Louisa and the Crystal Gazer (21 page)

M
Y ADVENTURE LEFT
me exhausted and contented with an evening in front of the hearth at Auntie Bond’s. I took up my sewing once again, too preoccupied to worry further about the missing shirt and the lightweight quality of the fabric. I
was pleased, for the time, to listen to Lizzie in the next room, playing her scales and études and practicing the old and beloved Christmas carols: “Christians Awake,” “The First Noel,” and “Angels We Have Heard on High,” for Auntie Bond had decided we would have a caroling party after the tree was up. How sweetly Lizzie played! How she made my foot tap with eagerness for the holidays to come. And how my breast ached to be finished with my sewing, collect my fee, and purchase one of the remaining portfolios in Mr. Crowell’s Music Store.

Shadows danced about the room. The fire crackled and blazed. Lizzie played on and on as snow fell outside the window, covering the houses and street with shining fairy dust. I refused to think of Mr. Barnum. Tomorrow would be time enough. And because I put one mystery out of my thoughts, another seeped in. I knew what had to be the crime in “Agatha’s Confession,” for where there is confession there must have been a crime, and Agatha’s great sin would be inspired by the afternoon’s misadventure and one of my own deepest, darkest fears. What is claustrophobia but a fear of premature burial?

In my story, Agatha has realized that her heart’s delight, Philip, has fallen in love with her beautiful best friend, Clara. Philip denies it; Clara is not kind, will not give him up or even cease working her charms on him, since he has proven vulnerable to her type of fickle nature and cruel beauty. Twice Clara, beautiful but frail, comes close to death, and twice Agatha helps her back to the land of the living. But when Clara continues to come between Agatha and Philip, Agatha proves she can be crueler than any simple coquette. I remembered
the close darkness, reaching out my fingertips to feel the walls pressing against me.

Abandoning the sewing once again, I took my candle up to my writing room, lifted the cap from the inkwell, flattened a sheet of paper before me, and began to write what that storyteller’s voice in my head dictated.

Clara now lies dead in her coffin, victim to a family illness of premature disease. Agatha bends over the coffin to give her rival a final kiss.

Agatha, for revenge, allows Clara to be buried alive so that Philip might once again be hers alone.

Sitting in the attic, penning my story, I shivered with fear and delight and wrote page after page. Once my hand was
wearied and stiff and the words of the story no longer came to me, I capped the inkwell once again, rose from my desk, and went down the stairs to my bed, whistling “Silent Night” quietly to myself.

Of course, I slept not at all that night. I had been locked in and then written a cruel story, one I could never show Marmee for fear of her reaction, and my punishment for being both victim and criminal was to sit up most of the night, listening to Lizzie’s innocent, regular breathing and anticipating my meeting with Mr. Barnum, for meet with him I must.

Too much of this business with Mrs. Percy had to do with him, and he of all people seemed to have most reason to wish her harm, for what is simple greed compared to the desire for revenge? Agatha, for revenge and to get her own way, allows a friend to be buried alive; what would Mr. Barnum do for revenge and to get his way? Holding a pillow over the forger’s face till she ceased struggling was certainly one way to end the forgeries and to obtain revenge at the same time.

Sylvia joined me for breakfast that morning.

“You look as if you haven’t slept a wink,” she said brightly, helping herself to a large portion of hash potatoes from the platter.

“I haven’t. Save me some hash, will you?”

“Grumpy, aren’t we?” said she, spreading a second helping of butter onto her toast. “I believe Mr. Cobban prefers his women filled out, so I am attempting to put on some weight. Have I succeeded, do you think?”

I studied Sylvia and tried to remain calm. Lizzie came in just then and sat in her accustomed dining chair in front of
the window so that she was lit from behind by the most enchanting pale winter morning light. That calmed me.

“I heard, Sylvia,” said my sister. “You look fine to me, and Marmee always says that weight gained too quickly stresses the digestion.”

