Uneasy Spirits: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery (29 page)

“
From what you have told me,” said Mrs. Hunt, “the Framptons haven’t gone in for some of the newer uses of photography or material manifestations, and you do seem confident that neither Mrs. Frampton nor her husband moves around during the séance. Could they have confederates?”

“
Most certainly,” Annie replied. “We have discovered that the butler and the lady’s maid employed in the house are Arabella’s uncle and his wife. I assume they must be working the lights and music in some fashion.”

“
That makes sense,” said Mrs. Hunt. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t responsible for the events you described happening at the end of Friday’s séance. The butler or maid could have entered the room from the outside window and gone over and quietly pulled the chair over. Then, as they left, they could open the window wide and slam it shut. This would produce the blast of cold air and loud noise you described, and when the lights went up and you noticed the chair turned over, it would be easy to make the assumption that the phenomena were connected. A magician would be very familiar with these sorts of tactics of misdirection.”

Annie, picturing the events in her mind, nodded. She then said, “All this is very helpful, but I worry it will not be enough to convince Miss Pinehurst’s sister it isn’t her son Charlie she meets when she goes into the cabinet with Evie May.”

When Mrs. Hunt looked puzzled, Annie went on to tell her about the young medium and the role she played during the séances and in private sittings. She continued, “Arabella Frampton is quite skilled. I am sure that she is an important reason the Framptons have been so successful. However, I am equally confident that she is not a true medium, and I hope, with the help you have given me, I will be able to demonstrate this to Sukie Vetch. What concerns me is that she won’t care, because it is the talents of Evie May that produce her son for her.”

Mrs. Hunt asked, “You mentioned her talents. What did you mean?”

“
Mrs. Frampton is a good actress. She can throw her voice in such a way that it seems to be coming from somewhere else in the room, but when you look at her, what you see is Arabella Frampton, with her eyes closed, rocking back and forth, and pretending to be in a trance. When Evie May speaks, she isn’t pretending to be someone else. She
becomes
someone else, like a human chameleon. She changes her voice, her mannerisms, her facial expressions; even her body seems to change from that of an old woman, to a young girl, then a small boy.”

Mrs. Hunt leaned forward, her voice sharp. “And how do you think she does this?”

“
I don’t know,” Annie replied. “When I learned that Simon Frampton had been a successful mesmerist for a number of years in England, it occurred to me that perhaps he puts her into some kind of trance, which would explain why I don’t feel any sense of artifice. I read once that when people have been put into a trance, they can be asked to behave in a certain fashion, and that they will do so, with every sign of sincerity.

I noticed that Simon always disappears for about ten minutes before a séance begins. I can’t help but think he is with Evie May, mesmerizing her. Whatever that entails. I also noticed that he uses the same phrases at the beginning and at the end of each session she holds in the cabinet, and it seems like these are a kind of trigger. She will be sitting in the cabinet, as if asleep, and he will say the phrase, and her whole being changes. Later he will say the other phrase, and she will seem to go asleep again.”

Mrs. Hunt again looked meaningfully at her husband and then turned back to Annie. “I don’t know how much you remember of my history from my memoir, but what you are describing is exactly what my first husband, who like Simon Frampton was also my manager and a skilled mesmerist, did with me on occasion. When I spoke in public, I entered the trance state on my own, something I started to do as early as age eight. But Mr. Trainor, who became my manager when I was thirteen and married me two years later, would invoke the trance when I had a private sitting with a special client. As I grew older and wiser I began to understand how reprehensible this was. He was abusing my talents for his own financial gain, and in the process he was exposing me to unspeakable, immoral acts.”

Mrs. Hunt paused, taking a sip of tea, and Annie could see how much the subject distressed her. She remembered reading in
Shadows and Light
that Flora Hunt, as a child, had undergone some awful trauma at the hands of a family friend. This, combined with the unexpected death of her father, explained how she came under the domination of Mr. Trainor, who was thirty years her senior. Annie, who was reading the book when she was still raw from the abuses of her own failed marriage, had been profoundly moved by the story of how Flora’s love and adoration of this man had turned to bitterness and despair. Annie then had a terrible thought.
What must it be like for Evie May to sit in that closed cabinet with a man like Judge Babcock, who was caught in the delusion that when he caressed her, he was caressing his own beloved daughter?

