We Hear the Dead (10 page)

Maggie

The death of David's bright-eyed little girl devastated our family, and grief brought us together briefly, all our petty disputes forgotten. My poor brother was nearly destroyed. I was shocked by his appearance, for he seemed to have aged ten years in the span of two months.

The funeral service was held shortly after our arrival in Hydesville, and my poor little niece was buried in a small coffin handmade by her father and her grandfather, working side by side. Leah was our source of strength, as always. She almost single-handedly directed affairs, guiding our grief-stricken brother and his wife through the ceremony.

By contrast, Kate was nearly prostrate with hysteria. Immediately after the funeral, she took to a bed and refused to get up. Slipping away from the company of neighbors paying condolence calls, I went upstairs and perched myself on the bed beside her, taking her hand.

“I know what you're thinking,” I whispered, “and you need to stop it.”

“I caused Ella's death,” Kate's lips formed the words, but there was scarcely any breath behind them.

“You know that is nonsense,” I said fiercely.

“I predicted it, then,” she replied in a firmer voice. “I'm the one who asked Calvin to make the piano toll that note.”

“I think you asked him to make it play,” I corrected. “I am sure you did not ask him to make it sound like a death knell, and you certainly didn't ask that idiot woman to predict that someone in our family would die! It was a coincidence. Ella had been ill for two days before!”

“I asked Calvin to rig the piano two days ago,” Kate said gloomily.

“You did not. It was only one day ago!”

“I don't want this power!” Kate's tear-stained face turned toward me. “I don't want the power to see death approaching! I want to comfort people, not foresee their grief!”

“You are forgetting,” I hissed. “You don't actually have any power at all. You crack the joints in your toes to make the rapping, and you are very good at reading people's faces. You are a fraud, just as I am.”

Despite my best efforts, Kate remained inconsolable and probably would not have left the bed at all had Leah not barged in that evening and taken her by the ear. Kate was forced to scramble up and onto her feet, lest she lose that particular piece of her anatomy.

“That's enough wallowing from you, you self-centered chit!” Leah scolded. “David and Betsy aren't lying in bed. They're behaving with dignity, and I won't have you overshadowing their grief. She wasn't
your
child!”

I gasped. Kate's health was delicate, and one did not just order her out of bed when she was taken by a spell. However, two red circles of shame appeared on Kate's cheeks, and she scrambled to pull on her dress before Leah could lay hands on her again.

The emotional ordeal was not yet over for us, however. We had scarcely returned to Rochester before Mother began to make us uncomfortable with requests to contact Ella's spirit in a circle. Kate dug her fingernails into my arm each time she asked, and when Mother was not within hearing, she would hiss, “I cannot do it! I will not do it!” However, Mother would not give up the idea, and truly, there was no reason for not doing for her what we did for strangers at a dollar a head. When she asked us in front of our regular group of sitters, Leah gave a resigned sigh and nodded to us girls. Kate cast her eyes down in shame, and I returned a wide-eyed gaze to Leah. What could we do to impersonate Ella, a child less than three years old? She could not spell out any message. What did Mother expect?

Leah had the matter well in hand, however. “Dear spirits!” she cried. “We are seeking the spirit of a small child—a girl very dear to us, who passed into your realm a week ago. Please, help us to locate Ella Fox, for her aunts and her grandmama wish dearly to speak to her!”

We waited in silence. Leah closed her eyes and swayed in her seat. “Ella, are you there? Knock for us, child. Your grandmama is waiting for you.”

And there came a small gentle knocking, as if the tiny hand of a child had rapped upon the center of the table.

“Ella!” my mother gasped tearfully. “Ella, darling, is it you?”

“Ella!” Leah said hastily. “Knock two times for yes. You can count to two, can't you, dearest?”

Two tiny knocks were clearly heard in the room, and Mother raised her hands from their customary position on the table and clasped them to her face. “Ella, my darling! Are you in heaven?”

Two raps, tentative and childlike.

“Are you alone, Ella?” asked Leah. “You can knock one time for no, or two for yes.”

The spirit of Ella rapped one time, for no.

Leah nodded knowingly. “You are not alone. That is good, my darling. Who is with you—is it perhaps your great-aunt Catherine?”

