Sister Noon (10 page)

Even now, her father’s fury over her refusal was an awful thing to remember. She’d spent five whole weeks confined to her bedroom under Baby Edward’s reproachful eyes, and she suspected her mother had sent her there for protection as much as punishment. In the ten years between her mother’s death and her father’s, Lizzie learnt what a shield her mother had been.

But even in the midst of his rage, Lizzie had never reconsidered. And she hadn’t known about copulation then; she’d merely wished to avoid dining at one end of a table with Dr. Beecher at the other. He was still alive, and some girl even younger than Lizzie had married him. She couldn’t bear to think of it.

When she was in her thirties, Lizzie’s body had developed a pronounced restlessness, a physical ache that was bone-deep and could manifest at any moment, from any cause. This was unsettling, but it wasn’t her, of course, only her body. She didn’t even know what was wanted; it might have nothing at all to do with men. When the feeling hit too hard, she dosed herself with baths and novels. She was in love with the men in books and particularly with the men in books written by women. She liked to describe herself as a passionate reader, knowing no one would take her full meaning.

The only thing she minded about not being married was how everyone knew. If she could have passed as widowed, there would have been little else to regret. She was not pitied by her friends so much as criticized. In San Francisco, demographics being what they were, an unmarried woman was looked upon as the most selfish of creatures.

Lizzie disliked being thought selfish, mainly because it was so likely true. She lacked the gift for intimacy. “The real woman regards all men, be they older or younger than herself, not as possible lovers, but as sort of stepsons toward whom her heart goes out in motherly tenderness,” Lizzie had recently read. Where in the world was her own motherly tenderness? All spent on the characters in books.

“What if none of us married!” her mother had said in a voice like scratched glass at the time of Lizzie’s second refusal. The new suitor was Paul Burbank, a quiet, clean law clerk whose main demerits were that saliva puddled whitely at the corners of his mouth when he talked and that he didn’t seem actually to like Lizzie. She’d found him at the other end of her tangled string during the cobweb ball marking Erma Putnam’s debut. She’d seen his face as she
wound her way toward him, seen the moment he realized she was his partner for the evening, and he hadn’t been pleased. Even when he’d proposed, he’d acted as though he had no choice in the matter. “What if we all thought only of ourselves and our own pleasures?” her mother asked.

This sentiment was echoed often enough in the daily press. A generation before, America’s sons had perished in inconceivable numbers, in inconceivable agony, on the battlefields of the Civil War. Such a contrast to America’s spoiled, selfish daughters. And them wanting the vote, some of them, likely the very ones with no children wanting it the loudest of all!

“I wash my hands of you,” her father said at the time of her third refusal—Christopher Ludlow, an irritable flautist—but it turned out he’d washed more than that.

After her father’s death, Mr. Griswold, the family solicitor, was too embarrassed to read his will aloud to Lizzie. They sat in her father’s office with the smell of bourbon and cigars still hanging in the air. “There’s a monthly allowance,” Mr. Griswold said merely. “With stipulations. I want you to know I strongly advised against them.” He passed the pages to her.

“I fear my estate,” her father had written, “will make my daughter the target of fortune hunters. Elizabeth wouldn’t marry while I was alive and wished it. I won’t have her marrying on her own authority after my death.

“Old women are even more foolish than young ones. Let her live to be a hundred, these conditions will not change. On her wedding day all monies to her instantly cease.”

“I’m willing to contest the terms,” Mr. Griswold offered, “should an attractive offer of marriage ever be
made.” Lizzie was at this time already thirty-seven years old, and his tone suggested the unlikeliness of further proposals. She agreed that no legal redress was necessary. Contesting the will might suggest she wished to be married; it would make her publicly ridiculous. She’d told herself that she didn’t even want money given so grudgingly, which made her feel very high-minded, like the heroine of a romance, but now she often thought it would have also been romantic to be wealthy. She would have made her own donations to the running of the Ark instead of having constantly to beg them from others.

The carriage rocked. The sounds of the horses’ hooves and the rain were wonderfully steadying. Lizzie’s necklace danced in the space between her breasts; she caught it in her hand. No one raised money for charity by sulking, she reminded herself. She contrived to brighten her voice. “Sixty-two babies is more beds than the Home can offer. The need always grows so much faster than the treasury….”