“Well, I always pay attention to Mrs. Alcott’s directives. Thank heavens. I dislike potato hash.” She pushed the potatoes to one side to make room for bacon, which was more to her liking. “I have something for you, Louy. A note from my young man.” She grinned. I could not help but smile back. It was the first time she had referred to Cobban in that intimate manner.

“Is he now?” I asked. “Yours? And does that please you?”

“Very much.”

“You are not being precipitous, Sylvia?”

She blushed prettily. “I think Father likes him. We’ve had some very pleasant conversations about young Cobban. The other day I was practicing my spirit writing, and the words on the page were quite clear when I opened my eyes again: ‘Fine boy. Fine. Future.’”

“Well, from what I know of your long-departed father, he was as decisive as you. Didn’t he pass over the exact day his doctors said he would? Louisa, there is a message for you.” This latter comment was from Auntie Bond, who had come downstairs in her white nightcap and blue flannel housedress and robe to join us at the breakfast table.

“Did you know Father, Miss Bond?” Sylvia asked.

“Not well, I admit. Oh, dear. We seem to be running short of hash. Lizzie, dear, go to the kitchen and ask Cook for more, will you, dear? What was I saying? Oh, yes. Not well.
But we played cards together on occasion. He was brilliant at the card table. Very decisive. Much like you, my dear.”

Sylvia beamed. I suppose if one has never known one’s father, one must be pleased to learn there is a strong connection despite that early loss.

“You said something about a message for me?” I reminded my aunt.

“Ah, yes. Here it is.” She took the paper from her pocket. It was from Cobban.
I hope you are feeling better,
he had written.
I took your advice and searched Mrs. Percy’s house again and found a wall safe we hadn’t noticed before. It was opened, and empty. You might also want to know that Mr. Nichols managed to evade the Pinkerton men sent to bring him back to Cleveland.

“Eddie Nichols is not in custody,” I said. Reader, the news delighted me! It provided hope that Mr. Barnum had not been the one who had locked me in the cellar the day before. Perhaps it had been Mr. Nichols. Without thinking, I pursed my mouth and whistled. Lizzie, just returned from the kitchen with a fresh plate of potato hash, made a face.

“Sorry, Lizzie,” I said. “Sylvia, eat quickly, if you don’t mind. We have an errand to attend to.”

Ten minutes later, we were out the door and on our way. We had to pass Mrs. Percy’s house to arrive at Mr. Barnum’s rooms. I shivered, remembering that small, locked cellar room of the day before.

P
ERHAPS
M
R.
B
ARNUM
was there, his landlady said after I had given her one of my cards. Would we wait in the second parlor, and she would discover if he were at home, and if so,
ask if he would receive us? That suited us splendidly, we said, and thanked her.

Tea was not sent in. That suggested several things. First, that Mr. Barnum had instructed his landlady that his visitors were to be treated casually and with a noticeable lack of warmth unless and until he stated otherwise. That, of course, meant that he had anticipated many unpleasant and unexpected meetings while in Boston, probably from creditors. Word gets about quickly when a rich man suffers financial embarrassment. Jackals, was how I had heard Uncle Ben refer to debt collectors, though that seemed harsh to me, since tradesmen have families to feed as well.

Mr. Barnum kept us waiting for twenty minutes. When he arrived in the parlor, hemming and hawing and apologizing for his “preoccupation,” he was dressed again in the suit he had worn for Mrs. Percy’s first séance, that bold and bright fabric that suggested a man well-off and at ease in the world. His face was not at ease. His heavy eyebrows met over his nose in a stormy manner; his thick, curly hair stuck out over his ears in unruly style, and his red cravat was poorly tied. Preoccupied, indeed.

“Mrs. Barnum has been ill again,” he said, holding up a letter he had obviously recently received and read. “My financial difficulties have made her headaches return. Oh, for vengeance on those who have ruined me.” Then he seemed to recollect himself, and gave us a half smile.

“Mrs. Moony, these are friends of mine. Will you bring us tea?” he said to his landlady. Mrs. Moony grimaced in a continuing unfriendly manner.

“You find me much reduced in circumstance,” said Mr.
Barnum, when the parlor door had been shut. “I prefer hotels to boardinghouses, but the wallet is thin these days.” He smiled, but the smile did not reach those fine, piercing eyes of his.