Acting upon impulse, or perchance because I had grown accustomed to working from Leah's hints, I caused there to be two very strong knocks upon the table.

Mother's eyes lit up, glistening with tears. I rapped out the command for the alphabet board, feeling on sure ground. I did not remember this sister of my mother's, who had died many years ago, but I knew of her from Leah's stories, and it was easy to spell out a message that my mother would believe:
I told you, Peggy, when you left John, that I would care for your children as my own. That is as true now as it was twenty-seven years ago.

My mother sobbed loudly, but they were cleansing tears, and Leah raised a hand to brush at her own wet cheeks, giving me a quick, grateful glance. We were all hurting from this unhappy loss, but somehow it was very reassuring to think of little Ella in the hands of the indomitable Aunt Catherine, who had taken my mother and her children into her home when they had nowhere else to go.

Adelaide Granger, who was present that evening, put her arms around my mother and pressed a handkerchief into her hands. “How very good it is,” she said, smiling through tears of her own, “that you, who have given so much comfort to others, can also reap the benefits of your daughters' precious gift!”

***

As successful as we were in promoting our new family business, we were unable to convince everyone. Many people left our circles unsatisfied, especially those wanting to make a fortune with their stock speculations or seeking a way to outwit a rival in business or romance. Leah explained that the dead no longer understood the complexities of finance or love, having transcended to a realm of divine contemplation, but these seekers grumbled nonetheless when they received messages that spoke more to patience and virtue than to ambition and avarice.

Some sitters did more than grumble. Jealous women loosed their shrewish tongues to give us a piece of their minds, and a few of the men became angry and abusive, hurling epithets at our faces and calling us heathen witches and frauds. Persons of this temperament generally found themselves grasped firmly by an elbow and propelled swiftly to the front door at the hands of Calvin Brown, who, though mildly mannered, possessed substantial strength in his six-foot frame.

We also received a fair share of attention from the newspapers. The
New York Tribune
frankly called us humbugs, and the
Rochester Courier and Enquirer
doubted that real spirits would spend their time “thumping on walls and rapping on tables.” Some favorable press could be found in the
Rochester Daily Democrat
, which stated: “These young women will have to be pretty smart if they have deceived everybody.” The likelihood of such a phenomenon was apparently rated somewhat lower than the possibility of real communication with ghosts.

Still, Mr. Capron and the Posts were rather disappointed with the jeers of the press and the public at large. Leah, Kate, and I met with them late in October to discuss the suspicion and skepticism of the Rochester community.

“I am at a loss to know what we can do to further our cause,” Leah began with a note of fatalism in her voice. “The spirits have commanded us to make their communications more public.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Mr. Capron, tapping his fingers nervously upon his pipe, “when I publish my book, we will attract the attention of intellects more scientifically minded than the journalists of the local papers.”

“You know that we have the support of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Stanton,” Amy added. “I also understand that Frederick Douglass has expressed some interest in coming up to hear these raps for himself, and will most certainly publish his experience in his
North Star
paper.”

A few moments of silence followed as our friends considered other potential contacts or venues for advancing the idea of spiritualism. Kate and I contributed nothing to the conversation, for we were not expected to have any opinions, but we did cast sidelong glances at each other, waiting for the skillful maneuver that we knew must be coming.

“It does occur to me,” Leah finally said hesitantly, “a dear friend of mine suggested a few weeks ago that we appear in a public forum to proclaim the truth of spiritualism and prove it to the doubtful by demonstration. I was aghast at the suggestion, of course.”

“Wait a moment,” requested the soft-spoken Mr. Post, stroking his beard. “That is not an unreasonable suggestion. Perhaps we should hold a public lecture on the spiritual realm and the immortality of the soul. You could present your work, Eliab,” he added, nodding at the journalist. “It would be good advance publicity for your book.”

“And a source of income for the ladies,” Mr. Capron added virtuously. He drew on his pipe with a thoughtful expression.

Leah shook her head gently. “My dearest companions,” she said, “you are forgetting that we are modest and respectable women. I fear it would not be seemly for us to appear on a public lecture stage.”

“Mrs. Fish,” said Mr. Capron, “I will do the public speaking, and you need only be physically present in order to translate for the spirits. Your reputation will not be injured in any way.”

