The Spiritualist (27 page)

The city was changing so quickly that parts of it seemed to become unrecognizable overnight, and it had been a long time since I had made the journey to Peter’s office. I was disoriented until the driver pulled up before an old Federal-style stone mansion that, like many in this area, had been converted into counting-houses. The driver opened the door and helped me out, holding securely to my elbow as he directed me past the refuse and sewage until we were safely on the flagstone walk, where he left me to make my own way into the building.

Atherton and Rampling was on the second floor, up a wide and winding staircase that had once displayed women floating down it in silk and satin splendor, but now held only black-suited clerks and accountants who were oblivious both to its elegance and to me as I went past them to the door of my husband’s office.

I paused at the sight of Peter’s name still stenciled on the glass in black and gold. Then I pushed open the door and went forward so hastily I nearly collided with the desk just inside, where a handsome young man wearing glasses looked up curiously.

“Ma’am? May I help you?”

“I’m here to see Mr. Rampling,” I said.

He looked down at the ledger on the desk and frowned. “Have you an appointment? I don’t see—”

“I’m Mrs. Peter Atherton.”

He nodded and looked down again, as if the name meant nothing to him, and then he froze, and looked up again quickly, rising. “Mrs. Atherton, forgive me. I didn’t recognize you—”

“I didn’t expect you to. I don’t think I’ve set foot here in more than a year.”

“Let me just say how sorry I am for Mr. Atherton’s death. He was a good man. Mr. Rampling told me he had taken on your case.”

“Thank you,” I said sincerely. “Mr. Rampling’s been very kind.”

“I wish I could say he was here to meet you, Mrs. Atherton, but I’m afraid he’s gone home for the day.”

My disappointment was keen. “Do you—might you have the address? I’m afraid I’ve misplaced it, and I’m not good with directions.”

He nodded, reaching for a piece of paper and scrawling upon it. He handed it to me. “It’s not far from here, actually.”

“Thank you.” I tucked the paper into my palm. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“Not at all, Mrs. Atherton.”

I left quickly. I handed the piece of paper to the driver, who waited for me in the street, and said, “Please, take me there.”

The clerk was right; it seemed only moments before the carriage was pulled to a stop in front of brick row houses only a few blocks over. These too had once been the homes of the upper ten, abandoned for more desirable real estate higher up Broadway or over on Fifth Avenue. They now served as some of the better boardinghouses in the city, or were owned by modest businessmen like my father. I hesitated only a moment before I took hold of the iron rail and went up the narrow steps to the door. I knocked, softly at first, and then, when I heard nothing, more loudly. I heard a shuffling behind the door, a call: “Just a minute, just a minute! I’m coming!”

The door opened to a striking woman with dark eyes and unblemished skin. She was wearing blue with jet trim, and her hair was dark and smooth and shining. I knew a moment of profound dismay. I tightened my hand on my bag and said, “Excuse me. I’m looking for Mr. Rampling?”

“Of course,” she said. She stood back, ushering me inside, into a hallway hung with framed lithographs and smelling strongly of roasted mutton. “Is he expecting you?”

“I don’t think so. I’m Mrs. Peter Atherton.”

If the name meant anything to her, she showed no sign. She took me to an open doorway just past the stairway. “Well, you’re a step up from most of his visitors, I’ll tell you that. I think you must be the first lady who’s called. The parlor’s empty just now, but if someone comes in, you tell them you’ve private business and to get out. Too many undesirables coming around here lately.”

“Is this—a boardinghouse, then?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I’m Mrs. Harris. I’ll go get him, then,” she said, and disappeared, leaving me alone.

The room was nicely appointed, with two horsehair-upholstered settees and sturdy maple tables that looked very like the ones in the house I’d grown up in. The carpet too was one of Stewart’s ready-mades, but it was a good one, and showed little wear. A fire burned in the fireplace, but the house lacked central heating—the room was chill beyond the reach of the flames, and the windows were thin. The cold air from outside emanated from them, easing through cracked, warped sills. On the walls were hung two portraits by obviously mediocre artists, and a few other lithographs of paintings with classical themes: the fall of Rome, the Battle of Troy, along with a copy of Holman Hunt’s ubiquitous
Light of the World
hanging beside a carved and polished wooden crucifix.

