High Spirits [Spirits 03] (26 page)

      
If there was anything less interesting to me than radio signal receiving sets, I can’t imagine what it might be, although I feigned joy for Billy’s sake. “My goodness!”

      
“Look at this,” said Sam, bending over and pointing at what looked like a bundle of wires and a strange-looking box. “It says here that if you set these things up right, you can get signals from all over the country. All over the world, someday, they say.”

      
“Wow.” Billy stared at the strange drawing, entranced.

      
I couldn’t see the point myself. Not that I wanted to rain on anybody’s parade or anything. Still, I said, “Um, what will you hear if you pick up signals?” Just curious. That’s me.

      
Billy glanced at me as if he couldn’t believe I’d asked such a stupid question. “What can you
hear?
Why, eventually, you’ll be able to hear everything!”

      
I still didn’t get it. “Like what? I mean, what will you hear all over the world? Or the country? Or wherever?”

      
Sam looked at me as if he couldn’t believe I’d said such a stupid thing, either, but wanted to humor me for Billy’s sake. “Music. Baseball games. Things like that.”

      
I glanced from him to the drawing once more. It still looked like a box and wires to me. Still, I was willing to give it a chance. “You mean that with that thing, you’ll be able to hear an orchestra play in ... in New York City?”

      
“Sure,” said Billy, wide-eyed and happy. I was glad of that, anyhow.

      
“Yeah,” said Sam. “And maybe someday, you’ll be able to hear plays and stuff like that, too.”

      
Puzzled but game, I said, “Um ... and will you be able to hear anybody anywhere? Just because you have one of these things?”

      
I think Sam was beginning to understand my befuddlement. “Well, not unless the orchestra or whatever is set up to send a signal.”

      
“Oh.” I was still confused but didn’t feel like talking about that sort of thing any longer. Besides, I heard the telephone ringing in the kitchen. With a sigh, I got up, fearing what that ring foretold. “I’ll let you two talk about this stuff. I’ve got to get the wire.”

      
My premonition of disaster (we spiritualists are good at these types of things) proved to be correct. On the other end of the wire was Mrs. Kincaid, hysterical as usual.

      
“Oh, Daisy!”

      
I rolled my eyes. “Good morning, Mrs. Kincaid.”

      
“Oh, it’s not! It’s not! I’m just beside myself!”

      
Beside herself, was she? Did that mean there were now two of her? Heaven forfend! At least she wasn’t beside me.

      
“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Kincaid. Perhaps if you sat very still and let your mind go blank”—
which shouldn’t be too darned hard for you
, thought I nastily—“then the spirits will be able to soothe you and offer you guidance.”

      
You’ll notice that I didn’t instantly volunteer to rush over there with my various bags of tricks (tarot cards, crystal ball, Ouija board, Rolly). I was tired after two weeks of worry over whether or not my husband would survive his latest illness, and the silliness of Mrs. Kincaid and her ilk didn’t sit well with me just then. Not, of course, that I was going to tell
her
that. I still needed to earn a living, after all.

      
“I’ve tried, Daisy,” she said piteously. “I’ve tried
so
hard. But something has happened that terrifies me!”

      
Egad. This sounded serious, although I wasn’t going to take anything Mrs. Kincaid said as fact without checking it out first. “The spirits haven’t helped you?” What a shock. “Are you sure you’ve emptied your mind and meditated on them?” It shouldn’t be too difficult for her to empty her mind since there was so little in it.

      
“Yes, yes!” she sobbed.

      
Knowing the reason for her present state of alarm, but faintly hoping, I asked, “Is it Stacy?”

      
A wail that nearly split my eardrums preceded her, “Yes! Yes! Oh, Daisy I don’t know what to
do!
”

      
I’d already thought of a whole bunch of things she could do to Stacy, but I’d never once mentioned them to Stacy’s mother, and I didn’t plan to begin now. When you looked at it one way, Stacy Kincaid provided me with a whole lot of my income. Therefore, I bit the bullet, sighing inside. I never let my sighs be heard by my clients. “Do you need me to come over, Mrs. Kincaid?”

