We Hear the Dead (18 page)

Maggie

Not a day passed without some word from Elisha Kane—a note, a visit, an invitation, or some token sent to our hotel. He observed proprieties meticulously, addressing his flowers and gifts to my mother. A book of verse, for example, arrived with a card for my mother that read, “I could not resist this little trifle for Miss Margaretta. Permit me to place it in your hands for your perusal first.” Mother, of course, passed the book along to me without hesitation, and between its pages there was a carefully folded note for my eyes alone:

Once in the mornings of old, I read in a newspaper that for one dollar the inmates of another world would rap to me the secrets of this one; all things spiritlike and incomprehensible would be resolved into hard knocks, and all for one dollar! With that, I wended my way to a hotel, and after the necessary forms of doorkeepers and fees—by Jove, I saw the spirit!

Bright Spirit, read these verses in the window of the hotel parlor with the light in your hair, as on that memorable day.

The doctor was as eloquent with the pen as he was in speech. His evenings were usually spent behind a lectern and his afternoons engaged in penning letters, all in the pursuit of money for his expedition. I was flattered that he deviated from his single-minded vocation to occasionally inscribe these whimsical little sentiments for me.

I imagine that he and I were the two most celebrated persons in the city of Philadelphia that summer. I collected the grief stricken, the philosophical, and the curious, while Elisha drew in the scholarly, the philanthropic, and the secretly adventurous. On occasion, the two groups intersected.

One evening, Elisha appeared at our hotel just as we were ending a private sitting. The doctor had written me earlier wishing to treat me to a carriage ride through the park. Regretfully, I had been forced to decline, having already committed to clients. As was often the case when I refused his invitation in order to complete my spiritual obligations, Dr. Kane was drawn to the hotel as if unable to resist investigating what occupied me.

In this particular instance, he met our sitters as they were exiting from our parlor, and the gentleman of the couple turned instantly toward him, calling him by name. Elisha immediately transformed from an anxiously waiting suitor into the dashing world explorer and came forward to shake the man's hand. “Colonel Childs! I almost didn't know you, sir, and I am surprised that you would recognize me after all this time.”

“I don't often forget my officers,” the man replied gruffly. “And I especially remember you, Kane. Not many of my men are decorated with honors from both sides of a war, nor do I have very many officers known for running the enemy through with a sword and then stopping to stitch them back together again. It seems the navy has sent you far afield since the last time I saw you.”

Dr. Kane nodded. “I imagine they have loaned me out for exploration in the Arctic so that I cannot cause any more trouble for them.”

“They did not value you nearly enough,” grumbled the colonel. “Good luck to you, then, in the Arctic. You were a good officer, and Franklin's wife is lucky to have you in charge of the rescue operation.” The colonel smiled and turned to include his wife, a petite and daintily featured lady with a dimpled smile, who hung patiently on his arm. “I hope you gain as much from your spirit sitting as we did. It is a modern miracle, is it not?”

“Oh, indeed,” Elisha replied with an enigmatic smile and a quick glance at me. “Miracles have definitely taken place here; I cannot deny it.”

Colonel and Mrs. Childs departed then, comforted and gratified to have contacted the spirit of their dead son, and Elisha the impertinent unbeliever joined us in our parlor, pleased to have stolen a bit of my time after all. He seated himself across the spirit table from me, leaning against it casually. Mother retreated with a knowing smile to the farthest corner of the room and busied herself with her needlework, a corporeal but not very observant chaperone.

“It sounds like another hair-raising story,” I said, nodding my head toward the departed guests.

“Another story that makes a fool of me,” he replied with mock curtness. “You seem overfond of that type of tale, Miss Margaretta.”

“I have a weakness for adventures,” I admitted. “Are you going to tell me the story or not, Elisha? I warn you, if you refuse, I will be left to draw my own conclusions.”

“Then I hardly have a choice, do I, Maggie?” The doctor reached absently across the table and laid his fingers lightly across my own. I trembled at the touch and shifted my position so that Mother could not see the impropriety. “It was during the Mexican War,” he continued, as I met his steady brown gaze. “I was traveling on horseback with a party of officers led by a Mexican rebel named Domínguez, who was, frankly, little more than a bandit. To my considerable distaste, Domínguez and his pack of thieves were considered allies because they were willing to act as guides for the Americans. When we encountered Mexican forces and engaged in combat, I lost my horse underneath me but nevertheless accounted well for myself, taking down several men, including a young major.

