The Spiritualist (39 page)

“Evelyn?” Robert asked. “Evelyn, what’s wrong?”

“Let’s get her to a chaise,” Benjamin said.

I heard a chair scoot back. I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Come, Evelyn, you should rest. You look ready to fall over.”

But even as Robert Dudley helped me rise, Benjamin was there, grabbing my arm, saying, “Allow me.”

I felt a
whoosh
through my head, as if she had gone in one side and out the other, and I gasped. Benjamin pulled me close into his side. Dorothy’s crying seemed a country away. I thought I smelled a strange perfume, something citrusy and woody, like orange blossoms mixed with sandalwood. Who wore such a perfume? Not Dorothy, and Grace eschewed scent. Sarah favored jasmine. I’d never smelled it before.

“Come along, my dear,” Benjamin whispered. He led me to the chaise, and when I sank down upon it, I looked into his eyes.

“What is it?” I asked, confused. “Why are you angry?”

He glanced about, as if to make certain the others couldn’t hear. Then he whispered, “How did you know?”

My head was pounding. “Know what?”

“I thought we understood each other, Evelyn. We’re partners. But you said nothing of this! Did he tell you those things? Did he put you up to it?”

I pressed at my temple again, closing my eyes. “Tell me what? Put me up to what?”

“Did Jourdain tell you what to say during the spirit visit?”

“No. No.” I shook my head—even that motion exhausted me. “I don’t know. She’s been coming to me. She’s in my head. I can’t keep her out.”

“Evelyn, for God’s sake. No one’s near enough to hear. You don’t need to pretend.”

“I’m not pretending. She’s been coming for days now. I meant to tell you. I—I thought I was going mad, but Michel says it’s real and—”

“
Michel
says?”

“During our lessons,” I explained weakly.

“Is that so? What else does he say?”

I felt nauseated. “That I inherited this from my mother. My dreams—”

“Are just dreams. You know not to believe him. We’ve spoken of this!”

“I don’t… I can’t… I see things I couldn’t know otherwise.”

“Things you couldn’t know?” he repeated slowly. “Like what?”

“Things about Dorothy’s sons.”

A little roughly, he said, “Evie, you must tell me the truth.

What has Jourdain done to you? Has he given you something? Some drink, some—”

“Nothing. He’s done nothing. He’s given me nothing.” I opened my eyes. The light made the pain flare, but I ignored it and grabbed his hand. “It doesn’t make sense for him to do so. Why would he wish me to come between him and Dorothy?”

Ben’s face was pale, his expression strained. He pulled his hand away impatiently. “I don’t understand. What trick are you using? Why won’t you tell me?”

His distress was real, but I could not think. I hurt, and I hadn’t the strength to lie or dodge. With a sigh, I said, “I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t understand it myself.”

Benjamin sat back thoughtfully. I heard the voices of the others swirling around me. Dorothy was no longer crying, and they were speaking in excited whispers.

“She could lecture,” Sarah said eagerly. “She could fill the entire hall. If Kate Fox can with only rapping, think what Evelyn could accomplish!”

“Once the trial is over, we should take her to the conference, to the Sunday meetings—”

“And there’s the spiritualist meeting in May!”

“If she’s not in prison.”

“The spirits won’t allow that. I know they’ve come to help her.”

Benjamin said quietly, “Grief does strange things to people. Peter hasn’t been gone six weeks. Can you not admit that perhaps you aren’t seeing things as clearly as you might?”

His voice sounded stiff, not like my Benjamin at all. This was what I’d been afraid of. I was losing him. Quickly I grasped at the excuse he offered. “Yes. I can admit that.”

He leaned close. “We will save you, Evie. I promise it.”

I closed my eyes. Eventually, I felt him ease away. Then, one by one, I heard the others go, tiptoeing past me, as if they thought I was asleep, and I was tired enough that I let them think it. I heard Dorothy’s nurses lead her away; I heard her pause beside me.

“Evelyn, child,” she said, and there was a reverence in her voice that seemed to vibrate, though I didn’t open my eyes, and soon I heard her go too.

Still, I waited. Until she must be back in her room. Until I was truly alone.

“She’s gone,” he said. “They’ve all gone.”

I opened my eyes. Michel stood at the table, his back to me. He was pinching out the candles; their thin gray smoke curled into the bronze leaves of the gasolier above.

“Who is she?” I asked.

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “She’s an affinity with you, it seems. She wishes to—”

“Don’t lie to me. Why does she hate you?”

“She’s dead. Why does it matter?”

“Because she’s in my head. Because I want to know why.”

He sighed. “I met her in Charlestown. She was a medium too, but not so talented as you, eh? She knew people, and I’d just come from New Orleans. She offered to help me, we became lovers. She had a husband who couldn’t satisfy her, and I did.”

“She fell in love with you,” I said.

“She never said so, but I guessed it.”

“And then?”

“I began to gain patrons. They liked me, and she grew jealous. There was no future for us. She was unhappy. I was sorry. In the end, she went back to her old life, and a few months later I heard she died.”

“How?”

“She was killed.”

“Killed? By whom?”

“I never knew. I guessed it was her husband. She left some of her things with me, and I kept them for the police, but they never came.”

But his gaze had slid from mine, and I thought:
bodies don’t lie.
He was not telling me the truth. Something about her frightened him. That, more than anything else, told me he wasn’t lying when he said he believed these visitations were real.
He knows who I am
, she’d said.
He knows what he’s done.
And I began to believe that maybe my visions were true. And if they were true, it meant she was here to guide me—hadn’t the spirit writing told me to expect her?—and Michel knew it. If someone else had killed her, why did she not haunt that person? Why was she still so angry with him?

