The Spirit Room (36 page)

Ten people for dinner meant peeling twenty potatoes brought up from the cellar. The seventeen unpeeled ones sat on the table to her right in a circle surrounded by another circle with one big potato in the center. The peeled potatoes, three, were side-by-side, straight in a row. In the end, there would be four rows of five on her left. When she was finished with peeling potatoes, she would be in charge of peeling turnips. Only ten of those.

Euphora’s duties were keeping the wood stove at just the right heat, getting out dishes, washing things, setting the table, stirring the beans, and scampering like a raccoon up from and down to the cellar whenever Mrs. Purcell asked for something—pickled tomatoes, canned pears, and “on second thought a few more turnips. Those young men from next door eat like horses.”

Mrs. Purcell was peeling and chopping chestnuts for the turkey’s stuffing. When reaching for the next shiny brown nut, her hand accidentally nudged several off the table. The nuts scattered and clacked onto the floor near Clara’s feet. Clara squatted quickly to stop them from rolling. When she bent down, her private place burned. When she stood back up, with three chestnuts in hand, she felt oddly small, like she was sinking again, the floor giving way under her feet.

Mrs. Purcell took the chestnuts from her palm. “Are you all right, dear? You look peaked. Are you ill?”

To stop from sinking, from disappearing, Clara grabbed the edge of the worktable.

“
Clara, are you feverish?”

“
No, I’m a little tired from the late night.”

“
Your father should not be taking you out to conduct those spirit circles at those late hours.” Mrs. Purcell flicked her knife at the air. “You are still growing, for mercy’s sake. I am most unhappy with your father right now. If I didn’t care so much and worry so much about you children, and your departed mother, I’d throw him out of my house.” With a scowl on her face, she returned to her chestnuts.

Clara counted her potatoes one more time, then started peeling again. But suddenly Sam Weston came to mind, shoving his prick into her, looming over her. Her knees buckled a little and she felt like she was shrinking, shrinking lower than the table, a child too short to reach the surface. She seized the potato in the middle of her potato circles and held it like an anchor.

After taking a few deep breaths, she returned to herself. She shouldn’t think about Weston, or picture him, or remember anything about last night. She had to toss him out of her thoughts like salt from a shaker. Three and one half potatoes done. Sixteen and one half not done.

“
Mrs. Purcell, are you sure twenty potatoes is enough?”

“
Yes, dear.”

They peeled, cut, chopped, rinsed, stirred, mashed, and cleaned up for hours. All the while Clara asked questions of Mrs. Purcell to keep her mind away from Sam Weston. “What was the most people you ever had for Thanksgiving dinner and who were they?” and “how do you know when the turkey is done?” And of Euphora, she asked, “What’s the best thing you’ve ever cooked with Mrs. Purcell?” and “what book shall we read next?” and on and on until there was no one else in the world but the three of them peeling, chopping, stirring, and chatting.

In all her life Clara had never smelled so many kinds of food steaming, baking, and roasting all at once. It was splendiferous, heaven on earth. They served golden-skinned roast turkey with bread and chestnut stuffing and gravy, corn bread, mashed potatoes, mashed turnips, and stewed beans. Mrs. Purcell opened three jars of her pickled tomatoes from last summer, and there were three pumpkin pies. No wine or sherry, though. Mrs. Purcell said, “I don’t have a Temperance household, but I am not interested in serving any spirits to your father. I’ve put my few bottles away under lock and key.”

A friend of Billy’s from Maxwell’s Nursery came to dinner. The Carter sisters wore their Sunday dresses and Mrs. Purcell also invited the widower from next door, Nathan Rose, and his two sons who both attended the Hobart Free College in town. When everyone had arrived and taken a seat, the table was as crowded as it could be, not room for one more chair, and there was enough food spread out on the table to feed half of Geneva.

After everything was ready, Clara sat and looked around the table at all the faces. Could anyone tell what she had done the night before? Mrs. Purcell said a prayer. Eating began. Talking began. It was all about the north and the south, slavery and freedom, John Brown’s October raid on Harper’s Ferry, and how Colonel Robert E. Lee and his men ended the raid and captured Brown, how Brown was to be executed to death down in Virginia and whether Brown was right or wrong trying to cause an uprising and using violence.