Under Mr. Capron's kind prodding, Leah cast her eyes down in acquiescence. “If you feel it is a wise course, Mr. Capron, then I will, as ever, abide by your judgment. I only think that we should ask the spirits for guidance before making a final decision.”

The alphabet board appeared in my hands as if I had somehow known in advance it would be needed. Mr. Capron took it upon himself to ask the question, and the spirits rapped out their answer immediately:
Hire Corinthian Hall
.

Maggie

Corinthian Hall was the pride and joy of Rochester, a tall and majestic building with vaulted ceilings and tall windows. It served as the venue for countless cultural events and educational lectures; even the famous Frederick Douglass had spoken at the hall that summer. Never in a million years had I imagined that I might stand upon the platform as a fourteen-year-old girl and perform my parlor tricks before a public audience!

Mr. Capron managed to reserve the hall for the evening of the fourteenth of November. I fluctuated day by day between ecstatic excitement and pure terror, one moment reflecting upon a choice of dress, the next pledging that I would lock myself in my room and refuse to come out. Kate, by contrast, was serene and assured, looking forward with almost adultlike intensity to the opportunity, not suspecting that fate would intervene to prevent her from appearing there at all.

It was the only time Mr. Capron ever got the better of Leah. They were discussing their preparations for the event when Mr. Capron said in passing, “Of course, Miss Kate will not be present with us.”

For a moment Leah blinked at him in confusion, and then, composing her face, she covered her surprise by agreeing, “Of course not. She is too young to appear on a public platform.” Knowing her as I did, I could sense the vexation beneath her calm exterior, but it would have been foolhardy to take any other stance. Leah already strained the boundaries of propriety by allowing scarcely known acquaintances into her home each night, taking money from them, and sitting in near darkness with men who were not related to her by blood. She was daring to appear on display at a public lecture, and without the support and patronage of Mr. Capron, she would certainly have been courting disaster.

“I have had my qualms even about Maggie,” Leah went on. “But we certainly must have one of them with us, for the spirits do not rap except in their presence.”

“Indeed,” Mr. Capron agreed, “but I have been reflecting at length on what arrangements could be made for Kate, and I have exchanged a number of letters with my wife. I may not have mentioned to you, Mrs. Fish, that my wife was a schoolteacher before our marriage, and as you can imagine, education has always been highly valued in our house. For some time now, the lack of schooling for Kate has weighed heavily on my mind. It is one thing for Miss Maggie here, as she has likely taken enough education for a young girl of her social standing, but our Miss Kate is…what, twelve?”

“Eleven,” corrected Leah, although Kate had in fact passed her twelfth birthday. My sister was intent on making us out to be younger than we were.

“Far too young to give up her schooling,” Mr. Capron said, reaching into his vest pocket to remove a folded paper. “I have here a letter from my wife, Rebecca, inviting young Kate to come and reside at our home in Auburn for a period of time. My wife can tutor her at home, and once she is satisfied with her progress, we will locate a placement for her in a suitable school.”

Leah accepted the letter from Mr. Capron and quickly read it. Then, with a fixed smile, she returned it to his hands. “This is a very kind and generous offer. Your wife is obviously a lady of excellent character and a charitable nature. However, I am afraid that my sister is of delicate health, subject to debilitating headaches and even occasional fits. Furthermore, she has never been away from her family and is extremely attached to Maggie and to her mother. To my regret, we shall have to decline your kind offer.”

Mr. Capron folded the letter back into his vest pocket, inclining his head politely, and turned the conversation deftly back to the upcoming performance at Corinthian Hall. No doubt Leah thought the subject was closed, as did I, but we had not considered one important fact. Leah was not Kate's mother.

To our great consternation, Mr. Capron took his offer to Mother and convinced her of the need to continue Kate's education. Mr. Capron was passionate enough about his desire to sponsor her education that my mother was completely won over. Soon after, and much to Leah's dismay, Mother had agreed and the travel plans had already been made.

Predictably, Kate became recalcitrant, railing shrilly at Leah and crying piteously to Mother. “I won't go!” she promised our sister with a tear-streaked face. “I'll be ill! I'll have a fit!”