“When the skirmish was over and the Mexican nationals were defeated, Domínguez began to slaughter the prisoners! We were appalled by such a dastardly act—to kill men who had surrendered! We shouted for him to stop, and finally I took up my saber and defended the enemy commander, an old Mexican general, who was trying to shield the major I had wounded. In the end, I had to draw my gun and fire at Domínguez, who cursed me vilely and swore that he would have me court-martialed.

“Thus, I saved the life of the enemy commander, General Gaona, and when it turned out that the young major was the general's son, there was nothing else for it but to get out my kit and perform surgery on the field. I saved the general
and
the major, but I had humiliated our Mexican ally, who caused a great deal of trouble for me when we returned to our command post. The incident was an embarrassment to my commanders, doubly so after General Gaona gifted me with a horse from his own stables to replace the one I had lost. No officer ever made a good military career by endearing himself to the enemy, you realize!”

“But you only did what was right!” I exclaimed. “You did the noble thing, the civilized thing!”

“There is very little place in war for the noble and the civilized,” Elisha said. “Privately my commanders approved of my actions, but there was no denying that I had fired a gun at a superior officer. They were greatly relieved when I contracted a tropical fever shortly after the incident and quickly declared me unfit for service and shipped me home. I was unhappy to depart under a cloud of disapproval, and I even had to leave my Mexican horse behind.”

“I do declare, Dr. Kane! You lead the lives of ten men! Mr. James Fenimore Cooper should wish his heroes showed half your boldness! Think of the scores of pages that pass by before they have an opportunity to display their courage, while you can scarcely walk down the street without finding yourself in mortal straits!”

His face lit with laughter. “If my ears do not deceive me, Miss Margaretta, you just implied that I am haplessly prone to falling into embarrassing and exaggerated circumstances! I fear you view my life as a Shakespearean comedy!”

“Not at all,” I assured him, for in all honesty, I was in awe of his courage and flair. “I imagine you are just living in the harness.”

Here I was referring to another story he had told me, just a couple days earlier. Again I was astounded by the simple luminosity of his spirit as he talked about the rheumatic fever that had nearly taken his life a decade earlier and left him with a chronic heart disease. His physician had prognosticated that the remainder of his life would be brief and lived in bed as an invalid. However, his father, the commanding Judge John Kane, had rejected the diagnosis and ordered his eldest son to rise and go about his life. “If you must die, Elisha, die in the harness!” And Elisha had chosen the path his father had recommended, leading to medical university, the life of a navy officer, and ultimately to the Arctic.

“It is the harness in which
you
are living that concerns me,” he told me now. “It is a melancholy life, collecting fees from the bereft and desperate. Half the world thinks you are a fraud.”

I withdrew my fingers from his touch and pitched my voice low, beneath my mother's range of hearing: “If Mother knew that you occupied that half of public opinion, our acquaintance would be brief, I assure you, Dr. Kane.”

“Then I will not address the issue now,” he demurred, “except to state that I would rather see you devoting yourself to an education that would prepare you for a higher position in society.”

I felt my breath entirely taken away as I imagined what high position he might have in mind for me. My hands trembled as I pressed them together and carefully folded them into my lap. What was I to think?

I was trying to be cautious, like any proper young woman in my position. A girl who gave her heart too willingly to an ardent suitor might find herself without a husband and without the unblemished reputation she needed to acquire one. Yet what an intoxicating thought, to be the wife of this magnificent man!

Folded in the interior pocket of my skirt, beneath my hands, was a small measure of sanity. Only that morning, I had received a letter from Leah. It was typical of my sister to reach out across the distance in an attempt to keep her thumb firmly upon my neck. I was well accustomed to her manipulation, but she still knew the words to write that would give me pause even in the middle of a flirtation with Elisha. As he rose to take his parting that evening, as I offered my hand in farewell and raised my eyes to his warm and passionate gaze, Leah's letter haunted me, rapping its own message into my skull:

I understand that you are currently receiving the attentions of your first true suitor, an honor that has caused many a young girl to lose her sense unless guided by the feminine wisdom of her kin. As Mother is not always the best judge of these matters, I thought you might appreciate a few frank words from one who wants only the happiest future for you.

First, be prudent and modest. Do not confide your heart or any other private matters to this man. I mean him no disrespect but ask you to recall that young men can be fickle. You need not look too far backward in our own family history to see this truth for yourself. A man's love is a transitory thing, often shaped by circumstance, and not to be relied upon at the expense of good judgment.