All four boys—Billy, his friend, and Nathan Rose’s sons—thought Brown was right, thought he was a hero, but Mrs. Purcell said she agreed with Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of
Godey’s Lady’s Book
. Sarah Hale wanted the Union to stay together and for there to be peace between northerners and southerners. “We’re all going to die anyway. No need to rush it along for each other,” Mrs. Purcell said.

Clara peeked at Papa every now and then. Through most of the meal he seemed to be ignoring her, but then out of nowhere, after the John Brown chatter ended, he suddenly looked straight at her, almost with surprise, as though she had just walked in and sat down.

He gazed at the boys. “Clara’s never been to school a day in her life, but she is powerful smart with numbers. When she’s a wife to the right husband, she’ll be able to manage her household like a proper woman and a businessman all in one. My married daughter Isabelle up in Rochester reads too much, everythin’ on earth. That won’t help her take care of her home. No sir, it’s Clara that’s goin’ ta be the pick of my girls. I’m bettin’ my money on Clara. She’s a picture too, don’t you boys think so?”

Everyone stopped chewing, set their forks and knives down and looked at Clara for a moment, a long, awful moment. She started to sink down again and felt she was three years old, chin just barely level with the table.

“
She’s lovely, Frank. We all see that. I wish I had a daughter. I always wanted a daughter.” Nathan Rose looked sideways at his two sons. “All I’ve got is these two plug ugly idiots.”

Everyone laughed, the boys the loudest. Winking, Nathan Rose smiled at Clara and then turned to Mrs. Purcell, “Emma, this is the best roast turkey I have ever tasted.”

Clara picked up her fork and knife for the first time and cut a piece of the dark meat on her plate. She ate a few bites, but that was all she could get down.

With bright blue eyes, Euphora looked over at Clara. “I wish Izzie was here, and Mamma too.”

“
Me too,” Billy said. “When is Izzie comin’ for a visit, Clara? I thought you said she was comin’?”

“
I don’t know, but she promised she would.”

Twenty-Seven

THE MORNING AFTER THANKSGIVING, Clara was happy as a clam at high tide to get away from Papa. She left the house to go to work for the milliner before he was awake. She was so early that Mrs. Beattie told her to start the coal fire, then sit in the back workroom and wait until she had sorted through her weekly accounting. Then Mrs. Beattie promised to start her on something special.

Clara got the fire burning in the iron tailor’s stove, then studied the room. The worktable was perfectly neat, everything in little boxes or wooden trays in the middle—colored threads, shears, measuring tape, buttons. Along one wall, large flat shelves held patterns and small pieces of silks, satins, velvets, wools, and black and white laces. A straw basket was half-filled with feathers, brown and black ones, long fine silvery ones, reddish ones, enough to dress a naked rooster, Clara thought.

Her favorite thing on the worktable was a bandbox. Whenever she could find a minute at work, she’d dwell on it. She drew it toward her. It was an oval shape, tall with a lid that nestled snug on top. It was covered with wallpaper of red, green, brown, and blue that showed six men in uniform pulling, and one pushing, a fire wagon along a road in front of a beautiful red brick house. The house wasn’t on fire though. It was pretty and peaceful. They were on their way to a fire not in the picture. One man was blowing a horn, calling out trouble. On the fire wagon the number thirteen was painted in a circle in two places. She ran her hand over the lid. It was slightly gritty with dust.

Suddenly, there was a slap like a whip cracking. She lurched. Her hand jerked, tipping over the bandbox. It tumbled to the floor spilling snippets of colored ribbon in a mess.

“
I cannot, cannot, make these accounts add up,” Mrs. Beattie called out. “It’s the most frustrating thing ever.”

