Louisa and the Crystal Gazer (3 page)

Father, kind reader, earned a dollar now and then by giving private lectures in homes to discuss issues of public morality and personal conscience.

Sylvia’s mouth twitched. For a moment I allowed myself the luxury of imagining my noble philosopher father onstage, next to perhaps a lion and tamer or an acrobat, discoursing to the crowd on abolitionism or the progress of the soul.

“I will mention your idea to him,” I answered demurely, “but I think such a large and very public arrangement might not suit his method of education.”

“Of course, of course,” muttered Mr. Barnum with a downcast expression, and I saw I had given offense, despite the gentleness of the response. “I am not having a lucky year. Signor Massimo also declined my offer to appear at the American Museum.”

Mr. Barnum seemed so forlorn that I felt I should make amends somehow. “I’ve heard that Signor Massimo will not play for large crowds in public,” I said. “He has the same philosophy of performance as Father, that smaller groups benefit more.”

“I, too, am an admirer of the philosopher of Concord,” spoke up a second middle-aged gentleman who had stood
upon our entry and waited, patiently, for us to acknowledge him. “I am Mr. William Phips.”

“Phips of Canton?” asked Mr. Barnum, excited and recovered from his disappointment over Father.

Mr. Phips bowed. “At your service,” he answered modestly. I studied him as closely as the dim light in the reception room allowed. He was tall, solidly built, and well muscled in spite of his fifty or so years. An outdoorsman, I thought. One who rides every morning, and bathes in cold water even in winter. He wore a dark suit of thick cloth cut in military fashion, with crossed-over lapels and tight breeches. He wished people to remember his military service, his clothing said. But his smile was ingratiating.

“I am amazed, sir, to meet you!” said Mr. Barnum. “As true a hero as ever lived!”

“Well, life requires boldness, sir,” said Mr. Phips modestly. He seemed not at all bold to me.

“What is Canton?” asked Sylvia.

“Why, this man is a champion!” boomed Mr. Barnum. “In 1839, single-handedly, he fought off a hundred Chinamen! The story ran in the papers for weeks! Enthralled, sir, I was enthralled!”

“A mere dozen, not a hundred,” said Mr. Phips. “And not single-handedly. My friend August Pincher was with me, though he did not make it out, poor boy.” Mr. Phips shook his head sorrowfully.

“Who was August Pincher?” I asked.

“A friend, Miss Alcott. A friend unlike any other, who fell in battle.” Then his face brightened, and, seeing Sylvia’s and my confusion, he deigned to enlighten us.

“I was a private guard with the East India Company, protecting the Canton traders,” he said, pulling on his lapels and puffing out his cheeks.

“Ah. The East India Company. I believe Father owned some stocks in it,” said Sylvia. “We have a curio cabinet filled with Indian silver vases. They are very lovely.”

Barnum smiled indulgently. “Dear girl,” he said, “your vases are the proverbial tip of the iceberg. England’s empire and wealth were built by that company.”

“I wish they had stopped with vases,” I said. “The company’s importation of opium from India to China was wicked. They encouraged the Chinese to partake in a habit that is deadly.”

“But the trade imbalance had to be righted,” Barnum said. “The opium trade helps pay for that English tea you drink in the afternoon.”

That, dear reader, was exactly what Father had said when the Opium Wars began, and why the Alcott family began drinking sage tea grown in our own garden.

Mr. Phips cleared his throat and returned to the telling of his tale, having stood as long as he could the usurpation of his limelight by Mr. Barnum. “When that tyrant Lin Tse-Hsu decided to end the opium trade, he besieged our headquarters and sent assassins. I discovered a plot to murder Lancelot Dent, the most important trader of the Chamber. Lin sent a dozen men, all armed, to kill that one man. But August Pincher and I foiled him. We fought off the assassins and saved Dent, though August was mortally wounded.”

“A true hero!” Barnum repeated, and I began to find his adoration a bit trying. It was a cruel and unfair war, Father had proclaimed of those events years before.

“You were wounded—” Mr. Barnum stopped in midsentence. In his face shone the enthusiasm of the hero-worshiping young boy, though the enthusiasm was now crowned with wrinkles, and strands of gray grizzled his thick black curls.

Mr. Phips held up a hand in protest. “We must not discuss war injuries in front of the ladies. So, you are our famous philosopher’s daughter?” He focused on me, returning the conversation to the topic of my father.