Leah faced her impassively. “Then let us go now to Mr. Capron's lodgings, and you will confess to him that you have been deceiving him from the beginning. We will admit that we have made a right fool of him but that you are tired of the game now and wish to end it.”

I sank down upon the bed weakly, even though I knew Leah was only herding Kate into compliance and had no real intention of doing such a thing. For a moment I envisioned what it would be like to confess and heard a great rush of blood in my ears. I truly felt dizzy, contemplating the awful possibility of being found out, seeing the faces of Mr. Capron, the Grangers…

Kate was pale and trembling with emotion. “You don't mean it.”

“I do,” Leah insisted. “That was our agreement from the beginning. You would do exactly what I told you to do, or I would tell the truth.”

Temper subsiding, Kate's eyes filled with tears of sadness and misery instead of anger. “But I don't want to leave you. I don't want to go live in Auburn.”

“We need Mr. Capron. If this is what it takes to make him happy, then you will have to show some grit and do it.” After a moment, Leah relented and put her arm around Kate. “I'll bring you back as soon as I can. Mother will miss you, and I imagine she will regret her decision as soon as you are gone. Besides, you are sorely in need of tutoring in spelling, as many of our spirit messages have proved!”

Kate sniffed. “What shall I do about the spirits while I am in Auburn?”

Our sister considered. “Continue as you did in Hydesville,” she said. “You may hold spirit circles and rap for Mrs. Capron. But take no risks, and it would be better if you kept to your original method of rapping and didn't try any of the new tricks you've learned from Calvin.”

Kate turned suddenly and looked at me with worry. “How will you manage without me at Corinthian Hall? Maggie cannot rap as loudly as I can.”

I had been worried about this myself for many days. “I dare not bring any bells in my pockets,” I said.

Leah shook her head. “Nor any of those lead balls in your hem. We'll be relying on nothing but your toes, Maggie.”

“They'll never hear it,” I said.

“Calvin and I have some ideas,” Leah assured me. “Although I will be on the platform with you, you know I cannot help you make the actual rapping. We will have to depend on Calvin, whom no one will see or pay any mind to. Trust that he will be nearby and serving our cause.”

***

The evening of the fourteenth of November arrived with a frigid blast of northeasterly wind. Kate had departed, sad and unwilling, just two days before. Without her presence and unflagging confidence, I felt panicky about the lecture. How could I possibly crack the joints in my toes loudly enough to be heard in that immense hall?

It was not until Leah had tried and failed to make any noise with the joints in her feet and ankles that I realized it was not a skill possible for everyone. Kate had patiently demonstrated for her, time and time again, exactly the movements we made, but our sister was unable to make a sound. She could crack her finger joints with a sharp noise, but such a movement was obvious and easy for an observer to detect. Feet, ankles, and legs were always hidden beneath long skirts.

Leah assured me that I would not have to rap for any test questions at Corinthian Hall or spell out any messages. “You just need to be heard,” she said. “A few loud raps while Mr. Capron is speaking. Calvin has found an entrance to the crawl space beneath the audience hall. If he can gain access undetected, he will create a few raps of his own, and it will appear as if they are coming from different locations.” Perhaps I still looked frightened, for she placed a hand under my chin and fondly lifted my face for a sisterly kiss. “Twenty-five cents a ticket, Maggie, and half of it coming to us.”

***

Wrapped tightly in our cloaks against the biting wind, we arrived around seven o'clock in the evening at the side door to the Corinthian, and the manager, Mr. Reynolds, ushered us inside. If I thought the hall immense when I visited it and sat among the audience, it was nothing compared to the size of it as viewed from the raised platform. The tall windows stretched upward on either side of us, drawing the eyes toward the bronze gaslights hanging from the lofty paneled ceiling. Four Corinthian columns, for which the hall was named, stood at the back of the platform before a heavy red curtain. A lectern had been placed near the front of the platform for Mr. Capron, and nearby were four chairs, neatly arranged with two prominently in front and the remaining two set apart and slightly behind the others. There Leah and I would sit on display, with Amy Post and her husband discreetly positioned nearby.