Secondly, look to your future. Although there may be excitement in finding yourself the favorite of an illustrious hero, consider that you might better be matched to someone of your own background. Your first suitor will not be your last, and I would rather see you married to a man who comes from our own circle of associates and is devoted to the same ideals of family that we value. Heroics are all well and good between the pages of a book, but I imagine the appeal fails in the face of managing a home and children.

Finally, do not forget that issues of social status are not easily set aside. Forgive my bluntness, dearest Maggie, but you would not be welcomed by this man's family, nor would either of you be happy with such a union.

I hope you do not take these sentiments amiss and appreciate that I only hope to provide you with the sisterly advice I was lacking in my own youth. Enjoy your attention from Dr. Kane, whom I understand is quite a charismatic and entertaining gentleman, but comport yourself with the utmost propriety. Do not lose your head, your heart, or your reputation—nor do anything that would injure our family.

Respectfully and lovingly,

Your sister,

Leah

Knowing my sister as I did, I thought that she was less blunt than she might have been and that there had probably been other versions of this letter that had never made the post. I knew that her most pressing and self-serving concern was that I keep the family secret, and thus far I had done so, never confirming those doubts that Dr. Kane had expressed to me.

I might have been angry about the things Leah wrote in her letter, but perhaps my own habit of deceptiveness had made me a skeptic in all things. In fact, her letter was an anchor to which I clung, lest my heart fly away on wings of infatuation, borne aloft by the currents of dizzying possibility offered by one Elisha Kent Kane.

Maggie

The fall of 1851 came upon us too quickly. Soon we would be finishing our business in Philadelphia and rejoining the rest of the family, not in Rochester, but in New York City, where Leah had rented a house.

Our popularity in Philadelphia had not diminished during our four-month stay. Spiritualists from all across the state of Pennsylvania had journeyed to the Quaker City for a meeting with one of the Fox sisters. Very few of these visitors had ever experienced any supernatural event before. When they arrived at Webb's Union Hotel, it was with the reverence of attending church for the very first time, having only read about worship but wishing ardently to participate. When rapping in Rochester and New York, I had always presumed myself to be something like a performer. But in Philadelphia I understood for the first time that Kate and I, or perhaps Leah, had created a new religion.

This caused a great deal of guilty reflection on my part, exacerbated by Elisha's insistence on the sinfulness of my actions. “You know I am nervous about the rappings,” he told me. “I believe the only thing that gives me fear is this confounded thing being found out! I would not know the truth myself for ten thousand dollars.” And he did not, in fact, know the truth. No admission ever passed my lips. I believe at that time it would have been a physical impossibility, my tongue stiffening in my mouth as if by some poison, were I ever to confess the method by which I manifested the raps. Unlike some other skeptics, Elisha never demeaned himself by trying to guess their source.

Dr. Kane continued to attend our sittings when he was able and especially when he had failed to engage my companionship otherwise. Some of the Philadelphia spiritualists began to believe that he was a devoted believer, much to his consternation! However, astute participants commented, “Dr. Kane is far more intent on the medium of communication than the substance of the message,” and they would smile indulgently at the two of us. In any case, his continued presence could be interpreted only as tacit approval for the rappings, whether he realized it or not.

Our time together was dwindling, for not only was my visit to Philadelphia due to end, but Elisha was scheduled to speak in several other cities across the Northwest in his crusade to raise funds. In the meantime, he escorted me to concerts and plays, and on two more occasions I attended his lectures as an honored guest. Mother usually accompanied us as our chaperone, although sometimes Elisha invited the wife of his cousin Robert Patterson as an escort.

On a brisk October afternoon, just four days before Elisha was to leave for New York City, he took me on a carriage ride through the countryside with Mrs. Helen Patterson along in place of my mother. I found Mrs. Patterson to be a pleasant and agreeable companion, very elegant and gracious. She kept up a steady, cheery conversation throughout our journey, for once outpacing Elisha, who seemed more quiet and pensive than usual. I put it down to his imminent departure until the carriage rolled unexpectedly to a halt before one of the stately mansions on the outskirts of the city.

Mrs. Patterson stopped speaking, almost in the midst of a sentence, and Elisha indicated the house outside the carriage window. “This is my family home, Rensselaer,” he said, in a voice that was uncharacteristically stiff.

I took a startled breath and forgot to let it out. It was a magnificent estate, one that should have awed me with its elaborate gardens and aristocratic entryway, but I was terrified. Afterward I could not have described any part of the house, for in that moment, I was aware only that he meant me to disembark from the carriage and go inside to meet his parents. My legs felt as though weighted with lead. I smoothed my hands over my skirt, a fine new gown for a carriage ride in the country but unable to hold a candle to the elegant lines of Mrs. Patterson's attire. I raised my eyes to Elisha in pitiful dread, frozen like a little rabbit. I was totally unprepared for this encounter.