“That is what I am here to discuss,” I admitted.

“Ah! Progressive education! I approve, I approve.” He nodded his large, shaggy head vigorously. “Young women these days!”

“Not your finances,” I explained hastily. “Rather, the purpose of your visit to Boston.”

He sat heavily in a chair opposite me and crossed his legs, folding his hands over his knees and nervously revolving his thumbs back and forth.

“Did you ever see Madam Josephine Clofullia, my celebrated ‘Swiss Bearded Lady’?” he asked. Our expressions indicated we had not; moreover we were not familiar with the name. “Poor woman. Face as hairy as a man’s. The beard came all the way down to her waist. But you know, audiences wouldn’t pay a nickel to see the poor unfortunate until I myself spread the rumor that she was a man posing as a woman. I prevaricated, much wounding the lady’s feelings, but you see, the crowd doesn’t want the truth. It wants fantasy.”

“I have heard of your mermaid,” offered Sylvia.

“The Fiji Mermaid. Half stuffed monkey, half stuffed fish.” He sighed again. “Stank something awful. But when people looked at it they believed, wanted to believe, that they were seeing a real mermaid. It was good old Yankee tomfoolery.” His thumbs revolved even faster, then ceased. “What I’m trying to explain to you, my dears, is that I have done things of which I am not exactly proud. I chose a hard business—the
business of entertaining the masses—and for that I often quarreled with my own conscience. Why, right down the hall from my exhibit of wax figures I kept a private office where the gullible public might meet with fortune-tellers and clairvoyants. Madame Rockwell even claimed she could see the future by staring at a rock. I grew rich off such humbug. But I am a God-fearing man. A God-fearing man. And I wished to set some things right again between my God and myself. I wanted to find a woman of true spirituality who might offer something genuine to the American Museum.”

“And so you came to see Mrs. Agatha Percy, the crystal gazer?” I asked in amazement.

Mr. Barnum shook his great, sad head in a bovine manner, as if looking for the next patch of grass to graze.

“Not Mrs. Percy,” he said. “There is a Miss Adelaide Lynch here in Boston. You’ve not heard of her? You see, she doesn’t bill herself in the papers or promote herself to a crowd. But I had heard she was the real thing. She could really speak with the dead and carry messages back and forth between people and angels. I came to meet her. I came to find something true and good and spiritual.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling.

“You did not find it to be so,” I guessed.

“She is a sweet child, not a calculating woman. However, her older sister controls her and uses her. Imagine the scene: trumpets fall from the ceiling, ‘apparitions’ appear out of nowhere.”

“Like at Mrs. Percy’s.”

“Very much like at Mrs. Percy’s. And that is why I return to Bridgeport in a day or two. My business here is concluded.”

“Mr. Barnum, all of us at Mrs. Percy’s séance were there by invitation. I must ask: Why were you there? Did Mrs. Percy ask to see you, or did you ask to see her? Did it have something to do with Mr. Edward Nichols, your cousin?”

Mrs. Moony returned with the tea tray, muttering all the while under her breath, and Mr. Barnum waited until she had again left before responding. He rose from his chair and stood in front of me, looking earnestly into my face. His large belly sloped, his shoulders were rounded with defeat, but his eyes had the candor of a child’s. My heart went out to him, but my reasoning faculties did not.

“You have already guessed, Miss Louisa. I am certain you know of my financial difficulties, and that they are largely caused by that relation of mine, Eddie Nichols, who has been stealing tremendous quantities from my bank accounts by writing checks. Forging checks. Yes. A second purpose brought me to Boston.”

“Mr. Nichols had the assistance of Mrs. Percy, who seemed adept at imitating other people’s handwriting,” I continued. “And who is now dead.”

“Yes. Eddie let it slip out last year that he knew an excellent imitator of handwriting. He even gave me her name, as if he were boasting of it! I went to meet Mrs. Percy, to plead with her to give evidence against him, in exchange for which I would pledge my word that she herself would not be prosecuted.”