He came toward me. When he sat down beside me and caught my arm, holding me in place, I was afraid of him. But still his touch made me tremble; still, I wanted him so badly it was like a poison. When he kissed me I remembered the way he’d put his hand around my throat, and I knew I was a fool, but I could not resist him.

“I must check in on Dorothy,” he whispered, drawing away. “I’ll come to you after. Will you wait for me?”

I told myself to say no. I meant to say no. But my body leaped to his words as he must have known it would do.

“Don’t be long,” I told him.

I
T WAS AS
if the door between worlds, once open, could not be completely closed. She was there, in my head, vibrant and pretty, with hair lighter than mine and deep brown eyes. But her face was sharper, and there was a greediness to her that was avid and unpleasant. Her memories unspooled in my dreams as if they were mine: I saw a small room; a boardinghouse room. Ill furnished. A poorly sprung bed creaking with the rhythm of love-making. I heard her moans, and his deeper ones, whispered words in a Creole accent. Michel. And then it was quiet, and he was rising from the bed, distracted, dismissive, stumbling over the chamber pot so that it slopped on the floor, cursing beneath his breath. He went to the basin on a nearby table and poured water into it.

“Tell me about the woman again,” he said. He bent over the basin, splashing water into his face, and grabbed a cloth to wash himself. Then I saw her come from the bed. She went up to him, pressing her naked breasts against his back, wrapping her arms around him.

She kissed his shoulder. “Come back to bed. We can talk of her later.”

He dropped the rag and turned, prying her hands loose, holding her from him. “
Non
. I want to be prepared. Tell me.”

She tried to touch him. “We don’t need her, dear heart. She’s just an old woman. We could do six others in the time it would take to convince her.”

He dropped her hands and stepped away from her with a sound of frustration, muttering,
“C’est une charrette à trois roues.”

“I don’t understand.”

He looked at her, tapping his finger against his temple. “You think too small,
chère
. Why do six circles for pennies when we could do one for so much more? You said she was rich,
oui
?”

“Yes. Yes, she’s rich. But it would take so much time. You said you wanted to leave this place.” She went to him, grabbing his arm. “He’ll find us here. The longer we stay—”

“Why would he follow you if you were both as miserable as you say?”

“
I
was miserable. He’s a fool, but if he came for me… Please, dear heart—”

“Just a few more weeks,” Michel said.

“It’s too long.”

“Is this all you want?” He raised his hands, gesturing around the room in frustration. “Only this? You’d ask for no more?
Chère
, we can leave here with everything—or nothing. Which seems better to you?”

“It wouldn’t be with nothing. We’d have each other.”

His eyes narrowed. “I’m staying. Stay with me or not, as you like.”

Her desperation was terrible. To leave without him, or to stay and risk everything. I felt her struggle. He walked away from her to where his clothes hung on a hook. His indifference chilled the room.

With a little cry, she ran to him. She grabbed him about the waist, forcing him to turn around, kissing his chest, his throat. “I’ll stay. Of course I’ll stay. Tell me what to do. Tell me what to say. Whatever you want. Please, Michel, I’m so sorry. What should I wear? The dressing gown again?”

His smile was cold and calculated. “For a group of women?
Non, chère
, tonight you must be as respectable as my wife.”

I
WOKE, AND
it was deep in the night, so dark I could see nothing. Had I not heard Michel’s deep, even breathing beside me, I would not have known where I was, or even who I was. The dream left a lingering taste, one too sour to simply swallow or spit away.

I remembered the words in the spirit writing—
To accept is to know. To know is to understand—
and Michel’s advice:
trust your instincts.
And those instincts told me that if I found what had happened between Adele and Michel, I would discover the truth about Peter.

I turned my head on the pillow to look at Michel. He was sleeping on his stomach, one arm thrown over my hips, as if he meant to imprison me even in his sleep.

The desperation Adele had felt in the dream did not leave me for a long time, nor did the coldness of his smile.

L
ate the next morning, Kitty brought word that Dorothy wished to see me, along with a note that had come from Benjamin.

When she was gone, I drew back into my bedroom and stood at the fire, fingering the note, remembering Ben’s distress, and his anger that I might be keeping things from him. Then I noticed the stationery, which was printed with the law firm’s name and address. This was an official missive. What new revelation would there be about my case this morning? And why had he not come to tell me himself?

My mouth was dry as I slit the envelope with my fingernail and opened the note. The writing was pinched and difficult to read—I had never seen Ben’s handwriting before that I could remember, and I assumed this must be it, though it seemed at odds with his generous nature, and then, when I read the first words, I realized two things: he had penned it hastily, and it had little to do with my case.

I stared down at the writing in dismay. I should never have told him the mediumship was not in my control. In a burst of irritation, I threw the letter into the fire and watched it burn. He would be here at one. I had that long to think of a way to relieve his suspicions, to convince him I should stay here. How was I to save myself if I did not have access to Michel? How could I possibly leave now?

The paper curled to ashes, and Dorothy waited for me, so I hurried out of my room and down the hall. Last night’s visit of her sons had left her crying, and I had no real hope that I hadn’t sent her into the same distress she’d experienced with their first visit. But neither had she called for Michel last night—early that morning, he’d returned to his room, but to save us from servants’ gossip, not because Dorothy had sent for him.

I was relieved when I saw her smiling. She was sitting up in bed, and the curtains were open to let in the light, her cap tied neatly about her plump face. I could smell the faint taint of laudanum about her—no doubt Michel had dosed her well, though she did not seem the worse for it.

“Good morning, child,” she said as I went to the usual chair. “I hope you slept well.”

“It looks as if you did,” I told her.

“They were with me,” she said simply. “You are a miracle,

Evelyn.”

“I’m glad I could comfort you.”