“I heard Mr. Bronson pontificate one evening last year in Concord,” spoke up a woman who had been sitting primly in a deeply shadowed corner of the parlor and observing us silently.

Sylvia and I turned in her direction. It is a rare personage who can occupy a room and so completely prevent my knowledge of her till she wishes to be acknowledged. This woman was an expert at secrecy.

She was a year or two older than myself, I guessed, about twenty-five, and very pretty, though she had worked hard to downplay her native beauty. She had dressed entirely in an unflattering shade of brown and wore a plain bonnet with no lace or floral trim. Until she leaned forward and let the fire reflect on her fair complexion and pale hair, she was a shadow within the shadows.

“Miss Amelia Snodgrass,” she said in almost a whisper. “Did I hear that you are Miss Alcott? Just last month I read the
Flower Fables
to my little nieces. Such a charming book, Miss Alcott. Will there be others?”

“Thank you. I hope there will be many others,” I answered. I had worked all summer on a new collection of woodland fables, hoping for a Christmas market for the book, but had yet to find a publisher.

“Have you come for the séance?” asked Sylvia.

“Why else? I wish to see her with my own eyes,” said Miss Snodgrass.

If P. T. Barnum was famous for his very public life, Miss Amelia Snodgrass was equally well-known, in certain rarefied circles, for her very private life. She was a member of one of those numerous Boston families that are rich in history but poor in funds, people who live quietly behind somewhat dingy lace curtains, using their grandmother’s silver plate and their great-grandfather’s furniture, and speaking, when they spoke, of events a hundred years old. Such people never die; they simply fade quietly away till one day one notices they are no longer shopping at Waterstone’s linen shop.

Miss Amelia Snodgrass had recently, though, made herself an exception to that familiar biography. Her mother, for whom she had spent the past decade caring, had passed away, and she had announced her engagement to Wilmot Green, the eldest son of Green and Green Shippers and Importers. Once wed, she would be well able to replace those aged curtains and furnishings.

But why, I wondered, does she dress in such unattractive manner? She is in a costume of sorts. What tableau is she playing?

We had just finished exchanging pleasantries when Suzie Dear returned to the parlor, carrying a brass tray of teacups and tiny biscuits folded in a strange manner.

“Cook’s a Chinawoman,” she explained with distaste. “We had noodle salad for supper yesterday. Imagine such a thing.”

Suzie stood in the doorway, and over her shoulder I saw a
small woman dressed in blue brocade trousers and tunic, peering in at us with evident curiosity.

“Chinese? Is she, now?” asked Mr. Phips, interested. He rose, but as soon as he moved the woman in blue turned and fled, her long black braid swaying against her back. Mr. Phips sat back down, and Suzie passed the tea and biscuits.

“Orientals!” exclaimed Miss Snodgrass with disapproval. “I suppose it is because it is so very difficult to acquire decent help these days that so many are resorting to Irish and Orientals. We are late. When will Mrs. Percy receive us?” This question was directed to Suzie Dear.

“Soon, I expect. More people are coming for this séance. A Mr. and Mrs. Deeds, and an Eye-talian, a Signor Massimo, have been invited.” Suzie put the tray on the table and left with a toss of her curls.

Signor Massimo? Meeting the great pianist would be almost as wonderful as hearing him play. Now I was pleased I had come.

“Oh, late, late!” trilled another woman’s voice. I looked up and saw two other people standing in the doorway, led there by buxom Suzie Dear.

Miss Snodgrass shot Suzie a look of repugnance, of hatred almost, if I may use such a strong word.

The newly arrived woman who had trilled was fanning herself furiously and leaning against the doorjamb as if she would faint. “Oh, my, my,” she exclaimed. “Late, late!”

“Yes, she is,” boomed P. T. Barnum’s deep voice. “Bad policy, keeping customers waiting.”

“I referred to myself,” said the woman petulantly. “Have I delayed the séance?”

“You have not,” said Sylvia. “Mrs. Percy has delayed us. And Mr. Massimo, who is not here yet.”

“Oh, my,” trilled our most recent arrival. She turned to the man at her side. “We have not delayed them. Isn’t that fortuitous, Mr. Deeds, isn’t that fortuitous?”

“Indeed,” he replied. “But I thought we were not to speak names here?”

Really? No one had informed Sylvia and myself of that requirement. Or perhaps the Deedses wished even more privacy than Amelia Snodgrass, who cringed in the shadows away from the light.