Mrs. Hunt put her cup down and took Annie’s hands in hers, her penetrating gaze holding her own. “Mrs. Fuller, you are upset. Tell me, what are you thinking?”

“
Mrs. Hunt, I can’t help but be struck by the parallel between your experiences and Evie May’s. From what I understand, she lost her father at a young age, and now Simon, this much older man, has complete control over her. It is bad enough that she may be an instrument of manipulation in the Framptons’ quest for money, but how dreadful it must be for her to sit hour after hour, confined in that cabinet with adult men who impose their own desires upon her. And her mother is no protection; she is completely infatuated with Simon Frampton.”

“
Ah, her mother,” said Flora Hunt, looking at her husband. “Yes, I understand. My mother also was infatuated with my tormentor. She tried to be a good mother, but she suffered lifelong pain from neuralgia and became quite dependent on an elixir that Mr. Trainor manufactured. That was how he first came into our life. He had moved on from mesmerism to selling patent medicine when he met my mother and me. I guess he saw more profit in me than his magical elixir. She died when I was but fifteen, and from then until the day I met Mr. Hunt and his wonderful sister I had no human protectors. Yes, you are right to be concerned about Evie May. Please tell me more about what you know of her.”

Annie hesitated. She was still uncomfortable when she talked about Maybelle, and she still hadn’t told anyone about how she had at first thought Maybelle might be the spirit of her miscarried daughter. However, Mrs. Hunt might be able to shed some light on Maybelle, Eddie, and the others she and Kathleen had encountered.

So she said, “One odd aspect of Evie May’s performance is that sometimes she seems to deviate from the path that Simon Frampton has laid down for her. Once, when Evie May was speaking in the character of my mother, and then again when she was speaking as my dead son Johnny, whose existence was a complete fabrication on my part, she changed into a young six-year-old girl, named Maybelle. Then, while I was speaking to Maybelle, she was replaced by a slightly older boy, who called himself Eddie, and who said he was Maybelle’s brother. He seemed to feel that he protected Maybelle.

“
Even more oddly, my maid Kathleen twice ran into Evie May outside the séance room, and each time she seemed to be someone completely different. Once she was a young woman calling herself Miss Evelyn, a name Eddie mentioned when he was talking to me. Then last night Kathleen was accosted outside the Framptons’ house by Evie May, who was dressed as a young street hoodlum, calling himself Edmund. None of these people, or whatever you would call them, seem to have anything to do with the Framptons. In fact, it was my impression that Simon was upset when he found me talking to Eddie in my private sitting with Evie May on Wednesday.”

Annie was startled to see Mrs. Hunt smiling sadly.

Mr. Hunt looked over at his wife and said, “Flora dear, you need to tell her. This young girl needs our help, and Mrs. Fuller has to understand if we are to work together.”

Annie, who was still thinking about Evie May and what Mr. Hunt meant, was taken off guard when Mrs. Hunt leaned forward again and asked, “Mrs. Fuller, why did Miss Pinehurst ask
you
to help her?”

Annie looked down at her hands, searching for some sort of inspiration. She found nothing beyond the truth, which the woman across from her deserved. So she told Mrs. Hunt about Madam Sibyl. She explained how she had first created this alter ego to protect Lottie, a silly but kind woman, from being bilked out of her inheritance by local mediums. Finally, she told her of Mr. Stein’s suggestion that she use Madam Sibyl as a way to supplement her income when it became clear the proceeds from the boarding house were insufficient to pay Beatrice and Kathleen decent wages and provide a little savings for Annie herself.

Annie concluded, saying, “Miss Pinehurst felt that my experience as Madam Sibyl made me particularly qualified to figure out how Simon and Arabella Frampton were tricking the people who attended their séances.”