The Grangers escorted my mother to a seat in the front row of the audience, skirting the crowds of people who were noisily progressing to their places in a seemingly endless procession. The echoes of voices rumbled off the walls, and I gripped Leah's hand in cold fear, squeezing her fingers mercilessly. We would learn later that more than four hundred tickets had been sold, and we stood to earn at least fifty dollars from the event.

Mr. Reynolds, the manager, kindly took my cloak and Leah's, and we smoothed our skirts and hair in preparation for walking shakily out to our seats. Calvin had already melted away like snow, unnoticed. Mother thought he would be waiting behind the platform; Mr. Capron assumed he would be seated in the audience with my mother.

The evening proved to be a long, torturous ordeal of sitting patiently and self-consciously in a hard wooden seat, my eyes cast modestly down at my folded hands. I saw more of my own skirt than I did of the audience, although I did peek beneath my lowered lashes, searching for faces I might know, for friendliness, for credibility.

Mr. Capron began by comparing himself to some of the world's greatest men of discovery, such as Galileo and Columbus, who were ridiculed for their findings before humankind was ready to believe in them. Then he went on to recount the story of the Hydesville peddler whose spirit had implored for justice by rapping out a message to a pair of innocent country girls.

My first attempt at creating a rap failed, for I was nervous and afraid of making some kind of visible motion with my foot. On my second attempt, I heard the crack quite clearly, and several people in the front row lifted their heads simultaneously. Clearly, the sound did not carry far, but some heard it, and those who did not hear it would see the reaction of those who did.

“Ah,” Mr. Capron said, “I hear that the spirits have joined us.” He continued his narrative by explaining how the rapping sounds had followed us to Rochester, and he began to expound on his own theories about communication with the spiritual world.

On the left side of the hall, about two-thirds of the way back, people seated in the audience began to murmur. One man rose from his seat and placed his hand upon the wall, then turned and made some comment to his companions. A few minutes later, some ladies seated in the center of the hall gasped and drew back in their seats, their faces turned toward the floor near their feet. Although I could not hear anything from my position on the platform, it appeared that various spots in the audience were experiencing some unusual phenomena, and I could only assume that our wonderful accomplice had indeed gained access to the crawl space beneath the hall.

Mr. Capron continued with his lecture, unperturbed by the sudden and apparently random disruptions in the audience. Feeling emboldened, I continued to produce the raps at varying intervals, and it was evident that Calvin was freely moving beneath the hall. When Mr. Capron reached the end of his prepared speech, tentative applause broke out in the parts of the audience that had heard the mysterious noises issuing from the walls, the floor, and the air.

But one man rose from somewhere near the back of the hall and began to stride up the center aisle toward the platform. A murmur of anticipation rose from the audience as he approached, and I could see that Mr. Capron stiffened as he recognized the oncoming man. He was short and heavily whiskered, nicely dressed in elegant evening wear, and giving off an air of self-importance. He was clapping his hands as he came, in that slow, deliberate way that showed disdain rather than appreciation. When he was sure that he had the attention of everyone in the hall, he called out in a loud, clear voice, “Very good, Mr. Capron. Very good. A marvelous tale of ghostly drama, but rather short on actual facts. Entertaining, but deceptive.”

“Mr. Bissel,” replied Mr. Capron, “I fail to see where we have been deceptive.”

“Oh, it is very easy to deceive the innocent and the gullible and thus lead them away from a righteous path,” answered the man before the platform. “The Bible tells us we must not suffer a witch to live, and what you have presented to us tonight must be none other than witchcraft or fraud.”

A murmur rose from the crowd, and my heart froze at the word “witchcraft.” But Mr. Capron leaned across that lectern and pierced Mr. Bissel with the intelligent gaze of reason. “We live in the nineteenth century, Mr. Bissel. Rational men do not believe in witchcraft, and I believe that those who have joined us here tonight are neither gullible nor uneducated.”

“I am glad to hear that, Mr. Capron,” stated the man from the audience. “Then I can assume your ‘spirit mediums' would be prepared to undergo scientific tests to determine whether they make these sounds by trickery?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“A committee,” stated Mr. Bissel. “Let us say, five men, who will examine your mediums at a time of your choosing, but at a place that we have designated, to see if they can produce ghost noises by any means that we can prove to be false.”