I went to stand near the fire, glancing idly down at the books lined upon the mantel—a few farming journals, and a book of Shakespeare whose pages looked uncut—and I heard rapid foot-steps coming down the hallway outside the room. I turned just as a young man entered. He was fair and slight, almost delicate, with gleaming hair, and eyes that seemed too large for his face. His style of dress was elaborate—a complicated necktie, a fancy green-checkered vest.

He stopped short when he saw me. “Oh. Pardon me. I didn’t realize anyone was here. Are you new? I haven’t seen you before.”

“I’m waiting for Mr. Rampling.”

“Why?”

His bluntness took me aback. “I—I’m afraid that’s none of your concern.”

He looked as if my answer surprised him, and then he stepped farther into the room and rubbed his hand nervously against his vest. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me. I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Willie Chesney. I’m Benny’s assistant.”

Benny?
“His assistant? I wasn’t aware he had one.”

“Oh yes. I’m actually quite indispensable to him.”

“Really? He’s never mentioned you.”

“Should he have?” He gave me a frank look. “I mean, who are you?”

He was very young, and obviously very proud, and it was hard to take offense at his impertinence, though I had to curb the urge to scold him like a child. “I’m Mrs. Peter Atherton.”

His pale skin turned ruddy. “Oh… there, I’ve done it again, haven’t I? I thought you were nobody, or at least, well, a seamstress or something. But I see now you don’t look anything like that.”

I was amused. “Thank God for that.”

“I—Benny’s always telling me to be more circumspect, but I’m afraid I’m not very good at it.”

“He must be quite a taskmaster.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. He pays me well enough.” He glanced away with a small smile.

“Have you been working for him long?”

“A few months.”

“Then you must have known my husband.”

“Oh…” Mr. Chesney looked away, as if the thought of Peter was painful for him, and I decided I liked him, despite his bluntness. “Yes. I was sorry when he was found that way. But I suppose, given how often he went down there—”

“Willie?”

Benjamin’s voice came from the doorway, and the young man started and turned.

“What are you doing here?” Ben’s tone was harsh—unduly so, I thought.

“Mr. Chesney’s been amusing me,” I said.

Ben barely glanced at me. His jaw was tight. “He has work to do.”

“I—I left my case in here.” Mr. Chesney glanced about the room, and I saw the black case on the settee at the same moment he did. He rushed over to it, shoving it beneath his arm. He turned to me, making a quick bow. “Mrs. Atherton…” then scurried from the parlor.

Benjamin closed the door firmly and said, “I apologize, Evelyn. I hope he didn’t disturb you unduly.”

“What did he mean about Peter going often down to the river?”

“Peter often visited clients in that area. The lad’s a bit of an idiot, actually. I’m not sure why I keep him around. I suppose he has potential, but only just. He is, however, eager to please.” He came quickly over to where I stood. “I was concerned when Mrs. Harris told me you were here. Has something happened? Are you hurt?”

“Yes, something happened. I did what you asked. I searched Michel’s room.”

He went very still. “And did you find something?”

I took a deep breath. “Peter’s watch chain.”

“His watch chain? Evelyn—”

“The watch chain he wore all the time. It was in Michel’s room. On his bed stand. It was the watch chain
I
gave to him, Benjamin. It had some meaning for him—or at least I thought it did.”

“Peter gave Jourdain a great deal of money. Are you certain he would not have given him a gift like that as well?”

Miserably, I said, “That’s what Michel said. That it was a gift. I didn’t believe it. Or I suppose I did believe it. I just didn’t want to.”

“You told him you’d found it?” Benjamin’s voice was raw with shock. “You told him you’d been in his room?”

“He
knew
I’d been in his room. He knew I’d found the chain. He said he smelled my perfume. I was so careful, but he knew. Dear God, he knew just what to say—”

Gently Benjamin took my arm, leading me to the settee. “What do you mean?”

“He knew the story of the watch chain. But he wouldn’t have known it unless Peter had told him. And everything he said…” Despite my best intentions, I felt tears coming to my eyes, and impatiently I brushed them away. “It was
our
story. About me being an angelfish. Peter had no right to tell it. It belonged to us.”

