The Spirit Room (70 page)

Boiling over, Izzie paced away from Clara. “How could he do it? How could he?”

“
You mean how could I?” Clara’s face was as pale as chalk.

“
No! I mean him. Him.” Izzie strode back to Clara and embraced her. “I should have come home to you. I’m sorry.” Izzie felt Clara’s forehead burrow into her shoulder and her back shake as she cried. “It’s over now. We’ll go get Euphora and go to Rochester.”

“
Where were you?” Clara swatted Izzie’s shoulder. “Where were you? You said you would come and take care of us.” She swatted again and again.

Izzie let Clara pummel her, let the ache in her arm build, but she didn’t let go of her sister. Finally Clara pulled away. Her face was soaked with tears, her eyes red and full of misery. Izzie’s heart shriveled.

“
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know I failed you. I should have been with you. Let me make it up to you. Let me take you and Euphora home now. Please. You can’t want to stay here and live as a prostitute.”

A gaggle of seagulls swooped by on their way to a squawking swarm of birds by the ship. Clara withdrew a red bandana from her pocket and wiped her eyes.

“
I threw him out, Izzie. I threw Papa out when he came to get me at Mary Johnson’s. She helped me, but I stood up to him, the way you always did. I’m free of him now.”

Clara finished her story. There was the steamboat escape and the threat of the ice embargo. Euphora’s domestic situation. Finding Hannah. The disappointing search for factory work. Being afraid every moment that Papa would find her and then finally how Mary Johnson held a gun to him. The path Clara took to becoming a prostitute once she was in New York City on her own was a story Izzie had heard before while she searched for Clara.

But what Papa had done to her beforehand wasn’t like anything she had heard. Izzie knew Papa, though. She believed every word. She was so outraged and furious that she was trembling. She wanted to find Papa and get him tossed in jail for the rest of his life. More than that, though, she wanted Clara to come with her back to Rochester.

“
I’ll stay another day or two. I want to know everything that has happened to you,” Izzie said.

“
And you have to tell me about your voices and Mac and everything that has happened to you.”

“
Can we get a hack and go directly to Euphora? I can’t wait another minute.”

<><><>

IZZIE WAITED IMPATIENTLY while Clara dug into her paisley reticule for the proper coins to pay the hack driver in front of the Hogarth’s home. Her purse was brimming with silver and gold.
Lawks
, no wonder she didn’t want to go to Rochester.

“
We need to celebrate. I want to show you and Euphora the new park. I’ve never taken Euphora. Maybe Mrs. Hogarth will give her a few hours off. There’s a free concert at four-thirty.” She dropped some coins into the driver’s hand and said to him, “Will you wait for us to take us up to Central Park? We’ll be a few minutes.”

It had only been a year or so since Izzie had seen Clara, but her sister seemed leagues older, with her reticule full of money and her ability to give orders to the hack driver.

“
The servant’s entrance is around the back.” Clara pointed toward an alley.

They entered a courtyard. Six or seven yelling youngsters chased a single speeding, shirtless boy. A pair of mongrels was wrenching a rag from each other’s jaws.

“
Don’t forget. She thinks I am a seamstress at a factory with my friend Hannah. Please don’t say a word about the parlor house.”

Clara led Izzie up some rickety wood steps to an open door. And there was Euphora chopping carrots. Dear Euphora, a year taller, and dressed in a full-length white apron and maid’s cap, her red hair tucked sloppily inside it.

“
Euphora!”

Euphora’s beautiful freckled face fell into cold blank shock for a short moment. Then she burst like a fire dowsed with kerosene, her bucktooth smile exploding.

“
Izzie!” Dropping her knife, Euphora leapt toward Izzie, throwing herself into Izzie’s arms. “Izzie!”

Buckling with the weight of Euphora coming at her, Izzie grabbed her sister tightly, recovered her balance, then lifted Euphora off her feet. She twirled Euphora around, delighting in her little sister’s squeals as she spun her. After several twirls, Izzie got dizzy. She released Euphora and careened toward Clara who caught and steadied her.

