, my luck left.”

“
That’s nonsense. You are your own luck. People and things will come to you in time. You are very young now. Don’t worry about the séances. They are nothing. Women as beautiful as you have their own luck. After all, look what you’ve done to me. I’m a beggar at your feet.” He stroked the clock’s wood case. “You’ll have many beggars at your feet besides me. You’ll learn how to make them into your servants. You’ll see.”

What would she ever want with servants like him, she wondered. Not able to look at him, she turned her gaze toward the three dusk-filled windows. She felt his eyes on her. Weston and Papa were always telling her how pretty she was and it would smooth her way through life, but so far it wasn’t smoothing anything. It was more like a witch’s curse.

She stood staring across the table at the candlelight. “I’m sorry, Mr. Weston. I can’t do what you ask.”

He shuffled around toward her, stood close. Gazing into her eyes, he lifted her hand up to his mouth, kissed it with warm lips and bristly whiskers, then held it a moment. She wanted to pull it back, but left it with him. “I want you to be my paramour. The gifts will come by the wagonload if you will say yes to me. My offer stands, should you change your mind.” Again, he kissed her hand, gazed so fiercely at it that it felt seared. She wanted to plunge her hand into deep, cold snow. Finally he looked up, his eyes yearning like a stray dog’s. “I pray you will change your mind.”

No. She would not change her mind, never
ever
change her mind and never miss their times in the corner either. Everything about this was wrong. Here was her chance to get rid of him. She lowered her eyes and he finally released her hand.

“
Goodbye, my dear,” he whispered.

When the door thumped closed, it was like the last note of a sad song. As she watched the door and listened to his footsteps rumbling down the stairs, she felt a wave of joy and grinned, but when the downstairs door to the street clunked shut, melancholy rushed up and through her, surprising her.

What if Weston did stay away altogether? Something tugged at her. She would miss him. Not his frigging himself, but the flowers, his admiration, his quirky devotion. At the first séance practice, there he had been, and there he had stayed, even after everyone else had gone. He had defended her. He had been a friend. She sighed deeply, walked to the window, and pressed her forehead against the chilly glass. The back of his figure, all in black, from boot to hat, walked away in the gaslight down along the other side of Seneca Street towards the harbor. When he had vanished, Clara turned around to face the empty Spirit Room, lit only by the single candle and the red coals.

Now what would happen? First there would be Papa’s disappointment. He might drink too much. He might hurt Billy. She remembered Billy’s wounded face, his warning that he’d leave home if he had to. It would all be her fault then. And they’d have to give up the lease on the Spirit Room and move the family to a cheaper boardinghouse or a tenement. She put a fingernail between her teeth and ripped it straight across. Her fault.

Her life wouldn’t be any different than any other poor girl’s. Who did she think she was? A famous medium like Mrs. Fielding or even Anna Santini? She was born a poor girl and she’d stay a poor girl. She could read and write, but she wasn’t smart like Izzie, who’d found a smart husband and knew to accept his marriage offer right away.

She looked out again. Emerging from his shop across the street, the baker pulled a ring of keys from his coat and locked his door for the night. Paramour. There probably were worse things to be, but still, she wasn’t going to be Sam Weston’s paramour behind the locked door of the Spirit Room. She was tired of him and the secrets. She’d rather go off to the bottom of the lake like Mamma did. Maybe Mamma’s spirit was waiting for her in Summerland. Maybe Mamma was lonely and wanted her to come join her.

Clara walked to the table and pushed in a straight back chair. “One.” Then she slid the next chair neat and close to the table edge. “Two.” Then the next and next, “three and four and five,” until she had arranged all eight chairs perfectly around the oak oval.

As she walked home in the late dusk, she wondered if Billy would take her with him if he ran away, if she should ask him. But how could he roam around with rebels and John Brown and fight against slavery with a girl along? That wouldn’t do. Besides, if it came to that, she couldn’t leave Euphora alone with Papa.