No one was listening. “Little Charlie John”—Mrs. Mullin threaded her knobby fingers together—“I long to see him!” while Mr. Putnam fussed aloud that the weather might worsen during the evening. “I mind for the sake of the horses,” he said. “I fear for poor old Roscoe’s footing.”

Lizzie did not press. She sat quietly, biding her time, bouncing when the carriage bounced and listening to talk of late rains in earlier years and how the roses and heliotrope had not been pruned as they should be in the fall, so there would be the very devil to pay for it soon, and that six and a half pounds was neither so very large for a baby nor so very small, but was, in fact, just right, until the driver turned into the circular driveway of the Palace.

The courtyard was heated by enormous bronze braziers and covered with the dome of the amber skylight seven floors above them. Every balcony was lit; the hotel glowed like a birthday cake.

A huge hydraulic elevator took them to the fifth floor. From there they looked down on the Grand Court, with its splendor of Persian rugs, purple tablecloths, the flickering rose and gold of women’s fans, the sharp black of men’s evening coats, the bronze of the spittoons.

“San Francisco will not be civilized until the men stop spitting indoors,” someone famous had said, but Lizzie didn’t remember who. In any case, he was surely mistaken, because tonight the spittoons were dazzling in the hot civilized glare of electricity.

Lizzie had only the vaguest notion what electricity was. Lightning, she thought, collected and tamed somehow, broken to harness and spread throughout the room as evenly as melted butter. But there was something about the view that was not quite right tonight; something besides the lighting was different, only Lizzie couldn’t determine what it was. She gave up trying and followed the Putnams down the corridor.

Suite 540 had high ceilings, bay windows, and Louis XV chairs. On one wall was a landscape of Yosemite, Half Dome at sunrise, with a tiny party of mules at its base. Dr. Ellinwood stood at the door to greet them.

He was a small man, smooth-faced, pink-skinned. His hair was the color of goose feathers, and something of the same consistency. His ears were large and round. His eyes, Lizzie noted, were brown. “I’m so glad you could join us in our little adventure,” he said. “Mrs. Mullin, what a stunning hat!”

Lizzie was sorry to see Myrtle Rolphe across the room. Miss Rolphe ran a Christian school in Chinatown and was universally admired for it. Undoubtedly she also was there for money.

Sure enough, Miss Rolphe addressed the Putnam party first thing. “May I talk to you about one of my boys?” Her hands clasped and unclasped with charming earnestness as she spoke, and her voice had a throaty sweetness. Such an unfair advantage! If Lizzie could have duplicated it, she would have. “Eleven years old,” said Miss Rolphe. “The brightest, sweetest child you’ll ever see. And so eager to come to Jesus. His name is Ti Wong.”

“He’s lucky to have you,” Mr. Putnam said encouragingly. “This young Mr. Ti. Whatever you’re up against, you’ll win through.” Mr. Putnam was the sort of gentleman who felt obliged to flirt with any woman, but Myrtle Rolphe was especially flirtable—young, given to blushes, with a neck as white as a meringue.

“The forces arrayed against me are all of China!” she answered, her throat quivering like a wren’s. “Wong is an orphan who lives with his aunt and uncle. He first came to us four years ago. I never saw a child so young so determined to belong to Jesus. His eyes when he sings! Then all of a sudden his uncle withdrew him. He told me he wanted no Jesus boy in the house.”

Dr. Ellinwood was requesting their attention. Miss Rolphe acknowledged this by lowering her voice. “Last week I happened to see Ti Wong again. He’s very troubled. His uncle demands that he participate in ancestor worship. If we don’t find a way to remove him from the company of other Chinese, Jesus will lose him forever.”

“Please!” said Dr. Ellinwood. His voice was loud and firm, though he was smiling good-naturedly. “Please come and sit.”

“Do you think he might work at the Brown Ark?” Miss Rolphe asked Lizzie. “He so needs to be with other Christians.”

“I’d have to ask,” said Lizzie, fully aware that Nell would say no.

“Eleven years old, but he works like an adult.”

“Let’s not keep the dead waiting, ladies!” Dr. Ellinwood said pleadingly, when surely, of all people, the dead had time.