His face showed the same uncertainty, and he suddenly turned to look at his cousin's wife for guidance. Mrs. Patterson dropped her gaze with only the briefest shake of her head, and abruptly Elisha rapped on the side of the carriage and signaled the driver to go on. “My parents are not at home this week,” he said gruffly, “so I am afraid there is no use stopping.”

I murmured my understanding, grateful for the lie, beholden to the sensitivity of Mrs. Patterson, my heart thudding in a belated attack of nerves. I could not meet his parents without prior planning, without the proper clothing, without some guidance. I was so relieved that I felt no slight in recognizing that Elisha, too, knew a meeting at this time was not favorable.

We continued on, our chaperone resuming her lonely discourse and Elisha and I answering belatedly, or not at all, as we recovered from what felt like a narrow escape from calamity. Finally, the carriage turned into a carefully tended garden lane and I realized that we were headed into cemetery grounds. This did not seem a typical stop for a country ride, and I turned to Elisha in some puzzlement, but he appeared to have recovered his poise and was smiling proudly. “Just a brief visit,” he assured me. “Would you accompany me on a stroll, Miss Fox?”

He disembarked first. As I was the younger lady aboard the carriage, I paused to allow Mrs. Patterson to go before me, but she shook her head with a secretive smile. “I believe I will rest here for the time being,” she said. And when I showed my surprise, she leaned forward and put her hand on my arm. “I see no harm in allowing you a few private moments, especially here. Go with him. I expect he will wish to confess his feelings.”

With a burning face, I climbed down from the carriage, placing my hand in Elisha's for assistance. Smiling, he kept it even after I was firmly on the ground and tucked it into his arm. “This is not quite the gardens of Rensselaer,” he said, “but still family property for all that. It is perhaps best not to overwhelm you all at once, so a tour of the Kane vault will suffice for us today.”

It soon became apparent that his hold on my arm was not entirely sentimental. The level ground of the cemetery dropped off abruptly, and Elisha led me to a stone path set into a steep hill. I twitched my skirts aside with my free hand, carefully placing my feet on the steps, but with Elisha's firm grip I knew that I was safe enough. I could see our destination, a stone mausoleum set into the side of the hill, the family name carved proudly above the lintel in tall letters. Beyond the vault the hillside sloped sharply down to the wooded banks of the Schuylkill River.

“When I was a boy, my brothers and I used to ice skate on the frozen river and then climb up here and build a fire to warm ourselves afterward,” Elisha reflected as he guided me down the inclining path. “We would sit right on the doorstep of the vault and pitch rocks down the hill. My grandparents are entombed here, and an infant brother I scarcely remember, and, of course, my dear brother Willie.”

Approaching the vault with tenderness, Elisha placed a hand on the wooden door. “He was a bright, good child, full of innocence and a love of learning. It broke my heart when he left us. But you…” He turned to face me, taking my hand between his two and holding it between us. “You have been a godsend, more welcome than the northern sun after months of despairing night.”

“Elisha, I know you cannot abide spiritualism,” I said, pitying his persistent grief, “but your brother loves you still. One does not have to be a medium to believe in heaven and to know that it is the ultimate destination of us all.”

“I am a scientific man of facts and data and hard, worldly evidence. I've been trained to believe in what I can measure and observe and touch with my hands. Existence beyond death defies such quantification.”

“But for all your facts and measurements, you believe in an Arctic land at the top of the world that you have never seen,” I argued. “Can you not muster a similar faith in a paradise for spirits enjoying their just reward?”

“Let us hope it is a brighter, cheerier reward than this.” Elisha waved his hand at the family vault. “How much better to look toward the promise of heaven than to reflect upon this stone pallet, destined to be my final resting place, and that of a future Mrs. Kane as well.”

“I am sure that the future Mrs. Kane would be deeply honored to lie in a crypt with you,” I said carefully, “especially one with such a picturesque view…not that she'd be in any position to enjoy it.”

“Do not make me laugh when I am trying to be romantic!” he protested.

“Your romance needs work if you ply your charms in a cemetery at the foot of a mausoleum, contemplating your future tomb,” I informed him.

“All part of my plan,” he assured me. “What will you do when I leave the city, fair Maggie? Find another young man to twine about your finger with your bewitching eyes and clever conversation?”