“
You’re here. Clara, she’s here.” Euphora’s eyes glowed.

“
I know and now I want to take you both up to Central Park for the concert. I will ask Mrs. Hogarth. She has to agree.” Clara strode off.

Izzie was so excited that she picked up Euphora again and twirled her around one more time. “You’re coming home with me. You’re coming home.”

Euphora settled back on her feet. “Rochester? When?”

“
Yes. A few days.”

Euphora grinned from ear to ear. “To live with you?”

Izzie nodded. “We’ll go and speak to Mrs. Hogarth right now.”

Forty-Eight

WHILE SNARLS OF CARRIAGES AND WAGONS slowed them down as they rode up Fifth Avenue in the hired coupe, Clara worried. How was she going to tell Euphora she wasn’t going to Rochester? And for that matter, how was she going to get Izzie to leave her in New York City in the first place? Clara sat with both sisters on one seat, facing forward with Euphora crammed in the middle.

Izzie took a letter from her pocket and handed it to Euphora, saying it was from Billy and that he had gone to China on a ship. Euphora’s face crumpled at the news, then she read the letter out loud and it made all of them weep. He was so far away. The notion they might not see him again fell over the three of them like a big heavy blanket.

But after a few minutes of riding along in silence, sweet Euphora couldn’t help herself. She was tickled silly about going home with Izzie and started asking about the Upper Falls Water-Cure where she would live with Izzie and Mac. Clara didn’t mention just then that she wasn’t going, but smiled and changed the subject when Euphora tried to get her talking about their new life with Izzie. Izzie didn’t say anything either, but kept glancing over Euphora’s head at her and giving her a pleading smile. She and Izzie were sure-as-rain going to have a real bull and cow about her staying at Mary Johnson’s.

Passing through the gate at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, they headed for the Promenade, where the concerts took place at the band shell. Their coupe joined a parade of every possible shape, size, color, and model of carriage there could be in the world—cabriolets, runabouts, phaetons, landaus, bretts. They were mostly open rigs, long and curvy, short and square, fast and trim, some with owners driving, some with servants driving. The horses were elegant, mostly in pairs, and the ladies and gentlemen were dressed like royalty. Clara fell quiet for a while watching them all and wondering how she was going to get her sisters to understand about her staying.

Izzie and Euphora were jabbering like they were full of a pot of coffee each. Euphora listed off all the new dishes she had learned how to cook since Mrs. Purcell’s. Izzie talked about Central Park, how she had learned about it from the Fieldings while she stayed with them, how it was being built section by section.

“
See these little saplings.” Izzie pointed at some spindly trees lining the road. “Elm. Maple. Locust. They are desperate for water. Roland Fielding says if they make it through the heat of summer, they’ll be grand someday.”

Everywhere stones were piled high, compost heaped, holes and ditches dug. Some areas were torn up with holes and mounds of dirt everywhere. Sweaty men were slinging pickaxes, swigging from jugs, hoisting shovels, and loading and unloading horse-drawn carts. Some spots were grown in and as pretty and splendid as Clara had ever seen.

After believing for so many months that Izzie didn’t care anymore about her and Euphora, Clara was still finding it hard to believe Izzie had really gone away from her husband and had been looking for them all over New York City. Now finally here they were together, riding in a carriage on a hot summer day in Central Park.

A crimson runabout with two stunningly dressed women sitting beneath their pink parasols sped around and passed them. Clara wasn’t sure, but thought they were courtesans from Empress Kate’s house.

“
Do you and Mac have a carriage, Izzie?” Euphora asked.

“
No, but next year we will get one if things go well. We use a livery stable down the street.”