“I’m certain, if he’d known how strongly you felt—”

“Michel said I didn’t know him. That I didn’t know my own husband.”

I felt Benjamin stiffen. “Ridiculous. Who would know a man better than his wife?”

“But he was right.” I opened my bag, searching for my handkerchief. “We’ve talked of this already. He was simply never there—”

“He was dedicated to his work.”

“You needn’t bother with that story,” I said sharply. “Michel told me that Peter was at Dorothy’s nearly every night. I suppose you were as well.”

“We were there often.” Benjamin’s voice was consoling. “But not so often as he says. Evie, don’t you think it serves Jourdain’s purpose to tell you such a thing? He doesn’t want to be caught—he would have known from the start that you might find the watch chain. He would have had his story perfectly rehearsed. Think of it: what was your reaction when he told you?”

“I was hurt that Peter would have told him.”

“And the rest? When he told you that you didn’t know your husband?”

“Disconcerted,” I whispered. “Distressed.”

“Disconcerted people don’t push for answers, my dear,” Benjamin said. “Do you see how he’s manipulating you?”

I did. How easily he’d managed me. How stupid I’d been—I’d forgotten every lesson my father ever taught me: to listen, to school one’s responses and one’s emotions.

“You mustn’t let him distract you with his talk. It’s what he does. How do you think he makes the spirits appear? He distracts with words, he tells you what you should expect to see; why then are you so surprised that you see it?”

I was angry now. “I saw his ledger. He’s made a great deal of money this year.”

“And like every mountebank, he won’t be happy until he has more. Until he owns the Bennett name, and everything that goes along with it. Remember, Evie, Peter believed Michel was a fraud. He meant to expose him. You know he protested Dorothy’s adoption. He was there so often for those reasons.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was. I hated that I’d disappointed him.

Benjamin shook his head, as if it didn’t matter, and took my hand. “Don’t be. But as long as you’ve decided to go along with this mediumship foolishness, you must truly make it work for us. You must be especially convincing at the next circle. Jourdain knows all the tricks; therefore you must do what he does. Listening is imperative. The things people want, the things they expect—they say it all either in words or in movements. That’s the genius of it. While you’re ‘listening’ to the spirits, you’re really listening to the things people are saying, the things they don’t realize they’re saying.”

It was a kind of shrewdness I hadn’t expected of him. “How do you know this?”

“I’m an attorney. What a client says and what he means are two different things. So it is with those at a circle. Someone is saying: ‘The spirit is my brother Harry!’ and Jourdain’s watching the way they move; he knows how they feel about that brother simply by the way they sit. Are they leaning forward? Do they look eager? Or are they pulling back in their chair, as if they would rather be anywhere else? Jourdain does his research too—don’t forget that. He goes to the newspaper office. He checks the society pages. Birth and death records. Marriage records. He talks to servants. It’s a complicated business, setting up such a flimflam. One can find anything, but it takes a great deal of work. He’s so successful because he takes the time.”

I remembered the touch of my “father’s” spirit, my fruitless search for a confederate in the darkness. “The other night, Dorothy felt her son’s hand. How does he accomplish that?”

Benjamin smiled thinly. “Do you remember what occurred just before it happened?”

“Michel said her son wished to touch her.”

“You see? He suggested that she would feel her son’s hand. Then he watches, and she follows his gaze, as does everyone. She ‘sees’ her son’s hand because Michel pretends to see it. She feels it touch her. But in reality she will feel only what Jourdain has suggested.”

“I can’t believe that works.”

“Well, I’ve seen it happen in court—or under police questioning. I’ve seen people confess to crimes they didn’t commit simply because they’d been made to believe they must have done it.”

I thought uncomfortably of the spirit writing hidden in my room. “You believe it’s all fakery?”

He sighed. “Don’t you? I’ve never yet seen a medium who changed my mind. Do you think the spirits truly deign to speak with us once they’re gone? I tend to think they have bigger tasks than communicating with those left behind.”

I looked down at our hands, clasped together, and I could not resist asking him, “How do you explain spirit writing, then?”

“Oh, the ways we delude ourselves! I suppose, if one sits long enough staring at a blank piece of paper, one is likely to write anything and believe it came from outside of oneself.”