“Wherever would I find another companion such as yourself?” I retorted. “I could place a classified advertisement, I suppose. Wanted: a philosophical but skeptical scientist and explorer, to swoon in volcanoes, swim with sled dogs, and dangle headfirst off giant Egyptian statues with one foot tangled in his climbing rope.”

“Now, Maggie, I told you that tale in confidence!”

“There are no living ears to hear us,” I said, “as you have cleverly left Mrs. Patterson in the rear.” I waved my hand at the slope above us. Our heads had passed below the level of the main cemetery, and we were now out of sight of the carriage and our esteemed chaperone.

“Just so.” He took a step toward me and stopped, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look him in the eye. “Miss Maggie, I have brought you here to steal a kiss.”

Instinct made me continue with my lighthearted banter, although my ears were filled with the sound of my heart pounding in excitation. “It will have to be theft, as no young lady of good standing would give such a thing away willingly.”

But Elisha was done teasing. He placed his hands lightly on my shoulders, stepped even closer, and bent his head toward mine. It was my first kiss, stolen in a graveyard by a man with warm lips and a clean, sharp scent. For a long moment, I was speechless, even after he had stepped decorously backward and dropped his hands to his sides. I just gazed at him, stunned and giddy with emotion. His brown eyes sparkled at me fondly. “I wish I could have a lock of your hair,” he whispered, “to take with me when I go. But I am not that brazen of a thief. It would have to be a gift.”

I nodded timidly. “Call upon me tomorrow,” I said, in a voice rather hoarse with feeling, “and I will see if I can manage it.”

He took my arm once more and directed me onto the stone steps, so that in a moment we ascended into the view of the carriage, seeming respectable and modest, as long as the observer did not look too closely at our foolish smiles.

“Will you keep it with the others?” I dared to ask, feeling a sudden need to be bold with him.

“What others?”

“Why, the locks of hair you have collected from other girls that you have kissed in front of the family tomb.” I glanced sidelong at him, waiting to see if he would be angry or offended, but he just laughed out loud.

“Wherever would I find another such girl? I could advertise, I suppose. Wanted: a young lady of more than average beauty, a strange mixture of child and woman, of simplicity and cunning, of passionate impulse and extreme self-control. But I fear that such a search would be fruitless. There can be only one of you in all the world.”

“Ah, you haven't met my sister Kate. Still, I am pleased to know that any token I give you would hold a place of honor.”

“Do you doubt me? You must look deeper.”

“Oh, but isn't it true that you are an enigma past knowing, Doctor?” I fixed him with a mischievous gaze. “You know I am.”

“You are not such a mystery,” he assured me. “You are refined and lovable, and with a different education—one absent of secret rappings and troublesome spirits—you would have been innocent and artless. If I had my way with you, I would send you to school and teach you to live your life over again.”

He handed me up into the carriage, ending our discourse, as he usually did, with his persistent advice to give up the spirit rapping.

***

What could I have replied to Dr. Kane? I pondered it often over the days of his absence as Mother and I prepared to depart from Philadelphia. We would arrive in New York City only to miss Elisha by a day, as he would be journeying on to meet with financial backers in Boston. Perhaps if chance had allowed us another meeting, I could have confessed my thoughts as a sort of fanciful tale, such as he was wont to do in his little notes to me.

I could have said to him: “Once in the mornings of old, two naughty girls played a prank upon a third girl they disliked. So successful were they that they extended the prank to include their parents, and then their neighbors, until deception became their way of life, continued in desperation lest they be unmasked. At that point, an older sister presented them with a choice: to be revealed in their wickedness or celebrated in their goodness. And the girls chose goodness, turning their prank into an act of kindness, an opportunity to meet influential people, and a means of speaking out for abolition and other human rights. Until the day that a shining hero met one of the sisters and promised her…” What?

That was the problem. He had promised me nothing.

Leah did not hesitate to point that out to me, almost the first thing upon our arrival at her new home.

“I hope that you have comported yourself with modesty and propriety,” she asserted primly, “as our business depends utterly on our reputation.”

“Land sakes, Leah,” said Mother. “I was always with her as a chaperone.”

“I am well aware of your shortcomings as a chaperone, Mother,” retorted Leah. “All the more reason for my concern.”

My mother drew herself up with indignation, barely capable of uttering a syllable in her own defense. I moved in swiftly with assurances. “You are concerned over nothing, Leah. Dr. Kane is a gentleman, and I have been nothing less than a lady. Mother was a fine chaperone, and there was also a relative of the doctor. We were never alone,” I asserted, my lips nevertheless burning with his remembered kiss.