      
“Oh, yes! But I know you’re taking care of your husband, Daisy, and I’d
never
ask you to desert him in his hour of need.”

      
Sure she wouldn’t.

      
Oh, very well, I was feeling particularly surly that day, probably because I was bone weary and Sam Rotondo was lurking right outside on my front porch. I tried to snap myself out of it, but snapping didn’t help. Therefore, I pretended. We spiritualists are good at that, too. “It would be no burden, Mrs. Kincaid. Billy is no longer in danger.” Or, to put it another way, the spirits, whoever
they
were, hadn’t snatched him away from me yet.

      
She sent a pathetic sniffle across the telephone wires, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t shooed any of the party-liners off the wire. Oh, well. I don’t suppose they’d mind this bit of human drama. Heck, it might make them feel better about their own lives to know that an incredibly wealthy woman was so idiotic.

      
“Are you sure, dear?”

      
“Yes, Mrs. Kincaid.”

      
“Are you
positive?
”

      
Why do people do that? Of course I was sure, or I wouldn’t have offered. Would leaving Billy so soon after his brush with death bother me? Of course, it would. Would I do it anyway? You bet. It was the Mrs. Kincaids of this world who kept the Daisy Gumm Majestys of this world out of the poor house. Did I like it? No. So what? So nothing.

      
“It would be no bother at all, Mrs. Kincaid. I’ll be there in ...” I hesitated, trying to think of how soon I could get myself ready and drag myself out of the house. It took almost no time to powder my nose, brush my hair and slip into one of my spiritualist costumes, but I had to prepare myself mentally for the upcoming ordeal as well, and that would take some time. “. . . Um, I’ll be there in two hours. Will that be all right with you?”

      
She sobbed loudly. “Oh,
thank
you, Daisy! You’ll never know how much this means to me.”

      
I would if she gave me a big tip, which I expected she would. Therefore, I only said kindly, “Try not to worry too much, Mrs. Kincaid. Help is at hand.”

      
All right, so I lied. I made my living lying, as Billy so often pointed out. Nevertheless, it was a fine living, I was good at it, and, therefore, I would continue doing it until I didn’t have to any longer.

      
I put the receiver back, sighed deeply, looked at the kitchen clock—it was only nine in the morning—and shuffled back out to the porch, where I found Billy and Sam still engrossed in their radio signal receiving set. Pa and Spike had joined them by this time, and even Spike seemed interested. I guess it was something men liked. I couldn’t quite make myself care about radio signal receiving sets.

      
Billy looked up from the brochure. He saw my face, lifted his eyebrows, and said, “Mrs. Kincaid?”

      
“You can tell by looking?”

      
With a grin, he said, “Yeah. You look as if you’ve just agreed to attend a hanging.”

      
With yet another sigh, I sat on the porch railing. Pa had taken my chair, and Sam was kneeling next to Billy. “That’s what I feel like. She’s hysterical again, but she wouldn’t tell me why.”

      
“But it’s Stacy.” Billy was well versed in the Kincaid saga.

      
Sam looked up from the brochure, his heavy eyebrows drawn down into a V over his eyes. “What’s she up to now?”

      
“I have no idea. I’m going to take my cards and board and Rolly over to Mrs. Kincaid’s. Told her I’d be there in a couple of hours.”

      
“Who’s Rolly?” Sam asked.

      
Pa, Billy, and I all looked at each other. This time it was Pa who grinned. I stood, waved a hand at them all, and said, “Have Pa or Billy tell you. I have to prepare myself.”

      
And I did so, first by taking a nice hot bath—I pitied people who didn’t have hot and cold running water, even though we’d only owned this nifty bungalow with same for a couple of years—and washing my hair. Fortunately, said hair was thick, short and easily maneuvered, and it dried as I dressed.