The chairs were arranged in a semicircle, at whose mouth stood a large cabinet with a glass door. This cabinet was open at the top and bottom, like a sentry box on wheels. A curtain of black velvet fell behind the glass. Dr. Ellinwood draped a cloak, also black velvet, over his shoulders. The cloak was lined with purple silk and had the signs of the zodiac embroidered in gold. The effect of this on Dr. Ellinwood was comical, a Christmas elf on All Hallows’ Eve.

He then led a discussion on the compatibility of religion and science. Lizzie had no qualms herself on this score. She had a great interest in the Higher Criticism, through which the sources of biblical narratives were scientifically examined. She felt that such activities could only strengthen one’s faith, by demonstrating the reliability of its origins; to object, as many in the church did, seemed to Lizzie to suggest a troubling doubt as to the findings. The God that Lizzie believed in was not the sort to set such traps for the faithful.

This evening’s discussion came quickly to the same conclusion—although spiritism had had early, unfortunate
associations with free love, it had long before outgrown and discarded them. A scientifically conducted dialogue with the dead could only, ultimately, reflect the Glory of God. Dr. Ellinwood invoked the name of Eilley Orrum several times during the discussion; apparently he was personally acquainted with the celebrated Washoe seeress. He contrived to give the impression that she wholeheartedly endorsed him as a fellow traveler in the realm of the occult. The whole thing took less than an hour, and then they were free to proceed.

Mrs. Putnam read aloud from Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’s
Songs of the Silent World:

while Dr. Ellinwood invited Myrtle Rolphe to tie his hands. He took a seat in the cabinet and allowed Mrs. Putnam to tie his ankles. “If everyone will please take the hand of the person next,” the fettered Dr. Ellinwood then said, “right hands on left wrists, all around the circle.”

He sent one of his agents to draw the curtains and put out the lights. The room vanished into utter black.

Miss Rolphe held Lizzie’s wrist, and Lizzie held Mrs. Mullin’s. Miss Rolphe’s fingers were soft. Mrs. Mullin’s wrist was cold and dry as wood, but pulsed forcefully. “I need everyone’s absolute concentration now,” Dr. Ellinwood told them. “Please shut out everything else.” Lizzie heard the cabinet door open and close.

She expected an artful period of prolonged tension, but Dr. Ellinwood sacrificed drama for efficiency. The knocking began almost at once. Then an unfamiliar voice whispered into the silence. “Who has come here tonight? Who wishes something from someone on the other side?” Miss Rolphe’s fingers fluttered over Lizzie’s wrist.

The voice did not sound like Dr. Ellinwood, but Lizzie had no doubt that was who it was. Why else put the lights out? She couldn’t even see the shapes of the women on either side of her, although she could hear each time Mrs. Mullin exhaled. The wind sent the rain against the window with a sound like the tapping of fingernails. Ordinarily such a sound would have made Lizzie feel warm, cozy, sheltered. Tonight it made her skin inch up the back of her neck. Mrs. Mullin’s pulse throbbed against her fingertips as if trapped there.

“Please,” said the voice. “I’ve come such a long way. Someone must need to communicate.”

“Is my Aunt Rose there?” Miss Rolphe asked quietly. “I’d love to speak to Rose Schubert.”

Rose was indeed present. She told them how peaceful it was to be dead. “Like sleeping in your mother’s arms again.” She and Miss Rolphe exchanged some family gossip; she told Miss Rolphe to be especially careful on the night of the nineteenth. More departed relatives were called. There were mysterious footsteps. A strong scent of roses. The usual rappings. The sleep-inducing darkness and the whispers of the dead.

Lizzie’s attention began to stray. She suddenly realized what was wrong with the view of the Grand Court. All the waiters in the restaurant were white. The Palace was
famous for its Negro waiters. She heard her parents’ names.

“Harriet?” Mrs. Putnam was asking. “Harriet or Wellington Hayes? Are you there, my dears?”

Lizzie supposed Dr. Ellinwood had spent the afternoon cadging information about the Hayes family from the unsuspecting Putnams. The idea annoyed her. She dropped Mrs. Mullin’s hand, deliberately breaking the magnetic chain, but Mrs. Mullin’s sharp fingers closed over hers like a cat’s paw on a bird’s wing.

“We have your Lizzie here,” said Mrs. Mullin. Her words resounded loudly in the absolute darkness. “Harriet?”