Clara looked away again at the carriage parade. If Izzie had come to Geneva when she said she would last fall, Izzie could have taken her and Euphora and Billy to Rochester then–and she would have gone with Izzie lickety-click. But now it was too late. She had Hannah and Mary Johnson and Abbie and Carlotta and the others. She couldn’t very well leave them. Maybe Mrs. Purcell wouldn’t even be dead if Izzie had come back. And Billy wouldn’t have had to run away. She’d still have Billy.

They neared the band shell. Spreading out along the wide boulevard and on the grassy lawns, the crowd was dense. Children darted about. Women and men milled and chatted or sat in long rows dotted with parasols and stovepipe hats on twenty-foot benches. Nursemaids in white with youngsters in strollers congregated in twos and threes. The open carriages were parked with their passengers at the edge of the crowd offering a fine vantage for the concert. Clara guessed there were a thousand or two who had come for the music. Later on, when the music was playing, maybe she would try to count the audience.

Once they had climbed out of their coupe, Clara paid the driver and sent him off.

“
Shall we get ice cream afterward?” Clara smiled at her sisters. She wanted to make this afternoon as lovely as she could, a lovely summer party for the three of them to remember, a farewell party of sorts.

Euphora took one of Clara’s hands and one of Izzie’s and led them both through the thicket of people. She picked a spot behind one of the benches. They were too late to find seats, but Euphora got them close enough to see and hear the musicians.

The conductor introduced himself, Mr. Harvey Dodworth, and announced that the musicians would start with
Friends Jubilee Galop
. When the horns struck up, Euphora swayed between her and Izzie, bouncing off her shoulder, then Izzie’s. Then Euphora took their hands and nudged harder against Clara and Izzie until they began to sway along with her.

Euphora and the music were contagious. Clara’s worry about wrangling with Izzie drifted away. She thought about Papa being gone and how he couldn’t hurt her or Euphora and how her little sister could go home with Izzie now. Clara turned her gaze away from the band shell and looked at Izzie and Euphora enjoying the music. For a short moment, she felt happy for them, but then when she thought of telling Euphora she wasn’t going to Rochester, her heart sank back down. As soon as Euphora understood it had to be this way, she’d be thundering miserable.

Before Izzie went back home, Clara would make her swear never ever to let Papa steal Euphora away. Swear. Swear on twenty-five stacks of Bibles. Swear by all the saints in heaven. Swear forever and ever.

The band played
Fly My Skiff
,
Lurline Quickstep
, a waltz, and
Viva l’America
. Then they played selections from an opera. Through the entire concert, Clara grasped Euphora’s moist hand.

When the concert was over, Clara suggested they walk for a while. The crowd spread out in all directions, many people heading south with them along the Promenade with its poor little parched elm saplings.

“
You’ll be one of the cooks at the Upper Falls Water-Cure, Euphora. When you are older, maybe even the head cook.” Izzie put an arm around Euphora’s shoulder. “It’s vegetarian mostly. You’ll have to learn some new things.”

“
No meat?”

“
Only if the patients request it.”

“
Clara, what will your job be? Will you and Izzie be Spiritualists together again?”

Feet dragging, Clara looked down. “I’m not going, Euphora. I’m staying here in New York City.”

Euphora scraped to a stop and spun toward her. “What?”

“
I’m staying. I have employment here and I have my friend Hannah. And I’ve decided I want to be an actress. If you want to be an actress, you must start in New York City.”

“
Bring Hannah to Rochester. You can be an actress there.”

“
No, I want to stay here. Rochester doesn’t have Laura Keene’s Theatre, or Wallack’s, or the New Bowery. But, I’ll visit you as often as I can.”

“
Yes. Bring Hannah. Clara, of course you can bring Hannah. I’m sure Mac would agree. She could stay with us at the Water-Cure Institute for a while,” Izzie said.

Clara started walking again into the flow of the crowd. Izzie and Euphora fell in step with her. For a moment, she considered the idea of bringing Hannah to Rochester, but Hannah “staying for a while” wasn’t long enough. And then there was Mary Johnson and the others and being an actress. She didn’t want to leave it all.