By the time she reached home she knew she wasn’t going to wait for her mood or Papa’s mood to be right. She’d tell him right away. She couldn’t do what Weston wanted. She tromped up the stairs and marched straight into Papa’s bedchamber. And there, in the darkish room, he sat hunched over in his spindly Windsor chair looking out the window. Outside, a couple of early stars dotted the evening sky. She walked quietly around to the front of him. Elbows propped on his knees, he was covering his face with his hands. The room smelled of his liquor and sweat, but it wasn’t coming from him. That was a different smell. This was the permanent smell that had soaked into his mattress feathers.

“
Papa, shall I light the lamp?”

“
No, let it be.” His voice was gravelly.

He lifted his head. His wire spectacles were off, and even in the dimness he looked drawn. Had he been crying? She couldn’t quite see his eyes. He hadn’t cried tears since Mamma died.

“
You all right, Papa?”

“
I ain’t even a man anymore, much less a father. I can’t make enough money to pay the rent. I’m asking my most precious daughter to do somethin’ no father should ever ask a daughter to do, but I don’t know how else to keep the family goin’. I keep runnin’ into problems every time I try somethin’ new. Someone or somethin’ gets in my way. I don’t see no other choices, Little Plum.”

“
Mr. Weston said it was up to me. He said you wanted me to decide.”

“
I do want you to decide, but I can’t see no other way.”

“
I can’t do it, Papa. I can’t be Mr. Weston’s paramour. I’d rather work my fingers to the bone all day and all night. I can sew shirts. I can learn to use one of those new Singer sewing machines. You can make more money on a machine.”

Papa was silent, his jaw and mouth shifting around. He stared straight ahead toward the inky window. Why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t he say, “Yes, Clara, that’s a good idea. We can make do if you do that.”

“
Did Weston tell you how much he was willing to pay for the first time?”

“
No, it doesn’t matter. I’ve decided.”

“
Fifty dollars.”

She covered her mouth with a hand, staggered back a step. “No.”

“
Yep.”

Legs weak, she walked around to the bed and sat behind him. So Papa was willing to sell her for a high price, a racehorse price, not an everyday workhorse price. That’s what she was—Papa’s prize racehorse. When he was happy, he had always called her Little Plum, his precious one, but these days he only called her those things if it somehow had to do with money. A tear rolled down her face.

“
Why do you hate me, Papa? I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked me.”

He kept his eyes on the window. “You have done. I wish I had four of you in place of the others. You know that. I don’t hate you. It’s the opposite.”

He stood, took the chair by one of its rungs and flipped it around toward her, then sat again. Taking his spectacles from his waistcoat pocket, he put them on, ran his fingers through his hair to comb it back, then braced a hand on each knee.

“
What about this? You go along with Weston for just a little while. We save most of the money he gives me, then, in a few months, we pack up the family and go to San Francisco or Colorado. I’ve been thinkin’ I might have a chance out there. No one would be gettin’ in my way, makin’ black marks by my name all the time. It’s new out there. Everything is growin’ like weeds. There’s room for fellas like me. We could all try somethin’ new. Then you’d never have to do anything like this Weston thing again and there aren’t near enough women out West either. There’s plenty of fellas for you to pick a husband.”

“
But we would be a world away from Izzie.”

“
You can still write letters.”

“
Can I still decide for myself, Papa? Can I think about it a while?”

He tipped his chair back off his heels, poked his thumbs into his vest pockets. “Sure. Sure, you can, Little Plum, but you’re the only one can help us now with your Mamma gone and Izzie gone. Billy’s makin’ nothin’ wages. It’s up to you.”

<><><>

THE NEXT MORNING, after Billy and Euphora had gone downstairs, Clara, with her stomach in a knot, knocked on Papa’s bedchamber door. When he grumbled something, she entered. He was in bed, the morning sunlight shining onto his quilt-covered shape.

“
Papa, I’ve decided. I don’t need more time to think. I don’t want to be Mr. Weston’s paramour, even for a few months. I’m going out now to find work. I’m sorry, Papa.”

He raised himself up on an elbow. “Go get your menial, finger-numbing seamstress piece work. You better start lookin’ for a husband too while you’re out knockin’ on doors. You’ll need one. If I go out West, I’m goin’ alone.”