“Oh!” And the creature, Mrs. Deeds, fanned herself even more vigorously. “Do forgive me, dear!”

“Too late,” boomed Barnum. “We have made introductions all around.”

“Rude to do otherwise, rude,” said the new arrival, clicking her fan shut with a practiced gesture. “I am Mrs. Deeds, Mrs. Ezra Deeds. My husband.”

Jack Spratt and wife, I thought. She was as large as he was thin. Middle-aged, matronly, overdone with lace and floral corsages, and rings glittering on all her fingers but her thumbs. A huge diamond brooch flashed on her bosom, and about her throat she wore a thick collar of pearls from which was suspended a large diamond surrounded by emeralds. It was an evening piece, most inappropriate for daytime, but even so, it was beautiful.

Miss Snodgrass stared at the new arrival as if stupefied, her mouth open but no sound coming out of it.

“A lovely necklace, Mrs. Deeds,” said Mr. Barnum, tilting his head closer to see it better.

“A new piece in my collection,” said Mrs. Deeds.

“On loan, not yet paid for.” Mr. Deeds sighed. “There is a disagreement over its price.”

Mrs. Deeds pinched his arm—”Men will speak of such matters!” she protested gaily—and her husband moved quickly into a corner of the parlor, taking a place next to Amelia Snodgrass and becoming a second shadow within the shadows.

An uncomfortable silence settled over the room. I gazed at my hands in my lap so that I would not stare impolitely into faces; Sylvia studied the wallpaper. Mrs. Deeds glared covetously at the new-fashioned mantel clock, a large, carved affair with much gilding and chiming of bells on the quarter hour. Mr. Barnum had sunk into his chair, deep into his own thoughts, and Mr. Phips sat as upright and patient as granite, his face stiff.

Some ten more minutes passed in this manner, till finally Suzie Dear returned and announced that Mrs. Percy would now receive us.

Sylvia squeezed my hand in excitement. I admit to feeling a thrill myself, and hoped I would remember as much detail as possible and get it scribbled into my notebook before any of the things I noticed disappeared into the depths of irretrievable memory.

“I wonder what dear Papa will have to say to me!” Sylvia whispered in my ear.

“That you have wasted good money,” I whispered back. “Though the company amuses.” It would have amused even more if Signor Massimo had kept his appointment.

T
HE ROOM INTO
which we were led was paneled in very dark, carved wood, and was windowless. Since it was not an interior room but one built on the west side of the house, I assumed that Mrs. Percy had covered the window, perhaps with that hugely looming armoire on the west wall. It was drearily, suffocatingly dark.

The ceiling was somewhat lower by perhaps six inches than the ceiling in the hall and was ornately painted in the new style, with trellises and posies and Egyptian repeats. These details are not without significance, gentle reader. Bear with me.

A large round table occupied the center of the room, and at that table sat Mrs. Percy, her eyes closed, her face, illumined by a single candle, tilted as though she listened to music we could not hear. She was dressed in swaths of black lace and fringe, with bells and sequins covering much of the strange, Gypsylike costume.

Mrs. Deeds stubbed her toe trying to find her chair in the darkness. She giggled nervously. Mrs. Percy did not move, but continued listening to that inaudible music until we were all settled.

Mrs. Percy greeted us all one by one, by name, and when my turn came she gave me a long gaze. “More than the philosopher’s daughter,” she said. “A solver of crimes. Welcome, Miss Alcott.

“Welcome,” she said more loudly, this time to the room at large, lifting her hands in a gesture similar, I suspect, to the one used by Moses to part the sea; it was that grandiloquent. When she returned her hands to the table, her many heavy silver and gilt bracelets clinked noisily. She was an interesting middle-aged woman with a firm double chin, a full head of unnaturally dark hair (probably padded), and more than a touch of powder and rouge on her face.

“One is missing,” said Mrs. Percy, displeasure in her voice. Suddenly she slumped in her chair, put her hand to her forehead, and groaned deeply. “Such a headache,” she said in a bass, almost masculine voice. “Ah!” She sat up again and smiled. “Signor Massimo is not well. He cannot attend, but sends his regards,” she said.

That’s one way to account for a shortage in the audience, I thought. Invent their excuse for them.

“Oh, too exciting, too exciting,” said Mrs. Deeds.

“I greet the spirits. You must now be silent,” said Mrs. Percy to Mrs. Deeds.