Then Mrs. Beattie was quiet again for a while, except for some hefty sighing and paper shuffling. When visiting the shop to look at hats and
Godey’s Lady’s Books
, Clara had heard Mrs. Beattie grumble about her accounts before. Mrs. Beattie’s face would look tortured and she’d scratch her blond hair like a little monkey with an accordion player. When she was really disturbed, she’d slap or pound her ledgers. Clara picked up the bandbox and the tangled ribbons and put them on the table. She plucked at them and began to sort them by color, reds and pinks in one lump, blues and greens in another, black, white, yellow, purple in their own piles. Then she unfurled the ribbons and counted them to see which color there was the most of.

Slap. Slap. Slap. Clara’s heart jumped into her throat and she vaulted from her stool. Then in a moment, when her heart settled down, she went into the shop and saw Mrs. Beattie sitting, holding her head in her hands at her small desk behind the cashier counter. Was she crying? Bookkeeping wasn’t anything to cry about, was it? It was just arithmetic, numbers in a ledger.

“
I can add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Papa taught us when we were little. He wouldn’t send us to school, but he thought we needed to know numbers. He says both my brother Billy and I have a knack for it.”

Mrs. Beattie lifted her head and swiveled around in her chair. “You can?”

Clara nodded and Mrs. Beattie grinned at her. “You never told me that.” Mrs. Beattie stood up and pointed at her chair. “Here.”

Clara sat and Mrs. Beattie peered over her shoulder. She showed her the list of sales in her ledger and a handful of receipts from the bank. “This column of sales should add up to my deposits and it doesn’t. I check this every week.”

Within a few minutes Clara found the mistake—the sale of a black cap recorded twice.

“
My dear, you are a genius. If you keep my books, I’ll pay you another dollar a week.” She placed a hand on Clara’s forearm.

A loud thump shook the wall. “Oh!” Clara rammed her hand against her throat. “What’s that?”

“
What on earth?” Mrs. Beattie’s narrow chin jutted up. “It’s in the stairwell.”

Mrs. Beattie dashed out of the shop in pursuit of the noise.

Clara’s heart was fluttering like a broken-winged bird trying to fly. “
Lawks
, I am jumpy today.” There was another thump in the stairwell. If the noise had to do with the Spirit Room, she’d better see to it, too.

When she got out to the sidewalk, the winter cold bit at her face. The door to the stairwell was propped open with an old crate.

“
You be careful with my walls. I don’t want any damage. Do you hear me?” Hands on her hips, Mrs. Beattie was standing inside on the third step, looking up into the dim stairwell.

Papa, Billy, and Papa’s squat saloonkeeper friend, Payne, were lugging a red sofa up the stairs. Clara stepped inside the stairwell to get out of the wind.

“
We ain’t hurtin’ your dear walls,” Papa said.

“
You’re moving in new furniture and you haven’t told me when you’re going to give me the rent, Mr. Benton.”

Billy’s sandy hair hung down over half his eyes, but Clara could just see he looked surprised and disgusted.

“
Don’t stop Benton. I’ll fall over on my back. Keep moving, you bastard.” Standing erect and holding the bottom of the sofa on his own, Payne looked like he was about to tumble over.

Even in the dim light the sofa shimmered like silk. It was one of those that had the arm on only one end and it was one of the loveliest pieces she had ever seen, but it had to be expensive. What the
Jo-fire
was it for? Their family didn’t own any furniture like that. Even Mrs. Purcell didn’t have anything like it. It couldn’t be for the séances. Then Clara swallowed and took a step back out into the spider-biting cold air. It was for her and Sam Weston. That’s what it was. She took another step backwards and slipped from the sidewalk onto the cobble street, then righted herself against the shoulder of the horse Papa had brought. It was certainly for her and Sam Weston. She had no doubts.

She charged back into the empty shop. The sofa upstairs, being shoved from spot to spot, grated and scraped along the floor above her. The sounds grew louder and louder until she ducked, threw her arms over her head, and ran to the workroom. She sat a moment at the table with her colored ribbons, then resumed counting them. Red and pink were by far the most popular. When she had flattened them all out, she twirled the various length pieces into pretty rolls and stacked them in tiers in the bandbox. When she was finished, she closed the lid and wiped the dust off the firemen and their wagon.