Mrs. Hunt then said, “I am curious, Mrs. Fuller. Is that how you see yourself? As someone who has something in common with the Framptons?”

“
No, I don’t,” Annie replied, surprised at the anger she felt when she heard someone else ask the very question she had been asking herself. She continued, “But then, I wouldn’t, would I? I tell myself that what I do is different because my intentions are honorable. If I were a man, I wouldn’t have to use such artifice, so I tell myself it is society’s fault that people would rather get their financial advice from a fake clairvoyant than a well-trained and experienced business woman. But the more involved I have been in trying to expose the Framptons, the more I have begun to question my own actions.”

“
Do you believe in the astrology and palmistry you use as Madam Sibyl,” Mrs. Hunt asked?

“
No.” said Annie, pausing. “I guess I accept the possibility that a body of knowledge or set beliefs that have developed over thousands of years might have some basis in truth. Maybe honest practitioners of these so-called sciences do receive some wisdom from studying the arrangement of the stars or the lines in a person’s palms. But I am not one of those honest practitioners because, although I do believe in the advice I give, I don’t get that advice from the stars or my clients’ palms.”

Annie paused again, thinking about what she had just said, then continued. “I also don’t know if there is life after death, or if the spirits of the departed speak to the living. But I am willing to believe this might be true, and I do believe that honest Spiritualists, such as you, believe it to be true. Yet I am convinced that the Framptons are not Spiritualists and that the spirits are not speaking through them. Evie May, I am not so certain about.”

“
Mrs. Fuller, I commend you for your frankness,” said Mrs. Hunt. “Honest self-doubt and a willingness to accept that other people’s beliefs have validity are rare commodities in today’s world. I don’t believe you have anything in common with the Framptons, but I do think you need to consider the damage you are doing to yourself if you continue to spend your days lying to the very people you are trying to help. The ends seldom justify the means.

“
However, that is between you and your conscience.” Mrs. Hunt smiled over her shoulder at her husband, who smiled in return. “What we must figure out, now, is how to help you expose the Framptons. You have quite convinced me that they must be stopped, for the sake of people like your Miss Pinehurst’s sister, as well as for the good name of true Spiritualists. But even more importantly, we must consider how to help Evie May. I believe Maybelle, Eddie and the other spirits you have described are her protectors, but from my own experience I can tell you that they are going to need our help if the girl isn’t going to be destroyed by what is being done to her.”

*****

The girl was neatly dressed in a dark, royal-blue walking suit, tailored to suggest the beginning of a woman’s curves, with blinding white lace at collar and cuffs. Her hair, parted in the center, was pulled into a topknot of intricate curls. Polished, black, high-button shoes peeked out from her long skirt. She stared straight into space, the china doll held loosely in her lap. The faint chimes of church bells seemed to awaken her. She stood up, looked puzzled for a moment at the doll and dropped it onto the chair. She then glided over to the tall mirror, which was illuminated by a shaft of afternoon sun. She stared, then tilted her head, touched her hair, and smiled. Noticing a film of dust on the mirror, she frowned and looked around. Seeing a worn and ragged jersey lying on top of a trunk, she walked over to pick it up, but in doing so her long skirts stirred up clumps of mud on the floor. Making a small sound of disgust, she lifted up her skirts, moved rapidly to the opening in the floor that led down to the set of steps, and began to descend.

“
REV. MR. GRAVES ON SPIRITUALISM. The speaker said that angels are superior to men, but inferior to man redeemed.”
—
San Francisco Chronicle
, 1879

As Annie sat between Kathleen and Nate in the close confines of a hansom cab, exquisitely aware of Nate’s arm pressed up against her own, she labored to keep from fidgeting by clasping her hands tightly together in her lap. She feared that the slightest sign of nervousness on her part would give Nate an excuse to abort this evening’s plans to search the Framptons’ house. Biddy had told them that the cook, Mrs. Schmitt, left at five, and the rest of the household left to partake of their dinners by seven; consequently, if they arrived at seven-thirty, they should find the house empty.