      
Because the weather had turned warmish, I donned a lightweight, russet-colored suit. Because I didn’t feel like fussing, I used the same black shoes, stockings, handbag and hat I usually wore. Then I gathered up my spiritualist accouterments, looked in the mirror, despaired of the dark circles under my eyes, powdered my face—as a spiritualist, I strove to appear pale and interesting—and set forth into the world as a knight of old might have gone off to battle. Or as a squirrel might climb a tree looking for nuts. I figure we humans aren’t alone in needing to scramble for our sustenance.

      
I nearly fell over dead when Sam Rotondo, watching me emerge through the front door of our very modest castle, said, “You look nice.”

      
Would wonders never cease? I eyed him for signs of sarcasm, observed none, and said, “Thanks.”

      
“That’s my girl,” said Pa. “Pretty as a picture.”

      
Bless the man for a saint.

      
Billy said, “You look too good for
that
family, for sure.”

      
Bless him, too, because he made me laugh.

      
“Thanks, fellows. I’m good at my job. I even dress the part.” And, with a waggle of my eyebrows, a pat for Spike, and a peck on the cheek for Billy, I hied myself off to earn the money with which to bring home the bacon. Or, if we were especially lucky, a leg of lamb, one of Aunt Vi’s particular specialties.

* * * * *

      
Mrs. Kincaid belonged to the Episcopal Church. I know that sounds irrelevant, but it’s as good an introduction as anything as to why Father Frederick, the Episcopal priest of St. Mark’s, met me at the door. I must admit to being somewhat surprised, since Mrs. Kincaid’s butler Featherstone generally greets callers.

      
“Father Frederick!” said I, amply demonstrating said state of surprise.

      
He had a wonderful smile, and he leveled it at me then. “Come in, come in, Mrs. Majesty. I’m afraid Mrs. Kincaid is laid rather low at the moment.”

      
“Is that why Featherstone isn’t answering the door?”

      
“Indeed it is.” And darned if he didn’t wink at me.

      
A roly-poly man, Father Frederick didn’t fit my mental image of what an Episcopalian churchman should look like. Ma and Aunt Vi always sniffed when speaking about Episcopalians, and I vividly recall them whispering about people being too big for their britches and thinking they were better than everyone else when discussing the Episcopalians they knew. The only Episcopalians I knew were Mrs. Kincaid, who was terminally silly, Stacy Kincaid, who was probably evil, and Father Frederick, who could pass for Father Christmas in a pinch and whom I liked a whole lot. Therefore, I held none of my mother’s prejudices and figured Episcopalians were just like everybody else, although many of them had lots more money than most of us.

      
I adored Father Frederick, mainly because he never disparaged the way I made my living, but that’s not the only reason. In his own way, he reminded me of Dr. Benjamin and Johnny Buckingham in that he seemed to accept people as they were. Mind you, he wasn’t above the occasional little sermon, but his sermons didn’t seem designed to make people feel worthless or useless, as some did. Come to think of it, it isn’t only preachers who do that.

      
But that’s not the point. Father Frederick answered the door, and I asked him what was up.

      
“I’m afraid Stacy has really done it this time,” he said, although he smiled as he did so.

      
“Oh, dear. What’s she done now?”

      
“I think you’d best let Madeline tell you that. It’s not my place to tell tales.”

      
Phooey. But I guess he was doing his duty according to his calling in life. Sort of like me.

      
When Father Frederick and I made it to the living room (called a “drawing room” by the wealthy Mrs. Kincaid), I discovered why Featherstone had not answered the door. He was otherwise occupied. And it didn’t look as if he cared for it much.

      
Mrs. Kincaid lay prostrate on the sofa, a fancy number with deep red velvet upholstery that went well with the medallion-back chairs. Mr. Algernon Pinkerton (called Algie by Mrs. Kincaid), kneeling at her head, waved vinaigrette under her nose, while Featherstone stood behind the sofa, stoic in his bearing, holding a polished silver tray with stuff on it. I presumed the tray held things that would be used for Mrs. Kincaid’s revival should the smelling salts fail.

      
I said, “Oh, dear.”

      
Mr. Pinkerton turned and glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, Mrs. Majesty! I’m so glad you’re here. Poor Madeline is beside herself!”